Bow Tie Dialogue with 3 IFB Pastors

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Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me

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So heavy And I need a friendly voice with some

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Good theology Calvinist may be speaking So I mix a manly drink

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Pepsi and shoe polish And I hit the YouTube link Don't say hit, that sounds violent And I feel my troubles all melt away

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Oh, oh It's your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Barsky Beers and boat rides

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Laughs till sunrise It's your

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Calvinist Podcast with Keith Barsky He's not like most

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Calvinists He's nice Your Calvinist Podcast is filmed before a live studio audience

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And welcome everyone to another edition of Bowtie Dialogues Here at the

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Your Calvinist Podcast My name is Keith Barsky and as always I am your Calvinist And I am thankful to have the opportunity tonight to welcome

01:21

Three new friends from the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church We have

01:26

Pastor Tommy We have Pastor Joe Major That's Pastor Tommy McMurtry Pastor Joe Major and Pastor Obi These are three men who have graciously been willing to come on the show with me tonight

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And to tell me more about what and why they believe and teach the things that they do

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So I want to start out by going around and simply have each man introduce himself Tell me where you are a pastor

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How long you've been a pastor And just a little bit about yourself, your family, things like that Just introduce yourself to our audience

01:59

We'll start with you, Brother Tommy, since you were the one who helped me set everything up Yes, so first off, thanks for having me on the show

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I love that intro, that was epic I'm very impressed But yes,

02:11

I'm Tommy McMurtry I pastor the Liberty Baptist Church in Rock Falls I've been pastoring here for 12 years

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I started the church 12 years ago And I have a wife, Cassandra, and eight children

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Ranging from ages 22 to 3 I've been an independent fundamental

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Baptist my whole life Born in an independent fundamental Baptist preacher's home And so it's pretty much all

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I know And I'm excited to be here tonight Amen I don't meet too many men who beat me as far as children

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I have six, so you have eight So you're currently in the lead So that's awesome

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And praise God that God has seen fit to give you that many children That's a blessing from the Lord All right,

02:53

Pastor Joe, we'll go to you next Yes sir, thank you for having me here My name is Joe Major I'm the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Violet, Louisiana Which is right outside of New Orleans For those that don't know where Violet's at And so I've been pastoring here for about 10 years now

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And before that I was an assistant pastor for a few years At a church on the other side of New Orleans And me and my wife have been married for 15 years now

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And we have six kids All right, so we're in a tie So Pastor Joe, you said 16 years as well?

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Is how long you've been together? Or how long you've been married? 15, 15 years 15, well praise the

03:37

Lord for that Well Pastor Obi, tell us a little bit about you and your family All right, thanks for having me

03:42

I'm Pastor Obena Ofuebo You can just call me Pastor Obi I'm the pastor of Love Assembly Baptist Church At Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania I've been pastoring there since 2019

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When we became IFB But I've been a pastor longer than that A little bit after I was saved

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And even a pastor of a Pentecostal church Before I was saved So I'm married to my wife

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Chinelo And we have five kids We've been married for 15 years also Well that's wonderful brother

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And I want to dig into that a little bit Because the first question I want to ask you guys is

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Were you saved in the denomination that you're now in? Pastor Tommy sort of already answered that question

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Because he told us he was born in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist home But you're saying that you were once a

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Pentecostal preacher? So I want to hear a little bit about that And then we'll go back to you

04:35

Pastor Joe in just a minute And hear a little bit more of your story But Pastor Obi, so what convinced you to become

04:43

Independent Baptist If you were already coming from a Pentecostal background? That seems like a pretty good jump

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After I got saved, my eyes were opened I understood the Bible And the closest denomination that follows the

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Bible Is the IFB, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist So it was a no brainer

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I mean that's a simple answer Okay, well how long ago did you get saved?

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You said you were already a pastor And you got saved as a pastor? I grew up as a Pentecostal I grew up going to Pentecostal churches

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I mean when I was a little child we were Catholics Then my parents converted to Pentecostal I don't really remember the

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Catholics so much Although I remember the Catholicism and everything We did all of that Then growing up where Pentecostal is

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Both my parents were Pentecostal pastors Yeah, my mom too was a pastor My father passed away

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I took over the church 2014 I believe I was 30 years old

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And when I was 32 years old I got saved while I was a pastor of the

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Pentecostal church So I understood the gospel, I believed it And the main Bible verse was 1

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Corinthians 1 .18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness

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But unto us that are saved it is the power of God And this was when I understood that the Bible I was using the wrong

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Bible Because I thought all Bibles were the same And it's just some translations here and there

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So I believed that we're being saved And salvation was a process, was a scientific process But when

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I understood that KJV is the only right Correct translation in English The only right

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Bible in English Then I saw my error And I always knew that I mean you can't repent from your sins

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You can't turn completely from your sins We're all sinners Repent means to stop doing something

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And do something else So I always knew that But I also thought that salvation was a process

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And I always looked at my Bible I was using the New King James at the time And it says you are being saved And so when

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I saw that verse and understood the Bible was Or KJV was right I went straight to that verse And that is the verse that you know

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Turned the light switch on That I am saved already Like once you believe you are saved

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Done, full stop And that's how I believed the gospel As a pastor And it took about 3 years

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Because that was 2016 Took about 3 years until I became IFB So the church was a

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Pentecostal church I started preaching the right gospel I was kicked out of the franchise basically I was kicked out from preaching

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Then I decided to leave Because I was autonomous with the church So I decided to leave the franchise So we were non -denom for a while As I was trying to change doctrines

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And change the ways in the church People laughed, people insulted me People called me different names

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The church dwindled down to just a handful of us And we moved locations 2 times

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Because we couldn't afford the places We were shrinking basically Until we were like As I said a handful of us

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And we moved to like 800 square feet At that point I was like Why am

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I non -denom? I know what I believe And I don't want to just be non -denom

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And nobody knows what we believe So I want to represent what I believe And that was the IFB Independent Fundamental Baptist Church So that's what

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I called the church And people, everyone there followed me And they accepted that I explained why we were

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What we're going to talk about I guess And that's how we're

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IFB And that was 2019, April So it's going to be 5 years this year Okay, well that's wonderful Thank you for sharing that with us

08:36

Pastor Joe, is your situation Where you went to IFB from something else

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Or are you like Tommy Where this is your born and bred? I'm like Tommy I was born and bred

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Independent Fundamental Baptist My parents were graduates Of Hiles Anderson College So that's where my parents met

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Got married And then of course I came along later And grew up Independent Fundamental Baptist And I got saved

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At a pretty young age When I was 5 years old I understood the gospel

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Of course I heard it all the time One thing Independent Baptists Are known for Especially back in that day and time

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Was going out door knocking Soul winning And so going out with my dad Going out soul winning

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I'd hear the gospel Multiple times a week When we're out there And my dad's preaching the gospel

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To people And then of course Through Sunday school And through church And through all of that Of course by the time

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You're 5 years old You have a heavy dose Of the gospel And so I understood it

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At 5 years old That Jesus Christ was my Savior That He died for me

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That He rose again And that He was God Manifest in the flesh And at 5 years old I chose to believe

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On the Lord Jesus Christ And so I got saved At a young age And grew up Independent Fundamental Baptist And I've remained

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Independent Fundamental Baptist All right Brother Tommy You know

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Brother Joe has said And I don't know What you call me Brother, Pastor, whatever We in our church A lot of times

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We just call each other brother So I hope that's okay Just sort of Brother, Pastor Okay But Brother Tommy As you

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As he's saying the gospel He heard the gospel When he was 5 One of the things I like to do on this show Because I never know

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Who's watching And we never know If there's an unbeliever Who's going to tune in Even by accident And might hear something Can you take the next minute

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I have a video That does this But I'd rather hear From one of you guys And Tommy If you're okay doing it Would you just take a minute

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And share what the gospel is So that if somebody's listening And they've never heard it That they can hear What the gospel is And know what that means

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Yeah So the short version is Man is sinful Man is completely

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Unable to do anything To atone for their sins They are completely dependent

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On the mercy of God And even though we are sinful God loves us

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God did not want us to go to hell He sent Jesus Who paid our sins in full

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On the cross And salvation is as simple As believing the gospel And accepting a free gift

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If you add your works To the gospel It's contaminated

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God will not accept that offering He'll only accept the offering Of Jesus Christ And so the way we believe on Christ Is we recognize our sinfulness

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Our dependence on Jesus Christ And we call on Him for salvation

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And He will give it to us Every single time Because His blood can cleanse us From all sin

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And it pays in full Anything that we've ever done

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And once a person Has received that eternal gift It is just that It's eternal

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It's something And we didn't do any good works To keep it And there's no works That we can do To lose it

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And so when a person gets saved They quit trusting in themselves And they commit their souls

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Under Christ Because we know We can't trust ourselves We will mess up It's not reformation

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It's receiving a free gift Amen And how old were you,

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Tommy? When you got saved? You may have said earlier But I just don't I didn't quite remember I know Pastor Joe said five

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And Pastor Obi said it was While he was a pastor But how old were you When you received the Lord Jesus Christ As your

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Savior? Yeah, I was five years old When I got saved Okay And same thing I grew up around it

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Hearing it I remember specifically You know, hearing some things About salvation

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And getting saved And the one I remember being in King's Kids And learning different verses

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And hearing them talk about salvation And I remember asking my parents I went to bed that night And called for mom and dad

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And I'm like, hey Am I saved? Am I going to heaven? And they went through And explained everything to me

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And I remember praying right there And believing the gospel And been saved ever since You know, this leads to something

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That isn't one of the questions That I wrote down But it might be Just something worth exploring Just for a minute

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And that's the question of When a smaller child Because we're all Baptist Even though we have some differences

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Theologically None of us would baptize an infant Right? But is there an age That would be too young That you would say

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You wouldn't do a baptism And I'll let each of you Give an answer And again, nobody's This isn't a test

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You're not going to be graded I'm just curious Because I know Like in our church When a young person Especially a person raised in church

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Comes and they say I want to believe in Lord Jesus Christ Certainly I pray with them I sit down I talk with them But I don't automatically baptize them

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Usually I'll wait a little while I'll counsel them I'll make sure they do Understand the gospel And things like that And I was curious

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In your denomination How that would be Would you all immediately Baptize a child? Sort of the Ethiopian eunuch thing

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Here's water What preventeth me From being baptized? Would you do that? Or would it be something That you counsel a person through?

