Episode 112: An Interview with Brian Gunter

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I am your host,

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Allen Nelson, one of the pastors in Perryville, Arkansas, Providence Baptist Church.

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And I'm glad to have with me, though it pains me to say it, the LSU Tiger fan.

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Are you a Tiger fan? Well, I used to be a big Tiger fan, a New Orleans Saints fan. I guess I still am, but I just don't take any time to watch football anymore.

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If there's a team I'm for, it's the Tigers and the Saints. What about the baseball, basketball, anything?

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Look, man, I grew up loving the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros, so it's hard to... And I was a pitcher growing up, so yeah, baseball is more the sport that I really love.

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So I love the Braves and the Astros. Well, you're a busy man. This is Brian Gutter, who's actually talking to me while driving right now after some important work that you were doing in Kentucky.

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Why don't you tell us a little bit about that, but tell us first about your church and where you pastor.

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Absolutely, so I've actually been in ministry. I was ordained on my 19th birthday. I was an associate pastor at Pentecostal Church in Forest Hill, Louisiana, for,

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I believe it was right at three years. And I finished my education at Louisiana College with my bachelor's in philosophy and biblical studies.

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That's where I learned to love the word of God deeply, like started reading biblical languages, really getting into systematic theology and had a great undergraduate education.

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So after Louisiana College, I went to Southwestern Seminary in 2008 and I did an advanced master of divinity.

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And that degree program was for students who had 45 credit hours in seminary work through their undergraduate study.

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So I'd already had essentially a year and a half of seminary under my belt by the time I started seminary.

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So I just started from there and kept going. The advanced MDiv is where you do an additional 45 hours of work.

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You take the same amount of courses, but you just start with advanced courses when you get there.

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And so I chose my additional 45 hours to be 15 hours of Hebrew, 15 hours of Greek and 15 hours of biblical counseling, which

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I found out as a pastor, I needed to know how to counsel people. And so did biblical counseling there.

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And so God really blessed it. I'd say the greatest tool that I ever gained in seminary was first biblical languages and second, learning how to utilize church history and how helpful it is in our own theology and just understanding that we don't live in a bubble and that centuries and millennia of faithful brothers and sisters had gone on before us.

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So during this time of getting my education, I was pastoring churches the whole time. There was a period of about three or four months that I worked at Lifeway Christian Bookstore when

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I wasn't pastoring. So if you want to include that, I guess you can subtract that from my, it'll be 20 years in August of this year, 20 years that I've been pastoring except for my brief stint at Lifeway.

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So with that in mind, I've just really been blessed through the years in pastoring churches, pastored two churches in Texas, First Baptist Church of Evance and Bethel Baptist Church just north of Chico, Texas, rural, rural, super rural churches in the

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Hill Country of Texas. Came back to Louisiana in December of 2013, close to where my family is in the

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Alexandria, Louisiana area and pastored First Baptist Church of Pollock, Louisiana for eight years and four months and seven years of which

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Dalton Adger was my associate pastor. And I believe you know Dalton, right? Yes, sir. And he's a good friend.

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We're actually having dinner tonight because I'll be in Little Rock tonight. And so I'm going to get to see him and his family. I'm looking forward to it.

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So when I came to Livingston, I'd been pastoring for a little over eight years and there was also this bill in our state legislature that I was working on that I knew was coming up.

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And you know how in the letter to the church in Philadelphia that Jesus says in Revelation 3 that he opens doors that no one else can open, closes doors that no one else can close.

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Well, here's how I would put it. I had decided to stay at First Baptist Church in Pollock for the rest of my life if God let me and God opened doors and closed doors that clearly only he could open and close.

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And God's sovereign hand was so much upon that work and was so clear that he wanted me there.

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I wouldn't want to give all the details because some of them are personal in nature, but let me just say I have absolutely zero doubt that God sovereignly and supernaturally called me to pastor

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First Baptist Church in Livingston, Louisiana. God didn't write it in the sky. He didn't speak to me audibly.

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He just providentially demonstrated that that's where he wanted me and I knew I would be disobeying him if I didn't be there.

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Yeah. Amen. Amen. Well, I want to talk about your church, but I had some questions about some things that you guys are doing.

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But before I do, is there anything, because I know there's some things going on right now with the abolition of abortion and I know you were doing some things in Kentucky.

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I know there's, by the time this podcast comes out, it'll actually, the meeting in Atlanta will already have been passed.

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This podcast should come out the first week of April. But is there anything that you'd like, you know, our listeners to know about what your work in seeing abortion abolished in our nation?

