July 19, 2017 Show with Michael Haykin on “The Armies of the Lamb: The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller”

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 19th

day of July 2017.

In studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Hello.

And we are excited to have back as a returning guest.

Indeed, I say without exaggeration, one of my very favorite guests, Dr.

Michael Haken, who is professor of church history and biblical spirituality and director

of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

in Louisville, Kentucky.

Today, we are addressing his book, The Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of

Andrew Fuller.

And it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr. Michael Haken.

It's great to be with you.

And Dr. Haken, for our listeners, and this is kind of an update for you, perhaps,

but there has been some amazing things going on here with Iron Sharpens Iron.

We seem to have passed a certain mark in our

history where there is a flood of new listeners who have discovered our program, and we're getting

contacted every single day now by people who have never heard of the program, who are falling in love with it.

And so there may be a number of listeners who have never heard you on this program, and perhaps they

know nothing about the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

So perhaps you could tell our listeners something about that great institution.

The seminary in the SBC, founded in 1859 by four brothers

and a man

named William Williams, who lived in Greenville and would eventually move to

Louisville in the 1870s.

In the early years, the first 40 years of its existence, it

was a time

-honored Second London

Confession by Basil Manley, Jr.

It went through a couple of turns.

By the 70s and 80s,

it was with

the SBC.

Dr. Albert Mohler was appointed president at the young age of 33 in 1993, and

the transformation of the school has been absolutely remarkable.

From probably 90 of the faculty opposed to his appointment, he assembled after they had

all gone by 1995, 1996, pretty well, two or

three men who stood with him.

He's rebuilt the faculty.

It's a tremendous teachers now.

And the school has increased from 1 ,200 when he was appointed president,

who will have given us a tremendous window of opportunity in our day and would urge you.

Indeed, and tell us something specifically about the Andrew Fuller Center

for Baptist Studies, where you are the director.

Now, that's quite a massive undertaking that you're involved in with Andrew Fuller, as far as this new work

regarding his life and his teachings, is it not?

Yeah, it is.

And they're now

publishing a paperback version of a good

number of those

volumes.

And I'm assuming that folks, if they have more information that they'd like to gather on that, they

can go to AndrewFullerCenter .org.

The globalization of Christianity, because he's the man who really stands behind William Carey.

I'm going to announce our email address right now, if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for

Dr. Michael Hagen about Andrew Fuller.

And our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the USA.

Well, tell us something about Andrew Fuller's youth, what religious background,

if any, he was raised in, and how our Lord providentially, eventually drew

Andrew to himself and saved him by his grace and mercy.

He was born in an area of England.

Were they Pato Baptist congregationalists, but they were not Pato

Baptists?

The advantage of a

farming

home.

In fact, didn't you say that his mother was in a strict Baptist church, which would be very common among the strict Baptists, the

hyper -Calvinism?

Yes, it was.

Maybe 19, even as late as 1900.

Is that because of the high -Calvinism that Gill had, and the more ironic,

for lack of a better term, ironic -Calvinism that Fuller had?

And if you could define, I'm sorry if I interrupted you, you can complete a thought if you were going to say

something, but I want you to define hyper -Calvinism.

And I know that some of this may get repetitive, but since we have new listeners that discover this program, there are a lot of

people, as you know, who when they hear hyper -Calvinism, they're thinking of people like you and me.

They're not thinking of what it actually means.

Yeah, I mean, rediscovery of the doctrine.

And I think, if I'm not mistaken, the last time we had you on the

program, I think that you and our mutual friend and brother Tom Nettles have a bit of a friendly

disagreement over whether or not John Gill could accurately be labeled a hyper -Calvinist.

And, of course, there are different mutations of that.

Like, for instance, there are the primitive Baptists, many of whom believe that the gates of heaven

are much wider than Orthodox Christians, meaning biblically sound Christians, not Eastern

Orthodox.

And then you have, on the other end of the spectrum, you have many in the Netherlands Reformed movement and other branches that

make the gates of heaven much, much, much more narrow than they actually are.

So, this is the

background

that

Andrew

Fuller

is raised in.

And when in his life did he actually realize that he needed a savior?

And when is there a noted conversion that took place in his life or a transformation?

Yeah, in the late 1700s, around 1799,

he

thought

they

had been

lost

to

a man, John

Eve, who had totally turned him off.

By the age of 13, he knew the man had nothing to say to him as an unbeliever.

There's

a

fanatic

element

to it.

Yeah, this is true even with the Netherlands Reformed, some kind of strange thing similar to that, maybe not identical, even

though they're strict cessationists in most respects.

Yeah, and

so it

came to him.

