Dead Men Walking Podcast w/ Pastor Josh Buice: True Regeneration, The Sinner's Prayer, & The Gospel

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00:12

There it is. Wait for it. There we go. All right. Welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast.

00:19

Jason, how are you, sir? Yeah. Doing awesome, man. How you been? Oh, doing great. Got a little snow here in Michigan.

00:25

Yeah, we did. So winter's in full swing. Made a snowman yesterday with my toddler, which was a lot of fun.

00:32

Did you? Yeah, man. We were outside. She was in a snowsuit, you know, boots. Had it all going.

00:39

Yeah. Yeah, probably that she remembers. Yeah, we took her out last year, and she was just kind of laying around, you know, sitting there.

00:48

Six months old, like, last year. Like, why am I out here? Yeah, in this huge, you know, suit. But, yeah.

00:54

Oh, man. I was just watching videos of my little ones. My oldest is 12 now, and I saw a video of her when she was, like, three, and I go, man, does that go fast?

01:00

Yeah, right? And you just go, I'm so envious of you in a righteous way. Yeah, yeah. For sure. You're going through that with the younger one again.

01:07

That's good times, man. It's awesome. It's awesome. I love it. Cool. Well, listen, we want to do a soft introduction of our guest, because we got him on the line right now, and we're very excited to have him.

01:17

I met him down at the G3 conference just a few months ago, and honestly, and I'm not just saying this because he's on the line, said one of the greatest lines in his sermon, because we had multiple speakers talking about who, the theme was the doctrine and theology of Christ, and he came out and he just said, if you look at Matthew, it says, who do you think

01:38

I am? And they start going, oh, prophets of old, Elijah, John the Baptist. Those guys weren't calm, meek, kind of run -of -the -mill, blend -into -the -background -type people.

01:48

He was just making this point of who Christ was. He was revolutionary. But our guest today is the pastor of Praise Mills Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia.

01:57

He's the founding director of the G3 conference. It's Pastor Josh Bice. How are you, sir? Doing well.

02:03

Good to be with you, gentlemen. And we appreciate you being here. Yeah, welcome. Listen, we're going to get into our subject matter with you.

02:09

We just wanted to let people know you are on the line, but we want to do a little newsy news first. We're going to cover some new subjects.

02:14

Pastor, if you want to jump in as well and comment on those, and then we're going to get right into the meat of the episode. You ready for some newsy news,

02:20

Jason? Let's do it. Let's do it. News, the news, the newsy, newsy, news, the news, the news, the newsy, newsy, news, news.

02:29

We got some news. Oh, yeah. All right. That's Tom Askew approved, by the way. This is the news.

02:37

We're going to start a little heavy today. This is from the Detroit Free Press.

02:43

And I just want to let everyone know we are recording this a week early, so we don't have all the information that may be coming out within the next week.

02:52

But the Oxford High School shooting suspect used gun dad bought on Black Friday.

02:59

The 15 -year -old Oxford High School sophomore accused of fatally shooting three classmates and injuring at least eight other people used a handgun his dad purchased four days earlier on Black Friday.

03:10

Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said late Tuesday evening. When they took it from him, he had a loaded firearm.

03:20

He was coming down the hall. That again, I believe, interpreted what potentially could have been seven more victims,

03:28

Sheriff Bouchard said. The sheriff said the suspect fired at least 12 rounds, a preliminary estimate based on shell casings found at the school.

03:39

Earlier in the day, Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe suggested the suspect fired anywhere from 15 to 20 rounds.

03:46

That could indicate the shooter reloaded the handgun at least once during the shooting. So yeah, that was a very, you know, unfortunate, serious story that came out yesterday.

03:57

Well, what's crazy about that is now things are coming forward to where the school had been warned a few weeks ago about this.

04:04

They put out an official note said, hey, we looked into it. There's no reason for concern. We've got everything under control.

04:11

And then the shooter actually put a countdown on his Instagram and it says when the devil is going to return.

04:18

So obviously a very disturbed young man. It's just a shame that, you know, it seems like there was some mishandling by the school as well.

04:25

But, you know, this is an hour and a half away from us, just north of us. So it kind of hits close to home.

04:32

And I've met with Sheriff Bouchard a few times through some different events and being in elected office and things like that.

04:38

And I think they did handle it. They said the shooter actually asked them, asked the police to kill him.

04:46

So obviously some horrible issues going on, mental issues probably with this young man.