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Yes, absolutely. So the abolition of abortion is simply this. It's the position that we should immediately abolish all child sacrifice in the

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United States of America across the world. And what that means is, is that it shouldn't be legal for anyone to murder an innocent human being.

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Murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone, to quote attorney Bradley Pierce, who has written almost all of our abolitionist bills.

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And so murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone, but in every state in America right now, it is legal for any mother to self -manage her own abortion and thereby murder her preborn child as long as she does it herself without an abortionist to assist her or something like that.

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In many states like Louisiana and Kentucky and your state of Arkansas, it is legal for a mother to purchase, possess, and consume the abortion pill, thereby murdering her child.

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But if you, Quatro, were to order an abortion pill, you would be committing a crime in the state of Arkansas.

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You could be charged with a very serious crime if you order and purchase and possess an abortion pill, but your wife can do it.

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And that's another thing. We believe in equal rights, right? So why is one thing legal for a woman and not for a man?

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A medication, right? I mean, it's not a medication. It's not being used like a medication. It's being used as a poison to murder a human being.

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But my point is, if it is a medication, why is it legal for women and not for men to possess it, merely to possess it?

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Like, what if someone was buying it for their girlfriend or wife? That's a crime. Our laws are ridiculous. And by the way, the reason they're so ridiculous is not because Planned Parenthood wrote them.

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It's because National Right to Life and many state National Right to Life affiliates, with a few exceptions, like Georgia Right to Life, who was abolitionist.

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But other than that, what we have in this nation is the national pro -life movement fighting to keep abortion legal for women in every state in America.

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Now, you might hear that, listener, and you might think, that's an overstatement, that's hyperbole. It is not.

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Go and watch our video on Apology of Studios on YouTube, The Fatal Flaw, The Fatal Flaw, and you will see proof.

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Go and watch the Foundation to Abolish Abortion six -part docuseries, Abortion Free.

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Go to Abortion Free and watch that docuseries from Foundation to Abolish Abortion, FAA .life.

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You can find all those things there and then apologyofstudios .com or on YouTube. And if you go and look at those things, you will see that what

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I'm saying is absolutely true. I won't give all the evidence because that's not exactly what we're talking about today. But next

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Monday at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta, Georgia, Jeff Durbin, Josh Baez, I, and many others, we don't know who will be joining us all yet, but we will be rallying, and at least three of us and probably some others will be preaching at the

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Georgia Capitol. And I'm bringing my family. And right now, at least two men in my church have taken off work and more are trying.

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And we have people who will be driving nine hours from Livingston, Louisiana, in a caravan across the

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Southeastern United States to rally at the state Capitol because we care about babies in Georgia and Kentucky and Arkansas and Louisiana.

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We care about them everywhere, but we're gonna abolish abortion in the United States of America, and it's gonna be the church who does it.

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Amen. How far is it from Livingston to Atlanta? It's about a nine -hour drive.

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About a nine -hour drive. We're gonna leave Sunday after church. We're gonna load up the cars. We're gonna pull out, and we are gonna caravan to Atlanta, and the next day, noon

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Monday in Atlanta, all the listeners will hear about this afterward, we will rally and proclaim the gospel.

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By the time this comes out, you'll be able to see the video. Amen. Well, look, I do wanna get to our topic, but since we're on this topic, and this is kind of in the news right now, and a lot of people are talking about it, and I actually am surprised to see some pastors and even some

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Christians that seem to not understand the issue when it comes to IVF.

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So do you wanna talk about that for just a second? Yeah, so I would ask the question, when does life begin?

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The Bible says in Psalm 139, 16, you formed my unformed substance.

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Your eyes saw my unformed substance. When you formed me in my mother's womb, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

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My soul knows it very well. Now, when we look at Psalm 139, verse 16, the

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Hebrew word there for your eyes saw my unformed substance God saw David, who's writing the psalm.

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He saw his unformed substance. The Hebrew word there for unformed, translated unformed substance in the

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English standard version, the Hebrew word that David used was the Hebrew word golem, golem. And if you look that word up in Brown, Driver, Briggs, which you'll know,

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Alan is the, one of the most widely used and over a century old

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Hebrew lexicon, very well respected. And you know what the first and most common definition for the

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Hebrew word golem is? Embryo, embryo, embryo. That's the correct translation.

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Your eyes saw me when I was an embryo, Psalm 129, verse 16. By the way, I double checked this with one of my

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Hebrew professors from Southwestern, Dr. Eric Mitchell, the Hebrew professor, not the philosopher, they have the same name.

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And so Dr. Mitchell said, yes, that's exactly what that verse is saying. So I say on his authority that that exegesis is accurate.