He assumed God was telling him he was converted because this was part

A, rejoicing, weeping with joy.

But he said the next day dawned and the event

was gone.

And he experienced, but he was not converted, which is

very, very telling, I think.

Yeah.

That men and women can go through deep, profound religious experiences, but they are not...

That's not from...

He had spent...

Included, he was baptized.

And again, he said, I went through the day weeping in...

He has a third...

And he has abused God's grace.

And that God would be perfectly just to send him to hell.

Another part of hyper -Calvinist thinking was that you have to go to

Christ for salvation.

You have to first save the elect.

The idea is you first figure out, if I'm among the elect, then I can go to God.

Because one of the reasons why they did not offer to God was if you urge somebody,

then you are telling him something that God wasn't going to do for him.

And so forth, but in the

meantime, he's going through a genuine conversion.

He said, I did not believe I had a warrant to come to Christ.

But he said, taking Job's verse, if he slay me, he slay me.

And he took also comfort in the example of Esther, who, when she went before the king,

Ahasuerus, did

so without a warrant, without

mercy of the Lord Jesus.

And in 1769, in the fall of 1769, he said, I found rest for my soul.

And that was his genuine conversion, age of 14.

Praise God.

And when did he, in his life, realize that he had the call to the ministry

placed by God upon his heart?

Well, he's baptized the following year in 1770, in the spring of 1770, in Soham.

There's a little river that runs through the town.

He's going to be baptized there.

For one, in London, had a prodigy of the Baptist.

Some

Baptist

was doing

many

good, but he doesn't know any other moment.

Does he actually believe it, though, even though he knew it didn't do any good?

Does he believe?

What are you saying?

Yes, in a sense,

he's a gospel believer.

He said, working my way

to 1785, it'll become the gospel worthy of all acceptance.

That's a tremendous, tremendous book in which he defends the free offer of the gospel, and also

emphasizes the onus that lies on the minister.

That if they do not,

it's on their hands.

Hmm.

Why did you title one of your books that discusses Andrew Fuller, The

Armies of the Lamb?

Well, because this rediscovery in Baptists are

thinking of the nature of ecclesiology,

the Reformation, and then

the

group

of

people we call

separate

by

arguing.

Amen.

We're going to go to a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, and there are already a number of people waiting

to have their questions asked and answered, and we will get to each one of you as God permits in

regard to the time restraint we have.

But if anybody else would like to get online, as it were, send us an email with a

question for Dr. Michael Haken at chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N

-Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live

outside of the USA.

And please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter, such as if you disagree with your own

pastor's theology or something like that.

We'll be right back, God willing, after these messages with Dr. Michael Haken and our discussion

on The Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Michael Haken, a professor of church history and biblical

spirituality and director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

in Louisville, Kentucky.

Today we are discussing Dr. Haken's book The Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality

of Andrew Fuller, published by Joshua Press.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

We have a number of callers, as I mentioned earlier, not callers, emailers, listeners, who have submitted

questions via email to us that are waiting to have their questions to be asked and

answered by you, Dr. Haken.

And one of them is a very fascinating individual who is actually going to be my guest coming up soon

on Iron Sharpens Iron.

He is going to be my guest coming up in September, on September 8th, and his name is

Kosti Hinn, C -O -S -T -I Hinn, H -I -N -N, and if that name Hinn sounds

familiar, he is the nephew of none other than Benny Hinn, the world

-renowned Word of Faith, Pentecostal faith healer, and as Kosti

would say, a world -renowned heretic, even though he loves him as an uncle.

But Kosti Hinn has become a Reformed Baptist, a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace, and he is

pastor of adult ministry at a thoroughly Calvinistic congregation

in Tustin, California, Mission Bible Church.

So he will be our guest coming up, God willing, on Friday, the 8th

of September, 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern Time.

So mark your calendars for that.

But Kosti has a question for you, Dr. Haken.

His question is, You've written about Andrew Fuller's statement in his final letter to his friend, John

Ryland, in which he wrote,.

I have preached and written much against the abuse of the doctrine of grace, but that doctrine

is all my salvation and all my desire.

I have no other hope than from salvation by mere sovereign, efficacious grace

through the atonement of my Lord and Savior.

Clearly, Fuller thought the grace of God and his sovereignty in salvation were doctrines worth living and

dying for.

Why is his understanding of the doctrines of grace and having a proper view of the sovereignty

of God in salvation essential to a healthy spiritual life?

Excellent, excellent question.

We can do nothing.

He's our maker, creator.

We're his creatures.