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Or is it dependent on the person? For me it depends The youngest any of my kids

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Six out of my eight Have made professions And I think the youngest Any of them were Was five

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Typically It's one of those things We've always waited for them

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To come to us And ask us about it When they start asking questions To me that's an important thing

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I do remember one time When Jason My second son was real little

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Tommy had just gotten saved And so he now knew He wasn't going to go to hell And I remember he told

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Jason His younger brother You need to get saved So you don't go to hell And Jason's like I don't want to go to hell And he

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But it was one of those things He clearly wasn't ready But Tommy was worried about him He was worried about His little brother

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But yeah I mean all of our kids did They all approached us

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Thankfully at young ages And then typically With the baptism too I've always wanted it

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To kind of be their choice too And so we've always Kind of explained baptism To them the same way That if they see it at church

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And even after they get saved We might tell them about it And it's one of those things

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If they don't seem like They understand it Or if they don't want to do it It's like You want it to be their choice

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And you want them to understand it And so we've just never rushed Those things with the kids

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And it's just But it's always Just organically happened I think if you're Around that all the time

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It's going to be very hard For it not to Sure Brother Joe What do you The situation with As a pastor

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And as a father Yeah I agree with Pastor McMurtry With everything

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He just said there That you know With our kids The same thing We wait for them

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To come to us And you do want to make sure That it is their decision

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You cannot save them yourself As their parent And so it's important That it be their decision

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And that they have understanding And so when Whether it's my child

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Or whether it's Somebody else's child I want to make sure That that child understands The gospel

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That they understand What they are choosing to believe And that it is a choice

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That they are making for themselves And so I think Understanding is key I wouldn't necessarily

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Put an age on it I think five is probably About as young As you're going to go

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Before a child has understanding And so it's more about Do they have the proper understanding

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And maturity To be able to make that decision For themselves Thank you brother

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And brother Pastor Obi You're Being in the IFB now For five years I You know

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With your children Were they baptized Before you went into the IFB And again Just With your situation

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It might be a little different They weren't baptized So they are all baptized The ones that are saved

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Are baptized I mean The ones that have understanding To be saved Will be baptized

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In the IFB For me As a father I want to confirm

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That my children Really believe and understand They are not just repeating So my daughter got saved

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Like my elder She got saved at six But I think She got baptized I think at nine I I kept pushing it

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But she was asking for it My son is baptized My third now Is Seven years old

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She'll be eight in April And she's been asking for it To be baptized Because I've been doing baptisms And she wants to do a baptism

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And I'm like No You know I'm just I just push it to like seven Eight or nine Although they get saved

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Early on Just I just want to be sure I don't want to do the baptism twice Because there's no rush to it

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Now As a pastor I follow the What the What the father of the child says

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I'll talk to the father Make sure the child is saved And if the father says The child is saved Then I'll baptize the child

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Now in the baptism I ask You know Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ Just as the

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Ethiopian eunuch So And if the child says yes You know I'll baptize the child

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Because the father gave the direction to do so So as a father I would wait And push it And make sure

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And keep checking my child And ask them questions As they get older And if they don't

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If they answer all the questions correctly Then I know that they are truly saved They are not just repeating after me So I keep Questioning them

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Six Seven Eight So that's how I do it All right

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In the In other denominations There are different views As to what baptism accomplishes

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And again I'm sorry I know this isn't my notes I gave you Tommy I'm just so interested to hear Because this is As a father

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This is a subject You know I really want to hear other ministers And their thoughts And what you believe the Bible teaches And obviously

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You know If you go to Lutheran church They're going to say Baptism causes regeneration I had a I had a group of Lutherans Just like you guys

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Who sat down with me And you know If you think you guys Give me a hard time They really

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They really You know At certain points Were giving me a hard time But I love them And you know I was thankful for them

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To give me some pushback But they believe in Baptismal regeneration Would I Would I be Safe to assume

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That all of you gentlemen Would not believe That baptism causes A person to be born again That you would believe

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Rather that baptism Is Is an outward expression But the What happens on the inside Happens prior to A person being

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Being baptized Is that Would that be right? Correct Yeah that would be correct Correct Yeah Yeah and that's why too

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In our church We just I just baptized A couple weeks ago Boy he was about eight

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But he had gotten saved Almost a year ago But it was one of those things too Where You know

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A lot of times younger kids They They'll make multiple professions And it was one of those deals Where his parents

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They were kind of waiting Wanting to see And I guess the subject came up And they were talking to him

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And you know And he did He just It seemed very clear to him That he had gotten saved

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You know I led him to the Lord At camp The previous year And he did

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He wanted to get baptized And so yeah I don't remember all the timelines With all my kids But I do I believe very strongly

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That once a person gets saved They should get baptized But I do think In the case of young children

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Sometimes We might As a parent Be Questioned whether or not They really got it

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I would never tell My child If they came to me And they're like I'm wanting to get saved I would never

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Like You know Refuse them Or discourage them From calling on the Lord Just yet I'd let them do it right then

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But I might want Some time to pass To just kind of see And to make sure They understand it

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If it's at a young age And so we did We had some children That it was a little while later Because we weren't sure

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And that's why too And I don't remember Which one of our kids But there was one of them Where it was

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We weren't real sure And then You know It was a while later They're bringing up Like why haven't

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I been baptized You know And so And then you know We kind of talked to them Some more And they were

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Really sure That they had gotten saved Before when they made That profession So we're like Well goodnight You know If we've

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If our child is like Saying what does it mean To be baptized And they're saying They believe with all their heart

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You know We're going to let them So Yeah So that's probably The only area I make an exception

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With a young child If you're not sure And I agree With Pastor Obi though If a parent

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Came to me And they're like You know I do think My child's saved And you know

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I would like for them To get baptized And I would do it Amen Well what are

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Some of the Core distinctives That make something Or make a church

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IFB And by that I mean If a church claims To be an IFB Or if I'm looking

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For a church And I go visit An IFB What are some Of the main things That are across the board All of the

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IFB Is going to agree on And I know And correct me If I'm wrong There's not really

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An official denomination Because it's all Independent churches But there is Expectations that If you're going

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To call yourself IFB You would believe These things So I understand There may be A few things here

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That could be different But here are the things We know for sure And you know I'll start with Pastor Major What are some

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Of the core distinctives Then we'll go around And see if anybody Wants to add anything Sure I mean I think one thing

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For sure That you're going to expect Is when you go Into an IFB church That the fundamentals

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Of the faith Are going to be correct So you're going to have Salvation by grace Through faith It's not of works

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It's belief in the Lord Jesus Christ That you're going to Manifest in the flesh

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That he died Was buried And rose again Eternal security Is one that You're going to Walk into IFB church

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And you're going to Expect that they Hold that belief That they believe In eternal security Of the believer

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Beyond that You know Those fundamentals Of faith If you walk Into an IFB church

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Some other things That you might expect To see or hear Is they're going to be King James only

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You're going to see That they probably Have some Higher standards When it comes to Music And dress

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And so forth And so those are The types of things That I think you're Going to see a lot In IFB churches

23:37

All right I want to circle back To you in a minute Pastor Joe I want to let everybody

23:42

Else answer But when And I agree 100 % Christ is God In the flesh God manifests in the flesh

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I agree with that But I do want to Come back to you And I want to talk about Some of church history And okay

23:53

How do we see Things like The doctrine Of the Trinity And the early creeds Do you guys accept

23:59

Or reject that? So I'll be back To you on that I'll give you a chance To think about it And so let's go To the other fundamentals Real quick Is there anything

24:04

That you would add To that, Pastor Obi That Pastor Major said? I would say

24:10

The Baptist distinctives I expect to see that In the IFB church

24:16

And male preachers Or male pastors Not females You'd be surprised

24:22

It's everywhere But I think Except the Baptist churches Then Baptism And Holy Communion Or the

24:29

Lord's Supper I think that's part of The Baptist distinctives So You expect to see that In a

