Debate: Is Repentance of Sin part of the Gospel? (Foskey vs Tommy McMurtry)

All right, here we go. Welcome to Standing for Truth. My name is Donnie Budinsky, and I am your host and moderator for this afternoon's

Soteriology Showdown between pastors Tommy McMurtry and Keith Foskey.

I am thrilled to have these pastors here for this important debate on, as we were joking pre -show, pride and predestination.

So I think this is gonna be a lot of fun as we engage the specific question this afternoon, is repentance of sin part of the gospel?

Keith takes the affirmative and Tommy takes the negative for today's debate. Now, what exactly is meant by repentance of sin will be discussed in this debate.

I am looking forward to an engaging, a comprehensive, and a thought -provoking exchange on this, in many ways, controversial topic.

And so, gentlemen, before we get into opening statements and the debate itself, let's get acquainted, break the ice a little bit, and get to know you gentlemen.

And so, Pastor Keith Foskey, let's start with you. Last time you were here was for your Great Millennium Debate with Lucas Curcio, excellent debate on an

End Times -related topic. And so, Keith, how have you been since then? And also, if you could, tell us a little bit about yourself and your ministry.

Well, thank you, Donnie, for having me on the show, and I'm honored to be here, and I appreciate

Brother Tommy being on and having this opportunity to have the conversation. I am pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

As you said, I've been on the show before, so some folks may know me. I also have a YouTube channel where I do both serious and comedic videos, and I am somewhat of a humorist.

I write satire, I also do stand -up comedy, so that's just a part of what I do. Awesome, well,

I appreciate that, Pastor Keith. For those who wanna see more from you, if they like what they're hearing this afternoon, they can go into the description box and find a link to your channel where they can find a lot of the shorts and comedy -related videos that I definitely highly recommend they check out.

So, Pastor Keith, appreciate that intro. And Pastor Tommy McMurtry, great to have you back as well.

If I remember correctly, the last time you were here was for your full preterism debate with Dr.

William Bell, so that was a fantastic debate as well. Another End Times -related topic, I recommend people check that out.

And so, Pastor Tommy, how have you been since then? And also, tell us a little bit about yourself and your church.

Yeah, I've been doing great, Lord's blessing, and excited to be a part of this debate tonight.

I love this subject. I pastor Liberty Baptist Church in Rock Falls, Illinois. We're getting ready to celebrate our 13th anniversary in less than two weeks, and we are an aggressively soul -winning church.

And so, this doctrine is something that I care about a lot. I love to talk about it, and I'm excited to be having this conversation with Pastor Foskey.

He's somebody I've had on my podcast before. I've been on his. And even though we don't agree on everything, I do appreciate his attitude on these things, his openness to conversation.

And I definitely appreciate his humor. I enjoy a lot of his content. And so,

I am very excited to have this conversation, and I think it's gonna be a productive one.

And so, I'm looking forward to it. Amen, I appreciate that. I agree, I think this is gonna be a productive exchange between two true professionals.

You're definitely no strangers to debates, nor strangers to the topic of salvation.

I know you have both preached on it and discussed it in quite a lot of detail.

So, pastors, appreciate those introductions. For those, again, in the audience that wanna see more from Pastor Keith Foskey and Pastor Tommy McMurtry, do check the description box of this video for links to their channels.

Okay, let's get right into it. I'll briefly go over the format for the audience's sake. And so, format -wise, we're gonna be having 12 -minute opening statements.

Again, the resolution or question for tonight is, is repentance of sin a part of the gospel?

And so, Keith is taking the affirmative, so he'll have the first opening statement, again, 12 minutes.

Then we'll have an eight -minute uninterrupted rebuttal where our guests can engage each other's points and arguments put forth in the opening statements.

Then we'll have an open discussion. So, open discussion's gonna be 50 minutes, and rather than a real strict cross -exam, what we're gonna do is make it a little more free -flowing and organic where our debaters this afternoon can discuss the topic at hand.

And then we'll have five -minute closing statements where the debaters can wrap up their thoughts and points.

And then this is where we get you guys in the audience involved. We'll have roughly a 30 -minute audience Q &A.

So, please, if you do have a question on the topic of salvation or the topic of repentance of sin in relation to the gospel, please make sure you're tagging me either at Donnie or at StandingForTruth, and then let me know who the question's for,

Keith or Tommy. And so, with that, Keith, we're gonna hand it over to you.

And whenever you're ready, please let me know. I'll start your timer, and you have 12 minutes.

Thank you, I'm ready. So, the question before us this evening is, is repentance of sin a part of the gospel?

And I do affirm this. I take this based on seven truths. And I'm gonna give the outline, and then

I'll walk through each one quickly. The seven things are, one, the gospel is fundamentally the same throughout the entire

Bible. Number two, the definition of the word repentance. Number three, faith is more than mere mental assent.

Number four, repentance is not sinless perfection. Number five, the gospel is holistic and not uniconceptual.

Number six, there is a biblical teaching of apostasy, which has to be accounted for. And number seven, the person who denies repentance as a part of the gospel still behaves as if it is.

And so, those are our seven things, and let's break them down. Number one, the gospel is fundamentally the same throughout the

Bible. The gospel that Paul preached, that Jesus preached, and that Abraham believed are all the same gospel, though given through progressively greater revelation.

We are told that Abraham received the gospel when he was told that through him, all the world would be blessed.

Paul wrote that in Galatians 3 .8. The Bible says Jesus went about preaching the gospel in Mark and in Luke.

Paul says that he was not ashamed of the gospel, for it was the power of God unto salvation. It is the power of God unto salvation,

Romans 1, verses 16 and 17. Anyone who would try to claim that there are different gospels would be at odds with Paul, who said that there is not another gospel, only false gospels which oppose the one true gospel,

Galatians 1 .6 -9. This is important because there are some who claim there is a different gospel for the

Jews and Gentiles, one including repentance and one not. Now, I don't believe that that is the position of my opponent, but it's still something that needs to be stated in case this comes up later in the debate.

The Bible does not support the claim that there are multiple gospels. There is one gospel which includes repentance and faith in the promise of God, which is based on the completed work of Jesus Christ.

Number two, the definition of the word repentance. The word translated repentance in its etymological sense means a change of mind, metanoia, but the word has within it more than just a simple mental component.

Laonida, which is a Greek lexicon, says that metanoia means to change one's way of life as a result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness.

Laonida goes on to say, though in English a focal component of repentance is sorrow and contrition that a person experiences because of sin, the emphasis of metanoia is that specifically the total change, both in thought and behavior with respect to how one should think or act.

And this makes sense when we read repentance or repent in the scriptural texts, it bears this out.

For instance, Luke chapter three, verse eight says to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Hebrews 6 .1 says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God.

Acts 26 .20 says, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea and also the

Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

It is clear from the biblical examples that repentance will affect our actions, not just our thinking.

Number three, faith is more than mere mental assent. When the

Protestants said that we are justified by faith alone, sola fide, the immediate reaction from the

Roman Catholic Church was, if you leave a man to live by faith alone, he will inevitably degenerate into habitual sinfulness.

But the response was simple. Faith is not just mental agreement with facts, but it is a change of heart, it is a change of will, it is a change of desire toward God and toward sin.

An example would be that of a parachute. I can believe a parachute will save me if I jump from a plane, but that belief is not faith in the parachute.

Faith is stepping out of the plane. So there are three Latin phrases that the Reformers used when talking about the subject of faith.

They used the phrase notitia, assensus, and fiducia. That means to know, to agree, and to trust.

You can know that Jesus is the only Savior, and you can even agree that that is true.

But if you do not trust in him, you are not saved. And trusting in Christ will produce a change in your life.

Number four, repentance is not sinless perfection. A common question that arises is, well, if repentance is required, how much?

Well, the first act of repentance is turning from the sin of unbelief and recognizing that all of our sin is an affront to God.

The Christian life then becomes a spiritual battleground against the forces of evil. And we live a life of daily, albeit imperfect, repentance.

Someone who says that if we make repentance a part of the gospel means we must demand perfect repentance must by necessity also say that we must require perfect faith because we're saying faith is required for the gospel.

So if faith is required, it must be perfect. No, nobody says that. Well, then why do we say that about repentance?

No one claims that perfect faith is required. No one should also claim that perfect repentance is required.

The two go together, and it's a non sequitur to say one and not the other. Number five, the gospel is holistic and not uniconceptual.

Often when we think about the gospel, we limit it only to the concept of forensic justification.

This means we are declared righteous because of the work of Christ alone. I believe that. I preach that. I teach that doctrine.

All Christians should. It's the doctrine of the gospel. It's the doctrine of the truth that when we believe in Christ, his righteousness becomes ours.

That is not up for debate. But the gospel also includes sanctification and glorification.

Christ came to save us from the penalty of sin, of course, but he also came to save us from the power of sin and the presence of sin.

We will be saved from the penalty of sin when we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll save from the power of sin through a life of repentance, and we will one day be saved from the presence of sin when we are with him in glory.

Therefore, to remove repentance of sin from the gospel is to limit the gospel to only one feature of the gospel, which is forensic justification, and that would be wrong.

Number six, there is a biblical teaching of apostasy which has to be accounted for.

Apostasy is falling away from the faith. It is a biblical word. It means to depart or defect or to rebel.

Different Christian traditions see this differently. Some believe a person can be truly saved, truly justified, and then have that grace removed, fall away in the sense of being genuinely born again, and then not.

Tommy is a Baptist, I'm a Baptist, so we both believe that that's not the case.

As a Calvinistic Baptist, I believe that a person who abandons the faith was never truly saved to begin with.

As Jesus says in Matthew chapter seven, when he's speaking to those who say, Lord, Lord, he says, depart from me,

I never knew you. He didn't say I knew you for a little while. He doesn't say I knew you for as long as you could handle it.

He said, I never knew you. And why this matters here is in regard to the issue of what faith is.

If faith is merely a mental assent to the truth, what if a person says they believe in Jesus, but live a habitual rebellion against him, live in habitual rebellion against him?

Can we not then say on the authority of John's first epistle that this person is not genuinely saved? First John 3 .9

says, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him.

First John 5 .18 repeats this by saying, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning or make a practice of sinning, but he who is born of God protects him and the evil one does not touch him.

A lifestyle of continual, habitual, unrepentant sin which the person has no desire to fight and continues to foster is a lifestyle which is indicative of a person who is not saved, no matter what they have confessed with their mouth.

Number seven, the person who denies repentance as a part of the gospel still behaves as if it is.

If a person was living a habitual unrepentant sin, was living in habitual unrepentant sin with no desire to change, and they stood before my brother

Tommy, I do not believe that he would affirm them as a Christian, even if they claimed to be. If a drag queen stood before him and claimed to be a

Christian, I don't think he would receive that confession. If a person came to his church and was involved in an extramarital affair and his mistress was on his arm and he claimed to be a

Christian, I don't think he would receive this confession. If a man was a known child abuser, drunkard, pornographer, or abortionist,

I don't think he would receive that confession either. The list goes on and on. So the issue at hand is not whether repentance is perfect in anyone because we all have sins, we all struggle with sin, we all have besetting sin that we deal with.

