Saying Goodbye to the Southern Baptist Convention

Why This Church Left the Southern Baptist Convention

There's a lot of off-ramps surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention right now, and a lot of churches are taking those off-ramps. So today I'm going to be talking to Pastor Nathaniel Jolly about why his church decided to leave the Southern Baptist Convention.

Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now. Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist. On today's program, I am welcoming my new friend and fellow pastor, Nathaniel Jolly of Homer Reformed Baptist Church in Alaska.

Now I want to bring him on, and I want to mention something really quick. We may have a few internet issues today because Nathaniel's coming, as I said, all the way from Alaska, but he is joining us today via his cell phone internet.

So if we have any internet issues, we'll try to edit those out. Hopefully we won't. Hopefully we'll have a good show. So thank you, Nathaniel, for being with our listeners today. Hey, Keith, thank you so much.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So I want to begin by saying that the reason why I'm having you on is because of the recent open letter that you placed on your site. Now, I've known of you for a while. I actually posted some things that you had quoted on my Facebook page quite a while ago.

It was just, I don't remember what you said, but it was a good quote, and I had quoted you, and I didn't know who you were. And then your name popped up in my Facebook feed, and I sent you a friend request, and we became Facebook friends.

And then I noticed your letter that you had posted, that you were leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. And so I read the letter, and I said, I wanted to have you come on the program to talk about why your church has made this decision.

Because as I've noted, there seems to be a lot of off-ramps surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention, and a lot of folks are eyeing those off-ramps fairly hard. And it seems like your church has decided to take those ramps, to take a ramp off and decided to leave.

So we're going to talk about that in a minute. But before we do, I have a couple of questions for you personally, just to introduce you to my audience. Can you tell us when you became a believer, when you got called into the ministry, and how long you've been a pastor?

From Charismatic Church to Reformed Baptist Convictions

Yeah, thanks for those questions. As my wife could tell you, timelines are not my strong suit. But I came to Lord a little bit later in life. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. And so it was end of high school, maybe beginning of college when I came to know the Lord.

And yeah, you know, from there, I ended up in a pretty decent church for a while. And then my journey took me into the Charismatic Church through some unfortunate circumstances. And so I was in the Charismatic Church for some years.

And of course, that comes with this all kind of stuff, you know. And then God, in His graciousness and kindness, led me out of that. And so I ended up coming out of the Charismatic Church. And I guess, I don't know, that's been maybe 10 plus years or something like that now.

And in God's providence, you know, here we are in Homer, Alaska, planting a church. And so that's the short version. Awesome. So when you left the Charismatic Church, were you a pastor in the Charismatic Church?

Yeah, at the point I left, I was not pastoring. I was teaching in the church. And so various home groups. The structure in the Charismatic Church is very, let's say, loose. And so you can be called a pastor or pastoring and not really be functioning or that way.

But I was teaching in the church. So doing all the things you might expect a Charismatic to do, leading groups and dream interpretations and speaking in tongues, none of which I believe are biblical now.

But yeah, that was kind of the lifestyle, just your common Charismatic stuff. So you were in the Charismatic Church, you were teaching. When did you get exposed to Reformed theology then? Was that while you were in the Charismatic Church or while after you became a Baptist?

Yeah, no, that was in the Charismatic Church. But I would say it was over a course of time. I didn't know the term Reformed theology until sometime later. And really R .C. Sproul was the one who sort of introduced me to that by way of audiobook and some other videos.

But really, kind of the first thing that really struck me is, I remember sitting at my desk very vividly, although the details escape me now, but preparing to teach on something. And I believe I was in the Book of Romans and I remember sitting there reading in large chunks, which Charismatics don't typically do very well.

And for whatever reason, I was concerned with context, which also is something that you don't do much in the Charismatic Church. And I just remembered coming to tears, sitting there thinking, my God, I think I'm a heretic.

