FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE Couple's Q&A with Tom & Jennifer Buck

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02:02

Live from the Theo Shed in beautiful Callahan, Florida, it's

02:07

Friday Night! Your Calvinist Podcast is filmed before a live studio audience.

03:17

And welcome back to Your Calvinist Podcast. I'm Keith Foskey, and I am your

03:22

Calvinist, and I'm here tonight with Mrs. Your Calvinist, my regular Friday partner, spending time with you on Friday night answering your questions, which come in through email,

03:34

Facebook, through X, and also on our YouTube comment page. I appreciate you guys sending in your questions, and I look forward to answering them.

03:42

And tonight is a very special night because we have some guests that we're going to be bringing in in just a moment.

03:49

I'm going to be introducing them. But before I do that, I have a few just quick announcements I need to get out of the way.

03:56

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And you will get an opportunity to meet while we're there. There's going to be some other great people, Rosario Butterfield, Michael Foster, Jamie Bambrick, Steven Whitlow, Steve Deist, and several others are going to be there with us.

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So come and join us. Last but not least, don't forget 1689

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Go check them out. All right. Any other announcements before we bring in our guest, Jen? Anything I'm forgetting?

05:30

No, not that I can think of. All right, guys. Well, without any further ado, I want to welcome our first guests to our

05:39

Friday Night Live. We've been wanting to do a Friday Night Live couples night for a while.

05:45

And the couple that we decided we wanted to ask first was a friend of the show.

05:51

He's been on before, Tom Buck, who is a pastor, been a pastor for a long time. Many of you guys know him and his wonderful wife,

05:58

Jennifer, are joining us today on the show. Two Jennifers. So it's going to be Jennifer squared.

06:05

Hi. Thank you guys for being with us tonight. Hey, thanks for having us. Thank you. It's good to be here.

06:11

Absolutely. Absolutely. And somebody just asked the question, are we cold? If you're wondering, yes, we're cold.

06:18

We're in Florida. So we experienced a huge winter that happened over the last week.

06:25

Just a few days of winter. It was actual snow in Florida. Up to 10 inches of snow hit the

06:31

North Florida area, which was crazy. Have you guys experienced any of this cold over in Texas, Tom?

06:36

Oh yeah. We've had the cold. We just had, we had escaped the snow. We wanted the snow, but who would have known we would have to drive three hours

06:44

South to go hit snow. But that's what it would have taken for us to have any, but we've had the cold.

06:50

It's been the teens. We're sitting in front of the fireplace right now and having a fireside chat with you guys.

06:57

Nice. Nice. So I have a question for the audience sake. Obviously I know who you are,

07:02

Tom, I've had you on the show before. But I'd like for just a moment, if you could tell the audience a little bit about yourself, about your ministry, how long you guys have been married and how you met.

07:17

Just a little bit about your couple life. We talk about our life as a couple a lot on this show. Just a little bit of how you met, how you got ministry, how long you've been in the ministry.

07:27

Well, we've been married for, well, it'll be 38 years this July. We, you want to know how we met?

07:35

Did you say that as well? So we met each other when we were both going to Moody Bible Institute.

07:42

So, or as they called it, Moody Bridal Institute. So that's how we met. And, but we both, it was both our first year there.

07:51

We were on brother, sister floor. And I immediately knew that I liked

07:58

Jennifer and she immediately knew that she didn't like me. That's awesome.

08:04

Now what is brother, sister, what is brother, sister floor? I don't, I don't understand. Oh yeah.

08:09

Well they would, like I was on the 19th floor of the men's dorm and she was on the seventh floor or something like that.

08:15

And so then they would just match up floors and that, and that's how that you would get to know one another.

08:21

So they called it a brother, sister floor. And so we would do fellowships and things of that nature.

08:27

So the very first weekend that we were there, I met her, saw her, went back and told my roommate,

08:33

I think I found the girl I'd love to marry. But it took a long time to convince her.

08:40

But you know, you know, I'm kind of like a wart or something like that, you know, a mole, it grows on you, you know, but it took a while, but she eventually came around.

08:51

So, so we got married and I have been a senior pastor for 30, it'll be 31 years this spring that I've been a senior pastor.

09:04

We, I went to Florida, actually down in the Clearwater area was there for, right after we got married,

09:14

I was a youth pastor there and then interim pastor, and then went off to seminary and then came back to Florida again and served there as a pastor for 12 years.

09:22

And then came here to First Baptist Church in Lindale. So we've been in ministry for quite a while.

09:29

Well, Jennifer, he you didn't like him at first. What was, do you remember the moment when you went from, you know, maybe seeing him as a friend to seeing him as the man you wanted to marry?

09:42

Do you remember when, was there a moment or did it, was it really like mold growing on you? Well, there's, there's the live, sorry about that.

09:50

No, it's okay. That's, it's a live show. If our kids knock on the door, I won't be surprised.

09:56

So don't worry about it. It took a long time for me to be, it was the next year before we actually started dating.

10:04

And even when we started dating, I wasn't sure, but there was a week he was gone.

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And I don't remember where it was something. He was last president or he was student body president and he had to go off somewhere and I didn't really miss him while he was gone.

10:22

But the moment he walked back in through the arches and I saw him walk in, it was like,

10:27

I really did miss him. And so I think that's when I realized things were changing.

10:33

You probably didn't know that, did you? No, I did not. Well, I know it. I've heard you tell it before, but I didn't know it then. Yeah. Yeah.

10:39

I don't know if you guys can see the comments that are coming through. I don't know if that shows up on your side, but I'm watching them as we're talking.

10:46

Somebody said, I look like a Christian rapper. I thought that was funny. And one of the guys said, somebody feels left out.

10:53

I think they're talking about your puppy because he wants to be part of the show. Oh yeah. I'm sorry about that.

10:58

If I have to get him, I'll get him here in a minute. No, no, no, no. He wants to go bark at the fence. It's cute.

11:04

It's cute. Well, what we were, because this is the first time we were doing this with a couple, we wanted to really limit the amount of questions so that we would have more time to go back and forth.

11:19

There've been times on this show on Friday night where we've done up to 12 or 13 questions. I mean, because we get a lot of emails during the week and I'm very thankful that people email asking us questions, want us to talk about them.

11:31

And I'm grateful for that. Sometimes they're very theological. Yes. And I'm thankful he answers those questions. But more times though, they're very practical.

11:40

Sometimes they're about parenting and you jump in a lot on those because we're homeschool parents and Jennifer does a lot of the work with the kids and we have six children.

11:50

And so there's a lot of things that we have the opportunity to talk about with that. So it really is an eclectic set of questions.

11:59

But the ones that we're going to really address tonight deal with the subject of assurance when it comes to salvation.

12:09

And I thought maybe it would be good for us to maybe each of us sort of talk about what gives us comfort in our salvation if we're comfortable with that.

12:18

And maybe some of the times where we've struggled with not having assurance because I know some guys say they never doubt, never struggle.

12:27

I can't say that. I can't say I've never struggled with doubt. And we can talk about that.

12:33

And another area to talk about would be the subject of church hurt. One of the questions that came in was a question about narcissistic leadership, narcissistic pastors.

12:43

And I thought maybe we could just, as pastors and pastors' wives, talk about our experiences with that.

12:49

And again, we can share as much or as little as we want. This is an opportunity to minister.

12:56

I feel like this podcast ministers to people by simply being honest and talking about some of the struggles that we've had and those things.

13:05

But the first question actually is kind of a unique question.

13:10

Jennifer usually reads the question, so I'm going to let her read the question. This isn't about assurance or church hurt. This first question is really more of a get -to -know -you question, but it was a question about how we met.

13:20

And I asked you guys how you met, but this is more related to whether or not we were believers when we met.

13:26

So Jennifer, would you read what the person wrote? Okay. Hi, Pastor Keith. This is now my second time asking a question for Friday Night Live.

13:34

I've heard you mention in the past you and your wife were married before you converted to Christianity. Could you talk more about that?

13:41

Were you converted first and she was converted later or vice versa? How did you both manage your relationship when one of you was a

13:48

Christian and the other was not? Finally, at what point were both of you converted to Christ? Okay.

13:54

I want to very quickly answer this from our side, and then we're going to dive into a little deeper on this question.

14:02

But from our side, I have said we weren't converted, but I actually misspoke, because as Jennifer and I were talking before the show,

14:10

Jennifer did get converted right before we got married, and I thought I was converted because I grew up in church.

14:18

But what happened was after I got married, I realized I wasn't saved, and God saved me when

14:23

I was 19. So I got saved and I got married in the same year, but Jennifer got saved just a little way.

14:32

Same year. Just before we got married. So that's what brought us together.

14:38

But I think what the person is really trying to dig into here is the question of Christianity as it pertains to when you get married.

14:49

So you guys met at Moody, so you were both confirmed believers, right?

14:56

Yes, we were. Okay. Was that ever an issue?

15:02

Was there ever later a time where you felt like maybe you weren't converted at that time, or were you both? Or let me ask you this.

15:08

When did you get converted? We'll start with you, Tom, and then Jennifer. Well, I was actually converted at a pretty young age.

15:17

So I grew up in a Christian home, and so I was right around the age of actually six years old.

15:27

So I believe that even a child can understand the gospel and believe.

15:33

I never doubted my salvation in a huge way. I mean, there have been periods and times when

15:39

I've battled with a sin or struggle and wondered, am I to truly know the

15:44

Lord? But I never went through a period that I thought that I had ended up deciding

15:50

I had not been. But I had talked to my parents about wanting to trust

15:59

Christ as my Lord and Savior. My mom was afraid that maybe

16:06

I didn't understand I was too young, and she had seen teens doubt and struggle when they got saved younger.

16:14

And so one night coming home from church in the car, I told my parents,

16:19

I said, I got saved tonight. And they said, you know, what do you mean you got saved? Typical Southern Baptist church, you know, if you get saved, you go down the aisle and talk to the pastor, right?

16:30

And so my response was, well, I said, because they had wanted to talk to me, and they didn't, and so they were delaying it because they were fearful of doing that.

16:42

And I just, I said, well, I just, tonight when they were going through the time of the invitation,

16:48

I said, I realized I didn't need the pastor's permission or your permission or anybody else's permission to get saved.

