REFORMCON2016 | It's the LIVE ReformCon PUBCAST!

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It's the LIVE ReformCon PubCast!

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00:34
The Reformed Pupcast is for fun.
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Still time for one more bad decision, let's get crazy. While Les and Tanner love to talk about theology, they are not ordained, and they are not your pastors.
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If you're a Christian, if you're a Christian listening to this show, your butt better be in a pew on Sunday.
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Enjoy the show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second live episode of The Reformed Pupcast.
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Thank you for joining us today. You're welcome. We've already been pranked by the society.
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Thank you very much. They're everywhere. I'm going to shut this down here, though, because I really don't want to cut you guys off.
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Guys, thank you for coming to Reformed Time. Take a seat,
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Ryan. Thank you for coming to Arizona. In June. It's a dry heat.
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Don't worry about it, guys. It's just a dry heat. Tanner literally just showed up, and as soon as we're done recording,
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I'm leaving. So our paths cross just for this show. We will spend absolutely no time in Arizona together.
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It's sad. It is sad. It's very sad. So Tanner, how was your flight?
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I mean, flying is just the worst experience.
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There's nothing like being treated like a criminal by the TSA at four o 'clock in the morning. Did you get the naked spinner scanner?
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Yes. Yes. Me too. Why? Why did they need to see me naked? They were impressed.
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Tanner, I can't edit that out. No, you can't. Okay. How else did anything else happen on your flight?
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I just feel like every... So they were yelling at us, like, move it. Move to the line. You're so mean. And I felt like at some point they were just going to start spraying us with fire hoses.
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I just can't imagine seeing the rules of your job change like that and just being totally fine with it.
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I'm going to be a total jerk to people, be totally fine with them, and shake them down for no reason, pat them in areas that I have no business patting them.
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Yeah. Why? Yeah, it's terrible. I'm talking about TSA right now. No, it's fine.
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Yeah, I mean, but flying in general is just... I'd rather drive half the time, but Arizona's kind of far, so...
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And you studied on the plane. I did. I did. I was a good med student. I watched all three Back to the
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Future movies on the plane on the way here, and it was awesome.
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Let's talk about this for a minute. Yeah, let's talk about Back to the Future. For like 20 minutes, let's talk about Back to the
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Future. All right. So those movies came out in the 80s, and I think three came out in 1990.
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But it's so crazy, because everybody thought... They're fantastic movies. The second movie is a masterpiece.
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That whole thing where he's like revisiting the events that happened in the first movie, spoiler alert. There's going to be a lot of spoiler alerts in the next few minutes.
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But we live in a culture now where all the time travel movies are like Christopher Nolan movies, right?
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Right, right. Like incredibly thought out and mind bending, and you have to read all this research to even figure out what's being said in these movies.
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So Back to the Future was a much more simplistic, I don't know, time travel thing. Zero physics were consulted.
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Right. Yeah. They just said, let's just come up with crazy stuff that could happen in the future.
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Yeah. But the discerning time travel mind that now watches movies... I'm not saying
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I'm super smart. I'm just saying the consumer of movies now gets time travel in a different way,
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I guess. So as you think through the implications of the time travel in Back to the Future, it's not laughable.
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Like, oh, this is so stupid. It's horrifying, the implications. So I was thinking about how in the world does that...
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Remember in the second one, they go back to... Biff gets the
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Sports Almanac. And he goes back to 1955 to give it to young Biff. But he immediately changes the future by doing that, which since Biff's going to be rich...
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And remember that whole rich montage? And it's like Donald Trump when Biff is rich in 1985.
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Literally Donald Trump. It's like the sleaziest, scummiest... Like, this is how he got rich. Oh, do you guys like Donald Trump?
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I feel like I offended somebody. Don't like Donald Trump. Did he win the election yet?
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I have no idea. Oh man, that's actually happening. So there is actually a necessary timeline in Back to the
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Future 2 where Marty shows up in 1955, starts to disappear.
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He can't play the guitar anymore because he's sort of fading away. But then George McFly turns back around and kisses
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Marty's mom. And then Marty comes back to life. But first, Marty makes out with his own mom.
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Well, she makes out with him. Quick side note.
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I watched a documentary on Netflix about this. And originally, they pitched the movie to Disney.
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And Disney's like, we can't make a movie about insects. I'm sorry. I just don't know how they got that.