And from that point on, I found myself looking at the holiness of God. And that was something that always personally struck me in the movement. The way we talked about angels particularly and dealt with angels just always struck me in the wrong way.

Because I thought, man, you know, in the Charismatic movement, we're talking about angels sitting on rafters, eating cheeseburgers, looking at how wonderful it is that we're worshiping. And you just don't see that kind of thing in Scripture, right?

You see people falling to their face thinking they're about to die because of the holiness. And yeah, and so that's kind of really what began the process. And then from there, you know, I stumbled across this acrostic tulip and well, what is this all about?

And total depravity? Yeah, I got that one. And you know, we just kind of just kind of went through and the more I dug into Scripture, I'm most committed word of God and that's really what brought me out.

It wasn't another person so much as just what I saw in Scripture was not what I saw in the Charismatic Church. And so God used that over the course of, you know, some years and then yeah, eventually that developed and here we are, you know, some many years later as a Reformed Baptist Church.

Reformed Baptist Churches in the SBC

So awesome. And as a Reformed Baptist Church, you were still part of the SBC. That's something I think people often don't realize is a lot of SBC churches are Reformed in their theology such as those in the Founders Groups and things like that.

So there's a lot of churches that are Reformed yet still Southern Baptist even though some Southern Baptists would say, well, Southern Baptists are traditionalists or provisionalists and they're not Calvinist, but that's not true.

There are a lot of Calvinists in the Southern Baptist movement. Was your Homer Baptist Church, you said it was a church plant. Now, is this a church that was planted from another Baptist Church or was that a church that you planted independently?

Yeah, no, we have a sending church and our sending church is in Tennessee. We planted out of them. And so also Southern Baptists, which is kind of how we ended up staying in the Southern Baptist world.

But you're right, there are many, many, many God-fearing, Bible-believing and rightfully so Calvinist Baptists in the Southern Baptist Convention. Awesome, awesome. So when we think about your church, it is a Calvinistic Baptist Church within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Well, it was, it's not anymore, but it was a Calvinistic Baptist Church within the Southern Baptist Convention. How long have you been a member of the Southern Baptist? I know I'm asking you a lot of timeline questions, but I'm trying to build a narrative for the listener because obviously many of them won't know you, won't know the history.

How long have you been in the SBC? Because that does raise the question of like, how big of a deal is it for your church to leave? Because like a church that's been in the SBC for a hundred years or for 50 years, that's a big deal.

But how long has your church been apart? Yeah, so our church plant particularly has been in the SBC. I mean, really by way of association from the beginning, we were looking at the NAMM direction at the beginning.

And of course, our ascending church is an SBC church. And honestly, I'm not sure how long that church has been in existence. It's an older church or how long they've been in the SBC. But, you know, I didn't grow up a believer and I didn't grow up, you know, in a believing home.

And so I didn't grow up in the Southern Baptist Convention. So I'm not a lifetime Southern Baptist. And so I don't have this overly emotional connection to the Southern Baptist Convention. I want to be biblical.

I want to be attached to things that are biblical. And there were some serious questions that we needed to ask as a church concerning the direction of the SBC. So now how is your how does your ascending church feel about y 'all's decision to step out?

Have they supported that or are they less than enthused that you guys have decided to do that? Oh, no. Yeah, they're super supportive and they're still in the SBC and we can talk about that because I still have a lot of dear friends that are in the SBC.

And I think some of them might be in the SBC forever, but I think you can still be biblically sound. I think you can still hold to biblical fidelity as things are now and still be in the Southern Baptist Convention.

I do really believe that. I think for us it was just time to part ways. Sure, and I read in your letter and I could tell in the heart of what you were writing that you were concerned that you did not want anyone who is staying to feel like you were condemning them or that by you leaving you were saying that they were necessarily in sin or anything for staying.

And you said that I think four times in the letter as I was reading it, it was stated over and over that this was the conviction that you all came to, but you weren't necessarily telling anyone else that this is what they had to do.