The issue is whether or not we are at war with sin or whether we foster it, love it, excuse it, and promote it.

The unrepentant person does all of those things, but the repentant person does not.

He hates his sin and he prays for the day when it will be no more. There are so many passages that would affirm that repentance, which includes a change of mind and behavior towards sin, is a part of the gospel.

Romans 6, James 2, both present faith as more than mere mental ascent, but a change of spiritual disposition.

This is why Paul says in Romans, or excuse me, 1 Corinthians chapter six, when he's talking about a whole list of sins, he says to the

Corinthians, such were some of you, not such are some of you.

Regeneration produces more than just, excuse me, regeneration produces more than just lip service.

It produces a changed life. Thank you, and that ends my opening statement.

Thank you very much, Pastor Keith Foskey, for that roughly 12 minute opening statement.

And what I'll do is reset the timer. And before I hand it over to you, though, Pastor Tommy, I'll let those in the audience know that I am all caught up on your questions.

I appreciate how engaged everybody is already. So anybody just joining us, yes, we will be having an audience

Q &A once we're done with our main portions of tonight's event. And so please do your best to tag me and send in those questions.

We'll have some fun with them. Okay, Pastor Tommy McMurtry, we will now hand it over to you.

And whenever you're ready, you have 12 minutes. Go ahead. All right, so is repentance of sin part of the gospel is the subject tonight.

And so if you mean, when you say repent of sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then

I would say yes. And, but the question is, if that's what you mean, believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, when you say repent of sins, then why don't you just go ahead and say, believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ? The problem with this phrase, repent of sins, one, you can't find it anywhere in the

Bible, but yet for some reason, everyone insists on saying it. We see it written in many gospel tracts.

And those who do not say it are often accused of denying the doctrine of repentance.

Now I'm not completely against using extra biblical terms and phrases. I often do it myself, but at the same time, if you're not capable of articulating your position with biblical words and phrases, it's probably because your position isn't completely accurate.

And this phrase, repent of sins, it's become so prominent in the Christian world that many don't feel like they're

Orthodox if they don't say it. And as a result of this, most Christians do use this phrase, but the meaning of it is extremely broad.

And I know this too, because as somebody who fellowships with people who would be considered on both sides of the aisle,

I talk to people about this. I ask them often what they mean. I don't just assume the worst.

When I hear this phrase. But there is a whole broad spectrum of beliefs out there when it comes to this phrase that's not in the

Bible. You have those who teach that you have to quit sinning to be saved, which is kind of what you're saying if you tell somebody you must repent of sins to be saved.

But you also have those who teach you don't have to quit sinning, but you have to agree to quit sinning.

But then you have those who teach, well, you don't have to quit sinning because nobody can quit sinning, but you at least need to want to quit sinning.

Well, that would also require convincing somebody that they can do something that is not possible.

But you also have those who teach that if you truly get saved, you will quit sinning. It will be the result of salvation.

And then you have those who teach that if you're truly saved, there will be at least some level of visible change in your life.

They can't ever clearly define that from the scriptures, but they all claim it. But you also have those who teach that to repent of your sins is to change your mind about your sinful condition and turn to Jesus for cleansing from your sin.

It has nothing to do with changing your life or committing to discipleship. And I would say that that goes along with what

I believe. But what we have here, we have this huge range of people who use the same phrase, repent of sins, and some of them are teaching full -blown work salvation, while others are basically teaching, believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. But they're all using that same phrase, repent of sins, that's not in the

Bible. And they don't want to just say, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And those of us with confidence and full assurance that we can tell people just believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, we continue to get accused of being unbiblical, even though we have a verse in the

Bible where somebody says, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. We have John 3, 16, that says, whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

We have John 20, verse 30, it says, and many other signs that Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the

Christ, the Son of God. And that believing, ye might have life through his name. We have 1

John 5, 13. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the

Son of God. And so even though we have biblical terminology, crystal clear, spelled out in the

Bible, whenever we put this in our doctrinal statements, when we promote these things, we often get accused of giving people false assurance as if telling people if they will trust in Christ, the fact that he paid for their sins and will believe on him, that we're giving them a false assurance by getting them to depend on Christ and not themselves.

We get called, accused of teaching easy believism. Now, before I ever accept that accusation,

I always have to ask, well, what do you mean by easy believism? Do you believe it's hard to believe? Do you believe it's hard to get saved?

Or do you mean one, two, three, repeat after me? Because I don't really know anybody that believes that, but we get accused of that.

You also, you hear, you get accused, or we get accused that we're teaching people, they can get saved and then go murder a bunch of people and still go to heaven.

And so my question is, do you believe that you're saved because you're not murdering people?

Well, what about the lesser sins? Do you believe you're saved because you forsook some sins, but you haven't forsaken all sins?

I mean, it seems like it makes a lot more sense to just trust in the fact that Jesus Christ never sinned and trust in him and his work.

But I really hope that tonight we do have a productive conversation and actually hash out some of these things because I'm tired of the false accusation that come at guys like me.

And I'm also tired of people on our side, straw manning the other side. I think our side is often equally guilty of misrepresenting the other side.

And so while I'm not super familiar with what Pastor Foskey teaches on repentance, I am gonna assume a few things, or I'm assuming right now a few things about his beliefs.

And if I'm wrong, I hope he'll correct me. But I do believe there are some real areas where me and him probably do disagree in this subject because of the fact too, he is a

Calvinist. But I personally believe that when it comes to the subject of repentance, that it's very important we actually get to the root of where we disagree.

Most of these conversations, a lot of them are about semantics. A lot of it is people killing straw men, everyone telling the other person what they really believe based on what they're saying.

And I hope we don't do that. I hope we can get laser focused on the real subject. And that is, what is the true evidence of salvation?

Is it your works or is it the work of Jesus Christ? And I really hope we don't get in a lot of the bad arguments tonight.

I had this in my notes and I know this has already been brought up. So I'm not rebuttaling yet, but I really hope we don't do the metanoia argument tonight.

I'll say more about that. The word repent is used many different ways in the

Bible. And we don't need Hebrew and Greek to know how to define the word. Context always makes the definition crystal clear.

Repentance is not exclusively a salvation work. It's not in the Bible and nor is it in the

English language. We just mainly today use it around religious things.

I can have repentance when I decide I'm gonna go to McDonald's and I changed my mind and I go to Burger King instead.

That's repentance. It won't save me, but it's repentance. There's all kinds of repentance that people does that does not save them at all.

And the Bible is full of all kinds of teaching on repentance that has nothing to do with salvation.

So we have no right to complicate the gospel just because we don't like the way a professing believer is acting.

And sadly, many religious leaders act like if they don't have hell to threaten people with, then they don't have anything.

But we shouldn't need the threat of hell to get people doing the right thing. We should first and foremost motivate people through a love of God and then love for others, which is by the way, a major focus of what we see in 1

John and where some scriptures have already been referred to from there.

We should use eternal rewards as a motivator. We should remind them of the chastening hand of God, that God chastens his children.

These are the motivators that Paul used. He didn't threaten the people with hell or try to cast doubt on their salvation.

We have too many people in churches today who just can't seem to find assurance of salvation. And I believe it's mainly bad teaching that causes people to doubt their salvation.

God wants us to know we have eternal life. And if you don't know that you're saved, it's either because you're not saved or you've been deceived by some bad teaching.

Those who are truly trusting in the work of Jesus alone and actually have belief on the

Lord Jesus Christ, they're the ones who find assurance. They're the ones who find rest. Those who look for justification or proof of salvation in their filthy rags and their works are either gonna be very afraid or constantly in doubt if they are honest.

Now, if you look at your works and you find assurance through them, then you're probably someone who is either extremely arrogant or completely unfamiliar with the sinfulness of man and the righteousness of God.

If you can look at your works and you feel justified and you feel that that's proof of your salvation,

I'm afraid you haven't even repented of pride yet, which is a major sin that God happens to hate.

So I'm looking forward to this conversation tonight. I know I'm an independent fundamental Baptist, but I am someone who is ashamed of the way the

IFB often attacks people on both sides of this issue. And I don't need

Pastor Foskey to be a heretic tonight. I don't need to try to prove he is a heretic. I don't need to prove he is unsaved.

I don't want him to be unsaved because of his position on repentance. But I do believe that IFB people and Calvinists have lost all credibility in what they say about others based on their belief about repentance.

And I personally, I'm so frustrated with this subject and the way people behave on it.

I think a person would be a fool to just listen to what someone from the IFB or the Calvinist crowd would say about another preacher because of their beliefs on repentance.

There has been so much misrepresentation and slander when it comes to this. And so tonight what

I wanna do, I wanna judge Pastor Foskey on his words that come out of his mouth. After two,

I have been able to get clarifications. Sometimes there's people who say things, they present things in a way that I would not present them.

Doesn't mean they're a heretic. Sometimes we gotta ask for some clarifying statements and then we judge people.

I don't need somebody else to tell me what he said and nor do I need to assume the worst about something people say.

I really believe this is something where there are legitimate areas of disagreement.

I hope we get to those tonight and I do. I hope we have a productive conversation. And I believe based on Pastor Foskey's reputation and for sure my reputation that we can in fact do that tonight.

Pastor Tommy, thank you very much for that 12 minute opening statements.

Gentlemen, I appreciate those opening statements and the work that you both put into those.

And so, okay, we're moving into our rebuttal. And so for our rebuttal, it is uninterrupted and it'll be for eight minutes.

And so Pastor Keith, we will throw it back to you. And whenever you're ready, again, you got eight minutes.

Go ahead. Well, I wanna say I'm very encouraged by Brother Tommy's opening statement and I agree with him.

And what's funny is he said at the beginning of his opening that he didn't wanna assume the worst.

And I wholeheartedly agree. One of the things I did in preparation for this is I went back and I listened to a few of his sermons on this issue because I wanted to try to understand better what he teaches so that I'm better able to interact today.

And I wanted to see where we agreed. I do want us to try to find the areas of agreement as well as the areas of disagreement.

And I do think some of them, some of the areas of disagreement are simply going to be nuances, but they're important and they're not things that should be simply overlooked.

But I'm thankful for much of what he said. And I just wanna say that as part of my rebuttal.

He mentioned, are we telling people quit sinning because this is something that's impossible.

I wanna affirm that I do not believe in sinless perfectionism. I do not take a second blessing view which is held by some in the holiness movement and even some of the

Methodist movement take a position that someone can be without sin and thought word and deed. I do not believe that.

And this is why I wanted to make that a part of my opening to say that I'm not saying that repentance equals sinless perfectionism.

Repentance again is more than simply a sin of the mind, but it's not a complete change of the person because we continue to be fallen sinners in a fallen world who struggle and battle against sin.