And so this, for Fuller, would then be foundational to any sort of,

the whole idea of knowing who God is, creator,

savior, and then knowing who we are, that we are inherently,

and so Fuller would see this as utterly foundational to any sort of spirituality.

And I think I would, you know, I would without a doubt affirm that this perspective on

spirituality is vital in our day, especially in our day to

some degree as well, the innate goodness of

man and that the problem with the human condition is not, nothing from within,

but is found in a variety of other factors, be it environment, be it the political structures, be it economics,

et cetera.

And Fuller would say, no, no, the problem is within.

It's not simply that there is, we have

to begin with a due recognition of

who is the

incarnation and the

death and resurrection of the Lord and ongoing

of his people.

Savior is critical and

on the necessity

enabling us to do,

he deals with those very, very big, basic issues.

And I think those big, basic issues are.

Well, thank you so much, Pastor Costi.

And I'm looking forward to our discussion on Friday, September 8th, God willing.

So let's keep in touch from now until then.

And you have also won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today, The

Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller, edited and introduced by Dr.

Michael A .G. Haken, published by Joshua Press.

And this will be shipped to you, no charge to you, or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio by our friends

at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for their faithful support of Iron Trip and Zion Radio by shipping out all

of our winners their free Bibles, books, and other items that they have won by submitting

questions to our guests.

And guess what, Pastor Costi?

Because you're a first -time questioner, for lack of a better term, you

are also receiving a new New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the

NASB, and that will also be shipped out to you by our friends at cvbbs .com.

So thanks for listening and writing in the question, and I hope you keep listening regularly and

keep submitting questions for our guests on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Now, Dr. Haken, before I go on to another listener, it's interesting that

you affirm what Pastor Costi says about the proper view

of the sovereignty of God and salvation held to by

Andrew Fuller, and yes, and yet he has critics, as you are aware.

In fact, some would even accuse him of being an Amaraldian, not that that's the worst thing in the world you

could be.

Amaraldian meaning a person who believes in all of the so -called five points of

Calvinism with the exception of limited.

Atonement,.

Believing in four of the five points.

But if you could address that accusation, is that an accurate accusation?

Is he a hybrid of some kind between five -point Calvinism and Amaraldianism, or what is the reason that people

say that?

Some people, I should say, say that.

Fuller's

own

day

in

England,

about a number of, and he was particularly concerned

about Fuller's use of governmental language, began to use

a governmental model of the nature of the atonement, that Christ, that Christ's

death

was

efficacious

to

the exact

number

of

my...

I

love

Gadsby's.

Hymnal, though.

Sorry?

I love Gadsby's hymnal, though.

Foundations,

he's

right.

Do you read Calvin?

But it certainly is five -point

Calvinistic.

You know, there is a reverse situation, as you know, where there are

critics, not critics, I'm sorry, those who.

Really.

Revere many of our Calvinistic heroes from history, and yet

impute Arminianism to them, not because they think that that is derogatory, but because they

are Arminian themselves, or believers in free will, at the very least, non -Calvinist, many of them wouldn't

identify themselves with the label Arminian, and I know that my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor,

is a graduate of Bob Jones University, and I don't know what's going on there now in this regard, but haven't they,

when you were there, and I know they have over the years, adopted some of our Calvinistic heroes, but not

been very open about the Calvinism of these heroes, such as Spurgeon and others.

Oh, yeah,.

They like Spurgeon, but we were not allowed to discuss the Doctrines of Grace.

Right, but I.

Think that that has changed in recent.

Years.

I'm not really sure.

Well, I know.

That the current president is preaching at conferences alongside with very strictly

Reformed people, so.

Well, I've.

Run into a few of my classmates at.

Steve Pettit, I'm talking about, the new.

President.

Well, as you know, some of the conferences we've been to, I've run into some of my classmates, and they're ending up Reformed.

But that is true though, isn't it, Dr. Haken, that some people are shocked when they discover that some of these

men, like Fuller and Spurgeon and others, were really thoroughly Calvinistic,

as our friend that we mentioned earlier, Tom Nettles, has beautifully documented in By His Grace and

For His Glory.

Some of them intentionally, and some of them naively perpetrating the myth that these men were

Arminians.

Yes, I

don't want to

claim them as their

own.

What's been understood is that this

needs to be qualified.

And

fine, you can still admire somebody who came before you.

I mean, I have a significant degree of admiration for a man.

I don't think he was a Calvinist.

He wouldn't have described himself as a Calvinist.

I think he came actually very close to Calvinism in many respects.

I think we have to deal fairly with historical.

Figures.

Yeah, like A. W. Tozer was not a Calvinist, and yet many Calvinists love him and are honest about his being

not in full -blown agreement with us.

