I Almost Got Fired for Being a Calvinist

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I need a friendly voice with some good theology

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Calvinist degree speaking So I mix a manly drink, Pepsi and shoe polish

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And I hit the YouTube link Don't say hit, that sounds violent And I feel my troubles all melt away

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It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Borosky Beards and bow ties, laughs till sunrise

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It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Borosky He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice Your Calvinist podcast is filmed before a live studio audience

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And welcome back to Your Calvinist podcast, my name is Keith Foskey and I am your

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Calvinist I want to thank you for being with me today and today's show is going to be a little bit different because well, one

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I don't have a guest, it's just going to be me but also I'm getting ready to go out of town and we had kind of a difficult week last week at our family and there's just a lot going on that I wanted to share with you

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I want to thank the many of you who reached out to me with cards and letters and especially those who reached out to my wife many people in our church brought meals and different things because last week my wife did lose her mother so it was a difficult week and we're still dealing with all of the things that go along with grief and we appreciate your prayers and ask you to continue to pray for us as we go through this difficult time

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This week coming up we're going to be leaving as a family going to Knoxville, Tennessee where I'm going to be preaching at the

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Laborer's Conference I've been looking forward to that The podcast is a part of the

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Truth and Love Network and the brothers that are in that podcasting network are going to be gathering for a conference on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I'm going to be the last one to preach on Sunday morning and I'm going to be preaching on the subject of the

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Spirit's work in the church and so I would encourage you if you're in the Knoxville area to come visit with us it's going to be a free conference and there's still room if you want to sign up just Google the

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Truth and Love Network you can find out all about it on that website I also ask you to continue to pray for me as many of you know

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I've been dealing with some issues in my feet some problems health -wise and you'll notice in the background to my side here

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I have a crutch I'm actually having to walk with a crutch this week as the doctors have determined that I have a form of arthritis in my foot and so they're in my feet and so we're trying to figure out some of the things that might help me because it's making it difficult to get around and do some of the things that I need to do so thank you for your prayers for that as well and I also have a few other things

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I want to mention before we get to the topic of the show today remember as always this show is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church so if you're in the

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Jacksonville Florida area come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church you can learn more about us at sgfcjacks .org

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and you can find us on YouTube sgfcjacks all of our sermons from me and our other pastors are there

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Sunday school lessons and you can also find us on Sermon Audio I want to also mention as I have been mentioning 1689

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Cigars they're a great group of guys and people ask me why are you supporting a cigar company and by the way here is a reminder this is 1689

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Cigars this is one of our deacons there Brother Mike and his brother -in -law Kenny a good friend of mine and they are avid cigar smokers and they have smoked some of the 1689

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Cigars said they enjoyed them very much so if you go there and you use the coupon code SUPERIORTHEOLOGY you will get a percentage off and again

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I was going to say earlier people ask why are you supporting cigars aren't they bad well

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I don't think cigars are bad in the same way that I think an occasional drink of alcohol is not bad something that we can do to the glory of God as Spurgeon said he smoked a cigar to the glory of God as long as we treat it like that and treat it as something that we get to do and enjoy as part of God's good creation and not something that we overdo people don't normally chain smoke cigars so that's just something to consider as to why

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I would do that but also 1689 Cigars is supporting bivocational ministers there's a pastor that I've spoken to about this and this is part of what he's doing to help support his ministry and he's getting the cigars through a church where the church actually meets in Columbia and they are meeting in a tobacco barn and so this is how the church helps support itself so this is why as a podcast

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I'm supporting them they're not giving me money I don't want their money I want to be able to support them because I believe that it is supporting a ministry and a godly ministry so for anyone who had that question that's what it's for and one day

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I'm going to try to have Chance the brother from 1689 Cigars as a guest on the show just haven't been able to get that done yet also want to mention my website keithfoskey .com

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if you haven't been there please go and check it out we now have a link to our t -shirt store and if you haven't seen some of our really cool t -shirts

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I put up a new one this week you guys know my line that I use in church soup which is I hope it was a blast for them because it was certainly a blast for me well we've got two new shirts with that design and if you're interested you can go now to keithfoskey .com

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and you'll find a link to our store to be able to buy those t -shirts and as always if you're enjoying the show please hit a thumbs up and if you're not enjoying the show please hit the thumbs down button twice all right well let's move on to our topic for today and what

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I'm going to talk about today is something that has come in via email from a couple of different people and I'm thankful when you guys send me emails because it gives me ideas to go and talk about on the show sometimes you recommend people that I should interview and sometimes you just say hey here's a topic

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I want to hear about and several times on the show I have mentioned how our church used to be part of the disciples of Christ and now we are what we would identify as a

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Reformed Baptist Church even though R. Scott Clark told me last week that that's not a proper category either way that's basically how we would identify or a particular

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Baptist Church and so what we're going to talk about today is how that process happened now

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I'm going to link in the description of this video a series I did back in 2020 where I did a series of short audio podcasts on the subject of how our church became

