Truth in Love Panel Discussion

Good evening, everyone. This is truth and love. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your support.

Give us a hard like, share, comment. Let us know that you're watching. If you have any questions, tonight's the night to do it.

I have smart brothers with me and they can help answer questions about the Bible, about theology, about life in general.

Two smart brother pastors that are with me, and I'm so thankful to have them. This is truth and love.

We get that from Ephesians chapter four, verse 15. But speaking of truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even

Christ. So I pray that we can, we can do that tonight. We want to have a relaxed conversation about some topics that I come up with.

Happy says that he says, what's up, bro? Wish I was there. So happy is, is with us live and happy.

You can join us if you want to. Just follow the link, brother. If you're unable to, that's cool.

We'll definitely get you in next time. So I want to introduce my guest and I want you to introduce yourselves.

Brother Jonathan, he's been with us before, but I still would like for you to introduce yourselves to folks that may be watching.

Wait to tell what you do. Until we get to the first question, because I think that you will be answering that question as we answer question number one.

So just as much or as little information that you want to give out in public internet land, tell folks who you are.

Pastor Jonathan. I'm Jonathan Foster. I'm a husband of over 20 years now, a father of two.

I love the local church and missions, local and foreign as well.

And I'm just honored to be here and love the Lord and love his word. And I love brotherhood and learning and growing together.

So I'm honored to be here tonight. Absolutely. Brother Jeffrey. Well, my name is

Jeff Rice and I'm a Christian, husband, a father, a friend to many.

I'm a lover of God's word. I mean,

I really don't know how much information you want me to give. That's plenty. That's good. Okay, good, good.

So let's just jump right in. We're not going to go through certain scriptures tonight. We hopefully that will be positive and encouraging, which will be the opposite of what we're seeing in media, social media, everywhere, even in our attitude sometimes.

And I know as brother pastors, even the conversation we were having earlier, you get unexpected bad news all the time or unexpectedly and sometimes it can weigh on us.

And hearing those negative messages can weigh on us constantly and bring us down.

And it really steers the trajectory of our lives a lot of times if we let it get a hold of us.

So I want to have a positive conversation looking at the good things, the great things that God is doing in our lives and in our nation.

So from your perspective, and let's start local. What great things and this is where you can get more information about yourself and your ministry and what you're doing.

What great things locally are you seeing God do where you are right now?

Jonathan, if you want to go ahead and start. Sure. Man, it's been a very exciting season.

And I'm going to start one of the great things is how our local churches minister to me.

A lot of times we see pastors and hear stories of pastors who go through burnout or they're considered just hirelings of the church and the church uses them up and this just discards them.

And coming out of a year of COVID and pandemic and all the chaos of that and and trying to navigate.

There's no amount of seminary or anything that could prepare us for for trying to shepherd people through these seasons.

And man, I just hit a real season of weariness. Honestly, I you know, you want to think you're impenetrable and bulletproof when it comes to this kind of things.

And so my elders in our church and our church family, you know, they loved me well in that time.

And they actually just came to me and said, hey, take six weeks off if you need more, take more. They didn't even ask me about salary or this or that.

They just said, hey, we're going to take care of you. We'll take care of your family, want you to take time off. And they just give me the freedom to do that.

And then they were intentional and our elders were intentional to shepherd me through that, that it wasn't like I just sit at home and twiddle my thumbs.

They like, we want you to go places. We want you to find a long time with God. And so I did and I have come back so refreshed and so energized with renewed vision and direction and clarity.

And so, first of all, you know, it's been just a tremendous season of how my church family has loved me well.

And I just want to brag on them in that with Vertical Life Church. And I hope they see this and hear me say thank you.

I've tried to say thank you a lot publicly. But, you know, so for those of you watching out there, love your pastor as well.

No one can really understand. Sometimes the heartache and most of the time, like Robert just said, it's very few times people call their pastor when it's something good to say, hey,

I just called to tell you good news. I do get a few calls like that, by the way. It's wonderful to get that. But a lot of times it's in in their worst case scenarios, their marriages or families or sicknesses or things of that nature.

And so I'm thankful to be loved and I'm thankful to have a church family that I am very at peace and confident that they love me well and have stood beside me.

The second thing that we have going on that I think is just phenomenal is we have a tremendous cooperation among a local network of churches that is just really cool.

And and we at least once a month and and it pans out to be more often, but very intentionally once a month, we all come together on a

Sunday night and we prayer walk our city and we go into neighborhoods. And as a result of that,

God is just sovereignly put put situations in place. Just like this past week, we did a prayer walk.

One of our church families just happened upon a home that that was having trouble with DSS and a young lady and the young lady's father is very, very sick and and unable to to really kind of keep up the house.

And so as a result, the young lady had to be removed even from her dad. And it just was a very heartbreaking situation.

And and so they were needing, needing help and they were incapable of doing what they did.

So so our church families from different churches that night jumped in and began to help.

Right. Then they come and ask us and said, who called you guys and told you to come? And we were we were thrilled to tell nobody called us.

We just we just found you that the Lord just led us here when we just just circumstantially found you.

And and then the next day I got to go back and talk to that guy. And he is he's sick, bedridden.

And he said, no, really tell me who sent you. And I said, listen, you can be assured that God sent us.

I said, nobody sent us except the Lord. I said we weren't looking for a project to get involved with.

We weren't looking for something. We were literally just wanting to walk, prayer walk and meet people in our neighborhoods and share the love of God.

And the man began to tear up. And he said, you know, I've been bedridden now for a while with my sickness. And he said

I was really beginning to believe that God had forgotten us. He said, I've been saved and I've been baptized. But he said

I was really beginning to question the love of God. And he said, this is a miracle. And he said, this has restored my faith.

And so so in that moment, man, I was tearing up and I was just overwhelmed and overjoyed that that God had seen fit to use just a simple act of walking through neighborhoods and praying with people and then and just trying to share love with folks.

And and then God honored that effort, that small, minute effort. And and now we are working diligently with this family, sharing the love of God with them.

And it's not just a local church. One local church effort is the church, the local church coming together and and seeing impact and then

God using that for a man to say, hey, this is this is built back up my faith.

This is a miracle. And this is a this is a work of God. And he was giving God glory. And so, you know, my heart has just been full and I have a lot of stories.

I don't want to take a ton of time. But Brother Robert knows, but Jeff, I can talk a long time. So I try not to, buddy.

But but, you know, we have a lot of stories like that lately of just where where people in in the most simple way, we ask two questions.

How can we pray for you? And if you could ask God to do one major thing in your community, what would that be?

And that sort of helps do two things. One, it is us, the church petitioning God to do miraculous, wonderful things in that community.

And then number two, if if there's something for your family that we could specifically pray for you or your family, what would that be?

And and and those answers also give us ideas and direction of how the church can respond.

And so it's just so exciting to see the scripture that Jesus taught us that let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven.

And so I saw this man who who had lost a lot of hope in a very bad situation.

And at the end of our conversation that he was just glorifying God, he was, you know, it's not glorifying any of us pastors or any church.

He was thankful and telling us, thank you. But at the end of the day, man, it was just just glorifying God. And then we had one other situation where Vertical Life and First Baptist, there was a lady that that needed some help and a single mom.

And so, you know, very tangibly, not not as much hands and feet, but even financially seeing the church to come together and bless this family that that they could have some needs met financially.

And so and then that makes the inroads to to to spirituality, to do deep spiritual things.

And it creates a relationship where there's credibility to talk about the gospel and the love of God.

And that's how I left the conversation with the gentleman in his bedroom. I said, you need to understand that God really does love you.

He sees you. He loves you. He's not forsaking you. And the message that I have for you is not to to get up and come to church.

It's impossible for him to do that unless God does a miracle. So the message for him is that God loves you. He's with you in this valley.

And so there's just a ton of stories like that, man. There's a ton of stories that's that's exciting and good news and stories of love and faithfulness.

And and then even as a pastor, I get loved on, too, which is just wonderful. It's wonderful.

Well, I want to wrap up what you said and mentioned three things before we move on to impact.

Impact is the ministry. Use the word impact. Impact is the ministry that is bringing these local churches together in Pastor Jonathan's area.

And that was out of the heart of folks in the local area. And you got folks within that who are working to do community events.

And they and several have already taken place. And there's more coming up. And then you have folks in that community of fellowship there that are leading the way in the fight against abortion in our area.

That's right. As the mention of those three things are just other great things that God is doing in that area.

And there's like there's many more. And you you said something that I'm going to come back to after Jeff finishes that I want to hold on to.

And it's kind of the main point of this. So, Brother Jeff, tell us what's going on in your ministry, what you do for work and and where you pastor and what

God is doing there and even give the Web site of your business. I'd love to share it with folks.