It's especially disturbing when they are at war, some of them, within the Southern Baptist Convention,

for instance, and are vilifying Calvinists and acting as if the very cornerstones, the very

foundations of their own organization, the Southern Baptist Convention, was some kind of a non -Calvinistic

free -will -believing institution rather than the red -blooded

Calvinist organization that it was founded as.

We're going to a break right now, and we will get to as many of our listeners with questions as we can.

If you would like to join them, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z

-e -n at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back, God willing, right after these messages with Dr. Michael Haykin and more of our discussion.

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Long Island.

Welcome back to our program.

And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Dr. Michael Haken, and we are discussing The Armies of the Lamb, The

Spirituality of Andrew Fuller, his book by the great Andrew Fuller, published by Joshua

Press.

And we will be returning to that discussion momentarily.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. Haken about Andrew Fuller or about the doctrines of sovereign

grace or Baptist history in general, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

And I assure you, I'm going to get to as many of you already waiting as possible, and

hopefully we'll have time for even more listeners before we run out of time.

But before I go to our friends who are listening, I have some

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and special events that they are having, including my friend and sponsor,

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They are offering two free classes this summer on the book of Romans and an

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So now we have returned to our guest, Dr. Michael Haken, and our discussion of the armies of the Lamb,

the spirituality of Andrew Fuller.

And we do have quite a number of people still waiting to have their questions

asked.

And let's see.

Let me go to another first -time listener, or

should I say first -time questioner, because I don't know.

He may have been listening for years and just never sent in a question.

So first -time listener.

Questioner?

Yeah, well, what else can I say?

How else would you phrase that?

He said questioner, and then he went right back to listener.

I just thought that was kind of powerful.

Oh, okay.

We have Luke from Macon, Mississippi.

And Luke says, thank you for your great show.

I have a question for Dr. Haken.

I understand that Andrew Fuller was involved in some controversy concerning his view of the Atomic.

We just addressed that.

Specifically in his view of imputation of sins to Christ.

I believe that this was a topic of disagreement between him and Abraham Booth.

Would you explain what the differences were?

Well, we kind of stole Luke's thunder there, unfortunately, Dr. Haken.

But do you have anything to add to it?

If he wants to

see the article,

I go into this in significant detail.

And he can email me at mhaykin, H -A -Y -K -I -N, at sbts

.edu.

And I'd be very, very happy to send him a copy of the article.

That's mhaykin, S -B for Southern Baptist, T

-S for theological seminary, dot edu.

That's mhaykin, H -A -Y -K -I -N, at S -B -T -S,

dot edu.

And Luke, well, you know, actually, did you cover in your specific

explanation the area of the imputations of sins to Christ?

Did you cover that?

No, I didn't.

Sure, sure, we have plenty of time.

Yeah, so again, the issue here was,

and there were a

number of hyper -Calvinists, and they generally were found in the hyper -Calvinist camp,

those who seemed to lean that way, who argued that, felt that that

was a kind of commercial, that the Atonement was understood

to be quid pro quo, as it were.

You know, there are so many sins and so much grace.

And that seemed also to open the door to the sinner, therefore, going to God and saying,

look, Jesus has suffered once for my sins.

You need to now give me salvation.

And it undermined in Fuller's mind that sort of thinking that fleeing to

Christ for salvation, going to God for salvation, is always a supplicant.

One is always a supplicant.

And there is no sense that I deserve anything.

Damnation.

Conviction, as the Synod of Dort did, that the

cause of the infinite nature of the divinity that was yoke to

humanity, that the God -man who is Christ, in his death,

fulfilled the sins of humanity a million

times over.

It would have been

as applied to the elect.

Well, thank you so much, Luke.

I didn't even know there was a Macon, Mississippi.

I've heard of Macon, Georgia.

But it is a delight to have you join us in our listening audience.

And guess what?

Not only have you won a free copy of The Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller, by our

guest, Dr. Michael A .G. Haken, compliments of Joshua Press, who published it,

and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be shipping it to you.

You've also won a new New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the

NASB, since you are a first -time questioner.

So please make sure we have your full mailing address in Macon, Mississippi.

I'll only have your city and state.

So your full name and full mailing address.

And we will have CVBBS .com ship those

two items out to you as soon as possible.

It is such a pleasure to hear from you for the first time.

And we hope we keep hearing from you in the future.

Luke, God bless you.

We have Daniel in San Jose, California.

I have a few questions for Brother Haken.

One, what was the primary focus of Andrew Fuller that led him to be such a powerful and spiritual

writer of gospel truth?