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And so, but also it is, anyone who can read the Hebrew text can see it. And so the

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Bible says life begins when you're an embryo. Literally the word means tiny round ball in the Hebrew language. Of course, you know, the ancient

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Hebrews, apart from supernatural revelation, did not understand embryology as we do today, the development of child in the womb.

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However, they knew that when you, the first day of your life, you were a tiny round ball in your mother's womb.

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And that's what David wrote in the Lord of Goliath. And that's what is true. And so life begins at the moment of fertilization.

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If that is true, those children in those Petri dishes and IVF laboratories are children who are being experimented on like lab rats.

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That's the first thing. We don't treat human life like a lab rat. Number two, because we're created in the image of God, obviously.

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Number two, they regularly destroy life. It takes, now, I don't know exactly how many, but my friend

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John Speed, who works constantly outside the IVF clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, it takes 25 plus dead children to get one live

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IVF birth. So the second thing you need to ask yourself is, if you use IVF, are you willing to have more than 25 of your children die in order for you to have one live birth?

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You need to ask yourself that question. Number three, can IVF be done ethically? Well, I'm not sure, but I can tell you,

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I've never seen it, never heard of it. And I do not know, and I'm pretty confident in saying this, there's nowhere in the world right now where IVF is being practiced ethically.

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Maybe such as possible. What would an ethical IVF usage look like?

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If you were to use in vitro fertilization, ethically, you would create one human life. You would preserve that human life, no matter if it wasn't as strong as you wanted.

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Some embryos might show more promise of making it to a live birth.

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So they may be stronger, but it doesn't matter. We don't murder the weak because they're weak. That's what the Nazis did.

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That's not what Christians do. And so we would say that you must preserve that human life.

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But I still would ask the question, is it right to create human life in a laboratory? Or should we trust that God opens and closes the womb?

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Listen, if you are unable to conceive children naturally, I realize that that might be extremely heartbreaking.

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And no, I have not personally experienced it. But I would ask you, submit to the word of God. Don't demand that this pastor who has studied the biblical text for decades, and I know what it says, don't demand that I submit to your emotional demands, but rather you should submit to the authoritative, inerrant, and sufficient word of God.

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I want to tell you, adoption is beautiful. Adoption is beautiful. There are thousands of children across America right now who are waiting to be adopted into Christian homes.

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And if you want to adopt, you can. You might not get an infant, but you can get a child and raise that child in the fear and admonition of the

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Lord. So I would just say, I do recommend IVF. I am willing to consider arguments that it might be used ethically, although I've never been convinced by those arguments,

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I am willing to consider it, but I do not know of IVF ever being used ethically. So here's the deal with our bills of abolition,

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Father. This is the real point, okay? Our bills simply say life begins at conception and will be equally protected from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death.

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This is the principle of the United States Constitution, the 14th Amendment. It says that all persons within the jurisdiction of the

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United States of America, now notice it doesn't just say citizens as liberals often wrongly because they can't read the

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Constitution or never attempted to do so. It does not say only citizens have a right to life.

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It says all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States of America, if you are from another country and you're traveling through, we cannot legally murder you.

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Although liberals claim so all the time, they're wrong. Every person within the jurisdiction of the

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United States of America is entitled to equal protection under the law that is in the 14th Amendment to the

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United States Constitution. And it was written in order to abolish slavery, but you know what else it would do if we followed it?

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It would abolish human abortion. Child sacrifice would be ended and it should be ended because the supreme law of our land is the

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United States Constitution and we violate it every time we allow an innocent pre -born human being to be legally murdered by a mother or an

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IVF doctor or an abortionist. So that's our position and we need more Christians and more churches to stand with the abolitionist movement.

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So if you wanna learn more, I'd recommend check out Foundation to Abolish Abortion, End Abortion Now and other abolitionist ministries.

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We need your help to end child sacrifice in our nation. Excellent, brother. John Speed, he knows everybody.

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He's been on the podcast before. He's a dear brother and I'm grateful for him.

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I think a couple of things I just wanna say, let's say someone's listening and they're like, yeah, but my cousin or my neighbor or whoever, they have a beautiful child that was born because of IVF.

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Well, a couple of things I'd say. One, I would say that I have a friend or I say someone a friend, someone

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I went to high school with and the way that they were born is through rape.

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And so what do I say about this child that was born through rape? I say, praise God for the child, praise

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God for life while maintaining a hatred for rape. And the same thing

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I would say with IVF. You say, I have a child born because of IVF. I praise

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God for the child, praise God for the fact that that child is living and here with us, but I can still hate the means by which the child got here, just like I hate, just like I hate rape.

