2021 Summer of Interviews: Russell Fuller Interview

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5 where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is

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Mike Abendroth. And if you've been listening for the last 10 years, you know our format by now, Sundays.

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I've been preaching verse by verse through the book of Hebrews and just now started James. And so we'll play those sermons on Monday.

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Tuesday, I talk about church issues with my associate pastor, Pastor Steve Cooley. Thursdays, I like to just talk about doctrinal things in the

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Bible. And Fridays, we usually critique things. My favorite days, though, are Wednesdays.

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And I usually bring in scholars, authors, pastors, teachers, and pick their brains a little bit and talk about the

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Lord Jesus and gospel ministry. And so today I'm excited to have on the phone Dr.

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Russell Fuller. Since it is Wednesday here in recording time, Dr. Fuller, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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Mike, it's great to be with you today. So Dr. Fuller, you were here in West Boylston, I'm guessing about 10 years ago.

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You are probably most well known for your book, Invitation to Biblical Hebrew, a beginning grammar and then there's

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DVDs and lectures and all that, which I have. And so you were here in Northboro lecturing on Hebrew.

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And I had two students, at least Scott Goddard and Bob Dunn, and they said, you have to have Dr. Fuller come and preach for you.

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And we did. And I think you preached from the book of Job two times. So do you have any recollection,

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Dr. Fuller, of that? No, I really don't. Thanks a lot. We really left the impression on you.

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But I do remember coming up to Northboro and I had great experiences up there.

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The guys were fabulous to teach and I was up there many times. I was up there one time for a blizzard, and so it was really good.

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I enjoyed my blizzard in Northboro. It was, I've never seen snow that high before, so it was a real pleasure to come up to the

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Boston area and to meet the folks and to teach. And so it was a wonderful experience.

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And memorable too. That's right. I remember it all. That's right.

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So Dr. Fuller, this is a radio show that I do and sometimes I just throw kind of left field, you know, tosses over.

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I'm looking on RateMyProfessors .com and here's one of the RateMyProfessors .com on you,

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Dr. Fuller. I took Dr. Fuller for several courses. He was a favorite among the better Hebrew students when

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I was there a decade ago. He made you work hard for your grade. If you hadn't studied, you were toast.

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And then the last sentence was, the Hebrew legend lives. Were you a tough professor?

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Are you a tough professor? Yeah, I was, but I'm getting older and so I'm softening up quite a bit.

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I've gone into the grandfather stage, you know. So I don't have quite the old drill sergeant in me is almost gone, but there's still remnants there.

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Don't get me wrong. Yes, I pushed the students quite a bit in their

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Hebrew. I really wanted them to learn it because I think learning the languages, you know,

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Greek and Hebrew, there's no greater blessing if you can really use those languages. And to understand the word of God from the, from the real ground floor, you know, the original languages,

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I think is one of the greatest blessings you can have in life. You have to, you have to work very hard for that, but if you get it, it's, it'll help you in many ways.

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Dr. Fuller, we have pastoral interns and pastors and pastoral students who listen to the show, but we have a lot of lay people as well who listen.

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I'm reminded of Martin Luther who said something to the effect, in these last days, God has revealed himself via Greek and Hebrew letters.

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Could you tell some of the lay folks that are listening why it's important for them to dig a little bit more, or maybe some resources they could use to look up some

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Greek words or help them in their Bible study? Even this morning, I was reading James chapter two in my

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Nestle Elan, and I noticed there's two different words for you see, you see. And so even that, it'd be good if a lay person knew, oh,

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I see there are two different words here for I see. What kind of advice could you offer the folks listening? Yeah, I mean, if you're, if you have the opportunity to learn some

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Greek and Hebrew, it would be, I think, advantageous to them. But I recognize that, you know, not every

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Christian now has opportunity to do that. You know, we're busy with many things.

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But we are blessed that we have many good resources out there that can help us.

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I mean, a lot of folks now have the, you know, computer programs, and that can help you with, again, not, won't make you a

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Greek and Hebrew expert, but at least you can look up certain words and things of this nature.

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If you, we really do have a wonderful commentaries that are out there, especially like the older ones, like,

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I'm going to surprise you here, but people like Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, the old, some of the old

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Puritan commentators, let me tell you, their knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was absolutely outstanding.