16:53

I just need to ask Jesus to save me. And I said, so that's what I did tonight. And my parents realized that, you know, that I obviously understood something about the grace of salvation.

17:05

And then the next day when my mom picked me up from school, I shared with her that, I said,

17:10

I really do believe that I was saved. And she said, well, why is that? And I said, just as a six -year -old kid, right, who was getting in scrappy fights at school,

17:23

I said, Shane punched me in the stomach today, and I didn't punch him back. That was my six -year -old understanding that there should be a change in my life.

17:33

And so that's how I was saved. And I got baptized after that, obviously, and have continued.

17:41

Did your parents delay baptism for you until you were older, or did you? No, that's an interesting story too, but not that you want to hear all of it.

17:51

No, we're very interested because we have a seven -year -old and a nine -year -old, both of which who have told us that they believe in Jesus, and we believe them, but we have not yet baptized them.

18:03

And we're working through that as parents, so love to hear your thoughts on that for sure. Yeah, well, we're talking about it even as elders, you know, at the bottom, as far as how we think about that with kids.

18:14

And of course, I have a little bit different view because I did get baptized at the age of seven. But as I said, that's an interesting story as well.

18:23

But I decided I wanted to be, it was a year later, and I just shared with my parents,

18:29

I want to be baptized. I went and talked to my pastor, and so I've always been kind of opinionated.

18:37

I know that's probably hard to believe, but it's been true my whole life. And so I told my pastor that I trusted

18:44

Christ, wanted to be baptized, and I wanted to be, for some reason I was fixated, I wanted to be baptized on Easter Sunday.

18:51

And so, and my mom kept saying, why? And I said, well, baptism is a picture of, you know, dying with Christ and being raised again, and it's a picture of that, and Christ was raised on Easter Sunday, and I think that'd be a great

19:06

Sunday to be baptized. And so I went to my pastor, and he said, no, they were having an

19:12

Easter cantata, and they weren't going to do baptisms. So I went home, I told my mom, my dad, and I said, that's the dumbest thing

19:19

I've ever heard. You were dealing with the leadership at an early age.

19:27

Exactly. I was confronting leadership at seven years old. So that'll explain a lot to people.

19:35

But so I went home, and my uncle was a pastor, and so I called him and asked him if he would baptize me on Easter Sunday, and he said yes.

19:43

And so I went and was baptized there. So I would not recommend my testimony to anybody for how to do it with their children, but I do think that it does illustrate that, you know,

19:57

I think that children can understand, and I think each person's different, and you have to see, does that child understand?

20:05

Can that child explain repentance? Can that child explain what it means that Christ died for them?

20:12

And do they have some level, even in the age appropriate understanding of substitutionary atonement?

20:19

I think those things are important. They may not understand those words, but do they understand what that means?

20:24

So that he died in my place, in other words, and that he paid, his death paid for my sins, and to understand what baptism means.

20:31

So we do baptize children in our church, but we have a booklet that we use, and the parents take their children through that, and then we have a meeting with the parents and an elder, and we do sometimes say we don't think that, we just don't sense that your child yet truly grasps, you know, enough that we feel comfortable moving forward baptism.

20:58

And I always share with the kids when I'm talking with them, I'll say, listen, I want you, when you're 14, 15, 16 years old, and, you know, sin seems to come alive in us, doesn't it, when puberty hits, and I don't understand all that.

21:14

We just talked about that last night. I said there seems to be an age, like between 6 and 12, where kids really want to please their parents, and then there seems to be an age between 12 and 18 where they seem to really want to rebel against their parents.

21:27

And like you said, sin seems to come alive, so that's very true. Yeah, and so I say

21:32

I want you, when you're in that age, to be able to look back and know that I knew what

21:38

I was doing, I understood the meaning of baptism, I understood the gospel, and I think that you need a little bit more time to think through this, not just that you get the answers down pat and can, you know, answer them back, but that your parents, who are the best observers of this, the closest observers, to be able to tell whether they see evidences of true transformation.

22:03

And so we are very careful about that, but, you know, I've had, you know, people say, well, people get baptized and they walk away from the

22:12

Lord. Well, I've seen 27 -year -olds get baptized and eventually walk away from the Lord, so I don't think that's the standard.

22:18

And we have, as elders, have decided we do not want to withhold a child's ability to obey

22:23

Christ if they're truly a believer, and if we believe that baptism by immersion is the first thing that someone should do, that's, we consider that the confession, the public confession, so we don't use these professions of faith type talk, you know, way of talking in our churches.

22:40

A lot of Southern Baptists have, I grew up that way. We see the baptism as the public confession of Christ and the first step of obedience, and so we don't want to withhold that from someone if they are reflecting a true understanding of the

22:56

God and confession of the gospel. Amen. Miss Jennifer, how old were you when you believe you were converted?

23:05

I was 12, and I was actually, my dad was a pastor, so I was meeting with him and the other,

23:12

I don't know if they had elders or if they were deacons, but I was meeting with them about being baptized, and during that conversation, there were, they started asking me questions, and I realized

23:24

I really didn't understand what they were talking about, so we put everything on pause, and dad and I talked, and I was able to make a decision, and at that point, and then was baptized after.

23:36

Wonderful, wonderful, and I know, like I said, a lot of people on the show have heard me talk about this.

23:43

One of the things, I have the opposite experience of you, Tom, in that I was eight years old, thought

23:50

I was, well, I didn't even know what it meant to be saved, but I knew I wanted to be baptized because that's what I thought you were supposed to do, so I was baptized at eight years old and didn't get saved until I was 19, so I ended up being biblically baptized after I was 19, but that's sort of the other experience is someone who was baptized unknowingly and prematurely, and so it's interesting how our experiences can sort of mold our thinking on these things, but like you,

24:19

Dr. James White talks about the fact that he was seven or eight years old, I think, when he became a believer and has since then feels confident that that's when the

24:27

Lord saved him, and so certainly it is something that God does, and I still think we should be cautious, and that's why we are.

24:36

I don't want my experience to be the lens through which I view everything, so. Sure, absolutely. I'm thankful that my dad had the men, that there was a discussion there.

24:46

They really, by them talking to me the way that they did, exposed that I did not understand, so it saved me from going through that and not understanding.

24:57

Amen, amen. Well, and Jennifer, I know your experience was quite a bit different for those who don't know.

25:05

Yeah, I didn't grow up in a Christian home, but I had a Christian grandma who used to read the

25:10

Bible, you know, to me and my sister, and, but my parents were more like,

25:16

I don't know, if you give to the poor or you, you know, you're a good person, then that's kind of what

25:25

I grew up with, I guess, but when I heard the gospel, and Keith and I had many talks about it because he thought he was a

25:32

Christian. Yeah, I shared the gospel with her. I wasn't even saved, like I was an evangelist, but I was a lost evangelist.

25:39

I just remember realizing that I didn't have anything that I could give to God and just realizing if I were to die,

25:46

I would go to hell, and I stayed up all night long, and then the next day I went to his stepmother's house, dad's house, and I said,

25:54

I want to know how to be saved tonight, and she said, well, just come to church on Sunday, and I said, I don't want to wait till Sunday, so she pulled her

26:02

Bible. She started going through, like, Romans wrote, like, just, and I could not get enough.

26:07

I mean, I just started reading my Bible and just coming to church anytime I could, and just, he changed me just from that day.

26:16

That's awesome. Praise the Lord. I love people's testimonies because, you know, the gospel is the same for everybody, but the way that God, you know, the way that He uses to bring, and, you know, coordinates to bring us to Himself and orchestrates,

26:30

I guess I should say, is different, but it's just amazing the many ways that God brings us to the same truth and the reality of that, so I love to hear that.

26:41

That's awesome. Amen. Well, the next question on the list moves into the area of churchhood.

26:49

I actually put them in a different order. I put churchhood before assurance, and that's fine because the two assurance questions are kind of long, and I think that might be where we end tonight is by dealing with that side, so before we do that, let's talk about this question of the narcissistic pastor, so I know this is a hard turn, so we're just, but we move through these questions, and so hopefully this isn't too much of a sideways jump, but Jen, if you will read the next question, and then

27:18

I put a, I actually wrote a tangential question, but we don't have to go to that yet. Let's just read the question as written.

27:24

Hey, Keith. I've been wondering about dealing with narcissism in church leadership. Do you have any advice on whether it's okay to continue attending a church where the pastor might be a narcissist?

27:36

I would prefer to attend a Reformed Baptist church. However, I'm having difficulty finding one that has a loving pastor.

27:43

Would it be better to attend a non -Reformed church or Presbyterian as an alternative? This is a serious question because when people ask me what do they look for in a church,

27:57

I tell them obviously solid theology, gospel preaching, those things are necessary, but you also need to get to know the men who are preaching.

28:06

You need to get to know the ones who are leading because quite honestly,

28:11

I've seen guys with really good theology with really bad working that out in their lives.

28:18

Orthopraxy is what's sometimes called just bad. Heavy -handed leadership, guys who misuse the pulpit, misuse the power or the authority of the pulpit.

28:32

I want to ask you guys, if someone were to ask you what should they do in this situation, is it okay to go to a church where you maybe don't agree with the theology, but they have better leadership?

28:46

That's a difficult question. Yeah, I mean, the answer for me for that is

28:51

I always say the most important thing about a church is what it believes. Sure. I mean, and of course, that involves more than just soteriology or the other theological categories.

29:05

I would even say what a church believes about how a pastor should function, so that's important as well, but I don't know that I could trade off going to a church that baptizes infants, for example, just because a church has a pastor that's narcissistic.

29:28

I'd want to probe a little bit more how they define narcissism. That word gets thrown out a lot today, and sometimes they don't define it accurately, but let's just say they are defined accurately.

29:43

I've served under at least two narcissistic guys.

29:50

In fact, it actually helped me because I walked away from those associate positions determining

30:01

I would never function like that as a pastor. One of these guys made fun of the church members.

30:12

They didn't like, remember that. He was very heavy -handed in what he did.

30:21

He created, I mean, to show you, I'll just tell you the bare bones of it. He created a dart board and cut out pictures from the church directory of certain church members he didn't like and threw darts at it.

