WWUTT 745 Q&A Statement of Faith, Catholics vs Charismatics, and Reformed Resources?

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What would, when we understand the text, Statement of Faith be? How is

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Charismaticism like Roman Catholicism? And what are some good introductory books to Reform Theology?

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The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Happy Anniversary. Happy Anniversary.

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You're a little late. I told you when it was our anniversary too.

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I know. I'm just teasing. We haven't had our date yet though. Nope. Because on the same day that we were celebrating our anniversary.

00:56

I was sleeping. Well. Just kidding. You wished, you probably wished you were sleeping.

01:02

Yep. We had to put our kids back in school. But what do you say when you go back to home school?

01:09

We had to go back to school. Well, we didn't go back to school. We started at school. We're here. We started. There you go. Okay. We started up school.

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Yes. So you were starting school on the same day that our anniversary was falling on. Yes. Because it's August 1st.

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August 1st. It's a perfect starting date. The first day that we get together as part of our co -op is

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Tuesday. Right. So they needed to go through a full like week of school. Is that kind of how that works before you get to the

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Tuesday that? I wanted to start on Wednesday. So that way our home school wouldn't be,

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I don't know. Catch you by surprise? Yes. Yeah, out of whack. Okay. So the kids were kind of already in the mindset of we're in.

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We're being educated now. And then on Tuesdays before CC starts, or the home school group starts, we will go on day trips.

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Ha ha. Oh, so your first co -op gathering is not this Tuesday? Oh no. It's not? Oh, I thought it was.

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That's why I thought you were starting on Wednesday. It's because you were kind of getting everything together before. Ah. No, it doesn't start until the 21st.

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I've been telling people wrong. No. There are people that have. So what do you guys do? Well, we're back to school again. Again, because I don't know.

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Yeah. Start up school. Starting up school again. That's now the term I need to get in my head. Yeah. Starting up school again. So then

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I was explaining it. Our co -op gets together on Tuesday. That was what I had in my head. Yeah. No. All right.

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No. It's more of a campus than a co -op. So we get to do field trips on Tuesday then? Yeah. Yay. Yeah, but you work.

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Yeah, I do. You're totally welcome to come with us though. And we actually are starting our high school ministry again on Tuesday where we feed lunch to high school students.

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Not this Tuesday, but the next week we do. Oh, really? That soon? Yep. It's that soon. Oh, my goodness. Yep. They're going back. I think that's their first day back at school.

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Oh, yeah. I think so. And so we're serving lunch that day. Yep. So the church is catty -corner to the high school.

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Mm -hmm. And for Tuesdays, we have a program that we call Bible Lunch Tuesday.

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Yeah. And this includes a couple of other pastors in town. Or BLT. BLT. Right. Bible Lunch.

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Which as long as I've been doing this, for eight years now, we've never actually served

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BLTs. BLTs. That's hilarious. Now, the first lunch is always the lowest attended lunch of the whole year.

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You should do BLTs. We should do BLTs. Get it kick -started. That's right. That'd be amazing. Get it kick -started with bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches.

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Your family might come and visit. If I was doing BLTs. We'd come for the bacon.

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That's right. Bacon, you can smell it. All the way from the church. Oh, I'm sure. So, because we're right next to the high school, we invite high school students over.

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And it's a huge high school. Over 2 ,000 students. Yeah. And they have open lunch. Yep. They have an open lunch.

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So they can go wherever they want. And it's just sophomore through senior. Right. Because the freshmen have the freshman academy. So, sophomore, juniors, and seniors.

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So, we'll get about 100 students. Mm -hmm. And as the year gets going, we'll get up to about 120. And we really, at our peak, at our max, we've had 200.

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Mm -hmm. And that's split between two lunches. Right. And we didn't advertise for it.

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And we weren't trying to encourage more students to come. Because that's max capacity. Right.

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We could not put any more students in there than that. The amount of food that we have to make, you know, things like that.

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So, we don't really do a whole lot of advertising for it. And we still break about even.

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Yeah. On the students that come, very rarely do we have leftovers. So we do pretty good. And every time the students come over, we just give them a basic gospel presentation.

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Sometimes we go into some other deals, like maybe if there's a particular current event that we know the students have been talking about, but then still trying to tie the gospel back into it.

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Mm -hmm. Because for many of them, this is the only gospel they're going to hear. Ever. About half the students that come, by our own, you know, surveys that we've done, about half of them that come say that they don't attend a church of any kind.

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Mm -hmm. The other half attend some kind of church. Sometimes they attend, you know, one of the youth groups in town or over on post or something like that.

