Talking Southern Baptist Life with Tom Buck

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. I am almost tempted to say a dividing line where I will not mention any of the insanity going on in the world today.

But then again, we wouldn't be able to talk about anything if I did that. So I won't say that we won't talk about insanity in general, but we'll just limit it to a particular area.

Maybe, I don't know. Anyway, we're not going to be talking, no screenshots today, any of that kind of stuff.

Not that we couldn't, oh, believe me. We've got more since yesterday. But actually, it is the beginning of June.

And every few years, that means, for some reason, the

Southern Baps Convention shows up here in Phoenix. And they did pretty well this time around, because we are so far below normal.

I think today we're going to be like 9 degrees below normal or something like that. We'll be at 118 a week from now.

So it all evens out, I guess. I guess that's what normals are all about, averages.

But the Southern Baps Convention's in town. And so that means, for example, on Sunday, Sunday morning for our

Sunday school at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, we had so many visitors that we could not use our regular adult

Sunday school class. We had to go into the sanctuary for our adult Sunday school class, because we were packed out.

It was great. I felt badly for the people who came, because I was preaching, and they didn't get the good preacher.

They got the B team or C team, depending on how you want to look at it. But we have lots and lots of Southern Baptists in town right now.

And today and tomorrow, we're actually going to woo a couple of those into the bunker.

And they will survive this experience, actually. Because believe it or not, there are a few

Southern Baptists that actually like me. Why, I'm not sure. But possibly,

I have something on them. And maybe I'm blackmailing them or something like that. That's a possibility. I think that's the only way

I get friends, actually, is I have things on people. But now you know why

I can't understand? Now you're getting it. So I'm joined in studio today by one of those

Southern Baptists that we threatened with, I don't know, exposure.

Actually, no, I'm joined by Pastor Tom Buck. Hi, Tom, how you doing?

Thanks for joining me in the spacious studios here below Bruton -Parker.

Oh, it's great. I was amazed at how you've got this so securely beneath Bruton -Parker.

That's right, in Phoenix. Well, they're just down the street. I should have taken a picture when

I went by and brought it to you from the booth. I have to go back tonight to the community. Oh, you're doing it, you're doing it.

Have you thought about shaving? Hat, your own clothing, we'll give you something. I might need to do that.

Because you're doomed now. Now, believe me, hanging out with me is dangerous for anybody these days because you could have entire programs done about you,

TV shows, the Hawaiian Yards, just simply for showing up in the studio. It's a strange day. But I'm trying to remember now, how did we first?

I remember Dallas. I remember flying in, you picked me up, and we stopped at some sort of steak place on the way out to Lindale's, I recall.

We did, but that's not how we first met. Where did we first meet? In Florida. It's been a long time ago.

Oh, that's right, at the Founders' thing? It wasn't at the Founders' thing. There was a conference, Salvation by Grace, I believe the conference was named, and I had been impacted by your ministry.

This has probably been, goodness, I've been here 12 years, so probably about 16, 17 years ago.

Oh, goodness, okay, well, 10 years is the cutoff. Well, let's put it this way. I asked if I could go out to lunch with you, and you wanted to go to Wendy's and have burgers and fries, so that's how long ago it's been.

All right, no, I still go to Wendy's. You still go to Wendy's, okay. But anyway, I had been so impacted by your ministry in a couple of ways.

One was moving me from a Calvinist with a lisp. You remember in the stage cage?

Tuip. Oh, Tuip, okay. So I went from being Tuip to Tulip. And then, down in Florida where I was, there was a high level or a high number,

I should say, of Roman Catholics. Right. And I was trying to reach the

Roman Catholic community there with the gospel, because that's the only way we were, I mean, we were gonna make inroads because it was so full.

And I had grown up with so much misinformation about Catholicism. You know,

I would go out and say, well, Roman Catholicism believes that you're saved by works and not by grace.

And of course, that is not a correct way to frame the argument. And so I read your books.

It made a huge impact on me. It absolutely transformed my ability to witness to Roman Catholics.

We ended up having about 60 % of our conversions in our church in Florida were from Roman Catholicism.

I led a nun to the Lord. We baptized her in the church. Just all of the fruit of having learned from what you had produced.

What did she do after that? She left Roman Catholicism completely and took, as a nun, she took a job and she used to, she had family that were members of her church.

She'd come and visit. She would leave furious and angry with me, say, I hate that man. Which is what most people do after they meet me.

And then eventually the gospel just kept working on her and she trusted

Christ. So it was this wonderful thing. Okay, now remembering the Roman Catholic connection and the

Florida connection. And so how did

I get out to Lindale at first? That first time I did something on Islam, but I also did the

Cantor thing. Right, well, while I was in Florida as well is when the Cantor situation and the debate with you and Tom Ascol, I'm not as good of friends with Tom Ascol, but we're fairly good acquaintances.

And so he was just a little bit south of me and all of that was kind of percolating with the Cantor situation.

We talked about that when I went down to the Sovereign Grace or Salvation by Grace Conference. I can't remember what the name of it was.

2006 is when we were supposed to have that debate. Yeah, so I think it was 2004 when we, five, maybe sometime when we first met.

And then somewhere along the line, we interacted about that. And over, when

I got to Dallas, I was a connection with you because he was there and I was talking with you about the fact that he had moved there.

And so I put the word out that we wanted to, that's right, I put the word out that we wanted to address this issue somewhere near Dallas.

The closest we could get was, how far is Lyndale from Dallas? It's 90 miles. Yeah, it was as close as you could get.

The blast circumference is pretty big. Well, listen, I mean, honestly, I've taken heat for having you come in and say, how could you allow,

I mean, from Southern Baptist people, how could you allow James White to come in? Take your pulpit to deal with the

Ergen -Kanner thing. And, you know, I felt that, you know, I've kind of always been desirous of being committed to the truth, being the central for everything.

And this was something in the convention that kept being covered up. And I felt like that it was appropriate to address it.

You had never made the case. In Toto. In Toto, right. And so you wanted to do that.