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So I think it's important that we're not, we love all life, right?

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We love, it's really wicked that we discard and disparage life so carelessly in our nation today.

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I'm preaching this week, by the time this podcast comes out, it'll be several weeks in the past, but I'm preaching on Nahum 3 .1

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and God just says to Nineveh, woe to you, bloody city. And the question I have is, if God is gonna bring judgment on Nineveh for all the blood that they shed and you add up all the sacrifices they did and all the people they killed and you'll probably over the decades and centuries, get up into the millions, maybe into the millions.

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But you think about in the last 50 years alone, 50 plus years in our nation, we make

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Nineveh look like child's play with the blood that we've shed. And so anyway, anything else you wanna say about that?

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I know that wasn't the focus, but I think that was helpful and I appreciate your comments. Well, I hope that was the best treatment that I can give in five minutes or less on IVF.

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If you wanna learn more, I recommend checking out Jon Speed and I guess the podcast you did with him, he probably explained a lot of this, but he's the man that I would go to if I had more questions.

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Also, Brett Baggett from Rescue Those has done an excellent pamphlet. If you've not gone to rescuethose .org and read the pamphlet on IVF, I forget the title of it, but you'll find it if you go there.

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Brett Baggett has done a fantastic job in laying these issues out. Dusty Beaver, state senator in Oklahoma and also a pastor there also has done fantastic work on this.

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And I defer to those men who understand that issue much better than I do, but that's my rundown.

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Yeah, amen. I know those brothers too, recommend them and it's great. It's great to know some of the overlap in our world and our camps.

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Well, I guess we'll transition here a bit. I told you, so all of that is just extra, but I told you one of the things

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I wanted to talk to you about today is you're leading your church presently through the 1689 confession.

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And I told you that I really appreciate men like Sam Waldron and Dr.

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James, Dr. Sam Waldron, I say, Dr. James Renahan, the scholars on the 1689, my friend,

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Dr. Jeff Johnson. I really appreciate those kinds of guys and their leadership and all those things.

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But one of the things I really like to do is to talk to brothers who are boots on the ground, you're in the trenches and you're leading a church from one place to another in terms of health and robust doctrine.

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And so tell us a little bit about your experience, how things are going and maybe even your motivation and why you're doing what you're doing in this endeavor.

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Amen, well, First Baptist Livingston isn't the church where, the first church where I've taught the 1689

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Baptist confession of faith. I first did that at First Baptist Church of Pollock, Louisiana, and Dalton was there for that whole process.

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So when I came to Livingston, having already taught through line by line, the 1689 confession, which on Sunday morning and evenings took me about two years, that's about the speed that I went through it.

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So about a hundred times a year, so about 200 sessions. And I taught through the entire confession at about 45 minutes of the time.

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And so how many hours that is. And so I'm doing that again at Livingston about the same pace, maybe slightly faster.

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So I've been about two years. It's primarily been Wednesday nights I've been doing this and I'm not done, but I am in the thick of chapter 26 on the church, which is the longest chapter.

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When I came as pastor First Baptist Livingston, that interview process was very thorough.

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I interviewed for an entire day with the search committee.

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Then I met with the church over the course of the weekend, preached three times, had an hour question and answer session.

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And every family in that church had an opportunity to meet me and my family and to visit with us and spend time with us, the fellowship time set up so that when

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I came and gave a call from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, every family in that church had full access to us.

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Now, it was a church family of about 200 members. It was about 170 members when we came and I think their average attendance on Sunday at the time was 90 to 100.

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After I came as pastor, that attendance in the first month, you know, that new pastor, new guy comes to town and everybody was checking out.

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Attendance jumped to about 130 in April of 2022 when I came as pastor.

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I actually began as pastor on April 1st, 2022, but it wasn't a joke.

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And some people, some people three years later are still hoping it is, but it's not our true name. So anyways, they knew when they called me as their pastor that part of the deal was we would adopt the 1689

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Baptist Confession of Faith after I talked through it, that we would move toward a plurality of elders.

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And I also explained my concerns about Southern Baptist Convention and the direction of things and how

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I would have to be trying to address those as well publicly, which meant that their pastor would obviously be involved in some controversy and conflict that is necessary for righteousness sake because the

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Southern Baptist Convention is in just such a bad way right now with frankly, so much corruption within it in our leadership.

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And so I explained that, I explained abolition. I told them, hey, if you don't want a pastor who's going to be fighting to abolish abortion and making politicians angry, then you do not want me to be your pastor.

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I preached my last sermon and give a call on a Sunday morning. I preached John 635 to 44, which is available on the church's website at bclivingstonla .org.

