Nate Pickowicz Interview (2022): RC Sproul Book

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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Mike Abendroth, and I have said over the years that my favorite No Compromise Radio days are

Wednesday, and that's because Wednesdays I have guests either in the studio or online, and we get to talk about the

Lord Jesus and what He's done in our lives, and today is no different. But before I introduce our guest, don't forget that the new book that I compiled on assurance called

Gospel Assurance is out. You can get it on Amazon. Twenty, twenty -five different Puritans on the doctrine of assurance, supplemented with articles about the

Lord Jesus, because they go together. It's like what Spurgeon said, when you chase after assurance, you don't get it, but if you chase after the

Lord Jesus by faith, you get assurance. And so that's on Amazon, Gospel Assurance, 31 -day guide.

And I probably needed to do that, because the man I'm talking to today is Mr. Book. I mean, he writes books, he endorses books,

I mean, he's written more books than I've even thought about writing. Nate Pikowicz, welcome back to No Compromise Radio.

Thank you, Mike. It's good to be here. How do you find the time to write all the books that you write? Well, I mean, you know this,

I mean, you have to make the time, you know. And I don't have any hobbies, I do ministry, and then

I squeeze writing into the margins. So I do it either in the morning before I go to work, or I do it at night when my kids are in bed.

But I just carve out time, and I just make it something I enjoy, but I just always try to keep it in balance, that's always the challenge, you know.

Well, I love the ministry that the Lord has given you, and I'll introduce you by saying you're the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in one of the coolest -sounding towns in all of New England, a fellow

New Englander in Gilmanton, Ironworks, New Hampshire. I mean, that's just such a studly name.

Tell us about how did that name, how did the town get named? Well, as you can imagine, there used to be an

Ironworks in the town. I mean, the town is pretty old, it was settled in 1761, and over the course of time we just started building stuff up, and there was quite a lot to do here, and then over the years, you know, lots of fires in town, and lots of other things have happened, and now it's just this kind of small, one -horse town with not much doing.

But you know, we've got a lovely church here, and it's lots of cows, lots of trees, and it's pretty great.

Welcome to New England. Yeah, that's right. How long does it take you to get to the beach, Nate? Oh, I can get to the beach in about an hour.

Okay, perfect. Perfect. My wife said, honey, I'll follow you wherever you want to go in terms of ministry, wherever the

Lord leads. I'd prefer if we could be by, you know, within an hour of the beach. So, Nate, today

I'd like to talk to you about one of the books that you've written, and you've written quite a few, and I've even endorsed maybe one or two,

Why We're Protestant, and you've also written a book called How to Eat Your Bible, you write for Table Talk.

But I picked up the book that you sent me, by the way, thank you, R .C. Sproul, Defender of the Reformed Faith, Nate Pickowitz, and I rarely ever read a book in one setting.

And so I was sitting up in New Hampshire, in your honor, Nate, on the beach, and I read this book, and I love this book.

I loved the idea, I loved the style, I could even see how you've improved in your writing over the years.

Not that it was bad before, but it's excellent now. And so maybe you could tell our listeners, what was the genesis of the idea of writing a book called

R .C. Sproul, Defender of the Reformed Faith? Sure. Yeah, thank you for reading that book,

Mike, I appreciate it. I was actually on a, I was going to take a break. I had talked to my wife about possibly taking a little break.

I had written two books back -to -back and was ready to just take a little bit of a rest, and the very next day that we talked about me taking a break, the publisher

H &E, who I've done a couple things with, they reached out to me and they just said that we want to start a brand new biographical series, and I said, that's great.

And they said, we'd like you to write a volume for us, and I said, well, who would the subject be?

And they said, R .C. Sproul. And I was like, oh my goodness. So I went back to my wife and I said, hey honey,

I know I'm taking a break, and she kind of very gently rolled her eyes at me, and I said, but it's

R .C. Sproul. And she said, well, you have to do that book. I mean, that would be fun. You'd enjoy that.