30:35

Wow. Is that not stunning? That's when we knew we were in trouble. Isn't that true? Yes, that's when we knew we were in trouble and that this was not the way the church was supposed to be.

30:45

I'm thankful I had enough of a background because of my dad being a pastor, that I looked at Tom and I'm like, this is not right.

30:53

This is not how a pastor treats his church. He was narcissistic in the way he treated us as well.

31:02

When you didn't do what he said. Yeah, when you didn't do what he said. In fact, we even came to a point where he didn't want us fellowshipping with people in the church.

31:12

We're like, no, that's not right. We're going to do that. When we began doing that, he turned on us too. We've had that experience.

31:18

Then we had another experience where I was a youth pastor under a guy. It's a long, long story too, but he was very narcissistic.

31:27

Even in the way that he treated you. Some of that had to do with the fact at that time,

31:33

I wasn't a pastor yet. We were at that church and that's when we were struggling in our marriage.

31:40

Jennifer went and talked to him. He basically blamed it on you, right?

31:45

Talked to all the other women in the church about me. Yeah. We've experienced that firsthand.

31:57

We might've should've left sooner. We eventually did leave. In fact, that's when you were being discipled by Dottie.

32:04

Anybody that knows our story very much will know that that's the name of the person that was counseling

32:10

Jennifer and discipling her when we were going through our marriage struggle. Didn't Dottie look at you and say, why are you still there?

32:17

I went to talk to Dottie because I told him we needed to leave. Tom said,

32:22

I don't know. Tom is a loyalist. It's very hard for him to make changes of that nature because he feels a responsibility for whoever he's serving under and with.

32:33

He said, well, why don't you go talk to one of the counselors at the seminary and see what they say?

32:41

I called and I asked for a counselor and there was not one available. Is that how you initially connected with Dottie? That's how

32:46

I connected with her. She said, I think I might be able to help you.

32:51

I said, are you a pastor's wife? Because I need a pastor's wife. She's like, no, but my husband was a missionary.

32:58

I said, I don't need a missionary's wife. I need a pastor's wife. She very, very graciously said,

33:05

I think I can help you. The counselor was on leave for six weeks for surgery.

33:12

I'm like, fine. I went to her house and I tried to be as honest as I could, tried to explain what

33:19

I had said, what he had said, the whole thing, everything that was going on. At this point,

33:24

I'm probably 24, 25.

33:31

At that age in my life, nobody listened to me. I was not used to being listened to.

33:39

It was even a struggle at home just because of the issues we had. But she listened. At the end of it, she looked at me and she said, why are you still there?

33:50

Now, did she mean why are you still at the church or why are you still with Tom? No, no, no, no. I didn't talk at anything about our marriage at that point.

33:58

Okay. Okay. I didn't want to misunderstand. I'm sorry. It was just about the church. She said, why are you still there?

34:05

It was like, it is okay when it is appropriate to make those difficult decisions.

34:13

There are times to leave, there are times to stay, but there are times to leave. I ran home to him and told him, we can go, we can go.

34:23

He was just shocked. I don't think he expected me there. I thought the counselor will take care of this and tell her, you just need to stay.

34:33

But it gave me a freedom too to realize, yeah, it is not necessarily wrong to leave.

34:38

We tried to rectify problems. We tried to have conversations. We did what we could.

34:45

We were careful not to talk to other people just simply because I do think you still have to respect the office of elder and trust

34:55

God to take care of that person unless it is something in the lines of criminal or disqualifying.

35:03

I do think that if a person is to a certain level of narcissism, we probably need to come up with a better word, a more biblical word, put it that way, than narcissism.

35:16

I don't know what word we would use. I have to go look at the list again of 1 Timothy and which one of those words would fit.

35:21

I certainly think that someone could be disqualified because of that.

35:29

It is so important how pastor treats his flock. One of the things that happens with Twitter is people have an idea of what you are like, a caricature of what you are.

35:49

I am pretty firm in the things I say. I speak firmly about pretty much everything to one degree or another.

35:59

At the same time, I am not this raging type of personality.

36:08

I don't think you make it 30 -some years as a senior pastor in the situations

36:13

I have been in, never having a church split, never having major issues. It shows

36:18

I have been steady -handed, not heavy -handed in things. I spend time with my sheep.

36:26

I try to not be controlling in the church. I have taken the position that I need to use my authority and my authority of my position, so to speak, only in areas that are absolutely necessary.

36:44

There have been all kinds of votes I have lost in the church, things that I would have preferred to have done just from a practical standpoint.

36:52

It was going to be dividing the congregation. I have made sure that when we do vote on things as a church, that it is things the church has come to agree on, that they don't feel bullied into it, that they are going to be in any way paying a price if they don't do what

37:12

I want them to do. Some of that I committed to the

37:19

Lord because I think I could have been very like those guys that I served under had the

37:27

Lord not refined me in one of the ways that he refined me was putting me under men like that.

37:33

So I do think there's a time to leave, and I think that you need to pray for that pastor as well, earnestly pray for him.

37:45

But it's not an easy question. What are y 'all's thoughts? Well, I will say that I have seen, unfortunately, the negative use of heavy -handedness to the point that I think there has been disqualifying behavior, and some of the most egregious ways that I have seen it has been in the misuse of church discipline, holding that axe of church discipline as it is, wielding it like a sword.

38:14

And I've met with and counseled people who have been disciplined out of churches for things that I don't believe were sinful, but it was the choice of the church to discipline them over.

38:27

And that's a struggle for me to see that happen.

38:33

And so that's been one of the things that we just happen to know people who have gone through that. I'm sorry?

38:38

We were talking about that today. Yeah, exactly. You know, let me say one thing, too, if that's okay.

38:44

Oh, please. Because I agree with you on that. And so I have had a, for lack of a better term, a rule of thumb in exercising church discipline.

38:59

I have chosen, along with my elders and leading that, because there's been times I've had a plurality and times when we're building to a loan to some degree or another until we've built a plurality.

39:10

Because I've been involved in two, this is my second church, both were revitalizations and did not have a plurality of elders to begin with, would be one of those things.

39:22

So I've at times had to be the single elder. And so I made the decision that I'm not going to exercise or suggest exercise discipline, and our elders have chosen not to, when it's a matter of conflict between one of us and a parishioner.

39:36

So it's so easy to wield that sword and say, well, they're being divisive. And there are times that they certainly have, people have been divisive.

39:45

And if we were disciplining over that issue of divisiveness, they probably should have been better disciplined.

39:52

But we and I have chosen to bear that offense. And instead of taking that, because I think that that is,

40:02

I just think it's unwise at best. And when I look at the list of sins in First Corinthians that it talks about specifically where it's talking about church discipline, interpersonal conflict with a pastor doesn't seem to be one of those things.

40:17

And it's so easy for me as a pastor to always think that I'm right and that other person is wrong, that I'm not sure

40:26

I can be fair in my assessment of those things.

40:32

So I don't know what you've seen, but I've seen a lot of pastors, that's when they use it heavy handed in order to deal with somebody and to, you know, take somebody's legs out, so to speak, that is opposing them to one degree or another, and using discipline in that way.

40:50

And I think that's dangerous thing. Sure. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about or no?

40:56

No, it is. And there's some instances, I don't want to be too specific because there may be people who listen to the show who actually have been a part of these things, and I want to be careful to not mention specific instances, but just an overall sense of using the weight of discipline almost in a way that's manipulative.

41:19

Well, if you don't get in line, you know what's coming, and that's

41:25

I'm going to come back with two or three witnesses kind of thing. And when the people fear the hand of the pastor,

41:33

I think that's a dangerous thing, or the hand of the elders. Absolutely. I mean, shepherds are not to treat the sheep in that fashion.

41:43

Now, you certainly do need at times a firm hand, but there's a difference between a firm hand and the sheep often, they know the difference between that more often than not.

41:55

When a pastor is coming with, hey, I'm speaking this hard truth in love, and coming to someone and being heavy -handed with them.

42:08

So there are, and you're right, I agree with you, that's often where it shows up is in the issues of church discipline.

42:15

And you've said several times when you were under the narcissistic leader, or I know we're using that word weirdly, but the person you were under, you said, you wanted a fellowship with the people, but they didn't.

42:27

I think shepherds should smell like sheep. I know I'm not the only person to ever say that, but that's a model of ministry that we have tried to adopt.

42:37

Our home is open to people. We try to be in other people's homes so that when the difficult conversation needs to be had, it's not the first time

42:45

I've ever been in your home, or it's not the first time you've ever been in my home. So if we are having a difficult conversation that this is hopefully demonstrated out of a loving heart, not just somebody who wants to exercise authority.

43:00

Yeah, it's easy for pastors to become cynical too. And so on the flip side, pastors take a lot of mischaracterizations of them.

43:15

They take certain levels of abuse, if you will, of people judging them and saying things that aren't true.

43:21

And so I think sometimes what happens, and so what'll happen is sometimes pastors will build a wall. And I think that's what the pastor did when we were under him.

43:30

They had been hurt themselves. And so the best way they dealt with it was to build a wall and to shut these people out and then ended up making fun of them and everything else.

43:43

But I've seen pastors where they won't have people in their home because when they have had people in their home, those people would come into their home and then criticize them for the size of the screen of their

43:54

TV or the luxury of their home, whatever it may be.

44:02

Your golf carts. Exactly right. Your cigars.

44:10

But shepherds have to be willing and able and entrusting the

44:19

Lord to deal with sheep sometimes biting them. But the shepherd can't ever bite back.

44:27

We can't. Sheep are going to bite the shepherd. That happens. Certain sheep. And I'm talking about in real life even, not just in shepherding real sheep animals.

44:38

There are biting sheep and there are people who bite. But you have to absorb the hurt of that.

44:44

Absorb is probably not the best word. Take it to the Lord. Cast your burdens upon the Lord. But you cannot bite back.

44:52

And a lot of these guys that act in these ways are, it's the old adage, hurting people hurt people.

45:01

And so they've been hurt. Now they start hurting others. Some of them are just pure narcissistic that whatever they say goes.

45:10

And it's funny how they tend to gravitate to certain denominations as well.

45:18

Yeah, absolutely. And that was one thing I actually had put in.

45:24

I mentioned having the tangential question, and that was the question of not only can people be hurt by church leadership, but the church leadership can be hurt by the people.