So to clarify the idea that repentance of sin means quit sinning is not what

I'm saying, but I hope in our conversation, we'll talk more about that. At the same time too, he mentioned that the

Bible doesn't say repent of sins. And I will affirm, cause again,

I heard him say that in a sermon and I'd heard that before, had looked around. The Bible certainly does use the word repent in relationship to sins, but the phrase repent of sins is not in the

Bible. My rebuttal to that would be the word Trinity is not in the Bible either, but the concept, the theology is there.

And so we have to say more than just, it doesn't say these three words in succession, therefore this concept is not taught.

But if Tommy is saying, well, we shouldn't use that phrase cause it's not in the Bible. I would say, okay, but what does it mean when we say repent of sins and how can it be used in a right way?

So that's one of the areas I would push back on that. He says he tells people to believe on the

Lord Jesus. I want to know how he defines belief. Is belief merely agreeing with a fact?

I think James chapter two would tell us that's not the case because it says even demons believe and shudder. And so if belief is merely assenting to a set of propositions, then

I don't think that's what the Bible is referring to when it talks about faith and belief. And faith and belief both come from the same word pistis, the word meaning to trust.

He talked about the concern about false assurance. I will say this, and I hope we get into this in the conversation.

One of my concerns is that we not present the gospel in such a way that people think that it is simply merely a mental assent to a certain set of propositions.

And I'm glad to hear that that's not what he's doing. He said he doesn't teach easy believism, however you define that.

He doesn't teach one, two, three, repeat after me. Great, because I would hope that you wouldn't because I think we both would stand on the side and say that type of evangelism is not really evangelism.

You're simply trying to get someone to say something, get someone to repeat something, and that's not what we should be doing.

He mentioned going to murder a bunch of people and how we're talking about the big sins versus the little sins.

I know this is gonna come up later, but it's not about big sins and little sins. And it's not about, as the

Roman Catholics would define, mortal sin versus venial sin. The difference is habituality.

The difference is the person who lives in this habitual sinful lifestyle without any desire to change.

That is an indication that there is a problem in the person's heart. And so that is the difference.

It's not about the greater or lesser sin, but the habituality of the sin. I do agree that we wanna get to the heart of where we disagree.

We don't wanna straw men each other. I certainly don't want to, and I'm glad he doesn't want to for me either. He talked about looking for evidence of salvation.

I fully and completely tell people every Sunday that the gospel is that we find our salvation completely and fully in the work of Christ, and that we don't look to ourselves to find anything good in ourselves.

We look to Jesus. So I agree. This is an area where we will agree. And so we'll talk about how that works out, but I'm gonna quote

Luther. Luther said, I preach the gospel every week because every week my people forget. We have to be reminded that it is the work of Christ and not our works that saves.

Are we complicating the gospel? I don't believe so because we're using the, we're talking about the gospel in the way the

Bible does, and the gospel is more than just forensic justification. The gospel is more than just that.

The gospel is all that is encompassed in salvation. You mentioned about not having to threaten people with hell.

Maybe we can talk about this in cross -examination, and maybe we will, but I don't go around threatening people with hell.

I have heard that in other churches, but I do preach on the doctrine of hell, and I do remind people that hell is a reality.

And we do have passages in scripture about false converts who end up in hell. Matthew 7, verses 21 to 23 identifies the one who says unto me,

Lord, Lord, but is not saved. And so we don't go around threatening people with hell, but there is a sense in which

God at times struck fear into the hearts of his people by reminding them of his justice, such as with Ananias and Sapphira.

It says after they died, before the people of God, all of them stood in fear. And so there are times where we point to the holiness and righteousness of God.

I'll finish with this. He said the Iap and Calvinists have lost all credibility. I hope that he and I tonight can prove that that's not true.

It's not all credibility, but much credibility is lost when we do not accurately represent our opponents or people that we disagree with, our brothers on the other side of the aisle, whatever we wanna say.

So I agree with that. I agree we should try to be charitable and honorable in our description of others.

So God bless you, and that's the end of my rebuttal. Okay, thank you very much,

Pastor Keith, for that eight -minute rebuttal. I will reset the timer and hand it over to you,

Pastor Tommy. And so whenever you're ready, go ahead. You also have eight minutes. Okay, yeah, so I jotted down the seven things that Pastor Foskey mentioned.

The first one he mentioned how the gospel has been the same throughout the Bible. I agree 100%.

I am glad to hear him say that. I'm with him. I believe salvation, it has always been by faith.

And it's Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. I'm with him there. And repentance is something that we see throughout the scriptures.

Repentance is talked about a lot in the Old Testament. So the second point, too, about the definition of repentance,

I do believe, and I don't know, I think Pastor Foskey would agree with this, but I don't believe every time we see that word, it is used in the same way.

And it especially isn't always in reference to repenting of sins because we have

God repenting. I think Pastor Foskey would probably also agree, I would assume he would agree, too, that there are many times where God called

Israel to repentance, but not for a soul salvation, but for a physical salvation because God was going to punish them and God was going to bring armies on them because of certain sins.

And so if they, as a nation, would repent of those sins, then God would repent of the evil that was gonna come upon them.

And so that was repentance. That was repentance of sin. That involved salvation, but was it salvation from hell?

Oh, well, no, because I'm sure a lot of those people in that nation that repented of that sin still didn't have faith and still went to hell.

So a lot of the salvation that we see in the Old Testament is in reference to physical salvation.

And I don't know, maybe we can get into some examples of that as we go on, but I would assume he would agree with that.

And I think I do believe a lot of times when people are preaching wrong on repentance,

I've not heard Pastor Foskey do this, he has not done this yet, but in a lot of preaching that I hear where people wanna define repentance as repentance of sins or repentance from sin, they will go to Old Testament passages where they are called to repent of sins so they will not receive a physical judgment.

And then they'll see that's repenting of sins right there, therefore you have to repent of your sins.

But one thing that is very obvious every time we see repentance in the scripture is you're always repenting from something and you're repenting to something.

And every time we see that word, we must take the time, not just to look up the Hebrew or Greek definition, we must look at what they're repenting from and what they're repenting to.

And you will find out often that it has nothing to do with soul salvation. And so it's a very important thing with any reference that we look at.

He mentioned faith being more than a mental ascent. And I guess

I would agree with that except for the fact too, I do believe that when a person believes on Christ that it is them mentally from the heart and from the heart, they are putting their trust and their faith and trust in the work of Jesus Christ.

He mentioned the devils also believe and tremble. Well, they believe there's one

God. The Muslims believe there's one God. The Jews believe there's one God.

There's all kinds of facts that we can believe that are right about God. But there's a big difference between that and putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and accepting his work as payment for sins rather than your own works.

And so I do believe a person who believes on Christ, they're literally believing from the heart.

They have a change of heart. It's not just because I got them to agree. Like when you're having an argument with somebody and a lot of times they'll back down and they'll agree with you just because it's like, all right,

I'm tired of arguing this. Well, okay, they acknowledged their agreement, but do they believe it from the heart?

No, you do have to believe from the heart. So when people bring that up about the mental ascent,

I'm not a hundred percent sure what they mean by that, but I do think you have to believe it from the heart.

But if the question is, all right, what do I have, do I have to see something as a result?

If we don't see something, it was only a mental ascent. That's just one of those things where it gets really vague.

And that's where I got to ask a lot of follow -up questions and maybe we can get some of that in the cross -examination. He mentioned the gospel being holistic.

I forgot the rest of that statement. I'm not quite sure where all he was going with that, but he mentioned the biblical teaching of apostasy.

Now I do believe, me and Pastor Frosky, we're both once saved, always saved people, even though we might describe it a little bit different, but I do believe there are false converts.

I do believe there are people who have believed in vain, meaning they've believed in the wrong thing.

And there are people who are going to come into a church that are going to go along to get along, but again, it's not in their heart.

They are verbally assenting to whatever you say, but they don't believe it in the heart.

And of course those people are going to fall away at some point unless they truly come to a place of repentance in their heart where they actually do believe on these things.

Yeah, there's no way it's going to last. I also believe that there are infiltrators. I believe that Satan sows wheat among the tares.

And so anybody who's been in church for any length of time at all, they have experienced people who they were convinced were a brother turn around and get caught up in all kinds of terrible sins, terrible doctrines, and that it's devastating.

And when we see that kind of thing, we're always looking for, I think it makes people nervous thinking, could that be me?

And we just need to understand that no, the gospel is still simple. Salvation is still easy.

It's still believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but Satan sows tares among the wheat. There are those who believe in vain, meaning they were trusting in the wrong things or they had not truly believed from the heart.

So I think there's probably a lot of areas where we would agree on that. I can't read my writing here, but he said, a person who denies,

I can't read my own writing here. I forgot what number seven was that he mentioned, but he talked, I did want to address though the habitual sin.

Well, the reality is we all live in sin every day.

But again, how do we define living in sin? We are all sinners.

The apostle Paul said, Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

I think when it comes to this subject of the habitual sin and all that, I think this is an area where people do a lot, make a lot of bad judgment and they misdefine some things.

And one of the reasons I think many people struggle in their confidence and their salvation is

I think a lot of churches do a really bad job in teaching the sinfulness of our flesh, even after we're saved.

It's the spirit within us that has been born of God and that is without sin. But our flesh is always sinful and we have to teach people to walk in the new man.

And I think there's a lot of bad teaching out there that causes people to think if I'm truly saved,

I won't want to commit these sins anymore. Well, as long as you're in this flesh, your flesh is always going to want to commit sin.

And we just need to teach people that it's time for them to man up and walk in the spirit and then they will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

We need to get back to good old fashioned church discipline and things like that. And we need to remind people if you're a child of God, he'll beat the tar out of you.

So I hope that helps. Okay, Pastor Tommy, thank you very much for that eight minute rebuttal.

Gentlemen, that concludes 12 minute opening statements and eight minute rebuttals. We have plenty of points and questions now on the table to engage in a discussion portion.

And so as I indicated earlier, this will be more free flowing and more organic rather than a strict cross -exam.

So we can kind of engage the topic. And I myself have taken some notes based on what you gentlemen have said.

And so if I have to, at some point, I'll throw in some questions as well to engage. So, okay, with that,

Tommy just ended with his rebuttal. So Keith, let's give you the opportunity to pick the first topic to go back and forth on in discussion, go ahead.

Well, the first question I have, I wrote down some preliminary questions kind of thinking through having listened to Brother Tommy's sermon and different things.

And that is, do you teach people that belief in the gospel will necessarily change their behavior?

That it will, in fact, change their behavior? I teach that it should change their behavior. But not that it will.

I cannot biblically figure out how to define or to prove that it will, without a doubt, change their behavior.

We have the thief on the cross who we didn't have a chance to observe anything there.

And there's a lot of people who got saved. We don't know what happened to them afterwards. And so I believe the

Bible teaches that the proof of our salvation or justification, the focus is supposed to be on Jesus Christ and on the cross.