24:34

Baptist church Yeah And Pastor Obi When you mentioned Lord's Supper That's a great point

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I know that our church Would hold to the Memorial view Which is actually Outside of what's Typically held

24:47

In Reformed Baptist circles Most Reformed Baptist circles Would hold to What's known as Spiritual presence It was the view of Calvin But our church holds

24:53

To the Zwinglian view Which is sometimes Called memorialism Or seeing the bread and cup

24:58

As memorial Is that the position That's held by you guys As far as what the bread

25:04

And the cup are? That it's not literally The body and blood of Christ Or even spiritually But rather it's the

25:09

Of course We just do it In remembrance of What Jesus did Yes Okay How often do you participate

25:15

Pastor Obi In that? In our church We do it once a year Now The Bible says

25:21

Or Jesus said You can do it As often as you do it So There's no There's no command

25:28

That you should do it At particular times Okay A big number Of times a year That's very helpful

25:35

Pastor Tommy Pastor Joe Do y 'all also do it annually? Or is it More or less

25:41

In your churches? Yeah We for sure do it Every We always do it Every Wednesday Before Easter For sure

25:48

And occasionally We might do it At a different time You know Just depending

25:54

We One time we did it Around Christmas And There's been times

26:00

Too Early on In our church Too When I was going to be Teaching on it

26:05

And we Observed it You know Too During that time So If I feel like A situation calls for it

26:11

Feel led to do it We'll do it More than that But for sure we do it At least You know At least once a year

26:18

Most times It's just the Wednesday Before Easter OK Pastor Major How often do you guys do it?

26:24

Yeah So there's There's no set number That That we have to do it Every single year

26:29

And so I try to do it More than Than once a year Sometimes I'm Pretty bad at I just forget

26:37

To schedule it Sometimes But we're going to be Doing it here Soon as well With Easter coming up And so And every church

26:44

Every IFE church I was ever in Growing up They probably did it In most of the churches

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I grew up in Did it about Four times a year And And what does a person

26:56

Have to do To be able to participate In the Lord's Supper At your church Pastor Major Is it

27:02

Do they have to be a member Or is it Open to Whomever Claims the name of the

27:07

Lord Or would you say That like a person Who Is not a Baptist Can't take it I'm just curious

27:12

What your view is So in our church You know The Bible says To let a man

27:18

Examine himself And so I don't Examine other people And their

27:23

Salvation If they claim To believe In the Lord Jesus Christ Whether they're a member

27:28

Of our church Or not If they claim To believe them At our church We allow them

27:33

To partake In the Lord's Supper Is that the same For you Pastor Obi Yes it is

27:40

Okay Pastor Tommy Yeah our church We practice Closed communion But That's just What we do

27:47

A lot of IFB Are very divisive Over that And they'll break Fellowship with you

27:52

If you Practice open communion And Honestly It's just It's the way

27:58

It's always been done In my dad's church It was always Closed communion But he didn't make

28:04

A big deal about it And It's never been A point of fellowship For us At all

28:10

And Honestly I Can't prove You know

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We're right And they're wrong On that From the Bible And so Well I didn't give you

28:21

The chance Pastor Tommy To add anything As far as The fundamentals I've got here And I'm writing down As you guys

28:27

Were talking Just so that I can keep up You know I see Pastor Joey He mentioned You know

28:32

Grace By grace And faith Not of works Jesus Jesus God manifests In flesh Eternal security King James only

28:37

Music and dress Very particular About that Baptist distinctives Is what Pastor Obey said

28:43

With male preachers Which I agree A hundred percent On that one I've been excoriated Some online

28:48

By taking a strong Stand on that But I certainly agree That that's biblical And then of course

28:54

The Lord's Supper Would there be anything else Pastor Tommy That you would say You would add Yeah I mean I think

28:59

They did a good job Of kind of giving The doctrine But I think too

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Part of being IFB And we don't always Put these things In their proper category

29:11

But there is a culture too And we do We're old fashioned As far

29:17

You know We sing If I go to an IFB church If it says IFB In the phone book Or on their website

29:22

I expect to hear hymns I don't expect to hear Contemporary songs You know And I do expect

29:28

Kind of an old fashioned feel To be a part As far as Yeah The dress You know

29:35

And The church atmosphere And it is And I I think those things

29:41

Are important I really do And I want those In our church I want to identify With those things

29:47

But I think we need To keep them In their proper place As They're not necessarily Doctrine But it is a

29:53

Culture thing That Is important And it Shows a direction

29:59

That we're going And I don't I want to be open About who we are

30:06

Sure Sure And I think that's good I mean Even if we were to Disagree on some things I think it's One I think it's your right

30:12

To believe and practice As you're convicted And also I think that We should be able to say

30:17

This is what an IFB is And we're not trying to Change the definition Right This is what You know I think that's a good thing

30:25

So One of the things You guys didn't mention But when I was talking To Joshua Barzahn When I had him on To talk about The history of fundamentalism

30:31

He mentioned Dispensational theology Specifically with End times Pre -tribulation rapture

30:36

Those things Are pretty common In the IFB church Is that correct? And again I'm not saying

30:42

He's right or wrong I'm just saying That was something He mentioned Would all of you Gentlemen Hold to a Relatively dispensational view

30:49

And as far as The pre -trib rapture And that stuff Well that's where We're unique And That was one of the questions

30:59

That you had On your thing About like Where we might be different And so While I get along Very good with Dispensational pre -trib brethren

31:08

While I fellowship with them I'm very non -dispensational

31:14

We're post -trib And so I thought Well let's I better have guys Who would align with me on that And yeah

31:22

And so all of us here You know Well I don't want to speak For these guys

31:27

But yes We are non -dispensational And the thing is I still think we're

31:33

IFB Because in a lot of your IFB churches While they are pretty much all pre -trib

31:39

Those have never been fundamentals And that is a newer phenomenon A lot of famous IFB people

31:45

From the past They did not hold to those things I personally think I think there was diversity

31:52

In this area Until the 70s Is when it really got cemented

31:57

In people's minds And as much as I love the IFB And I'm thankful for So much from them

32:04

I think they are an error In these areas And so Yeah I reject dispensationalism

32:13

Okay I agree Yeah I agree with that too

32:20

I think that's how we found each other too Because when you are non -dispensational And non -pre -trib

32:27

You're not treated the best In the IFB world But they can't get rid of us

32:32

Because you know what The IFB is just right on too much stuff And I'm too thankful for So much

32:40

I've got from them But I don't feel obligated To embrace something If I think it's an error

32:46

We were also told That our King James Bible Is our final authority You know They would hold up their

32:51

Bible And say you show me in here Where I'm wrong And I'll change Well Nobody told me that You just say that You know

32:57

And so when I saw Where I was wrong I changed And But It'll get you in trouble

33:05

But I I still think I qualify As IFB Yeah Well that's how we came together

33:13

Isn't it Brother Tommy You reached out to me Because of my My eschatological view

33:18

Isn't that what I came on And talked on your show Yes So Yeah Because I I watched your Debate with Spencer Smith And while I While I still consider myself

33:28

Well I'm still a pre -millennialist I was agreeing with a lot more Of what you were saying

33:33

In that debate Than what Spencer Smith was saying You know Spencer Smith Is heavily Pre -driven

33:38

Dispensational And I think he's You know Bless his heart Completely out to lunch On that And so I'm not

33:46

I You know I was not Real familiar With the Amillennial view Postmillennial view

33:51

And I thought it would And And When it comes to Prophecy I think

33:57

We have to allow For some disagreement And I think we need to Allow ourselves

34:03

To be challenged That's not Very IFB I'll admit that But That is me

34:08

And so I I was fine When it comes to These subjects I'm fine with Talking to other people

34:15

And hearing what they Had to say And Giving it An honest And fair hearing For sure

34:22

I've been very grateful You know I've had a good experience With Spencer We did that debate

34:27

He and I You know We text each other Back and forth We've We've kind of Become friends Out of all this

34:32

Even though it might Have looked like We were going after Each other Like a couple of wrestlers But we were just Just having a good time

34:37

And trying to Trying to Challenge each other And so I'm grateful for that Spencer didn't like me

34:44

Very much When I went When I left Pre -trip And left Dispensationism behind He didn't He didn't treat me as good

34:50

As he treats you Well maybe because I weren't ever there Maybe that's why

34:55

Maybe he's Maybe he just thinks I'm a heretic But I'm a funny one I don't know He might He might just think

35:01

I'm a funny heretic And I can I can live with that I mean I can't live with it

35:06

In real life But I mean I can live with him Thinking that But with that I want to go back To Pastor Joe Because we talked

35:13

You mentioned God manifests in the flesh Obviously that's a That's a term taken You know

35:18

Out of the Bible You know Obviously It's an important phrase But would that mean

35:24

If you say You affirm God manifests In the flesh Would that mean That you affirm What would What would typically Be referred to As the historical

35:30

Doctrine of the Trinity And or is that Something that is Nuanced In IFB circles

35:38

Yes So correct I affirm The doctrine of the Trinity And in I think

35:44

Pretty much Every IFB church That I know of That I've ever been in They would also affirm