So I just wrote back to them and I just said, I would be honored to do that. And so it was at the behest of the publisher, and then

I just reached out to Ligonier. I had some connections there,

I've written for them before, so they were very gracious to receive me and to help me, give me some access to resources, and I just got to spend a year and a half studying and writing about one of my theological heroes, and it was a lot of fun.

Well, that is such a great story. The book starts off in the introduction with, Nate, I read the first word, the first sentence rather, in your introduction, and I thought, that is brilliant.

That is like Herman Melville in Moby Dick, call me Ishmael. You know, sometimes there are just these first lines that just encapsulate everything and draw you in, and do you remember the first line of your introduction?

I do. I spent a week and a half writing it. Well, you know what, it shows. Seriously, it just shows.

Go ahead and quote the first line. I have it in front of me. Oh, you want me to quote my line? Oh, I think if I haven't remembered,

I worded it a certain way. Let me get my book out. All right, I'll do it for you, since you're getting the book out. R .C. Sproul was

Martin Luther without the insanity. There it is. Oh, that was wonderful.

Tell our listeners... For the R .C. Sproul fans, there's going to be a couple of little nest eggs in there, because probably one of my favorite chapters of my favorite book, in Holiness of God, the middle chapter is called

The Insanity of Luther, and R .C. kind of goes on this very elongated story about Luther wrestling with God and the doctrine of justification, and really just it's a wonderful piece of writing.

So I just kind of seized on that idea of Luther being insane, according to R .C.'s own words, and kind of played with that a little bit.

So like I said, it was a lot of fun writing this, I enjoyed it. Nate, tell our listeners a little bit about the differences between the

Stephen Nichols book about R .C. and your book, because there's definitely a different tact that you have, and I think it's a wise one, and it'll be important for our readers, or your readers and my listeners, to understand, and then

I think it'll motivate them to get the book as well. Yeah, so Dr. Nichols, you know, really kind of wrote the more authorized biography.

He knew Dr. Sproul really well, and so his book is a lot longer, it's probably three times as long as mine, and it really sort of just spans his whole life, and he sort of walks around in different areas of R .C.'s

life and talks about his interests, and his family, and ministries, and theology, and things like that, and it's sort of a broader picture, and it's very well done, it's an excellent book.

I didn't have access to it when I was researching, though, so I built a lot of this from scratch, just from my own research, and then

Dr. Nichols' book came out probably about two -thirds of the way through my process, and so I read it toward the end to get helpful information, but my book is sort of a beeline to a clearer point.

I wanted to not spend as much time on R .C.'s personal life,

I don't get anything into his family dynamics, I don't highlight his flaws and his sins, and some people have criticized me for that, but I don't kind of get into the weeds, but that's not the point of it.

The point of it was to highlight R .C. Sproul's doctrinal battles, what he actually contributed to the faith and to the

Church, and sort of build the book around his ministry, and sort of use that as a guide for believers even now, ministers even now, to contend earnestly for those very same things.

So it's a lot more targeted, a lot more focused, and it's much shorter, and like, as you said, you read it very quickly, so that's the design, is to be just a very easy, accessible approach to his life and ministry.

Talking to Nate Pikowitz today about his book, R .C. Sproul, Defender of the Reformed Faith.

Definitely five stars for me. What I do, Nate, is I read a book, and then when I complete the book,

I go to the first page and I write the month and the date and the year that I finished the book, and then

I give it a rating, A through F. And so I wrote one extra thing in this particular review, 9, 2022,

A, and then I put one sitting. Because it just pulls you along.

Let's talk a little bit about the five solas, excuse me, as a template or as a backdrop as you're trying to trace loosely

R .C. Sproul's ministry theologically as he is preaching about our triune

God, and how most of the chapters, chapters 3 through 7 especially, there's an undercurrent there, you're driving to a point.

Tell our listeners a little bit about that. Yeah, when I began to research his life, I began to notice just certain themes, you know.

