Episode 109: Preaching Calvinism (Part 2)

To the Ruled Church Podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

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

Christ Is King and the Church Is Not a Democracy

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king.

You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

Preaching Calvinism as the Whole Counsel of God

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I am Allen Nelson, your host, one of the pastors here in Perryville, Arkansas, Providence Baptist Church. Welcome you to our continued conversation today with Nick White.

Nick is a faithful brother. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Hamburg, New York. And we started this conversation last episode talking about, well, really, what the episode's titled here, Preaching Calvinism.

Now, if you didn't listen to the last episode, probably the best thing you can do is to go back and to listen to that episode and catch up. We'll start it and just, we'll start the continued conversation backed up just a little bit.

So it'll start basically where Pastor Nick stopped last time and then we'll run into the rest of the conversation. But a few things that I'd like to clarify. One is, when we talk about preaching Calvinism, we're not talking about preaching a system.

We're not talking about go to every text of the Bible and figure out a way for this to talk about the doctrines of grace. That's not what we mean. Rather, what we mean is when we preach the scriptures, this is everywhere.

The sovereignty of God, the deadness and depravity of man, the necessity of the atoning work of Christ, the grace of God in regeneration, the perseverance of the saints, all of these are found throughout the scriptures.

Right now at our church, well, I'm not sure about the time this episode comes out because we're getting close to the end, but right now we're preaching through Nahum. Man, you cannot understand Nahum apart from the doctrines of grace.

That's not because you take the doctrines of grace and you impose them upon the text. Rather, it's because as you're preaching through the scriptures, you see that these great doctrines flow out of the text, the truth.

For example, Nahum right now, the sovereignty of God is there. The grace of God is there, Nahum 1 .7. The difference between the people of God and those who are not the people of God is there. The reality of justice, it's all there.

And so this conversation in these last two episodes has really been about, well, maybe one unnecessary rebuke for some need to listen to this and you need to preach the truth. You need to stop holding back.

You need to be wise. Yes, we talk about that in both of the episodes, but you need to preach the truth. But there also needs to be encouragement too. There's some pastors who are preaching the truth. And for you, we say like, keep going, keep preaching, keep being faithful and trust God with the results.

Christ is worthy of a healthy church. So don't quit, don't give up, keep going, keep doing it. So we continue the conversation with Pastor Nick. I hope that you are edified by it, encouraged by it. If you want to reach out, ask questions, clarify, whatever, you can do that.

Best way is to email me, quattronelson at gmail .com. That's C-U-A-T-R-O-N-E-L-S-O-N at gmail .com. And without further obstruction from me, let's get into this episode and hear more from Pastor Nick White.

Pastoring People Through the Doctrines of Grace

We have that pastoral heart that wants them to, so we wanna take them through those issues. I guess that would be. My admonition is pastor them through the doctrines of grace.

That's really encouraging. Brother, I'm very, very encouraged by your pastoral heart. And the more I get to know you, brother, the more I'm grateful for you and your ministry. So I think, you know, some of the things here, and I would encourage pastors in this, but like, we don't only preach the text, but we do have other settings.

Like we have Sunday school, we have Wednesday night of teaching. And in those settings, we're also not afraid to teach these truths because it gives people time. They're not only hearing it in the sermon, they're also hearing it in a setting that sometimes they have the opportunity to ask questions.

And we're willing to, I've done this on multiple occasions, but sit down with someone in a counseling sort of situation to work through these things. Here's what we're saying, here's what we mean. So what I'm trying to argue here, Nick, is instead of seeing these texts as, oh man, I gotta hurry up and get through this text and get that over with.

We see it as, this is an opportunity to lead people. Like, what is your goal in pastoring? Like, do you not want to, A, worship God and bring him glory? And then B, secondarily, but also quite important, see the people of God to whom you're going to have to give an account to God to see them grow in their, and I would tell you this, and see if you have any comment here, but there's nothing more exciting and beautiful sometimes as a pastor than to see the light bulb click.

Yeah.

Yeah, that is true. Yeah, it's amazing. It's very encouraging. And it takes time though. That's the thing. It doesn't happen overnight. And if your next sermon is John 6 or John 10 and you're going to preach on the whole five points, because John 10 has them all there, and you're about to preach it all, don't expect the whole congregation to be converted to the doctrines of grace after that.