35:50

The doctrine of the Trinity And so So yes That is a doctrine That we do hold to I had

35:57

Thomas Ross On my show About a year ago Actually it was almost Exactly a year ago Because he debated

36:02

James White And he debated On the King James King James Onlyism Do you guys know

36:08

Who Thomas Ross is? I don't know He's an IFB pastor

36:13

He's out in California Nice guy He was very Very kind to me When he came on the show And But we were talking

36:19

About Athanasius I just mentioned Athanasius And he said that He would have

36:26

A much different View of church history Than I would Not seeing Athanasius As part of The true church

36:32

And so And again I'm not trying to put Words in his mouth You can go back And watch my video And see if I'm being fair to him

36:37

I'm not trying to be unfair But I know that there is A different historical view Among Some IFB In regard to Things like What might be known as The Trail of Blood Or the

36:49

You know To say that Baptists Were not really Protestants Baptists have always been there Is that something

36:54

You gentlemen would hold to? And I'm not I'm not trying to You don't have to give me A full explanation of it I'm just curious Is that how you see it

37:00

Or do you see The Baptists As part of the Protestant movement That came out of The 16th century? Well I'll say for myself

37:08

I am Far from Uh An expert on Baptist history Now what

37:13

I What I have been told I've read Trail of Blood Uh I hear people Question its authenticity

37:19

And all that And all the problems It has with it Um But what I have been taught In IFB And what

37:25

I Hold to and believe And I've not seen Any evidence Saying to the contrary Is that Baptists are not

37:30

Protestants We did not come out Of the Catholic Church And Um I I would tend to agree with that You know

37:38

I I don't consider Us Related to them Connected to them

37:43

I think there's Been a true church Um And I don't think They've always been Called Baptists You know

37:48

I know There's been Many different names They've been called by But Uh I also believe

37:54

There's been a counterfeit church And Um I believe it's The Catholic Church And From But again

38:02

I I will admit I've not studied The History on that And Um I Definitely Don't think

38:12

There's any resemblance To Us And Uh In the

38:17

Catholic Church And And even Even many of your Protestants There are There's some Pretty Uh Pretty major differences

38:24

You know And I think Just the Autonomy Of the local church Being one of the Baptist Distinctives Just shows

38:31

Uh That You know For as long as that's been a thing It shows we've been Completely disconnected

38:37

From Something like a Catholic Universal church All right

38:43

Pastor Or either one Yeah Pastor Joe Okay So I Agree With What Pastor McMurtry Said There And Uh I Don't Claim Either To be

38:52

Uh An Expert On Baptist History Or Church History or those types of things.

38:58

However, you know, what I believe and what I taught is, what I've been taught, is that it's not necessarily that you could trace your lineage back, you know, to this

39:09

Baptist, to this Baptist, this Baptist, all the way back until you get back to whatever church back then.

39:14

But rather that throughout the ages, you can see groups of people that held similar beliefs to what we believe today when it comes to the fundamentals of the faith, talking about salvation by grace through faith, you know, similar beliefs on baptism, and those types of things that would be the core fundamentals of the faith.

39:35

And I would say that my lineage traces more to those people than it does to, you know, the

39:41

Catholics. I believe Catholicism has always been wrong when it comes to the gospel.

39:48

Okay. Pastor Obi? Yeah, I agree with both of them, Pastor Tommy and Pastor Joe, because can something clean come out from something unclean?

39:59

So there's no way we, or Baptists, comes out of the Catholic church as Protestants because a clean thing cannot come out of an unclean thing.

40:09

So the Catholic church has always been wrong, but there have been a set of people that have been called different names.

40:14

Yes, we call ourselves IFB, but the name was given to us, just like John, it was called

40:20

John the Baptist because it was baptized, you know, Anabaptist, different names were given. Christians were called

40:26

Christians. So Baptists were called Baptists. It's not a name that, you know, we made up, like the

40:31

Roman Catholic church or Protestants or Calvinists or, you know, so we're given that name.

40:37

And now we identify that way, just as Christians identify as Christians. So it's not necessarily, as Pastor Joe Major said, finding your lineage all the way, but knowing that the truth has always persisted through the generations.

40:52

I know that because the Bible says so. There's always a remnant and the word of God is always true. There's no time that there was not a true church on this earth.

41:00

Yeah, and if I can add to that too, I went to a conference a year or two ago and I didn't know this was going to happen when

41:08

I was there, but basically a guy got up and he like gave us a, our lineage going all the way back to John the

41:14

Baptist. I think it was a, he was a full blown Baptist writer. And frankly, I was bored out of my mind. It didn't make sense.

41:20

It sounded really weird. And here, you know, this is what I am assured of.

41:26

The King James Bible and the people, when it comes to Baptist history,

41:31

I will admit that I I'm repeating what I've heard. I've not studied it out.

41:39

I don't know if the sources I've looked into can be trusted, but here's what, here's what

41:44

I can do. I can judge what people are saying by this book. And when I listening, listen to the people saying that we are connected to the

41:52

Catholic church, we are Protestant. And I look at their doctrine. It's not lining up with what I'm seeing in here. The people

41:58

I hear yelling, we're not Protestant. We're not the Catholic church. I'm listening to what they're saying. And it lines up with what

42:04

I'm seeing in my Bible. And so, you know, I've, I guess I've just not seen really any profit in a lot of that stuff.

42:13

I I'm, I'm glad people are out there trying to figure it out. Once they all can come to, once I, once a good group of doctrinally sound people can come to some kind of agreement, then they can come let me know my history.

42:27

Yeah. And to clarify too, Pastor McMurtry mentioned Baptist Briders. I don't think any of us here sitting here are

42:35

Baptist Briders. In fact, the church, one of the churches I grew up in, in high school and where I graduated from college from,

42:42

I would say it was Baptist Brider light on some things. And I have strong disagreements with the

42:48

Baptist Briders. Can you define that for us, Pastor Joe, what a Baptist Brider is?

42:54

Cause there's, I'm not even sure I'm certain. Typically you'll, you know, they, a lot of times they might have a name like landmark

43:01

Baptist and not always, but sometimes that's a name that you'll see with them and Baptist Briders like Pastor McMurtry mentioned, they might try to hold up this pedigree of, you know,

43:14

I was led to the Lord by so -and -so who was led to the Lord by so -and -so and try to go all the way back to John the

43:20

Baptist. And if you don't fall into that lineage, then you're not Baptist Brider, ergo, you're not in the

43:26

Bride of Christ. And I have strong disagreements with that. I believe everyone who is saved from the beginning of time to the end of time is in the

43:35

Bride of Christ. Yeah. And I believe strongly in church authority too, and that churches start churches.

43:41

However, I also believe that people be at people, and I might not know who my, my lineage all the way back to Adam, but I know

43:49

I go back to Adam because I am a human being. And when it comes to Pastor Obi, he reached out to me,

43:58

I forgot how many years ago it was, because he came out of a Pentecostal background and he wanted to get established right and be ordained.

44:05

And so I worked with him for a while and I eventually laid hands on him and our church, you know, sponsored his church.

44:12

And I believe in doing that kind of thing. And one of the reasons for that is when it comes to churches that have been self -started, when it comes to self -ordained pastors, it seems like they all turn into freak shows.

44:28

They don't make it. They get weird on doctrine. And again,

44:33

I don't, I'm not the ordination police or anything like that, but typically if you don't start right, you're not going to end right.

44:44

And I do think it's important that you come out of a legitimate church, but I don't think you have to know your history.

44:50

And in the Baptist Brider world, they make a really big deal of that.

44:56

And I just, I think that's ridiculous. Yeah. So do y 'all see any value in the,

45:03

I mentioned earlier about the, and all of this is sort of built on that question of the Trinity, just because of my conversation with Thomas Ross and what

45:10

I asked him and he said, well, I don't see Athanasius as part of the true church. And okay, well, what does that mean? Do you see any value in those early church councils and the things that they were seeking to do to try to give definitions to doctrinal things, such as the doctrine of the

45:26

Trinity, where like in Nicaea, they, you know, the term homoousios, which means same substance to say

45:34

Christ is of the same substance of the father, terms like that are important historically and have been used to define doctrines like the

45:41

Trinity. Is that something that you would say is useful, just not authoritative, or is it not useful?

45:49

We just use the Bible only. And I'm not saying we shouldn't, I'm solo scriptura, you know, the

45:54

Bible alone is our sole infallible rule, but does that mean that these, the men who've gone before us, we don't give any value to that.

46:04

Yeah. That's a tricky subject because again, when you look at history, everybody kind of has their own version of history.

46:13

I judge past, if we judge past history in light of current history, that says a lot because you don't want a hundred years from now, history is not going to remember the people who have directly been involved in my life, been influential, who have displayed the power of God and the work of the

46:30

Holy Spirit, but they will, they are going to remember names like Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland and Rick Warren and, you know, people that I would say are for sure heretics, right?

46:39

So the thing is though, I will say when it comes to some of those people from the past, I don't believe everything they said was garbage.