04:52

And it's just so sad. But yeah, we just wanted to cover it because it's close to home.

04:57

It's a, yeah, this is Oakland County, two, three times a week in my real estate business.

05:03

So yeah. And I know there was a Snapchat video that had come out. I'm not sure if it's going to be removed from being online.

05:09

Some kids in the classroom. Yeah. It was taking, you know, video while this was going on.

05:16

So tell me what you guys think of this, Pastor Josh and Jason. So we hear about these shootings and in your mind, it feels like, oh, these are happening more and more.

05:26

Society's going sideways. We all know that we lived in a depraved world and man's heart is evil and all those things. But then when you look at national statistics over the last 30 years, violent crime is down almost 70%, 50 % in the last 20 years, 70 % in the last 30 years.

05:39

So we actually have a less violent crime happening in the United States, but it feels like more.

05:44

So and I, and I know, I know a lot of people that base their eschatology on headlines, right?

05:50

Which I don't think is correct. I mean, what do we do about that when it feels like it's more, but when you actually look at the statistics, it's less like, what, what do we make of that pastor?

06:00

Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. Of course, we as Christians, the church should always, you know, weep when we see other people weeping.

06:11

And so, you know, you, you hear of tragedies like this and it's, it's heartbreaking when it comes to the second amendment, when it comes to the right to bear arms, it's a conversation

06:21

I think that's filled with all sorts of politics. But needless to say,

06:26

I, I think that we should have the right to own a firearm.

06:31

I think we should have the right and we should protect that right, in fact, to be able to bear arms.

06:39

I just think that common sense sometimes is thrown out the window when it comes to statistics and when it comes to looking at tragedies like this, or the use of weapons or the, you know, the ability to buy, purchase or own firearms, you know, guns in and of themselves are not dangerous.

06:57

It's the individuals who choose to use them in an improper way. And so you can legislate and legislate and legislate to make it more difficult for someone to own or purchase a firearm.

07:08

But let's just be honest, the most difficult issue that we will face in this whole debate is the fact that, is that criminals do not go to Walmart to purchase a pistol or, or to purchase some, you know, firearm that they're going to use in a, in a crime.

07:25

Now, in this case, using your father's weapon is, is certainly something that's filled with all sorts of different layers to consider, right?

07:36

But again, I think wisdom tells us that the right to own a weapon and then the right way to use that weapon,

07:45

I think is, is extremely important, whether that be for sporting events or whether that be for the personal protection of your property in your own home.

07:55

So it's tragic when you hear a story like this, I think that it just should, should educate us on how we should be, you know, using specific security measures within our homes to prevent, whether it be accidental shootings or in this case, the use of a firearm in an improper way that, that certainly wasn't foreseen by the father.

08:18

So this is tragedy and we should, we should learn from it.

08:24

But at the end of the day, I think trying to restrict the whole entire culture because of a specific tragedy would be like saying, well, someone misused an automobile and they were speeding or they were racing and they struck, you know, four vehicles and killed people.

08:42

You know, we would say at that point, that's, that's certainly a tragedy, but we don't need to restrict the use of automobiles by everyone, if that makes sense.

08:51

Right, right. No, absolutely. And I think it would, you know, I fall on the side of two of, of, you know,

08:57

I have multiple weapons in my house, my children all know how to use them. Safety is very key, but they're always all locked up with only me having access to them.

09:05

So I don't know all the information on that, but that's one key thing where I'm such a gun safety, not keep the finger off, you're always pointed down range enough, you know, all those things act like it's loaded at all times and ingrain that in the next generation that's using that tool.

09:20

You know, I see him, I see the report saying, well, he used his father's gun. My first thought is, well, how did he get to that gun?

09:25

Was it not locked up, stored away, whatever, right. And I would like to see a little more responsibility from, you know, honestly, the parents or whoever's in the home with the weapon.

09:34

I mean, you have to treat that gun with respect. I did a little four minute video on the Alec Baldwin shooting, which you can find on our

09:40

Instagram site, dead men walking podcast demonstrated some gun safety tips of why that gun should have never went off. I think in the same token, maybe this gun should have never been in his hands, but yeah, thank you.

09:51

So let's, did you want to, I was just going to say just an unfortunate story and situation. Yeah, for sure.

09:56

And so we'll learn more. Yeah, absolutely. So this one is we're changing lanes here a little bit, but I found this interesting.