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Reformed and I walked through the process and I walked through all the different things that happened leading up to and following it's five 15 to 20 minute episodes because I used to do a daily coffee with a

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Calvinist and so it was part of that I'll link that below but today I want to specifically share with you that during that time back in between 2008 and 2009

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I wrote my resignation letter and it ended up becoming a letter where I took a stand for my understanding of the scripture and so I want to give the history of our church short version if you want to hear the longer version you can go listen to the ones in the description below and then

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I'm going to read to you what I wrote to the congregation and I want to give you then what the aftermath was so this is going to be sort of a biography of our church and again this has been several people have emailed me asking about this several people have said hey you know you've mentioned this you know kind of in passing but we want to hear the whole story and you know like this brother here

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Dennis sent me an email he says that he is in he is in a dying

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DOC church and he wanted to kind of hear the story of you know the things that are going on that had happened at our church and you know wanted to hear more about the history the transition from the disciples of Christ to being a

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Baptist church so Dennis thank you for sending in this email there are a few others that have sent in emails but this was the last one that I got and I said you know what if there's an interest in it

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I want to share the story so that's what we're doing today so it began our church began in 1958 it began as a church plant that's basically what it was or a there was a church in downtown

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Jacksonville and they decided to to plant a church on the north side and it was part of the disciples of Christ if I remember correctly it was

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Riverside Christian Church that planted Forest Christian Church now I could be wrong on that unfortunately the person who would know for sure was my old friend and Sunday school teacher

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Miss Patsy Hoffman who's no longer with us she would know for sure but she's not available to be asked but I think it was and when

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I say she's no longer with us she went to be with the Lord many years ago she was a very good friend of mine up until the day she passed away and I loved her very much and still continue to be grateful for the things that she did in my life but she was with the church she was on a few charter members she was there in 1958 when the church began she and Jack Bunning and Shirley Bunning and a few people

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Jack and Shirley are still in our church today were part of the early part of the church and so the way that it started was a plant of another

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Disciples of Christ church and it went through various pastors

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I've looked at the history of our church and I've seen sort of the progress and some pastors had some really interesting history as my stepmom came into this church

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I think in the 70s and she would tell me about there was a pastor who had a wife who was

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Jewish so she would not attend worship which I thought was very odd and in the 80s when

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I came into the church my dad and mom got a divorce when I was six or seven I think we were six

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I was six and about to turn seven when they got a divorce because I know I went to Forrest when

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I was seven because that's when I met my stepmom and one of the first things she did was start bringing me to church and it's the same church

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I'm the church I pastor now is the church I grew up in which is an amazing story in and of itself but I don't want to make that the story for today so as I came into the church there was one of the first pastors

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I remember he was a very fit man did a lot of exercising and stuff

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I remember that he was funny he did one time we had a talent show and he did like a magic show he was a very funny guy very athletic enjoyed being with the kids would come and play with us would invite us to his home he had a son about my age we'd go over to his house go swimming so nice guy but theologically he was a train wreck and I didn't know that because being seven, eight, nine years old

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I don't know what's going on and come to find out he did not believe in the virgin birth which means that he had been likely influenced by critical theory and specifically textual criticism which argues for the absence of the virgin birth in the

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Isaiah passage and the Isaiah prophecy and that essentially the virgin birth of Christ was a later myth that was imposed upon the

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Jesus story which that obviously is not something that any conservative Christian would believe certainly not what

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I believe but it was what was taught in the church and it was something that the church didn't really know about I've talked to Patsy Hoffman about this she said when they hired him they didn't know that he was that far afield and when they did find out about it they immediately began to try to look for his departure and he wasn't there very long but that just goes to show you sort of the history of the

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DOC the disciples of Christ they're part of the Campbellite movement which began in the 1800s and the

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Campbellite movement had spawned several churches you have the churches of Christ which are more conservative of the

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Campbellites typically non -instrumental church of Christ very conservative then you have the independent

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Christian church which is more moderate and then you have the disciples of Christ which are more liberal now again

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I'm painting with a broad brush here but that's basically the general idea and so within the disciples you had churches that were super liberal and like I remember a few years ago before we left the disciples or before we changed our name rather we were still

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Forest Christian Church up until 2011 I would get invitations to Disciples of Christ events in Jacksonville one of the events that we were invited to was to go listen to John Dominic Crossom teach and if you know anything about John Dominic Crossom then you understand what kind of liberalism was being promoted and encouraged so anyhow the church was was theologically kind of all over the map they had different pastors who believed different things and throughout the years you know

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I remember certain pastors that I really got along with well that were very sweet Reverend Joe Jones was very sweet to me

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Reverend Bob McIndoo very godly man sweet man and he was an interim pastor for a while in fact

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I remember as a little boy wanting to pray lead the congregation in prayer and I think it was

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Reverend Bob McIndoo who allowed me to do that so just a lot of a lot of things that I remember from my youth

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I remember again theology was not the priority and yet it would

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I would say as a Disciples of Christ church still socially conservative that's what I've always said about our church was socially conservative but theologically liberal and liberal maybe is the wrong word theologically confused that would be the better word socially conservative theologically confused and we see some of that theological confusion in things like they were they allowed for female elders which was allowed in the