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If you want to go listen to that sermon, it's on the audio available. We didn't have video at the time. And I preached

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John 635 to 44. I was preaching from the Greek text. And as I preached through that,

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I said, you know, what Jesus explains here, all the father has given me will come to me and those who come to me,

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I'll never cast out. I explained to them that this is what the apostle Paul refers to as the doctrines of election and predestination.

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And if you don't want a pastor who preaches those biblical truths, please don't call me as your pastor because we'll only fight about it and then

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I'll have to leave. And so please, if you don't want a pastor who is full of reform, confessional, abolitionist, you don't want me.

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Because if you call me as your pastor, I'm not just going to leave because I have explained these things and I want you to know that this is what you get when you call a man with these convictions.

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And I was very direct and very clear with them and they loved it. And so by God's grace,

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I've been there and it's an incredibly healthy church, the healthiest church I've ever been a part of. And I'll just say this,

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Alan, I have experienced revival like I've never experienced or seen in my life.

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I'm living through right now a time of more fruit and harvest and ministry than I ever thought was possible this side of eternity.

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In the last two and a half years, I have baptized more people than I did in the previous 17 years of pastoral ministry, by far, maybe twice as many.

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It's a lot more. I think most Sundays now we're baptizing people.

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I mean, we've had some Sundays where we don't have anyone to baptize this Sunday, where someone coming into the fellowship of the church, joining the church.

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Our church is now attendance on a Sunday. I think our best attendance was like 268, but it's about 250 a typical

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Sunday. And so, yeah, and that's in a little less than three years. We've gone from 90 to 250 plus.

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So God has blessed it. I'll just say this, I'm not a church growth guy. I'm a Reformed Baptist.

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I agree with Charles Spurgeon, not Donald McGavern. But what I will tell you is that if you preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and specifically, if you do that as a confessional, 1689

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Baptists, those are the churches that I see growing the most right now. So we're not in it for the numbers, but we are in it for the souls and the health of the local church.

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And I'm just telling you, 1689 confessionalism and expository preaching and a robust biblical theology that is based in church history and a rigorous exegesis of the scriptures, that tends to be very appealing to God's sheep.

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Jesus, one of my favorite Bible versions, John 10, 27, Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.

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I'm telling you that verse is true. Amen, amen. Well, give me your defense.

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Obviously, I'm like -minded with you. We're 1689 Confessional Church. The way that we got there is a little bit different than yours and that'll be for another day.

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But we're grateful for where the Lord's brought us. He's brought us through some difficult things, a bit of a church split.

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And anyway, but he's been faithful through it all. But so we're on the same side here, but I just would like to hear you tell our listeners, what is your defense of confessionalism, number one?

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Why should a church be confessional? And then number two, why should they consider the

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Second Lent of Baptist Confession, the 1689? Well, you're not the first person to read the

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Bible. And so many people have read and studied it before you and they've learned a lot of things and you'd be wise to learn from them.

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I'll start there. Amen. Number two, people ask me all the time, Baptist, is that a denomination?

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But number one, Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination regardless of what they say. I mean, it's a denomination, let's be honest.

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But anyway, so the issue is you're not the first person to read the

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Bible and your Baptist forefathers, that identifies their theology, right? Baptist means something in church history.

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It identifies with a group of people who came out of London, England and fled to Amsterdam and planted a first Baptist church ever in 1609.

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That was the first Baptist church. Now, they shared the beliefs of many Christian centuries and more than a millennia before them.

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I believe many of the early church fathers held to essentially what we believe today. However, my point is, we are traced back historically and through our movement, you can see the planning of church after church, after church, which leads to our churches today.

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When I say I'm a Baptist, I mean, I came from those 17th century Baptists in England who wrote several confessions of faith that culminated in the 1689

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Confession of Faith. And when I say Baptist, I mean the theology represented by the 1689

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Confession and historically by more than 400 years of Baptists across the world.

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And I am most closely aligned with Charles Spurgeon. If you want to know, even on eschatology,

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Spurgeon and I agree because Spurgeon's right about pretty much everything. So anyways, yeah, so that's where I am, but historically we are

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Baptists and that means something in church history. It's not a denomination. So you can be

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Baptist and your church be completely independent of any other church or denomination or affiliation.

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I don't recommend that. I believe in cooperative work and fellowship among churches, but Baptist identifies our theology and doctrine and our practice in our local churches, believers, baptism and things like that.

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So that's what you need to understand. The reason you want to be confessional is because that confession is incredibly helpful.

