Episode 133: Voddie Baucham Reflections and Legacy (Part 1)

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Welcome to the

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Ruled Church Podcast. I am your host, Alan Nelson. I am one of the pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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And it's been a minute, I think, on the show since I've had the privilege of interviewing someone.

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And so today, I'm excited about that. I've got my friend, well, a new friend that I met through our writing with ThingsAbove .us.

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But with me today on this episode is Jay Harrod.

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How are you doing, brother? Great, brother. Thank you for having me on today. I know people get tired of me saying this because it's a joke all the time on the podcast.

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But I mean, could you, like five, seven years ago, could you have ever envisioned that one day in your life you would be on the

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Ruled Church Podcast? Not in a million years. For multiple reasons.

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Right. One, you didn't know it existed. Two, I don't even, it didn't exist. Well, the first version did.

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Well, brother, why don't, first of all, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about what is

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ThingsAbove .us? What is this thing that you and I are both part of?

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Yeah, sure. Things Above Us is a Reformed Baptist blog.

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And we basically, we handle various topics, nothing specifically.

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Sometimes it's, you know, a cultural subject. Sometimes it's just, you know, theological lessons.

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Sometimes it's advice on parenting or something like that. But mostly it's a bunch of guys who are

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Reformed and Baptist and want to communicate some thoughts to people. So how did you meet

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Michael Coughlin? I met Michael through Abolition Ministry here in Ohio.

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He and I both work with an organization called Heritage Restored. And we basically go out on the streets and hold signs and get yelled at.

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But we, you know, witness to people. We share the gospel with them and advocate for justice for the fatherless.

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So since Heritage Restored is in Ohio, I happened upon them on YouTube about a year ago now, a year and a half or so.

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And I just got in touch with Michael originally and we got hooked up that way. Amen.

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Amen. Well, this is a pretty sobering episode because I'm actually sitting out here on my porch swing and just kind of just finished a pretty busy day with some things.

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But, you know, we just got the news yesterday. So at the time of this recording, we're recording this on a

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Friday. I had just gone and visited a man in the nursing home and they think that this man may have dementia.

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And so I'm just saying this is kind of emotional because when I visited him, he introduced me to his wife.

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He said, you know, have you met our preacher? Well, I've known both of these for this couple for nearly 10 years.

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And that hit me pretty hard because my grandmother went through dementia and that was just tough.

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So I was a little bit emotional, hugged him, prayed for him, you know, was there maybe 30, 40 minutes.

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I left that meeting to go pick up my wife.

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And as I was sitting in the driveway, I just happened to flip on Facebook and I saw, and it was shared like a minute ago,

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I saw this post from Founders and it talked about Voddie Bauckham had gone to be with the

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Lord. And I'm like, what, what?

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You know, is this, I mean, I mean, of course, you know, it's not a prank or something, but my first reaction is, is this real?

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So this episode is just kind of you and I talking about that, but I still want to give you the opportunity brother to just tell us a little bit about who you are.

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And yeah, just tell us about you and I know you have a family. And yeah, just give everybody kind of an overview of who is

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Jay Harrod. Yeah, you bet. Yeah, and you're right. It seems out of place to be talking about me in light of Voddie's passing.

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So I'll keep it brief and not bog everyone down with my boring life. So like you said, my name is

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Jay Harrod. I'm from a small town in Ohio called Sydney for about 40 minutes north of Dayton.

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I just celebrated my fifth wedding anniversary on the 12th. I'm married to my wife

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Kat and she has a son, Andrew, my stepson. And yeah,

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I'm from Sydney originally. I lived in Texas for a while after I graduated.

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I moved back up here in 2019. So just been plugging away since then. I was saved in 2020.

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And my wife was saved shortly after that and we pretty much got married right away.

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And just been, by the grace of God, growing in Christ and, you know, learning to love each other more and more and just doing the best we can.

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Yeah, we're both members of Piqua Baptist Church in Piqua, Ohio, which is the town over from us.

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And we're just so, so blessed by our church and our pastors and pretty much, not to brag, but it's the best going around.

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And we went through a little bit of a process at first, trying to find a good church home and found this place and we just fell in love.

