Post Conference Chat (almost)

Well, we made it to the end of day two. We have one more day, which is a half day.

Brother Keith is going to preach for us tomorrow. Again, I'm not part of the conference. I'm the Pope of supply this time, this regular

Sunday morning. And we're thankful we could be here for you. Absolutely. I wanted to ask really two things.

First of all, this was kind of aimed toward Big John because you are the most odd man out.

Okay. And then after that, the most odd or the most man, which one is both? Everybody's thoughts on the conference, your initial thoughts, what you've been thinking about the conference and what you've seen and experienced and heard.

But John, the reason I said I'm man out is because you joined the group and you decided to be with a group of folks who are, you're the only charismatic, you're the only, which term do you like best?

Pentecostal. You're the only Pentecostal, the only church of God, everybody else is, we might be

Presbyterian Baptists, but we're all more leaning. Sure. And so, and we've been talking about writing a reform document about Baptists and Presbyterians and that kind of leaves you out.

So what's been your experience with, with this group and, um,

I mean as a whole, I think it's been positive. Uh, I enjoy, I enjoy a couple of things about it.

One is I enjoy the honesty and integrity. I try to, uh, I believe in heart ministry, honest, open and transparent.

That's why if, uh, if I do something and it, it sits against one another,

I've got witnesses in the room. I'll reach out as, and try to be as integrate, to have as much integrity as possible about something.

Uh, but I'm, you know, obviously I'm not perfect by no means, and there's things that, uh, that don't, I don't think much of that some people do think a lot of, right?

And we've gone down this road before. Uh, and there's things that I, I enjoy besides the, you know, the, the integrity aspect of it.

I believe that, uh, I believe that all you guys, at least the ones that I've met, met with most, Keith, I haven't actually talked all that much to in person, actually ever in person.

Uh, but the rest of y 'all, with the exception of Jay, I've seen in person before and, uh,

I find y 'all to be a, an honest and, and deliberate bunch of Christian men who genuinely seek out what, what facts are best, they understand.

And I, I be upfront, I disagree on some aspects. Uh, I don't find them to be areas where we couldn't, we couldn't work together in, in some capacities.

There may be some areas we couldn't work together though. And that's fine. Uh, I believe the scripture gives cause for that.

Whenever you see that Paul and Silas and Paul and Barnabas parted ways, but they parted ways to do a mission and it was done decently and it was done in order.

And later on, everybody was restored if the, if the story is correct, I remember reading from, so, uh, there'll be some things that we, we couldn't work together on.

That being said, uh, there's not a, there's not anything I wouldn't do to help y 'all because I believe that we served the same king.

I wouldn't be able to sign a reform document because I don't believe in Calvinistic teaching. And I respectfully disagree with you on that, but I would give you all the liberty to do so and even take your, take up for you and other circles because I believe that this is your convictions and I can't see where it breaks fellowship for some.

Uh, but you would support that effort as a good endeavor. Sure. Yeah. Y 'all to do.

And to just to go further with it, I wouldn't want you to compromise your convictions or water down something you feel is a necessity so that it would include me because I wouldn't,

I wouldn't want you to do something. Truth be told, if it meant I couldn't be a part of the truth and love network, it would really suck, right?

But if it was better for y 'all, that's what I'd do. So let me reverse the question.

That was, that was, um, asking you if you, how much support and you said yes and us working together on the document.

So all of us together, in what ways could we support you and to be supportive to you?

Well, I don't know that, that there's a lot that just being blunt, the church of God allows for things to happen that, that in some ways

I disagree with and I wouldn't expect y 'all to support things like the church of God will allow women to pastor, right?

I don't agree that the Bible supports this. I believe the Bible couldn't be more clear in a matter. They've chosen to allow this to happen and it's been happening since 1906.

It's not a new social movement that they've observed us through. It's something that they've been doing for a very long time.

Uh, I think that if your convictions are strong enough to where you think that you couldn't be a part of something that supported that,

I think you have to hold to those convictions, even if it means you can't walk together in that moment. So I don't look for support for the nomination.

What I would look for is exactly the same grace that you've received from me and nothing more, nothing less.

Uh, I would ask for, for prayer and for intentionality behind what you say, integrity behind a man that means a lot.

And if we're going to represent Christ to the world, if we're going to be that epistle that Trevor was talking about earlier today, then you have to have integrity and you have to be the same man behind the pulpit as you are behind a podcast camera.

You can't be a coward whenever you're around people. And, uh, so I don't know if that answers the question or not.

I don't expect anything other than what you should be giving any other Christian that's in the world.

Can I just kind of jump in? Sure. So to, to Rob's question there,

I have a question too, or I have a statement actually. So with the, um, with the conversation being focused right now, the question being asked about a confessional statement, basically concerning the group,

I think it's very important that we, that we not schismatize this group or hold a group to the specific requirements of a local church because it's not a local church, it's not a local congregation.