And I think anytime we point to the works of an individual and say, there's the proof that they're truly saved,

I think it's to bring down the holiness of God. And I think it's to throw out most of the law of God.

And so I don't believe the Bible teaches us to do that. Okay, all right.

When you, or do I keep going, Donny? Or how do you want me to? Yeah, feel free to lead the way for a few minutes.

No worries, yeah. Okay, okay. Because you already affirmed one of the questions

I was gonna ask is that, is the gospel the same throughout the scripture? And you said, yes, and then

I was gonna ask, well, does it necessarily change a person's behavior? And you said, not necessarily. So what is the gospel?

Can you give the gospel as you understand its definition? Right, well, gospel is good news, but we have to have, the reason we need good news is because there's bad news.

The bad news is, is that the law condemns us. The law is holy, we are unholy.

And do we make void the law through grace? God forbid, yay, we established the law.

As people who believe what I do about salvation, we see every bit of the law as good, as relevant, and we come short of it.

We cannot possibly do that. And so when you see all that condemnation that comes with the law, that's really bad news.

The good news is Jesus Christ came and he fulfilled the law. Jesus Christ, he never did commit any sins.

He, and he died on the cross paying for all sins. And there has to be payment for sins.

Jesus made it. And the way we can be saved is by accepting and trusting in the offering he made on our behalf.

And I believe anytime we add our works in any way to the gospel, I believe we contaminate the sacrifice of God.

God can only accept a perfect sinless offering. And that was

Jesus Christ. And so it is, it's good news for those who truly understand how sinful they are.

And I believe those who truly understand their sinfulness, they would never read their

Bible and what it says about sin, and then look at a little bit of reformation they've had in their life and think, man, you know,

I must've really got it. No, the more you understand what the law says about sin, the more you understand about the holiness of God, the more you're gonna understand just how wretched we truly are.

And the salvation is 100 % free. And that enables us to now live a life, you know, out of appreciation and out of love for God.

If I have to do some kind of work to stay saved, I'm gonna do works because I love myself.

If I have to do some kind of work to prove to myself that I'm saved,

I'm still working, you know, because I'm just trying to look out for myself and I just wanna have assurance for myself.

But if we have a salvation that's that easy, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, now shall be saved and it's forever.

And then we go on doing good works as a result of that, you know, that is where we are truly able to follow the law of liberty, which is summed up in two laws, love

God and love your neighbor. And so we can do those things.

And I believe the gospel, the true gospel, it enables us to freely pursue a love of God and a love of our neighbor with as clumsy of an effort as that is, you know, and with all of our efforts in these things, every day you can find something in the law that you can nail us with, but the blood of Christ, it cleanses us and God is able to see those works is from the heart and we're acceptable in God's sight.

And we are truly able to follow the first and greatest commandment.

So you believe that there is such a thing as a false convert.

You affirmed that in your rebuttal portion. How do you define non -saving faith?

Faith in the wrong thing. You know, faith that, I mean, well, faith that's not real faith.

Again, anybody who listens to my preaching for any length of time, they know what

I wanna hear when I ask them about their salvation. And at the end of the day,

I do believe that people who are not truly saved, they're not going to last long in a church like ours.

They're eventually going to show themselves for what they really are. And, you know, we're either gonna have to put them out of the church because there's gonna be some kind of gross sin or heresies that are being taught, or they're just gonna leave on their own.

Coming to a church like ours is gonna be pretty pointless if you're not even saved because it is focused on the things of the spirit rather than things of the flesh.

You know, I can see why unsaved people go to these country club, fun center churches, but a church like ours that I believe is biblical, there's, it's really gonna be pointless for the unregenerate.

And so we're gracious with people, you know, because I do think a lot of people, they are, they're trying, you know, they've heard what you say, but it hasn't truly, you know, they haven't truly believed it from the heart, but they're trying.

And so my hope is always that at some point after coming, if that's where they're at, that they will truly get ahold of it and accept it and believe on that.

And so, yeah, I think you're gonna have false converts in coming to every church.

Sure, no, I would affirm that. I didn't address very much in my opening

James chapter two, but I wanna ask you, and I know it's not fair to ask you to give an exposition of a text.

You know, James chapter two is a long chapter and I'm not gonna ask you to go through the whole thing, but I do have to ask you in defining false faith, as I just asked you to do, what does it mean to have false faith?

You said it's to believe the wrong thing. Okay, do you believe James chapter two is identifying false faith when he identifies dead faith?

Do you equate false faith and dead faith? Right, well, I don't believe he's talking exclusively about salvation there, because the context of that passage is if a brother be naked and destitute of daily food.

You know, you can't go saying, hey, I have faith that God's gonna feed you, and then you don't do something for him.

If you have faith that God's gonna feed him and you don't have any works, then you have a dead faith.

And so with all faith, there is going to be works, if anything is going to be produced.

Now, when it comes to salvation, our faith is based on the works of Christ.

You better believe there's works when it comes to our salvation. It's just not our works, it's Christ's works. When it comes to feeding people, when it comes to clothing the naked,

Jesus didn't die on the cross to feed the hungry or to clothe the naked. He did that to save souls.

And so if I wanna have faith that God is gonna do some kind of great, if I have faith that God is gonna do some kind of work outside of salvation, then

I better have some works to back it up. As a pastor, I can't just have faith that God is gonna build this church when

I'm not out there doing what God told me to do, and that is fulfill the great commission and go out in the highways and hedges and do all the things that he commanded.

And so I think to take James 2 and then to add our works to salvation,

I think is a big mistake and I think it's completely using

James 2 for something that James wasn't using it for. Okay, well, one specific part of James 2, he says, can that faith save him?

And he's defining that faith which does not have accompanying works. He says, can that faith -

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry? Sorry, save him from what though? Okay, so that was my next question and I just wanna clarify this.

So when he says, can that faith save him, your contention then would be that that's not referring to salvation in regard to justification.

That's not referring to salvation from sin. Yes. If you need to look it up again,

I'm not - Yeah, I'm looking it up right now just to make sure I'm looking at that right because it's talking about for brother to be naked and destitute of daily food.

Yeah. And the King James may not have the article there, but the article is there when it says, can that faith save?

Because I think the King James says, can faith save him? But the adding and understanding the article, that faith indicates that he's referring to a type of faith, not faith in general.

Right. Yeah, for some reason I'm missing. Oh yeah. Yeah, what if my prophet, my brethren, though man say he hath faith and have not works, can faith save him?

And then yeah, if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food. And then also too, you gotta remember in chapter two, he's addressing saved people and telling them how to act as people of faith.

Cause he starts out the chapter, my brethren have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the

Lord of glory with respect of person. So the entire context of this, of James chapter two, is he's showing a type of behavior, people of faith ought to have, and Christians ought to have works.

Ephesians 2, eight through 10, after the famous not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works that God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

And in the scriptures, we are told to constantly remind people to do the good works.

And we have to, that's part of the job of a pastor is constantly reminding people to do good works.

You know why? Cause it's not a guarantee that they will do good works. In fact, it's a guarantee that a saved person will not do good works if they walk in the flesh.

If they walk in the spirit, then they will have the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

Against such there is no law. If they walk in the flesh, well, the fruit of walking in the flesh is the adultery, the fornication, and all the things that it mentions in Galatians chapter five.

So James two is just one more epistle in the New Testament explaining to Christians exactly how they are supposed to behave.

And yes, when we got saved, we got saved by faith without works, but now

God wants us living by faith. God wants us doing works in Hebrews 11.

I mean, we are given example after example about great things that were accomplished through faith.

And it's constantly referencing the works that these people did because that's

God's will for us as Christians. Do good works, do great things for God. And we do great works through faith.

But when it comes to salvation, the only thing that we'll save are the works of Jesus Christ.

It has to be a perfect offering for sin.

And that's only the blood of Jesus Christ. Yeah, I mean,

I affirm that. And this is where the nuances will lie. I think when we, if we were able to dig down more,

I do want to, I know Donnie, if you, you look like - I was, in relation to what you guys are discussing, which is such a big, important topic, how would you both,

I guess, clearly view, so I put this up on screen, the verse that you guys are interacting with.

What doth a prophet, my brethren, though a man say he have faith and not works? Can faith save him?

Or if you were to put the definite article, that faith or the faith save him? I'm curious how you both view the salvation there.

What is that person being saved from? Can faith save him from what?

And maybe we'll start with you, Pastor Keith. How do you view that? And then Pastor Tommy, I'd be curious how you would answer that too.

Well, this is where Tommy and I may disagree on the salvific nature of this particular passage. And if we do, that's fine.

But this is, I would see James here saying, asking the question, what does it profit that a man say he has faith?

And the key there, again, is the verbal affirmation, which goes along with my definition of a mental assent.

Someone can say they have faith and not truly have it. They can profess it, but not possess it.

I'm sure Tommy's heard that before. Or maybe you even said it before. There is something about saying it that doesn't make it absolutely true.

And so James goes on to say, can that faith be saving faith?

I do believe this is salvific. And when he says, can that faith save him? He's not talking about saving others at that point.

So I'm not saving him because we are saved by faith as the instrument, as the instrumental cause.

Can that faith save him? And the inferred answer is no.

It doesn't say no, but the inference there is no. And so if a man says he has faith, but there is nothing in his life to demonstrate that faith, there is nothing in his life that would demonstrate that that faith is genuine, then that faith is not true faith.

I think that is James's point. I appreciate that, Pastor Keith. So the inferred answer you would say is no.

Can that, or can the faith save him? No. Yeah, and I looked it up while we were sitting here.

I did look it up. It's tapestries, which is, it's that faith. Can that faith save him?

Okay, I appreciate that, Pastor Keith. And so Pastor Tommy, how would you answer that?

Do you believe the inferred answer is no? And if it is no, what type of salvation do you believe

James is referring to here? Right, well, my salvation is not gonna feed or clothe anybody, absolutely not.

So again, we've got to remember the chapter starts out. He says, my brethren, he's talking to save people.

This isn't about salvation. He also says in verse 12 or verse 13, for he shall have judgment without mercy, that he showed no mercy and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

That reminds me, you know, Jesus talked about this type of thing with the Pharisees too, because, you know, they were, you know, they're tithing of mint and anise and cumin and they're omitting the weightier matters of the law.

And he mentions justice and mercy. And so how we treat other people is very important.

And that's the theme of this whole chapter. And so as Christians, we can't just be sitting around talking about the faith that we have,

God's gonna do stuff without actually doing something. We will accomplish nothing for anybody.

And I believe that that, so when it's in verse 14, yeah, that faith without works, it's not going to save anybody.

You're not gonna help anybody. I don't see salvation anywhere in here.

In fact, interestingly enough too, I think more proof of this. I mean, if salvation is somehow inferred here, then we have a huge contradiction between what

James said and what Paul said, because he says, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered

Isaac his son upon the altar? Well, the Bible says in Romans that Abraham was not justified by works.