Yes, so I'm the owner and artist of Post Tenderbrush Lux Bible Rebinding.

And our Web site is P .T .L. Bible rebinding dot com. So I just well, if I'm a camera here, so I just make a handmaid weather.

Bibles. So what I do to pay my bills, I'm a bi -locational pastor for Covenant Reform Baptist Church.

Christus King Baptist Church and myself, Christus King, which is a church out in upstate

New York, saw a need to plant a reformed Baptist church in my area.

And so they sent me out to do so, and I've been pastoring in this area for about a little over a year.

I go street preaching probably about a block from my church and it's busy intersection.

I normally get about four to 12 cars to stop. I haven't really seen a lot of fruit from it, like people coming to my church, but I've been able to to witness the gospel to a lot of unbelievers and cultural

Christians. Been able to pray with a lot of people when

I go to Walmart, people recognize me because I'm in the neighborhood, I'm not going, you know, downtown somewhere outside of where I'm at.

I'm on a busy highway where a big parking lot is for people to pull over and talk to me.

I get my oil changed. People are like, hey, are you that guy? You know, our pizza man came by the other day and he's like, man,

I know you from somewhere. He's like, oh, you're the guy that preaches. And so, you know, getting well known in my neighborhood for that.

And I do a lot of door knocking, just inviting people to church. Again, I haven't seen a lot of fruit in that at the moment, but we're not, you know, we haven't been doing it long.

Recently moved to Tallahoma, but I've been in street evangelism for about 10 years.

I was originally ordained with the kind of like Assemblies of God, Church of God set.

It's kind of weird because like the church that I was a part of, I was going to Assemblies of God College, but the church just kind of jumped ship from the

Assemblies of God and they kind of partnered with the churches of God and became independent, basically.

And so then I switched schools to a Church of God or whatever, but I got ordained in that church. But I just kind of set myself down because I was just struggling.

You know, I guess the Baptist was coming out of me, you know, and so I just recently became ordained as a

Baptist pastor. So as far as, you know, my church family, man,

I'm so loving my church. It's basically like a family reunion every week, man.

We've kind of taken two verses from the scriptures. Acts 242 says that they gather together for the teachings of the apostles to break bread, fellowship, and pray.

And then Ephesians chapter 5, it speaks about speaking to one another in psalm, hymn, and spiritual songs, sing and make melody in your heart.

That's basically what our church looks like, man. We actually sing the psalms.

We sing hymns. We fellowship and we pray with one another.

A man stands behind the pulpit and explains the teachings of the apostles. We have the Lord's Supper every week.

And immediately after that, we have a real meal together that's a part of our service. And it's been wonderful.

It's been wonderful. So we've got folks fighting against abortion.

We've got church planting. We've got ministry in the neighborhood. And I can 100 % guarantee that there are hundreds, maybe probably thousands of stories like this that we'll never hear that God is doing and working in men's souls where they're preaching on the street, they're preaching at the grocery store, they're going to the neighborhood, they're doing ministry.

And God is working in our neighborhoods and in men's hearts.

And that's why I wanted you guys to share because it's just an example, I believe, of what

God is doing in this world right now. And something that you said, Jonathan, was kind of the key to one of the points that I wanted to make.

You said in your conversation with the gentleman, you said it was the Lord that led you there.

Nobody called you. It was the Lord that arranged this meeting. And all this kind of ties together with our second question.

But it wasn't an impact.

The ministry that's bringing the churches together in your local community, it's not the big machine that's making this happen.

It's God doing this on the local level, the grassroots level, the big machine that we thought for so many years was going to work and kind of be our

Savior in reaching the world. I know there's been a lot of good in it, in our big conventions and the big machine that sometimes we call it.

But God is really doing stuff on a local level, apart from the big machines that we've seen raised up in our generations.

And that's what I wanted to point out, what God is doing. And what do you guys see, kind of briefly, going on in our nation?

Well, I guess I can kind of share what's going on in my ministry. I'm trying to plug in the local church and minister there.

But here on the social media ministry, man, there's so many negative videos out there, as far as things we don't need to watch, things that we don't want to see or hear.

And there's even bad theology out there, people doing videos.

But I'm seeing more and more people doing videos on TikTok, Christian TikTok.

There's so many people doing podcasts and video ministries, and it's just growing.

And I'm not discouraged by that. Some people say, well, everybody's doing it.

So it's kind of, I don't know what you would say. You shouldn't get into it, everybody's doing it.

To me, the more Jesus that's out there, the more gospel that's out there.

I mean, to me, that's what we as Christians should be doing. If you have a heart for doing videos, the more the merrier.

I think it's great that I'm seeing so many folks doing podcasts and videos, because to me, that's what the kingdom is all about.

All of life is about all of Christ. And so if that's the avenue that you want to be sharing, the more the merrier to me.

And so with the nation as a whole,

I see a lot of good going on as well. I remember what I was going to say about the social media.

I get discouraged. I know everybody gets discouraged because we see bad theology and bad teaching videos out there.

But the way I looked at it, I was thinking about it today. The way I look at it is at first glance, we've got, and I know if we had our preference, we would regulate and say, get that bad theology off there.

But that's not how the system works. Everybody can speak.

Everybody can do their videos or whatever. But the way I was looking at it was at first glance, truth and error may look like they have buoyancy.

But over time, false teaching and error is going to retain water and sink, and the truth is going to remain.

And to me, that's kind of the approach that I want to take. I can't regulate videos, and we don't want the government to regulate videos what theology is out there.

But the more truth that's out there, it's going to remain. And that false and that error, I think it's going to eventually sink.

Even the Apostle Paul said that. The Apostle Paul said it's very necessary that there's conflict so it can be proven what is true and what's false.

You know, that's what he was talking about in his teaching there. So yeah, I think it's very important. And what you're saying too is very important.

It's organic. It's organic. It's celebration.

And the principles of what Jeffrey and they're doing there in their congregation, what we're doing, the principles are exactly the same.

Our Sunday mornings probably look a little bit different. We don't do the Lord's Supper every week or a meal every week.

But the principles are the same. And we do do the Lord's Supper. And we do have a meal normally right after Lord's Supper.

So that was pretty cool. I was enjoying that. But, you know, I think the heart behind authentic community, organic community, family, that it's not the machine.

It's not building big mega ivory towers. And it's associating with the lowly.

And it's walking together and weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice. And it's a firm commitment to the whole counsel of Scripture.

And it's not just a teaching. It's a living it out. And so, Jeffrey, I'm thankful, man, that you're preaching in the street, brother.

I think it's something that a lot of our pastors have created ivory pulpits and they've forgotten what it is to walk in the street and talk with people in conversation.

And then all of a sudden, too, if you say, well, I'm a street preacher, there's tons of association with what a street preacher looks like.

Because we had street preachers, too, that would come on campuses at our seminaries that I was at NC State University for a while.

And I don't think he was very effective at all of sharing the gospel.

Yeah, so if you're going to do straight preaching, you have to be approachable and you have to do it in love.

Right. Not with an angry heart. And as far as what you were talking about with air, I mean, we wouldn't have these great confessions and these and all these wonderful creeds if had not been for false teaching to arise and cause thinking men to figure out what it is that we let the scriptures teach.

And so, you know, like sometimes I like sometimes I'll get approached with a subject and they'll say, well, what do you think about this?

And there's times where I'm like, well, I don't know. I have to look into it. And I can hear the positive argument for it and still not really get it until I hear the negative argument for it.

I think I find out more of what I believe when I hear the negative side than I do when

I hear someone else teaching on the right side of it. I mean, if that makes any sense.

Yeah. So going back to what's going on in our nation and what we may see going on in our nation that we see

God is moving, doing great things. I'll start out and just do it really quickly.

I see more and more people standing up against abortion in our nation, more and more people, and they're not they're doing stuff.

They're starting ministries. They're joining ministries. They're preaching. They're bringing people in.

They're saving babies. They're saving families. They're not just ministering. They're not just handing out pamphlets, but they are ministering to families.

And I see more and more people doing it. And we have our debates within ourselves.

You've got the big, I think it was called the heartbeat bill that passed in Texas not too long ago, and I see both sides of it.

I don't want to play the middle, but I see both sides. I see the one side where the abolitionists say, how can you call that a victory?

How can you call that a win? Because the babies that are still being aborted are losing.

And so it's not a win until we've abolished abortion. And I feel that, and I'm on board with that.

But then on the other hand, they passed something, which means there's people fighting.

And that's encouraging that there's people fighting. And so that's one thing that I see that God is doing in our nation right now.

What do you guys see? Go ahead,

Jeffrey. Man, I don't want to be the negative

Nancy. I think our biggest problem is the church, man.

I'm sure if we get theological, they are going to have some very strong disagreements.