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Disciples of Christ very very common in the Disciples of Christ and so that was part of the theological confusion because obviously

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I would argue now that that female elders are wrong and so that's the that's sort of the history and in 93 we took on a pastor his name was

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Darrell Olgies and Darrell Olgies was the pastor of my teenage years and Darrell was his his preaching style was very unique he was he was very not theological hardly at all he was a he was a storyteller and he would he would read a passage from the scriptures and he would tell stories that went along with it he would get stories from everywhere from the

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Reader's Digest to old magazines to periodicals he was just a very it was very interesting his his preaching style and but what

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Darrell did do was Darrell had tremendous business acumen he actually was not only was the pastor of our church but he was the dean of Jones Business College in Jacksonville so very intelligent man and Darrell was he was instrumental in doing a lot of positive things for our church he moved our church to a new building had a new building built took us to the entire building program which was incredible which was nice especially for a small church that didn't have a lot of money he was very good at managing everything and then in 1999 he was actually the one who spearheaded us leaving the

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Disciples of Christ so I give him a tremendous amount of credit as I watched through the history of our church of sort of this this if you will spectrum of change that happened and sort of how it went from one thing to the other to the other going all the way back to the to the man who didn't believe in the virgin birth to where we are now it's a huge leap but it wasn't all taken by one person and it wasn't always taken it wasn't every step by one step at a time it wasn't one gigantic step it was one little step at a time and Darrell causing us to leave the

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Disciples was huge it was very helpful because in leaving the Disciples what happened was and let me go back why we left the

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Disciples the last national conference that we went to with the Disciples of Christ church there was a there was so much oddness that was going on I mean

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Darrell came back and reported to us that there was there was like a table where they were handing out condoms and encouraging safe sex and they were promoting things like abortion and stuff like that it was really crazy but they were also

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Darrell brought back the minutes from the meetings and they were promoting what we would now probably call wokeness because that's the modern term for sort of leftist or rightist ideas but the it was the same type of thing you know promoting the what we would call today

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LGBT back then it was different it was you know they would say same sex marriage stuff like that promoting homosexual pastors and it's in the minutes

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I have the minutes I'm not sure where they are right now but I know that I have them because I remember sharing them with Dr. James White when we were together

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I wanted him to see that what's going on in churches today was going on 25 years ago in the

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Disciples of Christ 26 years ago and so when Darrell came back from that meeting he said you know what we can't do this anymore this is not going to work so he encouraged the church to leave the

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Disciples of Christ and we I mean I was at that point

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I had just gotten saved I got married in 99 I got saved that same maybe a couple months later

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I mean it was a lot of things were happening in our life and the idea of leaving the denomination

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I didn't have any real hard I didn't have any hard strong ties to it even though I grew up in it because now that I was saved

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I just wanted the Bible I just wanted what God what God's word said and so if leaving the

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Disciples meant we were going the biblical way that's what I wanted to do and so we did and the church the church left the

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Disciples of Christ and then it was shortly thereafter that I began to because I had just gotten saved

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I began to show a real interest in doing ministerial work and I began to do work with Daryl and I began to go and meet with him and he would give me little odd jobs to do and I would you know do

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Bible studies and do different things around the church I mean I just wanted to be a part of what was going on this was the church

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I grew up in I didn't have any desire to go anywhere else even though the church wasn't at that point he was still preaching the same way he'd always preached he was still doing the same thing he'd always done but my wife and I felt very very much like we were supposed to be there even though we visited a few churches we never felt quite the same as we did when we were there it just always felt like this was where God wanted us and so and I've told this again

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I don't want to make it all about me but the Sunday after 9 -11 I preached my first sermon so this was two years after I got saved and after that God confirmed my call to ministry and I went to seminary and the church did afford for me to go to seminary which was nice toward the end of my seminary time

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I began to be or actually towards the maybe two two -thirds of the way through I began to be more convinced of Reformed Theology Calvinism specifically the

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Five Points of Calvinism was introduced to the Founders Ministries a lot of things were going on in my life and in 2005

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I began preaching full -time even though Daryl didn't retire until 2006 he allowed me to take over preaching duties on Sunday night in 2004 so I preached an entire year on Sunday night where it was me getting to preach and it's what

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I wanted I went to I want to preach give me any opportunity to preach I'll take it because I feel like this is what God wants me to do so he gave me the opportunity to preach and I preached

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I think through Genesis the first first year I did it again later did it back in 2020

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I did three years in Genesis second time but the first first year it was on Sunday night I just walked through Genesis basically and then in January or in 2005 he he gave me

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Sunday mornings because he was getting ready to retire he knew he was leaving and so he was preparing the church and everything for his departure and so he moved into an administrative position and he would still look over my sermons we would talk about them he you know he would sometimes give me advice not a lot of theological advice it was more like advice on clarity and use of grammar he was a teacher by trade so he he was but he wasn't a theologian in fact we had a few theological differences but what was interesting is he never really seemed to be to take too much of an issue with it again because I don't think that he really had a strong theological focus