45:35

There's a really good movie that I've mentioned to a few people recently.

45:41

Jennifer and I watched it. It was about a young boy who had a crippling disease, but he wanted to be a baseball player.

45:49

And the father was a pastor, and he was played by Dennis Quaid. Did you guys see this movie that I'm referring to?

45:57

I did not. I like Dennis Quaid. I don't remember the name. Oh, it's a tremendous movie. And you as a pastor, and Jennifer as a pastor's wife, you'll watch it different than anybody else because most people watch it for the little boy wanting to play baseball.

46:10

But when we're watching it, we're seeing the dad and the mom because one of the first scenes, and not to not to spoil the movie too much, but one of the first scenes is he's preaching, and there's a guy smoking in church, like during church.

46:22

And he asked the guy to stop smoking during church. He says, Would you please put your cigarette out while I'm preaching?

46:28

Well, the very next week he comes to the church, and they're all standing in front of the church. They voted the pastor out because he asked the guy because the guy was like, you know, a leader in the church.

46:37

And so they voted him out. And I said, That's probably the realest movie example of something that has certainly happened at some point in the life of a pastor that a pastor asked somebody to stop smoking during church and was immediately fired as a result.

47:00

And we hear a lot of stories. There was a man who watches our show actually very recently started texting me, asking me questions, and told me that he was very close to the end of his ministry felt because he felt like the church was getting ready to remove him over his doctrine.

47:20

It wasn't over a lapse, a sin issue or anything like that, but he was preaching. He was a

47:25

Calvinist preaching the truth, and the people didn't like it. And he knew his time was coming to an end.

47:31

And that's a conversation I've had with many people. And we've heard stories of guys coming home to the parsonage and literally having their stuff already packed for them because they're living in a church, living in a house that belongs to the church.

47:43

That sounds like an exaggeration, but I mean, we know people. So church hurt can be on both sides.

47:50

And I know this question really wasn't about church hurt in general, but yes, pastors can be narcissists.

47:56

There can be bad pastors that can also be bad church members. Church hurt is a real thing.

48:03

But yet Christ is so beautiful, and his bride is still beautiful, even in the midst of all this ugliness.

48:10

Well, you know, to help that person who, I guess, would you say it was a lady that wrote the question? I'm not sure.

48:16

I could go back. I don't put their names on here for the sake of not accidentally saying. That's okay.

48:21

Yeah. So yeah, I understand. But I just meant to say to help whoever this was, I thought it was a she, but help her or him or whoever.

48:29

I think that a good pastor is going to be sound in his theology and is going to be caring for his sheep.

48:38

And you're probably never going to find, whoever you find is always going to be a little better than one of those or those others.

48:46

You've heard that great preacher, not a great pastor, great pastor, not a great preacher. And, you know, you don't always find both those together.

48:54

But I would say that someone who is not, you know, spot on in every area where we are, maybe, you know, they're not as reformed in their understanding of soteriology as I am and you are.

49:10

But they find a guy that may not be completely there, but really loves and shepherds and disciples and is with his sheep.

49:18

You know, I don't know that that would be necessarily, for lack of a better term, a bad trade -off in that.

49:27

But I think that they need to seek some good, wise counsel with people who are close to them that know them, that are able to, not the pastor they're talking about, but know them personally and be able to help them think through, are they processing it well?

49:43

Is there categories of what they consider to be narcissistic and so forth and so on accurate?

49:51

Because I do think, even though you should sometimes leave a church, I don't think you should be quick to leave a church.

49:59

Hey, we say that all the time, and not to interrupt you, but for the people who've watched this show, I always say, try to, you know, try to love through it, talk to your pastor, talk to your elders, whoever.

50:11

Don't just walk away. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, let me say one last thing about church discipline too, and this is kind of a quick thing since we talked about somebody going too far.

50:20

One of the things that, you know, I talk with our guys about and our elders is that when we practice church discipline, we need to think about if we put this person out of the church and they had nowhere else to go.

50:36

In other words, sometimes we're so quick to practice church discipline because it's almost like just getting rid of a problem, and that's just not what church discipline is.

50:44

When I say nowhere else to go, if there were no other churches in town, because when you put someone out, you're saying we're putting you outside of the fellowship with the body of Christ, and it's a huge deal.

50:58

It's not a small thing. I think that our hearts should be heavy when we have to come to that point, and, you know, you're basically, they have no family, a

51:14

Christian family at that point. I know in your settings, they can just go down the street to another church, but I want to think about it in such a way as has it come to the level that this person needs to be completely put outside of the body of Christ and the fellowship of this church and have nowhere else to go?

51:30

Does that make sense at all what I'm saying or no? No, absolutely. It should never be something that isn't,

51:36

I mean, absolutely a last resort, like you said. Guys who discipline like in three weeks, it's like, what?

51:46

It's like, this should take time and ministry and love and walking through those things.

51:52

And I bet you've had some beautiful stories like we have where people were put out and then repented and came back.

52:00

I love that. And that's what you're desiring and hoping through the process of it.

52:07

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the question. No, no. The beautiful thing is when it doesn't even get to the second step, but you go to someone regarding a sin and they immediately repent, and then they say, walk with me through this, brother, help me through this.

52:21

I know I'm struggling with this sin. Please help me. And you do. And you walk with that person and you see them and nobody else knows about it except you and that person.

52:32

That's a beautiful thing. It's such a heartbreaking thing, I guess, to see someone go through the process,

52:41

I guess, I mean, as a church member or as a wife seeing it, and then they just go down the street like it's not anything or you don't ever see them again.

52:50

There's no trying to connect with the body of people. We worship together. We've done all these things together and it's just like they're gone.

52:58

That's so hard. I don't know. I've seen that, unfortunately. Well, I think one of the, and we've talked about this too on the show, one of the hardest things of pastoral ministry is seeing people walk away, especially when there's a sin issue involved and either they don't want to deal with it or they have that steady decline.

53:16

You know, they just don't want to be, they don't want to hear the gospel anymore. So they just move on to somewhere where they don't have to hear it, whether it's away from the church or to another church.

53:27

And yeah, definitely. It's always such a reminder to make sure we don't allow ourselves to have that foot in the door and that we're keeping our own lives and minds focused on scripture.

53:41

And I'm thankful I'm in a church where if I start acting stupid, somebody will come to me and tell me.

53:48

I'm very thankful for that. I don't ever want to be somewhere where somebody is not going to look at me and say, you're wrong and it needs to stop.

53:56

And I don't ever want to not respond. Yeah. And I can share this because he's given me permission to do this, but our church had to discipline our oldest son when he was in rebellion.

54:10

And he wasn't, it never came to the point that he was put out of the church, but it did come before the church, before he repented.

54:21

And we're thankful for that. I mean, how, in fact, you know, discipline should be something that is a sign of loving and caring, not punitive.

54:32

And in its most basic, you know, element. So, you know, a church that practices church discipline well with healthy

54:42

Christians, it's going to feel loving, okay, at least to the body, and you're going to work to do that.

54:50

Now that doesn't always start out that way because people don't understand the purpose of discipline, but you should, let's put it this way, you should practice this in such a way as pastors that over time people see, yeah, that is loving.

55:04

And if people aren't seeing that over time, I need to reassess how I'm approaching it and how his elders are practicing it.

55:12

You're always going to have naysayers, that's true, and people that are like that, but a good, healthy

55:18

Christian that loves the Lord, loves the Bible, loves the Word, they should be able to picture what you're doing as being loving.

55:27

So anyway. Amen. Well, guys, we are, we have one more topic to discuss, but I don't want to take too much of your time.

55:36

I know we didn't talk about how much time you guys were given, but if we, if we doze off, then you'll know. Well, we're going to give you guys a quick break.

55:45

We're going to show a quick commercial for one of our sponsors, actually for two of our quick sponsors here, and that'll give you guys a chance to take a breath and think for a minute.

55:54

But when we come back, we're going to talk about the subject of having assurance in our walk with Christ and maybe some of the areas that we go to in Scripture that help us have that assurance.

56:06

So we'll be back in just a minute and see you guys then. Hi, my name's Justin Johnson. Uh, hold on.

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Make a free discovery call now. Thank you. All right, guys.

57:44

And we're back with Tom and Jennifer Buck. What is it? What's the comment?

57:50

Okay. And here's a comment that came in during the commercial. This was fun. Tom Buck isn't nearly as mean as it comes across on Twitter.

57:57

See you guys next Friday. Oh, man. Well, there you go. I will say after that commercial,

58:04

I've been wondering what I was going to do with my $10 million, so I feel better now. Yes.

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When we're done, I'm calling. You're going to call Chuck. Well, we're definitely -

58:19

That could be mean. Yeah. Well, definitely.

58:27

Sorry, Keith. No, no, no. It's fine. That's what happens when you have me on as your first guest.

58:32

I'll be your last time guest too, I'm sure. No, no, no, no. I'm super grateful for everybody who likes the show and sponsors the show.

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And it is funny. I guess it doesn't hurt to mention this. Obviously, those are two financial companies.

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You've got Justin with Dominion and you've got Chuck with Private Family Banking.

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Both of them do different things, which is why I'm able to have them both sponsor the show. Because I told them when they both called me and asked to sponsor the show, they said they both wanted to do it.

59:02

It was the same month they wanted to start. And I said, do y 'all know each other? And they're like, yeah, we do different things.

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We're fine, both of us sponsoring. And I was like, okay, because I don't want to mix anything up.

59:12

But yeah, Chuck does stuff for guys, you know, in a bracket.

59:18

Yeah. Not our bracket, but he can help people in our bracket too.

59:26

But yeah, he can help people in every bracket. So the questions that we're going to talk about in regard to assurance is, they're really long.

59:38

I don't know if we want to read the whole question. I mean, it's almost a whole page and I don't want to do that, but I want to give sort of the gist of it.

59:46

And I know you normally read these, but just sort of some of the things that are in here. Like for instance, this one from this one person says,

59:53

I don't remember my conversion the way most people do. I don't have that super amazing testimony that you hear.

59:59

I was 10 years old when I first felt a conviction that had me holding to the pew in front of me and running to the altar as soon as the service was over.

01:00:07

I don't remember what I said. I only remember the feelings. I remember the conviction I felt, and I remember the peace that came to me afterwards.

