Discussing Evangelism with Tony Miano

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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March 22, 2022

00:00: The Bible says that we are to go into all the world and make disciples.
00:04: Today we're going to be talking about evangelism with one of my favorite evangelists, Tony Miano.
00:11: Stay tuned.
00:11: Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now.
00:34: Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.
00:36: My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.
00:39: And as I said just a moment ago, I'm excited today to be joined by a man who I truly respect and appreciate.
00:46: He is an evangelist, and he is a podcaster like me, so we have a little mutual there.
00:52: And I'm looking forward to having a conversation with him.
00:54: Now, let me bring an introduction.
00:55: I want to read.
00:56: This is from his website.
00:58: This is some information about him.
01:00: Tony Miano is a retired 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
01:06: From 2008 to mid-2012, he also served as Living Waters Director of the Ambassadors Alliance, as well as the Director of Conferences and Special Projects.
01:19: Tony has also authored the books Take Up the Shield in 2005, Should She Preach? Biblical Evangelism for Women in 2013, and Cross Encounters, a Decade of Gospel Conversations in 2016.
01:34: Tony has preached in many churches across the United States, Canada, England, Norway, Scotland, and Kenya.
01:39: He has served as the keynote speaker at several different conferences.
01:43: He's committed to expository preaching.
01:46: He frequently addresses topics such as biblical evangelism, spiritual growth, and personal holiness, as well as the person and work of Jesus Christ.
01:54: Tony and his wife Maria were married in 1985.
01:57: I was five years old, by the way.
01:59: And together, they have three grown daughters.
02:03: They live in Davenport, Iowa.
02:06: They're members of Grace Fellowship Church.
02:09: And on a personal note, I did have the opportunity to spend some time with Tony several years ago at an open-air preaching conference that was held in Milton, Florida.
02:18: I went two years in a row, got to hear him preach two years in a row, and my son and I got to stand with Tony outside of an abortion clinic there in the Milton area and heard him preach the gospel outside of an abortion clinic.
02:29: So, this is a man that I love and appreciate and have respected for many years.
02:34: So, Tony, welcome to the program.
02:36: Thank you for being with us today.
02:37: Pastor Keith, thank you for having me.
02:39: Yes, sir.
02:40: Absolutely.
02:40: We are so excited.
02:42: As I say, if I seem giddy, I am.
02:44: I'm always excited to talk.
02:45: Yeah, you really should either settle down or set your sights higher or both.
02:54: Well, I appreciate you very much, and I always look forward to seeing your things on Facebook and on YouTube.
03:01: Now, in addition to all the ministries which you already have going on, and they are many, you recently began a new podcast, which is why I asked you to come on the program today.
03:11: It's called the Stop and Talk Podcast, and my wife and I got a chance to listen to the first episode where you were talking to the ladies at the gas station.
03:19: That was a wonderful conversation, and for a moment, what I'd like to ask you to do for our listeners, because part of the reason why I asked you to come on today is to talk about your podcast, can you share with the audience what the purpose of this new show is, the format, and what you're hoping to accomplish? Well, Pastor, I decided to start this new podcast about a week ago.
03:43: So, I'm probably the first interview.
03:46: Well, and probably the only, and I know that at least two people listened because you said you and your wife heard the podcast, but it was really kind of on a whim.
04:00: It was raining outside and too cold to hit the streets, so I wanted to occupy my time doing something productive.
04:07: I've done radio programs and various podcasts in the past, and I thought, well, why don't I try this again? And so, I came up with the name, the Stop and Talk Podcast, very simply because the cross I carry five, six days a week out on the streets says stop and talk on the cross beam.
04:30: I've been engaged in that kind of ministry now for about 13 years, and I see people stop to talk almost every day.
04:43: I don't like to keep track of numbers.
04:46: I don't do that, but just since the alleged pandemic started a couple of years ago, I've had 500 to 600 people stop and talk to me on the corners in my community as a result of seeing me standing there with the cross.
05:01: And so, the podcast is really simple.
05:07: I record conversations that I have out on the streets, and then I will chalk talk those.
05:15: If the conversation has something I can highlight that might be an encouragement to Christians as they set out to engage in evangelism, then I will highlight that after the conversation.
05:28: And so, we'll see how it goes.
05:30: I really don't have a set time frame.
05:34: I don't know if it's going to be every week or every other week.
05:36: That really depends on the amount of traffic out there on the streets.
05:42: And so, that's it.
05:45: Now, years ago, this is a little off the script, but just you made me think of a question while you were talking.
05:50: Years ago, when I first started watching you post videos and things like that, you would wear, I think, a GoPro on your chest.
05:57: Is that where you're getting the audio? Is that still there? Well, I still do that.
06:02: I still maintain my YouTube channel.
06:06: I go out with that camera most days, and I'll also use a digital recorder as well.
06:15: And so, I might have as many, if not more, conversations recorded on Sermon Audio as I do on YouTube.
06:25: I have close to 600 audios on Sermon Audio.
06:29: And so, it's a both and.
06:31: Sometimes, I won't take the camera.
06:35: Thus far, I haven't experienced, certainly not within the last four or five years, I haven't experienced when I'm crosswalking, anyone say, hey, can you turn the camera off? Or, I was going to stop and talk, but I see that you have a camera.
06:52: Now, my personal policy has always been that if someone sees the camera and says, I really don't want to talk on camera, well, the camera goes off.
07:00: Because the person in front of me, their soul is far more important than whatever I might capture on a video or an audio.
07:07: And so, from time to time, I'll leave the camera at home, and I'll just take a digital recorder.
07:13: It's a little less obvious.
07:16: But either way, I really haven't faced any objections in my community about being on camera.
07:25: Would you say that having the camera is sometimes a safety for you as well, in case something were to happen? Or is that even on your mind? I know you're a former police officer, and I teach self-defense classes, and I think about things like that sometimes.
07:39: Yeah, I teach for the NRA.
07:43: So, I didn't know.
07:44: Is that like a safety thing? Or is that strictly for the YouTube video? No, it's for safety.
07:52: The three main reasons, as I articulated in the introduction to the podcast, the three main reasons for doing any kind of recording, whether video or audio, is to edify the body of Christ, to further equip the body of Christ, and to use yet one more format to communicate the gospel to the lost.
08:15: In addition to that, though, I do wear a camera or audio almost always when I'm out on the street.
08:24: Now, a camera, as you know, Pastor, teaching self-defense, a camera is not going to stop a kick or a punch or someone throwing something at you or trying to hit you with a car, but it will document those things.
08:37: I was out doing morning devotions, and we'll talk about that maybe in a little bit, but I was at one of my regular corners where I do crosswalking, and a crazy lady came by and tried to steal my A-frame signs and started to assault me, and so I had that on camera.
08:54: The various times that I've been arrested while preaching, I was fortunate to have all of that on camera.
09:02: In particular, in the arrest in Scotland, it was that film footage that led to charges ultimately being dropped in that case.
09:13: So, I always recommend, whether you have a YouTube channel or not, whether you plan to use the video or audio in any way, I always recommend that if a Christian's out engaged in public evangelism, that they have some kind of recording device for their protection, also for their own accountability.
09:35: So, this way, if anyone makes an accusation that you said something or did something, you'll have that documented, and that will likely be helpful to you.
09:46: That's awesome.
09:47: I have to tell you a very quick story.
09:49: When I first encountered Ray Comfort's ministry, and I know that you were formerly affiliated with them.