And they're worth debate. They're worth an argument. But they're not worth hating one another over.

They're not worth fighting over. And so when, you know, like when

I, you know, me being a post -millennialist, I'm always approached with the, well, look how bad the world is.

What do you mean it's going to get better? And I'm like, once you, so my problem is, is

I, like with me, I don't look at the world. Okay.

Heathens are going to be heathens. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I look at the church.

Okay. Whenever me and, I mean, you know, if me and a brother in Christ, even though we can't, if we can't put our theological differences aside, the secondary issues aside and love one another, there's a bigger problem going on than Biden being in office.

Okay. Like Jesus said that you will know my people by their love for one another.

The, one of the sins of first John is hating your brother.

Okay. If you hate your brother, you're walking in darkness. Your prayers are hindered.

And I think, man, we, as the church, we have to get off of our, you know, well, as the church individual, you know, we have to get off that theological pedestal that we put ourselves on and start loving our brothers.

You know, me being reformed, I, you know, I got to love my assemblies of God brother.

You know, they got to love me too, whether they want to or not.

But that's where real change is going to come is whenever we stop hating one another and stop debating on Facebook.

Okay. I mean, debating like this is okay. Debating in public is okay.

But debating on Facebook is ugly. And it's where everyone can see us fight and argue with one another.

And so, again, I don't want to be a negative Nancy. I just, I don't see really a lot of things that are happening good because the church is at odds with each other.

We're not unified. Those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living

God, those who believe in justification by faith alone, we are forgiven, and yet we hold grudges against people who hold to that same doctrinal faith as we do.

And it's ugly. And I think that that's the biggest change that we need.

I mean, you can pass all the abortion like abortion could end tomorrow if the church is still hating each other.

It's just something else going to come down the pike. Well, if you don't mind, share what you were sharing with me before we started the video.

It's going to be from a unique perspective how we understand what good looks like.

Um, because God, God has a direction. He wants his people to go and we're going to go that direction.

And it may take, it may take him doing something to get us going in that direction.

And we've seen it before. Like you're talking about an ax. Again, I don't want to, you know,

I'm saying play the reform card, you know, but as a reformed Christian, I believe that, that God, uh, ordains all things that come to pass.

I believe that, you know, uh, you know, I'm such a

Calvinist. If this chair was to fall and break, I'd get back up and say, oh, I'm glad that's over with. I mean, you know,

I just, I just, I believe that everything's done by God's hand and I believe that his will will be done no matter, no matter what, you know?

And so we see in the book of Acts, he tells his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel, that they were going to be the means, the instrument by which the gospel would be preached.

And yet they hold up in Jerusalem until the persecution comes. You know,

God brings persecution and says, you know what? I really meant that. Go, get out of here, go into all the world.

And you can kind of see that, you know, right now it's taken abortion, uh,

Roe v. Wade being instituted for how many years now? How many babies have died before people have gone?

I mean, I mean, before, you know, we see a real movement take place, that movement should have took place the moment that bill passed.

Christians should have been out there. And so, you know, sometimes

God's really got to bring it to our doorstep in order for us to say,

I think he means it, y 'all. We better get to doing it. We better get to obeying the

Great Commission. We better start discipling, baptizing and teaching because Jesus really sound like he meant it.

I mean, I mean, that was our marching orders. And I mean, again, I don't want to get into a theological conflict, but I just believe because of the premillennial dispensational end times that people think the

Antichrist is here. They just lost hope of reaching their neighbor, of loving their neighbor. That's just my opinion, man.

And I didn't want to be a negative Nancy, but. I think it's cool, and I really understand where you're coming from, because it happened in the

New Testament. And if God brings certain things into place to get his people going in the direction they're supposed to be going, he's patient.

You know, you were talking about the years that have gone by, and you're absolutely right.

It should have taken place a long time ago, the fight against abortion. But he has shown his patience like crazy with us.

And now the doom and gloom message that we hear and see all the time.

Is it true? Yeah, there's a lot of bad things out there. But is it God doing something good so that he can receive the glory, getting his people going in the right direction?

Maybe so. You know, I think all things are going to work together for his glory. Again, I have a very positive outlook of what the outcome will be.

I'm positive that the gospel is going forth. I just think what really hinders us, man, is loving each other.

I mean, again, I just met y 'all gentlemen, and I have no idea where y 'all are theologically.

OK, but listen, even if you disagree with me, brother, I love you.

OK, if you need me, let's talk. And it doesn't matter if you disagree with my input.

I'm still going to love you. I'm not going to bad mouth you. I'm not going to gossip behind your back. You're fine, brother.

You have freedom to speak as the Lord leads you, and we're the same page there in that.

And it is love, and there's a journey involved with love, too.

You know, I mean, there's any man that says when he comes to eschatology that I have it all figured out, that is not a man

I'm willing to talk to. But that's just the same with salvation, the mystery of salvation.

Any man that says he understands all the depths of salvation, the mysteries of God, you know,

I don't want to talk to that guy. Eschatology is really just a hobby for me, man.

It's so much fun. It's beautiful, and it's something that I'm growing in.

I grew up pre -millennial, pre -trib, pre -millennial.

I'm probably right now somewhere between that and historical pre -millennialism, but I'm hanging out with a lot of post -millennial guys.

You know what I'm saying? You got to watch them post -mill guys, man. I know, man. I know.

But again, we call them in our church family open -handed issues. You know, that we greet each other with an open hand, a handshake in that to where, you know, it's not something we're going to fight over.

You know, we have a joyful discussion, debate. We sharpen one another, iron sharpening iron.

Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? That's out of context. I've got a question about it. You know what

I mean? All those kind of things. And we have fun. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. And I'm preaching through the gifts of the Holy Spirit right now, you know, and we are

Reformed, but we're not cessationalists. And I know a lot of my Reformed brothers are cessationalists, but I'm not.

I'm not maybe where you were raised, you know, for the baptism of the Holy Ghost, it's required to speak in tongues, you know, as the evidence, you know, but we're not there.

You know, we are sovereignists over that, where in 1 Corinthians 12, the

Holy Spirit gives gifts as he wills. And so there's room. But at the same time, are we continuous to an extreme?

No, we're more continuous with the seatbelt, I guess is what we would say, you know. But there's journey there, there's process, there's things.

And kind of what come to my mind, honestly, while you were talking, I didn't think about this prior to the gathering tonight, but I really think a positive thing, even though it's painful, is what the church is going through right now.

So I want to make two comments on that. So I think in our culture, I think we're experiencing a lot of Hebrews 12 right now of the discipline of the

Lord on the church. And in Hebrews 12, he says, don't despise that.

It's actually a good thing. If there's a discipline going on in the body, in the church, on your life, it's a good thing because that's evidence that you're a child of his.

But from a human point of view, going through discipline, it may not, it definitely don't feel good.

And we'd probably even say from a human perspective, it's not good. So from a spiritual side, we'd say, yeah, that's good.

I'm thankful for that. But definitely in the journey, it's like, man, this is not fun at all.

You know, I'm ready for this to get over with, just like you said about the tear breaking. I'm ready to get out of this.

I want to learn what I need to learn, repent for what I need to repent and move on, you know. So I think as a country, in a lot of ways,

I look through Old Testament and a lot of people have asked the question over the last several elections, why has there not been a godly choice?

Why has there not been a man of either way that voted either way the outcome, we would not say that there was a man of God to be voted for it.

Now, there may be platforms and things that we agree with that are more Christian than others and things, and that's definitely so.

But the reality is, either way, it was a form of judgment, I believe, on America. And therefore, it sets the church up to shine ever so much brighter.

The second thing, though, that is hard for me to wrap my mind around, but I do think it is a good thing in the perspective of God, but it's actually viewed as a bad thing from a human point of view.

We have tons and tons and tons of churches every single day across the culture closing their doors. Since the pandemic,

I mean, in Baptist life and in Southern Baptist life and all the way across, they're saying that one in ten

Baptist churches are going to close over the next two years as a result of closing down, shutdowns, pandemic stuff.

So that's a huge number of vacant buildings coming, one in ten. So from a human perspective, that's going to be really, really negative.

But I heard a preacher preach this one time, and he said that there's never been a door of a church ever shut that God didn't close it.

There's never been a church that shut down that God didn't shut it down because Jesus said, on this rock,

I'll build my church, not even the gates of hell will prevail against it. So therefore, the gates of hell will not stop the church.

So if a church, a local body, gets stopped, it's by the judgment of God. In Revelation, he speaks about removing the lampstands in the church of Laodicea.

Chapter one, the last verse, it says that the lampstands are the churches.

That's right. That's exactly right. And so we can rejoice that God is fulfilling his word, and God is, for lack of better terms,

I don't know how to say it in the moment, but sticking up for his own name. God does not need us to defend him. But therefore, those local groups that are gathering in his name, but yet not representing his name, there's a judgment on that, and they are suffering, and they are being shut down.