But we know in Romans, he's talking in relation to salvation. However, in James two, when he refers to the work that Abraham did and being willing to sacrifice his son, that was a testimony to everyone else that he had faith.

When God told Abraham he was gonna multiply his seed as the stars of heaven, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

But we don't look at that moment as this great inspiration of somebody showing faith in a difficult situation.

We all go to Abraham offering up his son, Isaac. That is what is inspirational to all of us, because this was a guy who had faith, who also had salvation, but this guy also had works that backed it up.

He wasn't somebody who had the faith of our Lord with respect of persons. And so that's what

James two is all about. And it's a shame when people who have the faith of the

Lord and have salvation and they don't have works, they're a bad testimony and they're not any good for anybody.

They're completely worthless and they don't bear any fruit. And I do believe that there are

Christians who fail in bearing any fruit. They fail in reproducing themselves.

And I sure don't wanna be somebody who stands before God with no fruit, with all my works being burned up, but you know what?

I'd still rather be there than in hell, which is the alternative. So, and I wanna hand it back to you,

Pastor Keith, if you wanna press Pastor Tommy on any of that, but just to make sure I understand the answer from you,

Pastor Tommy. So you're saying the inferred answer, just like Pastor Keith is no, but the faith and the save there is not positional or it's not salvific.

It's something else basically. Yes. Okay. Pastor Keith, let's throw it back to you if you had anything you wanted to challenge

Tommy on there. No, I think we can move on to further questions if that's okay with everyone else.

I have more questions, but I know Tommy has questions for me and I don't wanna take the whole time for me asking, so. We could do this.

We just hit about the 19 minute mark. We could have you continue, Keith, leading the way right up to the 25 minute mark, and then we'll allow

Tommy to lead the way for the final 25 minutes, or you can throw it to Tommy now.

It's up to you. Well, I do have one thing I wanna ask because this is specific about, and once I'm done with this,

I'll toss it to him. And I know you didn't say this in your opening, so I hope that this isn't an unfair question because this is in regard to something you said in a sermon.

You were talking about Mark 1 14, and you didn't reference Mark 1 14 in your opening. At least I don't remember you doing so, but that's where Jesus says, repent and believe the gospel.

And I remember in your sermon, you said it's not repentance of sin. He just says, repent and believe.

And that is true. Obviously, that's what the text says. So is it your position then that when

Jesus said, repent and believe the gospel, that repentance here has nothing to do with sin? Well, I believe it was they needed to repent of their, their belief in their sinful condition.

Because with everybody, you always have to look at what they're repenting from and what they're repenting to. Well, what were the

Jews, especially these Pharisees, what were they trusting in? Well, they were trusting in their works. These people thought that they were righteous because of their keeping of the law.

So the thing is, if John's telling them to repent of their sins, they thought they've already done that.

We're not like the Gentiles. We're not like the heathen. They were always talking about all the things they did. In fact, one thing for sure, they needed to repent of is what he specifically mentioned when he said, say not within yourself, we have

Abraham as our father, for God is able to these stones to raise up children to Abraham. They thought that because they were the

Jews, that they were somehow special and they needed to see how sinful they truly were.

And there was, there's a, and so the main times we see repentance being preached, it's, or that word being used is when he's talking to the

Jews who already thought they had repented of their sins, who had a problem seeing the fact that they were sinful and they needed to repent of their sins in the sense of understanding they did in fact deserve to go to hell.

They did in fact need cleansing of their sins. And then, but when you're with the

Gentiles, you don't see that as much. Now you do see it on Mars Hill when he's talking to people who are trusting in false gods, when he's talking to these idolaters, they need to repent of their idolatry.

They needed to repent of these other gods that they were trusting in and they needed to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So yeah, they needed, the Jews for sure needed to repent of their sins in the sense of recognizing that they were not righteous.

But as far as like turning from a life of sin, they were all, they already had a lifestyle away from that stuff.

The apostle Paul in Galatians, he made the statement, we who are not sinners of the

Gentiles. Well, you know, what did he mean by that? Is he saying that Jews, or we who are Jews by nature is what he said.

We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles. Well, obviously Jews had sin too, but they didn't have a sinful lifestyle.

I grew up in an independent fundamental Baptist home. We had all kinds of rules, all the bad stuff that the

Gentiles do. We were never allowed to do those things, but I still had to come to a place in my life where I realized that, hey,

I'm not like the Gentiles. I'm not out there cussing and fornicating and doing all those things, but I have broken God's law.

I am in need of a savior, but it's like, you know, what life of sin is a five -year -old capable of repenting of?

I had to repent in the sense of understanding my sinful condition and I need to put my faith in Christ.

Okay, so based on what you just said, Jesus is calling them to repent of self -righteousness.

Agreed? Yes. Okay, so is that not a sin? Sure. Okay, so Jesus is calling them to repent of sin.

But not necessarily a repenting of violation of the law,

I guess. Is self -righteousness not violation of the law? What verse would you connect with that?

I would have to look at it, but I would see that when Jesus called the

Pharisees, he called them hypocrites.

Right, but you understand that. He talked about the two men who went to the temple to pray. One was a tax collector, one was a

Pharisee, and the Pharisee was the one who was not justified because of his self -righteousness. So I think bearing out, whereas the passage says, thou shalt not be self -righteous,

I think it's somewhat self -evident. Right, but you understand too that that would be an example of something that in reality is a mental ascent because you're not necessarily changing anything.

It's literally a change in your thinking. It's literally a change of mind. So a person who goes from self -righteous to not self -righteous won't have a change in behavior?

Well, I think if you're already self -righteous, as far as what behaviors, because again, it's really a thinking.

Because if you're doing righteous things and you feel self -righteous as a result of that, well, obviously you need to repent of that self -righteous, but you need to keep doing the same things.

Keep doing those righteous things. Just stop getting full of yourself as a result of it. So it is kind of, it is a mental, it's literally a mental change.

There's nothing really physical happening. So is this change of thought, is change of thought not indicative of a change of behavior?

I mean, I guess, which again, you know, it's... This is where, and this is one of the nuances I think is important.

You know, the two men went to the temple to pray. The one was a Pharisee. If that man repented of his self -righteousness, would not his very attitude and disposition change?

I guess, yeah, and I guess that's why too, I don't know, that's why I see believing on Christ, recognizing we're too sinful to save ourselves.

You know, it is, that is repentance right there. That literal just change of mind to go from believing the wrong things to believing the right things.

You know, that is in fact repentance. Okay. But if you say repent of sin, then that would, to me, that would imply, you know, to repent of violating the law.

Well, there's still tons of stuff that we're violating. If I told someone to repent of unbelief, would that be acceptable to you?

Right, and I guess, and along with that too, though, you can't just repent of unbelief. You gotta repent of unbelief to believe in the right thing.

Well, yeah, to go from unbelief to belief, but we would say unbelief is sin, correct?

Yeah. Okay, so this is where when we talk about, you know, the question of is repentance of sin, well, the first thing they have to repent of is a sin, and that's the sin of unbelief.

And so there is repentance in the gospel, and that's the argument I'm making, not that they have to be sinlessly perfect or repent of every single sin, you know, top to bottom, because no one even knows all the sins that we do.

No one knows all the sins of our heart. And I know it's just me asking questions and not opining, but these are just thoughts that I'm having is sort of narrowing it down to what do we mean by our language.

I'm with you. I don't think anyone should be called to sinless perfectionism as an evidence of the gospel having changed their heart.

And so we definitely agree with that. Right, and I guess the opposite of unbelief would be faith.

Yes. And you do have to have faith. And so, yeah, anybody who is in unbelief doesn't have faith, and we are calling on people to believe on Christ by faith.

So that's why, yeah, I think we're probably on the same page.

Gentlemen, if I could, maybe now, unless you had a final question there, Keith, we can -

No, I'll throw the ball to Tommy. Okay, Tommy, feel free to - Brother Tommy, I wanna say brother Tommy. Do you go by pastor or brother?

I should have asked. Either one. Okay, in our church, we like brothers as a title in general.

All right, very good discussion so far. I appreciate you guys are being comprehensive and asking and engaging in a lot of the same questions and discussion points that I had in mind as well.

So it's very good. Okay, Tommy, we'll let you lead the way then for the second half of this discussion. So I guess what

I kind of like to do is, I think, get to probably where we do disagree, but I do wanna ask a few questions that I think might help us get there.

But how do you deal with somebody who is doubting their salvation?

If I came to you and I was like, pastor, I don't know for sure if I'm saved or not. What would you tell me?

I would point them to the completed and finished work of Christ on the cross. I would encourage them to trust in that.

And I would ask them what it is that they are finding lacking in what Christ has done.

So it would be completely based upon the work of Christ. That would be my answer.

Okay, so I think that's a good answer. So if someone came to you and said, this is kind of a series of questions, but if somebody came to you and said, what must

I do to be saved? How do you typically handle things with them? If you believe it's somebody that's lost, but like, pastor,

I wanna get saved. Would you, after presenting the gospel to them, would you lead them in a sinner's prayer?

And I guess, what would the process look like? What would need to take place for you to tell them that you believe that they're saved?

Is there anything they could do at that particular interaction? What would make them believe that, what would make you believe that they were born again after that?

Well, if a person came to me and said, what must I do to be saved? My answer would be very similar to the

Apostle Paul who said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So I mean, it would be that. And then

I would expect that the next question that they would ask would be, well, how do I do that? What does it mean to believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ? And that would be where I would begin to explain to them what Christ has done in coming and living a perfect life and dying a substitutionary death upon the cross, whereby he took the punishment for the sin of those who believe on him and provided for them a perfect righteousness.

So I would begin to walk them through what Christ has done and understanding the substitutionary atonement where our sins are laid upon him and his righteousness becomes our standing before God.

And so explaining and ensuring that they affirm those things would be first, that they understand that.

I would talk to them about the fact that Christ does command us to, that this not just be something that is a one and done situation, but that when we believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, that we will follow after him, that we will be baptized.

Now, I do not say baptism is a salvific thing, but I would say a person who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ should desire to be baptized.

So that would be the next step. And there might be a time where I take them through a process of learning before we're baptized.

This is something that, even though we don't see it in scripture, we do see it very early in the history of the church where there was a time of what was known as catechesis or taking somebody through the understanding so that they understand their faith before they receive baptism.

But as far as, I think I've given the answer, and if somebody says, well, how can I know that I'm saved?

It's by trusting in what Christ has done. That is how you can know. Right, so I guess at what point in that interaction would you, is there a point where you would tell them, now you are saved?

No, no, because, and this is probably a difference that you and I would have.

Like, I don't do a sinner's prayer where I would say, pray this prayer, but I will pray with someone if they says,

I don't know what to say to God. I don't know what to pray. I would talk about that we're praying to God, asking him to save us, to receive us as his own, to make us his children by faith, all those things.