And we said, hey, you did on Tuesday night. We didn't even do it in a normal worship service or anything of that nature.

The next night you did something on Islam, which was even way more attended. Oh, yes, it was. Oh, yeah.

It was the recording that we really needed, which we did put out there for quite some time.

Yeah, okay. So, and then I don't know how long ago it was after that.

I know we came back and spoke at the school there. You did. You were at Jacksonville Seminary.

And that was not connected to our church at all in that. Right. But Dr. Holmes, which is a great guy that's there, had you all come in, had you come in.

Right, right. And then the last time wasn't all that long ago. It's been about two years now.

It's been that long ago since. At least a year and a half. Yeah, somewhere in there, because I know when you were driving me back to Dallas, we went by Keith Green's grave.

Yeah, right. And had to make the pilgrimage as a child of the 80s. Had to make the pilgrimage to Keith Green's grave.

So, but yeah, and I'm going to be spending some time in Texas in November, too.

So we're trying to figure out how to work something out there, too. So you've somehow survived the association.

It probably hasn't been easy, but. Well, I'm sure it's likewise, but on the other side.

Not really, no, not really. I mean, Reformed Baptists tend to be somewhat,

I don't know. Well, let's just say amongst some

Southern Baptists, I do have a reputation for some strange reason.

I don't know why, I'm just such a nice guy. I'm not controversial about anything. But there is this group.

I do remember seeing you at some of my events in Texas, the last time was at the premiere of Unpopular, the movie.

And you looked great in your overalls. You were looking like a. I don't remember having overalls on.

Oh, you were in overalls. I was, okay. Oh, you were. Because I was, there was this line of folks that wanted to talk to me afterwards.

And I had a situation come up where I thought, you know, I bet you

Tom would be the person to talk to this young man. And I remember seeing you over there. And I just remember being struck by the vision of the tall guy in the overalls.

And so you were kind enough to help me out with that situation. And then

I very distinctly remember you at a certain debate that took place in Dallas about your, how long ago was it now?

Oh, that's two years ago. Yeah, I was flying in from somewhere. I can't remember where I flew in. In fact, I flew in the airport coming back home from a conference

I was doing or something and drove straight to there. And I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stay awake.

But that was, oh, it kept me awake. I remember distinctly, you probably don't remember this, but I remember when the other presenter.

Leighton Flowers, I think. Yes, Dr. Flowers. Dr. Flowers was presenting and he was getting into it. Oh, he was preaching.

He was preaching. There is a reason why his sermon notes are in plastic. Because if they weren't, by the time he got to the end of the page, he wouldn't be able to read the stuff.

Yeah, he was spewing, that's for sure. And so I was doing something. I don't know what it was as he was going on.

I think I might've been looking at scripture trying to figure out where this was coming from. But as I'm looking down, the person who was with me, which was my associate, said, you've got to look at James.

He's giving you the eye. I look up and you're going. I'm like.

Actually, I think I do remember that. Because you were down here to my left, as I recall. Yes, I was. Yes, I think

I was. And it was the look of amazement, like, can you believe this? Can you believe what's going on here? Yeah, yeah, I do recall that.

So yes, you were one of the eyewitnesses to the sort of Romans 9 debate, or at least half

Romans, sort of a part of Romans 9 and then total depravity debate or something along those lines,

I guess. Yeah, we covered a lot of ground in scripture. A lot of scriptures were pulled out. But Romans 9 was not the predominant.

No. Which was supposed to be the thing, yeah. So I get the feeling, then, you wouldn't necessarily self -identify as with the traditionalist wing of the

Southern Baptist Convention. No, I don't. I mean, I have good friends who are traditionalists and we get along fine, many of them.

This terminology is fairly new. Yes, that's the odd thing about it. It's -

Because the term traditionalist generally - Well, they do, I mean, they do put it in quotes now. I've noticed that they're starting to put that in quotes.

I don't know if there's a reason behind that, if they're trying to say, hey, you know, we understand that this isn't the doctrine that's always been.

I don't know why, but they're putting the word traditionalist in quotes. But the whole idea behind it is that this is the traditional

Southern Baptist view in opposition to Neo -Calvinism or the

New Calvinism or whatever. And yet, historically,

I was enjoying the Founders Conference tweets today because they had stuff like, one of them was, how many of the, okay, how many of the delegates to the first Southern Baptist Convention came from 1689 churches?

Okay, I didn't see that. How many? All of them. Wow. All of them. Yeah, that was 300,

I forget the number, 389, something like that. And it said all of them. So the Anabaptists weren't there yet.

Well, they were meeting with the Mennonites because that's really who the

Mennonites are. But anyway, yeah. So anybody who knows

Southern Baptist history knows it. I'm sorry, it's just a false narrative to say that we are the traditionalist ones and this is something new that has been smuggled in.

But if that's the whole meaning of traditionalist, why put it in air quotes? I don't get it. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, it's an odd thing because out of one side of their mouths, and I don't want to impugn anybody by this, so this may sound like this, but out of one side of their mouths, they say, we understand there's two streams that come out of the

Southern Baptist Convention and Sandy Creek or whatever the other one. But on the other side, they want to, or they talk in such a way that we just kind of sprung out of the blue somewhere.

But yet when you read the New Hampshire Confession, which is the confession that the

Baptist faith and message was formed from, even though it's obviously New Hampshire Confession's weaker, it was intentionally weaker.

They wanted it to be weaker than something like the 1689 Confession. But still yet, you take the

New Hampshire Confession and put it upside of the traditionalist statement and it would be unrecognizable.

I think if you took the traditionalist statement and handed it to someone who was a part of the New Hampshire Confession construction, they would go, this is

Arminianism. This is not in any way reflective of what we believe. So that's the thing that I don't understand from it.

I think that, I guess if I were to assess it, and they probably might find this to be ungracious or whatever, but I would assess that they've kind of, they've lost their footing to some degree or another.

The younger generation has been embracing reform doctrine for some time.

And I do believe that there is a good percentage of that that is faddish, that it's not, that the convictions are, they're five pointers.