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Mm -hmm. But, so this is one of the ministries that we do over the course of the school year, sharing the gospel with high school students.

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And I think we're entering our 20th year and we only have two years left. We have this year and next year.

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Right. And then after that, they move into a new building. Yes, they do. And that will bring, that will bring our high school ministry, at least as far as BLT goes, that will bring that ministry to an end.

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But anyway. The convenience of the ministry anyway. Yeah. We'll see. That's two years away. Play by ear.

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Who knows what we're doing by then. Right. Anyway, this was a long way around saying that we've got that. Happy anniversary.

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Yeah. Happy anniversary, babe. That ministry is starting up again for us and everything just kind of goes full swing once we get into the school year.

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Oh, yeah. Full swing. Oh, my goodness. Fortunately, we've got a friend that is offering to take the kids for a

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Saturday. We may get a date night in on Saturday. If we don't sleep through it. We may just decide to nap.

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We may. That's our anniversary gift to ourselves. So Becky started school back up again.

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See, now I got it. Started school. There you go. Started school up. And I'm tiling a room for her. Uh -huh.

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Putting together a new laundry room for Becky. So that's what I was going to say.

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That's what we're going to do when we get done with this. When we finish recording this, Becky's going to go to bed. I'm going to bed. And I'm going to go finish tiling a room.

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I'm so mentally exhausted from thinking and planning and trying to make it all, oh, my goodness.

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And keep everybody peppy and focused. Oh, that's so exhausting.

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You had listeners praying for you, though. Oh, thank you so much. People lifting you up in prayer.

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Really, it's gone remarkably well. Normally, it takes about two weeks for us to get settled into a school routine.

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But they've actually done pretty good. I mean, two hours shaved off today from yesterday.

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So that's a lot. We lost a turtle, though. We didn't lose a turtle. That was a bummer.

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Did you tell the listeners about the turtle? No, I didn't say anything about the turtle. So we have a turtle that we've had in the backyard all summer.

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And we built a little cinder block enclosure for him. Well, another turtle showed up looking for a friend.

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I thought our turtle had gotten out. I was like, hey, you don't have the same markings. Not the same turtle.

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So we caught that turtle, but then that one got out. So yeah, that one was an escape artist.

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So hopefully she'll come back looking for her mate again. Hopefully. Well, I'm not sure if I really want babies, but hopefully a friend will come.

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Hopefully a friend will come. All right. Let's get to some questions here. Yes, let's. Because that's really why we're here. That's right. Well, there's a little home life.

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Yep. Let you know what we're up to, why Becky wasn't on last week. This is some of the things that have led to her exhaustion that she isn't able to join us on Fridays.

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You can send a question to the broadcast when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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I did get a couple of questions about putting this booth together that we're going to do at G3. Sweet.

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In January. Yes, I'm excited. I talked about it last week. I do not have anything set up online yet, if you would want to donate for us to build this booth.

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Hey, I've been busy. But he will soon. It'll get done.

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I think it's number three on the to -do list. Something like that. So we hope to see you at G3 and encourage you to sign up for the conference.

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It is a fantastic conference. Oh, yes. Talking about missions this coming year.

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January in Atlanta. Northwest of Atlanta? Yeah, it's like right in the center of Atlanta.

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Is it really? Oh, yeah. Pretty much. Yeah, it's right there by the airport. Oh, yeah. Sorry. It's kind of the southern end.

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I was thinking of their church. Oh, that's way out on the west side. Yeah. The church that started it. Praise Mill Baptist Church.

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That's out on the west. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's even outside metropolitan Atlanta. Well, that's where I was thinking because that's the last place we went.

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And so my mind was elsewhere. Anyway. Sorry. He's right. It's downtown Atlanta.

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Right in the middle. My mom and dad live in Atlanta. I like Atlanta. I'm a huge Braves fan.

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It's unfortunate that they don't do the conference during the season, though. Yeah. Well, it's probably for a good reason.

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Maybe so. But yeah, I encourage you to go to G3. Type in the letter G, the number three, conference .org

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or dot com. I did this. I don't think it's dot com. I did this last week, too. Hang on.

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G3 conference dot com. Yep. It is.

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It is dot com. G3 conference dot com. Gospel. Grace. Glory. That's what the three

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G's stand for. So we hope to see you in January and we hope to have a booth. And to help us put this booth together, we'll give you some more details in the coming weeks.

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Becky thinks it'll be next week. We'll see. Yes. Yes, I do. She's giving me that look like you're going to get on there.

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I'm optimistic and pushy. This first question comes from Kyle in Louisiana.