And so from, I guess, for lack of better terms, a humanitarian side and from a measure of success side, that may look as bad.

But from a biblical stance where God's ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts, it's actually a good thing.

It's actually a good thing because it's purging, and it's purifying his bride and his people, and he's not going to be married to an adulterous bride.

And so I see that going on in the culture. And then for those that are, that God is blessing and empowering with that, that there is a stronger blessing of ministry, and it's not megachurch as the machine that Robert was talking about in things the other day.

There is a deeper love, a deeper authenticity, a deeper discipling and evangelizing of the local communities.

There is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is happening right now in a very real biblical sense, and so it's exciting to see that.

And it's not flaky, it's not hokey, it's genuine God -sent breath and empowerment of his church to walk as Jesus walked.

And so I think when, Robert, you're asking good and bad,

I think one real important thing to point out in my last thought is, is from what perspectives?

Because from a human perspective, it appears it's getting worse and worse and worse.

If you just look from a very heathen perspective, I guess you could say, I love that word as Jeffrey said a while ago.

If you're looking from that and looking of my best life now or my

American dream, man, it's not looking so good. So if I'm measuring goodness by the security of my pocketbook and the security of my kid's future in a worldly sense, and jobs and food and freedoms and liberties and all of those kind of things, well, it's not looking so good.

But I think that is the exact thing that God uses in a chastisement and pressing the vats and pressing the wine out.

And that's where new things are created and new awakening begins to happen. So I'm not always there perfectly, even though I know that theologically.

I tend to waffle in that because I tend to get discouraged when

I measure success by what I feel like success is. But then God has been bringing me back to this

Hebrews 12 quite a bit and recognizing that it's actually a really good thing when

God is pruning, God is whittling, God is chastening. It's a really, really good thing.

And so it's painful. And I think a lot of our church brothers are going through a lot of painful things right now.

But at the same time, I'm thankful because I know on the backside of that, there's a purification and a reviving that will come.

And so it's hard to watch, though. It really is painful to watch and it's painful to experience.

I've been through it, too. So I'm not trying to say like I'm obsolete from that.

But so that's what I see, too, going on in our country as well, that it's almost like a double whammy because it feels negative, but it's actually very, very good.

Yeah, to add where I was saying is like, personally,

I just don't look to the world to get my perspective of the outcome.

That's right. You know, like the world has never looked great.

OK, but of course, as a post -mill guy, I believe that one day it will.

Like these pieces to the puzzle will come together when Christ comes back. He will put all, you know, before he comes back, he's going to put all enemies under him.

And the last enemy will be death. And that will be at the resurrection of the dead. You know, all enemies, secularism, homosexuality, name it.

All enemies are going to be put under the feet of Christ. And I say that because I know it's true because I was an enemy of Christ.

OK, and I have been footstooled. OK, like I was a huge enemy of the gospel.

And so I really try not to focus my attention on what's going on in the world.

I mean, I mean, there's moments, you know, that a news clip will show up and I'll start, you know,

I'll start pulling at the collar. But ultimately, I just trust in Christ.

I mean, every time, you know, that we get a meal, I'll tell you what my daughter asked me.

She said, Dad, why do you always thank God for providing you this food?

You have a job. You sell all kinds of Bibles. You make money.

And so I had to explain to her how God is the one who provides the means by which

I'm provided, I'm able to make the money. All things come from God.

If you look at the Lord's Prayer, you have our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

We have the identity of God. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The sovereignty of God. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our trespasses.

The provision of God. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

The protection of God. You know, that we are to always look to God, that we are to worship

Him in spirit and truth, that those who have the Spirit of God worship

Him in the truth of who He is, who He has revealed Himself to be. You know, the sovereign

God of the universe, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we pray to this sovereign

God and we thank Him for providing for us food and for salvation and protecting us from evil.

Most of the time, that evil one, it's me. All right, it's my temptations.

You know, and so I explain that to my daughter, you know, that I can be my biggest enemy.

Not Biden. Not everything else, you know.

In order, I have to make sure that this vessel is fit.

And guess what? It is because Christ has saved me. I'm resting in Christ.

I'm looking to Him. And the moment that I start getting, just imagine this.

Imagine if you get into your car and you start driving and you're going 50 miles an hour.

But instead of looking out your front glass, you're looking out the rear view mirror or you're turned and you're looking out the back glass.

You're going to crash the car. You're going to crash the car. In order to make it from A to B, you need to be looking at the front glass.

And so that's what I try to do in my life. I try to focus on Jesus Christ.

I don't focus on the world. I don't focus on my past. I focus on Christ.

Because listen to me, if I look at anything else, I'm wrecking this car. And I'm taking everybody with me.

I trust Him to provide for everything. And listen, if it comes down to it, and the next thing you know, the biggest tribulation, the earth is to open its mouth and swallow

America whole. And we have nothing. I serve a God that made it rain manna.

Okay, right now, He's causing people to buy my Bibles. But I believe

He would make it rain manna to feed me. That's why I pray and thank God for my food.

Because I trust Him. I don't trust myself. I don't trust you for my food.

I don't trust you. I trust Christ. And I'm not looking at the world. I try not to look at the church that much because I just feel like we,

I mean, I do preach, we need to love one another. I think that's the, that's our biggest issue. But man, we have to focus our attention on Christ and do what the writer of Hebrew says to rest in Him.

He is our Sabbath. We need to rest in Him. Stop going to temple. Stop looking at the back glass.

Focus on Jesus Christ. Stop looking. I mean, of course, we got to fight.

But name someone, name a better way to fight. Name a better way to fight outside of looking to Christ.

Name a better way. There is none. Look to Christ. I'll get off my soapbox.

Oh, that's fantastic. I appreciate that, brother. And I mean, that just leads me into the things that I see positive that God is doing.

I see more and more people where God is working this genuineness, this type of understanding.

He's working this in more and more people's hearts. And we're able to see it now because of social media, because of our connection with each other.

And I think this connection that we have with one another also breeds an accountability with one another.

And I think it's a good thing. I think it's positive. We're able to get together, keep each other accountable, and we get to see what

God is doing. And I see it happening. And to what Pastor Jonathan was talking about, we see that it's happening at the bottom.

It's not coming from the top down. It's happening at the bottom, the grassroots and the growth and the movement.

And then the closing of the church doors, it's all related to everything that I want to talk about tonight.

From my perspective, what I'm saying, and you guys may disagree with how I'm viewing things, but with God closing doors and viewing that as a good thing, as a positive thing, there's negativity to it, but there's also this positive view to it.

And we're talking about God working at the grassroots level and not from the top, not from the machine anymore.

The machine doesn't like our big conventions, our number one conventions.

They don't like how God is working. They don't like this method.

I mean, 20 years ago when I was in college, I seen books all the time, and these books are still coming out from our big conventions and associations.

They don't want, of course, we don't want churches to close. We want them to be healthy, but we see that we see

God's method. We see what he's doing. And the big machine that we're going to call it, they don't want to see

God's method that way. They come out with all these books about revive and revitalize and read this and read that and, you know, it kind of put a bad taste in my mouth.

Even 20 years ago in college, I was like, they need to be healthy churches.

And if God's doing something, you know, let him do it. And I don't know if I should say this or not, but it's and it's kind of assuming motivation and I'm kind of drawing myself back from making the comments.

But I think there are circumstances to where if the big machine dies, you've got to move out of your mansion.

And that's why we want to keep our doors open of so many churches because we're losing money.

I think that's there. It's probably not everybody, but I think that that's there.

And so before I put my foot too far in my mouth, let's move to the second half and we'll try to move quickly because we've gone about an hour.

But I wanted to get you guys thoughts on this because we moving from this, what good is going on in the world and seeing that God is working in the grassroots from the bottom up and what he's doing in folks hearts.

We've seen things come from that in our generation. And I know they've had impacts on my life, and I wanted to see what kind of impact they've had on your lives.

And then at the end, what you think may be next. And so I'm going to I'm going to tell you what

I've seen one by one. And then Jonathan, you go first.

Jeff, you can go second on each one. But tell me where you heard about this and how it impacted your life, whether positively or negatively.

There's nothing new under the sun. I think it's always been there. But these issues, I think

I have seen them as resurgences and resurfacing of good, good theology back into our

Christian culture. And the first one that I wrote down there, they're not in any certain order, but the first one

I wrote down was creationism. Something when I was young, we didn't talk about, you know, we didn't talk about evolution versus creation, but there was a resurgence resurfacing of creationism and to fight for that apologetically.

And Ken Ham, a science teacher, I think, from Australia, you know,

God used him and is using him in a mighty way. What are your thoughts on the resurgence of creationism?