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And we hope to attend here until we go to be with the

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Lord as well. So that's pretty much it. Amen, I love hearing all that. So it's a

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Reformed Baptist Church? Yeah, we are Reformed. We don't adhere expressly to the 1689 and like our statement of faith isn't the 1689 or anything.

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But most of our elders do hold to it. So yeah, we're not like a 1689 church where we would be considered like a

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Calvinistic Baptist Church. Yeah, well, I always love to hear people who love the church.

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And so that's encouraging. And I saw today, I haven't listened to it, but one of, or Bodhi Bakken's last sermon on at Grace Baptist in Cape Coral is on loving the church.

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And so you and I have both benefited from him. I'll let you talk a little bit about that more.

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I just want to say that, you know, some of the things like, so this is what

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I talked to you before the show, but there's gonna be all these people all, you know, talking about Bodhi and the impact and a lot of well -known people.

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But here we are, you and I, we're not known brothers at all.

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But there's this idea that I want to put forth to the listeners that Bodhi Bakken had such an impact, not just on the evangelical world, not just on the influencers, not just on the big stage, but he also had an impact on the everyday

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Baptist, if you will. And I know it extends beyond that, but I'm just talking about the everyday guys like Jay and Alan.

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And so I think that should be encouraging to his family and that's the kind of legacy he leaves.

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It's not just, you know, the big people that he influenced, but the little people too. And I think that matters.

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So brother, why don't you just talk, just, you know, I'll just give you the mic as it were.

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And why don't you just talk about Bodhi. You were saved in 2020.

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So when's the first time that you remember, you know, learning or hearing about or Bodhi himself and just talk about that impact in your life.

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Absolutely. Yeah. Bodhi Bakken was definitely a big influence in my early walk with Christ.

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He was there ministering to me kind of when I was figuring out Calvinism and reform theology and all of that.

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And even more so actually in this past year, our good buddy,

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Michael, convinced me of the necessity and the benefit of confessionalism.

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So as I've been leaning into the confessor more and more this year, changing some theology,

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Bodhi has been a constant encouragement and one who was there teaching me along the way.

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So not only in my early conversion, but actually here, maybe even more so in the past year.

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So I've just benefited so much from his teaching and just love his preaching.

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One of my favorite preachers by far. He just has that, just a powerful voice that draws you in.

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He's got such a way of speaking. I mean, he's preaching

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God's word and that's what matters, but he just has that, you know, that thing about him that just really draws you in and keeps you connected.

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And I'm just always so much appreciated that. Yeah, you mentioned how, is there any, so when you got converted, did you say

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Bodhi was impactful in the conversion or did it come later?

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Was there a sermon or anything or talk about that? Yeah, yeah. Later on for sure, probably a year or two after I was saved.

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But basically the way that it went down, I was first introduced and then began wrestling with the doctors of grace and I was advised by a brother wisely to just go read

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Romans 9 for myself, which I later found out is where Arminians go to die.

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So I'm reading it. It's crystal clear to me, but I wanted some commentary on it.

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You know that feeling when you're about to make a theological change and you just want to make sure that you're not the only one and you won't be a heretic afterwards.

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Yeah. That was basically, you know, I'm like, and then I come to find, well, actually no, there's, you know, just a bunch of faithful brothers who hold to this and whatever.

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So I go searching around online and I find this sermon on Romans 9 by Bodhi.

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It's titled, Who Do You Think You Are? And it's a series that he does on Romans.

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It's covering Romans 9 verses 19 to 29 and it just rocked my world.

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So he's going through it. There's a part where he is, he's focusing on verse 20 and, you know, the measly pot answering back to the mighty potter and he's going into it.

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He cross references Job chapter 38 and he's just pounding away on God answering back to Job.

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So he's going on and on about the sovereignty and the power of God and the majesty of God.

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And he says this, I actually have this quote here from that sermon. He looks

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Job in the face and says, who do you think you are? I'm God. I answer to no one.

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And if this answer bothers you, hear me when I say, you think too much of yourself. If this answer bothers you, hear me when

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I say, you do not reverence and worship the God of the universe the way you ought to.

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If this answer does not suffice for you, be afraid, be very afraid because you dare challenge the

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God of the universe and he will not share his glory with another. And he will not have his decrees challenged by those who borrow the very breath that they use to speak to him.

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So I hear that and I'm pretty much sold after that. He just, you know, like I said, he just has that way about him.