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One of our youth leaders found what .com and enjoyed the site. He wanted to know if we could use your 40 most popular

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Bible verses in our youth ministry. I'm going to purchase and download the book for review.

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I've watched most of your videos and listened to one of your podcasts. I enjoyed the material. I do have a question.

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I've read that you are in agreement with the current Baptist faith and message and have elders, as do we.

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Is your church, are you reformed? So it's is your church, are you, reformed or Calvinistic in doctrine?

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Just curious as it appears so. I do my best to assure doctrinal integrity in any material we use in our church.

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That's why I'm asking. By the way, you sound a lot like Todd Freel. Take that as a compliment.

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You have a great voice for recording and broadcast. Thank you, Kyle. Well, that's a compliment to me,

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Kyle. I don't know if it's a compliment to Todd, though. But I sure appreciate it.

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I don't know how he would feel about that. Todd and I, we love each other. We shoot emails back and forth and pick on each other every once in a while.

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I listen to him, but he only watches what videos? I don't think he's ever listened to the podcast.

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Kind of listening, I suppose. Yeah, that's right. 90 seconds. You're watching the videos. Am I reformed?

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I have said that I lean reformed, and the reason why I say that is because the church that I pastor is not

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London Baptist Confession 1689. And I believe to truly be reformed is to be confessional.

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And you would have to adhere to a reformed confession. Now, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 does come from a reformed tradition at its roots when you go back to where the

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Southern Baptist Confession of Faith came from. You go back to the abstract of principles and things like that.

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It all comes from a reformed tradition. And that's why ministries like Founders Ministry exists, because it's trying to get the

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Southern Baptist Convention in particular back to its reformed roots. Right. And so the

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Southern Baptist Convention definitely has that. But we're not now. You know, you're talking two thirds of the

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Southern Baptist Convention would identify themselves. Actually, there's probably a third that wouldn't pick a label at all.

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Right. That's probably very accurate. And then there's a third that would be heavily

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Arminian, although the term they would use would be traditionalist, which is not traditional.

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It's not traditional to the Southern Baptist Faith. Right. And then there's another third that would identify themselves as reformed.

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But since I am not a pastor of a reformed church and we do not adhere to a reformed confession,

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I've said that as far as my soteriology goes, I lean in the direction of reformed.

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I love the London Baptist Confession 1689. I teach my kids from it. When we do catechism,

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I use Benjamin Keech's catechism, which is known as the Baptist Catechism, or I will use

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Founders Ministries Catechism that they produce was edited by Tom Askell. Those are the materials that I use for teaching.

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But my church is not Calvinist. The majority of our congregation would not identify that way.

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Most of them probably don't understand what that means. Right. The way that I teach is very textual.

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I am an expositor, so I teach from the scriptures. Right now, we're going through Second Corinthians.

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I'm actually preaching on Second Corinthians 521 this coming Sunday. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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It is an incredible verse, and the weight upon a pastor to be faithful to the immense truth that's being expressed there is weighing heavy on my conscience.

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So pray for me as I'm going to be preaching on that this Sunday. Amen. Then once we get done with that, then we go into Second Corinthians chapter six, and we're just going to keep going until we finish the book.

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So that's the way that I teach. All of the men that I listen to are guys like Al Mohler, Votie Bauckham, John MacArthur, R .C.

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Sproul, Steve Lawson. If you are hearing those names, you're going, well, that's mostly

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Reformed in. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. That would be the names of the people that influence me the most. Spurgeon once said that if you want to call me a

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Calvinist, I would prefer that you call me a Christian. And even I have said to people who have asked me such questions, the only

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C word you're ever going to hear me identify as is a Christian. But then

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Spurgeon said, if you want to ask me about the doctrines of grace, I will tell you that I love them and I vow to uphold them.

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And it is his joy and his delight to uphold the doctrines of grace. Spurgeon said that Calvinism was just another word for the gospel.

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Like you might use the term for Roman's Road. You ever heard Roman's Road? It's going through Romans to express the gospel.

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Right. Well, Roman's Road is another word for the gospel. It's just the way that the gospel is being presented. And Calvinism is the same way.

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So there are people that just don't understand what Calvinism is. And typically when the word is attributed to me, it's being used as an insult.

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It's not being used as a compliment. Definitely negative. So because people who use that term don't even understand it and they could not even explain it,

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I don't use the word. I don't have any use for it. But to help you understand where I come from, soteriologically,

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I will say that I lean Reformed. Now when I wrote 40 of the most popular Bible verses and what they really mean,

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I was not on the cessationist side of things. You would have probably called me more of a continuous at that particular time.