They're not necessarily reformed in their doctrine. There's much more to reform, being reformed than the five points.

And I learned that myself. I'll tell you a little bit about that if you're interested in a moment. Oh yeah, you bet. But we,

I think that they're seeing this large growth and then you have groups like the

Founders and Nine Marks. And I think they've seen them as threatening. But I'm gonna tell you that, you know,

Tom Askall, I don't think they probably think Tom is. I mean, for instance, David Nowell and Tom are very good friends.

I mean, as they were just talking when I left the convention not too long ago. And I think they're both dear brothers in Christ.

They both love the Lord. You know, David Allen is one of the nicest guys

I know. I say the same thing about you. So maybe I, maybe people think I just know a lot of bad people.

But seriously, you know, apart from one another, when I'm with each of you, it's enjoyable to be with.

But I can't get the two groups together for some reason. The same thing with Mark Dever.

I mean, Mark is absolutely the least political animal that you'll ever find.

He just simply wants to speak the truth of God's word and talk about healthy churches.

And it just so happens to be that the reform doctrine is where he sits in his ecclesiology of what makes a healthy church.

And I agree with him on that. That's kind of how I evolved from that. I came out of Dallas Seminary. I didn't go to SBC Seminary because they were just so liberal when

I went. Yeah, back then, yeah. In fact, when I was going to go to college,

I chose to go to Moody. It's where your dad went, right? And so - Class of 52 or 53, yeah.

So I had grown up in a very liberal Southern Baptist church. My pastor did not believe in miracles in the

Bible. And I know that wasn't your experience in Southern Baptist life. Well, no, but I wasn't raised

Southern Baptist. I was raised General Association, regular Baptist, sort of independent fundamentalist

Baptist type thing. So anybody who didn't believe in miracles would just - Yeah. Well, you eventually, though, were in a

Southern Baptist church in Phoenix, right? You were in a Southern Baptist church in 1977. Well, I was in, that would have been in the 70s when

I was, and your experience there was not - Oh, no, no. Richard Jackson in North Phoenix was very conservative.

Of course, Crystal was as well. But I was in East Tennessee. So most of them were coming out of Southeastern. Southeastern was very liberal.

And of course, Southern was very liberal at the time. My pastor preached a sermon on the demoniac when

Jesus encounters the demoniac. And he says to him that my name is

Lesion, or Lesion, whatever, and cast the demons into the swine.

So here's how he preached it. He said that when Jesus asked him his name, he responded by saying,

I'm just one of many. And this was the young man had lost his total self -identity in the corporate world of pig farmers who had taken advantage.

This is true. This is a sermon on Lesion too. And how that they had just depressed this young man that now he no longer even saw himself as an individual, but just one of many people.

Jesus liberated him from that. And then to punish the corporate pig farmers, drove the swine into the water.

He was a graduate of Southeastern Seminary. That's the kind of preaching I grew up under.

But I listened every night or whenever I could. And on the weekends would listen to WNBI out of Chattanooga.

Listen to these guys preach the word. I'm like, that's how you handle scripture, even as a young man.

So I went to Moody and then went to DTS. But while I was at DTS, I really got caught up in the church growth movement.

Andy Stanley had been there a couple of years before me. His church was booming. I got out. That's what I wanted to do.

And I came out a four point guy, as most of the guys are at DTS.

And two things happened to me as I was listening to, I don't know when

I started listening to Dividing Lines, but reading similar material and similar books and reading through the scriptures,

I became convinced, firmly convinced, that you cannot believe in substitutionary atonement and deny that Christ came to die for a particular people.

I became convinced that from John 10, 10. I could not reconcile that. I'm laying my life down for my sheep.

And then in the same context, you're not my sheep. I couldn't, I just could not reconcile that. The harmony of the

Trinity in Ephesians one, that the father elected certain people.

Then you have the spirit also sealing that certain group of people. And then an indiscriminate group of people,

Christ coming and dying for. I mean, you've said these things many, many times, but as I got into the

Word, there was this. I still like hearing them. There was no way of, I could not deny it anymore.

And then I began to realize that my methodology was out of sync with my theology.

And I've even described it, the Lord kind of took me behind the shed, the theological shed, and just gave me a theological whipping, if you will, to show me that you are claiming to believe this, but yet your practice does not fit what you believe theologically.

And that can be really painful. It was, it was very painful. I had to go before my church and repent.

And I had a big crowd that Sunday, because I said, next week I'm gonna tell you how I've been wrong about so many things.

Now was this in? This was in Florida. In Florida, okay. And. Which is why you ended up in Texas. Well, no, no, no, it's not why

I did. The Lord was gracious and we, we. And it worked. Oh, it did. The church, I took them to the scriptures and I had earned the respect.

How long had you been there? Three years. Okay. I stayed another nine. Okay. And so it was a combination of you and also the

Nine Marks book of the Marks of a Healthy Church and that, those things just really transformed my ministry.

Wow. So back to the, the traditionalists. So you, so you've been in Lindale how long then?

11 and a half years. It's hard to believe. Yeah, it is. Man, I'll tell you. Cause you start talking about, it just means

I've been doing this for a long time. You have. Yeah, yeah. It's just, Rich is in there going.

Yeah, we're a bunch of, there's a fair amount of gray in the, in the studio and in the other, other room today.

But, so when you, you go there, what's, what's the church's perspective at the time?

Are they, are they looking for someone like you? You talking about, you talking about Lindale? Yeah. Yeah. Lindale was looking for some, here's the odd thing because they called

DTS, Dallas Theological Seminary, because they had been heavily influenced by S.

Louis Johnson. I don't know if you know who S. Louis Johnson is. So.

Where's the, I need something to get me. Sorry. A tribble chair to make me feel a little better. Well, not that you wouldn't know who people are, but a lot of people don't know

S. Louis Johnson. I, I, one of the last times that, that I, one of the earliest times

I spoke at Countryside, he was about four pews back. While I was preaching.

That puts a little pressure on you. And he, he said he really enjoyed the exegesis.

