April 15, 2024 Show with Terry Basham on “From Man’s Free Will to God’s Free Will”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson,

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It's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning

issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man

sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener,

with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity

living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this

15th day of April 2024.

And last week, some of you may remember that I had an interview

with an independent fundamentalist Baptist who came to the Doctrines of Grace.

His name is Tim Crockett, and he was our guest last week

and had a thoroughly enjoyable time interviewing Pastor Tim,

who is the pastor of Bible Way Baptist Church of Worcester, Massachusetts.

But today, I have on the program a friend of his who

has made a very similar journey, and he's also a mutual friend of

a man who almost became my pastor a number of years ago, Pastor Josh Fryman, who at

one time was pastoring in Riverhead, Long Island, where I was

intending to move before I unexpectedly moved to Pennsylvania.

And I was all set to have Pastor Josh be my pastor, but God had different plans,

and Pastor Josh is also pastoring in North Dakota now.

But today, we have on the program Terry Basham, who is pastor of

Faith Baptist Church of Sheboygan, Michigan.

And today, we're going to be addressing From Man's Free Will to God's Free Will, an independent fundamentalist Baptist's

transforming discovery of the doctrines of sovereign grace, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for

the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Terry Basham.

Hey, thank you.

Thank you very much.

That's a great introduction.

I'm sorry, you broke up a little there, brother.

I said that's a great title, From Man's Free Will to God's Free Will.

I like it.

Amen.

And tell us about this church that you

pastor, Faith Baptist Church of Sheboygan, Michigan.

Yeah, I've been the pastor here at Faith Baptist Church for a couple of years.

It is technically an independent fundamental Baptist church still.

It doesn't meet the normal standards of those terms, though.

It's a GARBC church.

My fundie friends usually don't recognize these

kind of churches as autonomous, independent churches, but they are.

Yeah, and I've heard the slogan, The Grand Army of Rebelling Baptists.

That's funny.

So this church is more like a Southern Baptist church, traditional Baptist polity,

pastor, deacons, except we have a more contemporary style of music.

It's not a Reformed church or Reformed Baptist.

They subscribe to the New Hampshire Confession.

The church is serious about the gospel and doctrines.

We have tons of Bible studies going on all the time, just teaching through God's Word.

But the church is basically pretty chill on stuff that's not front

burner issues.

It's a new kind of church for me.

I came from a very strict, ultra

-separated kind of churches.

Then I moved into a different kind of churches.

You're just kind of following the doctrines, following the truth, going where you're supposed to go.

I spent almost 10 years in Oklahoma pastoring a church that was a landmark

Sovereign Grace Baptist church.

Oh, wow.

And that is where I—in that fellowship of churches, I actually

preached at Bible conferences with Primitive Baptist, Hardshell Baptist,

Absolute Predestinarian Baptist, Anti -Free Offer Baptist.

That was a very interesting period of my life.

When you were in the Sovereign Grace Landmark Baptist Church, did you ever become acquainted with Jack Green

in Texas?

I do know that name.

Jack Green's in Thailand now.

Yes.

He's been in Thailand.

Yeah, and so Jimmy Nelson, who pastors his old church—.

That's right, that's right.

I want to say that's Landmark Baptist Church.

Is it Landmark?

Yes, I believe that's the name of it.

They also had a newsletter and a seminary.

Yep. I preached with Jimmy before.

Small world, because Jimmy wouldn't know me, but I am familiar with that ministry, and I used

to listen to Jack Green's sermons.

I always enjoyed his preaching.

He was a very powerful preacher.

Yeah.

He has a little book he wrote.

I've only seen one copy of it.

I never owned it.

It's called The Calvinism of J. Frank Norris.

He went through some of Norris' books and sermons, and he said,

this is Calvinistic language, this is Calvinistic language.

He kind of pulled it out to show that that's the side of the fence that Norris was on.

But, you know, he may have been reading that into Norris.

I'm not really certain.

I'm not a Norris scholar.

Yep, and of course, as you are probably aware, there are Landmark Baptists that are

vehement anti -Calvinists.

Yes, there are.

Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Faith Baptist Church in Sheboygan, Michigan, you can go

to their website, faithbaptistupnorth .org,

faithbaptistupnorth .org, and God willing, we'll be repeating that

website later on in the program.

Well, we have a tradition here, whenever we have a first -time guest on the program,

that guest gives a summary of their salvation testimony, and that would include any kind of

religious atmosphere in which you were raised, if any, and what kind of providential

circumstances our Sovereign Lord rose up in your life that drew you to himself and

saved you.

And in this case, since we are talking about a theological journey that

the Lord took you on that radically transformed your thinking, basically, in

one degree or another, our whole program today, our whole interview is going to be about your testimony.

But if you could, start with your upbringing, where you were raised, and what kind of family,

and what kind of religious atmosphere, et cetera.

Sure.

I was very blessed to be born into a Christian home.

My father was ordained to the Gospel ministry October of

1978, and I was born in April of 1978.

So I've spent my entire life in the ministry against my

free will.

So I grew up in just a traditional Baptist home, and my father was a

Bible student, and he went to Bible college near East Peoria,

Illinois.

Our college is not there anymore.

It's called Fellowship Baptist College.

And then we moved to my great chagrin when I was eight years old.

We moved to Virginia from central Illinois, and my dad pastored there,

a little country church.

And when you grow up in church, I made all the childhood professions.

I got baptized when I was eight years old, and I don't really remember anything

about the conversion experience.

I remember getting baptized because, you know, getting held under the water by your dad.

I can still remember it.

And then we moved back to Illinois when I was a teenager.

My dad pastored a church, and I was about to get in some big trouble.

And, you know, I kind of would act like I wasn't saved that way because dad couldn't punish me just for

being lost, right?

