Interviews from G3, Part 1

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Learn more at ngrid .com slash ma -gasheating. This week on The Wrap Report, we're going to have some interviews that we took back at G3.

01:08

So you're going to hear two great interviews that you want to listen to today.

01:13

Gritty Adams is a brother who is going to encourage your heart. He has a heart for the gospel, for evangelism.

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I'm just going to say, try not to cry. That's all. He really is a passionate brother, and I think you're really going to be encouraged by his testimony.

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Then we have a brother from the down under, from the Australia area, and he is with Grace to You.

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My friend Cameron Butel was at a ministry booth, so I grabbed him, and we talked about how he got here to America, and a little bit of insight into Grace to You and John MacArthur and the ministry there.

01:53

So you're going to want to check that out. So that's what you have coming your way today on The Wrap Report.

02:03

Welcome to Andrew Rapoport's Wrap Report, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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All right, well we are here at G3, and we are using someone else's

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Rodecaster, so I'm hearing a little bit of a different sound. I don't know how it's going to come out. I hope it comes out well.

02:39

But we are here at G3 at the Striving for Eternity and Justin Peters booth. We got a booth together, and I am joined by Grady Adams, who is someone who really is a great encouragement to me.

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I set this up before you guys here, you'll probably figure this out on your own. But some of you know

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I have a lot of energy, and I think I found someone that has as much, if not more, than I.

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And so, Grady, welcome to The Wrap Report. Thank you, Andrew. This is an honor and a privilege, and my energy is only when

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I talk about the Lord. Yeah, this is where you're supposed to go. Hi Andrew, I'm here.

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But, you know, you came by the booth, it was the first time you and I got to meet face -to -face, and it was a joy, and the reason

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I wanted to have you on is you were talking about what you do and how you share the gospel. I wanted to talk about that because that would be,

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I think, a great encouragement to folks. But before we get there, we're at G3. This is a great conference.

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I always ask my guests when we're here at G3, so far, what's the messages that really had the greatest impact on you?

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What have you enjoyed the most while you're here? Oh, wow. The message, all of them had an impact.

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I would say the Q &A had a large impact when they were talking about our main purpose in worshiping is that we're to worship

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God and not look to other things.

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And I think a lot of times in the church, we don't go in with an attitude of worshiping the true and the living

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God. And He's to be feared. He is an awesome God. I love, my pastor says that we shouldn't use the word awesome unless we're talking about God.

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And you look at the Psalms and they talk about the all of God, and that's

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A -W -E, and that's where we get awesome from.

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He is an awesome God. And this has been a great, great conference about an awesome

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God. And I think that's the highlight. If we're going to say we worship, the question is always, what is the object of worship?

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And I think that has come through very clearly in all the messages, that we have to have the object being

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Christ, being the right view of God. And when we have a right view of who

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God is, and we understand it well, we want to worship Him. It's actually, when

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I did a study on, a biblical study on worship, the thing

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I ended up realizing is that many people have a misunderstanding of that word. They think it's about singing. People talk about worship as if it's how, if it makes me feel good.

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So far from the truth, worship is being in awe of someone who is worthy, because it's worth -ship is where the word actually comes from.

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And so when we have a worth -ship, in other words, we see someone who has, the object is worthy of awe, we worship.

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If we don't have a right view of God, we're not going to properly worship Him. That is so true.

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And we also, when we look at His attributes, that causes us to worship

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Him and be in awe of Him. And we call a song leader a worship leader, but no, the pastor is the chief elder or whoever is bringing the word of God, the true and the living

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God. We're so blessed to have God's word. I mean, in this country, we have access to the word of God, I mean, in numerous forms, on computer, on our phones, through the written word, and we don't take advantage of it a lot of times, especially the church.

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And it's just heartbreaking to see church members, and you talk to them, and they don't even open up the word of God except on Sunday.

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And their Bible's right around in the cars. That just breaks my heart.

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I think that what you see is that some people get too distracted by the things of this world, and don't have that eternal mindset that we teach at Striving for Eternity.

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They're not thinking about how everything has an internal impact. They're just thinking, let me get through this day.

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I just actually, at breakfast, someone came up and wanted to introduce themselves to us, and she recently found out she has cancer.

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And she came over to us and just wanted really some encouragement of how do I live with the pain and be able to glorify

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God in this. And that's a thing where she actually was a great encouragement to us, because she's sitting there and says,

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I'm trying to have this eternal perspective, this eternal mindset. I just want to think about eternity, because it just helps me not to think about the pain

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I'm in. And we're like, yes, that's exactly what you do. 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

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This temporal body is going to go away, but there's a time we're going to be sitting before Christ, and all of a sudden, we're not going to care about, oh, but my back hurt and this hurt and that hurt.

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We're not going to care about cancer, none of that, because it's all going to be gone. We're just going to sit at the feet of Christ. And that's the mindset

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I think we have to have to really be able to properly worship. I think that's what's coming through in the messages here.

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Yes, and I'm 65, and I'm getting at an age where I know

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I'm headed towards the other side sooner than back when

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I was in my 30s, or even younger than that. And I wake up every morning, the first thing

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I do is I thank the Lord for another day. And that's part of worship, is thanking Him and praising

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Him and giving Him glory. And our main purpose as Christians is to give glory to God.

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And I'm starting to get arthritis a little bit, and that makes me want to lean on Him more.

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And I look at people that have physical ailments, and used to I'd wonder, how can they worship

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God? How can that, just like the lady with cancer, but then as I'm getting older in my walk with Christ, I'm realizing that's what makes me lean on Him more.

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And He's such a great God to give us. I've got a blog post that I started recently, and I wrote a blog about being thankful.