And we don't have to, that's, that's a, uh, what's the word superfluous. That's a superfluous addition to what would be important for this group.

It's, it's, it's not, it's not beneficial and it's not helpful to do such a thing. I think a more graceful, and I, and I'll say this because we have adopted this here at Reformata, uh, as far as our constitutional, uh, requirements for church membership.

We hold to the 1689 London Baptist confession, but someone doesn't have to just hold to the

London Baptist confession and nothing else in order to be a member, like over there on the board, right? We've got major confessions that we can hold to and each of those confessions, there's

Baptist, there's Congregationalist, there's Presbyterian, that agreement can be had on and there's no need to, to, uh, to schismatize, to, to cause unnecessary division.

Right. Like, like, you know, I don't see John as the odd man out. Um, like John made fun, and I thought of this when, when

John introduced Dan. I never, he said, I never seen a Presbyterian before.

I never met a Presbyterian before. All I could think of was about Bigfoot walking by. We just get our picture made with Dan standing like this.

I got my picture made with a Presbyterian. I mean, so it's those things that are, are, are,

I understand. I, okay, I understand the sentiment.

I understand the sentiment in that again, but we, we got to, we got to in a, in a very real sense, uh, disconnect the idea that we try to implement in the local church from what we're doing here because it's not, and it's, it's, it's completely, it's not,

I don't know, completely different is the right term, but it's not, it's not necessary in an organization.

We are, uh, we are all, although I would say this, every Christian represented is under the authority of their local church representing their local church, but that doesn't, that doesn't, um, make it, it doesn't make us unable to work together.

Yeah, I think, I think my intention was not to be, to cause unnecessary division, but to keep in mind where we're all coming from.

So our group, we support one another and we, and we example unity, but we also know that John talking about his local church, he's going back to his local church.

So how can we, how can we be supportive to him as he's going back to his local church?

And, uh, and that's what I was asking when it comes to, how can, how can we help

Baptists and Presbyterians come together? You know, he's supporting us as we're going back to our local churches.

So we're sensitive to where he's coming from and we're, and he's sensitive to where we're coming from.

And I think that's kind of what I was asking with the question. Okay. So I think I understand the question now. Yeah. Okay.

So one thing that I said it, and it sometimes gets, gets washed away as unimportant.

I don't, I can't emphasize, I can't emphasize enough how important I believe your prayers are.

Oftentimes we say the least, the least I can do is pray for you. And we treat that as if it's a minor thing. I believe in my art that when you pray for someone, you levy the ammunition of heaven against a problem.

John Wesley says, and God does nothing except an answer to prayer. There's something that happens when

Christians ask God to do something. So I'm not trying to make it sound minor to say, just pray, pray for us in our church.

Pray for us. Yeah. Like you pray for your church that I might leave them correctly. Now I'm accountable to an overseer.

I have, uh, I have two overseers that, uh, I've not hit anything from, right. I've been warned by some to stay away from this, this group, just for all integrity sake, for everything to be transparent, right.

There's many that believe that Calvinists are heretics and are far from God and seek to try to undermine the grace of God or, or to make a light, the penalty of sin and things like that.

And I've tried to, to stick up where I can, but I can't change a man's mind.

That's right. But what I can do is when I'm with you, I can focus on the things that I know you stand for that I'm in agreement with.

So if you ask me to make a podcast about Calvinism, I'll stop. And I'll say, listen to the, to the confession of these men.

Their confession is that Christ is sovereign in this. And I agree with them. Christ is sovereign and that their objection, their, their, their purposes is not to make light of their sin or to make sin, something menial that, that just everybody is going to be saved regardless, given enough time or whatever, uh, that, that this is a conviction that they hold.

And biblically, you can't find a problem with God's sovereignty, right? You may disagree with whether or not someone can lose their salvation.

I would disagree with that. I believe that a man can lose his salvation, right? But I'm not going to stop brother

Foskey from saying that you can't in front of a church because it doesn't bring unity in that moment.

And it would serve to drive a wedge between two people over an issue that if I'm right, doesn't matter if you stay in the word.

If, if you follow the example that he gave, that you don't run the risk of losing your salvation. So his example and his practical application that lines up with his

Calvinistic teaching would be applicable even in a non -Calvinistic teaching provided that you do what he said and your intentions and your motivations matter behind that.

So that's why I didn't say anything. Sometimes not saying nothing is saying a lot. That's right. And I appreciate what you said,

Claude, because if we do try to tackle some of these issues, we need boundaries.

Yeah. We need to remember who we are and what we're doing, why we're doing it.

Yeah. And all those questions. So I appreciate that. We may also want to think that it may, it may also be more beneficial for the exercise than actual product.