Sure. We have locally over here, not real local, but I mean, it's not super far away.

We've got the Creation Museum and then the Rep of Noah's Ark. And so that's something that, you know,

I hope to take our students to whether it's, I think they did do their best to build the replica of the

Ark to biblical numbers, but nothing else that makes great conversation and discipleship material for students.

And so, you know, so you have that and Creation Museum and you've got the Bible History Museum and you've got a lot of stuff that that's been really cool, that that's created a lot of movement.

And so, yeah, I think I think it's excellent. And I think it is in response to evolution, the studies of evolution and the press of evolution and the school and and cultures.

And so and so now we have movies, you know, and all kinds of stuff that's come out with that.

So so I think it's great. I think it's another way that God is showing himself.

And Romans one tells us that God demonstrates himself through all the creation, through all the nature. And so so that's why

I'm taking the group of men this week to the mountains and we're going to do men's discipleship and survival in the

Appalachian Mountains and to stand on the mountain before the Lord. So so I think it's beautiful.

I think it's a wonderful thing that's happened. Jeff, what do you think about creationism? Yeah, I think it's worth fighting for.

I think we have a can you hear me OK? I had to change headphones. Yeah, we got some real good man on the front line.

I would say my favorite would be Jason Lyle, who is an astrophysicist.

He's got a wonderful book that deals with presuppositional apologetics and creation kind of it kind of outlines precept and the

Genesis chapter one through 11 called the ultimate proof of creation. So if you haven't read that book,

I would definitely recommend it or anything by him. Sometimes I sometimes

I have a stutter. Sorry. Sometimes I can think that I'm smart. And so when I want to humble myself,

I just pop in one of his videos and and he shows me real quick.

I'm not that smart. Do the genius. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah, man,

I think it's worth fighting for. We we have some really, really, really intelligent guys on the front line.

And and as for me being a street preacher,

I'm always speaking with, you know, atheists or, you know, so I'm always having, you know, to sharpen my sword when it comes to precept and creationism and stuff like that.

So having giants like him can him and the rest of them to stand on their shoulders is it's wonderful.

Yeah. And so with creationism and the rest of these that I'm going to go over the way I've seen these are doctrines that.

For lack of better term, we're asleep in the church and God has resurfaced them.

And, you know, if you see it that way as well, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

And the next one is biblical evangelism. And I would credit that.

Well, let's combine the next to biblical evangelism, long the gospel and then street preaching.

We're asleep and God has awakened. He has awoken it, whatever is the correct term.

And I would give credit to Ray Comfort in that that God using

Ray Comfort in that area. So what are your thoughts on the resurgence of biblical evangelism and street preaching?

I mean, it's great, obviously. One thing that I think has been great about the resurgence of that is, you know,

I was raised Southern Baptist. And so we had a program and a system for everything.

So, you know, so we had faith and faith training and training and shared

Jesus without fear. And I don't know how many others. I don't know. But like I went through every training and pretty much every single one of them landed us back to, well, for lack of better terms, if you don't want to go to hell, then repeat after me this prayer, fill out this card and you're in.

You're in. I mean, and I had an old timey independent preacher one time tell me, he said, boy,

I'll tell you right now, if we told people to go out here on our hands and knees and push a pencil across the four lane with their nose and they'd get to go to heaven, there'd be people lined up in droves to do it.

And he's right, because we didn't even realize what had happened is we had created a workspace to evangelism to where we had idolized something that they do.

And so here in the buckle, the Bible Belt where we're at, everybody's saved. Just ask them, because at some time or another, they've watched the

TV show or heard something on the radio and they've repeated this prayer. And they said, well, I've said the prayer. And so they have a very unregenerate faith and have been deceived.

And so biblical evangelism, as I would define it, is helping people to believe the gospel.

I mean, helping people to grapple with that. And obviously, that's not just an ascent to knowledge, but it is a gift of the

Holy Spirit to have faith and to believe the most audacious, ridiculous story that is foolishness to those who are perishing.

But then it is the power of God and the salvation. The born of a virgin, died on a cross, rose again, coming again.

We say yes and amen, but then to the rest of the world is foolishness. And so I'm just thankful that there is a resurgence of authentic gospel centered, unapologetic preaching of the gospel and then calling people to belief, not just some shallow, easy believism.

But, you know, it's a confrontation of truth and a crisis of faith.

And then there is this beautiful part of then the preacher stepping back and let the

Holy Spirit do what he does, which is the work of regeneration and calling to people to believe. And I'm thankful that every salvation that we've seen, we've been able over the last 10 years to baptize probably around 200 people.

Only one in 10 years has walked the aisle on a Sunday morning. And that was after we had had deep, deep counseling and conversation prior to that.

And at the end of a service, he came forward to profess his faith. But, you know, even then it wasn't a manipulative move at all.

Every believer that we have had the opportunity to baptize has been conversation over coffee in an office, in a living room, in a discipleship relationship.

And so for me, I praise the Lord for that. And in biblical preaching, street preaching and those kind of things,

I think is cool because there's just a ton of different methodologies. It could be on the street corner.

It could be us prayer walking in the streets on a Sunday night with a whole group of people. I mean, I think there's street preachers and there's street ministers and there's street prayer walking and there's a mobilization of the church.

And I think I'm glad to see a movement away from the come and see. And it's really a go and tell.

And that's what we're supposed to do all along. So I want to get my words in,

Jeff, because this is your soft toss here now. But I like that you said, you know,

I mean, like I was with the Southern Baptist for a while there as well. And I'm very familiar with faith.

OK, I could have some stories on faith. So as far as Ray Comfort, God used

Ray Comfort in my life. I started reading the Bible, 9 -11. So the day that the towers fell is the day that I picked up a

Bible and started reading it and I read it for a few years. And, you know,

I could slowly, you know, and I started to believe. I mean, you know, I came to the

Bible with a presupposition that this was God's word. Like I didn't come to it as an atheist or anything like that.

Like I wasn't raised in a Christian house, but they took us to church and we had a family Bible on the table.

And we all of us kids knew that this was the word of God. And so I came to the

Bible with that knowledge when I started reading it and I just started to believe it.

I started reading it for the wrong reasons, but, you know, God drew a straight line with a crooked stick.

And so I heard Ray Comfort preaching one day as I was reading the

Bible, and I really saw myself naked and exposed before God.

And so, yeah, I'm really thankful for Ray Comfort.

Now, I say that, but I also, now that I've been doing street ministry for a long time,

I disagree with some of the methodology of it. I definitely believe we use the law.

As a Reformed Baptist, we go to the threefold uses of the law. And one of them is, it's basically from Adam to Christ.

We use the law to show them their sinfulness. And my disagreement would be his call to response.

Now, I'm going to say this and you're probably going to be like, oh, well, let me explain.

But let me explain. He tells people that you have to repent and trust.

And when he says repent, I think he's saying something that the Bible doesn't mean in the initial salvation.

He's saying turn from all of your sins. But to do that, that's works.

Repentance unto salvation is a change of mind.

It's metanoia, like in order for my hand, you see my hand to reach and grab my water and to open the lid, put it in my mouth and drink.

My mind has to tell my hand, like there's this thing that goes on. My hand just doesn't do that.

Something has to happen. And my biggest, everybody's biggest problem at first, it's not their initial sin.

It's that they worship themselves. It's self -righteousness. And so repentance, true salvific repentance is turning from yourself.

I can do this. I got the power. And turning and trusting in God.

Now, I believe in turning from your sins. But I believe that this is a work that's done after the believer has become a

Christian. So I don't believe repenting from, and actually no one can repent from all their sins.

You're always going to sin. And so the way that he calls people to turn from all their sins,

I think it's unbiblical. But God used him in my life. And so when

I call people to repentance, it's first, it's in self -righteousness. Stop trusting in yourself and trust in Christ.

Stop looking to yourself and look to Christ. Stop staring out that back glass.

You're going 55 miles an hour down the road and look to Christ. Now, do

I want them to stop sinning? Yes, but if I can get, but if Christ saves them, he will work on them.

He will grant to them repentance of sin. He will work that in them. But as far as the initial salvation,

I would just say that repentance is turning from self -righteousness, not from all your sin.

Because if you say it's from all your sin, then you turn, again, you've turned it into a works -based salvation and no one ever stops sinning until they come to glory.

Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, I'm tracking with you and I understand. Yeah, so that would be my only issue with, again, when

God used Ray Comfort in my life. I love him. So when

I do open air preaching, I exposit the text.

I open up a passage and I do it just like I do in my church.

I open up a passage and I explain the text using Christ. Yeah, I was just going to say,

I think the, I agree with you. I think the repentance of sin is a product, not a means.

But at the same time, I think there's value in someone to know that they are a sinner.