So I worked the system a little bit.

But when I was 15 years old, I was in church, and

I really don't remember anything my father said that particular Sunday.

But throughout the whole service, I had for the first time conviction

of my sins.

I really knew that I was unrighteous.

And how old were you again?

I was 15.

Okay.

15 years old.

I knew that I was unrighteous.

And, you know, when you grow up in a certain tradition,

you always have to wait till the end to get saved.

So I waited till the other sermon was over, and I went forward and

got on the mourner's bench and prayed and confessed Christ as my Savior.

And then the Lord really saved me.

I mean, He really flipped on the light in my dark heart, and I was a different

person.

About a year later, when I was 16 years old, and I got baptized that fall.

Oh, so in other words, you got baptized again then.

Yeah, I got baptized again.

Yeah, you know, I have heard of people not having childhood

baptisms and then having a profession of faith and not being rebaptized.

I've heard of that.

My dad said, he said, if you weren't saved the first time, it wasn't

Christian baptism.

It was just, you know, empty formality.

Actually, I agree with that, actually.

Yeah, so I went forward, because now I was a believer.

And I went forward again on a Sunday morning and told my dad I wanted to get baptized

as a believer.

And usually a good Baptist will wait until you got a whole bunch of people to baptize, right?

And so we waited several months till we had a pile of them.

The church my dad pastored did not have a Baptist tree.

It was in a small building.

So we borrowed a Baptist tree down the street from, it was called a General

Baptist Church, which I think those were Armenian Baptist churches.

They were not GRBC.

They're a little different breed.

And they would let us use their Baptist tree.

And me and a couple other guys were baptized over there.

And then about a year later, I was riding down the road in my truck.

And I really felt like the Lord was calling me to preach.

And I can remember where I was at on the street in a little town in Illinois.

And I also remembered I did not want to do it, because my dad was a pastor.

It looked like a really stinky job.

And I wanted nothing to do with it.

And so in that old Southern tradition, I felt the call, and then I went running

the other way.

And so I spent three years.

I was 16 to, I guess I was 16, almost three years,

trying to get away from the call to preach.

I tried to do a lot of sinning, see if I could get rid of it that way.

And nothing worked.

And then finally, when I was 18 years old, I surrendered.

I just told God, I said, Lord, whatever you want me to do, I'll do.

And I surrendered my life to preach.

That's how we did it.

There's different thinking about the call to ministry.

But the tradition I grew up in was if you had the call,

that's when you became a preacher.

And so I surrendered to preach, preached my first sermon a week or so later.

And then off to Bible college, and I've been at it ever since.

Praise God.

And you mentioned earlier, as far as the Baptist church of your upbringing, that it was a

traditional Baptist church.

If you could be more specific, I think that you also, I know that, and I

believe you said you're currently in a GRB congregation.

But was your dad also GRB?

No, my dad, that's interesting.

I was thinking about the different kinds of Baptist churches I've been a part of.

My dad was saved at a church in Illinois

that was pastored by a guy from Greenville, South.

He went to Harold Sightler School in Greenville, South Carolina.

So I had a definite camp meeting, revivalistic atmosphere.

And so the kind of church I grew up in was just a pastor, deacons.

When I say regular Baptist, just normal Baptist polity, nothing special.

Congregational government, that kind of thing.

And just, I'm not sure if I'm saying that the right way.

Well, it sounds like an adequate description to me.

Just the normal stuff.

And where was your dad on the doctrines of sovereign grace?

You know, at one point my dad probably would have said he was a Calvinist.

But he doesn't say that anymore because, he wouldn't

say that anymore because there's a definite stigma that goes along with it.

Of course, when my brain became able to think about things,

my dad had already been in the ministry 20 years.

And he'd already thought through a lot of stuff.

My dad was a prolific reader.

He really was a big fan of the Civil War.

I've been to Stonewall Jackson's home tons of times in Lexington, Virginia, and a lot of those places.

I was there, too, by the way.

Yeah.

And so because those guys were Presbyterians, my dad was a Baptist, he still had respect for their

soteriology.

And so when I was growing up, there was a lot of emphasis on the conviction of sin.

So my dad really wasn't a hyper -soul winner, or we called him a quick

prayer artist, you know, one, two, three kind of stuff.

Like Jack Hiles.

Yeah, yeah.

But I married a girl who both of her siblings graduated from Jack Hiles' college up there.

So I got into the Jack Hiles kind of fundamentalism when I went to college.

Because when I left home, I thought, I'm going to go to a Bible college.

It was a school that was ran by one of my dad's friends.

He actually introduced my parents to each other from Illinois.

But he had moved to Arkansas and started and was pastoring a church and started a college.

And he was a Hiles -ish kind of person.

And so I went to a school that was Jack Hiles on every

level.

I mean just basically a knockoff of it in many ways.

So I really left a very kind of healthy kind

of Bible teaching environment to go to a place that wasn't that great.

And, of course, I didn't know beans from buttermilk, to be honest with you.

And I went to school down there, learned the it was not a very

theological school.

I learned how to work a Sunday school bus and do junior church.

One thing I've got to give it up to the Fundys is they were always very

motivated to get the gospel to people.

I mean they were always knocking doors.

They were passing out tracts, preaching on the street.

That's one of the things that I really I still admire about that group

is their evangelistic zeal.

And sometimes they focus too much on results and numbers.

But I don't know.

It's just you can go to extremes, right?

And the tendency of man is to overcorrect.

Yeah, and there could also be and please, I hope that nobody misunderstands me to

hear that I am broad -brushing or something and accusing all independent fundamentalist

Baptists of what I'm about to say.

This can be true with anybody.

There can be a pride element where you are bragging, even if you would

never in a million years admit to that or even view it that way, where you're bragging about how many souls you've won to

Christ.