Right. So that it would benefit us to go through and talk about these things together and put something down.

But even if we never release that to anyone other than ourselves, or even if we don't put it out there, the exercise would be beneficial because it's an exercise in unity among brothers where you disagree.

Even if that doesn't go anywhere other than us. Because it... Paper's only as good as the people who hold one another accountable to it though.

Sure. And that's the thing. The exercise of it may be more important than what you put down. It's important also to understand that we're, particularly in the days of the interwebs, you're going to find somebody who's going to find fault, who's going to...

And again, I used the word schismatize earlier and I'll use it again, be schismatic over issues and things that are beyond their control.

And it serves the same no matter what denomination. Sam Frost sets a good example for...

What's the liberal branch of the Presbyterian Church? PCUSA. PCUSA. Sam Frost, godly man,

NPCUSA, knows they're liberal, yet he stands firm with them, right?

With the Methodists, right? There are the liberal Methodists. I don't know if there's...

One's United Methodists and one's something else. Right. But again, Southern Baptists, same principle.

There are folks who would say, if you're a member of a Southern Baptist church, you're in sin. That's ignorant when you really get down to it.

You can't say that. You can't. And the same way for the Church of God. If you're in the

Church of God, if you're Pentecostal, if you're charismatic... I said this a year ago, right?

Those are bad terms. There are hypers. That would be the New Apostolic Reformation.

When we talk about charismatics and we talk about our Pentecostal brothers and sisters in Christ, we can't lump them in the same lump as the

New Apostolic Reformation folks. We can't. I'll say this.

I can't speak for every denomination or every congregation inside Church of God. I won't speak for them, although I don't speak for me.

My former church, where I was associate pastor for about a decade, it helped that church group, that congregation, because when we started the labors, they said, who's

Claude? And why is John talking to some guy in Tennessee? So they follow

Reformation. Praise the Lord. Right. They follow your channels and Keith's because they see them on there from time to time.

And what it winds up doing is it helps them to grow. You get pushed in an area that challenges what you've believed your whole life.

You'll do one of two things. It'll change your mind or it'll push you to prove your point. Either way is fine.

If you're seeking truth and you're seeking truth in the word, it's fine.

Iron sharpens iron. So I encourage people to follow y 'all's stuff.

If they do, they do. And I have confidence that you're not going to say something that I have to straighten out.

That's right. On Monday morning. Trusting each other. That's right. And if I didn't have that confidence,

I wouldn't post it or tell somebody to watch it. So I don't take lightly that you let me stand behind your full pit.

No, but that's what you're talking about. That's what we have to example.

That's what we have to demonstrate. And with exampling and demonstrating that, we have each of ourselves to be willing to bear those consequences.

Sure. Right? Yeah. But when we're looking out, each man's looking out not for his own good, but for the good of his brothers.

Which, by the way, that's the scripture, right? That's not an old wives' tale, right?

That's what the scriptures teach us to do. And if we are doing that, we're exampling that.

That's all that we can do. That's right. That would cover it.

Not being in an echo chamber does have consequences sometimes. Yes. Yeah. So you guys, talk to us about the conference.

What were your initial thoughts? Thoughts now? Uh, things you've learned, experienced, whatever your thoughts are on the conference, except if they're bad.

If they're bad, hit the dislike button twice. Thumbs down twice.

I mean, I'll say this. One of the most difficult parts of conferences is the scheduling aspect of it.

Some people overschedule. So I'm very thankful that y 'all didn't do that, that there was plenty of time in between speakers to fellowship.

I've been to conferences where 10 minutes between speakers and there's an hour service. And by the third one,

I'm like wanting to beat my head with a stick. So I honestly was grateful because I mean,

I'm just sheerly exhausted from everything going on in our family and being able to have 30 minutes between speakers, having guys managing their time well, because I went to a conference one time to do pre -church for an hour and a half and he was only supposed to take his hour.

So we had to move the whole conference back because he just wouldn't stop. That's disrespectful. That's just straight up disrespectful.

I mean, you got other guys who are waiting on you. See, I don't have that tomorrow. I'm gonna have all the time in the world. But honestly, that's the kind of thing, like you don't think about things like that.

But when you're managing with other men, I mean, man, when Tyler stopped early, and I know

I keep harping on that, that's never done. Like everybody wants their hour.

Everybody wants, I prepared for this. I want my, man, when you started, he said what you wanted to say. He's the same thing. I was like, praise the

Lord. I want to give him a big hug. Not because I wanted him to stop, but because I was like, that's humble.

It's good. It's positive. And so I've enjoyed this. My, you know, like I said, barring my family's issues, they would have enjoyed it better too.

Plus when the baby came in, he was screaming. I was like, take him out, take him out, take him out. I love hearing babies in the church.