So, yeah, but yeah, no, I think everybody knows S.

Louis Johnson. His commentary in Romans, it was just put out not too long ago, so it's great. Well, he, years ago, the church had,

First Baptist where I am now in Lindale, had needed an interim. And that was back when Lindale would have been very rural.

Now I know you visited and you probably thought it was about as rural as you can get. Well, no, I've been to more rural places.

Trust me, I have, I have. There's a, there's a freeway nearby and there's a waffle house. But back, back then there wouldn't have been anything there as far as you wouldn't have, you know, the type of places you have now there.

So anyway, they were looking for, they didn't have a lot of people to come in. That's because every time they build something, the, the, the twisters come through.

Exactly, that's exactly right. I mean, wow. You guys have just been dodging those things right and left recently.

So S. Lewis Johnson came out and was an interim for a year or so. Really? And while he was there, there were several people who, one of the fellows name is

Bubba Williams. He's still in our church. Not, he's quite elderly now, but he and several of the guys were just impacted by the doctrines of grace under S.

Lewis Johnson. And they had not had a pastor. Well, they did have a pastor right after him.

S. Lewis Johnson led them to get the next pastor. He ended up leaving, that pastor did, unfortunately under some unfortunate circumstances.

And they never did, for several years, went through a string. They, you know, had Bill Heibel's model guy come in and, and you know how it was during the 80s and 90s.

And so they decided, they put together a pulpit committee and Bubba Williams was on there as well as several other of the old guys said, we're going to bring somebody in this reform.

So they called Dallas Seminary and they said, we're looking for a guy who is a five point

Calvinist, Southern Baptist and dispensational. So they said -

That list wasn't overly long. No, they said, we know one guy, his name's Tom Buck down in Florida, just simply because I graduated there.

I'm not nearly as dispensational as I used to be. And several people have told me, they've heard me preach, said, you're not even dispensational at all.

You just - You're not a leaky dispensationalist, you've got a big old hole in the bottom of the boat? That's what they're saying. They're saying, no, the way you handle the text, you're not dispensational.

I said, well, I hadn't preached Daniel Revelation yet. But they called me up.

I wasn't looking to go anywhere. Wrote me a letter actually and said, this is what they were looking for. And they were in East Texas.

And I have a real heart for revitalization in churches, both theologically and churches are just dying number -wise.

So I'd gone to Florida. It's one of the reasons I went to Florida, they were down to 50. So this church was looking for, they were 700, 800 people in attendance.

And they were looking for someone like that. And I told them, I said, if you've gone 10, 15 years without any true expeditional preaching and have not really had consistent reform doctrine, people are not gonna be real excited about that.

And they said, oh no, no, they will. And the entire pulpit can be one of that. Long story short. The pulpit committees don't always represent the entirety of the congregation.

I told them, I said, it would take seven years to, and I told them, I said,

I will stick it out. I will come and I will go through the difficult times, but you must go through it with me.

And we did, and it was difficult. We lost several hundred people over a period of time.

And some of it was, we were practicing church discipline and their constitution allowed for all these things.

So I simply went in and said, we're gonna start living under the constitution. And so there are some positives in a

Baptist church that you can use that. If you have the right form there, it's hard for them to target against it.

Now, it was a single pastor, elder led church. It's not now, but it was, but all the power was in the senior pastor.

Well, sorta. Constitutionally it was. Yeah, but we both know how that all ends up.

Well, the senior pastor had authority to appoint all committees. So it made it pretty powerful.

And so it was interesting when I moved the church away from that to a plurality of elders that some accused me of a power grab.

And I'm like, it's actually backwards. I'm getting rid of that. So the Lord has been gracious in that.

So the interesting thing is, is traditionalism. By the way, it takes time to train up leadership like that though.

Well, it does. Well, you know, after being there seven years, one of the guys on the pulpit committee, wonderful man by the name of Jerry came by.

One Sunday evening or Wednesday evening, we were having a meal at the church and he's probably in his seventies.

And he said, you were exactly right about seven years, over seven years it would take. He said, but it's been worth it.

So, and of course, traditionalism has just that, they're right in one sense that over time that certain issues of anti -reform doctrine have crept into the

Southern Baptist church life. There's no doubt of that. But it doesn't take its roots back into the beginning of the convention.

But the more important thing is you take the doctrine of the fall of man and you wouldn't even get your average

Southern Baptist that I run into that would agree with that. Now you might - Would agree with? With the issue of saying that we don't inherit the guilt of Adam.

That's the thing that's the most stunning to me. The other stuff that they say is fairly -

Standard. Standard mainstream, synergist, muddied up, soteriology that you get in Southern Baptist churches.

The people they've put out to defend them are coming up with some very interesting variations on the theme.

Let's just put it that way. But yeah, the stuff about original sin, that's really where a lot of people have said, hey, do you guys really want to get that close to plagianism?

I mean, oh, don't use that term. But you're the ones, you know the history of these things.

Why are you going there? Why do you think they are going there? I think they're going there because they feel the need to disavow every point of the tulip, if you will.

So we're going to disavow it all because I think they do understand. And again, this is hard because you speculate once in somebody's mind and that's difficult to do or impossible to do.

But they believe that, and rightly so, that if you begin with what

I'll call a biblical position of total depravity, that there's only one direction you can go. And so you have to dismantle.

You can't be a Calvinist with a lisp and be consistent, as I was saying. You cannot be a TP Calvinist, as is said, as many

Southern Baptists were for so long time and be consistent. Most Southern Baptists are TP Calvinists. But I think they see the inconsistency in that.

And so they're looking back, they're looking at things that Herschel Hobbes wrote. I really wonder if we were sitting with Herschel Hobbes.

I don't know. I don't know either. But I'm really wondering if we were sitting with him, would he say, yeah,

I don't believe we inherit any of the guilt. But I haven't read enough of him to know, but whether he would or not.