And that can be a part of the motivation to put notches on your belt.

And when that becomes a part of your motivation, you very often will

accept or adopt a Jack Hiles form of evangelism where you

are telling people that they are without question they are saved.

They are born again simply because they favorably respond to how you

coach them with a sinner's prayer or something to that effect.

My dad's – I'm sorry.

No, no. I'm finished.

My dad's pastor, he taught that assurance

always came later.

And he said it's not always immediate.

And so you would make a profession of faith, and if it was really a genuine conversion,

you'd almost have almost a work of grace where you really came to know

in a deep way I belong to Christ.

I've been born again.

I've been made new.

Now something that like my grandmother, she said she grew up in the

Pentecostal holiness church, and they were never sure that they were saved.

And so when she started going to the Baptist church and she was born again, it took her two

years before she really had assurance of her salvation because she still had that

old thinking she had to get out of there.

And that kind of experiential religion was how was my

core, my foundation, a real hearty,

authentic spiritual life.

When I got into college with the hiles kind of stuff, it was less deep.

It was definitely more shallow.

Then after I finished college, I got married while I was in college.

The best thing about going to college was I met my wife, and we got – we were 19 when we got married.

We've been married for 26 years.

We've had five children.

And she was the best part about that, and I accidentally married a wonderful Christian girl.

I didn't really understand.

Well, it might have been an accident on your part, but it wasn't on God's.

That's right.

Tons of times, Lloyd Sprinkle –.

I don't know if you ever run across him or not.

Oh, yeah.

I have spoken with him.

I know he's with the Lord now.

But I used to purchase books from him, and he also used to donate

books every year to my free pastor's luncheons because I give away free books at my

pastor's luncheons.

And Lloyd used to provide 100 copies every year of a title that I

selected from him.

And then even after he went home to be with the Lord, his family

continued that tradition for at least a few more years.

Yeah, that's great.

I had the privilege of –.

I preached with him at a Bible conference in Oklahoma.

We preached in the same meeting.

Ironic that he was a Baptist with the name Sprinkle.

Yeah.

I know.

Isn't that funny?

Sprinkle Publications.

Yeah.

The Baptist.

The Baptist.

That's great.

I was just going to say, he said he told me in talking about this kind of stuff at

that conference was that we don't make he said, don't make Providence your

Bible.

Make it your bed.

We rest in the Providence of God.

Oh, that's a great saying.

Yeah, I got it written in front of one of my Bibles, the Bible I had that week.

Schofield Bible, incidentally.

Now, it seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that when you went to

Bible college, that kind of temporarily derailed a

sounder Baptist theology that

led you into, as you were comparing it to more of a Jack Hiles understanding and

methodology, which is a breeding ground for false converts.

It seems that that college experience derailed you in that direction for a while.

Yep.

And, of course, we have to chalk that up also to the Providence of God and that kind of thing.

So that was –.

I got out of school.

I was ordained.

I went out into the ministry.

And then I worked in those kind of churches as an assistant pastor and youth pastor.

And then I moved to –.

I'm not going to say where I moved.

I moved to the Midwest to work for a pastor who was going to retire

when I got there.

That's what he told me.

But once I got there, I quit my job at UPS to move up there to be the assistant.

Then he was going to retire, and I was going to become the head pastor.

And when I got there, he told me, you know what, Terry, I changed my mind.

And so I really – I was very angry about it.

And then I wound up – he said, just stay here and be my assistant pastor.

And I said, I can't stay here and be your assistant pastor because I don't like you anymore because you're a no -good liar.

And so I went to a really large

independent fundamental church that had a pastor there who was a high he is

a Hiles graduate.

He'd also gone to Fairhaven Baptist College.

And there was a steady stream of people from those colleges going to and from those colleges at that church.

And while I was there, I wanted to pastor.

I was tired of being an assistant.

I got in connection with a guy named James Beller.

James Beller pastored a church in St. Louis, Missouri.

He wrote a book about St. Louis called The Soul of St. Louis about the revivals that had taken place there in

the 19th century, early part of the 20th century.

And he also wrote a book called America in Crimson Red, which is a

history of the Baptist movement in America beginning with John Clark.

And it's kind of the dissenter's history of early American

Christianity because there was no religious freedom in America

until we had the Bill of Rights, except in Rhode Island and

Pennsylvania.

Well, Beller, he wrote a book about this, and I wanted to pastor

a church, and I almost went to he had a little he called them little baby churches.

He said, I got this little baby church going over here in South St. Louis, and he said, why don't you come over here and be the

pastor of it?

And so I ended up not going and doing that, but he gave me a copy of his

book, Crimson Red, which I read on my lunch hour at work.

And in that book, it's not really kind to

Calvinism, but what it does is it shows that Calvinism is

a part of the Baptist identity.

Yes.

And he was back to the Philadelphia Confession, John Gano, Shuval Stearns,

Obadiah Holmes, Isaac Macias.

By the way, I have been in the church where John Gano, or Gano, however you

pronounce it, once pastored in Manhattan.

Really?

Yes.

I ran an event there with my friend Tony Costa, Dr. Tony Costa, who's the professor of

apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and he came out to New York.

Oh.

And –.

Is that T .T. Schultz?

Well, yes.

Yes, he was involved in founding the seminary.

And, by the way, I just want to recommend to you my favorite biography of

all, a pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn.

He was a successor of John Gano.

Really?

At the First Baptist Church of New York City in Manhattan.

Yeah, I think I .M. Haldeman pastored that church later also.

But we – go ahead.

I'm sorry.

You can finish your sentence, but we have to go to our first break.

What were you saying?

Oh, I was just going to say Haldeman was a big -time dispensationalist in the early part of the 20th century.