10:03

I found this on Christianity Today, which I never, I never go there, but they, we don't go there for anything theological, believe me, we go there for maybe some of the history stuff.

10:14

But I found three, well, they did a list of 15 archeological finds that they found over the last two years.

10:22

And three of them were just very, very interesting, interesting to me. Yeah. So I'm going to read three of them real quick.

10:28

Church built on solid rock. A dig in Banis in North Israel has revealed the remains of a fourth century church built was common practice atop a shrine of another

10:36

God. The Barians was a cultic center of worship for the God Pan, and the shrine was likely for worship of Greek deity associated with sex and spring.

10:45

Christians in the fourth century, however, would have recognized this location as the biblical Philippi near the location where Peter told

10:51

Jesus, you are the Christ. And Jesus replied on this rock, I will build my church. And it looks like the Christians came along and converted that, which

10:58

I thought was pretty interesting. And I know this is a running theme on our podcast, but I always say

11:03

I love when history and science catches up to the Bible. Very rarely do we find digs and historical artifacts and things like that, that contradict what the

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Bible says. And these three all kind of attest to the validity of the Bible. The other one was called

11:20

Holy Smoke Residue. I want to know what you thought of this, a new test on organic remains on the burn surface of an eighth century

11:27

BC altar revealed a residue of marijuana. This is the first evidence cannabis was associated with any form of worship in ancient

11:34

Israel and the oldest known ritual use of marijuana to date. The altar was dedicated to the worship of God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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The worship center at the desert stronghold of Arad was first excavated in the 1960s. Test on a half century ago, came back inclusive, new tests were done using improved equipment.

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And now they say there's traces of marijuana and frankincense. They were burning on this altar.

11:56

On the altar. Interesting. I don't know, you know, very, like they said, inconclusive, but just kind of something to think about.

12:04

Right, right. And then the last one that I wanted to bring up was a temple to the rival Jerusalem.

12:09

This one's interesting. Tel Aviv University archaeologists calculate that a temple discovered during reconstruction of Israel's highway one near Jerusalem was built around 900

12:17

BC. The Mozart temple is estimated to be similar in size to the temple built in Solomon a half century earlier, and just five miles to the east.

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The rival temple was likely used to worship the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt and other gods too.

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And it basically goes on to say that the discovery was startling, but fits in well with Old Testament narrative of national disputes over where, how, and who to worship.

12:39

Scholars think some key scriptural texts were composed as defenses of Jerusalem based worship. And first Kings recounts how during the same century, the

12:47

Northern kingdom of Israel constructed worship centers at Dan and Bethel. So once again, they're seeing a mix of religion within Israel.

12:54

And we see that throughout the Old Testament of, uh, you know, split kingdoms and a lot of accounts by Paul as well through the

13:01

New Testament. Absolutely. So it's always good when you see those reports coming out. And like I said, it's always fun when history validates, uh, we don't need it to, but when it validates, uh, it's fun though.

13:12

Yeah. Kind of in your, in your face, much like for centuries in Job, when God says, did you form the clean water rivers beneath the ocean and everyone got

13:21

Bibles and say, and there's no such thing. Clean water, clean water at the bottom of the ocean.

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And then in the seventies, we send a robot down and there's freshwater rivers in the bottom of the ocean. You know, it's like, well, the

13:32

Bible said it all along. Right. Exactly. No, that's awesome. Uh, last, I want to get a pastor

13:37

Josh's input. Are you into any of the historical stuff at all, or do you find any of that stuff interesting? Oh, certainly.

13:43

Uh, anytime that I'm, you know, given the opportunity to travel, whether that be through Europe or through various different places, um, that, that sort of, uh, that we find lining up throughout biblical history or church history,

13:57

I truly enjoy that. Um, when I read about archeology or any dig for that matter, that substantiates biblical claims or, uh, the biblical text, it's always fascinating to me.

14:10

And it re it's really fascinating when it's with regard to say a manuscript of, of the text of scripture.

14:17

Um, so yeah, I mean, I think the more they dig and the more they find and unearth, uh, the more it substantiates the truth, the trustworthiness and sufficiency of scripture.

14:28

Right. Amen. Yeah. And there's aliens underneath the grand Canyon, right? That's what

14:34

I've heard. Come on. Give us that click bait, Josh. Right. Yeah.

14:39

There we go. Um, uh, all right. So last, last, last story, um, get ready,

14:45

Pennsylvania. You're about to be really happy about this. Dr. Oz says he's running for Senate in Pennsylvania, Dr.