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I think he had a focus on other things and so when I would differ with him on things like original sin or something like that he would disagree and just say it's okay whatever you know

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I mean it wasn't it was it was amazing how it all worked out because really on that it would seem like those would be parts where we really should have had more longer conversations but he it just again he was he had been instructed in the disciples of Christ he had come from the he had

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I think gone to Johnson Bible College is a is a restoration movement college if I remember correctly it's he went to Johnson Bible College and Johnson Bible College you know again he had he had been reared in the doctrines that are taught through the restoration movement he'd been reared in things like baptismal remission

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I know he believed that but he you know he had a again his theology was sort of all over the map but in January of 2006

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I took over the preaching at the church and or I'm sorry I took over as senior pastor of the church and he retired moved to Texas so now it's me it's the other elders who are currently serving in the church and it was the church was still

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Forest Christian Church we just dropped Disciples of Christ because up until 99 we were Forest Christian Church Disciples of Christ but after 99 we just dropped the

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DOC and became Forest Christian Church and so in in in 2006

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I'm coming in I am at that point basically understanding the doctrines of grace but I'm not calling myself a

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Calvinist I'm I'm more so concerned about being an expositor

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I was preaching verse by verse I was not going to my favorite Calvinistic text or anything like that I wasn't running to teach the doctrines of grace

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I wasn't doing any of that I was just preaching verse by verse through the Bible the first series

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I did was through the Gospel of Luke on Sunday morning but I I was doing Sunday morning

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Sunday school Wednesday night at that point we didn't have a Sunday night service and the reason why was because I stopped the

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Sunday night service because I was working on my doctorate so I I needed the extra time for studying for doctoral work so the church allowed for me to take

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Sunday nights and and stop them and and looking back I kind of wish we would have kept Sunday night service now we have the academy on Sunday night but Sunday nights are nice it's a nice time for a little a little shorter but still meaningful time to gather together so be that as it may there may be a future podcast to talk about the you know where have the

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Sunday nights gone but anyhow in the in the regard of what's happening

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I'm preaching verse by verse through the Gospel of Luke on Sunday morning I'm preaching verse by verse through the

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Gospel of Luke in Sunday school through the book of Romans and I am teaching on Wednesday night and I don't remember what

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I was doing in in in 06 but but Wednesday nights have always been more of an opportunity for me to teach more topically so I may have been doing something something in a systematic or something but I wasn't

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I can't I can't recall exactly what I was doing then but the important part of this is in Sunday school there was a man who was a who was listening to what

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I was teaching and he was hearing me teach through Romans and he was hearing me teach the the the what

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I believe the book of Romans teaches he was hearing me teach things like the doctrine of the total depravity of man he was hearing me teach about original sin and the effect of sin and the the how it makes man unwilling to come to God unless God comes to him first and he was hearing me say that you know conditions of or rather that election is unconditional and but he's hearing this in the context of the book

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I'm not just preaching the five points of Calvinism these are the things that are coming out in the lessons and he's becoming more and more unhappy with my my teaching and I was not hiding anything

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I wasn't intentionally not you know I'm hiding my Calvinism it just wasn't it was

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I wasn't saying I wasn't using the word Calvin even though I would

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I would mention Calvin or Zwingli or Luther in my preaching if I had a quote from them but I wasn't

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I wasn't overtly using the word Calvinism not because I was trying to hide but again this was all new to me too this was all me the way that God used in my life to bring me to understand the doctrines of grace this was all part of it but after a couple of years and I had always been told this is interesting

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I'd always been told hey you know you have your honeymoon phase and then you have your first big battle and what happens in your first big battle is going to really define your ministry at any church well that kind of was true because I had my honeymoon phase which was about the first year and a half everything

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I did was perfect and everybody loved it and everybody was always encouraging and then around 2008 a couple of things converged to bring an issue one of the things that happened was

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I began to post videos on YouTube this was very early in the life of YouTube I had been doing YouTube for a long time in fact if you

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I don't even know if you can find it anymore but I have an old Keith Foskey page it was just me doing videos and I did one on I did one on Benny Hinn and it went it went some might say viral 250 ,000 views on that one video and this was back in 2008 so you're talking a long time ago when

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YouTube was still in its infancy and so the one of the videos

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I put out was a video on objections answering objections to predestination and it was 10 objections to predestination and I gave the answers well a few people in town found that video and began to come to our church as a result one man in particular he's still a member of our church today he's a deacon today he's a deacon in the sense that I wasn't

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I didn't have a secret account or anything it was all out and just like now I've never been afraid in the sense of of using language or identifying myself as who

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I am so this happened and some of the people in the church one that one man in particular who

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I told you about in my Sunday school class was very unhappy about the the doctrines of predestination and I went to him and I was

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I tried to be very clear with him I said you don't have to agree with me on this this is not something that you know has to divide us we can disagree on this and still be brothers in the

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Lord again at that point I wasn't really using the word Calvinist it was just you know but that term was being used of me in fact one of the things