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And I ask the question, are you thankful when you face trials and tribulations?

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Because James told us to be thankful and give thanks to the Lord. And those are one thing that draws us to the true and the living

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God. And one of the things that you end up seeing with that, as you're mentioning, I mean, you go to 2

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Corinthians 5, but one of the things that you end up seeing is that we can look at that where our bodies are going to be gone away with.

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That which is eternal is where we should be focused. That seems to be hard for folks, but one of the things that's interesting about that passage is as our bodies start to decay more and more, we have more of a view of eternity.

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It gives us more of a desire to be with Christ. And so I think that's one of the things that we, so too many

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Christians are kind of stuck in this world, right? In the temporal things of this world, they're not thinking about that which is eternal, which is the whole,

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I mean, that's really the heartbeat of Striving for Eternity, to get people thinking that way, having that mindset of eternity.

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So the things of this world, don't hit the mic, I'm Jewish, I speak with my hands. So the thing that, you know, those things that you have that last, because if your perspective is on that, you don't get bothered as much by the things of this world.

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Right. And that's one of the things I'm realizing as I get older, I look so forward to being in the presence of the

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and I can worship Him forever.

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And you know, the things of this world, we're just passing through, we're pilgrims.

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And they don't matter, and they shouldn't matter to the Christian. We should be looking forward to being with our

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Lord and Savior. That's right. So let's move, let's transition here for a moment, get into your truck driver by trade, and you have just an infectious way of being, of talking to people.

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I've been watching, you're like, as you're even going around here with other believers, you're just always, you're always just a very enjoyable person to speak to, very jolly, which has got to work well with you when you do your evangelism, and you have some interesting ways of doing that.

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So let's talk about evangelism, how you as a truck driver go about doing your evangelism. Well, it's kind of you to say about me,

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I give all the credit to the Lord. He gives us our personalities. And I was raised in a home where I was taught to speak to everyone, treat everyone the way

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I want to be treated. And I have a heart for truck drivers, being a truck driver, and not just truck drivers, for everyone, because I think of how painful eternal damnation, how hell is going to be.

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And it's a, to me, it just, I break down in tears when

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I think of someone spending eternal damnation in hell.

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And we have the opportunity to share the truth with people.

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And whether it's a truck driver or just anyone I meet, I carry tracks with me.

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If I'm not giving someone a track, I leave a track in a restroom, I put them in bills or, you know,

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I think of creative ways when I leave a tip. And when I leave a tip, I don't leave a waitress a quarter,

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I leave them a very good tip. Because as Christians, if we want the world to take notice, we've got to share the blessings the

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Lord has given us. And they'll pick that track up and read it because they're like, wow, that guy, you know, he was really nice.

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And it's not me, it's Christ, but they don't realize that. And I've found a ministry, go there for ministries and they do little testaments for truckers and they do them for law enforcement and medical profession, for armed forces, different things.

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And they call them, the truckers is the trucker's life reference manual. Law enforcement is law enforcement life reference manual.

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And it's a copy of the Psalms and the Hebrews. And I have purchased some of Todd Friel's books,

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Are You a Rotten Fish?, which is a really excellent little booklet. And I put it and one of Paul Washer's tracks, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, inside of the,

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I put that inside of the testament and the little booklet with the testament. And I walk up to drivers when

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I see them. I don't go around and try to wake any of them up, bother them while they're on their breaks.

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But if there's a driver out when I'm fueling, a lot of times I'll hit four or five drivers at the fuel aisles or when

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I'm out in a parking lot, if I see a driver inside, I'll carry them in.

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And I ask them, are you a Christian? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?

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And I tell them, look, I've got you a little trucker's life reference manual. Most of the time they will take it and we'll, and a lot of the times we get to have a discussion and I can share the gospel with them.

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Sometimes I don't. And when I don't, then I can pray, Lord, please, please let this guy, uh, read this.

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And, uh, please, please convict his heart of his sin.

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You know, the thing is that you're, the way you go about it, the way that your, your whole attitude

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I think affects the way you're going to go about the evangelism. Because your mindset, as I hope people hear this,

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I hope that you who are listening here in, in Grady's voice, the first and foremost, it's to please

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God. But it's also the compassion of realizing their eternal state without Christ.

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And I hope that folks, you're hearing in his voice, the compassion and that's what we need to present to people.

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And we share the gospel. It's not just, Hey, I got this five point outline. Let me, uh, you're, you're gone.

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You broke God's law. Uh, you're guilty and going to hell. You can't save yourself. It's people could tell if someone's doing something from rope, but they can also tell as we're hearing in your voice, they could tell when someone is really caring about where they spend eternity.

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And that's a big deal. It is not enough. People are considering that not enough people when they go out, they evangelize because, okay, well

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I got to, or, or some, unfortunately they would like to evangelize because they like to show how much they know compared to someone else.

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Yes. Like someone else doesn't know as much. And I look how, look how smart I am. It's like, no, you actually want to be sharing the gospel because of the fact that you care where they spend eternity.

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Right. And, and the other reason I evangelize every morning after I thank the

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Lord for another day, I, I cry out to him. I say, Lord, please use me for your glory.

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I want to be used for your glory because he pulled me out of the

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Mary clay. I was, I was the biggest sinner. Paul said he was a chief, but I'm going to argue with him when

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I get to heaven. Yeah, yeah. You can, you argue with him and I'll beat you both out. Don't worry. But, but he pulled me out of the

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Mary clay and he set my feet on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. And Psalm 1914 says,

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Lord, may the words of my mouth may be pleasing unto you.

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And may the meditation of my heart be pleasing unto you. And, and that's what

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I want. I want to be pleasing to my Lord, my master, my savior, my, my king.