Don't bother me being in the church. That's normal. I love it. So I really have enjoyed it.

I think the scheduling, the way we did it, I think it was good.

That's my positive on this. And all the messages were wonderful as well. But as far as the, just the overall feel, everybody was very welcoming.

And of course, Claude's the best of us. So yeah.

I will say that as the young megachurch product, I did not have the experience of the pew jumping revivals of later years.

So this was probably my introduction into that world. And it was, it was beautiful.

I sent several texts today saying there is a sweet spirit at Reformation Church this weekend.

It has been refreshing. It has been edifying. It has been amazing to be in the house of the

Lord. Is this the first conference you've been to where there's been

Presbyterian Baptist and Pentecostals in the same room? Because I don't go to conferences. So this is not my first one.

Last year was my first one. Well, the one in Tullahoma, which

I've done two years in a row now, has a pretty good mix of guys. All of us are Calvinists.

But in general, there's still guys who are continuationist Calvinists, like I guess

Brother John from yesterday. So there's a good group there. But I mean, this is a pretty diverse group.

I was surprised when you said you were Church of God. Not in a bad way. Like I said, my mom was, you know, sort of out of that same group.

So I grew up, I grew up going back and forth. So, and you look like my brother.

You don't know that, but you look like my little brother. So, well, I mean, your face.

Yeah, but no, I mean, I thought it was, like I said,

I think that's good. I think it's a unique topic that we chose this year in that certainly there was distinctions that could be held and maybe some tensions that could be, that we could work through.

But nothing bad, nothing negative at all. Just, you know, I know there was something on the, you mentioned women pastors earlier.

So that's the only reason I'm bringing it up. I remember, I can't keep up with the, when you guys get to going on the

Facebook chat, I'm just like, I catch up. Because it'll just start, but I saw something recently about somebody with female pastors.

Was that Brother John? Was that your situation? So I didn't know who it was or what happened. Can you tell me more about it?

Is that something y 'all don't want to talk about right now? I know we're recording this, so. I'm open book. Okay. So if it's okay for me to answer.

Yeah. So the first incident that happened was about a month ago.

There was a, my band was playing for a youth service and the pastor of that church is

Zach. Oh gosh, I would forget his last name anyway. And there's a lady that's the youth pastor there.

Her name's Tabitha. And they call her youth pastor, not youth leader.

Now she's married and there's a gentleman who has a valid complaint. I'm not in any way trying to dismiss.

Somebody in our group? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, formally, it caused a little bit of a division and.

I'm sorry to bring it up. I didn't know it was bad. Transparent and honest. I know, but I don't want to upset you either.

No, there's nothing. Like I said, I saw it, but I didn't know what all was happening. So in any case,

I shared the event on Facebook. That's it, Facebook.

And then there was some conversation that was had among some in this room to me about it.

And I said, well, there's little I can do about a church. They're not even inside our denomination.

They asked us to come play a youth service. There was a young man who's, I think he's 19, maybe, who spoke that night.

We played music. That's her. That's her title at that church. But this

I didn't tell y 'all. I actually spoke to that pastor and to that lady, the

Pastor Zach and Sister Tabitha. And I told them, I said, there's liable to be a letter because you said something about making a statement.

I said, come out. I said, I don't want you to be blindsided that I've come and helped with worship at this event.

And then you see me tagged in something tomorrow that makes you look like I'm against you.

I don't really care whether she leads the youth or not. I don't see that as pastoring.

I don't really see that as being termed a youth pastor. I think sometimes we have watered the title down and now everybody can be a pastor.

You can be an administrative pastor. You can be a youth discipleship pastor and accountable to no one except the senior pastor of the church.

And I don't know what their system or form of government is at their church, but both of them agreed that they didn't allow or would allow for a woman to be the pastor of the church or hold authority over a man.

So we worked with them anyway. It was too late to stop it in the first place. I wouldn't have done them that way since we were going to be at the music that night.

But I think I've been pretty upfront and clear about everything the whole way. Is there something

I left out, Jay? No, I mean, I guess I'm going to oust myself out there, but I'm not simply complementarian.

I hold to biblical patriarchy. And so I can be kind of like the extremist of this group,

I guess. Because with the exception of like maybe infant baptism,

I pretty much take... Well, I'm not saying you're an extremist, just so you know. You're talking about yourself in extremes.

Covenant, we're off limits. But the things that people typically would say, well, biblical patriarchy, that sounds extremist.

Christian nationalism, post -millennialism, theonomy, all that stuff, right? And I hold to a lot of those things with nuance, right?

We've been talking about nuance lately on social media. But John and I had a conversation about that, and I let him know where I stood, and he knows.

And I understood where he was coming from. And it's kind of like what we were talking about earlier, right?

When one of the people asked, how do we keep unity as different denominations, right?