But I do believe that you are charting a path that other people are going to follow because this just seems to be the direction that it's going. As I said, there are off ramps popping up everywhere and whether it's the off ramp of critical race theory or if it's the off ramp of female pastors or whether it's the off ramp of feeling like there is a socialistic leftward turn within the Southern Baptist Convention.

All of these things are things that seem to be a bridge too far for many people. And so they see these, as I said, these are just different ways that people say, we got to get off here. We can't go any further.

What was the off ramp that really ultimately led to your, I know that in the letter you mentioned critical race theory. I know that in the letter you mentioned, I think you mentioned a church in Florida that was ordaining women pastors and baptizing homosexuals and I think cohabitating couples.

I think it was what was the letter mentioned, but speak to that. Talk about what was it that the bridge that pushed you guys or the bridge too far. Yeah. Well, if I may, let me just speak to the first point first about why I did put so many times in the letter that I think faithful churches can stay because I worry when I hear some guys leave kind of use the language of, well, it's sinful to stay.

However, they may state that. Let me tell you why that's not true. I'll argue someone to the grave that that's not true. When we leave, we need to do so out of conviction and biblically and when we accuse people of staying, of being in sin, that has to be something that's biblical too.

And I just think we need to be careful with that. The way the SBC is structured, and there are guys who understand this far better than I, but as I understand it, one, it's not a convention. It's a collective of churches working together.

It's not a top-down convention, although it looks that way. When the SBC adopts resolutions, that's not binding on any individual church in the SBC. The second thing is the Baptist faith and message to which every church has to adhere to, or at least in theory.

That is so vague that you can do that as long as you're just a Christian, right? Funding. You can control the money and where you send it in the SBC. So because of those things, the way the SBC is set up, you can decide not to fund certain things.

You can be faithful to the Baptist faith and the BFM 2000, whether or not another church is or not. And so because you can do those things at the moment, I believe you can still be in the SBC and not be in sin and not be partnering with sin.

We've got to understand that biblically. So that's why I put in the letter so many times what I did. Now, I think beyond those things, you know, if they ever changed the Baptist faith and message to say you had to agree with female pastors, well, then you have to leave.

You no longer have an option, right? You have to agree to something that's not biblical, but they haven't gone there yet. So what was it for us then, if I don't believe it's sin to stay? What was kind of the bridge too far for our church?

Well, it wasn't any of those particular issues in and of themselves. Just as I put in the letter, it was four points of consideration as a pastor. And every SBC pastor, I would say this is true for all of us.

Your responsibility is not to a convention. It's not to a club. It's not to a group of pastors, not to association. Your responsibility is to your own flock. When you die, you stand before the Lord. You're going to give an account for the souls, not of the Southern Baptist Convention.

You're going to give them an account of the flock that God has entrusted to you. And so I came to the conclusion that I need to ask a few questions about my duty and responsibility as a shepherd and under shepherd.

And you know, they were, does being in the SBC promote or hinder our gospel work? That was one of them. Well, my conclusion is that it hinders it. It hinders it because I find myself promoting and preaching biblically the very opposite of some of the godless things many in the SBC is promoting.

So it hurts our gospel work. Someone from the outside could look at our church and say, well, you're not in line with what we see the platform pushing. And that, so that becomes a hindrance for me. The second point was, does it, does joining that, does being associated with the SBC, do I feel like it hinders or it promotes holiness and faithfulness to scripture?

Well, I felt like it hinders that. When the people in our church are exposed to people like Russell Moore, and I know he's not on in the SBC anymore, but the man's a snake. Or when they're, you know, when they look at some of the things that come from the stage, you know, during the convention and when my people say things like, and they haven't, but when they're exposed to things like, oh, well, you can still be a homosexual and a Christian.

Well, tell me how is that promoting holiness? And then I have to come behind and undo the damage that the SBC leaders are creating in our congregations. So that was one. A third one I put in that letter was, is the church, is our church, is my church strengthened or weakened by exposure to SBC entity heads?