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And I think we as Christians, so many times we forget he's our king.

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We're children of a king. And what, what does a king's subjects do?

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What does his children do? They serve him. And it's a joy to serve him.

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It is, you know, it's, it's just neat to see. I mean, this is the thing that I just found so interesting with you, even when you came over by a table, you're, you're just such an encouraging person to speak with.

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Your, your mindset is just so clear in what, you know, it's, it was interesting the other night, a couple of us,

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Paul Washer, Justin Peters, myself, and a couple of others, there were like five of us just sitting and talking. And afterwards, you know,

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Justin asked me, he's like, what do you think about, you know, Paul Washer that conversation? And, and he said, I said to him, you know, it's, and this is the same thing

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I'm finding with you. It's that it's, it's so clear what the issue is. Like we're talking, we're going back and forth discussing social justice.

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And, and Paul just goes, man, like he goes, I should be in the jungle somewhere because I don't understand these people, all the politics.

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He says, this is about Jesus Christ coming to earth, shedding his blood for us.

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Like, why do we worry about these other things? Like, just focus on the gospel. And that's what

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I hear with you as well. It's like all these distractions that we could have, they don't seem to distract you because you're, you seem to be fixated on the most important thing.

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God and sharing his good news. And that is the most important thing. And Christ told us as a body of believers that we're to love one another and by our love for one another, the world would know him and see him.

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And that's what breaks my heart about the social justice movement. Cause I mean, you know, the world should be seeing us as loving one another and, and praising

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God and worshiping him and, and just living out his fullness in our life every day.

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I mean, he put us here and just think, it must've been wonderful to be in the garden and, and not have sin.

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And that's the other joy I look forward to. No more sin. Uh, I hate it.

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And it's, and my, and you know, I'm not sitting here saying I'm perfect cause

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I'm far from perfect. And that's the thing that the world needs to know. Christians aren't perfect.

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We're sinners and we still have to beg repentance from a true and living

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God. That's right. Well, listen, we're going to, as we wrap up, I can't, I just, you know, here we are, we're at G3, we're at the

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Striving for Eternity booth that is also a Christian podcast community booth. And yet I'm seeing you wear a t -shirt.

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It looks like the Bar Podcast Biblical and Reform. So for folks who don't know this, today is

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Bar Day at G3. Everyone takes out their, their bar podcast gear. So we've seen a lot of bar podcasts and Just Thinking podcast shirts.

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So you're, you're representing there, which I'm sure Dwayne appreciates. So, uh, you, you listen to those guys over there?

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Yes, I listen. Dwayne and I have been friends for probably about a year, a little longer.

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And, uh, um, and then Darrell and Virgil, I love Just Thinking. And I love the podcast community because as a truck driver,

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I can listen, uh, to shows that glorify God and I can grow in my faith as I drive.

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And, uh, yes, I do have my personal devotions and, and, and spend time with the

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Lord. But that's one thing I'll say about truck driving. I can, I can ride in that truck and listen to Christian broadcasting and great preaching, great podcasts, and praise the

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Lord going down the road. Well, I mean, don't, you know, we know Dwayne's not going to listen to this because, you know, he doesn't listen to us, but he's actually good people.

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So don't tell him that, anyone. We don't want him to know that. But, uh, no, we love, we love the Bar Podcast, Just Thinking.

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Those are great, great podcasts over there. So Grady, thanks for coming. You're, you're, you're so encouraging.

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Andrew, it's such a joy. I just pray for all you guys, for your network, for Dwayne's network, and, and the other

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Christian podcasts, uh, that I listen to. Um, because our, our purpose in life is to glorify

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God. Well, thank you for coming on, Grady. You're more than welcome, Andrew. Thank you, brother. All right.

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So here we are again at G3. We're in the, in the exhibit hall here. Uh, you might hear some people walking around and some of the, the chatter.

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We're at a pretty busy spot here. And we're at the Striving for Eternity, uh, booth, which also has the

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Christian podcast community. And we're also sharing it with Justin Peters Ministries. So that's a great ministry to check out.

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If you're involved with the NAR, New Apostolic Reformation, or Word of Faith, check out justinpeters .org

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and get some good teachings to get out of that. Uh, and you know people who are in that, get out.

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All right. But we have another great ministry being represented here, and that is Grace to You.

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And I have my friend Cameron Burtell, who is, you're going to, I, I'm hoping that I don't have to do too much, uh, interpretation for you guys.

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He, he speaks with... It's no problem. I have no accent. I, I think he has a, um, a different language he speaks.

24:02

Um, he may sound British. Is that, that, that it? No. No. You're from Australia.

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Australia. You're cutting. Yeah. You're pushing it, Andrew. So, Cameron, we, we go back quite a ways.

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I think the very first time you and I met was actually in studio at Wretched. I don't know if you even remember that.

24:23

Yeah, yeah, that was. So back, uh, when, uh, Living Waters, when they had their Deeper conference in Atlanta, right?

24:29

That's right. Yeah. Yeah, so that would be 2008, I reckon.

24:35

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's making me feel older, but I, I will admit that we probably both looked younger back then.

24:41

Well, yeah. I've done a few more laps around the sun since then. Yeah. And every lap gets faster,

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Andrew. I've noticed that. Every lap gets faster. And being a tad bit older than you, it,

24:53

I can agree. Well, I will respect my elder as long as you don't call me a

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Brit. I'm not a Pom. No, no. They're Poms. No, but, but... We refer to the

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Brits as the Poms. We just want to educate your listeners that the English people are Poms. They are

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Pommies. We'll have to, we'll have to, when we get Paul Taylor on here, we're going to find out. It stands for poor old me.