09:57: We're going to talk about that in a little while, but when I first encountered the Way of the Master television show, and I was a believer.
10:03: I was at the time doing youth ministry at my church.
10:06: It was before I became a pastor, and I took some young people out with a camera to Jacksonville Beach, and we went out and did evangelism.
10:14: This was back before digital cameras, so we had this big giant VHS camera.
10:18: I remember.
10:19: Yeah, and one of the guys who was out there, who was one of the homeless guys from the beach, he came after us with a screwdriver and said he was going to kill us, and he came and put it right in my face.
10:29: He said, if you don't leave right now, I'm going to kill you with this screwdriver, and it was all on camera.
10:35: It was all right there, and I just, you know, I said, okay, I'll leave.
10:38: You know, I was very peaceful, and there were police that were within the distance that I could have shouted to if I felt really in danger.
10:45: I think he was just more trying to peacock and, you know, show that he was the head of the beach, that kind of thing.
10:51: So, I left, but yeah, it was our first time ever going, and that happened.
10:56: Well, you mentioned Ray.
10:58: Ray, of course, does a lot of filming, posts a lot of videos.
11:02: Many years ago, before I was with the ministry, I believe he was in Santa Monica, either Santa Monica.
11:10: I think it was Santa Monica.
11:11: I think might have been on Third Street Promenade, somewhere in LA.
11:14: It was an evening, and a woman walked by, an older woman walked by, and went to the police and made an accusation that Ray had inappropriately touched her.
11:24: Oh, wow.
11:24: And so, the police were right on it.
11:27: They came over to Ray, and Ray, here's my camera footage.
11:32: Yeah.
11:32: It's been on the whole time, and they see the lady walk by, and there was no contact whatsoever.
11:39: So, that's an instance where Ray was protected in that way by having a video.
11:46: Amen.
11:47: Amen.
11:48: I'm going to move to the next questions, move our conversation along.
11:51: Over the years, as I said earlier, I've really admired your efforts in taking the gospel to the world.
11:57: To me, you seem like just tireless.
11:59: You're always out doing it.
12:01: You've inspired me in many ways.
12:03: Even our church has a fishing hole.
12:05: That's what we call our evangelism booth.
12:07: We say we're fishing for men, and that was based on, I had seen a picture you posted.
12:12: I think it was in a mall, where you had a little table, gospel tracts, and a Bible, and I said, I can do that, and we ended up, you know, we have a 10 by 10 tent that we take to fairs, and we set it up.
12:25: We hand out gospel tracts, have wonderful conversations.
12:28: Fantastic.
12:28: It's been a blessing.
12:30: What did God use in your Christian life to show you that He was calling you to be an evangelist, and particularly the form of evangelism that you have, the direction you have gone? How did God move you in that direction? I don't think I've ever asked you that question, but I'd be curious.
12:49: Great question.
12:51: Initially, it was, and this is a very common story, I stumbled upon Ray Comfort.
13:00: It would have been about 2004, and at that time, I was preaching a sermon.
13:08: Churches were asking me to come and preach, and I was still serving as a deputy sheriff and a law enforcement chaplain then, so they wanted me to come in uniform with all the bells and whistles and preach.
13:20: I would preach a sermon.
13:23: I think it was titled The Uniform of God's Patrolman, and it was basically a study of Ephesians chapter 6, 10 through 17, and I would use the various pieces of law enforcement equipment to illustrate those pieces of spiritual armor.
13:41: Well, at one of those opportunities one Sunday morning, someone walked up to me and said, you ought to write a book about this.
13:49: I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, okay.
13:52: But it started to happen from time to time, and not only from people at churches, but friends were saying, Tony, you probably ought to write this down.
14:02: Really, just to get people off my back so that I could answer the question saying, oh, I tried, but that didn't work, I decided to contact a publisher.
14:14: I had three books by Ray Comfort that someone had given to me a decade before during the 1990s, and Ray had signed those books.
14:27: I had no idea who or what a Ray Comfort was.
14:31: At the time, my church was going through a purpose-driven church and that kind of thing, and so I started to read one of Ray's books, and it talked about using the law and standing on a box and preaching and handing out tracts, and I didn't see anything about no-string-attached barbecues or things like that, so I closed the book.
14:55: But because he signed them, just in case they might be worth something someday, I kept all three of the books.
15:00: About 10 years later, I opened one called Militant Evangelism.
15:05: I think that might have been one of the precursors to The Way of the Master.
15:10: I started reading the book and was immediately convicted.
15:14: Reading the same pages I read a decade before, I was immediately convicted of my disobedience in regard to evangelism, and the light bulb went on regarding the use of the law in evangelism.
15:28: So I went to the website on the back.
15:33: I wondered if Ray Comfort, this guy, was even still alive, and I went to the website.
15:37: One of the first faces I see is Kirk Cameron, and man, I couldn't stand him on TV.
15:43: He was just that punky high school guy that you just wanted to put in a dumpster during lunch.
15:50: I said, well, what is he? He's a Christian? I didn't know that, and I ordered a book called What Hollywood Believes.
15:57: That was Ray's new book at the time, and I ordered my first pack of gospel tracks.
16:04: That was in 2004.
16:09: Then I'm approached by people saying, hey, why don't you write this book? So I thought, well, I wonder who publishes Ray Comfort's stuff.
16:17: It was an organization called Genesis Publishing Group, and I thought, well, I've never heard of them.
16:23: Maybe it won't matter that they've never heard of me.
16:26: And so I emailed Lynn Copeland, who's the head of Genesis Publishing Group, and I said, hey, I'm nobody from nowhere.
16:33: I've written this book.
16:35: Just let me down gently, something like that.
16:39: I emailed her, and I thought, okay, got that out of my system.
16:43: I could tell someone, hey, I contacted the publisher.
16:45: They're not interested.
16:46: Well, three weeks later, she contacts me and says, yeah, I'd like to publish your book.
16:51: Nice.
16:51: What? And so that would become Take Up the Shield, and it was through that publishing process that I actually got to meet Ray Comfort, went down to his headquarters in Bellflower, played a game of ping pong with him in a room that would eventually become my office a few years later.
17:12: And it was Ray's influence, Scotty, who's also part of the ministry, really Ray's right-hand man out there on the streets.
17:21: I was with Ray the first time he ever went to Huntington Beach, and I was bugging him and Scotty about open-air preaching.
17:29: And eventually they got tired of it, and they said, hey, why don't you just swallow your fear and go do it? Oh, okay.
17:36: Be that way.
17:37: All right.
17:38: So I picked a spot 60 miles from home because I didn't want anyone in my community to recognize the deputy slash chaplain who now has lost his mind and is barking at people on a corner.
17:50: And I went to a beach park some 60 miles away, took my wife and daughter with me and set up an easy up and had a table full of Bibles and gospel tracts, had my little box and had some In-N-Out Burger gift cards to give away for the $1 bills to give away for the good person test.
18:11: And so long story short, about 30 kids show up from a sweet 16 party on the beach.
18:18: And I go through, in fact, I don't know if you could see it or not, but that picture, that's my first ever open-air.
18:30: My sister pulled that off of an old video or something, but that was the first time I ever opened or preached.
18:38: And it was 10 minutes long, maybe, went through the good person test and communicated the gospel.
18:47: And when I was done, none of the kids would leave.
18:50: In fact, I was trying to shoo them away.
18:52: It's like, look, I'm done.
18:53: You got everything I have.
18:54: I'm done.
18:55: But they wanted to talk and some of them wanted Bibles.