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And it wasn't that I was doing things like practicing speaking in tongues or giving people prophecy that the

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Lord revealed to me. It wasn't anything like that. It was just I could not find a biblical basis by which to say your private prayer language is biblically wrong.

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And so I didn't condone it. I didn't encourage anybody to do it. But at the same time, I didn't really discourage anybody to do it either.

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And then it was a friend of mine, actually somebody that helped me start When We Understand the Text, that took me through the scriptures and helped me to understand that my reasoning on that was wrong.

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And so I've since changed my mind about that. But when I wrote 40 of the most popular Bible verses,

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I was not in that mindset, nor was I a Sabbatarian, meaning that I did not understand

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Sunday as being the Lord's day. That is the day that we are to have our day of rest and commit ourselves unto the

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Lord. And so I did not have that perspective when I was writing the 40 book. So that's just to show you how my sanctification has continued, that I've been growing in maturity in my faith.

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I may not have identified myself so much on the reform side of things or as LBCF 1689 at the time that I wrote that book, but I'm more in line with those doctrines now than I was at the time.

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So if that helps you and you still decide you want to do the book, I think it's great that you would want to download it first and read it before deciding that it's something that you would want to teach your youth group.

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Very wise choice. That's a great idea. Sometime in the future, I hope to be able to write another one. But thank you,

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Kyle. Thank you for your question. Now, one of the things that Kyle mentioned was that as a church, we adhere to the

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Baptist Faith and Message. That's true. Specifically, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. There are other churches that will cling to an older Baptist Faith and Message.

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And the reason that they do that is probably because they don't like what the BFM 2000 says about marriage and what it says about a pastor being only a man.

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And that's probably why they cling to an older version of it. But yeah, we follow the

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BFM 2000. That's our statement of faith as the Southern Baptist Church that we are. And I do believe that there are some reform roots to that statement of faith.

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And hopefully, the Southern Baptist Convention will head that way. Right. In the near future. That would be an answer to prayer.

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Sooner rather than later. Yes. Most definitely. This next question comes from Sabrina. Hello, I just listened to your explanation differentiating

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Calvinism and Reform Theology. So just to kind of refresh, was this last week or two weeks ago that I said that Calvinism and Reform Theology are not the same thing?

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Were you with me when I talked about that? I don't remember. Too many nights have passed. Then it was last week.

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Too many mornings. So I said that if a person is Reformed, they will be

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Calvinistic because that doctrine is in Reformed confessions. But just because you call yourself a

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Calvinist does not also mean that you're Reformed because you may not adhere to a Reformed confession of faith.

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Okay. So that was what I said about it last week. So then Sabrina goes on, could you further explain how

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Charismaticism is similar to Catholicism? That was something else that I said last week. I attended a

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Charismatic church a few years ago and their willingness to give subjective feelings similar levels of authority as Scripture is what led me to leave.

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But the idea of it being similar to Catholicism is a new one for me. Possibly because the atmosphere in the two churches is so different.

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Please clarify. Yeah, because you definitely have a lot more pomp and circumstance in the Catholic church. You've got more liturgy, things like that.

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Charismaticism is not nearly as organized. It's a lot more all over the place. So where did

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I come to this conclusion that going back to Charismaticism is actually leaving a

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Protestant understanding of doctrine and instead going back to a

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Catholic understanding of doctrine? Well, it's because the Catholic church believes that new truth is still being revealed by the

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Holy Spirit outside of the Word of God and is equal to authority, if not greater in authority than what the

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Bible says. That's true. It was Pope Pius IX at the first Vatican Council in 1870 that said the following, the

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Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when he in the exercise of his office of supreme apostolic authority decides that a doctrine concerning faith or morals is to be held by the entire church.

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He possesses in consequence of the divine aid promised him in St. Peter, that infallibility which the divine savior wished to have his church furnished for the definition of doctrines concerning faith or morals, and that definitions of the

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Roman pontiff are of themselves and not in consequence of the church's consent, irreformable.

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In other words, if the Pope has declared something from the chair of St. Peter, it is as binding as scripture itself.

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And that is charismatic. That is as much what the charismatics practice as the

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Catholic church practices. So indeed the atmosphere of the churches may be different, but what they believe about the infallibility or the inerrancy of scripture is very much the same.

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Now you will have charismatics just like Matt Chandler who will say that he believes the Bible to be inerrant, but when he's teaching the way that he teaches like we talked about a couple of weeks ago with hey

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God may give you some sort of thing in your mind that you can share with somebody else, he's actually going against that understanding of the inerrancy of scripture being sufficient.