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And reading good commentaries like this, you'll get the Greek and the

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Hebrew. You know, if you go back to the Puritan era, they recognized that when there's a real struggle in the church about what to believe and so forth, that ultimately we have to go back to the

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Greek and the Hebrew. There's a passage in the Westminster Confession, you know, the

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Old Testament and Hebrew, the Messiah, His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, therefore, it goes on to talk about if there's a controversial religion, that we must look to the

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Greek and the Hebrew to really settle real controversial issues.

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Now, look, Greek and Hebrew will solve every theological fight out there. It won't do that. But it's very helpful.

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It's very helpful. Again, it's the ground floor of studies. And so today, through commentaries and there's even courses online you can take for this if you can put more time into it.

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So the Lord has really through faithful men down to the centuries, believers today can be greatly edified by people who really understood

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Greek and Hebrew. Dr. Fuller, I agree. And as you were listing Poole and Henry as two faithful common taters,

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I was also thinking about John Calvin, now easy accessible for his commentaries. I read

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Calvin before I preach pretty much without exception, and he's pretty easy to read even for lay people, don't you think?

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Yeah, I think so. And again, Calvin's understanding of Greek and Hebrew was exceptional.

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I mean, the man was very well trained in Greek and Hebrew.

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And so I can't stress the hard work that people like Calvin, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, and other of those older gentlemen, they really they worked hard at this and their commentary show it.

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What I also like is I read these old guys and while they were sinful and while they were finite, and certainly they were sinners saved by grace alone through faith alone.

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I like to read people that finish well, because that's a hard thing to do in our world these days is to finish well and without scandal and everything else.

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And so it's good to read some of those old guys. Dr. Fuller, I mainly want to talk to you today about your old ministry and your new, but before I do,

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I've got you on the line. And I know you've been given a desire by the

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Lord to study Hebrew. If I look at the word in English in my Bible, Old Testament, all caps,

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L -O -R -D, all caps, and I read that, what should

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I be thinking? So when I, and this is, I'm not trying to set you up for anything, except I just tell our listeners when you see those, that word in English, what goes through your mind,

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Dr. Fuller? That, the word Lord in small caps that you'll see in our

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English Bibles, that is God's personal name, okay? I mean,

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His title is God. So when you see God, that's one Hebrew word.

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When you see Lord and it's spelled either just a capital L and then the normal O -R -D, that means

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Lord in the sense that He is the owner, possessor of all things. When you see

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Lord written in the small caps, like you just said in our Bibles, that's God's personal name, and it really captures, nothing can capture

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God completely, but that personal name really does stress God's eternal existence and unchangeableness.

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And so when you see that, it's His personal name. We know that in the past it was pronounced

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Yahweh, but the Jews for centuries, when they would see that word, would pronounce a different word.

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They were not wanting to take God's name in vain. If you notice even in the

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New Testament, the apostles do not transliterate the divine name. They just use the word Lord, just like the

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Jews would do back in that day. But again, it was Yahweh, it was the way it was pronounced back in the day.

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We know they did pronounce it on the, according to the Talmud and the Mishnah, they would pronounce that word on the great day of atonement, the high priest would, and then everyone would hit the deck, bow down and so forth.

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And so it's God's personal name. And again, it's stressing His eternal existence and also

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His unchangeableness, His immutability. Good. Thank you for that.

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As you were talking about the day of atonement, I just was reading the biblical theology book by Morales on Leviticus, and he was talking about Leviticus 16 as the heart of Leviticus, kind of with the chiastic structure.

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Do you like that or do you disagree? You know, I haven't looked at that. I don't know about the chiastic structure, but I'll say that the day of atonement is definitely central to the book of Leviticus.

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That's for sure. All right. We're talking today to Dr. Russell Fuller. Are you related to Daniel Fuller or Charles Fuller in any way, shape, or form, those two people in evangelical orbits?

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You know, to my knowledge, I'm not. Now, someone's told me all Fullers go back, you know, to the same source, maybe, so I don't know that, but to my knowledge,

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I'm not related to these gentlemen. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about Southern Baptists, Southern Seminary.