18:59: And I wept on the way home knowing that somehow some way I was going to spend my life doing this.
19:09: And so I called myself, now we'll probably get into this later, but I called myself to open-air preaching ministry.
19:19: Now I would be affirmed by the church.
19:22: I was serving as an elder in a church at the time.
19:24: They would eventually commission me, call me to serve as an open-air preacher out on the streets.
19:30: Each subsequent church I was part of would likewise send me out.
19:38: But that's how I got started.
19:41: And that was what now? That was 18 years ago, 17 years ago was the first time I opened or preached.
19:53: Wow.
19:54: Now, so yeah, we are going to talk about this in a bit, but so your first time going out wasn't with the commission of the church, but I know right now that's something that you're very committed to is that people that go don't go as nomads.
20:08: I remember that term, those nomadic preachers without a church is something that, well, since we're on it, let's go ahead and just address.
20:16: So you would say a person who is saying, I feel called to open-air that they should seek the affirmation of their elders or local body.
20:24: How would that look? What would that look like? Well, it would depend on the leadership of their particular church.
20:30: So I believe in the autonomy and independence of the local church.
20:35: And so it would be up to that person's pastors, that person's elders to determine what that commissioning, calling, ordaining, whatever adjective we want to add to it, what that would look like.
20:52: I'm sorry, I was just saying, but you wouldn't say that a person has to be an elder to do that? No, no, I'm not an elder, but Keith, I would, Pastor Keith, I would say this.
21:05: We have one, we have one list of qualifications for ministry in Scripture.
21:15: And of course, there are a couple other smaller lists, but primarily we're looking at 1 Timothy 3.
21:22: Now, granted, those are the qualifications for a man who is going to shepherd a flock, a man who's going to serve as an elder and a pastor.
21:31: But beyond that, what other qualifications or list of qualifications or where else do we go in Scripture to determine if a man is fit to serve in any kind of ministry? So while I don't believe a man has to be a serving elder in order to open air preach, I believe he certainly should have that kind of character that an elder would have.
22:02: He certainly should have the ability to teach because open air preaching is an authoritative ministry.
22:10: It's a ministry of the Word.
22:13: And so that's one of the reasons why I think it's so important that men do not call themselves, that they're not called by parachurch organizations, that they're not called by other open air preachers.
22:27: And these are all things that I did for years.
22:31: But as it's said, I'm always reforming, I hope.
22:37: Well, one of the things I have always appreciated about you, and again, I don't know that we've ever talked about this, and I hope you understand what I mean when I say this, I've seen on a few occasions where you have gone back and corrected yourself publicly.
22:52: And I've always been very appreciative of that because none of us have arrived, none of us are perfect.
22:57: And not a lot of people are willing to be as honest in some of those areas as you've been.
23:03: And so I appreciate that.
23:05: Well, and part of that could be, Pastor, is because I make a lot of mistakes publicly too.
23:09: There could be, maybe others just don't make as many public mistakes as I do.
23:17: I didn't mean it that way.
23:19: But one of those instances, Pastor, was the writing of the book, Should She Preach? That was a public form of repentance.
23:31: I had helped to train some 200 women how to open air preach.
23:37: And as I continue to look at Scripture and look at the open air preaching community as a whole, it became clear to me that I was in error by encouraging women to engage in open air preaching.
23:53: And so I wrote that book, Should She Preach? in part as a form of public repentance for years of holding what I believe was a wrong view on that.
24:06: Okay.
24:07: But just to clarify that, though, you wouldn't discourage a woman from handing out tracts or something like that? Because we do that with our church.
24:14: Women go out with us, and Brother Mike will preach, I'll preach, and the women will stand with us, hand out tracts, and you would be...
24:21: Of course, of course, yes.
24:23: The Great Commission is for every Christian, regardless of gender.
24:27: And of course, we know there are only two, so it's not hard to differentiate those.
24:32: But no, absolutely, women should be engaged in evangelism, whether it's around their dining room table as they're educating their children, or in the workplace, or as they're running errands, or outside of an abortuary, or on the streets, or at the mall.
24:48: They should be engaged in public evangelism according to the personality God's given them and the context of life where they live.
24:56: But that ministry of opening your Bible and expounding upon the Word of God and preaching the Word of God, I believe, is a ministry for men who are called and sent out by the local church.
25:12: Thank you for that.
25:13: That's good clarification.
25:15: Years ago, when we were in Milton together, I remember hearing you preach, and one of the things that you said that really stuck with me, and you were there and Jeff Pollard was there, you both talked about gospel tracts, but I believe it was you who said, don't ever say, I just give out tracts, and you emphasize the word just.
25:36: Is that right? Am I remembering that correctly? Yes.
25:39: And I've told people that many times, since that time, that stuck with me, and I've used that when I'm teaching.
25:44: Because I say, if you are handing out gospel tracts, you're handing out God's Word, you're giving the gospel.
25:50: So can you elaborate more on that? Because I do know people, even today, who would say, with all the evidence to the contrary, who would say tracts are passe, they're old news, you don't need to do that.
26:03: Speak for a bit about your experience with gospel tracts.
26:07: Sure, I would love to.
26:08: First, you mentioned Jeff Pollard.
26:10: One of my favorite sermons of all time, and it was a sermon he preached at that conference that you're referring to, was his sermon on paper missionaries.
26:20: I still recommend that.
26:23: Yes.
26:23: And I love the term paper missionaries.
26:27: What an apt, what a wonderful description of a gospel tract.
26:32: So first, the benefit of a gospel tract is that it can go places we can't.
26:40: It could be shoved into a pocket, shoved into a purse, read in someone's living room, read in the dining room, read at work, places you're not going to get to go.
26:50: If I have an inebriated, intoxicated person in front of me, my goal is to put a tract in that person's hand because it's a likelihood that they may not remember the things that I'm saying to them.
27:04: But I have heard testimonies before of drunken people who sobered up the next day, reached into their pocket, pulled a gospel tract out, what is this, read it, and came to repentance and faith in Christ.
27:18: I've heard the testimonies of people who picked up, they were curious, they see something on the ground, they picked it up, it was wadded up, they unfold it and it turns out to be a gospel tract.
27:29: They read it and come to faith in Jesus Christ.
27:33: There is the story out of 19th century England where a lady went to buy a pad of butter at the local market.
27:43: It was just wrapped in a piece of paper, there weren't ABCD type of food safety letters on the doors back then.
27:51: She brings it home, she opens up the pad of butter to start cooking dinner, and she finds on the paper that the butter was wrapped in that it was a page from one of Charles Spurgeon's sermons.
28:03: She read that and came to repentance and faith in Christ.
28:06: I had a young lady contact me years ago.
28:11: One of the things I would do in the summer where I was living in Southern California is we would have concerts in the park, a large community, about a quarter of a million people in our city, and so thousands of people would gather on a Friday, Saturday night to listen to mediocre cover bands and eat stale hot dogs and just have a great time.
28:33: I would go and open air preach and take gospel tracts.
28:36: I was handing out million-dollar bills, by the millions almost, and I would put a sticker on my million-dollar bills with an email address or a website so people could contact me.
28:49: A young lady emailed me and said, I found one of your tracts crumpled up on the ground.
28:56: I thought it was money, and I picked it up, and I read it.
29:00: I want you to know I go to a large Baptist church, and it was in fact the largest church in the community at the time.
29:08: I'm involved in the youth group.
29:10: I thought I was a Christian, and I read your gospel tract and realized I never came to repentance and faith in Christ, but I have now, and so please don't stop handing these out.