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First, you will learn so much if you read and study the 1689 Confession. Any member of First Baptist Church of Pollock, Louisiana or Livingston, where I have teaching and have taught line by line through the confession over a period of years, and they will tell you it's one of the most beneficial, most will say the most beneficial

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Bible study I've ever done in my life. I would say more than 80 % of the people who have sat under me teaching the 1689

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Confession and some of these people are 70 and 80 and 90 years old have said, this is the most beneficial

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Bible study, certain series, whatever, that I've ever heard in my life. And it wasn't me, I just taught the confession.

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I'm telling you, you need it. But more than that, it functions as guardrails for your church, and this is really why we wrote it.

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Now, I can't remember what I said, but I used Votie Bauckham's four reasons why confessionalism is so helpful.

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And you don't have to look those up. I forget exactly what Votie said, but it's a lot of what I'm saying right now. And so I preached that in my first sermon when

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I began the 1689 Confession, that's on our YouTube page, if you've never listened to that, it's on the playlist, 1689 sermon series, and there's a lot of them there.

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But if you go to the first one, I explain this stuff. And so in that section, Votie talks about how the 1689

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Confession and other reformed confessions like it function as guardrails. This is what we believe, this is what we don't believe.

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And it even holds pastors accountable. Listen, your pastor is not God, he's an undershep.

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Christ is the head of your church, not your pastors. Please never say pastors are the head of the church.

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Jesus and Jesus alone is. And yes, I believe in a plurality of elders, which we're quickly moving to at First Baptist Livingston, but we're not there quite yet, but we'll be soon.

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And what I want people to understand is, is this confession will keep your church healthy.

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It will help you have a way to navigate conflict, especially doctrinal conflict. It has stood the test of time.

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It is a fantastic confession of faith. There's a reason why the 1689 Baptist Confession was called for so many years, the

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Baptist Confession of Faith, because it identifies the heart and the majority. I don't care who calls themselves a traditional

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Baptist. Let me tell you something, traditional Baptists embrace and teach the 1689

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Confession of Faith. That's who Baptists in overwhelming majority historically are, and that's who

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I am. But brother, it's so long and it's 32 chapters and you know, isn't there, you know, the

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Baptist faith and message is just, it's simple and it's short, or maybe you've got even the New Hampshire, which

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I'm grateful for the New Hampshire. I'm not gonna dog it. But you know, really do we need such a long confession for our church?

32:30

Well, I've talked through the Baptist faith and message 2000. I got a sermon series on that and that's a lot shorter. I mean, if you like your, if you like your theology light and carefree and as little doctrine as possible, okay.

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But I like a robust, robust, excuse me, confession of faith. I like to be able to really understand the doctrine of a church.

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Now, the 1689 confession doesn't go into the great details of eschatology. You can be all male, pre -male, post -male and potentially dispensational.

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And I don't know, that's a sticky, that's a question. But anyways, you could definitely be all male, pre -male, historic pre -male and post -male and affirm and believe everything in 1689 confession.

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So it doesn't go into every point of doctrine, but it goes into all the first and second tier issues and at least general, and I'm very thankful for it.

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Amen, it even deals with things you wouldn't expect like marriage.

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And so it's, yeah, I think it was B .H. Carroll who said, I don't,

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I'm going to butcher the quote because I don't have it in front of me, but basically something like little creed, little life or something like that.

33:36

But it's basically we live in a day where we're trying to just boil down Christianity to the lowest common denominator.

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Like an example, and I don't want to dog him, I'm very grateful that he made this statement, but J .D.

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Vance not long ago made this statement of, we believe that Jesus is

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God, He's born of the Virgin, He married, He died on the cross for our sins and He rose again, something like that.

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And that's all true, what he just said, that's all true. But in that statement, there's so much missing.

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There's no righteousness, there's no sin, there's no wrath and those things.

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And so it's like, we live in a day that kind of pushes us toward, hey, let's just all hold hands, sing kumbaya. In the

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Southern Baptist Convention, they're definitely pushing for that. Let's be the biggest possible tent we can.

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And I just don't find that in Paul. I don't find that in our Lord Jesus. I don't find that in the scriptures.

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And so I'm unapologetic about the robustness and the thoroughness and the depth of the 1689.

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And like you said, and it still doesn't touch everything, but it's a weighty document that is helpful.

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And what we do at our church, we actually read a portion. So I taught through it and we're actually planning on teaching through it again this fall.

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So we taught through it in Sunday school and we're gonna teach through it now on Wednesday nights, just kind of adapt the setting.

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And then we read through it every Sunday morning, we read a section from it. So right now we're on our third read through.

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We'll be in chapter 11 on justification this week. And we'll read just a couple of paragraphs, but I just wanna put it in front of people.