So, you know, with J .D. Greer, we had a president who seems to think the Bible only whispers about homosexuality when in fact that's not true. And then the next president, we have a man who seemed to be or not was okay with plagiarism.

I mean, it appeared to be hundreds of times. And then he's a liar on top of that because he just shoved it under the carpet. When you have entity heads that are okay with sin, that's not something I want to expose my church to.

That doesn't strengthen the church, that weakens the church. And then the last thing I put was, does affiliation with the SBC aid me in faithfully shepherding my flock? And my conclusion was, and these are all my opinions when I look at my flock and I consider what I have to give an answer for before the Lord.

These are the conclusions I came to. Well, the SBC in my mind, my affiliation doesn't help me faithfully shepherd the flock. In fact, I think if you're going to stay in the SBC and you're going to do it in a godly way, then you need to be fighting.

You need to be fighting for truth. You need to be fighting for fidelity to the word. If you're just in the SBC and you're not fighting, then you're not being faithful because it is inevitably going in a bad direction.

I don't even want to say it's a leftward drift. It's just in the left. And so if you're going to be in the SBC, then man up and fight for what's right and what's truth. Well, I can't afford to put that amount of energy into fighting.

And every bit that I put into that is something I take away from my own flock. And then beyond that, the fact that I have to fight means that there's a threat. So I'm guarding my own flock against the things coming from the convention I'm a part of.

And so for me, I just couldn't say that my affiliation with the SBC was helping me faithfully shepherd my flock. It just made me aware of another wolf that I need to guard against that. And to be quite frank, there are plenty of wolves out there to guard the church against.

I don't want to add one of my own accord. So those were kind of the four areas that I considered. And my personal conclusion is where we are in Alaska being a small church plant. I'm currently the only elder.

It just wasn't a thing of faithfulness for me and for our church, not the healthiest thing to remain in the SBC. And so that's why we left. If I might, the next natural question is, why did we write an open letter?

I don't know if you were going to go there or not. Well, that's a great segue. You can go ahead and take off with it. I do have a couple other questions, but go ahead and answer that question first. Go ahead.

Why Leave Publicly and Why the Church Received It Well

Yeah, that's the 30-second answer. I think every pastor that leaves ought to write an open letter to the SBC so that the entity heads and people in the SBC know exactly why churches are leaving. I would argue it's a responsibility.

Don't leave quietly. It's not about being recognized. I mean, we're a tiny church. I'm a nobody pastor in a little town in Alaska, but I want the SBC leaders, if any of them saw it, or people, to know what's going on.

If nothing more than so, they know exactly how they need to be praying for churches and for people and for the SBC. Yeah, absolutely. And that makes perfect sense. When it comes to your own church's response, like you said, it's a church plant.

I'm assuming that most of the people that are coming to the church came to the church through your outreach. You're a new pastor in the area, so I'm imagining, I don't know this, but I'm assuming you kind of went door to door, met people.

I mean, I don't know what it looked like whenever you planted the church, but the people probably have a fairly good level of trust in who you are as a leader, so they're probably trusting you. But did you receive a lot of pushback from within your own body to say, hey, we can't disconnect from the international body here.

We can't be lone wolves. We need to be part of the bigger flock. Was there any of that or did everybody sort of support what you were saying? Yeah, no pushback at all. I think my people understand there's no mandate in Scripture to be a part of some convention.

The local church is autonomous. Even the Southern Baptist Church understands this to be true, which is why it's not a denomination. It's a convention. Every church is autonomous. And the truth is we're not alone, right?

We still have just wonderful, godly folks we're connected with like Founders Ministry, and our church is a member of the G3 Network as well, and so we've connected with other godly, like-minded churches for fellowship and for prayer and strengthening and things like that.