And so do we agree on the essentials, and do we respectfully disagree on the secondary issues, right?

Recognizing that the secondary issues do matter. We don't pretend like they don't matter. They do matter.

But is female pastors something that's going to bar people from heaven? I don't know.

I don't think that... So let me explain what I mean by that. So I don't think that it's an automatic yes.

But I do think if you're willing to accept that, what else are you not accepting that might be essential?

Because I do believe that that's very clear in Scripture. And so there might be exceptions to that, just like I don't remember who it was that I was talking to.

I think it was you, Dan, when we were talking about Roman Catholics, where we said there might be some Roman Catholics that make it to heaven in spite of being in the

Roman church. You know, I would be okay with that.

But it's in spite of what they're teaching, not because of it. That's correct. I think it's the same thing with a church that has women pastors, right?

I think certainly there could be believers there. Absolutely, 100%. I think it makes it more difficult because it undermines the

Scriptures. And I would agree that women should be pastors for the sake of clarity.

Sure, yeah, I know you do. I know you do. The second event would have been that this is on me.

I was with a friend of mine who has a church, and we helped establish the church a couple years ago. And he has a...

Actually, it's a friend of mine's wife is speaking. And I didn't actually look at the thread. I just seen they shared something.

I hit post and kept on getting up with the scroll. You know what I mean? I did. It's easy to do that.

Whatever. And there was some flack given to me about that. She's not a pastor.

She doesn't hold a title or anything like that. Should she be preaching? No, probably not. The truth be told, I don't know that it's a woman's conference.

I don't think it's a woman's conference that she's speaking at. So I'm going to assume there's going to be men in the room with her. So I don't think that she should.

Regardless, my denomination will allow for that. So this church falls within the practices of their denomination.

They're not doing anything to break one of the rules of the denomination. And the rules that they have are because of Mary Magdalene being the first person to testify of the risen savior and things like that.

And that's where they get that. I think that it's easier to just say I don't suffer any women to hold authority over men and being pretty plain reading of the text.

But one of the things that I'm allowed as the pastor of my church is to establish the deacons and appoint them.

I can appoint my council and my elders. Right. Really? Yeah. I don't have...

You have the right to do that? Yes, sir. Does the congregation have to vote? I'm only curious for the ecclesiastical... They can vote on it.

And it's more or less up or down, yes or no. But in terms of who's nominated, that's up to me.

Okay. So... Makes sense, makes sense. Like I was advised to take on... There's two couples that used to be the former pastor's council.

Husband and wife worked together on the panel. Some people say that's not a big deal. And I said, I'm not having a woman on the pastor's council.

And that's, I mean, it's a hard no for me. And he's like, okay, what's your choice? And it is.

And if it's such time it would not become my choice, I can have my license. And I believe strongly in that.

At the same time, I've got a bad habit of helping people that ask me for it.

So if you ask me to come help you with something at your church, and I disagree with part of it, but what

I hear is you exalting Christ and edifying the church as best you can, then

I'm going to help you. And I might keep my mouth shut the whole time, because I disagree with the way you're doing it.

But unless what I'm saying is heretical, the biggest problem with the female pastor thing to me is that it's just a sheer thumb at the nose of authority of Scripture.

Scripture is authoritative. And by just simply walking in and rebellion to that, I don't see that.

So within our group, I don't think the question was ever, should there be women pastors and preachers?

Yeah. And it's never been the issue, how slippery are slippery slopes?

Those two things have never been a question. The question, I think, was, does association cause for promotion?

Let me say something. We talked earlier about keeping the essentials the essentials.

This guy's my brother, you know what I mean? Because he's got the essentials clear. Now, you know, he's going to go worship on Sunday, typically over there.

I'm going to worship over there, and that's okay. And then we can do things like these, where we say, okay, this is what we can do as Christians, brothers and sisters.

I think we have an overreaction to people who are very different from us in our secondary doctrines.

An overreaction, meaning, well, they may or may not be Christian. I don't care. I'm not going to associate with them.

I think it matters. I think we have to not overreact to those very important, but secondary doctrines, right?

This is my brother, and it's not up to me, right? We're talking about the

Holy Spirit. He made him my brother, whether I like it or not. So I got to treat him like my brother.

And I do like you. I don't want to love you, but I do. I love you, can't do nothing about it.

And the issue, again, is not whether secondary issues are important. Because in here, it's not that we disagree with Big John.

We all agree. I think the issue was, does association mean promotion?

Yeah, that's a good question. It may, in some cases, mean that. It may, in some cases, mean that. It may, in some cases, not mean that.

And in this case, I was promoting a youth event, right? And in this case, of hitting the thing,

I did promote a... But you didn't promote it in the group. You promoted it on your Facebook, right? Yeah, I just hit the share button.