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I found and this is interesting because I had known this had happened for years but I I I didn't have a specific date to go with it but the other day when

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I was going through some old files I found a journal that I had kept during this event and the journal has some specific dates and so for instance

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March the 5th 2009 as I was at the back door I always stand at the back door I always give hugs as people leave it's just been my habit for for my whole time of being the preaching pastor

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I go to the back I give hugs and shake hands and stuff well at the back a person came up to me who

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I'm not going to mention his name but he said good message you preached what I believe and I said well what do you mean he said at the end you said believers will be saved that's preaching what

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I believe and I said I've taught that all along what do you mean that I just I typed that into my journal because I remembered it it was as if I hadn't taught that it was as if I hadn't taught that believers will be saved and so I began to realize there was this sort of thing going on and then

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I went to I went to have lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant it's a half mile from the church Casa Maria restaurant go there if you're ever in Jacksonville March 5th 2009 same day as this situation had happened same day that that guy said that at the church

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I go to there and there's a minister from a another Baptist church and when I walk in he said to the person sitting next to him that man's a

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Calvinist and I like stopped and looked at him because he said it loud enough to where I could hear him and even though he was across the room

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I could still hear him and then he like turned his head and kind of you know started talking to the guy like he didn't want to have a conversation with me he just wanted to identify

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I was a Calvinist in fact I've said over the years that's the reason why I'm your

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Calvinist because of that interaction I've after that I said you know what if that's what the local the and when

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I say the pastor of the largest Baptist church on the north side of Jacksonville it it most certainly is and still is to this day he is a mega church leader and if I mentioned his name some of you would know who he is but I couldn't do that but anyhow long and short of it is that that moment sort of changed a few things because that was like okay

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I'm being called a Calvinist I know what I teach and what I preach is you know I know I believe the five points of Calvinism but I don't usually use that term but but I I began to realize there was something there was sort of an undercurrent in the church that was unhappy with what

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I was saying what I was believing what I was teaching and so I said um

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I I need to go talk to Jack Bunning because Jack Bunning was an elder Jack Bunning was a charter member of the church Jack if there was anything going on in the church that anybody that that people that would know what was going on it would be

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Jack Bunning so I called Jack I said hey Jack is there I said can you meet with me like on a

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Wednesday we met on a Wednesday uh sometime after this happened so I guess it was uh probably later in March um and uh that like I said it was all all about that same time so I went to meet with Jack Bunning and when

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I when I sat with Jack I I asked him this question I said is there something going on because I feel like there's an undercurrent is there something going on he said yes

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I said well can you tell me what it is he said sure he said I need to know are you a John Calvin believer and I'll always remember that way of saying it because that's exactly what he said are you a

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John Calvin believer and I said um what does that mean and he said

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I don't know but that's what people are saying and so I was I appreciated his honesty

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I appreciated the the the fact that he had just heard this thing and he wanted to know so he and I talked for more than two hours about the scriptures and about what

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I believed and uh about what I had been teaching for the last now two and a half years

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I mean this is March of 2009 so you figure I started in 2006 so all of 2006 all of 2007 really all of 2008 so this is three years into ministry and um it's only now an issue and it's an issue because one man took issue with it and and was trying to stir up the the congregation because what what

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I found out was that one man that I mentioned had been having private meetings in his home had been trying to encourage people to see me removed or or challenge me or or whatever

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I you know he did not like what I was preaching did not like what I was teaching and he wanted it to stop uh by whatever means was was most efficient so when

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I when I finished my meeting with Jack Bunning that day I felt like okay this must be my time to leave been here for three years uh this is about what

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I expected you know the first big battle you're going to decide whether you're going to go or whether you're going to stay or you're going to stay and fight or you're going to leave and to be quite honest with you

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I thought maybe it was my time to leave that's really was my was my thinking maybe this is just it for me so I went and wrote my resignation but I did have the the wisdom a little bit of wisdom to seek out the wisdom of someone who'd been doing ministry a lot longer than me and I had met

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Tom Askell Tom Askell was the head still is the head of Founders Ministries back then it was called the

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Southern Baptist Founders uh I think and uh eventually became known as Founders Ministries and Tom and I talked on the phone

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I was so grateful that he took my call because he didn't really know me I'd only met him once at a conference and he told me something that I didn't really want to hear but I needed to hear because I said

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Tom I think I think I need to resign I don't want to split this church I don't want to cause a problem

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I'd rather just leave and I'd rather just move on and find a church that will receive me and and and hear what

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I have to preach and he said don't resign he said stand take a stand for the truth he said if you stand for the truth and they fire you then at least you stood for the truth he said but if you walk away then you're you're not you're not you're not taking a stand you're not doing what you should do he said don't don't walk away make them make you leave and I was very intimidated

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I'm not going to lie I mean he basically said you know stand up for yourself and I I've kind of throughout my life you know had to battle somewhat with with fear of standing up for myself um

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I'm I'm thankful for the times I have stood up for myself but uh normally I had to really dig deep to to get those feelings and so I was thankful that he encouraged me to do that but I'm not going to lie