I think, and I know you believe that. I think the hard part is, you know, at best, you might have somebody that believes we're neutral, but the majority of the secular culture believes we're good.

Yeah, your camera cut out. So I don't know if you heard what I said, but I preached the law. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so I use the threefold uses of the law.

You know, I use the law to show them their sin. Right now, you know, I'm speaking to people under the covenant of works, clothed in Adam, dead in trespasses and sins, and I use the law to show them this, to show them their need for the

Savior and preach Christ. But when I call them to repentance, it's not, you know, go back and write down every sin that you've ever committed and turn from it.

I mean, it's stopped. It's stopped trusting in yourself. I mean, because at the end, you want them to say, well, what can

I do to get saved? Well, you don't want to give them a list of things that they got to do.

You want to say, stop trusting in yourself and trust in Jesus Christ. And listen, if someone is able to do that, that's the work of regeneration.

Amen. And God, like he did me, worked in my life, granted me repentance from sins.

I mean, like there's sometimes, you know, like when I first became a Christian, I was still doing things that I didn't know was a sin until it got to the point where God was like, hey, that's a sin.

Stop it. You know, and when God revealed these things to me, because he will, if you're his, you know, stay in the

Bible, be a part of a biblical church under the preaching of the gospel, pastor expositionally walking through the text where you're learning the

Bible, and God will change you through the ordinary means of grace.

But I was just wanting to, you know, again, as a street preacher, I stand up.

So, I don't know. Have you heard it? Have you heard me street preach? You? Yeah. No, I have not.

Okay. Well, I got videos. Again, I'll just open a passage. I mean, I'm not going to street preach right now.

I just want to give you like a little example. Yeah. I don't know.

All right. So, let's just go to Romans 5 is a real good one. Romans 5 verse 1.

I think this is a real good verse to street preach with. It says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. All right. So, what I want to do with this verse is first,

I want to point out the therefore, and I want to talk about that it's the context of God speaking with Abraham.

And when I mentioned God speaking with Abraham, first thing I want to do is I want to talk about who

God is and who Abraham is. And I want to get my context down.

I'll do that from memory. I'm not going to read it to them. And then I'll come back. So, therefore, since we, just like Abraham, because Abraham was justified by faith, have been justified by faith, not by works, not by baptism, not by praying a prayer, not by walking an owl, by faith, by believing, by trusting that Jesus is the

Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So, I just kind of will outline all these things, explain what peace is.

But then I'll also tell them. Now, if you do not have peace with God, then you are not justified.

By faith. And if you do, if you're not justified by faith, you do not have peace with God, then you are an enemy of God.

And then I will hammer what it means to be an enemy of God.

And then I'll bring it right back into faith and belief. And, you know, just stuff like that.

I just take a passage and I try my best to read the text, explain the text, support the text and apply the text.

That's what I do. Well, I appreciate all that. And it just shows kind of the direction, the point that I'm trying to make that 10, 20, 30 years ago, when we were so much younger, we'd never heard of this stuff.

We didn't have this information. But now, I mean, God is using this and the resurgence is still going on.

Let me mention next two. And for the sake of time, Jonathan, pick one.

And then Jeff, you can pick the other one. The next two that I see were kind of asleep, but God has made a resurgence, is this reformed

Baptist idea. And I see God has used Tom Askew a lot in that area to bring about the understanding of what a reformed

Baptist is, even in the Southern Baptist Convention. And then Calvinism or doctrines of grace.

And for me, I don't know about you guys, but for me, even though Todd Frill and Richard, he didn't hammer it.

He didn't really talk about it. But how he explained theology and how he explained the sovereignty of God and scripture and exegesis and expositional preaching, even though he didn't mention

Calvinism, doctrines of grace led me to doctrines of grace.

And so, Jonathan, if you'll pick one of those reformed Baptist or Calvinism, and Jeff, if you'll pick the other one, your thoughts on that.

So I guess I'll just tackle Calvinism right quick, if that's all right. Because I'm not sure that I consider myself a reformed

Baptist. I'm not sure exactly what that means in its strictest definition. So, but I'll work on you, brother.

I know. So, but when it comes to reformed theology or Calvinism, when

I was first challenged in this, being raised sort of a nothing,

I guess, except Southern, which Southern Baptist is not nothing. You know, I mean, there was a narrative scripture and there was a foundation in my parents.

I really do believe the Lord, but never been, never pressed to dig deep theologically,

I guess is what, you know, first of all, I was angry at the concept of Calvinism, because how could we have a

God that does election, you know, that elects people? That was my choice and my power and my will and my decision.

And so, first of all, I was really angry at that. And then what it made me do, and I think the greatness of it is it really does force people to read the

Bible and the whole counsel of the Bible. And so really when I became a

Calvinist or reformed theologian is when I preached straight through the book of Romans, Romans chapter one, verse one, and I went to the end.

And, and through that, I was rebirthed the Calvinist, I guess you could say. No, but it really was, it was just, it's just a return to the whole counsel of the word of God.

That's, that's to me, what, what really I think is wonderful about it. And, and, and for me, it's, it's even going before Calvin or even before Augustine.

It's, it's just, it's just being a Biblicist, you know, it's just believing what we're taught in scripture.

And, and so that's, what's really exciting about that, you know, it really is. So that's, that's why I love the resurgence of that.

And, and we're gentle with it in our congregation. You know, it's not that I always run around and outline

Tulip every sermon, but every sermon has Tulip in it. I mean, honestly, and it's, and we do what we call foundations class.

And it's a safe place for people to ask hard questions because. Oh, that wasn't supposed to happen.

He got booted off. Well, while we're waiting on Jonathan to come back,

John, welcome. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for being here. Does my microphone work? It works. We're getting towards the end.

We've been talking about, we've been talking about good things that God has, has been doing and in our local community.

I know God has been doing a lot of good things at your church. And, and maybe, you know, one day we can get you back on here and let everybody know what's going on at your church.

Cause I know God is working, doing a lot of good things there. And, and now we're talking about what

I call doctrines or certain theologies or just things in Christianity that have been asleep and God has created a resurgence or resurfacing.

And, and, and he's still working those things, those good things back into our

Christian culture again. Jonathan, did you want to finish what you were saying? Sorry, I don't know.

I have, I guess it didn't want to give me all the answers, but I'm not sure if my signal's weak or what.

But anyways, at the end of the day, you know, I think it is an important resurgence. And I think it puts a lot of things into biblical perspective.

And again, what I love about it is it just presses people to, to read the whole counsel of scripture.

I think that that's, that's what the, the joy of it is. And, and so I'm, I'm thankful.

And it provides a tremendous amount of security and joy in a very chaotic feeling world, you know, so it's good.

And, and I know John, this one is not necessarily going to connect with you.

I told the other guys that I like our diversity, but, but Jeff, reform, being reformed

Baptist and how God has resurfaced that back in our

Christian culture. Yeah, I mean, like there has been a resurgence in the reformed Baptist for a while, but here within the last 20 years, we have really been rediscovering the writings from the writers of the 1689, like people from Nehemiah Cox and really getting their, their ideas of how they formulated the covenant.

And so, and so this isn't something that's new to me. Um, within the next couple of weeks,

I'm going to be doing a series through reformed theology at my church. And, um, and so when we say that we're reformed and we're

Baptist, we, we really mean that we are confessional. So we go to the

London Baptist confession of faith of 1689. So when we say that we're reformed, we're confessional, we are a covenantal, we're

Calvinistic. We have a, we hope we have a law and gospel distinction and we hold to the means of grace.

And we also hold to all the, uh, the historical creeds, such as the

Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed and stuff like that. So at the very beginning of our service,

I read the Nicene Creed. If you want to be a member of our church, you have to adhere to the

Nicene Creed. And so if you ask me, what is reformed theology and what is, reformed theology is not

Calvinism because you can be a Calvinist and not be reformed. That's the good brother, Pastor Jonathan, this was talking about.

Uh, but you, but reformed theology is covenantalism. And, um, the biggest difference right now in the, in the resurgence that's taking place in reformed

Baptist is our covenantalism. And so there's a resurgence in what's called 1689 federalism.

And it's the covenantalism that, that goes against Presbyterianism in their covenant theology.

And, and, and we can have a long discussion on the difference that that is. When I went and sold

Bibles, uh, at the, uh, at the G3 conference, I was joking around and said,

I came there for two things, one to sell Bibles and the other one was to debate Presbyterians, you know, because I believe that this resurgence that we have from finding, uh, writer, writings from Nehemiah Cox actually explains our confession even better.

And, uh, and so I would say the biggest thing that's taking place in reformed Baptist life right now is covenantalism dealing with the 1689 federalists and what it means that the, that the covenant of grace is the new covenant and that everyone that has ever been saved has been saved by the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross.