46:45

You know, one thing, you know, I hate to admit this, but you know,

46:50

I have learned things from Calvinists, you know, as much as I disagree with Calvinism, I think they do a really good job sometimes of articulating certain things where, you know, in the

47:05

IFB world, it's like, you know, maybe we're kind of, we're kind of confusing in a lot of our terminology.

47:11

And I have, I've heard Calvinists explain certain things where we would be in agreement. It's like, that's really good.

47:17

You know, I love what you said on the interview with me, how we need to interpret the Bible, not just literally, but literarily.

47:24

That's a great statement. I've been stealing that. And, you know, and I even admit, I got it from a Calvinist. I stole it too.

47:32

So nothing new under the sun as Solomon said. So yeah, in my opinion, like one thing history will look back on too, and I hope it's with embarrassment,

47:41

John Hagee and his stupid blood moons thing that he taught. Well, what a lot of people don't know about John Hagee and his stupid blood moons thing that he taught that a lot of Baptists repeated, by the way, he stole that from another guy.

47:51

And I still don't remember the name of that guy, but he was the big name and he popularized it. So in my opinion, and I have no proof of this, but if I hear that a bunch of Catholics got together, you know, in the fourth century and came up with a lot of doctrinally sound things,

48:06

I think they stole it from real Christians. You know, I think they got, I think, and they just popularized it because they were in power.

48:14

They were the ones who, you know, had the authority and the power in places, but yeah, they probably got it from one of the good guys, but I, you know,

48:24

I can't prove that one way or the other. So, but, so if I hear they said something good, I don't need to disprove it.

48:30

You know, the Athanasian creed, you know, when it comes to the Trinity, I think that's a fantastic explanation of the Trinity, you know, but, you know, he might've said other stuff that was garbage.

48:39

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I'd agree. I think you could, you could find some value in those things, but I would not lean on them as authority, you know, just like, you know, a lot of commentaries today, they're highly dispensational and I have a lot of strong disagreements with those things, but does that mean that everything in those commentaries is wrong?

49:00

Well, no, I think you could find some things of value within them, but at the same time, you know, as I was taught growing up is you eat the meat and you spit out the bones.

49:11

Yeah. I use that phrase a lot. I use it.

49:21

Now I will say sometimes where we find ourselves in history, it's the, the big names, the famous people speaking against those people out there who hold the whatever.

49:34

And a lot of times I'm like, who are those people? Cause that's, that sounds like what I believe. You know, I've got a sort of the

49:41

Lord article from 1961 where they're attacking those who teach a post -tribulation rapture, who teach that the tribulation and rapture are different.

49:52

And I'm reading that. And I'm like, cause people always tell me all the time, post -tribs knew it started with Marvin Rosenthal.

49:58

Well, this was before Marvin Rosenthal. And I'm reading that. And so I'm like, who are these guys are talking about? You know?

50:03

And I found their names and I'd never heard of them before, but so a lot of times that's where we find ourselves with the big names, you know, calling out those people out there, you know,

50:15

Spurgeon, a lot of times I hear Spurgeon talking about those people out there teaching whatever on repentance or whatever.

50:20

And it's like, yeah, those, those were my people over there, you know? And, and everybody wants to align themselves with the big names, but it's like, do you want to align yourself with the big names today?

50:34

Because it's typically not been the big names, uh, you know, in, at least in my lifetime that have been displaying the power of God and preaching the word of God.

50:43

Like we can see it in here. It's typically the, the nobodies. Sure.

50:49

Sure. Pastor Obed, I don't want to leave you out. If there's anything you want to add to the Athanasius question there, or we can move on to, uh, to the next one.

50:56

I, I just want to say that when it comes to using terminologies and turning doctrines into one word,

51:03

I'm very cautious with that because the apostles, when they're explaining doctrines, they didn't use all this superfluous words or single words to this, to explain things.

51:14

The preacher should use acceptable words and the words that are written, those are the acceptable words. So I just want to use simplified words.

51:20

These three are one. Yes. There's nothing wrong with using Trinity as long as people understand it and understand it in context.

51:27

There's nothing wrong with using rapture as long as you explain it and understand it. And when you get to sovereign, a sovereign

51:33

God, like what does that mean? That means many things to different people. So, uh, there are many

51:38

Greek words or made up words. You mean, you mean, you mean there's people who disagree about God's sovereignty.

51:46

There's, there's people disagreeing. What does that mean? Yeah. No. Sovereign could mean a puppet master or sovereign could mean he's just like a

51:54

King ruling. So what does it mean? It's not in the Bible. It's not an acceptable word.

51:59

So you have to define it. Um, that's what I'm trying to say. So I'm very cautious with one word descriptions for doctrine.

52:08

I just like it to be explained or use the Bible words, words that can be found in the

52:13

Bible. Yeah. I'm not against extra biblical words necessarily, but to me, if you are not capable of articulating your position with, um, with Bible words, then there, there could be something wrong with it.

52:29

And I feel like if I can make up a word, I can also make up a definition for that word.

52:35

And to me, uh, that's where people slip in a lot of, a lot of heresy is they, um, you know, they, you, they, they use that word and then they'll just, you know, so, you know, for example, to the doctrines of grace, right.

52:51

Um, the Calvinism teach, you know, that, that sounds really good, but it's just like, to me, when it comes to what those things explain, the words that are being used, you know, these are words that you don't find in the page of our

53:06

King James Bible. It doesn't mean that alone doesn't mean the concept isn't true, but it's just like define what you're explaining there directly from the scripture.

53:16

And I think you ought to be able to do that. And so I don't have a problem with the word Trinity, but I also think we ought to be able to explain what we believe using

53:23

Bible words. And so, and I think we can use the word Godhead and many people who do that will explain the same thing you would probably when discussing the

53:31

Trinity. And so I think when it comes to the Trinity, you can explain that concept with Bible words and the, and therefore

53:39

I don't have a problem with it, but with some of these other words, I, I, I do.

53:46

I think you're, I think people are dependent on those extra words. All right.

53:53

So the word heresy was thrown out just a few, I don't remember who said it, said it was to, but that's, that obviously has a historical context too, right?

54:02

That the word heresy and, and, and even recently have been kind of, you know, wrestling with the idea of what, how do we define the difference between someone who preaches a heresy versus someone who is a heretic, right?

54:13

Someone who, like, I think we would all agree that Joel Osteen is a heretic, right? Like, like I, you know, at least I think we would agree or somebody like who is

54:23

Kenneth Copeland, right? We believe he's preaching a false gospel. We believe that the gospel that he is preaching is a damnable heresy that would lead people to hell, right?

54:31

Okay. I, I, I would agree with that. But where is the line and where, what, you know, in, in, in, in, in my teaching,

54:39

I, I, I, I, usually on the board, I'll draw three circles. I'll say that this middle circle represents what

54:47

Christians have to believe. The second circle represents what different denominations may disagree about.

54:54

And then the third, the third circle is things that even Christians in the same denomination could disagree about.

54:59

So for instance, we might put the Trinity in the middle circle. We might put baptism in the second circle because we can disagree on what baptism is and what it does, as long as we don't believe it saves.

55:09

And then maybe on the third one, we might put the pre -tribulation rapture, because even, even within our churches, you know, we've had people in our church that believe in the pre -tribulation rapture and the people who don't.

55:18

And we would say anything in that center circle is, if you're outside of that, you're outside of Christianity.

55:24

I mean, that's where the Mormons are, right? That's where the Jehovah Witnesses are. That's where many in the mainline church are. So I would say the

55:30

Roman Catholics are there, right? As far as the, as the system. So what is for you, what are the, like, like, and you won't hurt my feelings.

55:42

Would you define me as a heretic or would you simply say you believe that I teach things that are heresies? And would you make a distinction?

55:48

And you're not going to hurt my feelings. I saw, I don't want you to feel like, oh, he's on, I'm on his show. So I don't want to say anything. You're not going to hurt my feelings.

55:55

My wife watches this. She knows what I'm going to get. So it's like, I think

56:00

Pastor Joe has been sitting on this one. So I'll let him go first. Yeah. Sure. So when it comes to the word heresy, loosely,

56:08

I guess that word being used can pretty much mean anything that is, that is a false doctrine.

56:14

That's wrong teaching. Now myself, when I use that word, I try to only reserve the word heresy or heretic for like damnable heresy, something that is, uh, changes the way of salvation.

56:30

And so I don't call somebody a heretic unless they're teaching a false gospel. They're teaching work salvation.

56:37

They're teaching something of that, uh, like that. And so I try not to use the word heresy or heretic unless I'm talking about something of a false gospel nature, because I want people to understand that there is a difference between something like you mentioned, like pre -trib and, you know, dispensationalism, those types of things that might be false and might be wrong, but those are not things that are going to damn somebody to hell.

57:04

And so I put a difference, uh, between those things. And even when it comes to Calvinism and I've been known not to be too nice to Calvinists, uh, in the past, but even when it comes to Calvinism, I would not necessarily say that a

57:19

Calvinist, just because you're a Calvinist that you're doomed and damned to hell. I want to look more closely at what does the man believe about salvation and some other doctrines before I would say a man is a heretic.

57:34

Yeah. And when it, yeah, when it comes to Calvinism too, the way I explain it again, don't take it personal.