14:54

Mehmet Oz, who is running as a Republican for an open Senate seat described his frustration with the arrogant close -minded people in charge who shut schools and businesses, uh, during the pandemic.

15:06

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Oz. That's really interesting that he's running in the

15:12

GOP field. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't know. I don't know the guy. I mean, right. Like we know,

15:19

I got it. Dr. Oz. Exactly. Yeah. No, it is kind of crazy. Cause he runs in liberal circles.

15:24

Uh, but anymore running in the GOP doesn't mean you have any set of conservative values or, uh, any type of libertarian understanding of the constitution or anything like that.

15:33

Half the GOP doesn't follow their national platform anyway. Right. But it seems like there's a lot of Republicans, uh, that are running,

15:41

I mean, in every state and, and, well, you have to realize though, we're on the two -year flip. So we've got the, and we're going to talk to Steve Deist from blaze on this in a couple of months when he comes back on, but I've been involved in politics for about 15, 16 years.

15:53

And there's always a midterm flip. Everyone who wants to run is going to run Republican because they know that the numbers aren't there for Biden.

16:00

And it's going to be a huge flip. It happened in 98. It happened in 2000. It happened, you know, going all the way back.

16:05

You always have, whoever's in power usually loses seats. So I think this is more opportunist than anything.

16:11

Gotcha. It's kind of crazy that, you know, the guy who got famous telling us to have clean poop is now possibly going to be a

16:17

Senator. You know what I mean? Exactly. It's just weird. Didn't, didn't Elijah, um, uh, cook with poop or something?

16:25

Well, there you go. Yeah. I had to cook over. We just talked about poop for a second. Sorry, guys. Sorry. We always like to bring our, uh, very highly educated guests down to our level.

16:35

We talk about, that's great. Yeah. So we'll see. I don't know.

16:41

What do you think? You think he has a chance in Pennsylvania? I don't know, man. It's, it seems like, you know, the celebrity, uh, people are starting to get more and more involved.

16:49

And, uh, it seems like they might have more of a shot because people, in some ways, I think the younger people think that it's funny.

16:58

Right. Like him. Right. No, no, no. That if he won, it would be funny.

17:03

Like Kanye West won the presidency. That would be funny. And it, and it is, but oh my goodness.

17:11

Don't do that to us. But God does put people in authority that are supposed to be there.

17:17

So, okay. Right. So do you think he has a chance there? A doctor or a pastor, Josh? Oh, look, if, uh, if Joe Biden is president, anything is possible.

17:27

Right. Hey, I like this. That's a drop right there. All right, cool. I think that was the news, right?

17:33

Yeah. Yep. Cool. And that was the newsy news. Awesome. Let's get into what we want to talk about.

17:39

So, uh, I, I read, uh, your, uh, bio on, I think it was on the, might've been on the praise mills, uh, website.

17:47

And it just struck me because you kind of had the same. Um, kind of testimony that I did.

17:54

I've said it so many times in this podcast, but I said, I said the sinner's prayer at seven, I got saved at 24. Right.

17:59

And people go, what, what are you talking about? But when I meet other reform people, they go, yeah, that makes sense. It's like, well, you don't even have to explain it.

18:05

And I just, I thought that was such an interesting topic. So I kind of wanted to jump off with maybe you giving us a little bit of your testimony and what exactly you meant by I grew up in church.

18:15

I was doing all the things I kind of know God, but I didn't know God. And then save later in life. Explain to that, explain that to us a little bit.

18:23

Yeah. Yeah. So my testimony is quite complex, so I could spend a lot of time. I'll give you the short version.

18:30

My parents divorced. I was a product of a broken home at five. My mom remarried a man who was very abusive.

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And the stable influence in my life at the time was my grandfather. So it would be my, my mother's dad.

18:45

And he would come and pick me up for church every single Lord's day, take me to church with him.

18:51

So it was my sort of a moment of sanity in the midst of a lot of confusion that was happening around me.

18:58

I saw real love. I saw people that cared for one another in a community of faith.

19:05

And it was during that time that because of all of the confusion, it was a very

19:10

Arminian church. And so, you know, I saw other children going to the front of the church and repeating a prayer.

19:19

And I said, look, that's. Hey, that must be a good thing. I need to do that too. So I went to the front of the church.