But I presented my concerns to the congregation, and those concerns were just based on what the Lord would have me do as a faithful shepherd, and it had to do with the health of our flock. And of course, that's what everyone wants to see is us have a healthy, God-fearing, biblical church.

And so we didn't have any pushback. Awesome. Awesome. Now, you mentioned the G3 Network. I know that that's a relatively new organization that's gathering based on the G3 Conference that's been very popular over the last decade.

What was the process of getting to become a part of that? Is that just a... Because we're not yet. Our church is... We're part of the Founders, but we haven't done anything with G3. Is that something that is open to any and all Reformed Baptist churches, or what's their criteria?

Yeah. As I remembered, it was actually a pretty simple process. You can go to their website. They ask a handful of questions about the church, about your leadership, about your beliefs. There are some doctrinal statements you have to agree to, but it wasn't an overly complicated process.

And have you had any response from that? Has anybody reached out to you because of your connection with them or because of your connection with the Founders? We get messages from people all the time because we're on the Founders website.

Hey, we found you on Founders. We're in town. We wanted to visit a Reformed church, so we're coming to you on Sunday. You guys get that as well? Yeah. I know that we've had some visitors from Founders.

I'm not sure about G3 just yet. We don't get many out-of-town visitors in Alaska per se. Guys come in the summer and it's packed, but guys are out on boats fishing or whatever. We may have had one, but I'm not sure.

Tell me again where you are in Alaska because I've never been there. I'm a Florida boy. I've never ever been in that far north. So where are you located? We are located on the peninsula in Homer, Alaska, and we're at the very end of the road system right before you fall into the ocean.

Can you see Russia from your house? You know, we can't. I can't see Russia from my house. I can see Russians from my house sometimes. We have a pretty big Russian community here, but yeah. I don't know if you got that joke this year.

Oh, I did. Okay. I did. Yep. Yeah. And you know where we live right now in the height of the summer, our high today is a very hot 54 degrees. Oh, wow. Wow. So that now, okay, you just blew my mind because again, in Florida, 54 degrees, we're bundled up.

We, you know, we've got, you know, we're, we don't want to go outside when it's 54 degrees, uh, it is 90 degrees at 8 PM or 6 PM here in Jacksonville or yeah. Well, I do feel like melting half the time, half the time.

The SBC Convention, Tom Buck, and the California Meeting

Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, uh, getting back to the, to the departure from the SBC, when you, when you decided to leave, I noticed the open letter went out, uh, just a few weeks ago here. I've got it pulled up on my Facebook.

It looks like it went out on July 21st on your Facebook page. So, uh, not quite a month ago. Well, actually two months ago. Yeah. Not quite two months ago. Was that in response to the SBC 2022 event? And I, I know I asked you before the program, you said you didn't go, but was that, was that still part of what led you to that final, was that the straw that broke the camel's back?

Yeah, I think so. Um, you know, I watched the convention online and so, uh, I didn't attend, uh, in person, but I did, I did watch the convention. Yeah. You know, um, I had had some conversations with, uh, some, some folks the year before about kind of, well, how, how long do we stay in fight?

You know, when, when is, is far too far. And, uh, so, you know, originally it was kind of looking at the next convention, not this one, but, um, you know, with the president deciding not to, uh, not to remain and Tom Askell being put up along with Votie Bauckham, I thought, all right, well, you know, really we'll just see.

Um, and I have to admit, I, I, I did not expect that Tom was going to win. Uh, I wish that he would, I was praying for that, hoping for that. Um, but I, there was nothing in me that thought, uh, he, he would, um, sadly.

So that just kind of tells you where my thinking was already. Um, and, and, and Votie, I didn't have any idea, you know, because I think Votie kind of put those guys between a rock and a hard place, right?

Um, the SBC is so worried about your skin color these days that it's, I, it, there's some irony in the fact that he didn't get the vote. Um, but anyway, so you just want. I'm sorry. I have to ask this question.