57:39

I've never heard you give a gospel presentation or anything like that. So I'm speaking in general very much, but, um,

57:45

I do, I try to reserve the term heresy for things that I think tamper with salvation and could lead people to a false gospel.

57:53

And so, um, I consider Calvinism heresy. Uh, I do believe it confuses people in the gospel greatly.

58:01

Now here, I have said this before, and I'll say it again. I don't believe all people that are Calvinists are unsavory.

58:07

Um, I think there are people who pervert Calvinism into truth.

58:13

I think that, you know, but based on my understanding of Calvinism, um,

58:19

I do think it, um, I think it messes with the gospel to the point that it is more than likely going to lead people away from, uh, salvation.

58:32

I think also, um, it, it's going to, I don't,

58:37

I don't understand based on my understanding of Calvinism, how you can even have a true assurance of salvation and how you can know you have eternal life because of the teaching of perseverance of the saints.

58:48

To me, um, people are going to be looking more at their personal repentance that they did, whether they repented enough.

58:55

Uh, you know, how do I know I'm going to endure to the end? You know, I mean, if you're saved, you will, but what if I don't?

59:02

And in our flesh, you know, when you personally get saved, your flesh does not get saved. I think a saved person is capable of horrible things.

59:09

And even in like, so for example, uh, the, um, I don't know if you hold it, the Westminster, um, do you hold to it?

59:17

Do you agree with like, would you consider yourself like a Westminster confession guy? I, there's a lot in the

59:23

Westminster I would agree with, but we, our church holds to the 1646, the first London Baptist confession.

59:29

It was the first, it was the first Baptist confession written. So if you want to talk about the original

59:35

Baptists, that was that. Yeah. And so that's a confession. It's been a long time since I read what it said about Calvinism, but there's one

59:43

Calvinist I like to fight with all the time. And he, he acts like Westminster confession is the Bible. And I've read what it says.

59:50

Yeah. And I think it's vague enough that a person could potentially hold to it and yet still teach the true gospel.

01:00:04

But I also think too, it's vague enough where a person going to like hyper -Calvinism and, you know, still consider themselves a

01:00:12

Westminster confession guy. So, uh, I do, I, I call it heresy. I can't pretend that I don't, somebody will find a clip of me and then

01:00:20

I'll look like a liar and a coward. And I, I, I'm, I'm thankful for your honesty.

01:00:26

I, and I'm going to go somewhere else with this in a minute, uh, because you know, I, I do want to, but I want to let pastor

01:00:32

Obi opine, you know, what, what are, how do you, when you're teaching in your church, do you use the word heresy?

01:00:39

Do you point to people and say they're heretics? Would you say I'm a heretic? And again, I'm not asking you to be my friend or be my enemy. I'm just saying how, you know, if I weren't here and it was just the three of you,

01:00:46

I believe it's possible for a Christian that always saved person, a believer to become a cop or not become, but to join a

01:00:55

Calvinist church and still be a believer because he's not strong in understanding the Bible and things like that.

01:01:00

Uh, he hasn't grown, uh, and he'll still be a believer. Obviously you can't lose your salvation, but for a Calvinist, for someone that hasn't heard the gospel before comes to join the

01:01:11

Calvinist church is not saved with my understanding of Calvinism, uh, that person cannot be saved because he doesn't understand the gospel.

01:01:19

He doesn't understand the love of God, of Jesus, of Jesus died for all, you know, and, uh, perseverance of the saints.

01:01:27

As when pastor Tommy McMurtry told me about this podcast, I listened to your sermon on Ephesians two, eight and eight, nine, and 10.

01:01:36

I don't know how recent it is. I didn't check, but you at the end there, you said, uh, you have to repent of your sins.

01:01:44

It goes with faith. So believing, you know, having faith is repenting of your sin. So literally that means turning your back on sin.

01:01:52

That means you stop sinning. And that goes with faith. So it's impossible to stop sinning. And so if you're teaching that, then

01:01:59

I'll say your heretic. I call, I will call anybody preaching a wrong doctrine heresy.

01:02:06

Now there's damnable heresy where you're preaching a doctrine that will lead people to hell. Then I'll say that's damnable heresy.

01:02:13

And the person that claims to be a teacher and is teaching it, teaching heresy, that person is a heretic.

01:02:20

So that's how I use those terms. Okay. So would you say then, and this is an important point and maybe a point of distinction between us.

01:02:29

So you do not preach repentance? I preach repentance.

01:02:35

What does repentance mean? It's turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, not turning from your sin. So what do you believe to save you?

01:02:43

So is, is, is, is unbelief, is, Pastor Obi, is unbelief a sin? It's unbelief a sin.

01:02:52

Unbelief. Okay. God commands that you obey the gospel. So what is the gospel? The gospel is to put your faith on Jesus Christ, the record that God gave of his son.

01:03:00

So if you don't do that, that is a sin. So if you do that, then you've turned from what you were believing on to save you.

01:03:09

And now to Jesus Christ completely, putting all your trust in him. So that question is unbelief a sin.

01:03:15

I mean, God commands you to obey the gospel and that means to believe on the gospel. So. Okay. So this is, this is where I think,

01:03:22

I think there would be an important distinction and we, we don't have to get into it today, but if someone were to say to me, what do you mean when you say repent?

01:03:28

I say, turn from unbelief to belief. That's the first act of repentance. Sorry, sorry for cutting you off.

01:03:34

Repent literally means to turn. So you're adding to turn from your sins. The Bible never says that.

01:03:40

It doesn't say repent of your sins. The word repent comes from metanoia, which means to change your mind.

01:03:47

Literally change your mind to, to turn from unbelief to belief is changing your mind. Hmm. Well, if that's what you mean.

01:03:56

Yeah. Yeah. If that's what you mean, that's okay. Yeah. If that's what, and that's one of the things

01:04:04

I tell people all the time is you have to ask people to define what they mean when they say repent of sins, because some people do, they just mean you need to repent of your unbelief.

01:04:13

Okay. I won't put it that way because for many people, repent of sins mean you gotta be willing to give up your drinking.

01:04:19

You gotta be willing to give up all your sin. And you gotta just fully commit to trusting

01:04:24

Christ like a Lordship salvation, like John MacArthur teaches. Um, I, I don't believe in Lordship salvation at all.

01:04:32

And so, um, I think that term repent of sins sends a wrong message to a lot of people.

01:04:40

I don't believe everyone who says that is a heretic, but I think if you teach people, you have to give up your sins in order to be saved.

01:04:48

It's just like, well, who does that? You know, that seems that's, that's not even possible now.

01:04:54

And so, but if you mean give up your unbelief and trust in Christ, okay. You know,

01:05:00

I I'm with you there. Cause nobody just gets saved. I think, and maybe, maybe this is a misrepresentation of Calvinism, but you know, you believe that God just regenerates you and then a person repents.

01:05:16

No, I believe you have to repent, you know, of your unbelief and then God regenerates you.

01:05:22

And so, um, we do preach repentance, but in our church, we will not say repent of your sins to be saved because that does cause, uh, cause a lot of people to think

01:05:35

I gotta like change my life. And, you know, nobody can, nobody can do that.

01:05:42

That we would have to repent of all sins. You know, we'd have to repent of all transgressions of the law.

01:05:49

Well, I thought I got saved because I figured out I can't do that. You know, I can't be good enough.

01:05:54

I'm dependent on the mercies of Jesus Christ. And then I think he saves us completely free. And I, I personally think that that is more effective in causing a believer to turn their life around because it's the goodness of God that lead it through to repentance.

01:06:11

And so sometimes in the Bible, repentance is in reference to repenting of sins. It for sure is many times in the

01:06:18

Bible, but not for salvation. You know, that, that to me, that's a reformation and particular sins, not just sins, you know, particular sins in that context.

01:06:30

And I think, uh, go ahead, brother. Well, I mean,

01:06:35

I, I, again, I, this could lead us into another hour and I, and I don't want it. I do want to thank pastor

01:06:40

Obi for listening to my sermon. I think that was very gracious of you to do that. And at least you were able to know a little bit about me before you came on the show.

01:06:48

And, and, and, and I'm, I'm grateful. At least I got one more hit on the YouTube video. So thank you. But also, you know, if a man were to come to your church and let's say he were living with another man in a homosexual relationship, would you not call him to repentance?

01:07:03

Would you not say that that's a sin that is damnable? And would you not say that this is something that you need to change?

01:07:10

If I find out that he's living another man, I'll send him out of the church first as the first thing I'll do.

01:07:15

Then if he's willing to, in fact, if he's living another man, but what if he says, I believe in Jesus, how can you do that?

01:07:22

I believe in Jesus. You can't believe in Jesus and believe in another man. When you say living another man, I'm sure you're just trying to keep it mild, right?

01:07:29

But if you're just living with another man and you're in a relationship with the man, then

01:07:35

I'll kick you out of the church. I don't believe that somebody in that lifestyle, you know, loves the

01:07:41

Lord, because the Bible clearly says it in Romans chapter one, that that is a result of someone that hates the

01:07:47

Lord and has been given up by the Lord. So he's now indulging in his sinfulness and uncleanness and the loss of his flesh.