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And the beginning of the London Baptist Confession 1689, the very first sentence talks about the sufficiency of scripture.

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And in that first chapter also says that any revelation of any new truth has absolutely come to an end.

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There is no new truth that is being revealed to us apart from scripture. There is nothing authoritative that's being revealed in that sense.

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The word of God is complete. We have it. This is God speaking to us. When you read the

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Bible, God is speaking to you. When you pray, you are speaking to God. And so charismaticism goes back to the

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Catholic idea that the Protestant church was trying to get away from. It goes back to the Catholic idea that God is still revealing new truth, which is why charismaticism and Catholicism are so closely aligned.

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There's also a very mystic side to Roman Catholicism and it's very prevalent in the Roman Catholic Church and that's very much like charismaticism.

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It doesn't, you wouldn't go into such a church and see people swinging from the rafters and acting like animals and flopping on the floor, but the principle of it is still the same because they believe that they can have some sort of Holy Spirit experience and have visions of angels and other things.

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That's exactly the same kind of thing you would see coming out of Bethel Church. In fact, I just watched a video this past week of a young man at Bethel Church who was talking to the camera after one of their services.

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The camera's right there in the sanctuary, so you're seeing people kind of mingle around and they're leaving. And he's looking into the camera and he's like, yeah,

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I was worshiping and out the corner of my eye over here, this angel appeared.

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And then this angel came to me and did this thing and then I saw the angel blessing all these other people.

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And I saw this video and I was like, boy, he sure is calm about having just seen an angel. I mean, if somebody's going to have an encounter with an angel, they are terrified.

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Yeah. I think even if you were to be expecting it, you would still be terrified. It would still scare you, yes.

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Terrifying. The two things angels say when they show up in the Bible. Do not be afraid. Don't be afraid and get up.

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Yep. That's so true. That's what happens when an angel appears. I am not the one to be bowing to.

24:05

Yeah. Yeah. And I have known Catholics who have shared with me these mystic experiences they've had of so -and -so appeared to me in a vision or whatnot.

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And you have those stories that will pop up every once in a while of somebody seeing the Virgin Mary in toast or in some sort of water stain on the wall or the statue started crying tears.

24:28

Right. Of blood. Or blood tears of oil or blood or any of these. All of that's charismatic. That's exactly the same mystic charismaticism that you find in a church that would identify as Protestant charismatic church.

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So that's why I was saying that charismaticism is actually leaving

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Protestantism and trying to cling back to something Catholic, which the Protestant church was trying to get away from.

24:54

Right. And all those Reformed confessions that come out of the Protestant Reformation abjectly rejected that practice or that tendency in the

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Roman Catholic church. And so it's disappointing when somebody like Chandler, who even identifies himself as Reformed, he's not.

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He's Calvinist, but he's not Reformed. But when he identifies himself as Reformed and yet he's clinging to this kind of teaching related to prophecy, it's just very disappointing.

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And it displays an ignorance of church history on top of that. And it leads people to think of the wrong application of that word.

25:30

Of which word? Of Reformed. That's right. Yeah. You're correct. Yeah. That we can call ourselves

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Reformed if we love the doctrines of grace and still. There's more to it. Yeah. There's more to it than that.

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An understanding of Sabbath. An understanding of the sacraments. People around here asking you if you're

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Calvinist as a, or no, telling you you're Calvinist as a negative thing. And it's just so weird that we have different definitions for the same words.

25:59

And whenever you finally figure out what that word actually means, it means something totally different than what you were applying to it.

26:06

Right. Right. So, I mean, that happens on a grand scale of things. That's not just those two specific words, but it's just.

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What? People misunderstand one another? Yes. I know. Are you serious? That's why we have, when we understand the text.

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And don't understand the meanings of words? That's not this culture at all. Whatever. Hey, if you don't know what the word means.

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Don't use it. Make it up. That's right. Just give it the meaning that you want it to mean.

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Just keep going. Speaking of which, I've got a story to share with you. Like all those names in the Bible.

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If you don't know how to pronounce them, just keep going. Keep going and everybody will think that's the pronunciation of that name.

26:47

So today, while I was working on this floor that I'm tiling for you, and you went upstairs, and so you told

26:53

Annie to continue the lesson with Zij about synonyms and antonyms. Do you remember that? Yes.

26:59

Okay. Which was the wrong lesson, but I didn't realize that until much later. It's okay. Gotcha. Keep going.

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So Annie is explaining to Zij the difference between a synonym and an antonym. Okay. And she's trying to give him examples.