Yeah, you didn't send it to us. I did put it on Truth in Love's page. That's what I'm saying. I mean, we could have some liberty with some personal stuff.

I mean, we have to have some liberty in that.

I mean, if that's all it was. But that's what it was, in terms of... At least, unless there's something I don't know about. That's what

I know about. I guess it was stud that I didn't know about. I mean, it's one thing if you were promoting transsexual

Nazi eskimos or something. I mean, we might have a conversation about that. They prefer you. They prefer you.

I'm joking. Now, I did take the details of this scenario after the fact, when

I went to present to the elders about coming to this conference a couple weeks ago. Just because we're a non -denominational church, and I thought that that would be good to demonstrate how we are trying to figure out how to get along, just as my church is figuring out how to get along with differences.

And this is something that my pastor has some questions about with the line with Association 2.

I mean, he was in Kenya for a month. You got a lot of female pastors in Africa right now.

Sure, sure. I mean... And so one of the... That's actually a question that he posed to me was, is this an error that would, in and of itself, keep someone out of heaven?

And I think that's the question that we ask about a lot of things when we deal with the secondary issues.

When we deal with the points of disagreement that are outside the Apostles' Creed. When we deal with infant baptism.

When we deal with continuation versus cessationism. Are these differences... Are these, let's just say, errors that would keep a person out of heaven or vice versa?

I suppose if it causes someone to stumble... You're asking somebody who believes you can lose your salvation? Is that what you're asking?

If it causes someone to stumble, I believe that you have to address it.

And I hope that by addressing it early on, we've stopped someone from stumbling.

I don't know that we did. Well, we put forth effort and good faith.

Okay. And we put forth the work to create a statement. And I didn't hear any disagreement thus far on the statement.

When we did, we tried to make clarity and corrections on the statement. And then...

So that's number one. Number two, I would say, like Keith was saying, with grace, we've got to believe in our brothers and trust in some integrity.

If this is who he says he is, then trust the Holy Spirit is working in his life.

Can he mess up? Better believe it. Can I mess up? We all can mess up. But if we believe that he has integrity, then trust him.

And take time with these things. If you have a question, it just may need some clarity.

It may not be a sin in someone's life. You just may need clarity on this. That's right. And so take some time to walk through those things instead of jumping and pounding on it.

And I do not want to belittle the man's... The man has drastic convictions that we don't even promote or to share or something like that.

And he commented on it, and I left it alone for sake of integrity. I didn't dislike it.

I didn't edit it. I didn't remove it. I just left it up there. And then I made a statement that you may or may not have read on the thing, that for in terms of integrity, say, this is what happened.

This is exactly what happened to the letter. And ask for your information and do with it what you want, because I trust y 'all.

And if I'm in error, I expect to be called out and corrected. So they might be renewed.

I think that's part of church discipline. What shows more love and unity?

Immediately kicking somebody out or taking time to walk with somebody and figure things out? Well, again, it goes back to what

I was saying, though. Folks see any kind of gathering as a church, and they think that they can implement church rules, church discipline rules on just a group.

And that's not biblical. And it also goes to maturity.

There has to be maturity in us and even those that are outside, and the wisdom to understand, like what

I believe it's Ecclesiastes or Proverbs said, don't listen to everything your servant says about you.

Don't fret over everything that somebody says about you, because number one, we've done the same things.

We've overreacted. We've done those things. But the wisdom in this is, again, even to like what

Rob or what John said, sometimes there's no need to answer. Yeah, correct.

There's no need to answer. And again, just so you know, you were backed.

Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, you were backed. I don't want to be stoned about anybody, though.

I've said that repeatedly. I believe fully that if I call someone to stumble into sin, that their blood's going to be on my hands.

And I don't want that. Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I just want to say how you could have.

From everything I've heard, and again, I'm feeling like the new Kyle is. I'm like, I don't want to say how you could have.

I'm going to try my best to be as open about all of it. I don't want to do the facts as best as they are. It's like the lady, but here's the thing about calling somebody to stumble.

There's a great story. Brian Borman, I think, told the story. He said there was a guy who was preaching a sermon of church, and he's had a beard.

And when he was done, he walked down to the lady. He walked up to him. She says, you know, that was a good sermon, but your beard's causing me to stumble.

He said, ma 'am, unless my beard is encouraging you to grow your own, it's not causing you to stumble.

That's not what that means. Just because it offends you does not mean it's causing you to stumble. That's not the same thing.

And so I would be clear. Nothing you've done is causing somebody to sin.

I mean, they may disagree with you. My disagreement with you is not sin, because I'm right. No, I'm serious,

John. That's the thing. I wouldn't worry about that at all. You've heard of R .C. Sproul.

We've talked about him. He's got a, I think it's a series, The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother.

Oh, man, those are great. You know what I'm talking about? Listen to that. He's a Presbyterian. Baptized baby's bizarre.