Do you think putting it in California was strategic? Or do you think that that's just, that that was just the luck of the draw? Because it seems to be that putting it in California drew more people from, from that side of the aisle, because of course, California being a leftward leaning, uh, community.

Uh, I mean, I know a lot of guys in Florida didn't go fly. So as I understand it, that couldn't be the case because actually those, uh, the location is actually picked years in advance. It's not publicly announced, but it was actually picked a long time ago, as I understand.

So like the Superbowl, they know, they know where it's going to be. It's not. Yeah. Yeah. I did originally think that, but, um, someone corrected me who knows these things and actually those convention locations are picked some years in advance, as I understand.

So, uh, I don't think it helped, but I don't think it was planned. Um, I, I, I think they probably celebrated that, but, um, yeah, so, you know, I looked at everything that came out of the convention, giving Rick Warren the open floor while shutting down.

You know, people like Tom and Jennifer Buck who, you know, I, I mean, that was a good example for, for instance, let me just talk to Tom and Jennifer Buck situation. Um, you know, it's all kind of been out in the open and the public and Jennifer Buck is, uh, you know, uh, abuse survivor and those kinds of things.

You know, the SBC paints this big picture of how we need to care for the abused and we do right. No Christian, um, denies that no, no Christian denies that we want to love the abuse. We want to care for the abuse, but we want to do it.

We have a book that tells us how to do that. Um, right. Uh, so we want to do it biblically and in a God honoring way. And so you have the convention that's making this big public scene about abuse victims, but then they literally turn the mics off on two people on the floor, Tom Buck and Jennifer.

They didn't even let Jennifer Buck speak. Right. So the hypocrisy in that sort of thing, um, is, was astonishing. So basically what they communicated very clearly is that we care about abuse victims as long as you're the right type of abuse victim.

So if you're not on our side politically, uh, then actually you're not the kind of abuse victim we care about. And so just all those kinds of things together, um, along with, you know, the previous line of thought sort of led us to say, well, I, I don't, I don't see that this ship is going to get turned around.

I think it's the Titanic. It's already hit the iceberg. It's sinking. And now it's just a matter of, um, how far you want to climb up on the ship before you jump off onto a raft or something. And for us, it, it's just far too gone.

I think, you know, a lot of guys are staying, if we're honest, just out of emotional attachment. And I don't think that, um, that that's necessarily a bad thing, but I just don't have that. And our church is far more concerned with, um, moving forward and, and what God has us, has for us in our own community than trying to salvage the SBC that seems at this stage, outside of a miracle to be unsalvageable.

Absolutely. And for, uh, listeners who may not know this just a few weeks ago, I did interview Tom Buck on our program. So if anyone is interested in going back and learning more about Tom's situation and the situation with his wife, uh, please look back into our archives.

You can see where I talked to Tom Buck about that same subject that Nathaniel has just brought up. So, yeah, that's, that, that, that was a horrible situation. Um, it's, it's sad to see anyone treated the way that they have both been treated throughout this entire course of events.

And, uh, it, it does sort of draw a line in the sand and say, okay, if you're on this side, it's not that we're not going to treat you, uh, you know, right. We're not going to even treat you civilly. We're just going to not listen to you.

And, and that sure does, uh, it sure does paint an ugly picture within the, within the community for sure. Yeah. I think, you know, for us, uh, you can, and I tweeted something about this. Uh, I don't know, it was today or yesterday.

Um, there are a lot of people far more intelligent than I am. They have far deeper insights into the SBC than I do or ever will. Uh, and they can give you these very kind of complicated and very detailed, uh, summary of all the issues in the SBC.

And I think those are very good and they're very right. And they're coming from incredibly God fearing and intelligent men, but we can really just get to brass tacks. The problem in the SBC is that there are far too many people in leadership who have no fear of God than those that do.

And that's the problem. And when you lose the fear of God, you allow all kinds of sin to creep in. And, and that is what has happened in the SBC. Um, you know, undeniable, undeniably so, the SBC is okay with women pastors.