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Okay. And so like, this is a box, and another word for this is container.

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Is that a synonym or an antonym? Like she would say something like that. And he responded to her, it's a cinnamon.

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And so she goes - Oh, no. She's a stickler. Yeah. She very much is a stickler.

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She's a stickler. She goes, buddy, it's pronounced synonym. And he goes, I don't want to call it a synonym.

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I want to call it a cinnamon. And that's so Zij. And she says, well, that's not the right word.

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And he goes, but it's the word I like better. So it's the word I'm going to use. Hey, I like cinnamon much better than synonym too.

27:55

I'm on board with him on there. But this is - But you can't apply a different meaning to that word.

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A different word with the same meaning in this particular case. Right. So this just goes to show you kids. Moral relativism is childish.

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It's a thing that kids do. Often. Grow up, know the truth, and study what

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God's word says. Eat some meat from God's word. Stop drinking milk. Get off the milk. That's right.

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So anyway, I thought that story went well with you. That is awesome. I love the application. Even this thing that's going on right now with the

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Revoice conference. So it was that LGBT quote unquote Christian conference that was held in St.

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Louis just last week when Al Mohler responded to it on the briefing.

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This would have been yesterday, Thursday. Thursday's edition of the briefing. When he responded to it, one of the things that he pointed out is that the basis of sin that they use for this conference has

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Catholic roots, has Roman Catholic roots to it. Even though the conference was supposed to be, well, it was probably very ecumenical.

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But for the most part, it was Protestant or evangelical because it was held at a

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Presbyterian church. So you would probably call it an evangelical conference. So even though it was evangelical, this concept of sin that they had where you can think it, but it's not sin unless you act it out.

29:28

Oh, no. That's a Catholic understanding. And here is what Dr. Mohler wrote about it.

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You can either listen to the briefing or you can go to albertmohler .com and he's got an article there. The issues here are bigger than sexuality, he said.

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As Denny Burke and Rosaria Butterfield rightly explain, we confront here a basic evangelical disagreement with Roman Catholicism.

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Ever since the Council of Trent, 1545 to 1563, the Roman Catholic Church has insisted that involuntary incentive to sin is not itself sin.

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In the most amazing sentence, the Council of Trent declared this concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the

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Holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin.

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Don't miss the acknowledgement that the Council of Trent is contrary to the language of the apostle.

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They even say that in their own confession. Wow. They say even though the apostle sometimes calls it sin, the

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Holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin. Dr.

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Mohler goes on, furthermore, remember that Catholic theology includes both infant baptism and baptismal regeneration, meaning that evangelicals and Catholics have fundamentally divergent understandings of both justification and sanctification.

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But he's showing how even this understanding of sin that was being voiced at the

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Revoice Conference is more Catholic than it is Protestant. And so whenever we get to leaning toward false doctrine, there's a good chance that that false doctrine that somebody is starting to cling to looks more like the

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Catholic Church than it looks like the Protestant Church. Reform Protestantism was an attempt to reform the church back to its originally intended purpose and the apostle

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Paul was the first reformer. You just read the book of Galatians and he's trying to reform the church back to the gospel that we first preached to you.

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And if anybody comes to you preaching a different gospel, they are accursed. And that is one of the most striking statements in all of the epistles, that statement that Paul makes about the gospel.

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So may we cling to the truth of what the scripture says and be very wary of those people that come speaking something new.

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God gave me a vision. You've never heard this before. Right. Red flags go up. Not joking.

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If somebody comes claiming something new, it's probably an old heresy. And I've never heard this anywhere else.

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Yep. Yep. There's that one too. Ah, drives me crazy. So I talked about how

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I don't call myself a Calvinist and when it comes to reform theology, I say that I lean reformed.

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But I believed the doctrines of grace before I knew what the doctrines of grace were. Exactly. And it's because I read the

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Bible and my understanding of what the Bible said. And then once somebody presented to me Calvinism and explained it to me, because my understanding of Calvinism growing up was the idea

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God has already decided who's going to be saved. And so we don't need to evangelize anybody.

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That was my understanding of Calvinism. So once somebody explained it to me and gave me the doctrines of grace,

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I was going, well, yeah, that's what I believe. That's even what I teach. As a pastor, it was what I taught. And as I said, when

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I came, I've shared this with you before. When I became a pastor, I was not very schooled in church history.

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That was probably my weakest place of education, was a very poor understanding of church history.

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So terms like this, I just didn't know well. And I didn't even understand well the

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Presbyterian understanding of infant baptism. The way that I was explaining infant baptism in the

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Presbyterian church is the same way that I understood infant baptism in the Catholic church. And so somebody corrected my understanding of that even.