I would give them those words, but I wouldn't necessarily have an outline prayer that I would give to them.

But as far as confirming in their heart that they are believers, I would say that's not my job to do.

It's the Holy Spirit who bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God, Galatians chapter three. So I would say that that's,

I would say, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved, and that affirmation will come not from me telling you, hey,

I believe that you're saved, but the Spirit of God bearing witness with your spirit that you're a child of God. Yeah, so, again,

I've not talked to any converts from your church, but as somebody who goes out door knocking all the time, we always ask the question, how do you know you're saved?

And I'm shocked at how many people don't know if they're saved.

And so the thing is, if somebody is very new to the faith, brand new, how are you teaching these people how they can know that they're saved?

I mean, do you teach, like, do you have a day that you say that you got saved, or do you think that salvation is more of a process?

No, I believe that in 1999, when I was in the cab of my

Green Dodge pickup truck, I've told this story before, I don't mean to make a long story out of it, but after having gone through a terrible time of depression and doubt and feeling as if I'd never been more lost than I ever was,

I cried out to God in the cab of my truck, and I believe it was in that moment that He saved me, and I didn't have a fancy prayer to pray, even though I'd been in church as a kid.

I didn't say it in a way that would probably be very articulate or godly. I just prayed to God that He would save me, that He would make

Himself real to me, that He would become my Savior and that I could follow Him, that those are the words that flowed out of me and probably, like I said, very inarticulate.

And oftentimes, I will share that with someone, that this is how God broke into my life, and this may be what you experienced, but not everyone will experience such a dramatic, you know, like I said,

I'm crying, I'm ugly crying over the steering wheel of my truck. I remember the day very clearly. Not everyone's going to have such a dramatic salvation experience.

I think that they may not have that moment where they say, I cried or whatever, but there's still gonna be a point at which they realized that they needed a

Savior and Christ is the only one. So is there a point, or do you ever like bring somebody before your church and say, this person just got saved?

Well, that's what we believe baptism is for, and this might be, again, a difference in just understanding, but I believe even from the history of the church, that the public testimony of someone becoming a

Christian is not a verbal confession, but is a verbal confession that is along with baptism.

So when a person goes into the waters of baptism, they confess the Lord Jesus Christ and then are baptized.

And so that's the confession before the church. It's not something that we would have to do that day.

Let's say somebody comes to me this afternoon, or this Sunday afternoon, and then we're gonna baptism the week after.

Well, that's when the confession will happen before the people is then. Because we don't do an invitation at the end of the service, we do the

Lord's Supper at the end of the service. And the Lord's Supper is an opportunity for people to recognize where they are, because if you're not a believer, you're not supposed to partake.

And so we tell the people, if you're not partaking today, ask yourself why. Are you not, do you not believe that you are in Christ?

And so that's the, it's not an invitation, but it's an opportunity to recognize if you're not.

And oftentimes it's after that that people will come to me and want to talk about their salvation. Okay, so I guess the difference, you would announce someone's, your announcement of somebody's salvation is at baptism, even though you would believe they probably got saved the week before.

Yeah, they got saved when they believed. Their heart was changed. And of course, as a Calvinist, I would say their heart would change and they believed.

But again, that's not what we're arguing. But yes, I believe that when they believed, it was, that's when they were regenerated, not in the waters of baptism.

Okay, okay. So do you believe that a saved person, who's truly saved, truly regenerated, is it possible for them to never get baptized?

That's, theoretically, yes. Practically, I don't know why someone would not be baptized.

And again, that would, the doctrine of baptism, I think, is somewhat minimized.

And what's sad is, because we go by the title Baptist, you and I both call ourselves Baptists, and I think sometimes the doctrine of baptism is somewhat minimized in Baptist churches, because we make such a focus on the verbal confession, and we make such a focus on the moment of salvation, that we forget that in the history of the church, it was not a verbal confession, but was, in fact, the water of baptism, which welcomes someone into the covenant community.

And so if someone wants to be part of the church, if someone wants to be part of the covenant community, and they have not been baptized, that would need to precede their becoming a part of the covenant community, because that is the sign of entrance into that community.

Okay, so you also believe that when a person gets baptized, they become a member of the church as well?

Well, it's funny, because this is an interesting question, because we have done baptisms for people who weren't members of our church before, but in general, like let's say a person comes from a church where they were baptized as a baby, we would say to that person, we require that a person is baptized by immersion as a believer to be a member of our church.

So before they could join the church, they would have to be baptized, and you could say their baptism does welcome them into membership, but if a person comes from a church that they've already been baptized as a believer, they wouldn't have to be re -baptized to become a member of the church.

Okay, so would you baptize somebody who professed faith, wanted to get baptized, but maybe they were living in fornication, which would, obviously, that would disqualify them from church membership.

No, we wouldn't baptize them, and we would also, because like you said, number one, there would immediately be an issue of church discipline that would come along with that.

So no, we would not baptize someone, and then immediately begin the process of church discipline. Okay, so here's the thing that I guess

I wanna make sure, to me, where I think there's the, maybe where we disagree, and that is on what will happen to a truly born -again person.

It's my belief that the scripture does not guarantee anything from somebody who is truly saved.

We have a whole bunch of good examples. We've got some bad examples. We have a ton of instruction on what should be done, and some things that shouldn't be done by a saved person.

But at the end of the day, I don't think that, I personally don't think there's any guarantee.

And so in our church, the way we would do it, we don't, it's in our church constitution that baptism does not necessarily guarantee church membership, because we would baptize somebody living in fornication, but we wouldn't let them join the church.

But that, and - Okay, so may I ask you a question then, since you just said that? So if you have a person, let's say, they come to your church, you know that they are committing adultery.

Let's use adultery, because I wanna use this as an example. A person committing adultery, they got their mistress on their arm, they're standing in the church, they say,

I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but this is my mistress. We're gonna continue to live together. There's going to be no change in my life.

There's gonna be nothing. I'm going to continue to live with my mistress. My kids who are at home with my wife are gonna continue to go hungry.

They're gonna continue to starve because I'm gonna continue to spend the money on my mistress. You would accept that person as a

Christian? I mean, obviously, if they're just, if they come to me basically declaring this rebellion that they're intending to live in, yeah,

I'm just gonna be like, well, see you later. I don't really think you're serious about following the

Lord. However, there are a lot of people who are completely ignorant of just the fact that you shouldn't be shacking up.

Obviously, you're using a pretty extreme example. I would agree. I think there's a difference between ignorance and I just wanna affirm what you just said.

I agree. There's a difference between somebody who comes in, they're ignorant, they've been living together, they don't know it's a sin. Okay, now you know.

Right. Okay, I didn't mean to cut you off, but go ahead. Yeah, yeah. But so I guess, in the situations where we would baptize them too, again, a lot of these people, they've never even heard this before.

And it is a very shocking thing. People are already in financial trouble a lot of times.

Sometimes they have kids. And imagine if all of a sudden we said, obviously you and your wife are married, but if you're just like, hey, you guys gotta work out the logistics of living in two different places all of a sudden.

That'd be pretty tough. And so there's really difficult circumstances people are in.

And so that's why if people express any interest in following Christ, we're gonna baptize them right away.

Yeah, but if they come in flaunting rebellion, then it's another story.

That raises an interesting question though, how you worded that. And again, I'm not trying to catch in your words, I promise it's not like a, ooh,

I got you. But when you said if somebody shows any interest in following Christ, we're going to baptize them.

Is interest in following Christ saving faith? No, not necessarily.

I think discipleship and salvation are two different things. I think discipleship, that is a proper response to the goodness of God and what he has done for us.

You have the woman who was washing the feet of Jesus with her hair and her tears.

That was a proper response, but not everybody was responding that way with Jesus. And Jesus pointed that out to Simon.

Hey, you're not acting like this woman. But she had a more appropriate response for what was done.

And the 10 lepers, you have the one that actually comes back and gives glory to God. So I think there's all kinds of improper responses that people can have, but I believe all of them are saved if they had faith.

And so I think, because this is what I think, when people talk about this repenting of sins and all that, and you tell me if I'm wrong in my representation, but if I'm ranting in my church about something like this, and I start hitting on the repent of sins people or the

Calvinists or something like that, typically the accusations I'm going to be thrown at them is that y 'all are complicating the gospel, that you're discouraging people from going soul winning because salvation is in fact easy, but because they don't like the fact that these people aren't coming into their churches and tithing and doing all these things, they're trying to act like these people out there that we're talking about knocking doors aren't truly getting saved, because they don't like the response that people are giving to their salvation.

And so I guess my thing is, is there, can you biblically show any type of guaranteed response?

Do you think it's possible for a person to be truly saved and not go to hell and yet never bear any fruit on earth?

I don't think so. I don't think, and again, I know that the next question is going to be, so I'll preempt it, and that is how much fruit or what kind of fruit or what do we have to look for?

I recognize that that's going to be the next question. But for instance, you mentioned going soul winning, going door to door, which

I'm 100 % for. We do street preaching, so we're not un -evangelistic. We go out and we preach the gospel and we hand out tracts, and I'm a huge proponent of tracts.

I don't know if you use tracts in your ministry. We do in ours. And I keep them in my wallet.

I walk around, hand them to people, and have those conversations. And praying that God would save their soul, praying that God would open their heart to believe.

All those things. If you go to this person at the door, and you say to them, do you want to believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ? I don't know how you do it. I'm not trying to mock that. I'm just saying, let's say you do that. And that person says,

I want to believe in Jesus. And they pray with you, and they seem sincere in the moment, because that's all we can know in the moment is if they seem sincere.

And they say goodbye, and you say goodbye. The door is closed. They walk back into their house.

And again, I'm painting a worst -case scenario, so I'm not trying to be bad or just thinking about what you said.

They walk back into their house. They never have a desire for the things of the

Lord. They never have a desire to be a part of the community of faith.

They never have a desire to follow Christ in baptism. They never have a desire to do anything but go right back to the pornography that they were doing before you knocked on the door.

And again, I'm painting a worst -case scenario here. Is that not evidence that it was merely an ascent of the mind and not saving faith?

Well, again, because, I mean, do you think saved people don't struggle with pornography?

That's not what I said. And again, this is the difference is, and neither one of us want to straw man the other one.

I'm not saying that no one who's saved has never struggled with pornography. I'm saying that, again, painting the scenario, the person goes back in, has no desire for Christ, has no desire for these things.

They were sincere for the five minutes they were at the door with you. But after that, there's no change. How would you understand the soils when

Jesus talks about the seed going into the soils and the one that has no root? Is this not a person who had no root?

Is that not how you would define them? Well, I think the context of the parable of the seed and the sower is bearing fruit, meaning, referring to reproducing.

And I think a lot of saved people never reproduce. They never bear any fruit. That's the -

Well, this is an area where I think we would, this is probably the biggest disagreement among us then, is to say, because you would say there's three saved people and one not in that parable.