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Poor old me. So that's the Poms. I'm not a Pom. And as long as you don't refer to me as a

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Brit or a Pom, I'll respect my elder. All right. Well, we, we do have a mutual friend, Fred Butler, who, uh, who likes to, every,

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I don't think he can ever talk about Australia without talking about what'll kill you there. Yeah, that's right.

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In fact, I get a lot of questions about Australia, especially Australian wildlife, and I defer them all to Fred. Fred is our resident expert on Australian wildlife and fauna.

25:46

Um, he hasn't been there, but he assures me he's watched lots of television. So... And you can trust everything you see on TV.

25:54

I find that incredibly reassuring. Yes. Yeah. You can always believe what's on TV.

26:00

Absolutely. So, so let's talk about how you came to America. How, I mean, you're, you're in Australia.

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How'd you get here? Well, yeah. In the prom, in the promised land. Yeah. Yeah.

26:12

Well, um, you know, simply, I wanted to go to John MacArthur Seminary.

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John MacArthur is my hero, and he still is. And I wanted to go to his seminary. Now, there was other teachers

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I learned from, but what MacArthur had that was courage of conviction.

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I just, what I loved about John MacArthur is in every format, in every situation, whether he's talking to Larry King, whether he's preaching at Grace Church, whether he's at a conference, or whether he's talking to, you know, kids, he's always saying the same things.

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It's the same straight biblical answers. He doesn't try to nuance things or be clever or assess his audience.

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He's just a man preoccupied with biblical truth, and he communicates that. You see him talking to even the current governor of California, Gavin Newsom, a very ungodly man.

27:05

You find some old video of him talking to Gavin Newsom about homosexuality. And it's pastoral 101 on how to deal with these worldly issues.

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And, and I, I just thought, if the theological bombs are dropping, I want to be in John MacArthur's trench. And so I wanted to go to his seminary.

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So I went to attend the master's seminary. My wife is Danish, so we were actually living in Denmark at the time, but I'm originally from Australia.

27:29

And I was, it was actually through Wretched Radio that I started to get sound bites of John MacArthur.

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And then from there, I, that was when I was really first discovering how to use the internet. I was very late in the game with using the internet.

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I didn't really understand it. But then when I discovered podcasting and being able to control the times when

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I listen to content and then access content, yeah, it was just great. I could then start to access whole sermons and start to learn.

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And that was terrific for me, certainly when I was in Australia. For example, for example, it was incredible.

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I didn't know, I didn't know anyone who, I thought it was straightforward that the

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Bible taught that women couldn't be pastors. I just thought that was just straightforward. It is. I actually didn't know anybody who agreed with me.

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I didn't know anyone. So, you know, I'm sinful, I'm fallen. And so you go, well, could it be that I'm right and everyone else is wrong?

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And my default is almost, that couldn't be. Could it? Because, you know, I do get stuff wrong.

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But it was just that alone, just to hear him talk about that and go, wow, wow, someone who agrees with me, you know, like this is fresh air.

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This is drinking from a fire hydrant. And so I've always been, just loved

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MacArthur, a man who loves the Word of God. His sermons are the overflow of his love and study of the

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Word of God. And to learn from him and to be able to just to access that online was great to me.

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And now I get to work there. When I started seminary, Grace To You asked me to work for them. And there was some issues with visas and so forth.

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But eventually I was able to work for them. I started part -time and then full -time. And yeah, they're my people.

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You know, they are like -minded people. And sometimes they even ask me about homesickness. And, you know, working at Grace To You cured my homesickness.

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You know, I'm with my people. I feel right at home. I don't know if everyone else would say the same about me.

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I hope so. But certainly for me, that's the case. All right.

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So one of the questions I always like to ask guests while we're here at G3. So now you're not in the position where you probably got to go into too many of the sessions because you're working as an exhibit booth.

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But have you made it to any of the sessions at all? I've caught bits of them. Generally what I do, this is my third

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G3, is I man the booth. I like to talk to the people. And then I download all the material and I go through it when

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I'm there. But I caught Pastor John's sermon last night. Huge crowd.

30:13

Huge crowd. Man, that was a huge turnout. That was really amazing. I heard a little bit of the

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Q &A. I haven't caught a lot though. I haven't caught a lot. So now you're in a little bit different than people that may be just here attending.

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But so far, what's been the thing you've enjoyed the most of this G3? Yeah. That's pretty easy actually because the social media world, it can get pretty nasty out there.

30:42

Facebook is great empirical proof of the doctrine of depravity. And that's among Christians, let alone others.

30:51

Professing believers. Yeah. I mean, it's unfortunate. But to come here, people are so thankful for our ministry and we just get so encouraged.

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So I'm thankful that they let me come because I love to come here because everyone comes and they just love our ministry.

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And they're just effusive in talking to us about that. So it's just great to meet everyone. The first year we were here, there's one that sticks out.

31:19

There was a lady who was on like the 105th floor of the World Trade Center when the planes hit.

31:26

And she was an unbeliever and she'd come to Saving Faith after that. But that shocking event precipitated other things where she came to Saving Faith.

31:37

And John MacArthur's ministry was instrumental in that. But meeting her and hearing her talk about that and her thankfulness, that was just really amazing.

31:45

And others as well. Even some people we've helped find good churches and things like that. So that's really the fun part of this.

31:53

This is a lot of fun for me. So you get to now work for your hero. I do. I do.

31:59

So let's talk about Grace to You, the ministry of Grace to You. Maybe there's someone new who has not listened to The Wrap Report before, because I think most of the listeners of The Wrap Report know who

32:10

John MacArthur is, what Grace to You is. But maybe someone's new. Let's talk about Grace to You, its mission, who

32:19

John MacArthur is. Common misunderstanding, and one that Ivan had when I came here, is that Grace Church is not

32:26

Grace to You. John MacArthur is the pastor of Grace Community Church.