It's going to take like a hundred times of you continuing, and maybe even more, of you just continually, patiently teaching. And that's what we're admonished to do is to teach patiently, to patiently pastor our people.

And so, yeah, it's going to take time, but oh my goodness, once you see them, like it clicks, like I see it now, you just see them grow. I mean, like a weed at that point, because it's just, once that clicks, other things start falling into place.

And it's almost like, I didn't know how much I didn't know. And it makes them hungry almost in a way that they were when they were first converted.

Yeah, and they ask the questions, and they ask, what can I read? And so, on the one side, you can't be the cage stage guy.

Right, right.

On the other side, you cannot be afraid to preach these truths, because if you are a Calvinist, if you hold to the doctrine of grace, then you also believe in means. And you should not just sit back and say, well, God will make them Calvinist if he is so sovereign that he wants to.

You should say, no, the way that God is going to form his people is through the preaching of the word. If I hold back the truth of the word, or if I try to skim over, or if I try to make the main point of the text a minimum point and magnify something else, then I should have no expectation that my people are going to come to these realities.

Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we can't, yeah, you said it all right there, brother. I'm right there with you. I think we have to know a balance between that, like, I'm gonna preach this rip-roaring sermon, and I'm gonna show them who's boss, versus, well, I'm just going to kind of cowardly work my way, there needs to be courage, but there needs to be compassion, and they both need to be married to each other as you preach to the people.

Maybe there's an analogy in healthy eating. So if you ever try one of the diets, whether it's keto, or carnivore, or just some sort of healthy eating diet, and you start the diet, and you just have this amazing meal, like, man, that was a great meal, but that one meal, it may have been great, but if it's not consistent, then it's not really gonna matter.

And it's the same with preaching. Yes, the one meal is important, the rip-roaring sermon, if you will, like the one really great Doctrine of Grace sermon, or whatever the case may be, great, but you need to be consistent over the long haul in patiently loving and teaching your people these truths.

Calvinism, Evangelism, and Worship

So I got a couple other things I was gonna mention. One is, I don't know if you wanna speak to this, but one is, I would also argue, while preaching these great truths, to be on guard against the stereotypes.

And so what I mean is, you lead out in calling prayer meetings. You lead in evangelism. Show your people that robust Calvinism is not dry, cold, dead Orthodox.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yeah, amen and amen, because that's what I've always been taught growing up. Like as an outsider that was looking in Calvinism, all that was was just cold intellectualism, or quasi-intellectualism, we always heard it was, that it leads to death of churches, that it leads to evangelistic dryness, and amen, if we are truly believing the doctrines of grace, it will make us fiercely evangelistic.

It will set a fire to our worship. We will be, I think you even mentioned it, as we come to understand the doctrines of grace, our worship just goes so much deeper. We're so much more in awe of who God is, as we see He is so big, and we are so small, and that He is in control of all of these things, and His majesty shines forth through this.

I mean, that is life-changing, and so when they see a preacher get up and preach, and He is on fire, meaning, I'm not talking about decibel levels, because people have different styles, meaning He is lighting a sacrifice of praise from the pulpit.

He is truly worshiping God as He's preaching, as the smoke is bellowing out from the pulpit as He preaches, and His study as He prepares. He is a man who knows God. He is a man who has to fight back tears as He preaches about God, and about God's grace, and about Christ.

He is a man who repents. He is a man who seeks to see the lost come to Christ by faith. He is a man who's out on the corners preaching the gospel, who's going from house to house, giving the gospel to the people in the area.

God's people need to see that if you're trying to help them understand what the doctrines of grace are, because contrary to popular belief, the modern missions movement, the Great Awakening, I mean, these are Calvinistic movements.

I mean, you've got David Brainerd, and Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitfield, David Livingston, William Carey. These men are all Calvinists, and they, by God's grace, set the world on fire with the gospel, and we need them to see that to a degree in us, and not that we're doing anything for man's pleasure, not that we're living as a showy, kind of showboaty preacher, where we're just living for the audience of men, but people do need to see that.

They do need to see our example in this, so I agree with you 100%, brother.

That's good, amen. I think, you know, I didn't use this, I didn't come up with this analogy. It was John Snyder from New Albany, Mississippi, but he said that Calvinism is like your glasses, and you use Calvinism to see Christ, and you're not holding up the glasses for the sake of the glasses.