19:25

I repeated the exact prayer and the words that the pastor told me to say. And then at the conclusion of that prayer, he told me that I was a

19:33

Christian congratulations. And so from that time forward, Providentially I would go to live with my father.

19:41

He would take us into the local church where he was going to take our family.

19:48

They asked me all the questions that you can possibly imagine at that time. I was seven.

19:53

And I told them that I'd asked Jesus into my heart. When they asked that question, they said, well, then that's wonderful.

20:00

You need to be baptized. So they baptized me. And I was entering church membership at age seven.

20:07

They gave me a little packet called a survival kit, which was very popular back in the eighties and nineties in the

20:15

Southern Baptist convention. It was sort of the next steps after baptism as far as church life.

20:20

So I lived from age seven until I was 25.

20:26

When the Lord actually regenerated me when I was actually born again.

20:32

And so there were moments, there were seasons in my life between those two events where I was miserable.

20:40

I would hear the gospel and I felt as if I needed to be saved. And every time that I would be counseled with someone would tell me, well, the devil's just making you doubt your salvation, trying to rob you of your joy.

20:53

So it was at 25. I was sitting in Atlanta at my desk at work.

20:59

This was after graduating from the university and I was listening to this man preach.

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And it became very clear to me that I was a part of the church. I knew the gospel.

21:11

I could tell you the, the, the academic version of the gospel. But, but I was not converted.

21:19

And so there was this, this unbelievable weight of, of sin and the reality of, of trespassing against God that settled in on my soul at that moment.

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And I just knew that I needed to repent. And so I turned to God and faith, believing that Christ died for me.

21:41

And I just asked for forgiveness in a real genuine sense, calling upon the

21:47

Lord, casting myself upon his mercy. And it was at that moment that I was,

21:53

I was saved. And so I went from that point in, you know, to my church and talk to my pastors and I was baptized again, because obviously we believe in believers baptism.

22:07

So that first baptism that happened when I was seven was not genuine. And so that's, that's sort of my story in a nutshell, things happened after that that would then lead me to seminary where I trained for gospel ministry and, and in God's strange

22:23

Providence, uh, years later, I would end up being called back to serve the very church where it all started here on the

22:29

West side of Atlanta right now, where I serve as pastor. Wow. That's, that's awesome. So, uh, yeah.

22:36

So, so my thing is, is we kind of have to parse that out a little bit. So, you know,

22:41

I have a real issue with the way the majority of churches use the sinner's prayer.

22:48

Okay. And even in COVID it's gotten even worse. Hey, just click that button. If you're live streaming, if you would like to invite

22:54

Christ into your heart, right. Um, I'm kind of a product of, I grew up in a Christian home as well.

22:59

Uh, parents got divorced a little bit later, uh, around the time I was 14, but I, I repeated it off a kid's tape.

23:06

And I remember just seven years old standing in the kitchen and my mom goes, Oh yeah, you're saved now. But from seven until 24 showed no fruit, uh, had an understanding and a knowledge of who

23:15

God was much like you. So it's like, is it, I think that's the mystery of regeneration as well too.

23:20

Like you can have a head knowledge of who Christ is, but I didn't really know who Christ was.

23:25

I had like a, uh, like, like, like I could read about it and have a head knowledge, but I didn't understand who

23:31

I was in juxtaposition of who God was until I he took everything from me at age 24.

23:36

And I went, Oh, I need to repent. And I wonder if that's, that's the key. I feel like, and maybe you can talk to this pastor that sometimes the repentance, you know, you look at Peter and second chapter of acts and it's like the very first instruction is repent.

23:50

Uh, and when we invite Jesus into our hearts air quotes or click a button or raise a hand when everyone else isn't looking and there's no repentance, is that kind of the first step that we're missing to maybe a true conversion, a true salvation?

24:03

Yeah. I mean, I think it's probably two things. I think you're, you're on track there with, with regard to faulty manipulation techniques that were popularized by Charles Finney, who back in the 1800s, sometime around the great, uh, second great awakening, you know, popularized the idea of the anxious bitch or anxious seat at the front of the church building and actually told parents that he could assure the souls of, of their children, if they would come for 15 minutes to the anxious seat and pray the prayer of faith for salvation.

24:37

And so the, the typical evangelical techniques that we've seen popularized through Billy Graham, uh, rallies and crusades and within typical

24:49

Southern Baptist churches on a weekly basis with this idea of this manipulative invitation system was very much popularized by Finney.