32:32

Everyone who works at Grace to You is a member of Grace Community Church, but that's the church. And then on the campus of the church is the

32:38

Master's Seminary. That's where I studied. And that's another ministry. Again, John MacArthur, the president of the seminary.

32:46

Maybe the chancellor now. I'm not sure. I graduated a while ago. And then there's the

32:52

Master's University in Santa Clarita, where we live. And then there's also Grace to You, which is what we are.

32:59

And that's his international ministry. We control the vault of his sermons.

33:05

We download it. We have the website. We have the books. We have the online presence through social media and through our website, our blog.

33:17

I write on the blog. And so it's kind of like our global reach from Grace to You.

33:25

And we have our supporters who help us, and we try to be very generous with that. And I say we loosely.

33:33

There's other people there. I work for a ministry that's exceedingly generous, and I'm a beneficiary of that, both in my work environment and having the liberty to give stuff out and not being pressured to try and fundraise.

33:47

So it's a remarkable experience. But, yeah, we have the vault of the

33:52

MacArthur sermons. And so now there's over 70 ,000 sermons downloaded a day from Grace to You.

33:58

So in 2008, when they were just selling the tapes and then selling the CDs of his sermons, they said, let's just make the vault open and freely available.

34:06

And with trepidation, they did that, I guess, because their bread and butter was selling the tapes and the

34:13

CDs. And you know what? We still have 100 supporters who get cassettes. No way.

34:19

Yes way. I was in a car this week that still has a cassette player. Andrew, on another podcast, you can explain about cassettes.

34:30

But I remember cassettes. And so we got people getting the cassettes, but we made it freely available.

34:41

And so people can buy CD series from us now, and some people still want to do that. But most of it is just freely available through the

34:50

Internet. And that's just exploded our reach around the world and also then made our

34:59

I'm just being distracted here. But that's also made our sermons have been downloaded.

35:08

It's up to about 2 million a month now. It's downloaded and it's just expanded our reach and expanded our support.

35:15

So John MacArthur has been preaching for over 50 years now at one church.

35:23

Well, yes. And he had a speaking ministry before then as well. But yes, as pastor of Grace Church, 50 years, the year

35:30

I was born. Now he's approaching 80 years? Yes. Okay. And he is 80,

35:36

I think. Yes. So now you and I, I guess, were born around the same time. I was still in diapers when he came to Grace to you.

35:42

Sorry, Grace Community Church. I was born months after. I was born days before Armstrong walked on the moon,

35:49

July 69. So I'm April 68. So sometimes

35:54

I have delusions of grandeur and walk around the Grace Church campus and think all the 50 -year celebrations could be about me.

36:04

But then I get snapped back to reality. It's amazing, 50 years in one pulpit doing the same thing.

36:12

You know, the ministries have come and gone. We've seen the trends come and go. He's just kept doing the same thing.

36:18

There's no secret sauce. There's no magic recipe. That's what he does. He's an expositor.

36:25

About 30 years ago, he was teaching. He took some time off, got some vacation time, came back and started.

36:31

I think he was starting to preach through 1 Peter. And he talked about the fact that after being there for, at that time,

36:38

I think it was like 17 years, there was thought of, you know, should he move on? Should he go somewhere else?

36:44

And he had shared that in a sermon because as he was teaching, the thought was, okay, is there anything more that I have left to teach?

36:52

I've talked to all these people, you know. And he didn't go through all of the New Testament at that point. And he was sharing with the congregation.

36:58

He was still some way off at that point. Oh, yeah. It took him, what, probably, I think, 45 years to get through the

37:05

New Testament, right? It took 45 years to get the commentaries completed. And I think it was about, and I could be wrong, but I think, yeah, about 42 years to actually preach through the entire

37:17

New Testament. Okay. And I remember him back then saying he realized, and he was going through 1

37:23

Peter and just said, this is telling us that we just keep repeating because we need the repetition. He said,

37:28

I'm not moving anywhere. I'm not going to go because God hasn't said to, you know, there's enough here to keep teaching this congregation.

37:36

Yeah, there's no biblical idea that, okay, well, now you've got to go somewhere else. That's coming from the world.

37:43

Not that it's wrong to go and pass to somewhere else necessarily, but, yeah, why?

37:49

Who's saying that you should? Why does that question even need to be raised? You know, the

37:55

Bible champions faithfulness. It calls, you know, the description of an elder is, you know, you see all those attributes in his job description.

38:07

They all point to a man who is faithful and reliable in what he does.

38:14

And that's part of shepherding, I think, is that knowing that he's there and he's with them. He's not going anywhere because you don't want to shepherd, you know, if you're a sheep, you want the shepherd that's sticking around.

38:26

Yeah, you don't want a harling. You want someone that cares about the sheep. Yeah, you know, in Australia, there's a chain of hardware stores called

38:32

Mitre 10, and their slogan used to be years ago where the man who owns the store runs the store. And I like that idea, you know, because, you know, this guy's invested in it.

38:42

Yeah. You know, like with the breakfast, you know, the pig's committed to the breakfast. You know, the chicken's not so committed to the breakfast.

38:48

And he's only, you know, the chicken's just giving the eggs. The pig's giving himself. But also, you know, when the harling is a joy, he's there on a wage.

38:59

You know, the true shepherd, he's invested in the people. He's sticking around, and he's going to be, he can be counted upon to protect the sheep.