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I got to know you because you were a professor there for many years at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship school in Louisville.

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I remember years ago wanting to go get my doctorate of ministry there, simply because it was a bastion of conservatism.

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I watched theological schools go from conservative to liberal, but have rarely seen schools then turn back to a conservative view of the word of God and of the centrality of who

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Jesus is and those type of things. And so that's why I went to Southern Seminary and was excited about it.

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I think about the PBS movie that was written kind of almost like a screw tape letter -esque.

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The enemy was Dr. Mohler and the Board of Trustees and the hostile takeover from the old days.

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But things have changed since then. Dr. Fuller, anything you'd like to say about what's going on at Southern?

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Kind of we're going to talk about that, and then we'll talk about how that precipitated your new ministry.

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But I guess maybe I'll start off this way. Would you send young theological students to Southern Seminary? Not today.

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I would not. Southern Seminary, I was there for 22 years. I arrived in 1998, and that was five years after Al Mohler became the president.

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Al Mohler was the right -hand man to the president before Mohler himself was president.

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And Mohler was very liberal at the time. He did not believe in inerrancy. He believed in, you know, women could be pastors of churches and so forth.

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But he was very liberal. And then as the conservative resurgence in the

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Southern Baptist Convention, it was very clear to everyone that the conservatives were going to win and they were going to make changes in the seminaries.

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Al Mohler became conservative. He became president of Southern Seminary.

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And at first, it really looked like that the school was moving in the right direction. In many ways, it was.

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But it's hard for me to give you an exact date when things started switching back again in the other direction, but I would probably put it somewhere around 2010, when

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Dr. Mohler started accepting views like sexual orientation. And once I started seeing that happen, you could see that Mohler was starting to drift again back to what he was when he was a seminary student.

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And right before the conservative resurgence, victory looked certain.

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And all of a sudden at Southern Seminary, we were having professors who were teaching things like postmodernism.

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We had professors all of a sudden teaching things like critical race theory became very popular on the campus, social justice.

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And these things are still popular on the campus, even though they're trying to really tone it down now because they're getting pushback.

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And all you have to do is go online and do some looking on YouTube, and you can look up certain professors like Matthew Hall, who is the number two man that looks like Mohler is trying to groom

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Matthew Hall to be the next president of Southern Seminary. If you'll just go online, there's at least two videos.

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There was another video that used to be on, you could access it on Southern Seminary's website, but they took it down for very good reason, because again, he is pushing critical race theory, social justice, they call it racial justice, economic justice, it's all the buzzwords that you're hearing today.

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And we have a college associated with Southern Seminary, and Matthew Hall was the dean of that.

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And again, if you talk to some of the students there, they'll tell you how radical some of the instruction was.

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They even had, now this was before people even knew who Black Lives Matter was. They would have a person who was a big fan of Black Lives Matter come and of course demonize police, and again, give the

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Black Lives Matter viewpoints very positively, not critically at all.

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So they were pushing Black Lives Matter at Southern Seminary, oh, probably four or five years ago.

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And it's changed a lot, but again, they've gotten some backlash. So recently,

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Mueller's been having people like James Lindsay come on his podcast, and he acts like he's with Lindsay, he's against critical race theory.

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But listen, I was in faculty meetings when Mueller would say things like, I don't agree with all the solutions of critical race theory, but it sees the problems correctly.

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And by that, he meant he agrees with things like whiteness, systemic racism, white privilege.

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Mueller was accepting all of that. He even wrote an article at the beginning of the summer arguing for systemic racism, but then he would turn around and say, now not the, he uses the same language.

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This is what's tricky about this. He uses the same language and the label of critical, excuse me, of systemic racism.

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But I don't have the baggage of the social justice in the way critical race theory is using it.

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But see, that's very deceptive. And Mueller wrote an article, you can view it on the

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Gospel Coalition's website, again, this was around 2017, where he was praising another article that was praising

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Black Lives Matter as the new civil rights movement.

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It was an article written by Mika Edmondson, and there's Mueller praising really Black Lives Matter, because that's exactly what was going on.

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But again, he's getting backlash on this, and so you can see he's trying to portray

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Southern now as not supportive of critical race theory and these things. But again, there's videos out there that clearly show the opposite.