29:22: For someone to say that a gospel tract is passe or ineffective is really to minimize the power of the gospel itself.
29:36: One of the problems I've seen over the years in evangelism circles is we've created this hierarchy of evangelism that you begin by handing out tracts, and then you graduate to conversations, and if you really make it, you become an open-air preacher.
29:56: Well, the power of the gospel is not in the vehicle by which it is distributed or articulated.
30:03: The power is in the gospel itself.
30:06: So whether I'm standing on a box preaching to a hundred, or I'm engaged in a one-to-one conversation, or someone picks up a tract that I handed to someone that they threw on the ground, the power is in the gospel itself.
30:22: It is the gospel that is the power of God for salvation.
30:26: It's not open-air preaching.
30:27: It's not my gift of gab.
30:29: It's not how slick my gospel tract is.
30:32: It's the gospel.
30:33: So we should never use the word just when we are talking about any form of biblical evangelism, because to do so is to inadvertently minimize the gospel itself.
30:47: Amen.
30:48: Thank you.
30:49: That was a very good explanation.
30:52: I want to take a step back.
30:54: This was one of the earlier questions I didn't get to ask, but I'm just curious because of how much you do get accomplished and how much I get to see, and I'm sure there's a lot of things that we don't get to see.
31:05: What does an average week look like for you? Are you retired from the police? Oh yeah, I retired.
31:13: Well, when did I retire? I retired 15 years ago from law enforcement.
31:20: So this is your full-time, and when I say occupation, I don't mean it's a paid occupation.
31:24: Well, are you on staff? I am.
31:26: I am on staff with my church.
31:27: Oh, you are.
31:28: Wonderful.
31:28: I do have a small retirement from my years in law enforcement.
31:35: I didn't have a full career in law enforcement because I went into full-time ministry, but I do have a retirement that comes in every month, and then what is needed after that, my church compensates me for that.
31:51: Wonderful.
31:52: And so my church sends me out as a full-time evangelist, and so technically I would be considered on staff.
31:58: Okay, wonderful.
31:59: And I know a few other guys who I've actually met through various ministries, like Bobby McCreery.
32:05: I guess you and he know each other.
32:08: Oh yeah, we're very tight.
32:09: We were just on the phone for about an hour yesterday.
32:11: Wonderful.
32:12: And do you know Rich Saplita? I do.
32:14: Yeah, I've been out on the streets with Rich.
32:17: Yeah, wonderful, wonderful opener.
32:19: He came and taught.
32:20: We have an academy at our church, and we call it Seminary for Every Believer.
32:26: It's basically a free seminary that we do at our church, and we make it available for lay people to take seminary classes, and I teach those classes.
32:35: But Rich came down and gave a lesson on apologetics to our academy, and he's a wonderful, wonderful brother.
32:42: The professor, yeah, a former atheist professor that the Lord saved, and now he focuses on college campus and university campuses ministering the gospel.
32:54: Just wonderful, wonderful work he's doing.
32:56: Yep.
32:57: Well, when he was here, he and I talked a little bit about what his week looks like, and that's what kind of made me think about you.
33:02: What does an average Tony Miano week look like? Yeah, I know.
33:07: Average, yeah.
33:08: It varies, certainly.
33:11: So every day, Monday through Saturday, my day begins with a YouTube broadcast that I've been doing for six years called Morning Devotions.
33:21: I've been reading the Bible out loud from Genesis to Revelation through the year, and people from a small group of people from around the world join me for that every day, Monday through Saturday at 7 a.m.
33:36: Central Time, and we read the Bible together, and then I'll take questions on evangelism, apologetics, theology, things like that.
33:45: So that's typically how my day starts, of course, after walking the dog.
33:49: But then it's more often than not, Pastor, I am on the streets with my cross.
33:57: That is probably the primary kind of ministry I'm doing these days, and one of the reasons for that is when I moved from Southern California to Davenport, Iowa, although Davenport has a population of about 90,000 people, my evangelism had to be adjusted, because when I was in Southern California, I could go to just about any street corner in L.A.
34:26: and preach to dozens, if not hundreds, of people all day long.
34:30: One of my favorite spots was the North Hollywood Metro Station that would see two million people a year come in and out of that terminal.
34:39: There were times where I would hand out 80 to 100 Bibles in a morning at places like that.
34:46: Well, that's not Davenport.
34:48: Davenport really doesn't have places where people gather.
34:53: It's a very old community.
34:55: The city is older than the state of California, and so there's not a lot of places where people gather.
35:04: There aren't opportunities for me to go out and open-air preach every day.
35:08: The closest obituary, praise God, is 50 miles away.
35:12: We had one in our community when I first moved here, but that closed down a couple of years after.
35:21: So much of my time is spent on the streets carrying the cross.
35:25: Now, we have a farmer's market, a pretty active farmer's market from May through October.
35:32: It's another thing I had to get used to.
35:33: In Southern California, I could be on the streets 360 days a year.
35:39: Here, it's a little harder when it's 20, 30 below, but I try to get out there.
35:46: Our farmer's market runs from May through October.
35:51: We're there every Saturday morning as a church.
35:54: It might be me and a couple of guys.
35:56: It might be me and 20 people from the church.
35:59: Those of us who've been designated to preach do so.
36:02: We do sign evangelism, distribute gospel tracts, engage in conversation.
36:07: I also have a ministry to law enforcement still.
36:12: I have these signs that say, Law Enforcement Lives Matter.
36:15: I will spend time in front of our local police stations.
36:20: If there's any kind of critical incident involving law enforcement within a day's drive of me, somewhere I could go and get back in the same day, I will go to that city, go to that police department, and minister there.
36:33: In fact, when we're done here, there was a critical incident less than a half mile from my house yesterday.
36:39: A pursuit terminated.
36:41: A suspect who was fleeing in a vehicle crashed into a couple of other cars and then barricaded himself in an open bus stop.
36:53: Two hours after that would take his own life.
36:57: Whenever there's any kind of tragedy or critical incident in my community, I make sure that I'm on the closest corner to that with my cross and signs that say, Stop for Prayer, Free Bibles, things like that to minister to the community.
37:16: My public evangelism has changed a great deal over the last five years in part because of the change of location and the change of demographic.
37:28: Much of my time, of course, is committed to my local church.
37:34: Every Sunday, of course, Lord Day gatherings in the morning and in the evening, Bible studies on Wednesday night, Bible study on Tuesday morning with the men.
37:43: Then I actually lead a chess club in our church.
37:47: I saw that.
37:48: That's really great.
37:48: Yeah.
37:49: We've got about 32 kids involved in that.
37:51: Then I got a smaller group of kids who want to take their game a little further.
37:56: I meet with them.
37:58: Believe it or not, actual fishing for the scaly things is actually part of my ministry to the church.
38:07: I went this morning and caught enough fish to provide dinner for one of the families tonight.
38:14: Not that they're in need.
38:16: It's just a means of blessing them and engaging in the one another.
38:20: My schedule has a lot of flexibility.
38:23: I have the trust of my pastors to determine where it is I'm going to go and how I'm going to minister in a local context.
38:33: If I'm asked to serve outside of our local area, that would have to be in the context of partnering with a local church.
38:42: I would then come under the authority of the pastor of that local church in that area.
38:48: My days of just traveling around the country and preaching wherever I want without any solid umbilical to a local church are long gone.
38:59: I'm thankful for that.
39:03: That's kind of a day, a week, and it varies depending on whatever the needs of the moment might be in my community.