39:09

Yeah. So, with Grace to You, it started out as a cassette ministry, moved to DVDs, then moved to now where it's free at gty .org,

39:21

where people can get all the mp3s. I mean, thousands and thousands of sermons from John MacArthur, and it's free.

39:27

Yeah, there's one very tragic story of a guy who was carefully copying all the tapes and constructing the whole library physically, painstakingly, laboriously, night after night, working on it.

39:43

And the vault gets opened, like, just after he finished it. You had to bring that up, didn't you? Oh, was it you,

39:48

Andrew? Yes. Oh, it was you, Andrew. Oh, you didn't even know. I thought you were doing that on purpose. I forgot. I thought that poor sucker, and it was you.

39:54

It was Andrew. I thought you did that on purpose. But it was character building, I'm sure, Andrew.

40:00

It was character building. I spent about three years taking the—I had, at that time, about 1 ,500 sermons, and I got a device that I could put into my computer and convert the cassette to mp3.

40:14

It was you, Andrew. So back then, you may not know this part, but there was a guy who I used to go to church with that had spent all the years taking what

40:22

MacArthur taught and transcribing them. And Phil Johnson, who is the executive director of Grace to You, contacted my friend and said,

40:30

Hey, can we get these transcripts? Because we're going to be putting everything out there. And he ended up telling me, because he knew what

40:37

I was doing with all the editing, and he was like, Hey, I think they're going to put them all as mp3.

40:43

And so I had called Phil Johnson, and literally, it was about three weeks after I finished editing the last of the tapes that I had.

40:52

And my tapes, what I used to do is I used to, back in the olden days, Grace to You had a cassette tape lending library.

40:59

So they'd lend it to me, and they'd let me reproduce it. I could make a copy as long as it was for myself. And I would get a dozen copies in.

41:07

I had two lending libraries going where you get a dozen tapes in, and I'd be copying one, and then

41:13

I'd ship that off and get the next one in. So I was always copying. So I had about a little bit over 1 ,500 messages.

41:21

Your house was a hive of activity. Yeah, it was. It was. And I then converted them all to mp3, did all the editing where it says,

41:29

Turn the tape over at this point, and then there's a silence. Edited all that, and three weeks after I was done, I called

41:34

Phil, and he's like, Oh, yeah, we're going to be releasing it in another couple of days. All of the mp3s have been redone, and they're out there.

41:42

They're going to be out there for free. And I went, Really? Couldn't you tell me that three years ago? No, I thought you knew that was me, and that's why you're bringing it up.

41:50

No, you didn't tell me. But it was that long ago. I think you told my wife that, and I remember that now.

41:56

But it was years ago, and I'd forgotten it was you. But I was always, it was more the story that stuck with me that was like,

42:03

Man, what a thing to do. Yeah, my son was being,

42:08

I was homeschooled during this. So his job during homeschool was every time that he got a break in school, he had to go flip a tape.

42:15

And I'd come home at night, and I'd just be editing, editing, editing. But, I mean, that is the impact.

42:20

I mean, that's the dedication a lot of people have with the ministry of Grace To You because his teaching has been so impactful on so many people, and for generations now.

42:31

What are some of the stories you've heard from Grace To You, the letters you get in about how the ministry has impacted people?

42:41

Well, just, I mean, one amazing thing is a lot of people in charismatic churches,

42:51

God's drawing them, I guess, and they want meat. They want biblical meat. They want proper interpretation.

42:58

Because I have a charismatic background myself, and I realize that the big stock and trade of the charismatic preacher, we talk about the idea of continuation with them, but really the big problem is that they preach narrative as prescriptive rather than descriptive.

43:19

So a narrative passage is describing something that happened, but they would actually take a passage and say, well, you've got to march around the

43:26

White House seven times and blow your trumpets or something, and all this sort of stuff.

43:32

And so it sounds biblical, but it's not. And so some of these people actually want the text rightly handled, and he does that.

43:39

And so many people, even at Seminary, so many had that background. So a lot of people, just the lights turning on hearing him.

43:48

I think also there's people who stumble upon it for one reason or another just in the car or in the radio.

43:55

Some people who are working in Christian radio now who were in a really bad space, and they stumbled onto the

44:01

Grace To You radio show. I'm not a radio listener. I'm a podcast guy. I love to download and control it so I can listen when

44:08

I'm in the car. But still, radio, we're on about almost 1 ,000 stations,

44:13

I think, in the major markets. And for so many people still, that's key.

44:19

And for many radio stations, they tell us that Grace To You is their flagship show. And so the influence there, the stories that just come back, the influence, the lives changed, people in prison, people in prison even coming, starting to study the word

44:37

Bible studies in prison and using MacArthur Study Bible or MacArthur commentaries. That's another big thing that's happened while I've been working there is that the commentary set was completed.

44:48

And that's an amazing thing. You've got to just stop and think about that for a moment. Who has written a commentary series on the entire

44:57

New Testament? I think Calvin did a series on most of the Bible except for,

45:02

I think, Revelation and another book. And that's a monumental achievement.

45:10

Calvin did because he only lived to be about 56. But other than that, I can't think of anyone who's done commentary like all the way through.

45:19

This is a monumental achievement. And the same hermeneutic applied all the way through. And you know what?

45:25

Accessible for the lay preacher and the regular person to help understand it. Incredible.

45:32

And not that expensive to buy the whole set when they do specials and things like that. So that's just a real treasure we have in our possession.

45:40

And it's just an incredible thing to make his way through the entire New Testament verse by verse, verse after verse, learning in context.

45:49

And also doing that, protecting both himself and the listener. It protects the listener,

45:55

I guess, from thinking that a sermon is about them. Oh, he's just saying that to me. No, this is just the next section he was up to.