All I remember, I remember very, very clearly. And, you know, I was ordained in a

Southern Baptist church, North Phoenix Baptist Church. Richard Jackson, obviously at the time, in the late 70s, early 80s, one of the largest

Southern Baptist churches in the convention. His name was always coming up as president and stuff like that.

Huge emphasis upon numbers of Baptists, huge emphasis. And, you know,

I've heard that the average Southern Baptist is baptized 2 .7

times. Well, it's somewhat true. Unfortunately. Well, I think it is. And I watched that.

You had the little Baptist version of infant baptism. Right. And then you had the teenage angst version of baptism.

And then you'd have the adult baptism, each time convinced that before I didn't understand,

I didn't really know what was going on as you're maturing and growing and things like that. But there is this massive push for numbers every year.

In fact, right at the end of whatever the reporting year for the convention was, like the week before, we'd have this huge baptismal service where the whole service was about getting people baptized.

And if you hadn't been baptized yet, and we had all these volunteers and this is a huge building, seated 4 ,700.

They claim 5 ,000, but 4 ,700. Television program, the Hawaiian Yards. And we would sit there for an hour longer than the service normally went, just simply to get people.

And they'd come forward and we'd get them up there right then. That's like the Church of Christ in how quickly they'll baptize.

Well, it was that day. Normally there would be, was there, actually,

I'll take that back. I think it wasn't uncommon to actually have baptisms after a service of someone.

So spontaneous baptism is not something new, really. No, no, no. That was, yeah, that was boom.

That was boom, boom. Now, it's interesting when a change in leadership happened after I had left at the church.

One of the things that the pastor came in afterwards said, I've been looking at the numbers and the back door at this church is larger than the front door.

In other words, the people that we lose. I think he said, we don't know where like 93 % of the people we baptize in the past four years are.

We have no idea what's happened to them, no contact with them, nothing like that. And at one point that church had 20 ,000 members, but you could never find more than 7 ,000 at a given time.

So I was, that's where I, that was my adult, my early adult experience.

I had lots of tremendous experiences there. I got to sing in a group called

Liberation there, met my wife there, got married there, worked in the sound,

I did sound stuff there. I've got some long, amazing stories about what that's like when you have 250 voice choir, full orchestra.

All the egos in the music department, everything else that they go along with it. But still,

I sort of got to see just how politically explosive situations like that could be, how numbers were extremely important.

Still is true. I mean, I just came, I've been at the convention and we're either in one mode, rejoicing or lamenting numbers.

And I tweeted the other day, I can't wait for the time in the Southern Baptist Convention that our emotions are not driven one way or the other by numbers, but by faithfulness.

And I mean, I think there's a good, if you will, a good heart behind the people that are saying they want to reach people for Christ.

They love the lost. They want to see people saved. I mean, don't we all?

And I hope that's true. I hope that, you know, I don't like a cold Calvinism that, or cold anything, that doesn't care about reaching the lost.

But I also would hope that we want to make sure the lost are actually reached. That's the point. What I was going to say was there has to be a distinction made between surface level evangelism that unfortunately slathers religion on top of self -righteousness and real evangelism that has to cut through the self -righteousness and actually bring about repentance.

And it's that issue of repentance that is so vitally important. And it's so difficult having this conversation because there's so much emotion wrapped up in it.

And if you begin to ask questions, it's like, you know, today they were rejoicing in 3 ,500 people that made professions of faith.

And we've - At what? It was here in Phoenix at the Harvest America.

Oh, the Greg Laurie thing. Greg Laurie. And so that was big here. It was part of the convention. They're going to do the same thing in Dallas next year at the convention.

And - Greg Laurie's Calvary Chapel, isn't he? Well, he's got a booth there at the convention.

So I don't know. I don't know enough about him to know. I don't know either. I'm not your best other

Baptist as you've found out past these things. So, you know, do

I want, hope, desire 3 ,500 plus people came to Christ?

Of course I did. Of course, right. I mean, I hope for more than that. Am I concerned about the process?

I'm deeply concerned about that. You know, okay, we've connected all these people, they said, with churches for follow -up.

That's great, but we're calling them professions of faith. What have we told those people? Have we told them that because they've come down and they've prayed the prayer that they're saved?

I don't know. I know that's what I grew up in. Oh yeah, that's right. So I don't have good confidence that anything has changed regarding that.

You know, the old write it in your Bible. And so you'll be sure this time. First John five, ticket punched on your way.

That's right. And I think that what they don't realize is that our heart, at least mine is, and I think this is true for you too, that we're not just wanting to be skeptics to be skeptics, that we're deeply concerned for people to be saved and that they don't have a false profession that they've made and wake up in hell where we have not given them the true genuine gospel.

Pastorally. Oh, someone said, Greg Laurie's church just joined the

SBC at the same time he's still Calvary Chapel. Okay, I'm confused. So Greg Laurie announced

Harvest has joined the SBC. So I'm looking to, but my information is right there.

So everybody's telling me it's joined the SBC. My big concern is on a pastoral level, there's almost no more difficult situation to deal with than someone who has been given a false assurance without repentance, without any, what you win them with is what you win them to.

And if you want to drive somebody out of the ministry, put them in a church where they're having to minister to people that have been told they're

Christians when they're really not. That's the real issue to me. And that's why there's no church discipline almost anywhere.

Because if you've cajoled them in and you're just trying to keep them because there's no covenant relationship, there's no obedience to the

Lordship of Christ, you've been called to serve in this place, therefore, if all that stuff is out there, that's one of the worst situations you can put somebody into and say, here, preach the whole council of God.

Oh yeah, good, that's real easy to do. You're gonna either end up canned or preaching to a third of the people or less that are left when it's all over with.

And then you get blamed for driving the numbers down and everything else. So yeah, that's the, I, much to their chagrin, taught for years in a

Southern Baptist seminary here in Phoenix. And until politics drove me out, which

I always expected it would eventually. But I remember very, very, very clearly an individual telling me there had been a church growth class right before I was teaching,

I think Hebrew exegesis or something, I forget what, I think that's what it was. Anyway, I was talking with one of the people that was in both classes, and he knew who

I was and he knew what perspective I came from and stuff. And he said, well, you'll love this.