01:00:12

I still do. But then it goes into talking about that they just have this sense of not having confidence in their salvation and ultimately saying, what does it mean to turn from sin?

01:00:31

Have I done it? And can I do it? And I know the issue there is the issue of, well, if I say that I'm saved, but I still struggle with sin, that means

01:00:39

I'm not saved. And I think that's the mindset there. And the second one is they actually quote a catechism, and they didn't say which catechism that it was, but it refers specifically to the operations of the spirit.

01:00:56

And this is, I'm going to read the catechism because I think it's short enough. It says, others not elect, although they may be called by the ministry of the word and may have some operation of the

01:01:05

Holy Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ and therefore cannot be saved. Much less can men professing the

01:01:12

Christian religion be saved in any other way, whosoever be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the laws of the religion they possess, and to assert and maintain that they may is very pernicious and to be detested.

01:01:27

And this person said, that scared the tar out of me, because it's basically saying, if I don't do it the right way, I'm not saved.

01:01:33

And that's the way they're interpreting this catechism statement. And I do,

01:01:39

I feel for these people, because I do think that there are times where a weight is laid upon people, that it really is, you know,

01:01:50

Christ put the down payment on, but you better keep your monthly payments up. You better keep those monthly payments of good works or whatever, or you're not saved.

01:02:00

And then there's the question of things like the lordship salvation controversy.

01:02:05

And I tend to be more on the lordship side, you know, like I've read A Shame to the Gospel, I've read MacArthur's works, but I also, you know,

01:02:13

I've heard Michael Horton's arguments and R. Scott Clark and guys like that, who make a law gospel distinction and say, you know, so there's just so much out there,

01:02:23

Tom, and both Jennifer's. Have you had people come to you and say,

01:02:31

I just don't know if I'm saved. I just don't know that I have the confidence that you seem to have.

01:02:37

And how do you help them find that confidence? I'll throw that out as the question.

01:02:46

Well, anybody feel free to break in and Keith, you feel free as well to stop me if I say something like, wait, let's qualify that or let's talk about that a little bit more because I don't want to, you know, at any time sound like, you know, licentiousness nor on the other side legalistic.

01:03:02

And so, but let me start with the first thing, which is someone say, I don't have this grand testimony that everybody has.

01:03:08

Everybody has the same grand testimony. We have everybody write out a testimony, their testimony when they come to join our church, share their testimony with the elders of how they came to Christ.

01:03:19

And I'll often have some, I say that, well, you know, I, and I was like that grew up in a Christian home and I never really did any,

01:03:25

I don't have a spectacular testimony. And I always say, everybody has a spectacular testimony. You can't get worse than dead.

01:03:33

We're all dead. So, you know, just because somebody else's level of decay was greater than yours, you, you know, in the process of that, you're both dead.

01:03:47

It took the same amount of grace. It took the same amount of power of God to save you as it did somebody on Skid Row.

01:03:54

Didn't take more grace. It took the same because you're both spiritually dead. So just starting at that point. The second thing

01:04:01

I would say as I talk to folks is, first of all, do you understand, and I'll make a distinction here.

01:04:08

So correct me or ask me if correct me if you think I'm wrong or ask some questions I want to clarify, of security and assurance.

01:04:16

So security, I think of security, and this is kind of how I try to explain it, is that I am, my security in Christ is completely 100 % based upon the work of Christ.

01:04:28

It's all of grace. It's, it's, you look at this, that it's the faithfulness of God. So I'm preaching

01:04:34

Sunday on Romans 11. So I'm going to correct your all -millennial thought theology on Sunday so you can listen in.

01:04:40

Oh my goodness. We're going to take a right turn here. But the main point of Romans 11, at least where I'm at in one to six, is the faithfulness of God, okay, to preserve his people.

01:04:58

And so, and you look at that, and you have Elijah, you know, he says, hey, Israel's turned their back on you, they've done all that, get rid of them, destroy them,

01:05:08

I'm the only one left. And it says there that he is making an argument against Israel to God.

01:05:16

So it seems like he's saying, wipe them out, be done with them, I'm just the one left. And God responds by saying,

01:05:22

I've kept 7 ,000 for myself, men, there were probably more than that because that's just the men, 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

01:05:31

And I think that what, you know, as he's looking at, Elijah was believing in that moment that it was his faithfulness that made him good in God's eyes.

01:05:42

And God's reminding him, no, I've got 7 ,000 that I've kept for myself, I've kept them faithful to myself.

01:05:49

And I think he's even saying to Elijah there, and listen, buddy, you are here not because you have been faithful in and of yourself, but I've kept you faithful.

01:06:01

Because right after it said, right after that, Paul says that if grace is not of works.

01:06:08

So Israel was secure, the 7 ,000 were secure, and Elijah was secure, not because of their own works, but because, and their faithfulness to God, but God's faithfulness to them.

01:06:17

So I have to start with that, that's Romans 8, and that ties back to Romans 8, 28, that I constantly have to remember that if I'm saved, my security is completely and wholly in God being faithful to me.

01:06:34

It will never depend upon me being faithful to him.

01:06:39

That's my security in that. Now, when it comes to assurance, and this is where I make a distinction, if I'm walking in the darkness,

01:06:47

I'm not going to feel sure. Even though I still am securing

01:06:54

Christ, okay, so we're talking about somebody who's a genuine believer, I'm not going to feel that assurance because I am living in such a way that I'm not walking by faith and the fruit of the

01:07:08

Spirit's not being exhibited in my life, which also requires me to depend upon God, and it's his grace.

01:07:15

Sanctification is as much an act of God's grace as justification is, I believe.

01:07:22

Therefore, I have to constantly pray for God to enable me to walk in his ways as he promised me he would, seek that and desire that.

01:07:33

So I think sometimes when somebody doesn't feel assurance, is there a sin in their life that they've given themselves over to?

01:07:43

Because 1 John says we need to walk in the light and not darkness. So when you walk in darkness and not light, you're fooling yourself, right?

01:07:50

You're even a liar and all this. I mean, there's so much that's involved in it. But if we begin with that, you don't have to have this super, we all have the same testimony, in essence, that we were all dead, it took the same amount of grace to save us.

01:08:04

It's our being secure is all of God's grace, and our walking in obedience to him is all of God's grace.

01:08:11

And I think a lot of people do not understand the grace of God. Jennifer and I talk about this all the time. Do I believe, do

01:08:19

I preach law and gospel? Absolutely, I do. But I think there are a lot of people who, you know, determine whether somebody is really a

01:08:30

Christian or not based on how faithful they are to keep the law. Every morning they get on a treadmill, so to speak, the acceptance treadmill.

01:08:40

God will never, you can never do anything to make

01:08:45

God love you more, and you can never do anything to make God love you less. We start from that, and then we obey out of the overflow of God's grace in my life of what he's done for me.

01:09:00

And I look to him to continue to enable me to do that. So, you know,

01:09:07

I think Ricardi's written a real good book on sanctification too. I'm going through that with, you know, I recommend to guys, but I don't know, what are your thoughts?

01:09:14

I know that's a big issue with women that you disciple regarding grace. One of the statements that is similar to that is the

01:09:21

Lord can never love you more or less than he does right now. And Dottie used to always say to me, think of that when you're fighting with your husband.

01:09:29

He can never love you more or less than he does right now, and stops the fight, and it reminds you how faithful the

01:09:36

Lord is. So that's one of them. I did want to go back. Yeah, and that doesn't mean that we just continue, well, you know, so let's keep fighting.

01:09:43

No, what makes me want to stop, because I have all of the love of the Lord, why am

01:09:48

I doing this? I don't want to do this. I did want to go back to the testimony thing. Yeah, go ahead.

01:09:55

We get very fixated on these grand testimonies, which are remarkable examples of God's grace and what he's brought somebody out of, and it's amazing to see that.

01:10:07

But I do think that there are times when you don't have that grand testimony, you feel like, well,

01:10:13

I have nothing to offer or tell anybody, because I didn't live through all of that.

01:10:19

And I have seen people, and I think I, when I was younger, felt like, well, I'm just kind of a dud.

01:10:26

But there is a testimony, a very sweet testimony, for the

01:10:32

Lord bringing somebody who just quickly responds to him, who doesn't have to go through the heartbreak and having their world shattered, but to just be quickly and easily brought in.

01:10:47

That's as sweet of a testimony, the Lord's grace, as anything else, and that should not be minimized.

01:10:53

Yeah, that gives glory to God in a different way. I've met people that say, that got saved off a skid row, saying,

01:10:59

I wished I had your testimony. I wished I hadn't have gone through those things. So in one sense, when

01:11:06

I say everybody has the same testimony, I'm just simply saying that we all have, it all took the same amount of grace.

01:11:11

On the flip side of that, we all have different testimonies in how we dealt with sin, or how we overcome sin.

01:11:22

So I'll have some people, somebody come and go, I don't understand, because I have this friend that, before he got saved, he was a drunkard.

01:11:33

And by the way, just as a side note, when I'm discipling counsel, I say, don't use biblical language when you're talking about things.

01:11:43

I don't like the term alcoholic, because it's not a biblical term. I'd prefer to use the term drunkard. If someone doesn't have an affair, they commit adultery.

01:11:53

And so nobody comes in and says, you know, I don't like the word love. Let's find a synonym for that.

01:12:00

You know, it's only for sin that we find synonyms that water it down. But sorry, that's my

01:12:06

ADD. But see there, I use a non -biblical term. We share that affliction.

01:12:13

I have no doubt. And so they'll say, my friend, you know, was a drunkard. And the moment he got saved, his testimony is he never struggled with alcohol again.

01:12:23

I got saved. I'm not talking about me, because I haven't been a drunkard. I have other problems, but that's not it.

01:12:29

So I'm speaking of that. But they'll say, I got, he got saved, this person got saved. And they continue to battle alcohol, continue to struggle with being drunk again.

01:12:38

And they're like, I must not be saved, because that guy's experience, he was totally delivered, and I wasn't.

01:12:45

Listen, this guy I talked with, he was a believer. He, okay, do you hate your sin?

01:12:54

That's a big issue. Do you hate your sin enough to bring it into the light when it needs to be brought into the light?