Everybody sort of has things that they're really keen on, and I noticed that in the first decade of his life and ministry, he was,

I should say ministry, he was contending earnestly for sola scriptura. He was fighting for the doctrine of inerrancy and the authority of scripture.

And then I'm kind of studying along and I'm seeing that he's fighting for sola fide in the third decade of his ministry.

So I started to see just the pattern, and it kind of hit me like, you know, what if I could trace all five of the solas to five decades of his ministry?

And so I sort of played with the idea, and then I just started to see it kind of came out fairly clearly.

I worked a little bit extra for the Solus Christus chapter to kind of make that work, because he contended for that doctrine throughout his entire ministry, but really just used the five solas as a way to frame thinking about his different doctrinal battles.

And I tried to do it in such a way that were he here to read it, he would approve.

And thankfully, when his wife, Vesta Sproul, when she read it, she approved of that, so I didn't stretch it too, too far,

I think. But really just a way to think about what we're contending for in those five solas of sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide, solus

Christus, and soli deo gloria. So really the hallmarks of the Reformation. Nate, after you studied someone, of course, we all have our flaws, and we think of, you know, even

Sproul with the Latin chalkboard, and simul justus et peccator, and we're simultaneously just yet sinful.

We know he's fallen, but he was pointing to the one who was without sin. When you were studying him in depth, did you—I think

I already know the answer, but I just wanted to hear it from you—didn't you find that you just liked him all the more right?

Flaws and all, but you just kind of—you had respect for him before, but then you began to really like him, and you could see the personal side.

Am I right? Or is—what do you think? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you know, and frankly,

I mean, I didn't—I wasn't a critical biographer. I wasn't trying to go and uncover all of his dirty little secrets.

I wasn't trying to do that. What's very popular right now is to sort of really attack your subject, and I think there's a place for that.

But as a biographer for the Church, which is what I'm trying to do with this book, I really wanted to just seize on where he's helpful to us, and where we can be encouraged and edified, knowing full well that, yeah, he did have, you know, some flaws, he did have sins, you know, he wasn't a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination.

But I didn't ask a lot of those questions, because I frankly didn't want to know. I don't want to talk about someone's sins, and I had someone on an interview ask me, you know, really to enumerate a few of them, and I just responded by saying, well, which one of his sins would you like me to talk about?

And when you die, which of your sins would you like me to talk to your kids about? You know, so we have to remember these are humans, these are people who are sinners that are saved by grace.

So I just really focused on what he was contributing, but I really—I fell in love with his story, and you know, he had a sweet disposition, he had a good sense of humor, you know, he had an edge to him,

I mean, certainly, but I just loved his passion and his love for his family. He was a very family -oriented man, and he just had an insatiable desire to please the

Lord and to fight for truth. And one thing I learned from R .C. is it doesn't matter who is standing in the opposition, if the battle's over the truth, you have to contend for the truth, you just do.

And if it costs you relationships, then so be it. And he didn't lose friends willingly, he didn't want to lose any friends, but he did lose some because he fought for the truth of the gospel, and that's a powerful lesson for all of us as believers.

Amen. I'm thinking, Nate, about toward the end of R .C.'s life and ministry, and of course

I love the meme, and I love when he said it, and there's a context to it, you know, what's wrong with you people? I saw somebody the other day, and they had one of those

Wheel of Fortune words, and they didn't have any letters, but they just had enough words to know what's wrong with you people.

Showed a picture of R .C., so we all know. But in your book, you highlight some of the other sides of R .C.,

and one is, because I can identify this, here's what you write on page 77. It was not uncommon for R .C.

to finish a message, only to turn to Vesta afterward and ask, was I kind enough? Yeah.

And I just love that, in the midst of fighting for truth and having courage, and R .C.

would always talk about how, you know, you don't have to be fearless, because courage, you know, you're afraid, but you need to have courage and do the right thing.