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Didn't convince me to become a paedo -baptist. But at least now I'm not misrepresenting the doctrine when

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I challenge it. For more information on that, by the way, check out a book called The Fatal Flaw by Jeffrey Johnson.

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It's one of the best defenses of credo -baptism that I have ever read.

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So anyway, what were we talking about? We were answering Sabrina's question, and I think we've covered that.

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I think so. So when we start going in the direction of false doctrines, there's a chance that we're probably swinging back in a direction of Roman Catholicism, which

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Reformed Protestantism was trying so desperately to get out of. Had a conversation with somebody recently.

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Desperately. They lost their lives. Yeah, lost their lives. Super desperate. People. Not just desperate as in America desperate.

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Like I'm having a bad day. I need a coffee. Right. You know, like not. Yeah, that's right. Not desperate like that, but like seriously.

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I've used so many likes. I'm so sorry. That's American desperate. Right. Oh, the line at Starbucks is too long, but I'm going to stand in any way because I need overpriced coffee.

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But not by my wife, any. No, because it's overpriced coffee. I'll buy you coffee and you can make it at home.

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All right. I'm holding you to that. Everybody here? Everybody here? Of course. I've always bought you coffee so you can make it at home.

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I'm just teasing. All right. I think we're done with that question. Remember, if I summarize that well or not.

34:59

You can go back, Sabrina, and listen to it, and hopefully we don't sound too confusing. Sorry. This next one is from Daryl.

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Hello, Pastor Gabe. I was wondering if you could recommend some resources on reformed theology that I could study on.

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I could study on from my iPhone. I'm not very knowledgeable in reformed theology as it is.

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So anything that would be introductory, beginner level would be preferred. Any downloadable books, websites, etc.

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would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Daryl, purchase on your iPhone the book,

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Why We're Protestant by Nate Pickowitz. Amen. That's the first book I would tell you to read. That is the most basic level understanding of not just reformed theology, but even why we call ourselves

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Protestant, as the title would suggest. Right. So you understand the five basic doctrines that are not just the basis for reformed theology, but they're the basis for being a

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Protestant church. Why that even happened. Why we would call ourselves Protestant.

35:58

Yes. So you have the five solos of the Protestant Reformation. That we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, and we are under the authority of scripture alone.

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So those five, what are called the five solos of the Protestant Reformation, Nate covers that in the book, and it is very introductory level.

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I would say you get even a kind of a great overview of church history 500 years ago, coming out of that Protestant Reformation.

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And Nate is a great historian, very understanding of Puritan theology as well.

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So you get kind of an introduction into that. Also check out the book, Faith Alone. After you finish that one from Nate Pickowitz, get the book,

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Faith Alone by Thomas Schreiner. It's a little bit longer than Nate's. I think it's about twice the length of Nate's book.

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And then there are other books in that series. When you purchase Faith Alone, there will be other books that will come up that include scripture alone, grace alone.

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I can't remember who the authors are on those other five books. But then they get into greater detail of those five solos.

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So you read those. It expounds upon it. Yeah. You read those six books first. Why we're

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Protestant, and then go through the five solos of Faith Alone, those books, starting with Thomas Schreiner's.

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And then that will give you a good launching point, I think, of understanding why we believe what we believe.

37:28

Why was it necessary to break from the Roman Catholic Church? How corrupt did the Catholic Church become?

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Because, I mean, it used to be, you know, you have the Council of Nicaea in 325.

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Right. That was very sound doctrine that was being expounded there. And it wasn't the Roman Catholic Church yet.

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But it would be about another hundred years after that. It would become Roman Catholicism. And then everything from then on would just become increasingly more corrupt.

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And so the Protestant Reformation happened to take us back to what the Bible says the church is supposed to be.

38:01

Nobody should be scared of these terms, Protestant or Reformation. Right. It's necessary for us to study and understand.

38:08

It's history. It's history. It's history. Don't be scared of history. It's already happened. It's done. Yes. We'll be taught by those men who went through those things.

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We also learn from their mistakes. Exactly. I mean, Luther was a great reformer. But there's plenty of places you can disagree with Luther on.

38:24

Same with Calvin. I don't agree with Calvin on everything either. What we call Calvinism is those five doctrines that go by the acronym

38:34

TULIP. But Calvin himself, you know, he taught more robust theology than that.

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Calvinism is just the summary of the argument for justification, a biblical argument for justification.