I'll start with that one.

Well, I think it was the fact that he learned the truth

in his own

struggle.

And then he had very few people to turn to.

There was an older man in the congregation who helped him for maybe a year or so before his

death.

But Fuller, in many respects, in those early days of struggle, theologically was on his own.

He would eventually have a circle of friends, men like John Ryland, Jr.,

William Carey, and a man who was a later kind of mentor, Robert Hall,

in those kind of struggles in those early days of his life, which is that God has given us, in his word,

foundation, not only for our theology but also for our spirit,

something that makes

Fuller in his theology.

And then also, in

many respects, our

contemporary evangelicalism goes back to,

one is the great 18th century awakenings and the emphasis on the outpouring of the spirit

and the resulting missions that flowed out from it.

The second would be the Puritan movement, which emphasized that the spirit's work is

always yoked to the word.

And then the third would be Reformation understanding of salvation by grace alone and by faith

alone and through Christ alone.

And Fuller has all of that.

He knew awakening, he knew revival, he was deeply schooled.

Eventually he reads a lot of Edwards, but he's grounded solidly in the scriptures.

So there's a number of areas in which he is enormously helpful.

Great, and we have another question by Daniel.

For someone like me who has never read Andrew Fuller but is eager to, which of his works, along with the

book under review during this interview, would be a great book as an introduction

to Fuller?

Yes, he is my very first pastor as a born -again Christian.

And there's

probably a

book in

Virginia,

and it's

an 1845 edition that

was originally

put out by

the American

in 1801.

1801 is the version that's available.

And then the other one would be Scriptures on Sandemanianism,

19th century, in

the 1960s.

Now, that unique error, when you bring up easy -believism, many

people think of people who go forward on altar call

invitations and then live like Satan the rest of their lives and are convinced that they're saved.

But isn't there another branch of that that would not include

giving people a license to live libertine lives

but still has a view of the faith that justifies as purely mental assent?

And I'm thinking some of those that are adherents, and I know I'm probably going to get some nasty emails or

phone calls or letters, but some of the adherents to Gordon Clark's theology, would that be somewhere in

that orb, too?

Tentatively, because, and you probably know better than me, I really don't know Gordon Clark.

Sandemanians had come to define faith.

Now, you brought up Campbellism.

And today, in the 21st century, that is a broad scope of people, not necessarily that Campbellism is, but

those congregations that would consider Campbell one of

their forefathers, if you will.

The Campbellite movement would be a broad spectrum today.

I know people who are within that movement that are very theologically sound,

albeit most of them being Arminian.

But it surprises me that you would bring that up, because the more severe

members of that movement who would be definitely towards the heretical end of that movement seem to

be more Pelagian in works righteousness, rather than easy believism advocates.

Yes,

that's the way it

was deeply shaped by his reading of Sandemanian literature.

And believe it or not, I even know a couple of Church of Christ ministers who are Calvinistic, believe it or not.

They do exist.

Yes, Campbellism today, as you

say, is a fair stream.

It doesn't necessarily indicate what the fountainhead of that stream looks like.

And last but not least, Daniel in San Jose, California, says,

let's see, does there seem to be a decline in spirituality among Christians today

compared to Fuller and other Christians of his day?

Well, that's obvious, isn't it?

Well, he says, does there seem to be a decline in spirituality amongst Christians today compared

to Fuller and other Christians of his day?

Well, he says, those

congregations made a business of

their religion.

And it wasn't a thing by and by that, you know, they believed on God, and then they tacked to it the idea of

perseverance and somehow hoped to make it to heaven.

And they would ask the question, what must I do for God?

You know, what's the bare minimum?

But rather what Fuller said, the Puritans would ask the question, what can I do for God?

And they made a business of living for God.

I think the same kind of critique can be made

of early 21st century evangelicalism.

In so many spheres, it's indistinguishable from the world.

The zeal that gripped men like Fuller, that led them,

and all of the challenges that that had in their day, you know, the length of time it would take them to get to the mission

field, the lack of medical assistance they would have when out

there, the fact that so many died out there.

When William Carey went to the mission field, he never came back.

And his close friends, Ryland and John Sutcliffe, went

with Carey to London, and they asked a man named William Button, who was a minister in London, if they could

use his church to celebrate the Lord's Supper.

Very unusual.

Fuller was very convinced that the Supper is a local church ordinance.

But on this occasion, he felt, we will never see this man, William Carey, ever again.

We feel together that we are one heart and one soul,

and we believe the death of the Lord.

And I think the other thing that is interesting is, it

took six

months for the

letter to get to Carey.

Amen.