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Also, now we have professors on campus who, in their dissertation and in papers they've delivered at scholarly associations, where they're pushing things like the

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Old Testament teaches mythology. And so Southern Seminary has moved in a very different direction.

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What makes it very dangerous to send a student to Southern Seminary right now is this.

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There are good professors there. It's not like they're all teaching liberalism of one sort or another.

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However, since this information has come out, many of the good professors are backing the professors who are teaching very dangerous,

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I'll just say it, heretical doctrine. And that's what makes Southern a very dangerous place, when even the guys who teach sound doctrine are supporting those who are teaching unsound doctrine.

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That's when it gets very dangerous, because let me tell you what will happen. If you are a student and you go to Southern Seminary and you listen to what

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I'm saying right now, what you're going to expect to hear is nothing but constant liberalism when a professor opens his mouth, and that's not what you're going to hear there.

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You're going to hear a lot of good doctrine, and so you're going to go, I don't know what

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Fuller was talking about. I mean, they're preaching good stuff here, and it's very solid.

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But then all of a sudden, a little bit here, a little bit there, oh yeah, it's being taught there.

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Let me assure you. But they're not going to be bold about it. They're not going to be, they're going to be very subtle about it, okay?

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The professors know they're under a microscope right now, so they're going to be very careful about it.

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But let me tell you, let me assure you, it's being taught. I just talked to a student at Boyce about a week ago, and she says, oh yeah,

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I had this professor and the first few days it was fine, but he made it clear where he was, and again, social justice and so forth, but again, it was very subtle, she said.

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And that's what they're doing. They're under a microscope right now. But let me tell you this.

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When it comes to people teaching heresy, normally they're not bold about it.

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What they are, they're very subtle, and they take you off guard. You'll listen to them, give a whole sermon, and you'll go, there's nothing wrong with this man.

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What's all this I hear about this guy? And over time, it's a confidence game is what it is.

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You gain someone's confidence, then all of a sudden, you start dropping the false doctrine, and it's very effective to a lot of students, let me tell you.

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There's a lot of students now that accept social justice, that accept critical race theory, that accept things like post -modernism.

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That's exactly what's going on. And again, you can look at many of the videos online.

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If you want to see what professors are writing at Southern Seminary, a lot of it's posted at a website called

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Enemies Within the Church. If you go there and look under articles, and then look at the different professors that they discuss there, then you'll see some of their writings and how dangerous it is.

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One, for instance, denies that Isaiah 53 has anything to do with Jesus. That was taught at Southern Seminary, yes, in the classroom.

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That Isaiah 53, which the New Testament – and by the way, this is a New Testament professor, a man named

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Jonathan Pennington, who was teaching these things. Very dangerous.

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And by the way, much worse things than this. Much worse. Well, as you're talking –

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Moeller knows these things, and Moeller knows these things are going on, and indeed, let me just say it straight out, he supports this.

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Well, Dr. Fuller, as I was thinking about that Isaiah 53 passage, of course, when our

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Lord Jesus in Luke 24 is on the road to Emmaus, there's some debate, healthy debate on to what extent does the

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Old Testament reveal the Lord Jesus, you know, broadly or more narrowly, or, you know, how many messianic psalms are there, that kind of thing.

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But almost everyone I know would at least say that the Lord Jesus on that road would talk about the scriptures that was concerning Himself.

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Isaiah 53, that'd be at the top of the list if I were thinking about that, wouldn't it be?

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Oh, yeah. If you look in the New Testament, the New Testament quotes Isaiah 53 as fulfilled in Christ, you know, think of Philip, right, in the

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Ethiopian eunuch, for instance, okay? Not just there, though. In Matthew, for instance, the notion of,

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I mean, verses are quoted there from Isaiah 53, by His wounds were healed, and it's clearly applied to Christ, and so here's a

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New Testament professor basically denying such a thing. He's going right against apostolic authority, biblical authority.