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I was very scared so all of this story leads up to what I'm going to do now

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I'm going to read to you what I wrote because I did end up changing it some and that Sunday morning my associate pastor at the time was preaching for me because I told

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Jack after our meeting Wednesday night Wednesday night was Wednesday night was tough I said I'm going to go home and and pray with my family

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I'm going to go home and be with them and I'm just going to take Sunday off because I need to decide what

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I'm going to do talked to Tom Askew I think on Thursday or Friday so Saturday I'm praying what am I going to do what am I going to do

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Sunday morning some things happened at the church the man who had been causing the different issues left the church angry after Sunday school made sort of a scene so I get a call saying hey this guy left he made a scene so I was like well

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I'm going to come in and I brought my letter with me and this letter is going to take a minute to read through because it's a couple of pages but I want you to hear what

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I wrote and then tell you what happened after because what happened I waited for the for the associate pastor to finish preaching and then

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I once he finished preaching I walked up to the pulpit and I said listen

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I know you just heard a whole sermon and I know you don't want to sit for another hour I said but I need just a few minutes of your time

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I want you to hear what I have to say because this is important and so this is what

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I read to the congregation on that Sunday I do not have a date on this but it was obviously after the it was after the

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March 5th incident and this is what I wrote 1st

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Timothy 3 14 and 15 I hope to come to you soon but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God which is the church of the living

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God a pillar and buttress of the truth here we read that the church has a very specific responsibility to uphold and support the truth what is the truth?

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we need to be we need not be confused John 17 17 sanctify them in your truth your word is truth so we see that the thing we are to uphold and support is

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God's word this is our mandate this is our command this is our mission you know that as your pastor this has been my pledge from the beginning as I begin to read my message today

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I want to ensure you that this is not a statement of resignation as it may sound rather this is a statement of declaration of who

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I am and a refutation of some false things that have been said about me I'm going to stop reading for a second part of what was happening was that not only was

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I being accused of being a Calvinist I was being accused of preaching and teaching things that were not true I was accused of teaching that abortion was okay which was totally crazy

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I was accused of teaching that babies babies who die in infancy don't go to heaven

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I've never taught that so I was accused of teaching all kinds of random things that were just I was accused of not being evangelistic

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I've always been very evangelistic very much a Ray Comfort fan and love his methods and use and have employed them and have had videos of myself doing so for 20 years so all of the accusations against me that were very untrue were just caricatures of Calvinism or misunderstandings of Calvinism so that's why

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I said that part where I said this is a statement of declaration of who I am and a refutation of some things that have been said about me all right so I'm going to continue it has recently come to my attention that there is a great confusion within the church about what

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I teach and preach from the Bible it's been made clear that some within the church have chosen to subversive chosen by subversive means to bring greater confusion within the church and even accused me of malicious actions and having impure motives such

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I can assure you all is not the case statements have been raised recently about the fact that I believe and teach the doctrines of election and predestination let me begin by saying that I'm very surprised this has only recently become a problem as I have believed and taught these things since well before I was called to preach my sermon library which contains now thousands of messages from the past five years and that's not an exaggeration

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I preached a lot is prepared is peppered throughout with these teachings my Sunday school class as well as my pulpit ministry has included these teachings

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I have not changed some say we've never noticed it but this is not because I haven't taught it

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I have ample evidence that I have taught this all along but for any of you who have questions about what

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I believe here it is in a succinct statement number one I believe God is sovereign over everything in the universe even the will of people

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Proverbs 16 .9 the heart of man plans his way but the Lord establishes his steps Psalm 135 .6 whatever the

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Lord pleases he does in heaven and on earth in the sea and in all the deep Proverbs 19 .21 many are the plans of a man's heart but the counsel of the

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Lord it will stand Proverbs 21 .1 the king's heart is like channels of water in the hands of the Lord he turns it wherever he wishes

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Proverbs 16 .33 the lot is cast into the lap but every decision is from the Lord Isaiah 46 .8

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-11 remember this and stand firm recall it to mind you transgressors remember the former things of old for I am God and there is no other

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I am God and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done saying my counsel will stand and I will accomplish all my purpose calling a bird of prey from the east a man of my own counsel from the far country

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I have spoken and I will bring it to pass I have purposed and I will do it so that's number one

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I believe in the sovereignty of God over everything in the universe even the will of people number two I believe that man is a rebellious sinner who refuses to seek

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God Romans 3 .10 -11 says as it is written none is righteous no not one no one understands no one seeks for God number three

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I believe that man is morally unable to come to God because he is bound in sin John 6 .65

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says this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by my father number four

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I believe that God grants the ability to come to Jesus and when he does the person comes willingly John 6 .37

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all the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out number five I believe that faith is a gift from God he opens our heart to believe when we were yet bound in unbelief

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Romans 12 .3 for by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned

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Philippians 1 .29 and to you is given on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake

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Ephesians 2 .8 for by grace are you saved through faith that is not of yourselves it is the gift of God Acts 16 .14

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one who heard us was a man named Lydia from the city of Thyatira a seller of purple goods who was a worshiper of God the

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Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul finally

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I believe God has shown us that he has chosen and predestined all who will be saved before the foundation of the world Ephesians 1 .3

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-6 Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless in him in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved

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Ephesians 1 .11 -12 in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to his will according to the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory and Romans 8 .28

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-30 we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brethren and those whom he predestined he called and those whom he called he justified and those whom he justified he also glorified.