And there's just, you know, multi -sides of this man and standing for truth. You mentioned a minute ago,

Nate, about friends. That was probably, besides the five solas as the undercurrent theme, that's the one thing

I probably pondered the most, after I finished the book, is friendships. And sometimes we might cut corners, theologically, because of friends, and we don't want to call them out.

Obviously, they're friends. And tell us a little bit about E .C .T. and R .C.,

and some of his friendships, and why you thought that was important to bring into the book, as R .C.

stood for the truth. Yeah, the E .C .T. battle was interesting, because, you know, when you read

Dr. Nichols' book, he definitely talks about it, it's a big scene in the book, but he doesn't spend as much time on it.

He kind of sort of deals with it and moves on, and I think that's appropriate. But my chapter,

I really drilled into that, because I think that even though it's controversial, it was challenging, it was heartbreaking,

I think that, you know, that battle sort of made the man, you know, it really forced him to consider not just the truth, it's not just about faith, it's about faith alone, not just the truth of that, but the steel in the spine of having to stand up for truth against your friends.

And you know, he writes about it in one of his commentaries, and I quote it in the book, I mean, he agonized over this, and he really struggled, because he loved these men.

I mean, Chuck Colson, for example, probably more so than the others, he had been doing ministry with for two decades, and even at one point considered merging their ministries together,

I mean, they were very close. And so when he had to, and it wasn't like he just blew up at a room and, you know, told them off,

I mean, they talked a lot about this, and when it sort of came to a head, I mean, he was pleading with them, standing, you know, getting up on the table, pleading with his good friend to reconsider, you know, his errors.

And what's really interesting is later on, when John MacArthur and James Kennedy and R .C.

go on the Ankerberg Show and talk about the errors, one thing about R .C.

that we notice is that he doesn't disparage the men, he doesn't tear them down, he doesn't attack them, he speaks very highly of them, but then he goes on to talk about the egregious nature of siding with, you know, with false doctrine.

So he tried to differentiate, I'm not attacking the man, I'm attacking the doctrine. And that's what

Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, you know, our battle is not against flesh and blood, it's against ideologies and doctrines.

So I think R .C. embodied that really well. He wanted to make sure he stands for truth, but he wants to be kind about it, and I think we would do well to follow that example.

Amen. Well, maybe I can plug another one of your books, Nate, in light of that, I've been asked by people at seminaries and friends, you know, what's the doctrine that we need to make sure we really understand these days in light of all kinds of attacks?

And they said it's the doctrine of justification, and I said, every seminary needs to have a class strictly on justification by faith alone, sola fide, and they need to read

Turretin, Buchanan, Fesco, Horton's two volumes, and then thankfully you've reissued

Calvin's writing on justification. And so if you can read those five, including

Nate's book on justification by John Calvin, then you can navigate the landscapes of, oh, federal vision,

Roman Catholicism, what do people do, attacking sola fide, and it reminds me of R .C.

when he said, I'm happy to make common cause with Roman Catholics on social issues, but we have no common cause in the gospel.

And I think so many people today, they're making common cause with people that deny sola fide.

That's right. Yeah, and again, that was his contention, you know, he wrote a book toward the end of his life about, it was an evaluation of Roman Catholicism, and he conceded that very point, he says,

I have no problem, and Francis Schaeffer's term was co -belligerence, where co -belligerence on social issues, absolutely,

I'll stand with any Roman Catholic on issues of general morality and society, that's fine, but we can't say that we're brothers in Christ when we believe a different gospel than one another.

And that's a sticking point, and you know, it's very popular right now to whitewash those distinctions and say that there's no difference, otherwise we invalidate the

Reformation altogether. So it was important to R .C. because it was important to Paul because it was important to Christ.

This doctrine is essential to the faith, no doubt. Amen. You had another very pungent line, and it was a short sentence, but you were talking about Colson and Packer and this whole issue in the

Faith Alone chapter, and you wrote, quote, neither of the two ever spoke at Ligonier conferences again.