Right.

And of course –.

My dad's been there.

Huh.

Well, we have to go to our first break right now.

If you have a question that you'd like to ask Terry Basham.

And, by the way, am I saying – am I pronouncing your name correctly?

Yeah, just like Basham in the nose.

Oh, so I was right.

Okay.

And if you – that's a great analogy for a fighting fundamentalist to use.

But if anybody has a question, send it to ChrisArmsen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Please don't go away.

We'll be right back.

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters

of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John

MacArthur.

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt God's

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He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and

love for God.

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners

and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens

or Brooklyn or the Bronx in New York City.

For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

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You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

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That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ,

committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's

sovereign grace.

God bless you.

I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

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And we are now back with Pastor Terry Basham, and we're talking about his

journey as an independent fundamentalist Baptist into the doctrines of sovereign grace.

If you have a question, please submit it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, at least, city and state, and country of residence.

And Pastor Terry, I don't know if there was anything further that you wanted to add on that thread or that train of

thought that you were on, so we could pick up where you left off, if you'd like.

Okay, that's fine.

I do want to make one statement.

Me and my dad, we have the exact same name, Terry Basham, and it's caused him some

controversy in the past.

I just want to say that I'm Terry Basham II.

Terry Basham I is not responsible for anything I say.

Well, you know, after I read Jim Beller's book about Crimson

Red, in the back of it, he talks about the separate

Baptists and stuff, and I was shocked that Calvinists were good people

because they had done anything good.

To be honest with you, I was just shocked.

My knowledge of church history was very narrow.

Because I grew up in the funding world, and especially in college, at college they

recommended we not read anybody who was not on our side of the fence.

I'll bet you, though, they thought a lot of people were on their side of the fence that weren't.

Like Spurgeon, for instance.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, I'll give you a great example.

At the really large church I went to in the Midwest, in their bookstore, I

bought a book by R .A. Torrey.

It's called How to Work for Christ, A Compendium of Effective Methods.

And basically, it's just about street preaching, personal work, all kinds of stuff.

I'm reading the back of it, and he has tips for personal workers.

And over and over again in the back, he was saying, if available,

the revised version is preferred here.

And I was King James only, man.

When I was on staff, I was on staff in college at the church where he went.

They sent me to a bus conference where I heard Gail Ripplinger give

a talk, where she and Wally Beebe, Dr. Wally Beebe, Mr. Bus,

where both of them said that if you were not led to Christ from a King James Bible,

you were toast.

You were not going to be saved.

So I thought, why?

That's what they said.

These are the people, so they must be right, a pure word, that kind of stuff.

So I was blown away in my big King James only church to find this book that

said the revised version is to be preferred.

And R .A. Torrey, he had very high stature in that branch of

churches.

So I asked the pastor at the church about

it one time.

I said, you know, Torrey is saying the revised version can get him into the kingdom of heaven.

Is that true?

And he said, well, yeah, because the revised version is mostly the same as the King James, so as long as

you got enough King James stuff.

So, you know, I was dumb.

I just went along with what the powers that be were saying.

But I left that church to go down to Texas

to be a pastor of a small church just outside Austin, Texas.

And I was so thrilled to be a pastor.

And now I had to teach the Bible, Sunday school, Sunday morning,

Sunday night, Wednesday night.

I had to put out a lot of material.

So it was there that I started reading more broadly.

And I was doing a series on Wednesday nights about, I took a

survey of other churches in the area, and I started calling churches and just getting from the

horse's mouth what that church believed, you know.

And I called this little church called Burn It Bible Church in Burn It, Texas.

As far as I know, it's still there.

I talked to a guy named Steve Hopkins.

And I said, Steve, I would like to talk to you about, you know, what your church

believes.

And he said, I don't have time to talk to you right now, so I'm kind of busy.

He said, let's meet at McDonald's.

I said, okay.

And he said, well, I'm going to tell you right off the bat.

He said, I'm a Calvinist.

He said, five -pointer, the whole nine yards.

And I thought, wow, I'm going to get to, these people really exist.

I'm going to get to talk to one.

So I made it at McDonald's, and what I did was I went online and I downloaded, you know, a bunch of

documents that would prove him wrong, you know, a bunch of gotcha verses and argumentation.

So we got to McDonald's, and I showed up with a file folder full of

papers.

He showed up with a Bible, and he said, we started talking.

And I just recoiled at everything he said about the Doctrines of Grace.

And I said, look, man, it's up to us to get people saved.

And he looked at me.

It was lunchtime, small town in Texas.

That McDonald's was packed out.

And he said, okay.

He said, if it's up to you, how can you sit here with all these souls that are perishing and not get up and

preach the gospel?

Go ahead.

And I said, well, they're eating, man.

He's like, it doesn't matter.

These people go into hell, and you got to, if you don't do something, they're gone, man.

And he said, and then how can you sleep tonight?

And how can you go fishing?

He just went down the list.

He just ripped me up one side and down the other.

And I began to realize, well, there's no way I could do all that.

There's no way.

And he said, you got to trust God, man.

He said, God's going to get his people saved.

And so we left.

And then I went back to my office.

And I ordered a King James Bible that had no notes in it of any kind,

just a plain text Bible.

And I worked my way through Romans and through Ephesians and Galatians.

And by the time I was done, I thought, you know what?

Election is something that's in the Bible.

Looks like this Calvinism stuff is probably true.

And then I also got a hold of a 1689 London Confession.

And the proof text for that kind of sold me on it.

Like I could see it right there in scripture.

And so I had a very

scary thing I had to do.

I had to tell my wife that I'd become a Calvinist because my wife, her brother and sister

both graduated from Hiles School.

I think in our bedroom, I'm not sure if we still have or not, but we have a

picture of my wife with Jack Hiles when she was a little girl.