Yeah, because I guess - I would say there's three not and one saved. Right, yeah, because at the end of the day, what

I think, what ends up happening, I think a lot of people are getting off doctrinally.

This is my opinion. I think a lot of people are getting off doctrinally because they are trying to judge things that we have not been called to judge.

And so, as a church that is very aggressive in the soul winning,

I feel like there's not enough soul winning in churches. I think a lot of that is because people have been discouraged from it because they feel like it's not accomplishing anything.

Simply because a lot of these people that get saved at the door, they're not seeing them come to church.

And so now they're not out there preaching the gospel to as many people. And my thing is,

I think it's okay for us to believe these people did in fact get saved because what changes according to the

Bible, it's the inward man. We become a new creature spiritually. It's an inward thing.

And how that will manifest itself on the outside, I do not believe we are given positive indication on that anywhere in the scripture.

And so I believe it is our job to preach the gospel to every creature.

I think we should believe if somebody, again, obviously we can't see somebody's heart, but if people aren't lying to us when they tell us they believe the gospel and they call on the

Lord there for salvation, we should believe that those people are saved and we should rejoice in the fact that that person is not gonna go to hell because at the end of the day too, even if they don't produce anything of value as far as we're concerned,

Jesus does love souls. He came to seek and save that which was lost. It was not about what he could do for us so we could do something for him.

It was about, no, what he could do for us. And so I do believe that there are many people who are in terrible situations too, who are in major financial bondage, just horrible family situations.

And I mean, it's hard to get people, it's hard to get your act together. It's hard to get people attending church faithfully and doing all the things that a

Christian is supposed to do. And I feel like that when we start declaring people unsaved because they couldn't have been truly saved because we're not seeing this, this, and this,

I think we're assuming things that we know exactly how God's gonna deal with those people. We don't know that.

And we are using, I believe, filthy rags as proof of salvation. And I don't believe,

I believe that just discourages evangelism personally. And I think it's okay to just rejoice in the fact that these people are professing

Christ and we ought to assume that they're saved. And then if they come into our church, of course, we're gonna judge them a little more because now they're amongst us, they're in the assembly.

And if they do certain works, you have to put them out of the church and all that. So I guess, how do you motivate anybody to do any kind of evangelism when you're teaching kind of a repent of sins?

Well, the motivation for evangelism comes from the very command of God who tells us to go and make disciples, baptizing in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We were commanded to do so. The motivation doesn't come from results.

The motivation comes from the authority of the one who sins. And so that's first and foremost.

But second of all, and not to diminish what, I know what you're asking. I just wanna make sure people understand the first answer to the question.

The second answer is how do we encourage people? We remind people that the salvation of souls is something that God is doing through the proclamation of his gospel.

So if I proclaim the gospel to a person and they receive that gospel and believe it,

I can rejoice. If I proclaim the gospel to someone and they reject it, well, I don't rejoice over their rejection, but I also know that the

Bible says that the gospel is going to be a saver of life unto life and death unto death.

So I know that a person rejecting what I say or a person not believing what

I say is not going to diminish my enthusiasm for saying it.

And we teach classes on evangelism. How do we talk to people? How do you start conversations? How do you turn those conversations into gospel conversations?

So it's all a part of it. Right. So I guess with kind of, to me, what's happening in your world is you're putting a lot of the focus or the proof of someone's salvation that you evangelize on their works.

And so a verse that I like to bring up that I'd be interested to kind of hear your thoughts on from Romans 3 .23,

for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare,

I say, at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him, which believeth in Jesus, whereas boasting then is excluded.

So again, if we're using someone's, to me, reformation, as we're looking at that as the justifier, how is that not going against what we see there in Romans 3 .26?

To me, what I get from this passage right here is when

I look at myself, there's still sins. I think for me to point to myself and say, hey, look at the life

I'm living, look at this fruit. I mean, look at my haircut, look at my wardrobe, look at my church attendance, look at my works.

To me, that is, I mean, just completely goes against the holiness of God and we are not establishing the law.

We are making void the law in that situation. But what I believe we're supposed to do is we're supposed to look around and be like, man, in reality, after reading the

Bible or reading this passage, we stink. But Jesus, you know, he's the justifier.

He never did any sins. And so on our side, we would accuse you guys of making people and their works kind of the justifier.

How are we wrong about that? That's absolutely incorrect. There is no way in anything that I have said today or have ever said that would indicate that I believe that a man is justified by what he does.

And the use of Romans 3 .23 is so interesting that you would bring that up, because I teach on that as a very important passage when we talk about the holiness of God as it is demonstrated in the penal substitution of Christ.

Because if he is the one who has taken the penalty that we deserve and he has stood in our place as our substitute and thereby made an atonement for us, that is why

God is able to declare himself just or be just and justifier of the one who has faith in Christ or the one who believes in Jesus.

So the idea that I'm holding to my righteousness and not the righteousness of Christ is not correct.

And I would say that is a misrepresentation of what we are teaching. But let me finish, because this is important when you say that a person can believe

Jesus Christ is their savior and it have no effect on their life. That is a problem for me.

And that's where I think the issue between us lies, because that's basically what you've said. And I don't want to strawman you, but you just sort of kind of pushed on me and said, well, this is what it sounds like you believe is that Jesus can come into a person's life and not affect them.

Mm -hmm. Right, so yeah, and I think we're getting somewhere now. So now let me make sure we're on the same page here.

So when I say justification, I'm using that word, obviously, I know Calvinists agree that Christ is what justifies us, but I'm talking about in the sense of the proof of something because you can be declared innocent or you can be declared not, there's a difference between being not guilty and also -

But that's not what justification means. That is not what it means in Romans chapter three. Justification is the declaration of righteousness.

It is a legal and forensic term, which changes my position from being a person who is under guilt and judgment to a person who is standing righteous before God.

Justification is a declaration of righteousness in that passage. And if you turn it into what shows my righteousness before other people, then you've actually abandoned sola fide, you've abandoned justification by faith alone because the very doctrine of justification and faith alone is based on forensic justification.

No, so yeah, no, I agree 100 % with what you said about justification. In fact, I often say Calvinists sometimes articulate these things better than anybody else.

However, isn't using someone's sin in their life, or the fact that they have not repented of sins as evidence that they're not saved, isn't that, or the fact that they have repented of sins, using that as evidence that they are saved, isn't that the same as using it as justification?

No, and again, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say because Tommy stopped, whatever,

I'm not gonna use you as an example because I don't want to sound like an accuser. Because, you know, brother Nathan stopped beating his wife, that proves that he's saved.

No one would ever say that, no one would indicate that. But if brother Nate says, I am a

Christian and I love Jesus while he's blackening the eyes of his wife every day, then

I would have a reason to question his integrity of his love for Christ, because his love for his wife is being demonstrated not out of love, but out of abuse.

In the same way that if someone came into our church and was a full -blown drag queen and said,

I believe in Jesus, but I have no desire to follow after him in any sense of the word.

Not saying you have to stop being a drag queen in that moment, but there's no sense of a desire. There's no change in desire.

It's like my old professor used to say, when I came to Christ, he gave me a new wanna. My wanna changed.

If there is that, if there is no change in that, I would have a reason to question whether or not they have become a believer.

Okay, so you wouldn't use the fact that they quit doing a sin as proof that they're saved, but you might use the fact that they didn't repent of sins of sin as proof that they are not saved.

Well, this is why I would ask. Yeah, I mean, how then would we be able to understand 1

John? 1 John is the no book, right? But in two places, it says no one born of God keeps on sinning.

Now, I know the King James says no one born of God sins, but we have to understand that word sins and the idea of habitual, continual, ongoing, without a desire to change sin.

It's not just sinning, because as we would both agree, a person who believes in God who is born of God does in fact continue to sin.

But this idea of habitual and without a lack of desire to change, how can we make any hide or hair of 1

John 3 .9 or 1 John 5 .18? Well, again, I strongly stick with the verbiage of the

King James and 1 John, which is very different. And I don't know if I really wanna take the time to go on that, maybe we will.

But I guess I do wanna address one thing though, because you talked about the Holy Spirit coming in and having no impact.

Well, obviously I would take issue with the fact that somebody would say or to claim that people on our side would teach that, because I for sure believe there's an impact.

2 Corinthians 5 .17, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.

Obviously something major happens when a person gets saved. I just think how we define that is gonna be a little bit different.

I believe that the new creature is in reference to the new man, the spiritual man.

In fact, maybe I guess we're gonna have to get into 1 John, that which is born of God, I believe that's in reference to the inward man.

That's what doesn't sin. But the old man, the flesh, it sins. And so notice too, in 2

Corinthians 5 .17, people often throw that verse out, old things are passed away, behold, all things become new.

I gave up my cigarettes, I gave up my drinking. And they'll talk about all the stuff they gave up. And so they will basically declare that the new creature is like the reformed

Tommy McMurtry. The Tommy McMurtry that used to go to the bars, that doesn't go to the bars, that's a new creature.

No, the new creature is very clear because it goes on to say in verse 19, to wit that God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

And so without going through all of 2 Corinthians chapter five, because it starts out, it says, if this earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

That's the new creature. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven.

That is something I do believe every truly born again person, they have that hope of righteousness.

And that comes from the inward man. That doesn't come from our flesh. That's not in the flesh at all.

And hopefully if we walk in the spiritual man, it will, you know, there will be some noticeable changes on the outside.

But either way, anybody who say something drastically has changed, they have been, there's been a spiritual rebirth that has taken place.

And hallelujah, their trespasses, because they still have trespasses, are not imputed unto them.

And in 1 John, it says very clearly, beloved, now are we the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be.

Well, what do we appear as now? Sons of Adam, sinful people. We have all kinds of problems, but we know that when we see him, we'll be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

And so we do, we're all making an attempt to do better, but at the end of the day, it's, you know, some do better than others, but all of it is pretty sorry in the eyes of God.

And I think when we go around as other people declaring somebody else is not saved because no impact, no changes, like, well, wait a minute.

We can't see what's going on on the inside. We can only see the outside. Now we're comparing filthy rags. How are we not just comparing filthy rags right now?

And as far as like timing of things, I mean, I've known many people that it was years before they actually started changing anything.

I mean, years and years. And so I really feel like, you know, a lot of these things that we're talking about,

I think it's kind of an extreme accusation to say that because somebody didn't dump their mistress in the timing that we think they should, because they haven't given up their drinking in the time that we think they should or whatever, that there's been no impact, that there's been no change.

Well, hold on, if they got saved, there's been a major change. There's a new creature there, and it doesn't sin.

But that flesh, it's scary how much it can get in the way, how much it can slow down progress.

And to me, what is also terrifying, and we've been warned about this, to take heed lest we fall, that even somebody who has been saved and living like a

Christian for decades can fall from that life, you know, living, you know, and serving

Christ and from being a disciple into a pretty, you know, wicked life.

But I do believe they are still saved and on their way to heaven. Okay, all right.