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So, Dr. Fuller, kind of big picture, I guess, I'm thinking about people who are listening to the show now, maybe they're not going to go to Southern, or maybe,

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I don't know, maybe they don't care, but they have Southern seminaries influence into their church via their pastor, and what would you tell people who are listening to look for or to listen to some kind of signals that this, essentially, this new hermeneutic, it's a hermeneutical issue when you say

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CRT is this helpful tool we have to understand scriptures. Any kind of buzzwords or things that people should listen to keenly so they don't fall prey to this essentially new liberalism?

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Yes, some of the buzzwords out there, again, are like racial justice, sometimes I use the racial reconciliation, and again, in one sense, it sounds neutral, but when you hear the way it's being used in our society today, it's not a neutral term.

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It's very loaded. When you hear privilege, white privilege, systemic racism, you know, when they use the word, like, systemic racism, they're making it sound like, you know, the police are hunting down people of color in our streets, and I'm with William Barr, our attorney general, that's just a false narrative, okay?

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That's a false narrative. It's a lot. Not saying that an individual policeman hasn't done wrong, of course.

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In any profession, there's wrongdoing, and when there's wrongdoing, we all believe the wrongdoer ought to be punished.

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But we think that there should be, you know, the proper channels done before someone's punished, and we look at these things.

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So watch out for those buzzwords that you hear, like, again, white privilege, whiteness, that's another one that you hear.

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But just listen to your pastor and see if he is frequently preaching on issues that are, you know, hot -button issues that are out there right now.

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And in other words, is his preaching being influenced by modern philosophies, modern viewpoints out there that are sort of in vogue right now?

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Listen for that. And they may not use the buzzwords, but if you notice your pastor is doing a lot of preaching and doing a lot of speaking and using, let's say, modern either philosophical ideas or even just modern ideas that are, you know, you hear on these news programs, and you can tell they're heading toward the way the world is thinking on these matters, that ought to get your attention.

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We've got to stay, we've got to be careful about philosophies, mainly so -called. We've got to be careful about adding to the

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Scripture secular thoughts and accepting, you know, certain, well, accepting any type of secular view.

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We've got to preach the Bible and the Bible alone. Yes, the Bible does speak to our issues today, but we've got to stay strictly

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Scripture alone with stuff and not be sucked into the culture. And too often, pastors do, and they want to be relevant, you see, to the culture.

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And what they're doing is they're accepting the culture, and we've got to be careful about that, and whether it's this issue or the next one coming down the pike.

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Like, for instance, Al Mohler, he talks about how the Church has done homosexuals wrong and so forth.

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He says this in a broad sense, and you're like, how has the Church done homosexuals wrong?

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You know, he'll say things like that, and again, that's a tip -off that, again, he's accepting worldly philosophy and worldly thoughts, you see.

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You've got to be careful. If your pastor is going down this road, you have to be very careful. Dr. Fuller, this

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Sunday I'm preaching from James chapter 2, and of course, a lot of people like to go there in terms of show no partiality as you hold the faith in our

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Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. So, I'm going to try to do my very best to preach that faithfully, and I don't want any of those other buzzwords in there because this is kind of like a go -to text, but I'm not going to let the liberals rob it from me from giving it to the people.

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So, I'm going to be very careful this Sunday as I preach it. That's right, and again, evangelicals, especially like some of the folks that are associated with like a gospel coalition, or again,

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Al Mohler, who's on the board of the gospel coalition, he'll use those buzzwords and then claim that he has his own private meaning of it, you see.

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That's very deceptive, okay? That's very deceptive to use the same words, same buzzwords that's coming from, you know, godless ideologies, but then somehow claim, but I'm somehow putting, you know,

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I'm baptizing it in some way, so it's okay, you know. No, that's just a deceptive way of speaking of what it is.

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It's muddying the waters, and we need clarity today. Not using the buzzwords, but using it in our own idiosyncratic way, you see.

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No, that's just muddying the waters and confusing people. Reminds me of J .C.

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Ryle when he talked about pastors, obviously to preach Christ Jesus, but do it in a clear fashion, so everyone knows what's going on very clearly.

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Was there a big behind -the -scenes fallout after the Shepherds Conference a couple years ago when

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Phil Johnson asked Al Mohler a question about all this? Was there a kerfuffle back at Southern, or that was all just kept quiet?

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It was mostly kept quiet on that particular one, but where Mohler did respond in a faculty meeting was when that Dallas statement came out.