You're trying to put them on the people so they can see, and that's the whole point in this, and if you fail to, if you withhold these truths from your people, then you're withholding the glasses, and as we put these on, we see everything by them, not because we start with systematic theology and then come to the Bible, but because the Bible has given us this system.

This is the Bible's own system. Charles Spurgeon was so bold as to say, Calvinism is the gospel, and what he meant by that is, you can't fully understand the beauty and magnitude and glory of grace, the grace of the gospel, of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ apart from the doctrines of grace.

I don't mean to say that you can't be saved unless you're a Calvinist. Of course, I don't mean this. I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is you don't understand the breadth and the depth and the height and the width and the beauty apart from the doctrines of grace.

Right, because if you're gonna understand what grace even is, that's what helps you to appreciate that you were dead in sin and that grace was given to you to raise you to life, that you were spiritually blind and deaf and that God opened your eyes and gave you a new heart and regeneration.

When you understand that, that's what Spurgeon is talking about, is that understanding, when you understand grace, for what it actually is, the gospel can be understood in its proper context rather than, yeah, I once was lost and now I'm found.

And yeah, I was dead and he saved me, but not knowing what dead means, not knowing what God giving grace means. Like a lot of people throw the word grace around and it kind of gets used as a word. It's just like a Christianese kind of word is grace.

You know, it's grace. God is a vending machine in the sky. You press whatever button, grace comes out and you get the grace that you need. What is grace? Well, when you understand Calvinism or the doctrines of grace, you understand what God does in enabling us to believe and to repent and drawing us to himself.

When you understand grace as scripture teaches it, well, then the gospel becomes so much, I mean, you see it for the beauty that it has and the richness that it possesses. It changes everything.

Humanism, Wokeness, and Fear of Man in the Pulpit

Amen. Yeah, that's really good. We live in a very humanistic society and even within Christianity, sadly, or at least professing Christianity. And I would even argue things like wokeism and CRT, they arise from that seedbed of man-centeredness.

So these things absolutely do matter. So I think I wanna just shift a little bit. And I think I wanna be a little bit harder here. So I understand the pastors coming to the doctrines of grace and then working through those things, but to the guys that you came into your church incognito and you're staying incognito for five, 10, 20, whatever the case may be years, I think this comes across harsh, but I hope they would hear me out.

In Revelation 21, eight, one of the sins that is talked about that results in sending people to hell is cowards, the cowardly. So I know that comes across harsh, but I hope it's a sting. The wounds of a friend is what I hope it's received as.

We cannot have in any period of time, cowards in the pulpit, but particularly I would say, Nick, in these days, these are not the days for cowards. So I would say for the person who's been the incognito guy, whatever the case may be, there is the opportunity even if you're listening to this to repent and to begin to, yes, just like the other brother we talked about, be wise.

Don't all of a sudden flip a switch and say, okay, I'm bringing out the club and start beating people over the head. That's not what we would say, but we would, or I would, and I'm gonna throw this back to you, but I would give a great exhortation here to stop the hiding who you are, to be who God has called you to be in the pulpit and to preach your theology so that the people can listen and grow and stop fearing man.

Anything you wanna say about that?

Serving God Rather Than Man

Yeah, just, I mean, I could bring it back to kind of some of the things I said earlier. You either worship God or you worship man. You worship one or the other. You might worship yourself. Maybe that's why you just, self-preservation is at heart here.

I get a paycheck here. You know, I don't wanna get fired. I don't wanna have to deal with that. That is not the mindset of a preacher. That's a mindset of a businessman. That's the mindset of a professional.

We are called to do God's business. God is our employer. God is the one who we serve. Paul says in Galatians that if I serve man, I cannot say that I serve God. And the same is true the other way. So you have to, I don't know how anybody could be 20 years in the closet on that.

That sounds miserable. That sounds just absolutely miserable. I would be depressed having to just keep this stuff to myself for that long.

And let me just say this real quick. That's not hypothetical. I heard a story just recently about a man who came to the doctrines of grace under his pastor. Or sorry, he came to doctrines of grace and he talked to his pastor about it.

His pastor, he said, I think I've become a Calvinist. His pastor said, well, I am a Calvinist. He's like, I've known you for 25 years and I didn't know that. So I'm just saying, I'm not speaking like, I'm not just speaking hypothetical.