39:13: Now I want to change gears just a little bit.
39:17: The church you're at now is Grace Fellowship, right? Correct.
39:23: Is that a Reformed Baptist church? Am I correct? It is.
39:31: When you first came to beginning your open air evangelism, would you consider yourself Reformed at that time or is that something that's transitioned in the last 20 years or however? I was Reformed.
39:51: I had never heard that term back then.
39:56: I was a Calvinist and I had never read Calvin.
40:06: Correct me if I'm wrong, but was there a time when you were actually a Grace community with MacArthur? Sure.
40:12: Before we moved here to Iowa, my family and I were members at Grace Community Church in Southern California.
40:21: Of course, we all know Pastor MacArthur and what a fine expositor he is and what a fine church he is.
40:31: I was still at that time raising support from other churches, other individuals, almost in a sense parachurch within the church.
40:44: Up until about five years ago, my ministry really was that.
40:48: It was parachurch within a church, meaning that while I was ultimately accountable to whoever my pastors were at the time, it was really up to me what I did, how I did it, where I went, what I did, try to stay out of trouble and everything would be okay.
41:05: And it was about six years ago or so, one of those supporting churches, which is Grace Fellowship here in Davenport, asked me to consider moving to Iowa to be part of the church out here to continue the ministry out here in the Midwest.
41:23: And so we made that move in end of 2016.
41:28: Okay.
41:29: So as you came out here to Iowa or out there, I'm not with you.
41:34: I'm in Florida.
41:35: Came to where you are.
41:37: And in a Reformed Baptist church context, would you say that there has been any shift in your methodology from back in your days of the way of the master? You say you were Reformed back then, but I know me, I know over the last 15 years of pastoring the church I'm at, I certainly have grown.
42:00: And there are a few things that I may do differently now.
42:02: Certainly things I would do differently now.
42:03: What are some of the things that you've seen? And it might not have to do with Reformed theology, it might have to do with something else, but what are some of the changes that you've seen in your overall methodology? Yeah.
42:13: Great question.
42:16: I came to Faith in Christ in 1988.
42:20: One of the first Christian books I ever read was the Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur.
42:27: Probably read that in 1989, 1990.
42:30: And that was my introduction to the sovereignty of God.
42:34: Amen.
42:35: And that was my introduction to Calvinism.
42:38: I don't even know if the term Calvinism is used in the book.
42:41: Yeah, I don't think so, but yeah.
42:42: I don't know.
42:43: I mean, I haven't read it in years, but certainly the sovereignty of God in salvation, the sovereignty of God in all things is stressed in that book.
42:52: And so that was my introduction.
42:55: I would be the typical American evangelical for the next 10 years regarding evangelism.
43:04: Was it 10 years? Yeah, maybe more than that.
43:07: 14, 15 years.
43:09: First half of my Christian life.
43:11: Meaning that I bought into friendship evangelism.
43:15: That's what I was taught.
43:16: I bought into the sinner's prayer.
43:18: I was asking people to pray prayers all the time.
43:22: And sometimes they would pray and I'd wonder, where are they? I'd never see them again.
43:26: And now they're worse than they were before they prayed with me.
43:29: And so for the first 10 or 15 years, I would say that I believe in the sovereignty of God and that God indeed is the one who saves and that man does not save himself.
43:43: Man does not cooperate in his salvation.
43:46: It's a monergistic work of God, not a synergistic work between God and man.
43:50: I would say those things, but I wasn't applying that to my evangelism.
43:54: I was more Arminian in my evangelism and I was Calvinist when I was studying and going to church and things like that.
44:06: And although I don't, Ray doesn't publicly, at least when I was with him, he wouldn't publicly talk about reformed or Arminianism or gifts or things like that.
44:19: He didn't want to be pigeonholed into one camp or another.
44:23: He's trying to reach the entire body of Christ with his message of get out there and do evangelism.
44:29: But it was learning about the use of the law in evangelism that were the first steps for me to applying my reformed theology to my evangelistic efforts.
44:46: And then probably the next step for me was when I was introduced to presuppositional apologetics.
44:58: And my evangelism dramatically changed at that point because I learned that under no circumstances should I be playing God's defense attorney in the unbeliever's blasphemous courtroom, that God's not on trial, that I'm not trying to prove anything to the unbeliever.
45:19: I am the prosecutor.
45:21: The unbeliever's on trial.
45:23: God is on the throne.
45:24: God is on the bench.
45:25: And he's not moving down in the witness stand because you, the convicted criminal, want to put him on trial.
45:31: And so that thinking of presuppositional apologetics dramatically changed, I think, the way I go about engaging people in conversation.
45:44: I'm no longer trying to convince them of anything.
45:48: I'm no longer trying to convince them that they're a liar or a thief or a blasphemer.
45:54: I'm declaring to them, based on the Word of God, that these things are true about them.
46:00: So there's a change there.
46:04: Now, from time to time, I might ask someone if they've ever told a lie.
46:08: But I really can't remember the last time I employed the good person test in evangelism.
46:16: Now, in saying that, I'm not minimizing or marginalizing that effort or the work that Ray's done.
46:25: I mean, who knows how many crowns Ray Comfort's going to have to lay at the Master's feet because of the gospel he's proclaimed and how many people he's encouraged to get out there on the streets.
46:37: He's going to have a lot more crowns to lay at the Master's feet than I'm going to.
46:40: I'm confident.
46:42: I'm very confident of that.
46:44: But I believe that when we're out there doing evangelism, that we ought to be proclaiming the whole counsel of God.
46:52: And so when I'm proclaiming the gospel to someone, I begin at creation.
46:56: I begin by declaring who God is and the triune nature of who God is and talking about the character of God.
47:06: I spend more time talking about the character of man.
47:11: And I don't argue with anybody about the reality of God's existence.
47:17: I declare that to them.
47:19: And then I try to make as much of Christ as I can.
47:23: And so I think any evangelism effort, whether it's across the dining room table or in a school paper or in the open air, wherever it might be, we ought to be declaring, as it were, the whole counsel of God to the unbeliever.
47:39: Amen.
47:40: And yesterday, or not yesterday, but the day that I listened with my wife to your podcast, I mean, I heard the use of the law, but it wasn't, as you said it, what you weren't asking the two women if they were liars or if they were thieves or if they were, you know, you were saying this is what the Bible says, this is what we are.
47:59: And yeah, so I recognize that, yeah, that the law is still there.
48:04: And I think Ray, in that sense, I think that's his, you know, the main thing for him was always that, you know, through the law comes knowledge of sin, you know, Romans chapter three.
48:15: So it's important.
48:19: So now when you hear me proclaim the gospel to someone and I'm going through the law, I will usually begin by declaring to the person, you and I have both been created in the image of God.
48:32: We're image bearers of our creator.
48:35: And as such, we know he exists and he's written his law in our heart.
48:39: We know it's wrong to lie because the God who created us isn't a liar.
48:44: And so that's how...
48:44: Yeah, I really liked the way you said that.
48:46: That was awesome.
48:47: Yeah.
48:48: So that's how I employ the law in the conversation.
48:51: I'm not trying to draw an answer from them.
48:55: They have a conscience.
48:56: They already know that lying is wrong because the word of God declares that they already know that lying is wrong.
49:03: And they know it because they know the God who created them, who is not a liar.
49:08: So it's more of a declaration of truth as opposed to an interview trying to elicit truth from the other person.
49:17: Well, I want to ask you this next question, and I want to say this could probably be another podcast.