He said, we just had a class and we were told, we were given a list of words that we should never use in our sermons to make sure, to help, to make the message accessible to people and to not put artificial barriers in people's lives.

And it included wrath and repentance, both. So in other words,

Jesus could not have preached in any of those churches. He put up a few barriers every once in a while, did he not?

The rich young ruler had a barrier. Oh, big one, big one. Yeah, it's two by four upside the head, actually. But yeah, that's obviously my concern, is you want, it's all about actually proclaiming the whole counsel of God.

And that's something that I have done a lot in. I remember I preached the opening chapel at a school in Zurich about a year and a half ago.

And I chose to do Acts chapter 20 because I've always felt that one of the goals a minister should have is to be like Paul and be able to say,

I am not guilty of the blood of any man because I did not shrink back from proclaiming to you the whole counsel of God.

And we know that there are gonna be certain people in our congregations that when you proclaim the whole counsel of God, they're not gonna be happy about it.

But we can't worry ourselves about that. We have to do what we've been called to do. Well, I don't know how you preach the examination passages, for example.

You just don't. And well, but they do. Here's the strange thing, James. I've had a lot of people that don't.

I've heard them preach it. And then, but what's the remedy, if you will?

What are you gonna call them to in examination if it's simply to pray the prayer again? Right.

And be baptized, because that's all they know what to do. I don't know that, can I, I need to pray the prayer again. I don't think that I'm truly a believer.

I'll have people come and ask those questions when I preach the exam, because that's all they know how to apply it. Right, right.

And I think that that - The idea of living a life of repentance and growing in that, just, if that's not a part of how you brought them in the first place, it's really hard to just add it, you know, add it in at a later point.

It diminishes the Lord's table. Oh, of course it does. You know, I have, I'm preaching through Exodus right now, and coming up obviously on -

Passover. The Passover. And as I've walked through that, and looking at the,

I've talked about the Lord's table and how that the Lord's table is a wonderful gift to us, to the church, to keep us in the rhythm of repentance and faith, so that we are constantly brought to examine ourselves at the table, not to cause us to doubt, but it would cause us to look for fruit.

And to rejoice in the provision that has been provided. Absolutely. But why is it that our churches,

I can only talk about Southern Baptist churches. There is no priority to the Lord's table.

There is no encouragement to examine. There's no guarding of the table almost at all.

Nope. And there's no understanding of the need to prioritize in your life as a

Christian. We still have that trouble where we are in our church because of that very, very reason.

We put every, when we have communion, when I came to the church, they hadn't had communion in two years.

Just because of the - On a, yeah, they had done it like on Christmas Eve or something like that, which is the worst time of the world,

I would think, for me, because you have too many unbelievers there for one thing. So we just don't, I want to make sure that we can guard the table as best as possible.

You realize I never heard that terminology. I never - I had never heard that terminology in a

Southern Baptist church. Well, you would in ours. Yeah, well, but I had never heard that until I went to Phoenix Reformed.

I had never heard anyone talk about. And I remember when I mentioned it to a family member, they were sort of like, are you joining a cult?

Because it was so outside of their experience that you would, and my immediate response was, do you guard the baptistry?

That's great. And it was like, yeah. Well, if they're both ordinances the

Lord gave to the church, why do you treat the one differently than the other? But you're exactly right.

Whenever I start talking about this, especially to Baptist people, Southern Baptist people, they're all like,

I'm almost afraid that it's a little bit of a response to Roman Catholicism, a fear of some type of clericalism or sacramentalism or something along those lines.

But the diminishment of the supper as an ordinance of the church, wherein we are actively involved as the whole community in proclaiming the

Lord's death until it comes. And we have the command of God, of Christ, do this as an anamnesis, a remembrance of me.

It's all connected to a high view of the atonement itself.

It's connected to what Jesus Christ does at the cross. And what we're talking about right now, the very gospel that you're calling people to.

If you've just cajoled people into the church, this whole idea of repentance and examination and rejoicing in the provision that has been made for the redemption that I have, there's just, it's just a disconnect.

It just becomes something that, oh, we're going to be late tonight because we've got that thing tacked on at the end of the service type thing.

And hence the idea of excluding someone. As if, I mean, we think back to Calvin standing before the altar and standing in front of armed men who want to partake of the supper and he's risking his life to keep them from partaking of the supper.

And most people, they go, why would you worry? Why would you even care about something like that?

And yeah, big time. Well, it makes no sense to guard the table when you're saying, just pray this prayer and you're in.

And then, but I have to go through this reward to partake of the Lord's table.

But we do it in our membership class. We teach what we believe about the Lord's table.

We talk about closed communion versus open communion. And I've often said, you put a gun to my head,

I'm choosing closed communion completely unless you're a member of this church. If I had to choose. Now that's not gonna make it in a revitalization of Sotheby's Church.

But I do believe in closed communion at least to this point, that you make it crystal clear that unless you are a believer in Jesus Christ who has publicly professed him through baptism and you are walking in a way that's consistent with a life of repentance and faith and you've dealt with your sin, known sin before the

Lord, before you come to this table, you should not partake. We say that every single time. You know what we do? And we have a sheet that we put in our bulletin the week before that lists questions of examination with scriptures along with that, that we give to encourage the church members to take home and to prepare themselves for communion the next

Sunday. You don't see that in most Southern Baptist churches. No, you don't, no, you don't. Go ahead, what do y 'all do? No, we do announce it the week before and encourage people to make preparation in the coming week.

Again, vast majority of churches just stumble into it. It's just, oh, is that what we're doing today? Oh, great, you know.

But we ask, the way we guard the table is we ask any non -member to speak to one of the elders before they partake.

And the three questions that we ask, have you repented, placed your faith in Jesus Christ, long for his salvation, we do ask if they have been baptized because if they're rejecting one of the ordinances, why would they want to partake in the other?

And we ask, are you underdisciplined from any like -minded church? Now we say like -minded church because we've had people who've come to our church that are underdisciplined for becoming reformed.