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He just booming powerful voice and, you know, was such a fantastic teacher.

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And part of that, part of being an effective teacher is being a good communicator for one.

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And he just, he just had that way about him. Obviously the things he's saying here are true. I'm being convinced of them because of the truth in God's word.

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But you hear Votie Bauckham telling you this. You hear him booming his voice like God boomed to Job through the whirlwind.

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And it just has a way of locking you in. So I just so much appreciated him and that sermon specifically.

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That was one that I was kind of pondering on last night and this morning. Hey man, what about your wife?

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Did she come along with you into the Doctrine of Grace as quickly?

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And do you think that she, was she someone that admired Votie as well through that?

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Yeah, yeah, very much so. She pretty much came right along with me. My wife is just such a, she is such a good

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Christian woman who just wants to be led. So she is pretty open when

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I get my teeth sunk into something and I get to studying something.

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We'll go over it in family worship and hit it hard. And she'll have some pushback if she disagrees or whatever.

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But we'll open up God's word and get into it. And that's basically what we did. And by the end of that process, we're like, well, this is obviously true.

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And that's what we're gonna be. As we saw that happen, we come into the

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Doctrine of Grace, more so me. And I'm sure you know the drill. You just start cage staging and Calvinism becomes your entire personality.

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So we, you know, going through sanctification and all that process.

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But yeah, she pretty much was in it with me and we took it from there, so.

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Did you guys ever get to meet Votie or did you ever get to be somewhere where he was, and hear him live?

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Unfortunately, no. I really, really miss him. Yeah. Well, I kind of tell my story.

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So yeah, Votie was influential in my life in many ways.

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I think, I hope I have the dates right. I think it was around 2009 that I got the book,

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Family Driven Faith. Have you heard of that one? I've seen the title before.

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Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a highly recommended book, just Family Driven Faith by Votie Bauckham.

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And I'm not sure that I really, you know, maybe I'd heard his name or something.

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I'm not sure. I don't really remember before that time knowing who he was. It's possible

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I did, but I think it was around 2009. And then in 2010, he was, of all places, at the

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Adrian Rogers preaching conference, a preaching conference at Mid -America

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Baptist Theological Seminary that was named after the late Adrian Rogers.

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And he was one of the preachers. And I think that was the first time that I got to hear him live.

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And I'll just make a note about this and see if you have any thoughts. But the thing about Votie is similar to Spurgeon in that there are people of various theological persuasions that appreciated

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Votie. There was this lady on Facebook that a couple of weeks ago, she made this big rant basically about Calvinism.

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But then she, today, my wife showed me a post that she was lamenting the death of Votie Bauckham and rejoicing that he's in heaven, you know.

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So it's like, okay, did you know where Votie stood? You know, but Votie was appreciated.

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I mean, I don't know if you have that opinion too, but it seems to me like there were people on various sides of theological positions that appreciated this brother.

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Absolutely. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. So I live in Ohio.

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We're about a five -hour drive from the Arc Encounter. And Votie, they have a big conference there yearly.

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And Votie is a speaker there pretty often. And that's something that has always stuck out to me is he is kind of loved and highly regarded no matter who you are, you know.

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He certainly, he preaches and he believes from a

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Calvinistic standpoint. But even if like maybe you didn't know that coming into it, you're gonna love his preaching regardless, you know.

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It's very, very relatable guy, a great communicator and just a great preacher.

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And I would agree that he was well -rounded and just had good content.

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And you know, one thing that I was thinking about this morning that kind of really spoke to that is his engagement with cultural issues.

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So you have the Fault Lines book, of course, and just kind of his work around like, you know, social justice and combating that sort of thing, that sort of ideology.

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He was just such a, for me personally, but I think that's kind of why maybe a lot of people who weren't super familiar with his preaching were introduced to him.

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And that's such a good thing to have a faithful brother in Christ being out there on that platform, speaking to those sorts of cultural topics.

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I think of his, you know, he was on Ben Shapiro a few years ago and stuff.

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That was kind of when I was just getting familiar with him. And he just was a good, faithful Christian voice in that sphere, talking about those things, which is so refreshing, you know.

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And you can say the same for Charlie Kirk too or Don McArthur, you know, those are other brothers.