49:23: So I want to respect your time and we try to keep our show around an hour.
49:29: We've been going on.
49:29: Yeah, well, you know, I talk a lot.
49:32: So no, no, no, no, no, no.
49:32: I appreciate it.
49:34: Like I said, I would come back anytime, but I do want to ask if you could give me right now looking at the landscape of the modern church, and I would say even in the last two years because of the COVID and all the things that have happened, many things have cropped up that we never thought maybe we'd ever seen before.
49:54: People who've given up the assembly for watching it on live streams or people who are, you know, given over to things like social justice.
50:04: It's just so many crazy things have happened.
50:06: But given the landscape of the modern church in regard to evangelism, since that is the area that you are doing every day, and that's what you're called by God to do is be an evangelist, what would you say is your greatest concern currently for the modern church in regard to evangelism? Well, I don't know if my concern for the modern church has changed as a result of what's transpired over the last couple of years.
50:35: I think the last couple of years have just affirmed what has always been there, that the modern church really doesn't care.
50:45: Now I'm speaking in generalities, of course.
50:48: Your church cares.
50:49: My church cares.
50:51: We could run off a list of wonderful churches around the country and around the world that most certainly do care.
51:00: But I think what we're seeing is, and I'm no prophet or a son of a prophet.
51:05: I don't play one on TV.
51:07: But what I said years ago, I think is we're seeing it now.
51:14: And I didn't say it in a predictive way.
51:16: It was true then.
51:17: It was true then, but it's demonstrably more true now, and that's that American evangelicalism is not Christian.
51:26: There are Christians within American evangelicalism, but American evangelicalism as a system is not Christian.
51:37: It's religious.
51:39: And so we're seeing now as fire, a little bit of fire was put to the feet of the American evangelical church, and we see churches quickly rolling up to do, as you said, to do their services by video.
51:58: I know Florida mandates went away a long time ago.
52:04: I think you have a great governor down there as far as politicians go.
52:09: And I like our governor here too in Iowa.
52:12: But we were one of the least restrictive states in the union when it came to COVID mandates.
52:18: Our church, like many churches, kind of took a pause for a few weeks, like, what do we have here? What's going on? And it became really clear in short order that this isn't what we're being told.
52:33: We're going back to church.
52:35: And our governor had the foresight to see that too.
52:39: No, we're going back to church.
52:41: We still have churches that haven't opened, that are still podcasting or live streaming their services in one of the least restrictive states in the union.
52:52: And some churches folded up, never opened again.
52:56: And so for that, I thank God for this pandemic, because there's been, it seems somewhat of a separation of the sheep and the goats.
53:08: And it just took a little bit of fire.
53:11: In fact, I had read somewhere, I don't know if it was true.
53:14: It was on the internet.
53:15: So forgive me.
53:17: But there are some politicians who are trying to put forward this idea of no drive Sunday.
53:26: Right? So instead of lowering gas prices, we'll get people to drive less.
53:30: Go into work only a few days a week, work from home, and don't drive on Sunday.
53:35: You better believe there are going to be American evangelical churches who are going to hop on board, wrongly apply Romans 13, and say, hey, we can't, if you live too far to walk to church, just turn on the tube, just turn on the TV.
53:50: That's probably coming too.
53:53: So American evangelicalism as a system has never been Christian.
53:57: It's not Christian now.
53:59: We're seeing that now.
54:01: And as I'm sure you find on the streets, Pastor, the vast majority of people I talk to on the streets would say that they're Christians.
54:10: And maybe one in a hundred, I would walk away from the conversation thinking, I think that's a brother or sister in Christ there.
54:19: But more often than not, they're not.
54:22: And so I don't know if I remotely came close to answering your question.
54:27: No, I think that was very helpful.
54:29: Yeah, absolutely.
54:31: And that's true.
54:32: We live in North Florida, which is almost like South Georgia.
54:36: So we're pretty much in the buckle of that whole Bible belt.
54:40: And when we go out to evangelize, everybody's a Christian in that regard, which is why we really encourage our people not to ask people if they're saved or if they're Christians, but rather to begin with what the question that we use, the question that we have, I actually have a wooden sign that I built and cut out, carved it with my router.
55:02: It says, do you understand the gospel? That's a great question.
55:06: And I think it was, I think I heard Paul Washer asked that question and I just said, that's great.
55:11: And so one of the first questions I'll say, I'll say, Hey, how are you doing? I'm Keith.
55:14: I'm with Sovereign Grace Church.
55:15: And they'll say, Hey, I'm whatever, you know, and you know, do you go to get into that conversation? And I'll say, well, can I ask you a question? Do you think you really understand the gospel? And if they say, well, sure.
55:25: I said, can you tell me how do you share the gospel with people? And right away, sometimes that's conviction enough because they don't, they've never shared the gospel.
55:33: Or if they say, well, this is what I tell people is, you know, God has a wonderful plan for your life.
55:37: And I say, is that really the gospel? Is that what the guy, you know, and so that's just another way to sort of get into that with people who are all Christian.
55:45: Well, you know, if you don't know the gospel, then you're not a Christian, you know? Yeah.
55:49: And pastor, you know, I think as far as evangelism goes, as far as evangelism circles, involving street preachers, street ministries, I think what concerns me the most there is the extra biblical revelation by which men and women are calling themselves to ministry.
56:14: And that really is what now that immediately offends a lot of people.
56:19: Wait, you're saying I'm charismatic.
56:21: Well, what else is it when you say God told me to be an open-air preacher? Yeah.
56:27: What else is it when you say, God, I believe God wants me to quit my job and go into full-time ministry.
56:34: What else is that, but extra biblical revelation? And again, that's why the local church is so important.
56:43: That call is to, certainly we have an inward sense, an inward call, if you will, that this is what I want to do.
56:53: This is what I want to do.
56:55: But we shouldn't be discerning for ourselves whether or not that's too much mustard on our sandwich or the Holy Spirit at work.
57:02: That's the local church.
57:04: You go to your pastors and I think I want to serve the church as an evangelist.
57:11: Well, interesting.
57:12: Let's talk about that.
57:14: And it's the job, it's the responsibility of the pastors to interview that person, to vet that person, to qualify that person, to call that person, to send that person.
57:26: And that's what we see in the New Testament is evangelists and missionaries being sent out by the local church.
57:34: Paul and Barnabas did not go on their own.
57:36: They were sent by the church.
57:39: Philip didn't go on his own.
57:40: He was sent by the church.
57:44: And that should be the case today too.
57:47: Recently on your Facebook page, I saw you post something, and this sort of goes along with that.
57:51: You posted about people who try to raise money for themselves and essentially creating their own parachurch ministry is sort of what you were talking about, and you warned against that.
58:02: Well, yeah, I spoke about something very specific in that.
58:08: And this is something I did for years.
58:11: I supported my family full time by shaking the bushes, knocking on doors, posting videos, writing blogs, hoping that someone would support the ministry.
58:23: So I don't want to be a splinter in your eye, log in my own eye kind of guy on this.
58:28: I did that for a long time.
58:30: That's not who I am today.
58:32: That's not what I do today.
58:35: And I'm not going to go so far as to say that the person trying to raise support to do evangelistic work is thereby by default sinning.
58:47: But I think we could at least say that it's extra biblical.
58:52: If it's not unbiblical, at the very least, it's extra biblical, so we ought to be extra careful.
58:57: What I was referring to specifically in that post was that someone actually posted that, hey, if you don't have time to do evangelism, give me your money and I'll do it.