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He was very upset about the Dallas statement, and he really went on a personal tirade against John MacArthur in the faculty meeting, going after his dispensationalism, which

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I thought, you know, personally, I'm not a dispensationalist, but let me say this.

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I'll take a thousand dispensationalists. I'll take a thousand John MacArthurs over the social justice warriors any day of any week.

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Mohler was really upset about the Dallas statement. He saw

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MacArthur behind that, and MacArthur was in many ways behind that, and we're thankful for that, as a matter of fact.

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But boy, he was really upset with MacArthur over that, and you could see it was really personal. It was personal.

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It wasn't just theological. It was personal. And let me just say this, what you saw, the way

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Mohler exploded, well, the way Mohler behaved with Phil Johnson, you're seeing just a small glimpse of how

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Mohler will act in like a faculty meeting if a professor asks a question that Mohler doesn't like, he'll jump on.

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And of course, with me, I went after Matt Hall in the sense of he should not be promoted.

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Matter of fact, he shouldn't even be on the faculty. And Mohler just went ballistic on me, calling me names and, you know, screaming at me.

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So when you saw what he did with Phil Johnson, that was just a, you got just a brief glimpse of what

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Mohler will do when you upset him. He will, again, he will lose it.

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I mean, just absolutely lose it. And so, yeah, you got just a brief glimpse there.

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You got just a small taste. Do you think the Southern Baptist will nominate and then vote in and confirm

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Al Mohler as the new president next year? That's a good question. My guess is this is something

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Mohler won't very badly. He's made a couple of comments in faculty meeting about it that he said what

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Southern Baptist need right now is a statesman, and he's referring to himself. And he sees himself as a unifier.

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He says, I can unify the convention and all this. But he goes, but after that, I don't know. You know, and so, so, yeah,

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I think he will run for it. And I think this is a very important election.

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It'll be in Nashville. And I really hope Southern Baptist will show up because if Al Mohler gets it or someone like Al Mohler, then the direction that the

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Southern Baptist Convention is going right now, which is very troubling. I mean, the last time, this year, you know, the

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Southern Baptist Convention was canceled. But the year before, there was a resolution. And in that resolution, it was saying that critical race theory is a useful tool for us to understand racism and things of this nature, you see.

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That is, that shows you how far down the road that the

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Southern Baptist Convention has gone in apostasy. And if we elect Al Mohler or someone like Al Mohler next year,

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Southern Baptist Convention is really on a course that is very dangerous.

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And I really hope that the rank and file Southern Baptist will show up in Nashville in June of next year and really make their voice heard, because if something's not done...

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Now, when you look at all of the seminaries, there's problems in every seminary in the Southern Baptist Convention.

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Let me just tell you that right now. Also, in every...I see issues in every agency of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. If you look at Lifeway, for instance, look at some of the books they're publishing.

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It's pushing critical race theory. It's pushing these issues that we're discussing today.

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They're publishing some very dangerous books. And again, Southern Baptists need to rise up like they did a generation ago, and once again, we need not just a conservative resurgence where we just, you know, kind of like change people in their positions, but we truly need spiritual revival in the

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Southern Baptist Convention, and get back to, again, believing the Word of God and not going off into these terrible philosophies that are being accepted now in our convention.

34:57

Talking to Dr. Russell Fuller today on No Compromise Radio. One of the things you can do if you want to access

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Dr. Fuller's information, do you have any sermon sites or anything that you store your information, Dr. Fuller, that you'd like to tell our folks about?

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You know, I've just come out with a website, but I don't have much sermons somewhere, anything like that.

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The easiest way to contact me right now is on Facebook. If you would go to Facebook, you could contact me.

35:28

I have a website. I'm moving my website. Unfortunately, if I tried to tell you the website, it would be way too long.

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I have sort of a different type of website right now, but soon I'll have a website that is like RussellFuller .com.

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That's not what it's going to be. I think someone already has that domain. It's going to have a normal domain that I can just tell you, but you can contact me on Facebook, and I can show you where I can get you to my website.

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Right now, what I'm doing on my website is I'm starting a new venture, and in this venture, what

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I'm doing is I'm offering classes at a much more inexpensive price than what you'll see if you go to seminary today.