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We lost this year and went to go be with the Lord who kind of took that stand on those cultural things and I think was a fantastic witness for Christ and maybe brought some people into their preaching through that.

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You know, I haven't had an episode about any, and it's not because, I mean, it's just Providence and time.

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And, you know, I just haven't had an episode about John McArthur or Charlie Kirk, but, you know, I'm in 100 % agreement.

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And I know there's been others people have mentioned, Wayne Mack, James Dobson, I know there's others, but for me, those were the big three, you know.

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John McArthur was a little easier, only in the sense because, not because his death was easier, but it was just like, this brother's ready.

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He has lived a long life and he has, we knew that his health was declining and he is finishing his race well.

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And you kind of got to watch him finish the race.

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And it was like, it was just an encouragement. You know, it was sad, but it was like, okay.

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You know, you see a guy like John McArthur, a faithful brother in the Lord in ministry for decades.

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Like you said, we all kind of knew, you know, like he's reaching the end of the line.

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So it wasn't quite as jarring as a guy like Bodie or a guy like Charlie Kirk even, obviously two younger guys.

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Bodie was, I believe, 56. And Charlie Kirk, a little closer to my age, actually.

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He was 31, I'm 32. Yeah. Yeah. Charlie Kirk, the first time

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I, again, I'm sure I've heard of him before, but he spoke at an event at the

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SBC in 2022. I think it was with Conservative Baptist Network.

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I didn't get to go to that because I was helping out with some things with Tom Askell's run for president that year.

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And so that's when I really, you know, kind of listened to him and I wasn't aware,

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I wasn't as aware that in the last, you know, however long he had really,

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I don't know if turn the corner is the right thing to say, but he had really, really grown a lot in his gospel.

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And that was very encouraging. And so, yeah, I think like you and like any of us, that hit you right in the gut, like what, you know, because all the circumstances surrounding that were terrible.

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And so I did address his death. It was actually on a

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Wednesday night. I mean, that the same day to our church and just kind of processing that. And I feel like I'm still processing that.

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I feel like, you know, because I mean, these two events, and I know they're not the same.

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I mean, I'm not trying to say that they're the same because I understand one was an assassination and another is, it's being called a medical event.

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I don't know what it was, brother. I don't know if you've heard. I would just assume something with the heart.

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But these two deaths occurred, you know, barely two, just over two weeks apart.

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And like you said, with MacArthur's a little different, but with these brothers, I mean, look, I used to think 56 was old.

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There was a time in my life I thought 56 was old. But now that I'm almost 40, I'm like, 56 is another three decades of ministry left.

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And so terribly sad to see Votie pass at that age.

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Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, to your point, obviously, they're not the same thing.

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The thing about Charlie Kirk, I agree with your assessment there. It seems like in the past few years, he really got more vocal and focused about his faith.

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Specifically, and, you know, kind of the ministry that I'm involved in doing, abortion ministry here in Ohio, we kind of do a little bit of a similar thing.

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Like we're on college campuses, and we're kind of, you know, murguing with the libs sometimes. And, you know, just to see that and to think like, man, you know, this brother woke up that morning, probably hugged his kids, put his shoes on, and he didn't know that that was gonna happen that day.

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And it just kind of speaks to like, this life is amazing, you know? And when these things happen, it really tends to put things into perspective.

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And I wrote an article about Charlie, I believe the day after he died on Things Above.

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And, you know, that's something that I talk about in there. I certainly had some disagreements with Charlie, both theologically and politically.

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Nothing major, but enough to where in today's age can cause a squabble online, you know?

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So kind of like my sphere of people would be interacting with his sphere of people pretty regularly, him being kind of like more of your mainstream, pro -life sort of figure, and then the abolitionists on my side kind of butting heads and stuff.

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But when an event like this happens, it really tends to, the

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Lord really uses that to kind of put things into perspective on what's important. And one thing that really encouraged me is, it seems like just the day before that, we were, you know, not me personally,

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I'm actually not on social media, but my, you know, sphere of people were just kind of butting heads with Charlie's guys.

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And once that happened, just the outpouring of love and prayer and concern, because there was that time,

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I mean, he was shocked. It was extremely graphic.

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I don't know if you had the displeasure of seeing that video, but, you know, a bunch of people did.