46:02

And it protects the preacher from shortchanging his congregation by picking and choosing the bits he doesn't want to preach.

46:09

Because we know there are certain Area 51 sections of the Bible that some people don't want to touch.

46:15

They don't want to go there. That's too hard. The truth is too uncomfortable and inconvenient. And MacArthur goes, no,

46:22

I have to just find a way through it. When I was pastoring a church, we had a woman who got upset.

46:29

She was not a believer. Her husband was. And she wanted to leave the church. I didn't know until a couple of years later.

46:35

She had told one of the ladies in the church the reason that they left was because I was preaching about her every week, that I was sharing her sin with the whole congregation.

46:44

I'm like, what in the world is she talking about? I actually had to go back and figure out what was I preaching when she left.

46:50

And I realized, I'm preaching through. And Matthew 18 is what I hit. So it's all talking about pride and humility.

46:56

And so she was feeling conviction as I'm talking about the pride. And I didn't have her in mind at all. But she must have been feeling that as I'm verse by verse just going through.

47:05

And that way I'm not pointing out anyone. The Truth Matters conference was put on by Grace To You.

47:12

Which was just beautiful to see radio station after radio station after radio station giving thanks for the 50 years of John MacArthur.

47:20

Some of them that were saying that he came on when they just started the station. He was one of the early people to have on.

47:30

And just how he's been consistent. They talk about different radio shows that kind of would go by the wayside.

47:37

But MacArthur never did. That's why I thought it was so good to say 50 years of faithfulness.

47:43

There is a bit of a downside to this. And that is that what

47:49

John MacArthur does, well this isn't the downside. What John MacArthur does is very simple. He's not doing something really complex.

47:58

He's doing the hard work. He's doing a lot of heavy lifting. But he's preaching through the Bible verse by verse. Reading the text and explaining it.

48:06

Why don't more people do that? This is where it's at. And God honors that persistence and faithfulness in doing that.

48:17

There is a sad commentary in this

48:22

I think on the state of preaching around the world and around America that people gravitate so much to this.

48:29

It is outstanding preaching but we should have more of it. And more people should be in churches where they get this as a steady diet.

48:35

And I only say that to suggest to anyone listening that be at a church where they do that. And if you're a pastor, do that.

48:42

Don't look for some secret formula, some special strategy. Just be faithful and move your way through Scripture.

48:49

You mentioned Matthew 18 before. I think that passage on church discipline,

48:55

Matthew 18, 15 to 20, that's a great example in my mind of John MacArthur's heroism in that early on in his ministry he came to Matthew, Matthew 18.

49:06

And it says we've got to, the steps of church discipline, confront an individual in sin, call him to repentance.

49:14

If he doesn't, then bring a witness. If he doesn't, then report it to the church. And if he doesn't respond, then send him out.

49:21

And no one did this. No, they actually said that if he did it, he'd lose the church.

49:27

So he couldn't find any other churches that were doing it. And then within his own church, his elders didn't want to support him in it either.

49:36

And this is the man. And it's not like this was like he was in trepidation. It was just very straightforward to him. As he tells it was, this is what we've got to do.

49:44

And so he stuck at it, and they did it. And the church has grown.

49:50

And now many churches practice biblical church discipline. And it has actually strengthened the church.

49:55

And many churches have practiced expositional preaching thanks to him. And it has also strengthened the church.

50:01

Absolutely. Absolutely. There's more people doing it. There's a seminary training men to do that. And so it's a growing thing.

50:09

You know, we can look at the world and see things, you know, lament. Certain things are getting worse.

50:14

But some things are getting better. And I think there's a lot more expositors now than there probably was, you know, when

50:20

John MacArthur was early in his ministry in the 70s. I know when he describes it that way, you know, he couldn't find another church that practiced church discipline.

50:29

So that was a very difficult thing for him. Because I know for myself, we planted a church in Denmark.

50:36

And I know we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. We wanted to benchmark off other people who were doing it well. So we were just looking at people and trying to replicate, you know, church ecclesiology, things like that to do things right, to honor

50:52

God. But with that, you know, he didn't. They had to plow a way through that and just be faithful to the word of God.

51:00

And God has honored that. I think history shows that. Yeah, I mean, you're right because church discipline was a major cutting point for him.

51:08

So as we wrap up, you work for Grace to You, which is, you know, we got a big booth this year, more than I've seen in the past.

51:15

Mega booth. Yeah, I mean, I know John is not going to be listening, so I'm pretty safe with this.

51:21

But I did show this to Phil. The first day you guys were out here, you had these two big banners,

51:29

I mean, huge square banners that are probably about 10 feet in the air. And they both have a picture of MacArthur on it with some scripture verses on each side.

51:38

Each of the four sides have different things. And so on one side of each has a picture of MacArthur. Now, the first night, both pictures of MacArthur were facing one way.

51:48

You have this big thing over the top that says Grace to You and hymns of grace and all this. That's a circle. I had snapped a picture, and I did show it to Phil.

51:56

Maybe that's why this got changed. But it looked like there was the Twin Towers of MacArthur with a halo on top.

52:03

I noticed that. I came in in the morning, and John was turned around, so there was only one picture of him on each side.

52:08

Are you saying that's what we were aiming for, Andrew? I don't know if that's what we were aiming for, but it looked like the Twin Towers of MacArthur with a halo.

52:14

Definitely not what we were aiming for and not something that he would want. No, he would not.

52:19

I said he'd probably shoot me if I were him. Yeah, that's the last thing he wants. He certainly doesn't like anyone making a big deal out of himself, but I love him for that.

52:29

That's the thing that's amazing. He's so well -loved and respected, and it doesn't go to his head.