This was no light matter.

And my wife was a personal worker, bus worker, you know, a

personal evangelist.

Her father went to pastor school every year.

Her brother did too.

I mean, so I had to go home and tell her, dear, I think Calvinism is

true.

And I remember we were laying in bed and I was laying there thinking about it.

I got to tell her, I got to tell her.

And so I said, Valerie, I think Calvinism is true.

And just silence over there.

And she said, what?

You know, and so round and round we went arguing about it.

And that's where I learned to be an apologist was right there, was convincing my wife

that the Bible actually taught these things.

And to be honest with you, Chris, once I convinced her that it was biblical, once I showed it to her from the Bible,

I've never met anybody who was as hard to convince as she was.

Because it wasn't just tradition for her.

And she'd read the Bible through every year since she was 11 years old.

I mean, she knew the scriptures well.

But once you took off those, I don't know if you want to call them Armenian glasses or

free will glasses or big man glasses.

Once she saw a big God in the Bible, she said, I agree.

So at the time she wrote a series of blog posts about it and put it on her blog.

I think they're still out there.

But the blog title was entitled What to Do When Your Husband Becomes a Heretic.

Because initially she was convinced that we were going to have to

get a divorce.

Wow.

Because she said, how could I be married to an apostate?

How could I be married to somebody who preached a false gospel?

So I didn't realize that was what was in her mind.

But she said that was my very first thought was my marriage is over.

Wow.

Now, in your circles of fundamentalism, would that have been condoned?

Because the fundamentalists that I know, the independent fundamentalist Baptists that I know,

do not believe in divorce for any reason.

They would have given her a pass.

Really?

It would be a big deal.

Now, the group that we were in was not as hardcore against divorce and remarriage as other

groups are.

There's quite a diversity in that position.

Because even the now deceased

pastor in Pensacola, Florida, whose name escapes me.

Pete Ruckman.

Yeah, he was married and divorced several times, wasn't he?

Yeah, I think he was married three times.

His last marriage endured.

You know, it would just depend on your particular church that you went to.

But they would have all felt really sorry for her.

It wouldn't have been a problem.

People would have understood because this was just not something that you could tolerate.

But, you know, she loved me and she loved God's word.

And so we just luckily, the church I pastored,

they used the New Hampshire Confession of Faith at the church.

I didn't have to resign my church.

And to be honest with you, I really drug my feet with making a lot

of public changes about anything.

Because in the main, all I really changed was how I thought salvation worked.

I was still preaching justification by faith.

But salvation works because of the Doctrine and Covenants of that theological position.

So I wasn't confessing anything openly different.

It was just how you get a person from unbelief to

belief.

That process was now spirit -oriented, God -oriented, and not man -oriented.

So and then I found myself once I discovered the Doctrines of Grace,

I thought what else they've been lying to me about.

So then it was eschatology, Bible translations.

It was – I found myself almost going too far the other direction.

And so by the grace of God,

I didn't talk.

I didn't get myself in trouble with my mouth.

I thought about what I was thinking and reading more solely.

So then I left Texas and went to Arkansas to pastor a church

for five years.

And at that church, I had a member of the church who was when the first

time I met him, he handed me his business card.

And it said his name on it.

And it said, Senator Dort, 1689, and a bunch of other

stuff.

There was all Calvinistic stuff, Belgian Confession.

And I looked at him and I said, do many people know what these things mean on your card?

And he grinned and said, not too many.

And he was he had an MDiv from a seminary in Arkansas, and he was

a Calvinist.

He was a Reformed Baptist.

And the only reason he was going to the church that I was pastoring was because his circumstances had changed.

And he could no longer afford to drive to Texarkana,

Texas to attend Texarkana Reformed Baptist Church, which is still going.

I just talked to a pastor there a couple weeks ago.

In fact, could you pick up where you left off with this, brother?

Because we have to go to our midway break right now.

Sure.

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show

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I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe

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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters

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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John

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In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt God's

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And before the break.

Pastor Terry.

You were talking about a member of your church.

Who was a reformed Baptist.

Who was there providentially.

Because the confessionally reformed Baptist church was too far away.

And he out of convenience.

Joined the church where you are.

That's exactly right.

And he was, he was at, he was at.

He was both.

A great church member and a bad church member at the same time.

He had a.

He had a, an MDF and he was very learned.

He had a great library.

He had been a pastor for a while, but had gotten disenchanted with.

Pastoral ministry.

And so he had a kind of.

What do you, what do you call it when you're hardened?

He was a little bit skeptical about some stuff.

A little bit of a cynic.

That's the word I'm looking for.

But nonetheless.

He heard what I was trying to say in my sermons.

Because I preached the Ephesians when I was pat.

First went to that church.

And he.

He would go to his house and he played guitar.

We.

I played a little guitar.

We play guitar together.

And then he would loan me books from his library.

And.

The first time I read a book that was on the, on the revelation.

That wasn't from a dispensational perspective was.

He gave me Georgia.

A little commentary on revelation.

Oh, yeah.

Post -millennialist.

Right.

And another.

Yeah.

No, he was.

Lad is.

Post -trip.

Oh, okay.

Historic pre -mill kind of position.

Right.

Anyway, that guy, he helped refine.

I would say.

He helped me understand.

My doctrine better.

And he encouraged me to read.

And so he.

I don't know why he, he recommended this to me.

He read, he said, why don't you get a copy of Charles Hodge and grind through it.

And so that was good advice, but also.

Hodge was really hard to read.

It's very difficult to read.

And because I didn't have classical education.

I'd been to Bible college, but I had.

Very little theological foundation.

So it was, it was a little bit, bit of a learning curve for me.

But he really, it was really helpful to me.

Eventually.