Is that right? He's all right. He'll be number two for you. Actually, I didn't know he was a

Presbyterian, so I told a lie a while ago. Well, I hadn't ever met him, but I've seen him. R .C. Sproul? Yeah. The Tyranny of the

Weaker Brothers. We exist. Who knew? I mean, where y 'all been hiding? I mean, at your size, how in the world have

I not seen him? Me and him, we'll have a beef trust. Did you say

Scotland? Yes. Scotland. Any other comments on the conference, and we'll wrap it up so we can all.

I just want to say one quick thing. We didn't get to talk about it because Claude was doing his job as a pastor, so he didn't join us for lunch yesterday.

But we had to talk about, it kind of has to do with Eschatolah. You remember we were talking about this yesterday.

Can Rome be reformed before Christ returns? Can.

Can the Roman Catholic Church be reformed before Christ returns? I just thought it was a fun topic that we could all talk about.

I thought there was an entire reformation sent out, like 552 years ago.

Well, but they did say they didn't want to. Did you just do math? Are you Rain Man? It's like 552 years ago.

17 minutes. Am I right? I don't know. I guess. I think it's 555 years ago, but you know.

I don't know. I have no idea. I did say this yesterday because you asked that question, just I guess as a kind of giving me a heads up that we're going to talk about it.

You were thinking about it. Well, you asked me. My simple answer about the Rome question is, as long as fidelity to the

Pope exists, reformation won't. And that's hemorrhaging right now.

And Rome, but Rome without the Pope is no longer Rome, though. I'm going to talk about this in my messages more, actually, interestingly enough, because the groups that claim to be the true church always hold on to something like the

Eastern Orthodox hold on to apostolic succession, as does Rome. But Rome has a key outlier, and that's the papacy.

They want to say this indicates our apostolic authority because we have the apostle who goes back to Peter, and we have the

Cathedral Petri, you know, the seat of Peter. This is what makes us the true church, right?

That's why we are the true church. And as long as they hold to that, as long as they hold to being the true church,

I think reformation would be very difficult. I'm not saying impossible. I'm saying that's what would have to reform. Sure. It would have to be a reformation of the papacy.

Can God do it? Dan said absolutely. But that's what would have to happen. And from what I'm seeing online with some of the conversations outside, outside the leadership, not like the priests and stuff necessarily, but just like the regular

Catholics, like, what's that name? Edward Fieser and some of these characters are starting to bristle with the papal infallibility because some of the garbage coming out of Rome right now and dealing with like gender identity and gay marriage and all this stuff.

And there seems to be the beginnings of a breakdown in this idea of the

Pope's infallibility. It's not a breakdown of the papacy in Rome. Sure. But it's definitely the way it's being perceived by the typical

Roman Catholic on the street. There seems to be different shades of Catholics right now.

It's a very small shift, I think. But I do think that there's room for reform in Roman Catholicism.

God may be tending the ground for that right now. I think so. I think so. And it looks like it's worse, right?

Because of the Pope that they have right now, the things that he says, the things that he believes. But I think sometimes a little chaos is what

God needs to make changes among his people, right? Like things need to get worse before they get better.

So that's just my thoughts. Dan, I actually wanted to hear what you thought as a

Presbyterian. Covenanter. Covenanter. What specifically? Do you think that...

I love it. Do you think that Rome could be reformed before Presbyterian?

And if you do, how do you think it might happen? Speculation, right? The only way that I know that God can reform the

Roman Church is if God removes a heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh.

He saves people, and because he's saving people, they see the word of God and they're drawn by the

Holy Spirit to find truth again. Because that's the only way that we reform anyway.

So if Rome's going to be reformed, then Rome's going to be reformed because they're going to find the power of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sounds to me like you're talking about more about repentance than Reformation. Whatever you want to call it. Salvation, really.

I mean, Reformation, in some degree, it sounds to me like not a completely turning from it, but more of a throwing away bad stuff.

Reformation would be, we find Christ and him crucified for the forgiveness of our sins, so what is it that we're doing wrong?

We keep the entity, but we throw away the garbage that's here. The idolatry, the mariolatry, the different errors that they have along the way, you take all that and the junk gets thrown to the side.

They repent and reform because they've found Christ, and Christ is working in them to become more and more

Christ -like. And that's the difference between the revival in Acts chapter 2 and the reforms of Josiah.

Because Josiah reformed the people the best he could from the top down, but there was not that repentance, that genuine change in people that weren't

Josiah. Right, after him. After him, it all went back to where it came. So what was the question again?

Just a straight question, because I want to give an answer. Can Rome be reformed? Can Rome, can the

Roman Catholic Church be reformed, or can it repent, if you prefer the word? Can it reform back to Scripture and embrace the true gospel before Christ returns?