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So, let me just stop right there before I keep reading. That was a lot.

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I think I read every single verse of that that morning. Looking back, it's hard to recall.

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We're talking now 15 years ago. But I just wanted to be clear. These are the things

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I believe. These are the verses that I believe support what I believe. Call it proof texting if you want, but at the time, you don't have time to exegete everything.

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You just have to This is what I believe. This is where I'm getting it. It's not just coming out of nowhere.

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So, having said that, I followed up with this. Most people, when they hear this, imagine

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God standing at the door of heaven holding people back from coming in. It's not that way at all. God sees the entire world in rebellion.

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No one is coming in. No one is seeking him. So, he chooses to open the hearts of some to do and as an act of mercy and grace.

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Election keeps no one out of heaven who would otherwise have been there, but it keeps a whole multitude of sinners out of hell who would otherwise have been there.

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Were it not for election, heaven would be an empty place and hell would be bursting at the seams. If someone perishes in hell, it is entirely their fault because they are rebellious sinners.

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But if a person should make it to heaven, God receives all the credit for that is entirely his work.

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A great example of this is found in the parable of the great banquet where the king invites all to come, but they refuse. So, in order to ensure that his feast is not empty, he compels some to go in.

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This parable is told by Jesus in Luke 14, 15 -24. To summarize,

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I believe that man is bound in sinful rebellion and cannot respond to God without a supernatural enabling of the Holy Spirit where God opens the heart to accept the gospel.

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God ultimately chooses whose hearts he will open and whose he will not. And then I cited Romans 9, 14 -16.

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What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

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I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion so that it depends not on human will or exertion but on God who has mercy.

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These things I have stated concerning predestination I believe and have always taught. Likewise, here are some things

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I apparently have been accused of but I do not believe. This is where I move in the letter to those things that people have accused me of saying.

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Number one, I do not believe man is a robot. We make choices, we have freedom, but it is not absolute.

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The only true free being is God. Our freedom is limited. He is not. When our freedom conflicts with his, we lose.

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Obviously parroting R .C. Sproul there. Number two, I do not believe as has been alleged that babies who die in infancy go to hell.

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This is a canard used by those who disagree to bring an emotional appeal. Belief in predestination does not automatically mean belief in babies going to hell.

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For proof, I offer Dr. John MacArthur's book Safe in the Arms of Jesus. Dr. MacArthur believes in predestination.

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He also believes that God saves infants and does not send them to hell. I believe the same as he does.

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Number three, I do not believe evangelism or prayer are unnecessary. I believe that both are part of God's plan in bringing about his will.

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I have taught on both. I believe that through, that though God knows whom he will choose, we do not, as Spurgeon said, we do not go around lifting up people's shirt tail to see if there's an

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E tattooed on their backside, an E standing for elect. Because I do not know who is elect,

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I can preach to anyone and I can pray for anyone. Number five, I do not believe it is unnecessary to preach the gospel.

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The challenge was made that I don't preach on how to be saved. Well, here is what I have preached from day one,

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Romans 10, 9. If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, excuse me, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

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Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. What I have also taught is that if you believe in Jesus, it is not because you're better, smarter, or more spiritually gifted than anyone else.

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It is because God has, it is because of God's grace alone that you made that decision.

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He is the one who opened your heart to the truth. Lastly, I do not believe everything that John Calvin taught. Though I would agree with his teachings on predestination, his theology includes other issues such as infant baptism or particular view of the sacraments and ecclesiology.

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The modern Presbyterian church is the closest thing to pure Calvinism as one can get. So my point is this, there are some beliefs that have been ascribed to me that I do not hold to and if someone says,

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I do, they are speaking in error. So, here's an important note.

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Regarding the doctrines of election and predestination, I understand that those of you who do not automatically accept these things, and I have never attempted to force anyone to,

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I can simply preach what the Bible says the way I understand it. What brings me comfort is this, even if we stand, even if I stand alone on this issue,

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I'm not truly alone. I stand beside men like Charles Spurgeon, B .B. Warfield, William Carey, George Mueller, John Newton, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, Martin Luther, Augustine, and the

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Puritans and the Pilgrims. Today, great men still teach these truths like John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, John Piper, Alistair Begg, and James White, just to name a few.

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Furthermore, the great doctrinal confessions of the past stand with me as well. The Westminster Confession, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and even the notes in the

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Geneva Bible support what I teach. And here are some thoughts on the history of force. Again, I wrote a fairly lengthy letter here.