25:00

And so this idea of, of not really truly instructing people as to what repentance is,

25:08

I think you're on the right track there. Um, and that's, that's tragic, but then there's a second problem.

25:15

And I think that we must understand the theology behind what Jesus said when he told Nicodemus, you must be born again.

25:22

So regeneration is a monergistic work of God.

25:27

In other words, it is a, it's a miracle. It's when God actually imparts new life in the heart of a dead center.

25:37

And so you can give all of the instructions. You can tell them to raise their hand. You can, you can charge them if they're, if they really want to be real serious and bold Christians to stand up for their faith.

25:50

And you can, you can get responses from people, but unless God is drawing them as you know, the text says in John 6 44, no one can come to me except the father who sent me draws him.

26:04

Then that person will not be genuinely saved. And so there's two parts there.

26:10

And I think historically speaking, evangelicalism has seen this problematic use of bad techniques that were popularized from the 1950s.

26:22

And sometimes even before then, but like the SBC had a, had a slogan in 1954 that was a million more in 54 end quote.

26:32

And so, you know, it's whatever works do it. It's that pragmatism that being a slave to pragmatic techniques.

26:40

And that's what the church growth system is, is it's just being a slave to whatever works.

26:46

And so if you can get people to stand up, if you can get people to walk to the front of the church and identify with Jesus, and then you can, you know, have a rise in your baptismal numbers, then so be it.

26:59

And this happens in Southern Baptist circles and in non Southern Baptist circles as well.

27:04

But we see it like in Southern Baptist circles, you see it oftentimes used with children in a manipulative way in the summer with vacation

27:14

Bible school and, you know, Pato Baptist pride themselves on not, you know, on the fact that we're not

27:20

Pato Baptist until June or July when we do our vacation Bible school.

27:25

And then we're all of a sudden, you know, Pato Baptist again. And it's just, it's a tragedy really.

27:31

So there's two parts it's bad techniques and it's bad theology as well.

27:37

It makes me think of a Reinhardt. Thank you. How do you, how do you say his name? I'm sorry.

27:43

But yeah, he, he was trying to what save 2 billion people.

27:49

Is that what, or 1 billion or something like that? And, and you know, what I hear in that is exactly what you're saying, pastor

27:55

Josh. You know, they're, they're stamping that ticket. They're getting that piece of paper that says,

28:00

Hey, you've received Christ, but there's nothing after, after that. And I don't know if you guys possibly relate to this story, but I remember being in a

28:09

Baptist church growing up all my life. And I mean, I got saved, I think it was about 67 times, something like that, you know, every couple of weeks, over and over, you know,

28:19

I was like, Oh man, I messed up, you know? And then I had to go back to the altar. Oh man, I messed up again. You know,

28:24

I was like, it was like that over and over and over. And at 37, I was finally regenerated.

28:31

And it's a completely different story since then, you know?

28:37

And yeah, I don't know if you guys could touch on some of your story with that or not, but I mean, it's,

28:43

I mean, what, what the Holy spirit did through that work was just incredible. And yeah,

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I agree with you. I think like pastor was saying, it's regeneration is a, is a new, right.

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New, new heart. It's a miracle. Yeah. I had a head knowledge of who God was. It wasn't until I realized who

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I was in juxtaposition of God. And, and he revealed that to me that I said, Oh, I need to repent.

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Right. You need to be worshiped. You deserve all the glory. Right. And then we're not going to get into the whole process of, you know, through the reform thing of me being a closet

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Calvinist for eight years, because I was taught, you know, that they're, that they're evil and not, not part of Orthodox Christianity, but anyway.

29:25

Yeah. So, so, so what do we, so what do we do about this then pastor Josh, because I feel like we still have a lot of churches that love the sinner's prayer.

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They love the raise your hand, but I feel like it's producing a lot of people who don't have a, a true understanding.

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And I'm saying that I'm using that loosely, both in the heart and the head of, of who God is probably not truly saved.

29:51

How do we evangelize then? What, what is a better way? Is it just to go preach the gospel as the Bible says? Yeah. I mean,

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I think within the church life the obvious way I think is to, to just preach the

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Bible expositionally, and then to use really good methodologies when it comes to worship.

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So in other words, at the end of the service, just stop using the manipulative invitation system.

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In fact, I would urge pastors who might be listening to this podcast to rethink having that invitation system because it's problematic.

30:28

I'm not, I'm not at all insinuating that we should not call people to repent. We should.