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Today, at some of the more, let's say, affordable seminaries, one class will cost you $1 ,000, while I'm offering some classes right now for like $250, and if you wanted to take like two or more classes, $500 for three, four, five classes if you want to take them.

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And what I'm doing is I'm teaching seminary -type classes on a seminary level, but yet accessible to all folks.

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We started just a couple weeks ago. You could still join us, especially if you're teaching an Old Testament introduction.

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I'm teaching a class on Jeremiah. You can still join us. We're doing it on Zoom, so you don't have to move.

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You don't have to leave your house. And if you take these courses, even though you've missed the first two lessons, no problem.

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With Zoom, I can send you videos, and so we can catch you up very quickly. Let me tell you, though, all my classes, there's no papers, there's no exams.

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We're not doing that. This is for people who just really want to learn God's Word and become better teachers and preachers of God's Word.

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So there's no exams. I mean, we're not trying to do this to pass a course. We're doing this just to learn the

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Bible, to try to become, to understand the Word of God better, and to, you know, help us in preaching and teaching.

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And in fact, I was teaching one of the classes, I was teaching Jeremiah, and at the end I said, let me tell you how I'm doing this, and let me tell you how

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I would preach this passage. And so for 15 minutes, I just showed them, took them step by step.

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You know, I would do this, I looked at this, and then let me show you here, look at the paragraph breaks in Jeremiah chapter 2.

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I would choose those paragraph breaks. Now, you decide whether you agree with them or not. They're not inspired. It's the editors of the

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New American Standard that I was using, but I said I would use those paragraph breaks for my points, you know?

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And so I was teaching them how to preach and teach, you know, that passage.

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And so I want to be very practical. I want to really teach God's Word. And again, we're not doing this to get a grade, so don't worry.

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I'm not going to call on you in class, but what I want you to do is I want you to dig deeper so that when you do teach

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God's Word, you'll be a more faithful expositor of God's Word. And that's what I'm trying to do in my classes.

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And again, if your listeners would like to join us, you're not too late. You can join us. And again, very affordable.

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Don't have to leave your home. And again, I'm not doing this to make you so you can present a paper somewhere at a scholarly meeting.

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No, I'm doing this for the Church. That's what's important. And so that's what this is all about.

38:59

Well, Dr. Fuller, it's interesting to me because after the RateMyProfessors .com was talking so much about your test and how hard it was and the grades and all that stuff, and now it's just easy street.

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You have become a grandfather. You know how it is.

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But again, you know, I've got students in their 70s, okay? I've got students in their teen years.

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So I've got quite a range of students from all over the world. I've got students in India, China, Australia, South Africa.

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I've got them from all over America. And let me tell you, when we meet, I'm on Eastern Standard Time, so the times are

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Eastern Standard Time. Monday nights, Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, that's when we meet.

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And again, if this is something you're interested in, just interested, layman,

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Sunday school teacher, pastor, you wanted some seminary training, but yet, you know, for whatever reason, you know, you couldn't afford it.

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You just couldn't move there, whatever. Hey, this is a different age we live now. And with Zoom, let me tell you, we can do some pretty good stuff.

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And so if you're interested, feel free to contact me. And by the way,

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Mike, maybe I'll leave some contact information with you. Contact Mike, and we'll get you started.

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Yeah, absolutely. If you cannot find Facebook for Dr. Fuller, you can always email me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

40:28

I'll get you in touch with Dr. Fuller. You know, I was thinking, Dr. Fuller, we probably need to wrap this up here soon.

40:34

I want to be cognizant of your time. Of course, our listeners would be familiar with Romans 8 and how our sovereign

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God works together things for good, and He causes these things to work together.

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Only our Lord could take, obviously, the worst thing that ever happened, the crucifixion of the guiltless man, the

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Lord Jesus, the God -man, and turn it into salvation. You know, that's the ultimate there. But even this, you know, you stand up for what you think is right.

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I don't know if you were formally fired or not, but you're out of Southern Seminary, and then something else happens.

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And so, I'm thankful that the Lord is rising or making these things work together for those students that are 70 in South Africa or 17.

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And would you speak a little bit, Dr. Fuller, to maybe why this is going to be important for the future when we have no on -campus classes because of disease, because of persecution?