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Like, I just want people to know like, hey, this is what we believe and this is why. And I don't think that a confession of faith should be something that sits in a cabinet somewhere and you're like, oh yeah, well, that's what we...

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It's like, no, this is what we believe. So when I heard and I just kind of saw online that you were going through that, man, it really encouraged me.

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And I commend you, brother. I got another question about that if you've got time. Yeah, let's do it.

35:51

Okay, so the question I have is, somebody's listened to this, they're thinking through these things and they're like, you know what?

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I didn't necessarily come to my church as a confessional

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Baptist, but I was reformed. I was Calvinistic or Calvinist, but now

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I see that our church needs to be confessional. We need to take this confession of faith and we need to adopt it.

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What sort of counsel would you give to a pastor who's kind of already been at his church, but now he's like, hey, we need to do this.

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What would you say to him? Well, I would recommend that he start with...

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If he's Southern Baptist, I'd recommend teaching the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. You can look at my sermon series on this on our church's

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YouTube channel. And if you do that, FBC Livingston LA on YouTube, and if you do that, go to the playlist under 2000

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Baptist Faith and Message, you'll see how I talk through that. Now, I would especially encourage you to listen to the section on the doctrine of man, and I believe chapter five, if I remember correctly.

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But look at the section on the doctrine of man. There's an issue there, I explain it. I'm sure you've probably dealt with that too, contrary, but people need to understand that the

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BFM 2000, I can affirm it, but I need to explain that I do not mean semi -Pelagianism by affirming it.

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And I'll just leave that for another day. But we are conceived in iniquity.

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We inherit guilt from Adam. We don't become sinners when we sin. We sin because we are sinners from conception.

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And so I just wanna make sure that that is how I interpret the doctrine of man and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

37:30

But you could teach through it, and then you could teach the 1689 Confession. I've done this in both churches, and you can start it just as a

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Bible study. Let's learn what Baptists today believe. Now let's look a bit back in history to the year 1689 and look at the culmination of the early

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Baptist Confession of Faith, as they wrote in 1644 and 1646, and they essentially finalized it in 1677 and took 12 years to adopt it because they're good

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Baptists in 1689. And so they basically debated it for 12 years and said, yeah,

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I think this will work. So the point is, it has gone through thorough examination, revision, and it stood the test of time.

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And you could just do it as a church history and doctrinal study, and your church members will see how valuable it is.

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Now, by the time you take a few years to teach through all that, then call back and we can talk about what to do next.

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But that'll get you down the next two or three years of leading your church toward a reformed Baptist Statement of Faith, reformed

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Baptist confessionalism. That'll get you down that road pretty quickly. Yeah, yeah. And I'll give the exhortation too, and I'm sure you would be in agreement, but like, if you're listening to this and you're just a church member, and you're like, you know,

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I guess all that doctrine stuff, it's really for the pastors. You know, one thing I would say is, look, yes, your pastors are responsible for teaching and even guarding and sound doctrine, correcting unsound doctrine.

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They are responsible. But there is a real sense that every Christian is responsible to know, hey, this is what we believe and why.

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And so you would not be wasted on your time to, for example, go listen to the sermons that you did,

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Brian, on the 1689. I commend that to church members. Go listen, listen, and listen to what the history of Baptist theology is and equip yourself and be ready and understand.

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Now, I would encourage a church member not to try to overtake your pastor, but if you become convinced on these things, go to your pastor and talk to him.

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And it could be, now, I think you should be patient about this. It could be that your pastor will come around and it'll be important and things will change and you need to give time, ample time.

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But it also could be that you realize, hey, that your church is, your church is never going to go this way.

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And perhaps the Lord would lead you to a church that is, that you can align with doctrinally.

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So anyway, I don't know if there's anything else, just some counsels of things thrown off the top of my head. I don't know if there's anything you want to add or talk about with all that I just said.

40:14

I just have one question, Quattro. What is your favorite chapter of the 1689 Confession?

40:20

Oh, man. Man, there's so - Want to hear mine while you think? Yeah, go ahead. Chapter three on God's decree.

40:27

Yeah. God has decreed all things whatsoever come to pass, yet he is not thereby the author of sin, nor does he have fellowship with any creature therein.

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I'm driving down the highway. I think I quoted it correctly. It's very close. But that is so beautifully stated and it talks about God's sovereignty.

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It talks about election. It talks about providence and it just talks about God generally being God and how good he is.

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And I love chapter three on God's decree. Well, that's what's gonna, chapter three is definitely, it probably is number one.

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I would say that it's one of the best statements, if not the best statement outside of scripture ever.