Make me the Pope. My answer is, I just wanted you to ask that so I could give my answer.

My answer is, in wisdom, Ecclesiastes 9 .4, to him for he who is joined to all the living, there is hope.

For a living dog is better than a dead lion. That sounds pretty good.

So can you? The Scripture's answer is, if they're living, there's hope. When they die, all's forgotten.

So that whole purgatory thing ain't gonna work out for you? Nope, not at all. I was thinking that's kind of built on shaky ground, you know what

I mean? That whole treasure of heaven thing, it wasn't making no sense. So since you're recording this, I want to say thank you to you, man.

Thank you, Rob, for founding this network, doing all you do, all you all do on the podcast each week.

If this is going to be public, folks need to... If you're watching this, you need to understand that the questions that are asked are not just...

We're all not just wise and have these great questions that form a cohesive order on the podcast, even when we get them out of order.

But most and many times, these questions are thought out and written out and sent out by Rob or Tyler, and not to take...

I don't know if Dan does it or John does it, but I don't do it. So these guys are the ones that are forming the skeleton of this podcast.

So you all need a big thank you for all you do and for shaping, helping form this organization and for this conference.

This conference has been a true blessing. Again, it was nothing but sound doctrine to me.

Again, I'm not the arbiter, but for me, this was sound doctrine down the line.

And I mean, unity could not have been demonstrated better to me than what it was here.

It has been quite refreshing. Amen. And that's been the prayer that you all... My prayer for you all has been that you all would individually, even though you're preaching, even though it's a conference, that you all would be refreshed, that you all would be renewed, that you would be reinvigorated, revived, restored, whatever the case may be.

So that when you go back, you go back to your churches, you go back to your families, you go back to your friends, that you've got a little bit more giddy up.

Yeah. I feel that way. And I will say this moving forward as far as the

To The Love Network goes and any misconceptions that there might be, because we've... We'll continue to talk it up, but we've talked it up.

Unity among ourselves, unity among denominations. We've talked it up, but that's not the purpose.

That's the fruit. We've seen evidence of the Holy Spirit working that in us, and we're celebrating it.

Amen. But it's not the purpose. The purpose is letting the Holy Spirit work through us to point to Christ.

Yeah. And the fruit is we're coming together on that. That's right. We're talking it up.

We're talking up the Holy Spirit, what he's doing in us. And so I don't want there to be any misconception with anybody that watches us, that their whole purpose is just whatever it means it takes to bring people together.

Yeah, because we're in it for the money. Right. We're getting paid. That's not the point.

Hashtag not true. You know what's interesting? And I'll just say this.

We have different denominations here, different perspectives. And we're talking about the Holy Spirit, which

I think when most people think, oh, a Pentecostal Baptist and a Presbyterian are going to do a conference on the

Holy Spirit. This is going to be a mess. I did not find myself once doubting what any of the men said.

What I found myself doing is amen, amen, amen. Like, we're all on the same page because we understand what is essential.

I think that we talked yesterday, and I don't know to what degree your sermons were complete when we were sitting down for supper last night, or was it after supper we talked?

I think it was after supper. And I said, I'm really looking about tying in Isaiah 5 and John 15 in terms of showing unveiled truth, right?

And then Tyler used part of John 14, which was going to be my lead up to it.

And I said, so the notes that I wadded up was legit, right?

But I couldn't add nothing to that. I thought there's no point in adding to what he said.

And I don't know what your plans were, but I thought it was interesting that you spoke on part of what

I wanted to speak on, and I had to leave it out because there wasn't going to be a way to tie it all in.

And part of me, when I walk away, I think I really failed because I would like to have got all these things out, but there's no way in the world

I'm going to stop here for an hour when we're already behind eight ball. I'm just being real with you, right? I want to get the bulk of this out and let

God do with it whatever God wants to do with it. It's not a show. It's not a show.

I don't care whether anybody knows who I am five minutes from now or 10 years from now. I don't care, right? There's enough

Johns in the world. They don't need another one. Jones is good gracious, right?

It's like an alias. So the point is that I was blessed whenever you brought up John 15 because I felt like you carried part of what

I had to leave out. And I want to tell you thank you because in my heart, I wish I could have said it.

And you did a better job than I would anyway. So and I don't know what your plans were. I'm going to trust it up to God working all things out for his glory.

But just man to man, I appreciate it, right? And it was good.

I was thoroughly tickled to hear you all talk about those things.

Well, before we start getting emotional on each other, if you couldn't make it to the conference this year, those that could, we appreciate you coming.

We thank you very much. And thank you for taking time to watch the sermons and the

Q &As and the little podcast we're doing here. We appreciate that. But we'd also love to see you next year.

So check us out. Keep apprised of what's going on. Watch us throughout the year and check us out next year for 2025.