01:13:00

That's a big issue. And if you're battling against your sin, that's always a good sign.

01:13:07

It's always a bad sign when you've given yourself over to that sin. And you're not fighting and battling against it.

01:13:15

But there's, you know, overcoming theology, the Keswick -type theology,

01:13:20

I think it is, you know, where you can reach a certain point that you can overcome, and all of those things.

01:13:25

There are some people that God graciously removes any more temptation.

01:13:31

They had a filthy mouth before they got saved, and they never cursed again. There are others that got saved, and they continue to struggle in that.

01:13:39

So my experience is not the measuring stick for whether I'm saved or not in and of itself.

01:13:48

Experience is important, how I'm living is important, all those things. But the Word of God is multifaceted on this issue regarding how we need to be thinking about our sin, how we're battling, and how we're fighting it.

01:14:02

So what are your thoughts? I guess I'm talking a lot. It just made me think of the Apostle Paul, like what he said.

01:14:07

I don't mean, I don't mean, there's an ant on her microphone. We have what's called the

01:14:13

Theo shed. This is literally a 10 by 12 shed that we converted into a studio. It's outside of our house. And I've got to get an ant off of her microphone.

01:14:21

This is the professionalism of our show. And this is what's fun about live.

01:14:30

That's your live studio audience. Yeah. Did you just kill our one listener? Exactly.

01:14:36

You had one and you just killed them. Let me just show you this real quick. Here's our live studio audience.

01:14:42

Oh, that's perfect. That's perfect.

01:14:47

That's our live studio audience. We've knocked them out. We have pumpkin. Yeah. Pumpkin's not in here though.

01:14:53

He's around. So you were saying. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I mean,

01:14:59

I just totally lost my train of thought. But I'm sorry. You're talking about the Apostle Paul. You started talking about the

01:15:04

Apostle Paul. Yeah. I was just saying how we should imitate one another, but that like not being the measuring stick, like don't look at me.

01:15:12

I mean, we should all look towards Christ. We can look at each other, but don't use. I mean,

01:15:18

I struggle in different ways than he does, but we have a similar. I mean,

01:15:24

I don't know. I guess it's what I'm totally losing. It's okay.

01:15:29

But I guess my other thought that I had was that when I was listening to this too is that we can't like as women think about our feelings.

01:15:38

Just I don't feel like I'm saved or I feel this or it's a lot of I.

01:15:44

It's remembering again what the Lord has done, not just how we feel that day. Like you do like the facts and.

01:15:51

Yeah, I always tell people facts, facts, it's facts, faith and emotion, right?

01:15:57

Of course, all of those things play into our expression of Christianity. But facts have to come first because if we have faith in something that's not true, then it doesn't matter.

01:16:08

So the facts, we have faith in the facts and then those draw out of us our emotions. And so reminding ourselves of those truths, reminding ourselves of those facts.

01:16:19

If Jesus Christ, in fact, did die for me, if in fact he did raise again, if in fact I am justified by what he did on the cross and not by what

01:16:26

I have done, if in fact all of my sin has been imputed to him and all of his righteousness has been given to me.

01:16:32

And now I stand in his righteousness, not my own. If in fact all of that is true, then then it's not what

01:16:39

I have done, but what he has done. So those are those are the facts that I can rest in. And that goes back to the assurance versus the security.

01:16:47

Security is completely in Christ. But I want to I want to ask you this, Tom, because this is something that I've I don't know that I've ever said it from the pulpit.

01:16:57

Maybe I have, but I've heard other men say it. I don't want to get your thoughts because one of the one of the passages that will sometimes be brought out is in the

01:17:08

Psalms where David is crying out his repentance and he says, restore unto me the joy of my salvation.

01:17:16

And I've heard people say, well, David never lost his salvation, but certainly he lost his joy.

01:17:26

And you said earlier that when we are in times of sin, when we're struggling, we can have times where we don't have as much assurance.

01:17:33

Is that a way that you would understand that text or maybe maybe not? Well, I have to go back and look a little closer.

01:17:40

I'll be careful since I haven't studied that recently. I mean, sure. And I'm not nailing you down.

01:17:46

Conceptually, conceptually, yes, I believe that there's there's, you know, the old adage, there's nobody more miserable than a sinning

01:17:53

Christian, you know, because we feel the conviction and the weight of that sin.

01:18:00

And that's why I said, you know, if you're battling sin, if you if you have a heaviness over your sin, if you have conviction, if you hate your sin, those are all good.

01:18:11

I think they're good signs that, you know, there's normally and I do believe an unbeliever can hate the consequences of sin.

01:18:19

So there's a difference between hating the consequences of your sin and actually hating your sin because of what it does to the

01:18:25

Lord. So obviously, what does that mean? You know, what is your hatred directed towards?

01:18:30

Because almost everybody hates the consequences. And that goes back to David who said against you and you only have I sinned. I've always thought of that.

01:18:36

I don't know if you've ever seen that meme where the guy's standing at the basketball thing with his hands on his hips and he's looking kind of sassy.

01:18:42

And the meme is just the idea of like, you know, like me too kind of thing. I was thinking Uriah standing in heaven and David's going against you and you only have

01:18:50

I sinned, Lord. He's like, I object, right?

01:18:56

I think you're sitting against me, too. I think that another good thing

01:19:03

I think for someone to do that's struggling is ask people who know you,

01:19:08

I mean, in fact, that they see your life, and they're not going to just tell you what you want to hear.

01:19:14

But, you know, if Jennifer were to ask me, you know, what are evidences that I see of spiritual growth in her,

01:19:23

I certainly could answer that. You know, I see that in living with her day in and day out.

01:19:33

So can I say about my wife that I have confidence that she knows the

01:19:40

Lord? And my answer would be yes. And it's because I see, it's not because she never sins.

01:19:49

I got a whole list of things that she did just this morning, you know, if you want to. Mine's twice as long for him, but anyway.

01:19:58

Yeah, often I'll say, you know, Jennifer and I, you know, sometimes fight.

01:20:04

She starts it and then, but anyway. I'm going to be joining the dog on the couch.

01:20:10

But I see, I see, it's not that she never sins, but I see

01:20:18

Jennifer's repentance, I see her desire, you know, she comes to me,

01:20:23

I come to her to seek reconciliation when there is, you know, a fracture in our relationship.

01:20:31

We see it with our kids, you know, I did this with my kids as they grew up.

01:20:40

I still, you know, still seek to do that when they're grown now. But I always, and I would come to my kids during our devotional time.

01:20:51

There was a period of time I went through where, you probably heard this said, if you want to know, if you want to understand that you're a sinner, get married.

01:21:03

If you really want to know how much a sinner you are, have children. Because all of a sudden, you just, and so when

01:21:11

I went through a period where I struggled again with anger, because I started with that. And then when we were married, but the

01:21:19

Lord had really so helped me overcome that by his grace in so many ways.

01:21:25

But then we had kids and it resurfaced again. It was really odd in that I wasn't gentle.

01:21:31

And so I sat down with the kids one night and during our devotional time, and I just shared with the kids.

01:21:41

I would always ask forgiveness, okay, whenever I sinned against the children. I would try to distinguish between, you know, the authority and respect that I have as a parent and deserve as a parent versus, you know, sinful behavior in the misuse of the authority that God's given me.

01:22:02

So it it's not that they shouldn't have listened to me and obeyed what I asked them to do.

01:22:08

But my response to their disobedience was sinful. And I would, and the kids would, that's okay, dad.

01:22:15

And I would always, no, it's not. I'm asking for you to forgive me because I sinned against you.

01:22:22

And it's never okay when you sin against someone.

01:22:29

I'm not apologizing because I didn't just make a mistake. I sinned against you.

01:22:36

And then I would say, do you understand that? Do you forgive me? And so when we were sitting and I asked the kids to begin praying for me,

01:22:44

I said, I really need you to pray for God to help daddy me be more gentle. And we began praying and the kids prayed out loud for me and prayed for God to help.

01:22:59

And I'm not, it's not like, you know, I was throwing the kids up against the wall and being physical abuse, that that wasn't the issue.

01:23:06

It was just verbally for one thing with me, it was how it would be, quick tempered, things of that nature, which if that persists is disqualifying, right?

01:23:17

For a pastor, if that sin's not defeated. So those are the times I would often struggle, like, you know, am

01:23:22

I qualified to be a pastor? Am I saved because I snapped again? But stopping and praying, and my kids prayed for me.

01:23:29

And what was so great was when my kids said, and you remember this as well, God's changing dad.

01:23:38

What an impact that makes on the kids that they see, wow, the

01:23:44

Holy Spirit has worked. I remember one time I sat down with my teenage son at the time, and here was his question.

01:23:50

He said, he said, dad, and this was both good, you know, encouraging. And at the same time, you know, discouraging, and that's not the best word, but I wanted to help him.

01:24:01

Here's what he said, you'll understand what I mean. He said, dad, I don't understand. I'm praying for God to change me.

01:24:07

And I've been praying for you, and I've seen him change you. I don't see him changing me.

01:24:14

And that gave us an opportunity to talk about how we fight sin, and how that I would, that my transformation and being more gentle wasn't just them praying for me, but talking about the steps of spiritual disciplines

01:24:30

I would go through of reading Scripture and things of that nature, and, you know, talking to other people, you know, about the battle that I was facing regarding my temper, quick temperedness and things of that nature.

01:24:44

So it gave me an opportunity so he could see it's not just mystical, and not that prayer is mystical, but you know what

01:24:50

I'm saying, it's not just praying. Sanctification, prayer is a huge part of that, but there also has to be other aspects of sanctification that you employ, and so that allowed me to share that with him as well.

01:25:02

So, you know, I think one of the best things that you can do is be open about your sin, confess your sin, even to your kids, especially if it's against them.

01:25:14

We don't want to be, you know, sharing stuff with other kids that are not appropriate, you know? Pray for me, you know,

01:25:20

I saw an inappropriate image on the internet today and I struggle with that, you know, obviously, right?

01:25:28

Share with appropriate people when you're battling with something. But when we sin against our kids, we need to live the gospel out before them, and so are you living the gospel out?

01:25:39

When you sin, do you confess your sin? You know, repentance, a lot of people have a misunderstanding of repentance.