I'm speaking of these are things I've encountered and heard.

Yeah, wow. Yeah, that's a shame. That's just a shame. And I don't mean to, I don't mean, I'm not looking to look down on anybody. I know you're not either, but what are we even called to do? We've been given a message to preach.

Shame on us if we mute any portion of the counsel of God, we have to make it all known. And how on earth are we gonna do that faithfully if we're not gonna preach God's sovereignty? I mean, this is such a, like this is not like a, all scriptures inspired, all scriptures profitable.

So people need to hear all of it, but this is not just some like lesser matter of the law. Like this is not just like a tertiary kind of peripheral thing. This is woven throughout the entirety of scripture.

This shapes the way our people or God's people, the people we shepherd, this shapes the way they see the God they worship. And how on earth can we call ourselves pastors and decide, well, in order to keep my approval rating high and in order not to fill the inbox with complaints, I'm going to skip this, avoid this or mute this or just turn down the volume on that part of scripture.

That is editorial liberty, God did not give you as his herald. You are to preach it all and you are to sound it out loud and clear. And so I would say, a man who, and again, I'm not trying to be, I'm standing for my ivory tower and looking down on it.

I understand the temptation. I understand the fear. I get it. I've had to battle it. I've had to face it. But a man who does not preach the doctrines of grace when he believes the doctrines of grace in order not to offend people is not only someone who is by practice hating his people, the people he pastors, because he loves himself too much, but he's also not worshiping the God that he claims to be serving, that he is serving others for the benefit of himself.

And that is not pastoral ministry. So, I mean, I would really strongly caution somebody who's been in the closet, so to speak, especially for that long of a time, you've got to come out. You've got to come out.

And like you said, it's not this, all right, this Sunday I'm going to do it and I'm going to put the five solas on the back wall and I'm going to change everything all at once. No, but you do need to say, okay, maybe step one is we're going to start preaching through the book of Romans and we're going to work our way there.

And we're going to, at the same time, talk about the doctrines of grace and maybe Sunday school or, you're not beating people over the head, but you need to faithfully teach this and you need to develop a plan and how you're going to help these people get there.

And it's going to take time, but you need to get to work.

Yeah, and I would even, like I would even have an issue, I understand being wise, but go ahead and you certainly can't lie, that would be unfaithful, but go ahead and before you go to church, before a church calls you, explain where you're at.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Explain from the beginning. And you say, well, I've already been here a few years and I didn't do that. Okay, we'll start now and know this, there is wisdom, but it can be used sometimes as an excuse.

And what I've found is that what you think that you're avoiding, you're actually just delaying. So if I just wait another year, two, five, 10, whatever, and then we address it, well, then everybody will be happy.

Well, no, well, I hope they will be happy, of course, I hope, but what we've both experienced and know is these doctrines grate against the pride of man.

Yeah.

And if you wait, if you do it in year three versus year seven, like it's still gonna grate against the pride of man. And so preach and as you said a couple of times, is it okay to use gambling analogies?

Let the chips fall where they may, but right. But that's right, because we trust God and here's the deal. This is the point we have to get to. I had to get to this point, I think talking to you that you've got to this point, if it results, and well, I know it has because of your experience.

If it results in me having to be let go from this church, so be it. But it's not gonna be because I'm rude. It's not gonna be because I'm beating people over the head. But if my articulation of the truth of God results in the church moving on from me, then I have to be content and say, so be it.

Yes, yes, because you are going to stand before God one day. You are going to stand before God one day. And that's, I mean, that was the thing I just constantly was confronted with as a preacher is like, if I lose my job, okay, first of all, God will take care of that.

He will take care of it. If you lose a job, God will provide exactly what you need. God is sovereign, we believe that God is sovereign. So if God so chooses that it's best for you and your family to go through a season like that, then it's from a kind hand and that you will find him good and kind in even those very hard times.

But you're going to stand before God one day. I mean, you're going to look Christ in the face one day. I just, with that reality in mind, how can we not seek to just be faithful? I mean, I think of like Josiah and Josiah's reform and God literally tells Josiah, I'm not going to restore the kingdom.