That guy.

I recommended that this man.

Was resigning his membership in our church.

Because he was reformed to the second.

Or third power.

It really irked him that we didn't have elders.

That we didn't follow the regular principle and all that kind of stuff.

And so finally I said, you know.

Why don't you just resign your membership?

And when he resigned his membership.

He never missed a Sunday after that.

It was so funny.

But while I was there at that church.

The internet played a role here as well, because.

There was this.

Fairly.

This is 2000.

I went to that church in Arkansas, 2008.

A fairly new.

Website called sermon audio .com.

Which somebody sent me a link to a Paris readhead sermon.

Called 10 shekels and a shirt.

And.

That sermon really changed my whole perspective.

Of man.

Because readhead went as a missionary to Africa.

And he said, when he got there, he found out that those.

The native people.

They were just as wicked.

As the Americans were, and they didn't want God.

Any more than anybody else did.

They were scammers and liars.

Just like, just like the people were in this United States.

So.

That really.

That really affected me deeply.

I started listening to Ian Paisley.

The free Presbyterian.

And.

For, for a time. I really considered becoming a free Presbyterian.

Because.

I couldn't find Calvin.

I couldn't find Calvinist.

Who were evangelistic.

Sad to say.

And what I mean by evangelistic, who are aggressively evangelistic.

I didn't find any Calvinistic soul winners.

Who were out there knocking on doors.

Trying to get the gospel to people.

And.

The free Presbyterian seem to represent that kind of.

Evangelistic fervor.

But ultimately.

I really couldn't figure out what they believed on.

Infant baptism.

It looked like they didn't really take a hard position either way.

Yeah, they actually permit both.

Yeah.

In fact, most of their pastors have a baptistic understanding of baptism.

Yeah, I know a couple of guys.

And I think that what you just said is accurate.

But I, I just.

Although I love.

Perform theology.

I never, I never could embrace infant baptism.

I just felt like that was.

It's not in the Bible.

If I could, if there was one verse that said they baptized the child.

I'd probably swap.

I'd swap over to heartbeat.

But I just.

Yeah.

That was a hill too far for me.

I just didn't see it in scripture.

If I could see it, I would believe it.

But.

I've had that church in Arkansas.

And then I decided one day.

I'm sick of pastoring a church that.

Does not believe in the doctrines of grace.

Through a sequence of events, I wound up.

In Oklahoma pastoring a church.

That was a landmark sovereign grace church.

The pastor.

We've been there for a long time.

43 years.

Was was a Calvinist.

He didn't like the term Calvinist.

Because of the stigma that went with it.

He was.

He called himself a non -dispensational.

Pre -tribulationist.

Which I was.

He wrote a book about it.

And he wrote a lot of books.

He wrote four books.

He wrote a lot of tracks and study guides.

But at that church.

In the landmark group.

I thought when I went into Calvinistic churches.

There would be.

Just real unity.

In doctrine.

But once I got over in with the Calvinistic churches.

There was.

There's tons of other side issues.

Over there.

One of the.

One of the main issues was over the free offer of the gospel.

And.

I'm looking at myself right now.

I have a friend of mine.

Send me this book.

It's called today's gospel.

Apostolic.

Exhortations by a guy named Randall's.

And it's a high Calvinist.

Book.

Because they didn't believe in the free offer of the gospel.

This Randall says.

When you finish your sermon.

Go ahead and tell people.

We'll leave it to the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved and see what happens.

See if you get the response that Peter got.

At Pentecost.

He said, you won't.

He said, that's because that was.

There was a different anointing of the spirit in those days.

And that.

In our era.

We don't preach as indiscriminately.

As they do.

So I wound up getting right in the middle of.

Of that high Calvinist.

Hyper -Calvinist.

High Calvinist.

Don't like to be called hyper -Calvinist.

Right, right.

Because, you know, so it's high Calvinist.

And I have, I have friends who I love who are high Calvinist.

And.

But they seem to focus too much.

On.

Calvinism itself.

And not on the gospel.

One of my friends.

He said.

He said.

He said, you cannot say to people when you're preaching.

To believe on Lord Jesus Christ.

And they'll be saved because you don't know if they can be saved.

So I think I can say whatever the Bible says.

I'm just quoting you.

Scripture to that.

I'm saying what Jesus would say or Paul would say.

And he would say, yeah, but.

You're telling them something that's not true.

Because a non -elect person will hear that.

And they'll want to believe.

But they can't.

Because they're not elect.

And I said, well, I don't.

It took me a while to really.

Flesh that out and see what they were saying.

Because along with that comes.

Preparationism.

You can only tell a person to believe on Christ.

If they have.

The particular Baptist of England.

They say.

If a person possesses the root of the matter.

If they have that little spring of life.

Then you can say to them.

Believe on Lord Jesus Christ.

And you'll be saved.

I think that would have been more specifically the strict Baptist.

Because even Spurgeon. Who was not a hyper -Calvinist. Would have called himself a

particular Baptist.

Yes, that's true.

Yeah, you're right.

Because usually that nomenclature goes together.

Strict and particular.

Right.

Strict Baptists are particular Baptists.

But not all particular Baptists. Are strict Baptists.

Right.

See, it's such a fun game.

Sometimes all the words.

So.

I preached.

When I was in Oklahoma.

I was introduced to a whole new circle.

Of the Baptist world.

And there were some.

Reformed Baptists there.

But most of them.

Were not reformed.

They didn't believe in.

A reformed kind of church polity.

But there was a lot.

There was always a lot of dissension in there.

They always kept trying to make the box.

Smaller and smaller.

And.

I invited a guy.

To come preach for me one time.

I had a Bible conference at my church.

And he.

I invited a guy to come and preach for me.

A guy from Tulsa.