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The question has been asked, why has this not been taught before? All that I know is that this church has had pastors who did not believe or teach the whole

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Bible, one in particular that denied the virgin birth. You know that I have taught, if I have taught anything, that I believe every word of the

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Bible, even the parts that might make us uncomfortable, even the verses that includes the words election and predestination.

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Amazingly, too, I also know that you have books in your past that have taught similar things. You've used

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Experiencing God and the Purpose Driven Life. I don't, let me stop, I don't endorse either of those, I'm just saying they've used those and those books have those words in them as well.

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Ultimately, here is where I will end. This congregation called me as pastor by 100 % vote.

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In my three years as pastor, the one consistent thing that I have been commended for is my pulpit ministry.

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Now my very understanding of God and his word is being challenged. The one thing that has been consistent, is that my fidelity to the word has become unacceptable to some.

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Because of this, I must take this stand. You as a church can decide what you want to do, if anything, regarding my ministry here.

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You also must decide what you will do with these false accusations. Will you trust that I have been forthright in my teaching, or will you accept the false accusations that have been made which

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I have here addressed? Either way, as the shepherd of this church, I here and now must take my stand.

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Unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason my conscience is captive to the word of God, I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience would be neither right nor safe.

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God help me. Here I stand. I can do no other. Amen. And yes, I shamelessly quoted

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Martin Luther's words from the Diet of Worms there at the end. Well that was it.

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That was the letter of resignation. Not letter of resignation, but rather letter of declaration of who

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I am. And I read it to the congregation that morning. And I did not know what to expect.

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I did not know if the church was going to immediately get rid of me or if they were going to have a meeting.

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But I fully expected that this was going to be the end. But it wasn't. My wife calls it my

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Rocky moment because at the end of that letter that I just read to you, the congregation stood, the congregation applauded, and a few people left not happy, but the vast majority of people did not leave.

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And those who did stay, some of them needed to have some questions answered about what was going on.

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And I was willing to do that. And over the next few years we went through some times of growth.

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And I would say a genuine time of revival. But it was just amazing to see

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God work in that. Because listening to Tom Askew was valuable because if I hadn't listened to him

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I probably would have had a much different letter. And it probably would have been a resignation letter. But it wasn't.

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It was a letter of declaration. This is who I am. This is what I teach. And if you continue to have me as your pastor this is the direction that I'm going and I will lead.

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And the vast majority of the church wanted that. They wanted to know what the Word of God said.

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And I'm thankful for that. So to kind of round out today because I've gone a little long here and I didn't expect this to last this long.

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I just wanted to say for those of you who maybe have some questions about the methods or anything understand

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I've been in this church since I was seven years old. And I've seen this church believe all kinds of different things and different theologies and different things that have come down the pike and different pastors who've come and gone.

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And so it's not as if they had a standardized statement of faith that I was going against. To be quite honest they never had a written statement of faith that I ever saw before I became the pastor.

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And it was even after this that we finally sat down and wrote our own statement of faith which we still have in our documents today even though we've moved now to adopting the first London Baptist confession of faith which some people have asked about.

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A lot of people ask why did we adopt the first London confession rather than the second. And if you're interested in me looking at that part of our history on a future episode let me know.

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Maybe I'll do another episode just like this where I'll walk you through the process of why we chose the 1646 confession rather than the 1689 confession.

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Would love to do that as a show but just want to know that there's interest out there for me doing it. And tell me what you think of today's show.

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Was this interesting to hear the history of our church? Was it interesting to hear how I almost resigned and God kept me from that?

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And how now God has taken us to being a Calvinistic, a particular

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Baptist church through the process. Because what happened is after that happened we began to be a little bit more able to talk about these things because people wanted to know more about them.

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People wanted to ask questions. We had a conference the first year on what is Reformed Theology?

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And then the next year we did a whole year on the subject of ecclesiology. And we ended up changing some of our understanding of how the

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Bible teaches on the role of elders and deacons. Because we always had elders and deacons but they weren't functioning like the

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Bible teaches they were supposed to function. And then finally the beautiful thing was in 2011 we ended up changing the name of the church.

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We became Sovereign Grace Family Church. And that was because the church had become, well, we had become

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Calvinistic. We had become family integrated in our worship.

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So many things had happened and God was in it all. And we're still growing.

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We're still not, we've not arrived. We have a lot of things that we need to be better at.

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We have a lot of things that we need to try to continue to reform in. But I can look back to that time and I can say here's a time

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God worked and I'm so grateful. And I hope this story is an encouragement to you. And if you have questions feel free to leave them in the comments.

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If it's something that, if you have another subject you'd like me to address in maybe a forum like this rather than an interview.

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I love doing interviews. I love talking to people who are godly men and I can bring them on the show and have conversations with them.

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But if you like this kind of the show as well let me know in the comments because I was, you know, I want to produce material and content that is encouraging that points you to the truth and that helps you in your daily walk with Christ.

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So I pray that I'm continuing to do that. If you like the show hit the thumbs up. If you don't like the show hit the thumbs down button twice.

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Thanks again for listening to Your Calvinist Podcast. My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist. May God bless you.