Right. So in other words, for inappropriate reasons. But when you think about it, you know, there's a number, not a huge number, but there's a number of like -minded churches here in the

Valley, it's a big Valley. But if a like -minded church in the East Valley excommunicates someone and says, you cannot partake of the

Lord's Supper, and they just bop on over to our place, if we don't ask, then by our not asking, we are subtly undercutting the discipline of a sister congregation.

And so we ask if they're underdisciplined. And again, that's so incredibly unusual because I remember at North Phoenix years and years and years ago, the biggest

Lord's Supper was Christmas Eve. Well, not, well, whatever the Sunday night before Christmas was gonna end up being.

And I'll admit that 4 ,500 people with little candles and beautiful music in the choir, it's beautiful.

But I'll never forget, I think the last time I was there and I'd become sensitive to some of these things, sitting there before the service started and realizing very, very clearly that everybody in the pew in front of me, up in the balcony, is there for the show.

And you can just tell by the conversation, these are not believers, but they are going to be given a religious something.

But there are people who will defend very strongly, use it as an evangelistic tool. Oh yes,

I've heard that. Oh yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's like, did Jesus do that? Again, we wouldn't use baptism that way.

Well, if you've got little ships with little guns that go off when the kids get baptized, what's that?

You should not bring that up because I was on the escalator behind him this morning. But anyway,

I told my wife, I said, hey, do you know who's in front of us? She said, no, I said, firetruck baptistry. I'm not gonna be able to go.

And you're going back to that? I'm gonna go back to that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't think so. And do we have any false noses out there?

I've got some hats, I think, somewhere. One other thing I'll share about, and I think this has a lot to do -

You do realize there's a camera over here? I do. There's a microphone right out onto the internet. Actually, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I may have to come live here in the bunker. But when you begin doing that, you are going to decrease your numbers.

There's no way getting around that because when you preach a message like Christ preached, numbers sometimes often decrease.

John 6. Yeah, so that's exactly what happens when people go in to have, and forget

Calvinism, just a solid ecclesiology, and you begin to, you don't have to be a five -point

Calvinist to rightly understand the Lord's table. I mean, you do in some sense,

I would say. But I'm just talking about guarding the table, calling people to examination, those types of things. But this has been so overlooked for years that you go in and you're like an alien.

You don't care about people. When we practiced church discipline for the first time, this was a man who had kicked his wife out of his home, and he was going to divorce her and live with another woman.

And we went through a lengthy process, almost nine months or so, of confronting this man and working through this slowly, mainly because our church had not been there very long.

I thought this would be a slam dunk, if you will, for church discipline. It wasn't. People opposed it. When we finally went through the process, brought it to the church, called upon them to pray for him.

We basically do four steps, one -on -one, two to three on one, take it to the church, and then, if he won't repent.

And so, no, we got great opposition. One person said it was unloving.

Well, not just one, several people did. And this fellow sat with me and I asked him, I said, well, let's just say that we were coming to a business meeting, and this man's name came up to join our church.

And someone stood and said, hey, I know that guy. He's kicked his wife out of his home, and same scenario.

Would you vote to make him a member? No, I wouldn't do that. But once he's in. But once he's in, you're in.

I mean, so you'll not include him if he's living this way. But if he comes in and starts living this way, you won't exclude him.

It makes no sense. But that's the kind of logic, unfortunately, bad logic that we're dealing with.

He was unwilling to admit that his inconsistency really mattered. But we had, so I come into the church and we start having numbers decline.

So this is part of traditionalism. They look and say Calvinism is killing our churches. No, our churches were already dead.

We're just exposing the lack of life. We're not killing anything. And so we came in and we began to say there's an unhealth in the membership.

Just, we had over 2 ,000 members. Okay, on Sunday morning, we were - In Lindell. In Lindell.

That's not a big city. No, well, I mean, it's pretty big when you consider the region of it.

There's about 4 ,000 in the town, but the city's very small, but you've got an outlying area. It's thousands of people.

So over 2 ,000 members. We had on Sunday morning, we had probably 800 people that consistently came to church.

Consistently meaning I might come once a month, once every two months. We saw them. But every once in a while.

I said, this is not as many reformed guys and non -reformed that are starting to say we better have a better ecclesiology have come in and start to weed out the roles.

We had even the Southern Baptist Convention, what, five, six years ago? It's maybe even longer than that, said we need to have a regenerative membership list.

So Baptists have always been known for that. Even Southern Baptists have been known for that. Yeah, but who is behind pushing that though?

Well, I agree it's the guys who are more reformed. But the other guys couldn't deny it.

They, I mean, even a guy that's not reformed like Paige Patterson was for that. And said, yes, we need to have regenerative membership.

They're inconsistent, I think. You know, I was at an event where Paige Patterson was getting ready to speak and they were talking about he's one of the strongest defenders of the penal substitutionary atonement.

And he is. Man, he is powerful when he preaches that. But yet the person who introduced him said, you know,

I just think really when it comes to limited atonement and Paige, because he's such a strong defender of penal substitutionary atonement, he's just really confused.

He actually said that? Yes, right before Paige got up. Which... I just, how does that work?

How does that work? Well, it happened. Oh, my. And Paige spoke and did a great job.

And I love Paige Patterson as a hero of the Southern Baptists Convention in the resurgence era.

But they look at the decline and they say, Calvinism is causing things to decline.

But what it is, again, we're exposing it. So we had these 2 ,000 people. We took a two -year process where I formed a group to try to recover these 2 ,000.

We couldn't find the vast majority of them. We went to people and they said something that we found.

Well, we don't want to be taken off the rolls, but we don't intend to come back. Yeah. Two -year process of this.

We finally went to the church when we had done all that we could. We removed about 900 names in the first slate.

And we were accused. You mean, you actually want the church rolls to represent the people you're seeing?

Yes, absolutely. It's odd. I know it's striking that you'd want to do that. Trust me. Again, that was what was so shocking when

I went from a huge Southern Baptist church where you literally, you had to die and personally show up and present your death certificate to get off the rolls of the church, to PRBC where if you're not attending, the elders contact you.