01:07:55

So it's a result of someone that hates the Lord and is a reprobate. So he has been rejected of the

01:08:01

Lord. So he's beyond hope of salvation. It's even defined in a dictionary what a reprobate is.

01:08:08

Okay. That's fair enough. I just wanted to hear, just to make sure. Okay. Pastor, Joe, you were going to say something. Yeah.

01:08:15

That's another unique thing about us too, when it comes to the homosexual issue.

01:08:21

You know, if somebody is a full -blown homo, you know, we believe they've been given over a reprobate mind.

01:08:27

I don't believe everyone who identifies as LGBT is a reprobate or anything like that. But if somebody comes into your church, in your church, you would probably do this too, if they came in and said, you know,

01:08:37

I'm a pedophile. You're probably going to tell them, well, you know, you can't be here with the kids. You know, if somebody's like, you know,

01:08:42

I'm an axe murderer, you know, we would do the same thing, you know, with somebody who's involved in something like that.

01:08:52

There are times where we would not necessarily accept a person's profession of faith, or we would practice church discipline.

01:09:00

We do practice the Matthew 18 model of church discipline. If a person's in the church and we find out, let's say we find out they're an axe murderer, you know, or something, that's when that Matthew 18,

01:09:10

I mean, we discipline, we practice excommunication or whatever you want to call it, kicking them out, removing them from the body for the protection of the church and for the sanctification of the person, because they're, you know, the

01:09:22

Bible says you turn them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so they'll be saved in the day of the

01:09:28

Lord Jesus, right? That's the goal. The hope is that they will be saved, that they'll turn from their sin. So, Pastor Joe, you were going to add something.

01:09:35

I feel like I've left you out, so I want to give you that opportunity. Just back to the repentance issue,

01:09:41

I was just going to mention, I think Pastor Obi is pretty passionate about that subject because he comes out of Pentecostalism, and Pentecostals, they use that phrase all the time, to repent of your sins, to turn from your sins, and from my experience,

01:09:59

Pentecostals I've interacted with, what they mean by that is in order for you to get saved, if you are a drunkard, you have to stop drinking and then get saved.

01:10:10

If you smoke cigarettes, you have to stop smoking cigarettes and then believe. Whatever your sins are, you have to completely turn from those things in order to be saved, and that is work salvation, is what that is.

01:10:25

So, that's why Pastor Obi is so passionate about that, and that's why we try to stay away from that phrase of repent of your sins, because it's not found in the

01:10:36

Bible, and that is what it means to a lot of people out there. Repent of your sins is not found in the Bible?

01:10:42

The phrase repent of your sins is not found in the

01:10:49

Bible. Okay, okay, okay. But repentance is found, just not the specific. You just have to make sure you are defining what that is, and like Pastor McMurtry already said, if how you define that is turning from your unbelief to belief, believing in the

01:11:06

Lord Jesus Christ, we're totally with you. See, repentance is not an exclusively salvation word.

01:11:12

Repentance, it can be used for many different things. I can repent of going to McDonald's or go to Taco Bell instead.

01:11:19

We just, in our modern English, only really use that word for salvation, but in the

01:11:26

Bible, it's used for just changing your mind on different things. You know,

01:11:31

God, He told the children of Israel not to go a certain way because God was afraid that they were going to repent.

01:11:38

Well, why didn't He want them to get saved? Well, no, repent and want to go back to Egypt. So, you know, it's always repenting from something and repenting to something.

01:11:50

And so when it comes to salvation, it's repenting of your unbelief to belief in Christ. And so, and here's the thing too, we're picky about this because we're from the independent

01:11:59

Baptist world. I've been around the camp meeting world a lot, and in that, I've known many

01:12:05

Baptists. You know, thankfully I was taught right on this, but we still hung around a lot of people.

01:12:11

It was very confusing where, you know, they were taught, told you have to repent of your sins and people, young people, especially, were constantly going to these youth conferences and things.

01:12:21

And they're hearing, man, if you've not repented of this, if you're still struggling with this sin, you're still struggling with that sin.

01:12:27

I doubt you're even saved. You know, you need to come up to an old fashioned altar and, you know, you probably just never truly repented of your sins.

01:12:33

And then you got these young people, they're wanting to get saved. It's like, well, man, I, you know, I got, you know, I went and I watched a bad movie I wasn't supposed to last week.

01:12:40

They're dealing with all these normal temptations that we will always deal with because of our flesh. And then they, they think if, you know, that repentance is this emotional feeling and they go and they try with all their heart, all right,

01:12:54

I got it this time. I really believe this time I'm going to repent of all my sins. But then two months later, they're back to being tempted to do those things.

01:13:02

I'm like, did I really get it? And in the Baptist world and the independent fundamental Baptist world, they do not do a good job of teaching what actually does happen when you get saved, how it's your spirit that's regenerated and how the new man is a spiritual man, but the flesh is still the flesh.

01:13:22

You will always be dealing with these temptations. And if you walk in the flesh, you will fulfill the desires of the flesh.

01:13:29

And I feel like, and it seems like Calvinists do the same thing too. They kind of have this theology that makes it like, you know, if you truly get regenerated, you are going to turn from all those sins, you know, and otherwise, and if you don't, if you don't persevere to the end, you probably didn't really get it.

01:13:47

And I think that's just such a hopeless gospel. And I don't believe,

01:13:54

I don't believe God wants us wondering. I think he wants us to know, and we're supposed to rest on those promises in his word.

01:14:01

And so when a person believes the gospel, they call him the Lord, he saves them. When we get tempted to sin, it's not because we're not saved.

01:14:09

It's because we've got filthy, dirty, stinking, rotten flesh. But we all, we need to remember and rest in the scripture.

01:14:15

Remember, we have a new man. We don't have to give into these things, but that's not being taught in a lot of churches.

01:14:20

And a lot of young people are confused. And in our church, and I know many other Christians who, when they've heard what people like myself and these other men preach about repentance, it is, it helps them greatly.

01:14:32

Not only is it, is it liberating and is it good news like the gospel, but it actually helps them turn from sins better than that other preaching ever thought of.

01:14:44

It's, I think the way we preach repentance is going to get more people repenting of their sins than people who are preaching it in the way they do in the camp meeting world.

01:14:55

Yeah, because they, they end up doubting their salvation. And then you see the same kids that go forward every year at every camp meeting, every missions conference, every conference they go forward and they get saved again.

01:15:10

And then when they commit sins after that, then they start thinking, well, am I really safe?

01:15:15

And then they just get depressed and they just end up giving up and thinking, well,

01:15:20

I just can't. And so it just, it leads to them falling more into, into those sins, into that, that lifestyle.

01:15:30

Is there such a thing? Go ahead, go ahead, Tommy. And people like myself who grew up in an

01:15:36

IFB home. Okay. I was never subjected to a lot of the things of the world.

01:15:42

I wasn't subjected to a lot of things. My dad, he came from a more liberal Southern Baptist and eventually became independent

01:15:49

Baptist, but I didn't, I never had to deal with a lot of temptations and things that he did.

01:15:54

And a lot of people who got saved out of a worldly lifestyle and did, you know, repent of their sins or have a reformation, they, they fully understand the lie that sin is and the consequences of it.

01:16:09

They learn the hard way from experience. And they often think because their young children get saved at a young age, they will never want to do any of those things because when they got saved, they also got reformation.

01:16:21

But if you're, if you're saved in that reformation, you know, in that type of lifestyle,

01:16:28

I didn't have a drastic change when I turned five, you know, you know, what kind of sins are you involved with when you're five years old?

01:16:36

But here's the thing, when I grew up, I was made out of the same flesh my parents were made out of. And I had temptations too.

01:16:43

And you know what? It was confusing for me. And I used to go and I'd hear these people preach and I'd start to wonder, well, am

01:16:49

I really saved? Why am I being tempted with this stuff? And it was a great day when I learned that, you know what?

01:16:55

God's word means exactly what it says. Salvation is a free gift. It's believe on the

01:17:00

Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. But you've got dirty, stinking, rotten flesh.

01:17:06

And you know what you need to do? Listen to this, listen to the spirit, not the flesh. And you know what it caused me to do?

01:17:13

Take personal responsibility. And most, but most young people, whenever they do something really bad, they go and they look at pornography.

01:17:22

Saved kids are going to get tempted with pornography, but then they feel bad because of it.

01:17:28

And then rather than just admit to their parents, hey, you probably ought to take my computer away. I'll take my cell phone away.

01:17:33

You know what they always do? They just go get saved again. And they think if I get saved, I won't want to do that stuff anymore.

01:17:40

Yeah, you know, your flesh is going to want to do it again. And they always go right back to it. And so I think we've got to do a better job teaching on repentance, teaching what happens when a person gets saved.

01:17:52

I think that's an area where there's a lot of confusion, even amongst in the IFB world. Is there a doctrine of false conversion in your understanding?

01:18:05

Is there, I mean, can a person make a false profession of faith? Or do you just automatically say that if a person has said, even if they fall into gross sin or rampant unbelief, that that person is still saved?

01:18:17

Because I understand, I mean, obviously I hold to, I would say I hold to eternal security, obviously with a little different distinction from you guys.