01:25:45

They think repentance means I never do that again. Well, if that's repentance, none of us ever have in most of the areas of our life.

01:25:54

So anyway, I've rambled a lot, but go ahead. What would you say repentance means?

01:26:01

Or how would you define repentance? Why don't you go ahead first? I was just gonna add, in every situation that we're in, there's two desires at play.

01:26:15

One is that Satan and the enemy is obviously wanting to use whatever the situation is, whatever the struggle is, whatever you're facing, to take you away from the

01:26:26

Lord and to cause you to have doubt and to cause you to be afraid. What the

01:26:31

Lord's desire in the very same situation is always to draw you to him and to make you be dependent on him, to teach you more about him.

01:26:42

He always has a positive reason for allowing whatever it is that he's allowing.

01:26:49

And so often we get so caught up in blaming the Lord, why are you allowing this to happen, when he's saying, my purpose is to draw you to me.

01:27:01

I'm not the one pushing you away. And so we have to recognize where the voices are coming from, and recognizing that God is good in all that he does.

01:27:11

And I say to the ladies that I take through my discipleship program, you'll never trust a

01:27:18

God you don't know. So we have to know who the Lord is to be able to trust him and know that his purpose, even in the struggle of understanding your salvation, is the purpose of that is to draw you to him, to make you run to him, to do the very things you were talking about,

01:27:36

Keith, which is going over and reviewing, how do I know I'm saved? How do I know who the

01:27:41

Lord is? Giving yourself that truth, and that's part of the process of making you solid in him.

01:27:50

So instead of running from it, we need to run to him in it. Absolutely.

01:27:56

That was very encouraging. Now you asked the question, Jennifer, about repentance. Yeah, I just, when he was talking about that,

01:28:02

I just wanted him to talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, I'd love to hear what

01:28:08

Keith thinks as well, because I think probably, you know, there are probably more than what I would say. We need to talk it out and think through it.

01:28:14

But first of all, obviously, repentance begins with the change of our thinking, right?

01:28:21

Even the word, but I don't just say change of mind, right? Because I do believe in the lordship of Christ, so I'm not trying to use that old, you know,

01:28:32

DTS dispensational view of it's just a change of mind. But it certainly begins there, because it begins, you know,

01:28:40

Romans 12 makes it very clear that there has to, to not be conformed with the world, I have to have a transformed mind.

01:28:46

So I think part of repentance is submitting myself to what Scripture teaches.

01:28:52

That's why I say don't use, use biblical language about your sin. You know, don't lie, confess means to say the same thing as, you know, if you just use a, you know, transliterate that word that's in 1st

01:29:07

John. So are you saying the same thing about your sin that God's Word says about your sin? That's part of repentance in my thinking.

01:29:15

Am I talking about it like God talks about it? And then I think that repentance involves cutting off, taking the necessary steps where I cut off the road to sin, you know, the pathway.

01:29:36

What are the things that if I have a sin pattern that's continuing to be a habitual thing that I fight, what are the things that I continue to be led into that sin?

01:29:50

You know, even in James 1 where it talks about confessing our sin, or not

01:29:56

James, but it is James, not about confessing our sin, but James where it talks about sin gives birth, it starts, you know, and I'm sorry it's late, so I'm starting to fade a little bit.

01:30:11

But, you know, there's a process that sin goes, and then once it gets to that certain point when it's conceived, it gives birth.

01:30:19

So, you know, think about that. I don't think we think enough about the path of temptation that gets us to that sin.

01:30:28

We just kind of tend, you know, which I think is that cutting off of the hand, the plucking out the eye aspect, right?

01:30:34

It's thinking through what is the mechanisms or path that opens me up to that sin.

01:30:43

So, you may need to change the way you drive. You know, when I was living in Florida, there were signs, billboards, where they had scantily clad women because the town that we were in, they had a lot of porn shops that were within the community, and so they would have signs.

01:31:02

And so I just, you know, said, I'm gonna start driving it. Not that I was going into the porn shops, but I was seeing the signs, and I was driving by those and having lustful thoughts.

01:31:13

And, you know, one day I'm like, I need to quit driving by the signs. Not that that's gonna fix my heart, because it's still, you still got to deal with the heart issue.

01:31:23

And, Lord, I don't want to think in those ways. I want you to purify me. Even the fact that I have think that way, you know, as James, I think, does deal with, you know, the root of sin is that indwelling sin.

01:31:36

And that comes down even, you know, the discussion of same -sex attraction, all that stuff fits in there, you know, that the thought in and of itself is not a sin.

01:31:43

I don't agree with that. The thought is, the outward sin isn't birthed, but where does an outward sin come from?

01:31:53

It comes from an inward sinful inclination.

01:31:58

And so I said, all right, I'm gonna quit driving that direction. Now, did that mean I didn't lust ever again?

01:32:04

Of course it didn't mean that. Did it mean I didn't need to keep fighting and battling the heart issue? Of course I needed to continue doing that, needed to confess that, need to talk about that.

01:32:14

When I would drive up Highway 75, going up towards Atlanta, there was a big billboard there, and I couldn't not drive around it, but there was also a huge porn store that was up there.

01:32:28

And so I had an elder that I would say, I'm driving up 75, here's the time I'm leaving, I want to be accountable to you so you know where I'm going to be a certain time, just for accountability's sake.

01:32:42

I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I think all of that is involved in repentance. Are you fighting against the sin?

01:32:48

What steps are you taking? So, Keith, you can elaborate more. You might want to correct some of the things I've said. No, no,

01:32:54

I agree with you. A great illustration I heard years ago, and I've used it many times, is if you can imagine a stream where the stream is filled with fish that are all dead and they're all going with the stream.

01:33:10

And as the stream is taking the dead fish down, if one of those fish were to become alive, you know, spontaneous life given to one of those fish, and now that fish begins to swim upstream, well now he's experiencing something different than all the other fish are experiencing.

01:33:29

One, he's going against the current, he's not going with the current, and he's getting hit in the face with other dead fish as he swims upstream.

01:33:39

And so, you know, the idea of repentance is turning, right? You mentioned that change of mind.

01:33:44

A lot of people say change of mind which results in a change of behavior. I think that's a simple way of looking at it. Bear the fruit of repentance, right?

01:33:50

Exactly. The fruits of repentance, yep. But immediately, when we turn and we do swim upstream, it's a struggle because it's not hard to go with the stream.

01:34:02

It's not hard to go with the dead fish. But it is hard to say, you know what, I'm going to take a different route to work.

01:34:09

It's going to take me an extra 10 minutes, but I don't have to look at this thing, right? Or I'm going to do this because this is harder, but it's worth it, right?

01:34:17

And again, I think those are thoughtful ways of considering what are the fruits of repentance.

01:34:25

The fruits of repentance are seeing God work those things out in our life and not reveling and loving our sin, but rather looking for ways to fight and to be alive in Christ, to be fighting.

01:34:43

I think the struggle most people have is, well, what about when I fail? And that's where the grace of God comes.

01:34:49

And I think that's where the grace of gathering on the Sunday morning with other believers and being reminded of the gospel.

01:34:55

I think that's why, you know, Luther says, I preach the gospel every week because every week my people forget. I do think we should preach the gospel to our people so that they're reminded of the goodness of God, that when we fail, we have a

01:35:06

Savior who never fails, right? Yeah, we either believe 1 John 1 -9 or we don't, right? That's right. Yeah, exactly.

01:35:14

And so God never tires of us coming to Him in repentance and faith, never tires of that.

01:35:21

He understood who we are and what He was getting, so to speak, you know, when

01:35:29

He saved us. And we do the same thing with our kids, don't we? Do we ever tire of our kids coming in and saying,

01:35:36

Mom, Dad, I blew it? What do we do when they do that? We're ready to sit there and help them and comfort them and encourage them in the gospel, obviously, as parents.

01:35:48

One other thing I would say would be 2 Corinthians 10, to take every thought captive and submit it to Christ. Because ultimately, our battle against sin is not a system, it's a

01:35:57

Savior. And, you know, Jesus, we say this because we know it to be true that my justification,

01:36:05

I have been saved, my sanctification, I am being saved and glorified, I will be saved. But we understand these two ends, right?

01:36:12

We get lost in the middle, and that's really what we're talking about with sanctification and repentance and all those things.

01:36:18

We understand, here's what I need, justification in Christ, I understand glorification, those two things

01:36:24

God's done. And we forget that sanctification is also God doing all of that and taking to Him our struggles and our battles with sin.

01:36:34

And when a thought comes to our mind, take it captive, submit it to Jesus Christ. We don't know enough

01:36:39

Scripture. We don't pray enough Scripture. And God is not going to be satisfied with forms of obedience that are accomplished through the flesh.

01:36:52

He wants to enable us by the power of the Spirit to walk in His ways.

01:36:58

And so anyway. And I think, too, after confession, it's kind of what you were talking about, we have to remind ourselves what the

01:37:07

Lord did for us. We have to, because I've seen people get overwhelmed with their sin, and they have to come back and say,

01:37:16

Lord, forgive me, I sinned, I sinned against you, would you forgive me? Oh, thank you for dying on the cross, thank you for raising again, thank you for your forgiveness.

01:37:26

I'm not, I'm no longer identified by that sin, but now I'm free, now

01:37:31

I am fully complete in you. And to remind yourself of what the

01:37:37

Lord has done so that you're not overwhelmed with your sin. Well, and we remind one another that when

01:37:43

Jesus died on the cross, He died for all of our sins, past, present, and future. He knew the sins

01:37:51

I was going to commit, all of them, right? Not just up to the point that I got justified and saved, but all through that.

01:38:00

Now, of course we can, people abuse grace, of course people can be flippant, that's not godly.

01:38:07

But one of the things I can rest assured of is that when I fell and I go to the Lord, God's not going, man,

01:38:12

I didn't know that was going to happen, you know? He reminds me, it should grieve me, okay, two things should happen.

01:38:22

It should grieve me that I gave myself over again to that which put my

01:38:28

Savior on the cross, while at the same time being thankful that the

01:38:34

Lord willingly went, knowing. And that's a tension, but tell me where in our theology that there isn't tension, whether it be the sovereignty of God and the human responsibility,

01:38:47

I don't know where there isn't a tension in serious matters and issues of doctrine.