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I'm talking about ever. In all the writings that you could find, I know that's a big statement, I would say, but it's one of the best writings outside of scripture to just clarify.

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And then you get to chapter five and it talks about providence. We just read through chapter 10 on effectual calling.

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Man, they just do such a great job of taking the scalpel, if you will, and dissecting.

41:27

Chapter eight on Christ the mediator. We're fixing to read chapter 11 on justification. And then of course,

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I can't not mention chapter 26 on the church. So anyway,

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I'm just, yeah, I'm overwhelmed at how well and how lasting this document is.

41:47

It's not scripture, of course. It's not, we're not putting it on the same authority as scripture. What we are saying is this articulates, like you said, you're not the first person to read the

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Bible. This articulates what the scriptures say. And if you wanna disagree, if you wanna disagree, in one sense,

42:04

I'd say fine. I'm not saying it's okay to not have sound doctrine, but just don't say you're a reformed

42:09

Baptist. I mean, like, go be something else, you know, because this is the distinctives of what a reformed

42:19

Baptist is, so. Amen. Amen. Chapter one on the holy scriptures, frankly,

42:27

I think requires cessationism. I think if you understand it correctly, at least the cessation of prophecy, so.

42:32

Of course, agreed. I'm not saying you have to be a cessationist to be a 1689 Baptist, but I think it is the strongest statement that I've also ever seen on this issue on inspiration and what that means.

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If God has only spoken in a direct divine revelation, what

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Paul calls the anustos, if God has only spoken in that manner in the scriptures, then it is superior to all other revelation and all other forms of revelation or supposed revelation must be judged by and are subservient to it.

43:07

So God told me is not a good excuse when the Bible has told you all you need to know to follow

43:13

Christ and obey him. Yeah, that's good, brother. I think if people are just thinking through these things, you know,

43:21

Jim Renahan, his book on the Second London Baptist Confession is,

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I think, I think it is the standard, the go -to at least to providing the historical parameters and the exposition.

43:37

I use it and Sam Waldron's exposition as I teach through, so absolutely.

43:43

I would recommend both of those. And then, you know, one thing I just recommend, a lot of guys talk about the 1689, they actually haven't just ever sat down and read through it.

43:54

No, that's a good thing to do. If you're a pastor or not a pastor, grab that book, you can find it free online and grab the

44:01

English, sorry, the updated English version. If you want to, Modern English is what

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I was looking for from Founders, but you can also get it free from Chapel Library. And so there's really no excuse.

44:14

Grab your copy and read through it. We use the Founders version. And if you buy a case of 10, it comes out to $3 .30

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a book. And we just buy them and give them to people when they come on Wednesday night for the study. And also if they don't have one, we have them read it before they join our church, of course, because we need them to embrace the confession if they want to be a part of First Baptist Living.

44:36

Go ahead. Go ahead, brother, go ahead. I'm done. I was just going to embarrass myself for a second because when

44:43

I was at the Founders Conference this year, I met Stan Reeves and I'm like, okay,

44:51

I know this name, I know this name, I know this name. I'm trying to, how do I know Stan Reeves? And so finally I'm like, brother, what did you write?

44:59

And he started talking to me, he's like, you're probably thinking about the modern 1689.

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And I'm like, I'm such an idiot, because we use the same thing. And we've got a big case of them.

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And so we have some extra ones. We pass them out, that's what we have. And yeah, his name's right there, Stan Reeves. But when

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I met him, I just could not, I couldn't place that because we usually don't talk about Stan Reeves when we're talking about the confession.

45:30

But a great brother and yeah, I'm grateful for that. Anyway, I cut you off there. You're going to say something.

45:36

No, I'm just driving by Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and I'm just appreciating how beautiful God's creation is right now.

45:42

But my son and I are getting close to the National Corvette Museum and he is an absolute Corvette fanatic.

45:48

Now we're driving in my Dodge Challenger Redeye, which has way more horsepower than anything but the newest

45:54

Corvette ZR1. So I'm going to try to be careful when I pull in there and not make all the inferior lesser powered

46:01

Corvettes feel intimidated. But I got to go in a minute to do all those things.

46:06

But man, have I enjoyed our time together today, Quattro. It's been a blessing, brother. Me too. I know you're busy, man.

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I'm grateful for your efforts. Thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast today and let folks get to know you a little better.

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And hopefully this is edifying, encouraging, maybe challenging to some. That's good. We're all for the church and we want

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Christ to be honored by healthy churches. So you got anything else, brother? That's it, brother.

46:31

Thank you so much for your time. God bless. You too. Thank you guys for joining us this week on the Rural Church Podcast.

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Catch you next week. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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