Gentlemen, Keith, did you want a quick response or rebuttal, and then we can move on to the next phase, or it's totally up to how you guys wanna proceed?

No, I know we got some questions from the audience and things, so I'm sure we'll continue to develop some of this. We do, as we've had a very engaged chat.

It's been an excellent exchange, really just a fantastic debate. I feel it's been very cordial as well, and comprehensive, which is what

I hope for. And listening to you gentlemen discuss this topic makes me feel like we need more pastors and church leaders of different persuasions on this issue to discuss it like you guys did.

So really appreciate it. Okay, let's jump into closing statements then. And so this will give us the opportunity.

We have five minutes for closing statements. And so this way we can wrap up our thoughts, let's wrap up our points.

And maybe there's something that we feel has been left unaddressed or is left hanging there, and we can engage it here.

So Pastor Keith Foskey, you get the first five minute closing statement.

And so whenever you're ready, go ahead, the floor is yours. Thank you. Well, again, I wanna say that I appreciate

Brother Tommy for his kindness. I think we were both able to press each other and yet still maintain civility and cordiality with one another, so I'm very thankful for that.

I just wanna reiterate the seven things that I mentioned, and again, remind where I stand on this issue.

One, the gospel is fundamentally the same throughout the Bible, and the gospel is something that doesn't just come with a ascent of the mind, but it comes with a changed heart.

Brother Tommy affirmed that tonight. He affirmed that there's a changed heart, a new man. The difference between us is that I believe the new man will demonstrate himself, and Tommy seems to believe that the new man possibly won't, that he'll stay hidden, that he'll stay covered, that he will never show himself.

And that's where I think the big issue lies between us. Now, am I saying that the new man is the reason why

I find my justification? No, but the new man is in fact in there, and he's going to make himself known.

His desires are going to come out. His changed heart is going to make itself known. And so this is where I think the differences lie.

And if there is no way to distinguish the believer from the unbeliever, if there's no way to say that when we look out into the world, we can see the difference between those who follow

Christ and those who don't, then that's a very difficult thing for me to find throughout the

Bible, because one of the things that the gospel does produce all throughout the Bible is a changed heart, people who are changed.

And so the gospel is fundamentally the same throughout the Bible. Repentance is always going to include a change.

And repentance of sin, when we talk about sin, unbelief is sin. Going from unbelief to belief is a sin.

Therefore, when the question, does the gospel include repentance of sin? Well, the gospel includes going from unbelief to belief.

That is repentance of sin. So therefore, as far as the debate thesis, that's something we both agree on, and therefore it's true.

The question is, what other sins? And that's where the argument lies. But again, my point continues to be, number three, faith is more than mental ascent.

It's more than just simply acknowledging who Jesus is or acknowledging that He is Savior, but it is actually trusting in Him as Savior, and that trust will bear itself out.

Repentance is not sinless perfection. I have not said that it is my sinless perfection that makes me saved.

It is not my ability to do good things, my ability to be righteous, and it is not my unrighteousness that makes me separated from God because my righteousness is

Christ's. And so sinless perfection is not what I hold to. And the gospel,

I did say this, I said the gospel is holistic and not uniconceptual. We talk about the gospel, we're talking about the fact that we are saved by grace, we are sanctified by grace, and one day we will be glorified by grace, and that is all part of the gospel.

The good news is not just that we have been forensically justified, but that we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved.

The doctrine of apostasy, how can we know someone is an apostate? Well, a few times in today's debate, it's come up, well, we'll see it in their behavior.

Well, again, that's what I'm saying. Again, maybe I'm misrepresenting Tommy, I'm not trying to, but he said, well, we'll see this in their life.

Okay, that's what I'm saying. I think there's agreement there. And again, I still think that while there's a denial that repentance of sin is expected,

I think it's still something that shows itself on the part of those who deny it because they would look out and they would see someone and they would see that they have not departed lawlessness in any way, shape, or form, but they continue to love their sin, they continue to wallow in their sin, they continue to habitually continue in their sin, and they say, well, that person's not a believer.

Yeah, that's what we say. And so these are my points, again, reiterated.

I hope that they have been clear and well -articulated, and thank you. Thank you,

Pastor Keith Foskey for that five -minute concluding statement. Pastor Tommy McMurtry, let's hand it over to you.

And you also get five minutes for concluding words. Go ahead. Yeah, I need to address the fact that Pastor Foskey mentioned at the end of this what

I believed about repentance, and he accurately represented me. So for that, he has my respect.

He is way ahead of most Calvinists I have ever talked to, and I appreciate that very much.

We definitely disagree on some things, but I appreciate an accurate representation that rarely happens, and it really does mean a lot.

And I really did mean it earlier when I said the IFB and the Calvinists, they have no credibility with me when it comes to what they say that other people believe about repentance.

I think they ought to be ashamed of themselves and the way they are, and so more people need to follow this example we have seen here tonight with accurately representing.

And I do. Where the difference is, where we disagree, is just on what the outward change will look like.

And I don't hate people who disagree with me on that. And I know that makes some people on my side mad, but I do believe though, for my closing statement,

I wanted to say, I believe that everyone believes in some sort of a version of perseverance of the saints.

For some, they focus on the perseverance of works. For others, they often focus on the perseverance in doctrine.

It's not wrong for us to have some sort of expectation from someone who professes faith in Christ.

If they are telling the truth, if they have been born again, if the Holy Spirit has taken up residence inside them, of course,

I expect to see something. I just can't figure out biblically how I can get, what there is to guarantee.

I can't do that. And so I believe we're wrong when we make ourselves judges in areas where we have no authority to judge.

And when we try to judge in areas where we're not capable of making righteous judgment. I think a lot of other pastors, they hear about what's going on in another church with the soul winning, and they just make a judgment.

They're one, two, repeat after me, they must deny repentance. You know, maybe I ought to just shut up about it because you don't know, you're not in that position.

So don't just go looking at their doctrinal statement and trying to find a way to pick it apart. I believe that's where we get in a lot of trouble.

We're judging things that aren't our place to judge. And we just need to give the gospel to whoever we can.

The gospel is simple. It's easy. We have no business complicating it. We have no business adding to it.

And to focus on our works when it comes to the gospel, I believe is to contaminate the gospel.

And it's a takeaway from Jesus Christ. And to make our works after salvation, the focus,

I believe it shifts the focus away from the cross and Jesus Christ. We all need to just come to grips with the reality.

Salvation really is as simple as the Bible says, but we also need to come to grips with the fact

Satan sows tares among the wheat. There is such a thing as false converts. There are those who have believed in vain, meaning they believed in the wrong thing, or they've believed in a salvation without the resurrection, or a gospel without the resurrection, like in 1

Corinthians 15. It doesn't change the simple truth though, that we are called to preach the clear, simple gospel to every creature.

And we need to judge those who we are actually called to judge and let God worry about the rest.

There's no place in the Bible where we're called to repent of sins for salvation. And there's no reason to say it, except to please a bunch of Pope wannabes and Pharisees.

Those people, they've never helped one person into the kingdom, and they typically shut people out of the kingdom.

They've been doing that for thousands of years. And I refuse to let people influence my doctrine, my terminology.

I refuse to be embarrassed for how I preach the gospel. I believe I preach it the way it's written in the scriptures.

Many, much of my presentation are direct quotes. And you know what? I do believe that when the apostle

Paul, when he said, I am not ashamed of the gospel, he wasn't saying that because he was afraid people are gonna be laughing at him just because he was a

Christian. I believe he's saying that because of the fact that the Jews, it was a stumbling block to them, to the

Greeks, it was foolishness to them. The gospel, the way I preach it, that's how people look at it, foolishness.

It's so simple, it's so easy. You know, look at you, there's no real change.

There's nothing special about you, but it is that simple. You know, there's no point in comparing filthy rags.

And I'm gonna, like Paul say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God and his salvation to everyone that believeth, to the

Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

First Corinthians 121, for after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased

God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. But the

Jews require a sign. I don't know, maybe that we see some kind of change in somebody's life. The Greeks seek after wisdom.

Surely, you know, there'd be something more intellectual. They will agree to all our theological terms and our fancy catechisms and things.

I know that's not what Paul was directly addressing, but I'm making application. But we preach

Christ crucified under the Jews and stumbling block and under the Greeks foolishness, but under them, which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and wisdom of God.

Thank you very much, Pastor Tommy McMurtry for your five minute concluding statement.

And gentlemen, that concludes our openings, rebuttals, a thorough discussion.

I really enjoyed that. And concluding statement. So I've been looking forward to this exchange and debate pastors and you did not let me down.

And so gentlemen, let's get some quick final words, final thoughts. Again, I really appreciate the time you both have given us for this and the time to prep as well.

So Pastor Keith Foskey, let's hand it to you some real quick final words, final thoughts. And again, thanks so much for doing this.

Well, I wanna say coming into this, Tommy was so gracious to invite me on his program, I guess last year.

I don't remember when it was now, but he had me on and he was so kind to me there. He was kind enough to get some friends together and come on my show for a bow tie dialogue.

So I knew coming in that we were gonna be able to have a pleasant conversation and I'm not disappointed. I think we had a pleasant conversation.

I don't think either one of us threw barbs that were intended to be hurtful towards either man's heart or conscience. I think we asked each other difficult questions and we got the answers that hopefully are in accordance with what we believe.

So thank you, Tommy, for doing this and thank you, Donnie, for putting it together. I really appreciate it. My pleasure.

Great final words. I appreciate that. Pastor Keith and Pastor Tommy, thank you as well for the time.

I appreciate you engaging in this debate and event today. And so let's hand it to you for some final words, final thoughts.

Yeah, I wanna say I appreciate Pastor Foskey. I've observed, before I had him come on my program,

I had observed his attitude and I was pleased with just the spirit of which he approaches things and he's not like most

Calvinists. He's nice, as he says in his promo. And I appreciate that about him. And I hope you remember that, that when it comes to you as an individual,

I do think you're an exception to a lot of things. And remember that in the future, because normally I say a lot of really mean things to Calvinists.

I love fighting with Calvinists and I'm probably gonna continue being mean to a lot of Calvinists, it's just kind of who

I am. But I hope you don't take it personal because when you hear me out throwing insults out there towards Calvinists, I do see you as an exception of a lot of those things.

And so I appreciate that about you. You make me have to watch what I say and use disclaimers that I never felt the need to use before.

And so I appreciate that. Well, you guys both have thick skin and you're good sports.

And again, I think this was a debate that is a debate to remember on repentance of sin and the gospel.

We need more of these, that's for sure with pastors of different persuasion. So, okay, let's wrap it up here to the audience.

Thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate all the support, love, and also the feedback for tonight's exchange.

If you wanna see more from our guests, Pastor Tommy McMurtry and Pastor Keith Vosky, do check the description box of this video for links to their channels.

so with that, God bless everybody. Thank you for tuning in and Standing For Truth is out.