01:18:25

But I do, I have a doctrine of apostasy, which means I believe there's a person can make a profession of faith and later demonstrate that that profession of faith was not genuine.

01:18:34

1 John tells us they were among us, but they were not of us, for if they were of us, they would have remained with us, but they departed to show that they were not of us.

01:18:42

I just, I murdered that verse, forgive me, it's from memory. But you know the verse I'm talking about. So do you hold that doctrine that someone can have a false conversion?

01:18:53

Yes. Yeah, I believe someone can make a false claim of salvation.

01:18:59

And so, yeah. Well, people can also be confused too. For example, the apostle

01:19:06

Paul talked about believing in vain, which specifically what he was talking about was believing in a gospel that did not include the resurrection.

01:19:15

And so I think a lot of people, they make professions, not fully understanding the gospel.

01:19:23

A lot of people, their professions was literally them to the best of their ability, repenting of their sins.

01:19:31

I have talked to many people outsourcing who, when you go and you start giving the gospel, they're like,

01:19:37

I've tried that several times. What do you mean you tried that? They went to church, they went to the altar, they surrendered all, they were going to give up everything, but they fell back into their sins.

01:19:49

And you know what, it is what a wonderful thing it is when you show these people, hey, that was you trying, you know, that was you trying to make yourself acceptable to a holy

01:20:00

God. No, you're not acceptable no matter how much you clean up your life. That's not acceptable.

01:20:06

Salvation is a free gift. Let God save you. Let him, you know, accept the free gift of salvation.

01:20:12

And if you'll do, and I'm telling you, that's what ends up making the difference in actually helping people change. So a lot of people get religion and that's not going to last.

01:20:22

That's not a real, that's not real salvation. But I believe teaching people repent of sins, meaning turn from your sinful life and start being good, that's going to lead to, all those are going to be false conversions probably just because of the fact that they're not going to succeed.

01:20:44

You know, we're going to fall back, we're going to fall back into these things. But I do think too,

01:20:51

Satan sows tears among the wheat, you know, and you do, you have, there's going to be false conversions, people that just never truly understood, never really had it.

01:21:00

That's a real thing, but it doesn't change the fact that salvation is simple, but it's so simple.

01:21:06

Some people are going to miss it. Yeah. Well, brothers, I know I've kept you here for longer than I said, but I've really enjoyed it.

01:21:13

I hope you guys have as well. I'm going to end with one final question, and then I'll let each of you have one final word, and then we'll be wrapping up.

01:21:24

I joke about Presbyterians having superior theology. If you've never seen any of my videos, that's a joke.

01:21:30

And as a non -Presbyterian, I do that because I'm teasing them, because I do believe my

01:21:35

Presbyterian brothers tend to hold a very high opinion of their theology, and that's fine. That's, I think we should all be very convinced of what we believe.

01:21:44

But do you think, and I'll read it as I wrote it, do you think your denomination deserves that title of superior theology?

01:21:53

Yes, I do. That is exactly why I am IFB. Yeah, I think all of us would probably agree to that because if you don't think that your theology is superior, then why do you believe it?

01:22:12

And so I think we all believe what we believe is true. And so that's not to say that I think that everything, that I have everything exactly right.

01:22:21

There are things that I know, you know, when it comes to end times theology, there are beliefs that I have that I know that have holes and things

01:22:30

I need to shore up and things I need to study out further and better. And so it's not to say that everything

01:22:36

I believe is absolutely correct, and I can never change on it. But I do believe, for the most part, that my beliefs, especially when it comes to the fundamentals of the faith, that those things are superior and right.

01:22:52

Just to add to that, I came from Nigeria, so I came from Africa. I chose the

01:22:58

United States. I chose to stay in the United States. I could go to another place, but I believe

01:23:03

United States is the best place for my family, for myself, you know, safety, everything, and economic -wise,

01:23:09

United States is the best. That's why I'm here. And if it turns out that another country is better, I will move.

01:23:15

I wasn't born here, not tied down to here. Why I'm saying all this is because I came from Pentecostal, and I chose

01:23:22

IFB. So I could have chosen anything else. I was a pastor. I could have chosen anything else, but I chose to be called

01:23:30

IFB, even when people were removing Baptists from their names, their church names. Right down the street, people remove

01:23:37

Baptists from their church names. Why I'm putting IFB up? So I believe it is the right, it's the closest to the

01:23:43

Bible, so it's superior. When I say closest, I mean we try to follow the Bible, period, than any other denomination that I know of.

01:23:53

So, and the Bible is the final authority for me. So that's why IFB is the most superior.

01:23:59

It should have that title. Yeah. And I agree too. And when I, and you know, that word superior, it does, it sounds very arrogant.

01:24:08

And I don't think IFB are flawless. I mean, boy, are we dependent on the grace of God.

01:24:14

Um, I all, I do, I learned from other people. I learned from other groups, but at the same time,

01:24:22

I, I will, and I was born in the IFB, but I will say this too. I have been treated,

01:24:27

I could tell you some stories that, you know, I could be a recovering fundamentalist if I wanted to, but at the end of the day,

01:24:34

I have so much more to be thankful for when it comes to the IFB and what they've taught.

01:24:40

And if, if I found another group out there by another name that I felt held to the teaching of this

01:24:47

King James Bible better and, and, and not only just had better doctrine, but displayed in their lives, you know, what

01:24:57

I see in this King James Bible, I'd probably identify myself with those people. Cause again, sometimes

01:25:03

I get embarrassed by IFB people, but I, I'm not seeing something out there better in, in my view.

01:25:12

And so I don't think it's an, I we're not trying, you know, I know I'm not trying to be arrogant. I don't think any of them are just, but, um, yeah, but I would,

01:25:19

I'd change. I would change if, if, if I thought there was something better out there, I'm not married to it, but I mean,

01:25:26

I, I am married to it. I'd have to get a divorce. That would be hard, but, but at the same time, um, yeah,

01:25:35

I, I don't feel obligated to hold onto air. And I think I've proved that I know

01:25:41

Pastor Major's, Pastor Obi's proved it. I mean, all, all of us represent here, we have dealt, we have lost a lot, you know, we have dealt with a lot because of some of the stands that we take, but ultimately what caused me to do this.

01:25:56

I believe what caused these men to do this, um, or, you know, it was, was principles and things that we got from people within the

01:26:04

IFB. And so, um, yeah, I, I, I love it and they, they can't get rid of me.

01:26:10

I think a lot of them would like to, but they can't get rid of me. Yep. Well, brothers,

01:26:16

I am going to get ready to sign off, but if one, one quick thing, tell me if, if you, if you have a website or some way that people can get ahold of you, especially if they're in your area, if they're looking for a church like yours very quickly, just sign off with your, your website.

01:26:31

Or if you do like, I know Brother Tommy, you have a podcast. I don't know about your other two brothers. If you have a show, tell them how they can get ahold of you so that people know how to do that.

01:26:39

We'll start with Pastor Obi and go to Pastor Joe and then finish with Pastor Tommy. All right. So we have a YouTube channel and we are located in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, very 30 minutes away from Philadelphia.

01:26:51

So if you're in the area in Pennsylvania or in the Northeast, our Church Love Assembly Baptist Church, you can just search for that YouTube channel and our website and our location.

01:27:02

So that's how you can get ahold of us. Thank you. Yeah. So our church is

01:27:07

Faith Baptist Church and we are at 4825 East St. Bernard Highway in Violet, Louisiana, and we have a website.

01:27:15

It's faithbaptistshallmet .com. And then also we have put all of our services on YouTube and that's on the channel

01:27:23

Joe Major Faith Baptist Church. And so they can see all the sermons right there. Yeah.

01:27:31

And we are www .givemelibertybaptist .com, youtube .com

01:27:37

slash givemelibertybaptist. Also have the Spirit of Prophecy podcast.

01:27:44

You can look up on YouTube and Tommy McMurtry on Twitter, Facebook and all that.

01:27:51

Brothers, thank you again for being a part of the show. I appreciate you coming and being very gracious. Thank you so much.

01:27:57

You were very gracious. I appreciate it. And I want to thank you guys again for being a part of the

01:28:04

Your Calvinist podcast today. I'm going to sign off with a little reminder of some important things. So may

01:28:09

God bless you. Hey guys, I just want to quickly say thank you for watching this episode. And if you're enjoying it, please hit the thumbs up button.

01:28:16

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01:28:23

It really helps us out. And some of you've asked about how to support the channel. If you'd like to support us, you can go to buymeacoffee .com

01:28:30

slash your Calvinist and leave a donation. Most importantly, we want to make sure that everybody who hears this podcast hears the gospel.

01:28:37

The word gospel means good news. And that good news has to be preceded by some bad news.

01:28:42

And the bad news is this, that we are all sinners. Sin is breaking God's law. So we stand guilty before the

01:28:49

Lord of the universe. But the good news is God sent his son into the world to pay the penalty for everyone who would believe in him.

01:28:56

Jesus came into the world, lived a perfect life, and he died a substitutionary death for everyone who will believe.

01:29:02

And he calls us all to repent of our sin, to turn from our unbelief, and trust in him as Lord and Savior.