01:38:55

And I think there is even in this. The tension, what I mean by is the tension between I must grieve over every sin in the sense of it ought to hate it,

01:39:06

I ought to be deeply grieved over it, but at the same time I am also, when

01:39:13

I take it to God and I confess it, I'm joyous that he remembers it no more.

01:39:21

And you know, even like Paul, when there was somebody who was being disciplined in the church, and in 2nd

01:39:27

Corinthians he says, bring him back so that he won't be so sober.

01:39:33

That's how God is with us. And oftentimes our sin comes back to us, and so we feel like, well, did the

01:39:41

Lord really forgive me? Do I need to keep confessing and forgiving this sin? And that's the reminder of a sin that we know we've confessed, that reminder is not of God.

01:39:54

He's not the one that brings that back to our minds. And I remember I had to go through a process of things coming back, and I had to say, nope,

01:40:04

I am not listening to that, that I have confessed that sin, I have been forgiven of that sin, this is not of God, I am no longer listening to this anymore.

01:40:12

I had to do the same thing, Jim, too. And then there's a freedom that we're able to come. Yeah. Yeah, the difference between conviction and condemnation.

01:40:20

So God sent the Holy Spirit of the world, what, not to condemn the world, but what, right, to convict us of our sins, so condemnation always drives you away from God, conviction always drives you to God.

01:40:31

So it's both are pointing at the same sin, okay, so I sin, I act in an ungodly way to Jennifer, whatever it may be, so condemnation looks at that sin and says, see,

01:40:45

God doesn't, you haven't changed, you're never gonna change. You blew it. God doesn't accept you. That's condemnation, that's not of the

01:40:52

Holy Spirit, that's of the devil, that's of the flesh. Conviction comes in and also points at the sin and says, that is wrong, that is sinful, it displeases

01:41:01

God. But the good news is, my arms are outstretched, confess that sin, repent of that sin, and receive and walk in the forgiveness that I've already provided in Christ for that.

01:41:13

So if you feel condemnation, you will always feel driven away from God. Conviction always draws you to God to receive the grace that is offered.

01:41:22

And conviction is very specific. This is the sin you committed, whereas condemnation sometimes is vague, you can't really pin it down, it's just this feeling of,

01:41:33

I'm yuck, and you don't know how to deal with it, because it's just an overwhelming, depressing feeling that can come on us.

01:41:42

Yeah, I heard recently... That was so helpful. Yeah. I'm sorry. No, please. That was very helpful, what they were saying.

01:41:49

I heard someone describe it this way recently, it's the difference between destructive guilt and constructive guilt, right?

01:41:57

Destructive guilt leads you away from God, but constructive guilt is when you feel that guilt that drives you to the cross, that guilt that drives you to seek that forgiveness.

01:42:08

And that's what I would say to these people writing in, you know, is if your guilt is driving you to Christ, that's good.

01:42:16

If it's driving you to the foot of the cross, to once again be reminded of that grace that He has provided for you, to lay hold of that grace again and be reminded of the goodness of Christ, then praise the

01:42:27

Lord. And I don't know anyone who doesn't sin.

01:42:34

We had a guy come to our church one night, and another person was preaching, so I was in the audience, and halfway through the message, he got up to leave.

01:42:43

And I was like, well, now I gotta know, right? So I got up and followed him out into the foyer, and I stopped him, and I said, hey, thank you for visiting us.

01:42:51

And he said, I just have to know, what are you all about here? And I kind of understood his question, because the person preaching was preaching on Baptist history, which is a weird thing to hear anybody preach about, but it just happened to be he came on a strange night.

01:43:04

But when I met him in the foyer, I said, well, he said, what are you about here? I said, well, we're a church that is about telling people that there are sinners who need a

01:43:13

Savior, and Jesus is the only Savior. That's what we're about. I mean, in the bare bones of it, that's who we are.

01:43:18

And he said, well, I'm not a sinner. I had a Fred Sanford moment.

01:43:24

I like Fred Sanford. Was that Donald Trump? Oh, you're in trouble now.

01:43:29

Oh, no, I knew it. I did it. You're going to get write -ins over that one for sure.

01:43:35

Oh, boy. You're done. Sorry, I blew that. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, no.

01:43:41

He actually, you'll appreciate this, I think. He was actually from a movement that taught sinless perfection, that once you become a

01:43:50

Christian, you're no longer a sinner. And so what I did was I spent about five minutes convincing him that he was a sinner, and he got angry over it.

01:43:58

I said, sir, ultimately what I said was, I said, sir, I said, have you loved the Lord your

01:44:04

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength perfectly from the moment you woke up this morning to this very moment right now?

01:44:10

And he stopped, and he looked at me, he goes, well, I didn't say I was perfect. I said, no, you did. You actually did.

01:44:15

I said, and what I just proved to you is that you're not, because you have not loved the Lord your

01:44:20

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength as perfectly as you should have from the moment you woke up this morning. And that's your problem.

01:44:28

Yeah. Well, there's, okay, what does God love any more than us being dependent on him?

01:44:36

Amen. And if the moment that you claim that you're not a sinner, you're not dependent on God anymore.

01:44:42

One of the things that my sin, and this again, here's attention, right? I'm to live in righteousness,

01:44:48

I'm to live in obedience and holiness, but one of the things that my sin does remind me of constantly is my desperate need for a savior.

01:44:57

Right? John Newton has said one thing, and when he died, if there's anything he knew, he's a great sinner and Christ is a great savior.

01:45:04

Amen. And I should never abuse that, and that's why

01:45:09

I say this is always attention. But God has left me, because haven't you often,

01:45:16

I've heard people thought, and I've thought myself, why doesn't God, just the moment we get saved, remove all the, wouldn't it be great if we didn't have any desire to sin?

01:45:26

Well, that will be heaven. Amen. Literally. And glorification. But God in his all great wisdom and sovereign power has decided to leave us here in these sin -indwelt bodies with new creation and new natures that don't have, living inside these bodies that the nature itself is perfect in Christ.

01:45:54

But I can make myself a slave to sin, and God has left us in the state in his wisdom and knowledge, where we have to live every day dependent upon him, acknowledging that if God left us to ourselves, and that's really what, circling back around Romans 11, if God left

01:46:15

Elijah to himself and those 7 ,000 to themselves, they too would have gone the path of Israel.

01:46:23

Every single one of us, if God does not, by his sovereign grace, enable us to walk in righteousness and holiness, and left us to ourselves, we too would be lost.

01:46:36

If God, Isaiah, if God had not preserved us, we would be like Sodom and Gomorrah, we'd be wiped out.

01:46:43

It's absolutely stunning that God has saved us because we don't deserve it any more than the quote -unquote worst sinner in the world.

01:46:55

And if God had left us to ourselves, that's exactly who we would be. And he's chosen to leave us in this battle against sin.

01:47:06

And it is used by him to cause us to live every day dependent on his grace, that I get up and say,

01:47:15

God, today, you know, there's no way that I can walk through this day apart from your grace, apart from your ability to walk in your ways.

01:47:27

So anyway. I heard a quote, a lady was asked, as you get older, does the

01:47:33

Christian life get easier? And she thought for a minute and she said, no, I just learned to run quicker.

01:47:41

I just learned to run to the Lord quicker. And run away from sin probably quicker too. Well, I do want to draw us to a close here.

01:47:50

I appreciate you guys giving us so much time, almost two hours of your evening. We're grateful.

01:47:55

But I have to show you this before we go. Somebody said this. They said, Keith, you better thank Tom when you go viral for that.

01:48:02

And what he was talking about was your Trump statement. Well, I mean, Trump's the one who said he wasn't a sinner, not me.

01:48:09

I know. I just thought it was funny. But again, I'm so grateful, one, to have you guys be the first of our couples night.

01:48:19

Two, just to get to know you better, to talk about your life and to hear your story a little bit.

01:48:25

But also that we're going to spend some time together in November. We're going to be preaching at the same conference in Winter Haven.

01:48:35

So, isn't that right? Yeah, you're going to be there too. I hadn't told her you're going to be there. Oh, okay. She thought

01:48:41

I was making her believe it's just me and nobody else. Oh, okay.

01:48:46

No, I'm kidding. Well, we will be there with our family. And we look forward to you guys being there as well.

01:48:53

And hopefully maybe getting to share a meal together and just getting to know each other even more. Well, we appreciate you having us on.

01:48:59

You'll have to run a poll tomorrow on Twitter. And you can, at least with this question, was

01:49:05

Tom a nicer guy than you thought he was? And just see how many people out there on Twitter really think

01:49:11

I'm just a mean old guy. I'll do it. If you've watched the show, was Tom nicer than you thought he would be?

01:49:16

Everybody knew Jennifer was nice. Everybody does because she is. She really is a nice person.

01:49:24

I say that about my wife. I say this. Earlier you said about knowing your wife is saved. I always tell

01:49:30

Jennifer, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I always say, I may doubt my salvation, but I never doubt hers.

01:49:36

She's the best Christian I know. I'm thankful. Well, she has to live with you, right? She has to live with me.

01:49:42

That's the grace that God gives them. But yeah, we appreciate being on with you. It was fun.

01:49:47

We didn't have anything better to do. Well, thank you both so much. I'm teasing with you,

01:49:53

Keith. We love you guys, appreciate for your ministry, and thank you, brother. Thank you. I love you guys, too.

01:49:59

And love you guys who've been watching. I know so many comments were coming in, and we didn't get to get to many of them tonight.

01:50:04

We had a wonderful conversation. But thank you guys for participating, for asking questions. And remember, if you want us to address something on a future show, you can send it to me at KeithFoskey .com.

01:50:16

And just keep in mind that one of the best ways you can help the show is simply subscribing to the channel. That puts us out before more people and allows the ministry to go further.

01:50:26

So I want to thank you again for watching your Calvinist podcast. I'm Keith Foskey. This is Jennifer Foskey. That's the

01:50:32

Bucks. And we are thankful for you. And may God bless you. And...

01:50:39

Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me

01:50:46

And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

01:50:53

So I mix a manly drink Then I hit the

01:50:58

YouTube link And I feel my troubles all melt away

01:51:06

Oh, it's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Foskey It's and bow ties

01:51:18

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01:51:31

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