A very learned and gifted preacher.

And he said.

Who else was preaching?

And I told him I was inviting another guy.

From Oklahoma City to come.

Who was also learned and a gifted preacher.

And he said.

I won't preach with him.

I said.

Well why not? He said.

Because he doesn't believe in the free offer.

And I don't want anybody to think that I think that.

And I said well.

I don't think anybody's going to think that.

Because you know.

It's just going to be a bunch of Calvinists down there.

And he said I'm not going to do it.

And so.

Then there was an internal.

In that fellowship of about 20 churches.

An internal.

Conflict over the eternal manhood of Christ.

Some of those guys.

Got to believing that Jesus Christ.

Had celestial flesh.

Which was an Anabaptist.

Really?

I have never heard of that.

Other than some kind of Mormon heresy.

I've never heard of that.

Amongst Baptists.

Yeah.

If you ever get a copy of the Martyrs Mirror.

Have you ever seen that book?

No.

It's a record of the.

Persecution of Anabaptists.

On the European continent.

It's published today by the Mennonites.

One of their publishing houses prints it.

Some people call it the Baptist.

Boxes book of martyrs.

Because it's all people who believe in.

Believers baptism.

Part of their over.

This is what I mean by it.

People tend to over correct.

Is.

I have the pages marked in the front.

I could read you some excerpts from it.

But that's probably not the thing to do.

These people were being put to death.

By the Catholic Church.

And they.

They were so against.

That they wouldn't even confess.

That Jesus received anything from Mary.

Not as humanity.

Nothing.

Because they were over correcting.

It's a.

It's a cookie little doctrine.

And I'd never heard of it until these guys.

Had a fight about it.

And then I was.

Sitting in a private house.

Me and a.

A pastor for Northern Ireland.

Who is actually.

He went to.

Toronto Seminary as a graduate of that school.

And we were sitting there.

With the seven other pastors.

And they were debating.

This very topic.

And I'm just sitting there being quiet.

Because I can all.

All those guys were on that side of the fence.

And me and my Irish friend.

We're just sitting there listening.

And when we left.

We were riding together.

He said.

I disagree with him 100%.

I said.

Me too.

But we were both preaching at their conference.

And so we didn't feel like it wasn't.

You know.

If we started a fight.

We'd probably lose our preaching spots.

That's how.

That's the integrity that we had.

Men of character.

So.

I had.

I had to.

I really had to work out.

My.

My views of sovereign grace in those days.

Because I was.

Hearing new things.

And making it more complex.

Than necessary.

I felt like.

And so I started reading.

Josh Fryman.

He says.

That.

I love John Gill too much.

Because I really love John.

Oh, I love John Gill too.

So I started reading.

I started reading Gill.

A lot.

And then.

I had a really close friend who pastored.

In the UK.

And he was a high Calvinist.

Just to the.

To the max.

And he.

He would call me all the time.

He'd say, Terry, you're a fullerite.

What does that mean?

He said, you're on Andrew Fuller's side.

Of the fence.

He said, you're a duty faith guy.

Free offer guy.

He said, you're a fullerite.

I'm a Gillite.

And then.

I read Andrew Fuller's gospel.

Worthy of all acceptation.

And I realized I am a fullerite.

Exactly.

On that side of the fence.

Just to let you know.

Tom Nettles.

I'm sure you've heard of Tom.

One of the foremost Baptist historians alive.

He defends Gill.

As not being a hyper Calvinist.

I've heard him do that.

I had a chance.

He preached at a conference in Oklahoma.

At a Southern Baptist church.

And I actually had a chance to talk to him.

About some of that stuff.

It was a.

I've heard his defense.

I'm not sure.

Who am I to disagree with.

Tom Nettles.

Though right.

But even men like Michael Hagen.

Who believed.

Who believes that John Gill.

Was a hyper Calvinist.

Michael Hagen still loves John Gill.

And promotes him.

Even though Michael Hagen is not.

A hyper Calvinist.

You're exactly right.

That's my opinion.

I'm just a dude.

I'm just a dude.

In Oklahoma.

But I'm not in Oklahoma anymore.

I'm just.

I love John Gill.

And I love his consistency.

But I also believe.

In the free offer of the gospel.

And I think.

The church I pastor in Oklahoma.

I had people.

A couple people tell me in that church.

That they didn't really like the fact.

That I went around knocking on doors.

And talking to folks about the gospel.

Because they felt like you know.

God's going to get them saved.

Anyway.

I preached with primitive Baptist.

And a couple of my really. Came to really love.

But they were not.

They were not evangelistic.

And I really got a look.

At the side of Calvinism.

That does not evangelize.

I know people.

Who are anti missionary.

And people. Should know.

And I'm sure you would agree with this.

Even though that.

Sect within. Sovereign Grace Believing Baptists.

Had a lot to do. With your personal experience.

They are a tiny. Percentage amongst. Sovereign Grace Believing Baptists.

Nationwide and globally.

I agree.

I agree with that.

I think sometimes.

The overcorrection is what gets people. Is. Because of the.

Negative stigma of. Screen door evangelism.

A .K .A. Heilism.

Right.

People tend to overreact the other way.

Like I'm not going to knock on doors.

Because that's.

That's what the bad people do.

So I mean.

That's like saying.

I'm not going to believe in the Trinity.

Because Roman Catholics believe it.

Which is exactly what a lot of cults.

Use.

Their rhetoric.

Exactly I was.

The church I passed from Oklahoma.

Was an anti Christmas church.

And so you had.

You didn't celebrate Christmas there.

Because of its connection to Catholicism.

It's just people go.

People tend to overcorrect.

While I was in Oklahoma.

And in Arkansas.

Some people who really helped me.

I hate.

To invoke his name.

Because he.

I'm just teasing about that.