And Daniel from San Jose, California concludes his email, I am a student at Boyce College,

and Lord willing, plan on attending Southern Seminary.

It would be a great blessing to sit under your teaching there at the seminary.

Thank you, brothers, for your ministries.

Thank you.

And Daniel, guess what?

If you give me your full mailing address in San Jose, California, you have also won a free copy of The

Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller, by our guest, Dr. Michael A .G. Haken.

Compliments of Joshua Press.

And that will be shipped to you.

Compliments of our friends at cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book

Service.

And so keep your eye open in the mail for a package with cvbbs .com and the return

address of the shipping label.

And thank you again for submitting a question, an excellent series of questions to our program.

We're going to go to a break right now.

And Dr. Haken, I emailed you, or forwarded you, an email from our

listener, Jenny in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania.

I emailed it to you because she has two questions.

And I thought that you might want to mill them over while we are on our final break.

I'll read the first one right now on the air.

And you can answer both of them later when we return.

It appears that Andrew Fuller was quite an active debater.

He spent a great deal of time in defense of the governmental theory of atonement against hyper -Calvinism.

Can you explain what is the governmental theory of atonement in more modern terms?

Okay, we already did address that.

But perhaps you could address the debating aspect as well, which I don't know if you actually discussed

that aspect of her question.

And, of course, she has another question as well.

And anybody else who wants to join us, I would do it now before we run out of time.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzin.

If you've just joined us, this is the final half hour of the program with Dr. Michael Haken, and we have been

discussing his book, The Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller, published

by Joshua Press.

If you'd like to join us on the air, do it quickly.

If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnzin at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A

-R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And we have, as I read before the break, Dr. Haken, the

first of two questions by Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, that says, it appears that Andrew Fuller was

quite an active debater.

He spent a great deal of time in defense of the governmental theory of atonement against hyper -Calvinism.

Can you explain what is the governmental theory of atonement in more modern terms?

And we already addressed a lot of that before Jenny, well, before I read Jenny's question.

She may have sent that in before you already addressed that.

But if you could discuss something in that question that we haven't focused on, perhaps like his

debating and so on.

Yes, I mean, Fuller, so he not only

debated Sanamanianism, hyper -Calvinism that we've looked at, he also had a major debate with Arminianism, wrote a

book against Arminianism, Antinomianism.

And then probably some of his greatest work was a rebuttal of Deism, which is very common in

the 18th century, which argued for there being one God who's revealed in nature, nature alone,

and the most prominent figure that he wrote against in that is Thomas Paine, a key figure.

And then the other area that he wrote against was Sassinianism, named after a man named

Fausto Sassini or Sassinus.

And Sassinianism was basically Unitarianism, argued that the

scriptures were against Trinitarianism, and Fuller defended the Trinity against the Sassinian views.

Fuller is an important apologist, but he did more than apologetics, and that's why the sort of things that I

emphasized, his circular there, his life of Samuel Pierce, indicate

some of the range of his writings.

Governmental Theory of the Atonement I touched on earlier, it basically argues that Christ's death is an

example of how God will deal with evil, and he will brook no

rebellion, and Christ dies in the place of rebels as an example of God's moral

government.

There's a second question.

Yeah, she says,.

How important was his self -published sermon called The Nature and Importance of Walking by

Faith?

Yeah, that's a very important sermon.

He preached that in 1784, and it was to an association of

Baptist ministers and churches.

The association of which his church belonged was the Northamptonshire Association, and every year, like other Baptist

associations in Britain, they had an annual gathering.

For about three days, they'd be preaching, praying together, fellowship together,

and the ministers would always draft a letter, a circular letter, and a number of them would

preach, and Fuller was asked to preach on that occasion, and on his way to the meeting, which

was held in the spring of 1784, his horse, he's riding his horse, and

he came across an area of the road that was flooded, probably some of the winter

thawing of the winter snows, and the roads in Britain during the 18th century were not the

best, and he starts to urge his horse through the water, little knowing that it was very deep, and by the time that he's,

the water was up to the saddle, that's how deep it was.

Wow.

Turning back, and there was a bystander sitting on a hill watching the whole thing, and when he

noticed that Fuller was about to turn around, he yelled out to Fuller, Go on, sir, it's safe.

And so Fuller, And not bystander.

Wow.

The sermon, The Nature and Importance of Walking by Faith, emphasized that the Christian life begins in faith,

faith in the Lord Jesus Christ's death for our sins, but it is a walk of faith, and emphasizes

that walk involves self -denial.

Self -denial is one of the initial laws of Christ's kingdom, he says.

The walk, he emphasizes, brings great glory to God.