It's like, oh. Because how can you platform that, right? It's like, we just can't do it, even though we're friends, even though love covers sins, we can't, we have to stand up for truth.

Nate, let's talk a little bit about John Gershner, and I mean, he's kind of the quintessential

East Coast, sounds like he smokes a lot of, you know, camels without filters.

Tell our listeners a little bit about John Gershner's relationship with R .C. and vice versa. Yeah, so Gershner was a father figure to R .C.

R .C. lost his dad when he was about 16 years old. His father had several seizures and eventually passed away.

So he lost his father who he loved dearly at a young age, and so when he meets Gershner in college, quickly sort of latches onto him, not just personally, but theologically,

Gershner really has a huge influence on his theology. And there's a point, and again,

I just had so much fun writing this book, but there's a point where I sort of play up this standoff between the

Armenian R .C. Sproul and the Calvinist John Gershner, because at that time, that's where R .C.

was. He wasn't sold out for Reformed theology. And Gershner just very gently, biblically, carefully walked him through the arguments until R .C.

eventually saw it for himself and had no choice but to accept it. So Gershner had a huge imprint on his life, and even affecting the way that R .C.

talked and wrote, everybody knows R .C.'s famous for the chalkboard. Well, he got that from Gershner.

Gershner used the chalkboard, and even the same growl in their voice, you listen to Gershner long enough and you hear

R .C. in his voice. And there's a point I found when I was doing research, a little moment at the end of one of their videos together, where R .C.

thanks Dr. Gershner for doing the interview with him. And Gershner reaches across and puts his hand on his arm and he said, it's a pleasure to live again in you, man.

And R .C. just lit up and smiled, you know. But that was the idea, I think, that Gershner saw

R .C., you know, saw much of himself in R .C., and was handing off that torch of sound doctrine to R .C.

Sproul, who further popularized the doctrine. So, yeah, I mean, Gershner was a formative influence in R .C.'s

life, and he loved him dearly like a father, absolutely. First time I ever heard Gershner, Nate, was, it was a 19,

I think, 96 Ligonier conference down in San Diego on the wrath of God or something like that.

And I could just hear Gershner say, don't forget, unbeliever, you're an enemy, trying to kill the God you could if you would, all this kind of stuff, and I'm like, who is this person?

Yeah, that sounds like him. Well, I don't smoke cigarettes, so that's hard to get the gravelly thing there.

Last thing I want to talk about in our short minute and a half we have left, Nate, in the

Christ Alone chapter, you talked about his ministry at St. Andrews as the pastor. And I find this striking, because for all the doctrine, and we need that,

Romans, Galatians, obviously, I would never discount that. It's back to the life of Christ.

In my own ministry, if I'm not careful, I disassociate the person of Christ with his benefits.

Yes, I'm thankful for justification and for forgiveness and adoption and all these things, but they're from the

Lord Jesus Himself. And so you write about R .C., he spent a large bulk of his ministry in the

Gospels, 129 sermons in Matthew, 62 in Mark, 113 in Luke, 57 in John, and his final sermons, supremacy of Christ from the book of Hebrews.

And I think that's where everything really points. That's what I want on the ministry here, I know that you want the ministry up there in New Hampshire to be all about.

This is him we proclaim, right? Absolutely. I mean, R .C.

was laser -line focused on the person of Christ, and he just had a childlike curiosity about the person and the nature of Christ.

One of the last things he did was help co -write a statement on Christology, making sure that we understand historically, biblically, who

Jesus actually is. And so, you know, Christ is all and in all, you know, he is who we proclaim.

Every ministry has to point back to Christ, every doctrine is about him in the end. So yeah, it's a singular focus for R .C.,

and it should be for us as well. Amen. Nate Pickowitz, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio today. R .C.

Sproul, Defender of the Reformed Faith, it's printed by H &E Publishing, and you can get it wherever good books are sold.

I think that's what you're supposed to say. Thanks, Nate. Thank you, Mike. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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