Like it's, you're going under judgment and wait till after you die, but the kingdom, it's going to be gone because I've already decided it's gone. Josiah doesn't say, oh, well, if it's not going to go well, then I'm not going to reform anything.

No, he goes on with it and he reforms anyways. Knowing that it's not going to go well afterwards. Why did he do it? Because he served God and God alone. And either you are going to just be faithful to the Lord.

What pastor in your reading, in your study, what biography have you read of a man that God used in a powerful way who didn't have battle scars? I mean, how can we expect pastoral ministry to be this walk in the park?

It's not, it's hard. It's tough. There are battles almost all the time in one way or another. I mean, you're going to have to deal with some church discipline here. You're going to have to address sin here.

You're going to have to make a change here. These issues are going to come down the pipeline if we're going to be faithful. And I would be nervous if I didn't have battles coming down my way. I'm not saying that someone who doesn't have any battles right now is not being faithful, but I'm saying if you are faithful, there will be battles that come one time or another.

And if you don't have any battle scars, I mean, you are the exception to the rule. So I would strongly just caution a preacher to remember the fact that they're going to stand before Christ one day and to keep that reality in the forefront of their mind.

Patiently Teaching the Church and Making Room for Growth

And be patient. Again, we've said this, belabored the point, but I'll just give an example from our church, Nick, but we have, so we subscribe to the 1689, Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. And by the way, that document never uses the word Calvinism.

So it's, but it's obviously it's clearly Reformed Baptist. I mean, it is the confession of Reformed Baptist, but we don't require people to, we don't require people to be strict confessionalists to join the church.

We understand there'll be newly converted people. We understand there'll be people journeying on the faith. We understand that there'll be people at different points and we do not want to deny them church membership.

So how we handle it is we give them a copy of the confession and we say, this is where we stand. If you have any disagreements, let us know, but understand that this is where we're teaching from and understand this is where we're coming from.

And you're not allowed to be, you're not allowed to be divisive about these things or antagonistic. So, but what I'm trying to say is brother, we do have room in our body for people to grow and people to learn and people to come to these realities.

So it's not about like putting this iron bar on the church's door and say, well, unless you subscribe to all a hundred points of Calvinism, you know, I'm being hyperbolic there, don't even walk in these doors.

That's not what we're saying at all. Well, because otherwise, like if this is just a place for perfect Christians, well, it's not a place for me, you know? And so again, I'm just like, I'm just trying to practically exhort the space for growth and patience and maturity.

These are the things that we want to see. And what we say here, and I've said on the podcast a lot, but we try to just ring this bell all the time. Christ is worthy of a healthy church.

Amen.

No matter the cost.

Amen.

Amen, brother. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with everything you just said. And I thank God for your heart for the church. And yeah, I just, yeah, this is a burden. I think we both share that we want God's people to hear about the glories of God.

And so, yeah, it's very important that we stay faithful to preach His entirety of His truth and His counsel.

Amen.

Closing Remarks and Podcast Sign-Off

Well, I guess sounds like a pretty good place to be landing the plane. Is there, if someone wants to listen to some of the sermons of Pastor Nick White, is there a place they can go?

We have a YouTube page, yeah. You could just search First Baptist Church of Hamburg, New York, and you should find us on YouTube. And that's where we post our trimmed sermons, so.

And what about where you're writing?

Grace and Truth Press. I don't know the exact URL for that, but it's Grace and Truth Press out of Longview, Texas. So you can find it on Facebook. You find it on, I'm pretty sure they're on X. I'm not on X now.

And yeah, they've got a website. I'm sure if you Google search that, you should find it pretty easily.

Technically, I write there too, but I'm actually working on a book with them as well, but I just, I've, man, I've just been so busy as we, I know that we all are. But Grace and Truth Press, as writers for that, we should know the URL better.

So hopefully Mark doesn't listen and get us in trouble. But hey, just Google it, okay?

Yeah, right.

Well, it's been a real joy and honor, Nick, to have you on. I appreciate you and your love for the Lord, your love for the truth of the scriptures, and your love for the people of God. Is there anything else you wanna say before we wrap this one up?

No, no, I just thank you for the opportunity and for the honor to come on here and speak to you, brother. And I appreciate your friendship, and I'm thankful for you and your service to the Lord.

Amen. Thank you guys for joining the Rural Church Podcast, and we'll catch you next week.

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing. This is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poimos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?