59:12: Okay.
59:12: Yeah, I do remember reading that now.
59:13: Right.
59:13: Okay.
59:14: So I was addressing that and I was warned, look, flee from that person.
59:20: One, you need to repent if you're giving money to someone so that you don't have to do evangelism, repent of that sin.
59:27: And anyone who would encourage you to sin in that way, don't give them your money.
59:33: Don't give them your money to help you sin in that way.
59:36: And shame on the person.
59:38: And maybe it was ignorance.
59:39: I don't know.
59:40: But shame on the person who would actually use that as a ploy, as a sales pitch to raise money for themselves by saying, look, if you're too busy, I'm your guy.
59:52: I don't think Christians ought to be doing that.
59:56: Amen.
59:56: Well, I'm going to begin to draw us to a close.
59:59: I do have a couple of closing questions.
01:00:01: Take all the time you want, but I want to give you these sort of not really rapid fire, but these three questions and the last one I really do say, take your time with.
01:00:10: First of all, as a man of God, what are you reading right now? What are you studying? Well, right now I'm reading the memoirs of an army chaplain from the Civil War.
01:00:25: I have a lot of interest in the Civil War and my daughter picked me up this first edition of this book from 1880s.
01:00:33: And so I've been reading the accounts of this particular chaplain.
01:00:40: I'm working through a prayer right now.
01:00:44: It's one of the Puritans.
01:00:45: I can't remember which one, but I'm working through that.
01:00:49: And of course I'm in the Bible every day.
01:00:51: I'm one of these guys, Pastor, that typically has six or seven books opened.
01:00:57: I understand.
01:00:58: And someday I'm going to finish those.
01:01:02: So I go through these periods where I actually try to put all the books back on the shelf, pull one book out, read it from start to finish.
01:01:15: And so I'm due right now.
01:01:17: I try to periodically go back to one of my favorite books and it's by a man who was referred to as the Bunyan of Brooklyn, Ichabod Spencer.
01:01:31: And the book is called Pastor Sketches.
01:01:33: Yes.
01:01:37: There's tons of books to recommend, but I certainly would recommend to any Christian, whether you're full-time, part-time, whatever, any Christian, I would recommend you read this book as this pastor goes from house to house in his community, throughout his parish, throughout his congregation.
01:01:57: And he would do this throughout the day, somehow found time to write multiple sermons a week, pre-internet, no doubt.
01:02:08: But he would go home after each night, after each day's work, and he would journal, he would write out almost word for word these conversations he had.
01:02:17: And we have them in Pastor Sketches.
01:02:19: In fact, the very first conversation, and I won't ruin it for anybody, but the very first conversation he actually engages in apologetics in that book.
01:02:30: Awesome.
01:02:31: Before it was a thing, before it was cool.
01:02:34: So I try to read that one from time to time.
01:02:38: Over again, another book that I've read multiple times is Holiness by J.C.
01:02:45: Ryle.
01:02:45: Can't recommend that one enough.
01:02:48: I've read that probably a half a dozen times and taken several people through that book.
01:02:53: Just a wonderful, wonderful work.
01:02:56: Anything by J.C.
01:02:57: Ryle, you can get your hands on.
01:02:59: Do it.
01:03:00: Amen.
01:03:01: Well, brother, I've appreciated everything that you've shared with us.
01:03:04: I've got a couple very quick final questions.
01:03:07: One, I want to ask, what is the best way that we can pray for you and for your ministry and for your church? For me, pray that I remain faithful to what my church has called me to do.
01:03:22: That regardless of weather, I'm not getting any younger, 58 now, regardless of weather, regardless of health, regardless of circumstance, that I would be faithful to be doing the ministry to which God has called me through my local church.
01:03:41: We've got two grandbabies on the way.
01:03:44: We're expecting a granddaughter here in April and a grandson in May.
01:03:50: Life is going to be getting very busy with some cross-country flights.
01:03:55: Our grandson is in California with our daughter and son-in-law.
01:04:00: There's going to be a lot of traveling, so we pray about that.
01:04:04: This coming week, I have what's called the Timothy Project happening this coming week.
01:04:11: That's where I have one or two young men from a church somewhere in the country who will come and live with me and my family for a week.
01:04:20: We will eat and live and breathe evangelism for a week, just one-on-one, two-on-one ministry time.
01:04:32: A young man's coming up from St.
01:04:33: Louis next week for that.
01:04:35: His name is Brandon.
01:04:37: You could be praying for him and for me as his church has entrusted me to spend a week with him to help him out if I can to grow in his evangelism efforts.
01:04:50: Those would be the things I would ask for prayer about.
01:04:55: I know that it's probably not likely that someone would sit and listen to an hour-long podcast on evangelism if they were not a believer, but there's a chance that we may have someone who's listening to this podcast.
01:05:10: Do you know Pastor Brian Borgman? I've heard the name, but I don't know if I know him.
01:05:16: He's one of my favorite expositors.
01:05:18: I listened to him probably more than anyone.
01:05:21: I had him on the program.
01:05:23: My wife set it up.
01:05:24: It was almost like a Christmas gift.
01:05:27: She got him on the program with me.
01:05:29: After an hour of asking him questions about how he prepares his sermons and all these things, I asked him, can you share the gospel in case anybody's not a believer? He said, Keith, do you think anybody has listened to me talk about preaching for now if they don't love Jesus? I said, well, that's probably true, but you never know who, just like a gospel track, you never know where this is going to land.
01:05:51: You never know who is going to end up with this on their phone and listening to it while they're running on a treadmill or sitting in their office or doing something.
01:06:00: If you knew that someone was listening right now and they were not certain about their eternity, what would you want to say to them? Tom P.
01:06:07: Yeah.
01:06:08: Pastor, the reality is that someone could be listening who is convinced in their own mind that they're saved when they're not.
01:06:17: Now, that's not for you or me to determine that for them.
01:06:21: There is only one lawgiver and judge, only one who's able to save and destroy, and it's not Pastor Keith and it's not an evangelist in Davenport named Tony.
01:06:31: That's Lord, but when I was leading the Ambassador's Academy for Living Waters, we had a couple of people that came through vetted by their pastors, applications, interviews, everything else, and as they're watching open-air preaching on the streets realized, I'm not saved.
01:06:54: They're reading Ray Comfort's books, they're handing out tracks, they're sharing the gospel, they're coming to this training, and they get to the training and just by hearing the gospel, they realize that they're not actually born again.
01:07:05: Not because someone told them, hey, you're not born again, but because they heard the gospel and the Spirit of God convicted them.
01:07:13: So the gospel is simply this.
01:07:18: The reality is that every human being, everyone watching, pastor and I, we're all created in the image of God.
01:07:26: We are image bearers of our Creator.
01:07:28: And as such, every human being has a couple of things in common.
01:07:32: We all know that God exists.
01:07:33: There are no atheists, agnostics, skeptics.
01:07:37: There are simply people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness.
01:07:40: Every human being knows that God exists.
01:07:43: The other thing every human being has in common is that God has written his law in their heart.
01:07:47: He's given us a conscience.
01:07:49: We know the difference between right and wrong, not because of how we were raised or when or where or by whom, but because the God who created us has written his law in our heart.
01:07:59: We know it's wrong to lie because the God who created us isn't a liar.
01:08:03: We know it's wrong to steal because the God who created us isn't a thief.
01:08:08: We know it's wrong to take God's name in vain because the God who created us does not blaspheme himself.