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In fact, I think every time we preach the gospel on the Lord's day, we're there to feed the sheep.

30:39

Yes. But there, there could possibly be either a lost church member or a guest who's there, or even children within the context of the church who need to be saved.

30:48

So we need to urge people to believe the gospel, but I would challenge people who use that technique within children's ministries or evangelical ministries or local church ministries at any level, the idea of asking

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Jesus into your heart, we need to be chapter and verse people. Just look at how Jesus preached the gospel.

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Look at how the apostles preached the gospel. Look at how people from church history preached the gospel.

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You don't see them using that language of asking Jesus into your heart. So that's one thing I would say, just right off the bat, just extract that from your vocabulary is simply not biblical.

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And then second of all, look and see how the apostle Paul and others passionately with solid theology, preached and urged people to believe the gospel and then urge them to repent.

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So give them the right definition of repentance and then urge them to cast themselves upon the, the mercy of God.

31:51

I mean, I can, I can remember reading at one point, you know, obviously we're talking about solid theology and, and, you know, people that we stand on the shoulders of.

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So I can remember reading Spurgeon and reading his sermons. And there was a sermon that he preached back in December of 1864.

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And the title of that, of that sermon is, is now. And in that sermon, he, he repeated the word now some 173 times as he's urging people to believe the gospel, to cast themselves upon the mercy of God, to, to repent of their own trespasses against God.

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So, you know, the idea that if you have this robust theology that you, that you have to be lifeless and how you evangelize and call people to repentance is simply not true.

32:45

Yeah. And as we wrap this up here too, this is kind of off the subject, but going back to what you said earlier, if salvation is not solely an act of God, do you feel that maybe this is why, you know, when we feel like we have to do something, when

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I say we, I'm talking about kind of evangelicalism, mainstream Christianity, they feel like they're doing something to get someone to make an action.

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And I look at that and I go, is that why we have the, the worship rock bands and the smoke machines and the coffee and the fountain pop?

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And I feel like we're doing the work. If we could just convince these people to make an action when in fact, you know, when my non -reformed friends come to me and they go, why do you even evangelize?

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Why would you, you know, the whole thing, the robot, the predestination, that's all they go to. And I go, man, the burden is lifted off my shoulders when

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I'm sharing the gospel, because I know it's a work of God. All I'm commanded to do is preach the gospel anywhere

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I go. And God takes care of the rest. And I feel like they flipped it. And now we're seeing this, the, the, you know, kind of the offspring of all these crazy gimmicks to get people in seats, to make a decision.

33:51

Pastor, would you say that's kind of what we see the offspring of that, of thinking we have something to do with salvation.

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So therefore we have all these programs to convince other people. Yeah. A low, a low view of God and a low shallow theology will produce all sorts of really bad methodologies.

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And so when it comes to how we worship God, and when it comes to how we approach

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God and as far as evangelism or anything within the boundaries, you might say of a typical worship service will reveal much about what you believe about God and how people come to faith.

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So, yeah, I mean, if you're a slave to pragmatism, then man, listen, you know, first of all, the regulative principle is out the window.

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And then the next thing you need to do is try to convince people to be happy and to be comfortable and just convince them to do something.

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And if you can manipulate them in some form or fashion, then you're going to get a result. And so, yeah,

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I think on the flip side, if you do hold to a regulative principle of worship, then your worship service is going to be regulated by the scriptures.

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And then how you address people and how you urge people to repent will be explicitly detailed in the pages of the

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Bible, instead of using these little church growth gimmicks and slogans. I love this, man.

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These podcasts that we've been doing, you know, for the past year and a half, I mean, it's a show like this.

35:22

It just, it moves me. I mean, I don't, I'm sure Greg could agree. I mean, some of these shows, oh my goodness.

35:30

I have enjoyed having you on Pastor Josh. You know, we just thank you so much for your time. But as we're going out, would you mind sharing the gospel with our listeners?

35:43

Yeah. Give us a few minutes of the gospel for them. Yeah. No, thank you for having me on your podcast.

35:49

And it's always a privilege to speak of doctrinal things and worship and God himself.

35:55

The gospel is the good news. The word euangelion in the Greek means the good news.

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And so that presupposes that there's some bad news and the bad news is what the

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Bible says is that all have sinned against God. We have all trespassed God's holy law.

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So if you read the law of God, if you begin with the 10 commandments, it will not take long before you see with an honest reading is that we have all sinned against this holy sovereign

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God. And the Bible tells us that because of our sin, we deserve the justice, the holy justice of God, which is the judgment and condemnation because of our sin.