41:37

This seems to be, could be a good way into the future for us as we train theological students.

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Yeah, this is true. You know, I know of some pastors out there that have a lot of debt because of either their undergrad training in Bible or seminary training.

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They've had to go into great debt. And, you know, as pastors, a lot of times we're bivocational, and being in debt is not a good thing.

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And so, through something like Zoom, you know, I can offer you, and again,

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I'm going to bring some other people alongside with me, so we're going to offer some Old Testament, New Testament theology.

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We're going to maybe break into things, again, like having preaching classes.

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I'd like to do something like that, perhaps. So, we want to make this affordable for everyone, and we definitely want to try to, we're going to try to be orthodox, and, you know, look, this is something you've got to keep an eye on all the time.

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If Paul's church in Ephesus can go bad, like Paul, when he goes away from them,

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I know that wolves are going to come upon you. That's going to happen with them. It's going to happen with any organization.

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It's going to happen with us personally. If we're not keeping close to the Lord, we drift away.

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We just, that's what we do. And so, it's so important that as, whether we're doing what

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I'm doing or whatever, we've got to constantly be checking ourselves to make sure we're not drifting, as the book of Hebrews tells us.

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And let me just say one thing. You know, I was let go. Technically, I wasn't fired, but,

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I mean, really, I was fired, but the coronavirus is just an opportunity for them to let me go.

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And, you know, I'd been there for 22 years, and, but I felt that when I was fired that it was truly in every way

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God's will. And I was thankful to God. And then, a person at Southern Seminary, and I won't give their name,

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I don't want them to get in trouble, looked at me and said, you know, you ought to go online and start offering courses.

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And when he said that to me, you know, I kind of nodded my head, and I thought, you know, that was crazy, but I didn't say it to him.

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But when I got in my car and started driving home, I'm like, you know, that's an interesting idea.

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And within two months, I can't tell you what the Lord has done and how many students He's brought in.

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In two months, we've got this off the ground. Let me tell you, the Lord does things beyond what we're able to ask or think.

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I couldn't imagine two months ago after getting let go at Southern Seminary that I'd be doing what

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I'm doing. I mean, it's just, it's beyond me what the Lord does. And, you know,

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I just, I'm amazed at what God does. And the Lord has been so good to me all my life.

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I just, I don't deserve any of this. And yet the Lord, His blessing to me,

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I don't deserve it. I do not deserve any of this. And so I just praise Him today, and tell your listeners, let me tell you,

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God is faithful to His promises. And God will, He will work all things for our good, to His glory.

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And that's all I want. I want to be in His will. If that's sweeping floors, I've done that before, let me tell you.

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And I have no problem sweeping floors. I just want to be in God's will. It looks like right now, this is what

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God's will is. He's just blessing this thing. And let me just say, the

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Lord is faithful. If we will take Him at His word and trust

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Him, let me tell you, God will be with us and He'll help us.

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And I'm testifying to that this day. And again, I don't deserve it. And so I want to praise

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His name today. Thank you, Mike, for letting me say that. Pete Well, Dr. Fuller, thank you for saying that. And as I was listening to you preach there for a moment,

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I just thought to myself, this is an excellent way to see life. And of course, with social justice, it's all law.

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You can't repent enough. You can't be forgiven. You're just always underneath this. It's not like you could even think, you know what?

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I've confessed my sins. God's faithful and just to forgive me. I'm cleansed. I'm washed. I'm cleaned.

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No, no, it's just a never ending battle because it's law only. And it's a self -imposed law.

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It's not even biblical law. And then on the flip side, talk about grace and to talk about the gospel and talk about good news.

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That's what our people need. They need to be reminded about who the Lord is and what He does.

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And He sits on a throne. He does whatever He pleases. And to imagine that He is pleased to have fellowship with us through His Son by the power of the

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Spirit, that is a wonderful promise. Dr. Fuller, thanks for being on No Compromise Radio.

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We went a little bit over, but I know our listeners will be very encouraged and edified. Thank you for standing for the truth.

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You could always be a guest on No Compromise Radio ministry. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it.

46:50

Speaking with you today. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

46:58

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

47:07

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.