01:08:14: We know it's wrong to create a God in our own imagination to serve ourselves, to create a Jesus in our imagination that always seems to condone our sin, but will convict the other guy.
01:08:28: We know that's wrong because the God who created us isn't an idolater, and it is appointed once for a person to die and then the judgment.
01:08:36: Each and every one of us created in the image of God, we are going to live the life that God has given us.
01:08:41: We're not going to live one day less or one day more than what God has given us.
01:08:45: He has numbered our days.
01:08:46: He has numbered the hairs on our head.
01:08:48: He is sovereign.
01:08:49: He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
01:08:51: That doesn't mean he's a wealthy rancher.
01:08:53: That means he owns everything he's made, including you and me.
01:08:58: And one day you're going to stand before this creator God who owns you, and he's going to judge you according to the perfect moral standard that he's written on your heart, a law that you've broken in one way or another every day of your life.
01:09:14: You may say, well, how do you know that? You don't know me.
01:09:17: I know what the Word of God says.
01:09:19: The Word of God says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
01:09:22: That's the authority, not your or my opinion.
01:09:25: You've sinned.
01:09:26: You've broken God's law.
01:09:28: You're a lawbreaker in his eyes.
01:09:30: You're already guilty.
01:09:32: And because God is good, because he is holy and righteous and just, he's going to punish that lawbreaking, which we call sin.
01:09:40: And the punishment God has determined for sin, all of it, the sin you love to commit, the sin you hate in others, he's going to judge all of that, and the punishment he's determined for that sin is eternity in hell.
01:09:55: And this same God, for there is only one, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this same God who is angry with the wicked every day, who will judge the world in righteousness, whose wrath abides upon the ungodly even now, is the same God who is also loving and merciful and gracious and kind, not in opposition to any other aspect of his character.
01:10:21: His wrath is every bit as perfect as his love.
01:10:24: His grace is every bit as perfect as his justice.
01:10:28: His mercy is every bit as perfect as his holiness.
01:10:32: He's perfect in every way.
01:10:37: This same God who is loving and merciful and kind showed that great love some 2,000 years ago when God the Father sent his Son to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, truly God, truly man without sin, born of a virgin just as the prophet Isaiah declared some 700 years before his birth.
01:10:57: And he lived a perfect life from cradle to grave and thoughtward indeed for some 33 years, a life that you and I can't live for 33 seconds.
01:11:06: Yet even though he knew no sin, at a time appointed by God the Father before the foundation of the world, God the Son voluntarily submitted himself to the torturous bloody death of a Roman cross.
01:11:19: He died a death he did not deserve to take upon himself the punishment you and I rightly deserve for our sins against God.
01:11:28: God the Father made him God the Son who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf so that through him we might become, we might receive the righteousness of God.
01:11:38: He died, he was buried, and then three days later he forever defeated sin and death when he rose from the grave.
01:11:44: He's alive today and he will return at the time of the Father's choosing.
01:11:49: He will not return as a baby helpless, meek, and mild in a manger.
01:11:53: He will return as the lion of the tribe of Judah to judge both the living and the dead.
01:11:59: And what God commands of you is the same thing he commands of me and all people everywhere, and that's that you repent, that by faith you turn from your sin and turn toward God.
01:12:11: By faith and by faith alone you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior.
01:12:17: And if God does that miraculous work in you, if God literally causes you to be born again to a living hope, he will take your heart of stone that has you at enmity with God and he will give you a heart of flesh.
01:12:32: You will begin to love the things that God loves, namely him.
01:12:35: You will begin to hate the things that God hates, namely your own sin.
01:12:39: And you will have the assurance of forgiveness and eternal life not on the basis of anything you've done to earn or deserve it, but based entirely on the grace and the mercy and the love of God that would allow his Son to die for sinners like you and me.
01:12:56: And you might hear that and go, yeah, I heard that before.
01:12:59: Yep, I believe all of that.
01:13:00: And if that's the entirety of the effect it has on you, examine yourself, test yourself to see if you are even in the faith.
01:13:10: Because the demons believe and tremble.
01:13:14: Satan would nod his head to everything I just said.
01:13:17: The father of lies would nod his head to everything I just said, knowing the truth, and he will not spend a moment in heaven because he acknowledges that truth.
01:13:29: Because he's never been born again.
01:13:31: He's never turned from his sin and put his trust in Christ alone for his salvation.
01:13:36: Have you done that? Have you turned to Christ? Or are you playing church? Turn to Christ and live while God has given you time.
01:13:50: Amen, brother.
01:13:51: And that is a wonderful, wonderful word for our listeners.
01:13:58: And I may just take just that section out and blast it all over because that was great.
01:14:03: I appreciate you.
01:14:05: And it was great because it was the gospel, Pastor.
01:14:08: And I know you know that.
01:14:09: But it was great because it's the gospel.
01:14:14: No matter what mouth it comes out of, no matter what card it's written on, no matter who's preaching that, it's the gospel that's the power of God for salvation to all who believe.
01:14:26: That's why that was great.
01:14:29: And you know what? I was thinking while you were talking, the saddest thing in my heart was that I know people who would call themselves Christians who wouldn't want to hear that.
01:14:40: There might have been people listening who were yawning and nodding off as they heard that.
01:14:50: We should be affected.
01:14:53: We may not emote, but we should be affected as followers of Christ every time we hear the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
01:15:02: We should not be unaffected.
01:15:05: We should not be unmoved.
01:15:06: We should not be unchanged whenever we hear the gospel because God was so gracious and kind to allow us to hear that gospel, to cause us to be born again, to regenerate us, to give us the gifts of repentance and faith so that we would and could believe that should mean something to us every single day of our life.
01:15:32: As Martin Luther said, I preach the gospel every week because every week my people forget.
01:15:38: So even if you're a believer, praise God to hear it again, to be reminded again of the wonderful and beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ.
01:15:48: That's one of the great joys of communicating it to others, Pastor, is I get to hear it hundreds, thousands of times.
01:15:57: I get to hear the gospel because I'm sharing it with other people.
01:16:01: What a joy, what an opportunity to worship every time I get to open my mouth and lift up the name of Christ.
01:16:08: Amen.
01:16:10: Well, Brother Tony, I want to just again thank you for being on the program today.
01:16:14: I was grateful that you took the time to be with us, took the time away from your family to spend the time with the audience, and I do know that it's been a blessing to me, and I'm sure that it has been a blessing to them as well.
01:16:26: Well, I'm humbled that you would even ask, Pastor, and really good to connect with you again.
01:16:31: Great spending time with you.
01:16:33: Thank you so much.
01:16:34: Yes, sir, and thank you.
01:16:36: And thank you, listener, for being with us on the program today, and I want to make mention of this.
01:16:40: If you have a question that you would like to send in, one of the things that I do on this program is I seek to answer biblical questions, questions about scripture, culture, and media from a Reformed perspective.
01:16:51: That's the tagline of the show.
01:16:53: So if you have a question that you'd like to send in, you can send it to calvinispodcast at gmail.com, and if you have a question for Tony or you'd like to connect with his ministry, if you email me, you can do that, and I can send that to him, or if you want to connect directly to him, Tony, what's the best way to connect directly to you? They can reach me at info at crossencountersmen.com, info at crossencountersmen.com.
01:17:20: Wonderful, and again, thank you, listener, for being with us today for this episode of Conversations with a Calvinist, and keep in mind that we're with you every week bringing you scripture, culture, and media from a Reformed perspective.
01:17:33: My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.
01:17:36: May God bless you.