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That's really what Calvinism is. Calvin's theology was much bigger. You know, institutes. You pick up institutes. That's a big book.

38:52

Don't try to read that one right away. Although I've heard Robert Godfrey say he would recommend

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Calvin before he recommends Edwards because Calvin is easier to read. Oh, boy. So when you want to read a

39:04

Protestant reformer, Calvin may be the way to go instead of Jonathan Edwards. And then we've got one final comment here.

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And then we'll just close out the broadcast with a complimentary message. This is from Eric.

39:19

He says, Pastor Gabe, I just wanted to say thank you. One of your podcasts had gone extensively through sexual sin and really cut me through all the way to my heart.

39:29

I have no defense for my actions, and I am a sinner. I'm the sinner the

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Bible says that I am. I have asked the Lord Jesus for forgiveness, and I am repenting fully from the sin of sexual immorality.

39:41

That is such great news, Eric. Be encouraged that your ministry has helped a wretch like me and that the desire for purity has been cultivated by God through your ministry.

39:51

We will be praying for you and your family, and his will be continuing to be done. Praise God in the highest.

39:57

Amen, Eric. Amen. Thank you so much for that message. So happy for you. So if you would like to send us an email, once again, it's whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

40:07

I'd like to take some time here to pray for those who had sent us messages this week that we read on the broadcast.

40:12

Of course. And then we'll see you next week. Yes. So Sunday, we continue the

40:19

Second Corinthians message. It would be the sermon that I preached last week. Is that right? Yeah, last week. So I'm preaching on Second Corinthians 521, but you won't hear that message until next week.

40:29

Until the next week. Yes. And then we get back into Titus, Monday through Wednesday, and Nehemiah on Thursday.

40:35

Right. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the salvation that we've been given through your son,

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Jesus Christ. If there is anything that we can wake up every day and praise you for, we can't think of anything else in our minds.

40:50

We could certainly start with knowing that you have given your son for the forgiveness of sins.

40:57

And it is a gift that we receive by faith. There is no work that we do to attain this righteousness.

41:03

It is given to us because we believe. And then it is seen in our lives, this righteousness that we have been given when we desire to live as Jesus commanded us to live.

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And so I pray that you would continue to grow us in that sanctification, to desire to be more like Christ, to know your truth, to mature in this more and more.

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And we thank you for your patience with us and the discipline that you give to us daily. Since we are your sons and daughters, a father in heaven who, excuse me, a father in heaven who disciplines us because we are sons and daughters of God.

41:39

We are loved by God. I pray for Kyle as he is thinking about how to teach the youth that are there in his church and that you would continue to lead him in wisdom.

41:50

I also, Lord, want to pray for Sabrina, that as she comes to understand the difference between charismaticism and reform theology and the

42:02

Roman Catholicism as well, somebody who used to be in that charismatic lie, you would continue to grow her in a knowledge of the truth.

42:12

Thank you for Daryl and his desire to want to know more about your word, to mature in what the

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Bible says. And also for Eric, that you have given him this victory over sin and you would continue to guard his mind and his thoughts as he leaves behind a life of sinfulness and desires to live a life of righteousness in Christ.

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May we have that same desire in our hearts, focusing on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, laying aside every sin and weight that entangles and running the race with endurance.

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Deliver us into your heavenly kingdom. In the name of Christ we pray, amen. Amen. You're not what?

44:02

On. You're not on? Uh -uh. How about that? You're not tired either. No. Becky, you're not tired.

44:10

I'm not tired. I'm not tired. Look into my eyes. As I drool from my mouth. You are not tired.

44:18

Well, I had a full cup of orange juice in hopes that I would pep up.

44:26

Orange juice doesn't have a lot of caffeine in it. No. Should have had one of those Dr. Peppers. No, because then I would never sleep.

44:32

That's right. A fur. Hey, is that mine? One what?

44:38

Yeah. Your bottle of water? Sweet. Yes. Do you want to see the meme that I made for you about your bottles of water?

44:45

Stop it. I made you a meme. It's okay. I have a daughter who chooses to go in and steal them all.

44:53

Hang on. I'm going to bring it up. I think it's in this folder. Where's the meme I made? Oh, I'm so tired.

45:00

I can't find it. Drat. It's here somewhere. I know it is.

45:06

Nope. You love me. So you didn't do that. Becky's bottle of water meme. It isn't this folder.

45:14

I'll have to look it up later. It's fine. You don't have to because you didn't do it. Yes, I did. No. I did it and I saved it.

45:21

I even saw it the other day. Because it's out of love. I made it out of love. No. You ain't pulling the wool over my eyes.