But I listened to James White a lot.

On sermon audio.

When he was at PRBC.

And I listened to his.

The dividing line.

And his.

He really helped me.

Think better.

About.

Theology.

Church history.

And about the Bible.

Because the.

The thing that really.

Put me on the.

Once I told people I was a Calvinist.

Once my circle of people.

Started finding out about it.

I used to get invited to preach.

At their conferences and their churches.

But all those invitations dried up.

Because I was on the wrong side of the tracks.

But the thing that really got me.

In a little bit of hot water.

Even with my family.

Was when I stopped being King James only.

And.

You don't really realize.

How big of a deal that is.

Until you say hey.

I don't believe the King James Bible is the only right Bible.

The heat that comes with that. Is incredible.

I mean just.

I could.

There's one.

Particular. Situation where. It caused me intense

pain. Because of. The damage to a relationship over that.

And it's just.

But that's what I mean.

And that's adding to the gospel.

Just as much as a Roman Catholic.

Adding works to the gospel.

Because you are requiring something.

For salvation that God does not require.

Yeah you're exactly right.

Exactly right.

I talked to a pastor in Arkansas.

He was a youth pastor at a church in Russellville Arkansas.

And he was.

He was a modalist.

I mean I even thought.

Maybe he just is misunderstanding what he's saying.

But he was completely.

A modalist.

And so.

I contacted his pastor and said.

Hey you know your dude is a.

A heretic.

You need to talk to him.

This is a Baptist church.

Yeah independent fundamental.

Preliminal temperamental sin.

Hate and devil fighting Baptist church.

Wow.

Right down the line.

And I contacted the pastor.

And he said brother.

We use the King James Bible here.

We're protected from error.

So.

Now that's pretty crazy.

Yeah.

And that's the kind of stuff.

And in fact.

Nearly every if not every single.

American born cult.

Uses exclusively the King James Bible.

Yeah you're exactly right.

When you.

So Kenneth Copeland's final authority.

And their final authority are exactly the same.

The King James Bible.

And some of those doctrines can only be.

Created from the King James Bible.

Which I always think is kind of fun to talk about.

With people.

So I went to.

I had a great time.

In Oklahoma.

Pastoring my church.

And I was.

Around a lot of interesting people.

A lot of interesting Calvinist.

Calvinistic people.

And I really.

What I learned.

Was that.

I didn't really fit in.

With.

Being reformed.

I said there's some stuff that goes along with the.

Reformed view of the local church.

I really didn't agree with.

And I never.

I just couldn't go in with them.

I didn't really agree with the landmark.

Perspectives because I didn't.

Believe in the local church only.

They don't believe in the local church.

I didn't believe in Baptist.

Bridism and then.

And I was evangelistic.

I wanted to reach people the gospel.

And.

I just got tired of being in the.

Independent fundamental world because.

Everything was a big deal.

And my wife.

Never wore a pair of pants.

So she was 37 years old.

I never went to a movie theater.

Till I was 37 years old.

Me and my wife the same age.

But.

Everything.

All these minors.

Were a huge deal about everything.

Right.

So I just.

Started drifting away from that more.

And more and more.

Just out of curiosity.

I don't want to sidetrack you too much.

But what is it about.

A typical reformed Baptist.

Understanding of the local church.

Did you disagree with.

I'm just trying to figure that out.

Because in my experience.

And even according to the confession. 1689.

The view of the local church.

Seems to be in harmony.

With most independent fundamentalists.

We believe in.

The autonomy.

Of local congregations.

And there is no hierarchy outside.

The local eldership.

Other than Christ.

In his inerrant word.

I think it has more to do.

I don't think it does.

It has more to do with the.

With the reformed church polity.

Anything on the plurality of elders.

Yeah I don't really.

The way the church government.

Seems to work in reformed churches.

I'm a congregationalist.

And I believe in.

I agree with Adrian Rogers.

Hope.

The channel doesn't melt down.

For our listeners.

Who don't know this Adrian Rogers.

Hated Calvinism.

He knows better now.

Yeah.

But there are still a lot of. Reformed people who loved.

Adrian Rogers nonetheless.

Yeah I respect him a lot.

You know.

That's the thing you can disagree.

With somebody without vilifying.

I mean I just wish that people.

Get their head.

But Adrian.

Rogers said that a Baptist church.

Is pastor led.

Deacon assisted and congregationally.

Affirmed and I think.

That that is true.

I think that.

As a student of Baptist history.

Especially in America.

Is that.

The pastor deacon.

Model.

With the congregation.

Is.

Is the best model.

I think that sometimes.

The elder shifts that I've.

Been around.

They seem to be too.

It's more like elder rule.

Than elder led.

You know I'm saying.

Between that distinction.

Yes and there are.

Reformed Baptists who do disagree.

With one another over that.

Yeah.

And I hate and I hate the false.

Advertise myself.

You know you know if I.

I love reformed theology.

I really think the reformed.

Take on most things.

Is is the best.

Perspective.

I mean it's just delicious.

To your brain to read.

A reformed theology.

And reformed sermons.

Just on the local church.

The plurality of elders.

The congregation I think.

Congregationalism doesn't seem.

To go along with that.

It may be.

Maybe my own overreaction.

Against authoritarianism.

Sometimes right church right.

And that has.

Reformed Baptists have definitely been.

Guilty of that but not obviously all.

Or even the majority have not.

But that has.

Existed without.

You're right.

Just like.

It's not right to broad brush.

All independent fundamental.

Baptist as being crazy.

I have some very dear friends.

To this day who are independent.

Fundamentalist Baptist and we.

Have loved each other in spite of our.

Serious differences.

By the way we have to go to our final break.

So pick up where you left off there.

Don't go away folks we're going to be right back.

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