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And during that time between him being shot and then being pronounced dead, just the outpouring of concern and prayer from guys who otherwise would, you know, just kind of be bickering with him.

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That was just so encouraging to me, to just see the reaction in the body of Christ when a tragedy like that happens, and to see kind of like, we may defer on a couple of things, and not to downplay the important things too, but at the end of the day, he's a brother in the

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Lord. He's a young man, he's got family, you know. This is a tragic thing, and to just see the love from the body of Christ in that, very encouraging.

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Amen. And maybe I'm wrong, but the way I see it is that Charlie Kirk was on a trajectory, and that trajectory was just to more and more faithfulness.

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I have just, that's my perspective, and maybe I'm wrong, but I'll let the Lord sort that out later.

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But I think that given enough time, some of the things that maybe, you know, we desire him to be more, you know, become reformed and, you know, and be more staunch about abolition of abortion.

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Of course, he was certainly unquestionably pro -life, and I, you know, appreciated his desire to protect life in the womb, and of course, some of the way that works itself out.

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Obviously, you and I would come down a little bit different side than he was on that, but I'm very grateful, you know, for him, and I just see him as on a good trajectory.

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And to hear him, you know, several different clips out there, you're hearing the gospel, and that's millions of people hearing the gospel.

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And so I know this episode is not really about him, but it all kind of just goes together because it's been,

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I mean, did MacArthur pass in July, is that right? That sounds right, yeah.

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So you've got July, August, September, you've got basically a span of about three months that, you know, okay,

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MacArthur, but we're all okay, all right? We're just gonna kind of navigate around how, you know, we're sad, things are gonna change, but we rejoice with MacArthur being in glory.

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And then all of a sudden, September, really, really rough. So when, and of course we rejoice with that Charlie and Voti are in glory, but it's a lot, it's just, it's different, you know, we still grieve.

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We just, we're not grieving without hope, but it's just like the rug was jerked out from underneath us.

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When I think about Voti, there's, I don't know, maybe there's some things that we could find that we would nitpick theologically, maybe, but for what

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I'm concerned, he was faithful in every, I mean, I'm just talking about like, not just faithful,

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I mean, like -minded. I mean, I see the things that he preached and that he taught and that he wrote.

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I'm like, I'm right there with you, brother. And not only that, but I kind of mentioned this earlier,

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I wanted to circle and make this clear. He was liked by a lot of different camps, but that's not because he was like moldable.

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You know what I'm saying? It's not because it's like, he's a chameleon. He's like this over here. And he's like that over here.

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Does that make sense to me? Anything you want to say to that? Absolutely. Yeah, I totally agree.

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He was unshakable on his convictions and that did not deter him from being relatable and touching many different sorts of Christian's lives.

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And that's kind of the cool thing about him, you know, is he was kind of our guy.

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He was, you know, 1689 and a Reformed Baptist brother. And like I had mentioned earlier, so he certainly had an influence in me early on just in coming into Calvinism in general.

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But in this past year or so, I've really taken more seriously the confession and have come to terms with some prior disagreements that I had with it.

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One of them, just as an example, for the past like six months or so, I've been discussing with my men's group, some fellows that I fellowshiped with here about the

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Sabbath. I was not a Sabbatarian earlier this year, actually. But Voti specifically is teaching on the

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Sabbath as well as, you know, guys like Sam Waldron, Rinnigan, those fellows, sharing a lot of that stuff with those guys.

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And it's just, it's funny to think like, there's not a lot of like mainstream, which

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I probably put Voti in that category, kind of big platform mainstream guys today who are

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Sabbatarian, you know, confessional reform Baptists. It's just interesting that he can kind of hold both those things at once.

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You know what I'm saying? 1689 confessionalism doesn't always translate to big ministry and, you know, so he did such a great job not compromising on those convictions, but also not letting them be a deterrence to just preaching the gospel, teaching the word.

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And he just, what a phenomenal job he did at that. Another brother who we can look at and say, you know, he went early.

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It was not outside of God's time for him. God numbered his days long ago, but he finished well.

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And it's such a blessing to see the impact that he will not only has had, but will have in the future.

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I mean, you have like Donner's ministry, just obviously his teaching and stuff, but these things are going to be blessings to generations.

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If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This, this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God.