Yeah. I mean, you can stick your head in the sand and you can say that's not true, but the fact that churches are doing it and not disfellowshipped proves that it's not a concern. I mean, they were going to try to do a, um, oh, what is it?

Uh, they were going to try to do a big committee on, uh, what Southern Baptists believe a pastor is, you know, um, if you're in leadership, I would say you've been at, you've been a convention since the mid 1800s and you haven't defined what a pastor is yet.

Right. If that even comes up in leadership, you're just disqualified. Um, because we know they know what a pastor is. That's just trying to find a loophole. And then of course you give Rick Warren, who's the church that last year ordained, I think three women, so-called pastors.

If I remember when you give him an open floor like that, where it basically his so-called love letter to the SBC was a rebuke. Um, and, and then his, you know, instead of disfellowshipping him, you basically let him chastise the whole convention.

Um, that's just, you know, the writings on the wall. And I think it was, it was, that was enough for us. You know, what's interesting about that, uh, Nathaniel is that I think a lot of people didn't even realize Rick Warren was still in the SBC.

I mean, as far as like the rank and file people, they think of, they think of the purpose-driven life that, you know, that came out back in the late nineties, purpose-driven church, and every church did the 40 days of purpose and all that different stuff.

And they bought the, I remember seeing banners that churches were putting up. We're doing 40 days of this and that. And, and, and so I know that people may, may know that he has a connection within the Baptist movement, but I mean, we know that Warren has done things like supported, um, uh, things like Islamic belief, you know, that Muslims believe in the same God as Christians, which is not true.

Uh, Warren has promoted, um, uh, uh, the Pope saying that he was our Pope and, you know, sort of a, a blurring the line between Protestant and Catholic. The one thing that he did that, that so offended me, and this was actually not even, not even something I think a lot of people know about, I wish I maybe I can find the clip.

Um, but he, he was giving a talk to a group of businessmen. Now this was not a Christian group. This was a, this was a company that had brought him in as like a motivational speaker. He was like the Tony Robbins of this, of this group.

And he had come in and he said, um, he was telling a story about his son, how his son was asleep in bed and he would sit and watch his son sleep and how proud of, proud of his son he was just watching him sleep.

And there was a, it was a touching story. I mean, every, every father who has a son, you know, we understand the heart of what he was saying. And he says, and that's the way God looks at you. God looks at you and he's just so proud of you.

And he says, that's my boy. I'm so proud of him. And I remember thinking, this is not a church. This is not a group of, of regenerate people. This is a group of businessmen who are probably many of them unsaved.

And basically he just said, God looks at you with approval. God looks at you with, with a, with, by saying that's my boy. And I'm proud of you, even though you're probably going to bust hell wide open if you don't repent and turn to Christ, you know, not probably you will, if you, you know, sorry, I didn't even get to get my preacher mode there for a moment, but that's, that's the thing of my heart is here's the guy who's claiming to have influence over a million pastors, which is, I think is ridiculous.

But this guy is saying that he has all this influence. And at the same time, what has he influenced our, uh, the convention to be? I say our convention, I'm not a Southern Baptist, but I did go to a Southern Baptist seminary.

So I feel like a genetic link in that the men that trained me to study the men who, and it was a small, it was a small Jacksonville Baptist seminary. I always called it pastor trade school. It was like a night school.

It was, it wasn't anything like Southern or Southwestern. It was a little small one room school here in Jacksonville, but the men love me. And they, and I remember one of the, one of the questions on an exam, this is going to make you laugh.

One of the questions was, what is the, what is the, the most, um, biblically adherent group in the, in the world? And it was a Southern Baptist convention. That was the answer because they were so committed to the SBC.

They believed it was, it was the one that was following the scripture most closely. And they wanted you to affirm that on the test. You knew what the right answer was. Even if you didn't believe it. You should have wrote in Grace Community Church, John MacArthur.