God lie near our hearts, let it be dearer to us than our dearest delights.

Here consists the criterion of

follow the Lord fully.

And that following is by faith.

And it's very interesting, as a result of that preaching, and that particular association, the Baptists began

to pray for revival.

It's known as the Prayer Call of 1784.

And it will issue in remarkable awakening, one of the fruit of which is the Baptist Mystery

Society and the globalization of mission.

Well, thank you so much, Jenny, from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania.

You have also won The Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller, by our guest, Dr. Michael A

.G. Haken, who was the editor and wrote the introduction.

And it is published by Joshua Press.

And please make sure we have your full mailing address, so we can have that shipped out to you by cvbbs

.com.

Thanks a lot, Jenny.

And we have Joe in Slovenia.

Joe asks, please ask Dr. Haken about Fuller Seminary in California.

Is it named after Andrew Fuller?

I have a couple of questions of my own, Dr. Haken.

Did he also own a brush company and a soap company?

Now, I know that it is liberal today.

In fact, it was even liberal when Dr. James R. White, our mutual friend, went there

in the 1980s or earlier.

In fact, it might have been earlier, because I think James White went to college, entered into college when he was about seven years

old.

But it was liberal then, and I think it's even more liberal now.

But was it ever a biblically sound college?

The 20s.

How ironic.

Race inerrancy and the departure of a number of sound men who, Wilbur

Smith, for example, they went and founded Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

In the early years, when a

majority of

the faculty refused to subscribe, a

profession that involved the commitment to inerrancy of Scripture.

And the handwriting at that point is on the wall.

So it was founded by Charles Fuller, not Andrew Fuller.

Yes, it's got nothing to do with Fuller.

I mean, Fuller is not a common surname, but it's not an uncommon one either.

And as far as I know, there's no….

And Joan Slovenia also says, Please ask Dr. Haken to access the cooperative

program in light of his understanding of Andrew Fuller's emphasis on local church responsibility

and missions.

Some have said that the cooperative program, while having been a wonderful force in the funding of missions and

theological education, has also heavily contributed to theological and missiological

ambiguity and confusion.

Would Southern Baptist Seminary do well to reform the nature of the cooperative program

funding to strongly encourage and facilitate direct involvement of the local

churches in the oversight of IMB missionaries' education and

ministry?

Well, the cooperative program, I mean, is part of the entire structure of the SBC, and part of that structure involves

the appointment of the….

And so the local churches appoint the trustees for the Board of Trustees at Southern, as well as the other seminaries.

The early days of the

BMS, the Baptists did not have….

And it's only in the course of the history of missions in the 19th century

that Baptists begin to emphasize, as the SBC has done historically,

it should be churches sending missionaries and churches working together.

Most churches, I mean, the average church in the SBC is about 100 to 150 people, and there's no way

financially it can support, you know, one missionary given the cost of

missionaries, and

therefore

it's

important to

the 90s, the

early

90s, then, you know, before the success of it, then you're going to have a weakness.

But the SBC, the cooperative program, has been a tremendous boon

because it enables us to offer theological education at a vastly

diminished financial rate.

To do a PhD at Trinity

Evangelical Divinity School is going to cost you upwards of $90 ,000.

That's just fees.

Wow.

At Southern, it's around $28 ,000 over five years, which is

incredible.

Oh, yeah.

I can remember when I went to college in the 1980s, it was $40 a credit.

Well, thank you so much, Joe, in Slovenia, and thank you for giving us an American address where your daughter lives in Georgia,

and we are going to be shipping out to you The Armies of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller, compliments of

Joshua Press, and compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

who are actually the ones shipping that out to you at no charge to you or to us.

We have Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says,.

In your book on Andrew Fuller, Life and Legacy, you talk about Fuller's

unceasing commitment to the ministries he was involved in, which led to some serious health

issues that would hound him until his death.

What advice would you give to those in full -time ministry as far as maintaining a healthy balance

between work, recreation, and rest?

Wow, that's an excellent question.

Got that balance right.

On one occasion, his wife looked at him, because he was so overworked, and said,

Take time for rest.

And he said, My rest is changing my work.

So instead of focusing maybe on preaching, on preparing,

I don't think he got that balance right.

And he died very young, comparative.

I think it is critical for ministers to find that balance.

And among those who embrace Reformed theology, it's

amazing that we are committed to the Lord's Day as a day of rest,

but the Lord's Day is a very busy day for ministers.

And if they're not careful, they can find their entire week easily a round of

activity without randomly

finding that

place of balance.

I think very helpful here are congregations.

Help their ministers where they can have relaxation

and find the balance of rest and activity.