And if you continue in that, the next business meeting. And the idea is we can't take responsibility for pastoring you if you're not going to be here.

So... And so that's what our church does too. We do the very same thing now. Took a long time to change that.

But what was said was that I came in as a Calvinist and killed the church. And the reality is

I just exposed what was already dead. But they love those numbers. So they would rather the rolls show 2 ,000 for the

Southern. And that's what bothers me so much about numbers and one of the things that does. So many, many guys have done this.

They've gone in and they said, we're going to clean the rolls up. So they're lamenting the fact that Southern Baptist numbers have declined.

They never were what we said they were. Exactly. And that's where the problem is. That's exactly right.

And so I think traditionalism is scared, whatever word, maybe that's probably too strong of a word. But I think that they're concerned about these things have happened.

They're looking in the wrong place for it. And sadly, they dismantled what I believe to be

Orthodox doctrine in some areas, or they have at least been willing to set to squeeze it over to the side, particularly with original sin in very dangerous ways.

And I'm concerned about what's going to happen in the next 10 years. I'm not concerned about David Allen. I'm not.

I'm not concerned about really even Layton Flowers to one degree or another, but I am concerned about their students and I'm concerned about what the next generation will do with what they've done and where it might take us.

Well, there you go, folks. I would just like to ask all the people at the convention, please be kind. I know you're all sitting around watching on your iPhones.

I don't think anybody really probably is, though you will admit when you walk in, you are going to be sort of watching.

I probably will. I'll be reading and say, what do they mean by that? Somebody will say, hello, what do you mean by that? But there you go.

I've been missing some of the comments here. Yes, we're a

Southern Baptist church. Our membership is only the people who regularly see. 70 membership, 110 attendance. That's almost identical to us.

We have about 70 membership and 110 in the morning, maybe. So, yeah, that's sort of the same for us.

But yours is a larger church. I mean, when I was there, how many do you think?

Well, we, I mean, we're, as I said, we still have about 700 to 800 that come on somewhat of a consistent basis.

We went down to 400 at one point, but the Lord's been gracious. And besides that, you have

Dallas Holm to sing for you. That's true, we do have Dallas Holm, who is a solid, doctrinally solid guy and loves to listen to you as well.

I enjoyed last time I was there getting to hear his Keith Green stories and stuff like that.

So taking Keith Green fishing. Well, you got to come back again because I forgot to get a picture of you.

I know, I know. I can't believe I did. You didn't want to ask for it, obviously. And here I should have just taken the camera.

Well, we went, we drove so far, remember? That's true. It was like, we almost drove to Louisiana.

It was good Mexican, though. It was good Mexican, though. It was good Mexican, I'll have to admit that. We're going to do that again, right now, in fact.

So, well, Tom, thank you for stopping by. Now you know, you can see all the strange things

I have around me. And so you're jealous of my board cube?

I am. And my birthday is June 26th, and so I passed my wife for one. I'm not asking you, I'm not telling the whole world about my wife.

You just did, you just did. You're going to come home and there's going to be 12 board cubes at your house. I didn't mean it by that, but I'm hoping my wife will give me one.

Yeah, there you go. And June 26th. Yeah, it's not far away. That's the day after my 35th wedding anniversary, actually.

I think you told me that last time. That's right, so. It's 35 years. I'm 30 this year, so, 30 year wedding anniversary.

Not 30 years old, 30 year wedding anniversary. Yeah, you look a little older now, yeah, so. I now know where to find you as well.

I know your license plate, so I can find you anywhere. Don't tell anybody what that is. I'm not going to tell anybody what it is. That would be pretty dangerous, because those windows are not bulletproof, but.

And these days, they probably. It has nothing to do with sunglasses, so I'll say that much. Well, that does narrow it down, definitely does, so.

Anyway, believe it or not, we've actually gone over our time, but that's the nice thing about the dividing line is nobody cares.

Well, I'm sorry I took too much time. I didn't, it wasn't a complaint. I can see the clock, I could have slowed things down, but it's been very, very nice to be able to actually have a conversation without having to deal with all the nastiness that's going on out there, and hopefully you won't have any nastiness when you go back to the convention, and hopefully,

Lord, well, we'll see you in November. I hope so. Hopefully we can work something out while I'm down that direction.

It's a little bit of a drive, but it's worth it to get out there. You come the first week of November, we can take you hunting.

There you go, there you go. That's when the season opens for us. Oh, well, there you go, there you go.

I'm supposed to be there. I'm trying to remember when that conference is, but it's early in November because I'm there early and then late.

No, no, no. I thought it was October. It's October, so I'm there later. No, November 1st is when

I'm headed to Washington for a conference. We'll figure something out. Yeah, we'll figure something out, so at least go shooting or something.

There seems to be some wide open areas out there. Oh, there are, there definitely are. That'd be a lot of fun. Thanks for being with me, brother.

I appreciate it. And I appreciate anybody who will actually be seen with me in public because the number's getting pretty small.

Well, this isn't very public here, except the whole world. Oh, yes, it is. Yes, it's, yeah, yeah, mm -hmm, yeah, yeah, it is.

And tomorrow in the, well, for me, morning, right now, we are scheduled to have another dividing line.

Did I tell you about this? Oh, good. I just wanted to shock Rich over there and through the window.

Tomorrow morning, 10 o 'clock our time, which will be one o 'clock Eastern Daylight Time, Josh Bice will be stopping by.

And you know Josh, well, from, we're gonna be doing the Reformation Tour in September.

And also, you know him from the G3 conferences. So we'll be talking about G3 and talking about trying to arrange a debate this year and that kind of stuff.

So we'll be doing that tomorrow, and that'll make for three dividing lines in one week. So if we end up doing one after that, it'll probably be because we've got a bunch of stuff we have to respond to again.

And I hope that's not, I hope that's not the case, but we will see. So thanks for joining us on the dividing line today.

We'll see you next time. God bless. God bless.