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And so as we think about even cultural items and cultural news stories, we think about how we oftentimes look at a judge.

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And if we hear of a judge letting someone who's guilty and the verdict is very clear, this individual is guilty, but yet a judge lets that individual off, then, you know, obviously we look at that judge and we say he's unjust.

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And so if we've all sinned against God, then we have to be honest with the reality that our sovereign

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God who is holy and righteous and pure will never let anyone off because of their sin.

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He must judge us. And so the only means of hope that we have, which is the good news, which is the gospel is that God sent the eternal son to take upon human flesh.

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It was prophesied 700 years before he was born. He took upon human flesh through the womb of Mary and he was born in the likeness of men.

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And the Bible says that although he came into his own, his own people did not receive him. And yet he lived a sinless, spotless, perfect life.

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And as John the Baptist said of Jesus, in his earthly ministry, he pointed them out one day and said, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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And so in that one statement, you see a summary of all of the old Testament sacrificial system.

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They were sacrificing animals and the blood was placed there on the altar. And you see all of this taking place year by year by year, but it was ultimately fulfilled in the once for all sacrifice.

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The Hebrews speaks of in Jesus Christ, the son of God. And as Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out from Psalm 22.

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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he was literally being judged.

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He was being condemned. And yet all of our sin, all of the sins of every one of his people was laid upon him so that in the death of Jesus Christ, every one of our sins were atoned for so that any and all who call upon the name of the

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Lord, all of their sins, not in part, every last one of them are taken away.

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And so the good news or the gospel, as you mentioned it before, is that there is hope for all of us as guilty sinners and anyone who comes to the realization that God's son died for them and not only died for them, suffered and bled for them and was placed in a borrowed tomb after his death.

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And then on the third day was resurrected from the dead, proving the fact that he is indeed the son of the living

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God and has authority to forgive sinners. Every last sinner who comes to that realization that they have sinned against this

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God who is sovereign, pure, and holy, and that they deserve the wrath of God.

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But yet, because of the sacrifice of the son of God, if they would turn from their sin, if they would repent of their sin, if they would turn and believe that Jesus died for them and call out to God for salvation, the

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Bible says, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so we have this assurance that everyone who calls upon the

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Lord, believing that truth about Christ, believing that truth about our hope in Jesus who died for us, they will be saved.

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And that's what happened to me at 25 as I was sitting at my desk at work, coming to the realization that all of my religion, all of my

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Sunday school attendance, all of my church attendance with my parents as a boy, none of that was good enough to offer up to God.

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God required a more pure sacrifice. And yet I turned to God and believed that Jesus died for me.

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And it was at that very moment that the Lord took away every one of my sins. So this is the good news that we celebrate here at this

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Christmas season. And yet I would urge anyone that's listening to this podcast to turn to Christ and to be saved today.

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That's what the scriptures teach. Repent and believe the gospel and you will be saved. Amen. That is going to be a clip.

40:58

Man, I just love hearing the gospel. I know I'm like crying and then I'm excited and then

41:04

I'm like, Oh man, let's do this. All right. Pastor Josh, you made it through the dead men walking gauntlet.

41:09

Why don't you throw out some social media links or where people can hook up with you or anything that you got going on in your life right now or anything you'd like to plug?

41:17

Yeah. Thank you for that. So you can reach me on Twitter or Instagram at Josh Bice.

41:23

That's spelled J O S H B U I C E. You can also find articles that I've written as well as a host of other media resources at our website.

41:33

That's G3men .org. Awesome guys.

41:39

Thank you so much for listening. We appreciate you tuning in and Pastor Josh, we thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come on and talk to us about this.

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As always guys, you can check us out at dmwpodcast .com. We've got some new merch up there you can check out. Feel free to leave us comments, questions.

41:56

We do read those when we either do a live or prerecorded episode, but tell a friend and, and support the show.

42:02

We do this for the glory of God. We don't make money. We don't, you know, promote ourselves, but we want to promote the glory of God here on this podcast and having guys like Pastor Josh on is just one of those things that we love to do.

42:16

Jason, you got anything for us before we head out? I'm just going to need a Kleenex. This is a really good episode.

42:21

This is a really good episode. Everybody stayed or stuck around for all that.

42:27

Absolutely. We will. And we'll make sure we link everything up to Josh when we post it once again.