I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that and letting folks know, um, because that's,

I think that's continuing, um, is understanding all that that's going on.

So, so John, I'm, I'm going to my last question and I want to give you the first go at it.

Uh, but to set you up, we've talked about these doctrines that were, that were asleep and God has been, uh, resurging and resurfacing and doing great things with them.

Um, you may agree or disagree with some of them, but one of the things that God has done is brought creationism back, um, to the forefront, uh, biblical evangelism, street preaching.

Um, of course you heard us talk about being reformed Baptist. Um, you may or may not agree with this one.

Calvinism, reformed theology, doctrines of grace. Um, and then the last one for the sake of time, we're not going to talk about it.

Um, but the health of, of the local church, a biblically healthy church, and I believe

God has used nine marks ministry to help us, you know, understand the role of elders in the church.

Um, discipline in the church, uh, regenerate church membership.

And then all the other things that, that go on with nine marks ministry. God has, uh,

God has been worked through that ministry to bring to the forefront those things that were asleep that once were, you know, normative in the church

God has been doing. So here's the last question. Uh, we've talked about things that God has been doing and, and, and still doing.

What do you think if there is one, um, what is the next thing that God may be resurfacing or, or bring a resurgence to in our

Christian culture? Um, and I'll give you, I'll give you mine real quick.

Just an example to give you a second to think about it, John. Um, we we've been talking about the big machine, the big conventions, the conferences, the associations that, that have ruled our

Christian culture for so long now. Um, I really think that there's going to be a movement away from, if there's not already, um, the, the big conferences, the big associations, the, uh, conventions, and, you know, we talked about God shutting doors of churches.

Um, we've talked about how God is using the social media and internet to bring us together.

Um, and, and how that keeps us accountable with one another, um, steering off course, uh, theologically.

Um, I, I, I like to call it corporate church, even, even our small local churches are, are some are small corporations where, you know, our church is dealing with asbestos and, and, you know,

Jonathan, I think your church dealt with their condition. Oh, we deal with our facilities and, and it weighs heavy on us.

How are we going to, you know, get our facilities back going so we can get back to the work of the ministry?

Um, when, how much is taken away from gospel ministry, um, or evangelism type ministry, um, reaching out to those in need, the orphans, the widows, the people in need.

Um, like you were talking about earlier, Jonathan, how much is taken away from that? And I, and I know how much stress is put on you guys as pastors to, um, to deal with facilities and to deal with all the other side issues.

To me, I'm maybe it's a, it's an exodus away from corporate church.

And I don't know if that's home church. I don't know. I don't know what that looks like, but, but maybe this movement away from corporate church.

Um, John, um, you don't have to, you don't have to comment on that. Um, do you see the next thing

God might be doing in our Christian culture? Well, I mean, I don't, uh,

I don't tend to know what's coming, but I do believe that there's been a certain amount of,

I say there's been a certain amount of purifying that's going on for a long time.

Just being associated with church seemed to be good enough. And I think that I believe that God used the pandemic to separate some wheat from the pair a little bit, even before his final heart.

I have seen people who, who just absolutely stopped attending church altogether because it became, it became more serious.

Now you're, now you're going against social norms to meet with brothers and sisters in Christ. It becomes something, uh, that is not as socially as acceptable as it was five years ago, 10 years ago.

I do have people inside of our church and other churches that we're linked with seem to be pushing for more.

I think, I think maybe small group would be the word I would use.

I see more groups of people coming together at times that are a little bit odd because it fits their schedule and they're not satisfied anymore with meeting twice a week whenever they can meet three times, four times a week and be discipled on maybe a more intimate level.

So if I could see one thing that I, that has changed from the position that I hold as a minister inside of real life,

I have seen more of a personal discipleship, an individual amount of accountability from one to another.

I have men who text in this thing called a group me, it's an app, it's different regular

SMS message. And I get prayer requests literally around the clock.

I'm seeing men whenever something happens before they call a doctor, they call their brothers and say,

I want you to pray with me about this first before we do anything else. I want to pray about this.

And I've known these guys for years. That wasn't their mentality prior to the pandemic.

They've put a lot more trust in God and they have started putting more trust on their brothers to help shoulder some of the burden.

I hope that makes sense. That's kind of what I have noticed is I have noticed that those men and women that attend church on Wednesdays and Sundays, they're also attending church before service an hour to an hour and a half ahead of time so that they can be alone and pray.

And our prayer meetings, we had a spontaneous prayer revival three weeks ago and it was great.

A lot of times people say they're having a prayer service, but really there's music playing in the background and there's a lot of talking prior to the prayer.

And it seems to be about as much fellowship as there is praying. And I didn't get to go to all the services because I had to work some of those nights.

But when I got there, some of those prayer services lasted three hours. There was no music playing on speakers.

Whenever I got there, there was people praying and they put a list of requests up on the pulpit that you could go and be in agreement with people or something that somebody's asked you to pray for specifically.

And the prayer actually led into more of a worship type service. But again, no music, no singing, just you showed me a place or a time period in the last 20 years where a group of people, say 20 strong, average age, 30 years old, has spent three hours at a church and an altar and prayer without one single moment of fellowship before or after.

No music, no fluff, just prayer. Just get along with God. And to me, that's something that I haven't seen ever.

I got saved in 2010 and I haven't seen a time in my life when people would set aside time to pray and take prayer that seriously.

And I'm encouraged by it because ultimately getting back to what

I was reading some of these questions, getting back to a better, healthy biblical understanding of God's gospel, of the covenant that he has with his church.

The only other thing that you could do to see the church grow and prosper is to have a healthy prayer line.

That's the only other thing I could see adding to proper biblical exegesis would be a healthy prayer line.

I hope that that's a trend that we continue, even if things lighten up, even if things go back to the way they used to be.

I kind of, I sort of don't want it to go back. This is what it's going to be.

Well, if God's doing it, then nobody can stop it, not even the gates of hell, which we talked about earlier.

And I think you were saying something very similar to what I was trying to describe. You know, we're no longer looking to corporate.

We're no longer looking to our conventional leaders. We're getting back to genuine faith and looking to God to lead us.

That may be what I was trying to say. Jonathan and Jeff, what do you see resurfacing?

If I can chime in on what you just talked about with the conferences. I think the biggest problem that we're having there is pastor worship.

Like, we're idolizing these men who are going to speak at these conferences so much to where they got to have bodyguards now to get around.

And like, I'm friends with some of these guys, Paul Washer, you know,

James White, they're friends of mine. They don't want to have to walk around with bodyguards.

They're just regular old dudes that, you know, that God just used.

And, you know, we have to. I think the church, you know, not speaking of you, gentlemen, or just speaking of as broad, like sometimes it seems like we just try to find any golden calf we can and dance around it.

And we can make a good thing bad because there's nothing wrong with conferences in and of themselves.

But I think when we politicize them or turn them into something that God never intended, well, that's just something

God's going to turn over. He's going to get rid of. But I think personally, what's going to be a revival is the is the turning away from pietism and turn into true piety and turn into true resting in Jesus Christ.

You know, it ain't going to be moralism. Here's seven things that will make you have a better life.

It's going to be more expositional preaching and displaying this crucified

Messiah on the cross in such a way that the Spirit of God falls and everyone falls in love with them.

And they're trusting in him. They're looking to him. And that's what

I see that's going to take place. We got to get, you know, again, as a

Reformed Baptist, we hold to a law and gospel distinction. The gospel is not the law.

I mean, the law is not the gospel. Like it just isn't. Now, there's places in the

Bible where they, you know, in one passage, you see both law and gospel, and it's the preacher's, the reader's job to distinguish between the two.

But in order to distinguish between the two, we need people teaching the difference between the two. When the

Bible says, do this and live or do this, it's most likely a law.

But when it says it's finished, this is done for you. That's gospel. We need to understand, like I was speaking of earlier with the threefold uses of the law, we need to open our

Bibles and read it in light of what Christ has done. I mean, if you can picture a flashlight as you're reading the

Bible, and this flashlight is Jesus Christ. And as we're reading the scriptures, we're understanding it in the light of what

Jesus Christ has done. We won't be trying to do things that he's already done for us.

You know, you cannot keep that law, but he has, he has, he has, and we need to look to him, the author and finisher of our faith, the apostle and high priest of our confession, trusting in what he has done for us.

He lived a life we cannot live. He died the death that we should die. So I see that taking place, that preaching is going to be

Christ -centered and not moralistic. I like what my brother

Jonathan said earlier, that people are getting saved, and it's not that they're walking in now, but they're under the preaching of Christ.

He's not telling them to come up here. He's not having his band to play Just As I Am 20 times. I mean, when you preach

Christ crucified for sinners, that message changes people.

I just see that, that that's going to happen abundantly through the body.