52:37

You go to Grace Community Church second hour, and he's standing up there shaking everyone's hands.

52:46

They can come up and show their appreciation, and that's just so encouraging that he's not that standoffish, that he's there to be a shepherd.

52:55

It's a balancing act for him. He has a lot of demands on him, and so he has people telling him he has to go places.

53:02

But something that a lot of people don't know about John MacArthur is he is a lion in the pulpit, that you know, but he is an exceedingly gracious man in person.

53:13

He loves everybody. He is super kind, and he is a tender man in person.

53:23

I've met a lot of people who are the opposite of that. They are lions in person and tender in the pulpit, and that's the wrong way to be.

53:34

Because he's committed to the truth, it's not about him. It's about biblical truth.

53:42

It's about being faithful to that, and so he's fearless with that because that's what he's been called to preach. That's what he's compelled by.

53:48

We were saying he's approaching 80 years old or at 80 years old, and the thing that I always recognize with that is people say, man, the energy.

53:57

He's still got clarity of mind at his age. He's got a lot of energy, but you already brought up, when we think about it, he was president of Master's Seminary, president of Master's University, pastor of Grace Community Church, obviously the head of Grace to You.

54:12

He was involved in so much. He's scaling some of that back, but one thing he's not scaling back is what he does at the pulpit.

54:18

That's been the center. Anything that you want to share with folks, how can they get in touch with Grace to You?

54:24

How can they start getting the resources that you guys provide, getting on the mailing list, starting to help to support

54:30

Grace to You? Well, I would say also, just on that, his clarity, if you just watch the interview, which was not that long ago, with Ben Shapiro, you see that he's ...

54:42

I've heard John MacArthur say a number of times that he's a disciple of the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul is his mentor.

54:50

I thought, yeah, that's interesting, but when I watched an interview with Ben Shapiro talking to a

54:55

Jew, I really saw and heard a disciple of Paul in that discussion. He was incredibly sharp, pastoral, and on point.

55:07

It was an amazing interview, and very perceptive in how to talk to a Jew. Just to say that his faculties were right in the zone.

55:17

What you saw there, this is the amazing thing. He was not speaking to Ben Shapiro's audience. He was speaking to Ben Shapiro.

55:24

That was the amazing thing. How can folks get in touch with Grace to You? You can go to our website, gty .org.

55:34

You can go to our website, and you can look around. We have our online store there, and you can freely download sermons.

55:41

Click on the sermons and download things. Our phone number is there. You can call, ask questions, and if you want to support, you can call, and they'll help set that up.

55:53

You can get on our mailing list through that, and then we will send you lots of free stuff.

55:58

Lots. Lots of free stuff. Lots of free stuff. I've benefited from that for many years. What's the most generous thing they've ever sent you in the mail,

56:05

Andrew? Without charge? Yes. The most generous was a MacArthur Study Bible, and I've actually received two of them.

56:12

I got the New King James when that first came out, and then I got the 20th or 25th anniversary edition, and both of them were free of charge.

56:22

Now, that's a big deal. Yeah. Also the shipping from the left coast to the east coast.

56:29

Wait. Also the Biblical Doctrine book. That was a pretty expensive book, too. These are big, hefty books.

56:35

Those are hefty books. Just to say again, I work for an incredibly generous ministry, and the more we give, people want to support us.

56:44

I think also, Phil Johnson once said, every controversy has been good for us. When other people shy away from what they consider polarizing issues, we've tried to be very clear and sharp on our convictions, and that's been good for us.

56:58

God has honored that, and that's tremendously encouraging. So I'm very privileged to work for that. And if you want to get on that mailing list, yeah, you'll be the beneficiary of that, and we know that people are so thankful for that that they are supporting us generously, and we want to be good stewards of that.

57:17

We feel the weight of that responsibility. Also, if you're in California, you're free to come and visit the ministry.

57:23

Get a tour. Get a tour. I've given you a tour. Did I give you a tour, Andrew? Well, you were part of the tour.

57:29

Yeah. I had one tour with just Fred Butler and I. The building was empty. I think Jay was the only other person that was in the building that we saw.

57:37

That would have been like a night at the museum, wasn't it? With Fred? Yeah. Well, with Fred, it might be more of a nightmare of the museum, but yeah.

57:46

Fred showed you around. We give people tours and get to see the studio where he records, because, grace to you, that's where John McArthur— That's a cool studio.

57:56

A little bit better than what we have here at G3, right? What you get on radio is basically a

58:01

McArthur sermon sliced in two with an intro and an outro, and they record the intros and the outros, grace to you, and Phil and John in the studio together, and so we get just some great rapport between those guys who have a long history together.

58:15

And so you don't have to hear them on the radio. You can download the broadcast, and so for anywhere in the world, if you've got internet.

58:25

Yeah. It's amazing. So, folks, check out grace to you at gty .org.

58:31

This has been Cameron Battelle, who has been a personal friend of mine. I've been to his house. He's introduced me to the

58:37

Australian chocolates, which were amazing, and now I don't want American chocolate. Cadbury here is a fake.

58:43

It's made by Hershey's. It's no good. You've got to get it from England or Australia. But I'm so glad that you were on with me.

58:51

I've always been a supporter of Grace to You, and as far as our personal relationship, I love the fact that just the relationship we have as friends and being able to always see you every time we're here or I'm in California and being able to spend time with you.

59:05

Yeah, we do. We bump into each other over here and over there. So it's great to see you. Thank you for having me on the show, and thank you for supporting us.

59:13

You're such a blessing to us as well. Well, thank you. Praise God. Thank you for your ministry, Andrew. Take advantage of National Grid's incentives and save up to $550 on select natural gas water heaters.

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