I mean, Fuller's generation are typical evangelicals.

They are activists.

They're busy doing

it,

because it enables us then, when we're involved in activity, to give more

energy and preserves us in the long haul.

Amen.

Well, thank you, Gordy, for your excellent question.

And since you live about 10 minutes away from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, why don't

you save them some postage and head over there and pick up your free copy of The Armies

of the Lamb, The Spirituality of Andrew Fuller by our guest, Michael A .G. Hagen.

And if you would like them to mail it to you, let me know either way.

Otherwise, it will just be there waiting for you to pick up since you're so close.

Something that I wanted to make sure we addressed before we ran out of time.

As our co -host here today, Reverend Buzz Taylor, was mentioning before, when he went to

college, there was a distortion of some major figures from

church history where students were given

a misleading understanding of what those great men actually taught and

believed in and lived for.

And don't you think that is very dangerous and it's a very serious

sin actually because you have people who are gleaning and growing much in the

faith from some of these writings and heroes of the faith and then if they're being misled that

those figures believed other things that are not true, that are not biblical, that's a

serious sin.

You're really bearing false witness, aren't you, when you present characters, figures from the past,

heroes from the past, and then tell people that they believe something that they never believed or stood for?

Yeah, it is.

People who are no longer able to respond, I mean, what do you do

today?

How do you deal with what Scripture says about issues?

Do you give the full truth?

You know, somebody could read Spurgeon and say, hey, you know, he did not believe that regeneration

preceded faith.

I mean, I've heard somebody argue that Spurgeon believed that

faith preceded regeneration.

You read Spurgeon and it's quite obvious that he's part of that

Calvinist dream that without regeneration,

there can be no living faith.

And not that faith produces the experience of being born again.

And I just, yeah, and then you find out that the person arguing that, well, he believed the same thing,

and so he's basically twisting Spurgeon's words to support his own conviction.

You know, we're getting a bit

of theological witness in so many ways, and a number of years ago when we

celebrated the 200th anniversary of their birth, I was asked to give a number of lectures

devoted to premillennial theology.

I'm not a premillennialist.

Try to make them out like they were all male.

You know, they may have sounded like they're premill, but really in their hearts they were all male.

No, no, they were committed premillennialists.

I don't agree with that.

I can learn from them deeply and appreciate them.

In their amillennialism, they were sincere, they believed the scripture supported them.

I want to understand why they adopted that.

You mean in their premillennialism, you mean?

I'm sorry?

In their premillennialism, you mean.

Yes.

What did I say?

Amillennialism.

When we disagree with and

show why you don't agree with it,

theologically, you don't find the worst representative.

Well, it's kind of interesting that two men that I mentioned during this interview who disagree with each other on

certain things, such as the hyper -Calvinism of John Gill, my guest Michael Haken, and Tom Nettles.

Tom Nettles wrote the foreword to this book we've been addressing, The Armies of the Lamb.

So we can still have fellowship and great love and

cooperation with those whom we have disagreement.

And we're not going to be in lockstep until we're in glory for eternity.

Yes.

I mean, Tom and I, I mean, I think the world of Tom.

And he is one of the most brilliant church historians I have ever met.

Yes, he is.

And I was always, when he was on full -time faculty and we would have, we had a thing called the Ph .D. Colloquium where

all the Ph .D. students in church history and all the church history professors would

spend an hour and a half together going over various issues every week.

And Dr. Nettles is no longer a part of that because he's not full -time at Southern anymore.

He's retired.

He still teaches for us, but not full -time.

And when he was full -time, it was amazing to me how he

knew the entire range of church history.

I mean, I focused on certain areas, and

he did count,

and we have to be able to...

Amen.

I mean, you have to be a baptized believer to be a member of his church.

And closed communion, you have to be a baptized believer.

And it was John Ryland who was open communion and

also open membership.

Kind of like an evangelical free church.

Yeah.

And Fuller...

Ryland had a man named Trender who was one of his deacons.

He was a deacon for six years.

Fuller would never have tolerated that for a minute.

Well, we're out of time, and the website for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is sbts

.edu.

Sbts .edu.

The website for the Andrew Fuller...

Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies is andrewfullercenter .org.

Andrewfullercenter .org.

The website for Joshua Press is joshuapress .com.

Joshuapress .com.

And again, any other contact information, Dr. Haken, that you care to share?

Thank you.

All right, if you could hold on, I want to schedule you for another interview if you don't mind holding on for a couple of minutes.

Well, I will be happy to do that.

Thank you so much for today.

Hey, thank you.

And I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you

are a sinner.