And I'll step down from the soapbox again. No, and I'll spring on board right off of that, because that's exactly what

I was saying. I think it's been a resurgence of gospel -centered preaching, the whole counsel of the gospel and the truth of the gospel, which is the bad news with the good news.

That's the reality of the wickedness and the intimacy that we have with God, and then the just God became the justifier.

And so there's a depth of theology and understanding in the body of Christ that I don't think we've had before.

And so now we're moving from cultural Christianity or just, I go to church because it's what

I've always done, or I'm in the South and that's what I was supposed to do, especially in our area here, that there's like an authentic awakening happening in that.

And then as the grace and the doctrines of grace and things permeate people's lives, I guess the second part that I'd say to springboard with what

Jeff's already said is then it becomes just reasonable then for us to be living sacrifices.

I think the resting part is, is we're resting in Christ, therefore we will work from our rest.

So that's why I like the King James Version of Romans 12, just simply because of the word reasonable in it, you know, that we're living from sacrifices, which becomes our reasonable service.

I think before the way I was raised, the missionaries or those that were superstar

Christians, man, that's an extravagant sacrifice. That's like a major deal.

But anymore, it's just reasonable. And I'm glad you mentioned Paul Washer.

I can't call him a buddy, but I've had several conversations with him. He probably wouldn't remember me, but of course

I remember him. But I've done a lot of missions in Peru and Spanish speaking countries and planted churches in Honduras and things like that.

And, you know, people's like, man, that's awesome. I could never do something like that. No, anybody can do whatever

God's called them to do. It's just reasonable that we would do that. It's just reasonable in comparison to the gift of the gospel and the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.

So I'm saying the second part, once that preaching is established, the next thing coming is we're going to have a movement of people working from their rest.

We're going to have churches that are equipping the saints for the work of ministry, Ephesians 420. And we're going to see an awakening of a mobilization of people in gospel ministry according to their gifts, according to their callings.

And so that's exciting to me. It's really exciting because I know in our congregation and I see it in multiple others, they are not content just with the

Sunday morning worship service, then go live a status quo life Monday through Saturday. And so I'm praising

God that I've been in this church plant we're in, but the life of the church happens

Monday through Saturday. And Sunday really just a gathering to celebrate what's happened in the life of the church

Monday through Saturday. It's a day of rest and fellowship and joining together and exhortation and edification and loving.

And then Monday through Saturday, we go back to work, which is just reasonable. It's just what we do because of how good

God has been to us. We want to glorify and honor him. And so I don't know that it's like a very like broadcast visible thing.

I would like just selfishly, I would love to be a part of a great awakening where we're seeing like preaching and thousands of people getting saved.

I would love to witness that. But I don't know that that's what it's going to look like.

I really think it's the one on one multiplication and the saints being equipped from men of God preaching the word of God and then the spirit of God convincing people of the authenticity of the gospel.

And then they will show their faith by their works. You know, I think then they'll go live it out and then it multiplies.

And so so I think it'll be I'm not going to say invisible because it will be very visible, but it's not something that's necessarily, hey, come to the tent or come to the meeting or come to the stadium.

It's it's literally person by person, job by job, wherever they live, work or play. Christians will be permeating the air with the gospel.

And for those that God is going to save, he will be saving them in that manner.

And so to me, that's very exciting. And so I think we better get our get our houses in order and be prepared to continue to equip those saints for the work of ministry and re -multiply and send out.

So anyways, so I think we're going to take it all. I think it's going to take houses of worship that may be a building.

And as far as us having trouble, it wasn't we had trouble with the air conditioning. It's simply we don't have any air conditioning.

So in the summer inside our worship center, it's about 92 degrees. So it is difficult to meet in a brick building and stay focused for long periods of time, especially for some of our older folks.

And especially when I don't get to preach an hour at a time. So it's hard sometimes, you know, but but thank goodness we didn't have to.

You know, we never missed a beat. We were able to join up with First Baptist, you know, come over and join up and or share a building.

And nobody was like mad about that. You know, we celebrated the unity of churches that worship in different buildings a few blocks away from each other.

But every chance we get, we're together. We're doing something together. So that's part of it.

You know, I think which leads me to my final thing. I really do think as far as conventions and associations and things like that,

I don't know that they'll dissolve, but I think they will become less important. I think I think they will get to the place where they exist for the support of the ministry of the church rather than the church existing for the support of the convention, which is what it's been all along.

You know, no matter what the denomination is. But I think it gets inverted or has been inverted that the churches exist so that the convention can exist.

But it should be really the opposite. The convention exists to equip the saints, to equip the churches for the work of ministry.

And so I think there's going to be an awakening of that. And it already is. I can say that among I know

I don't really look or act or talk a lot like a Southern Baptist, but we still are a part of that for the sake of revitalization and working with bringing change and reform in that.

So it's fun. But even some of the movement that's happened in North Carolina, there's a whole new shift that's coming.

And so I'm pretty excited about what's happening in our area, at least maybe not so much nationally, but at least in our local state area.

I'm pretty happy about that. Well, I think we I think we're ending on that.

Did you want to say something, Jeff? Well, I was just going to try to put some feet on that real quick. Like, you know what?

Like, what does it look like? You know, like this isn't something new to me. So I'm not, you know, inventing this right now as we speak.

But it's loving our neighbors, right? That's right. God doesn't need our works, but our neighbors do.

Sure. James, Peter, and John made it very clear to Paul that they were to perform acts of kindness.

And that's what we see taking place in the book of James. So what does it look like whenever Christians are looking to Christ?

Well, they're loving their neighbor. You know what else they're doing? They're loving their brothers, despite theological difference.

We just had a fourth man join this camera. Again, I don't know his theological background, but I'm pretty sure we got some stuff that we could debate on.

But we have to set that stuff aside and love one another. And if Christians can't love one another, we can't love our neighbor.

If I, as a Christian, can't love another brother who holds to Jesus being the

Christ, the Son of the living God, and justification by faith alone, how can I love my neighbor? And so that's just putting feet on what it looks like.

Now, as far as the church idea, I think eventually, it's probably going to be more independent churches popping up.

Because like me, I plan on planting churches. So my church wants to be a church that plants churches.

So I think more independent, no more independent Reformed Baptist churches are going to be popping up.

And, you know, whether they meet at home at first or right now, we're meeting in a women's center.

It's really nice. We don't have our own building yet, but it's a really nice facility that we have.

And it's, you know, very reasonable. But wherever we can meet, we're going to meet.

And we're going to gather as the Lord's day. We're not going to forsake the gathering of ourselves together.

We're not going to forsake this means of grace that God has given to us to grow in holiness. So whatever it looks like, whether it's under a big umbrella of a

Southern Baptist, or just name the umbrella, or it's broken down to independent churches, true

Christians are going to gather together. We're going to fellowship as the body of Christ.

We're going to love one another, and we're going to love our neighbors. That's what it looks like. Well, I think we're ending on a very high note.

I think that all of us are in agreement that God is working, and he's going to continue to work.

And we're all excited about it, to be a part of it and to see what he's going to be doing.

And then to end on an even higher note, we've discussed the law and our need of a

Savior. Jesus Christ, God sent his one and only son to this earth to rescue us. He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life.

And I got two

Jonathans. Oh, sorry about that. Jesus lived a sinless life so that he could rescue us.

We could be given his righteousness. And he died on the cross, was buried and raised from the dead.

And then he ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the father so that his righteousness could be imputed to us.

And when our sins were imputed to him on the cross, and as Brother Jeff was telling us, we need to turn from our trusting in ourselves to resting and trusting in Jesus Christ and his work, his kindness and his mercy on the cross.

And if you haven't done that, we would encourage you to come to Christ as soon as possible.

I really appreciate Pastor Jonathan being with us. Pastor Jeff, I really appreciate you being with us.

I hope to do more with you and happy in the future. Yeah, man, just let me know.

Okay. And Jon, I appreciate you joining us. Let me - Sorry, I was late. That's all right.

Let me put Jonathan back in. Thank you, Jonathan, for joining us. Jon, if you don't mind,

I'm going to let you pray to close this. All we can do in Jesus' name, we're very thankful for the things that you've done here.

God, I know that you're able to do far more than we can even understand.

I pray that you bless these men, bless their ministry. I pray that you move and you work in their midst.

For all those who have taken the time to listen, if there be any that don't know you, I pray that they put their faith in you today.

They don't wait for tomorrow. But when it's all said and when it's all done, we're going to be very careful to give you glory for you're worthy of it.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Thank you guys for watching. Remember that Jesus is

King. Go live in that victory. Go speak with the victory. I got tongue -tied.

It's late at night. Speak with the authority of Christ. Live in the authority of Christ and the victory of Christ.

Let's continue to go out there and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hope to God to see you soon.