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Like, their immediate thing was, oh, this movie is about insects. It's just ridiculous that that's what they gathered.
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I mean, technically, yes. But they're telling a story. Anyways. Anyways. So Marty McFly solves his future lack of existence problem in the first movie.
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Second movie, he comes back. And now the whole sports almanac thing is an issue. So there's actually a timeline where Marty solves his existence problem and then arrives back in 1985 to the horrifying
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Biff world, where Biff owns everything. And Marty has absolutely no idea why this happened.
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Because all he just did was fix the parents' problem. But then Marty also comes back from the future to that Biff world in 1985.
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And now there's two Martys. And one of them has no idea why the world exists this way. And the other one does.
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And then the other one goes back and solves it. And then you get the whole thing of, were there multiple timelines? Or was it all one timeline? And that's where it gets all kinds of crazy.
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But I guess I like Back to the Future. It was a good movie. And then they made a Western. I guess that's my point. In all that stuff
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I just said, that's my point. And then they made that horrible Western that was three. I thought it was pretty good.
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But don't vote for Donald Trump. That's my point. That's my point, I think. Yeah. It'll look like, what was it, 20...
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It was 2015. They went to 2015, right? No, 1985. It was alternate 1985. And Doc Brown drew the...
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Oh, that's right. Yeah. And you can't go back to the future to make sure Biff doesn't get the Almanac, because then we're going into the new timelines version of 2015.
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Right. So, yeah. It's confusing. Hey, guys. How's it going? So what are we going to do here?
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Spinning Naked Scanners. We talked about that. We talked about that, yeah. We planned that joke about spinning naked scanners. So at the end of the show, we're going to do
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Everybody in the Pub. And when we do that, Luke is going to go around and have a microphone. We're going to have somebody up here who's actually smart.
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So it's not just going to be us. So that'll be really fun. And we got some beers given to us by Keith Graham.
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And we're not going to... Thank you so much, Keith. So it's just decoration. We're not going to drink them, because once again, we're in a
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Baptist church. We don't drink beer on the stage in a Baptist church. Not that anybody told us not to, but out of respect.
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So before we bring up our special guest, Tanner, I want to play a little game. Okay. This is a unique kind of game.
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I keep making allusions to discernment bloggers. And so there's a lot of people out there that don't like us very much.
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But how many of you guys are familiar with Tanner's whiny German? A few.
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A few people. It's the best. It's the second best next to Dr. White not playing our Would You Rather.
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So what we're going to do is we have iTunes reviews, and we have some negative ones.
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So I'm going to ask Tanner to grace us by reading the most negative iTunes reviews that we have on iTunes in his whiny
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German voice. I think this will be good. I don't usually do this on command. Okay.
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This is only for you. Okay. I appreciate that. Okay. So the first one is by, let's not say name.
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I really want to say the name. Don't say the name. No? You should read the title. Yeah, just go for it. So the title of this one -star review is boring.
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You should read that one in German. That's it. It's just boring. I gave them one star because I can't give them zero.
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I gave them one star. All right.
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Next one. At least read the title. No, read the full one. So this is
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Reformed Arrogance, one star, by Ponce79.
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Stop reading the name. Why not? All right. You would have to be intoxicated to find a tolerable, but I don't even drink.
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Slow down. Slow down for me, buddy. Okay. Slow down. Too fast? Too fast for German? Okay. Nearly half the episode is about beer.
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Fine for you, but not my thing. The other half is patting each other on the back about how great being
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Reformed is. It seems to me that they equate being
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Reformed and being saved. I don't personally fall on the Armenian side, but Dostoyevsky's Calvinism makes me so nauseous in my tummy.
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It's hideous. I added it. My belly is just nauseous.
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Should I do another one? Yeah, yeah. It's not my cup of tea, condescending and boring at worst.
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Condescending and boring at worst. One star. One star review. That's a good one.
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That's a really good one. Take your time with that one. What's this one? This is titled
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Crazy Religious Extremists. Crazy Religious Extremists, yeah.
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This is the name of the person who wrote this. Hefeweizen likes the beer.
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The name is Hefeweizen likes the beer. Likes the beer. Unless you like beer or theonomy, this podcast is not for you.
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What? When did we become theonomists?
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They just mix the two shows together. They think they're listening to Apologia. They rated the wrong show.
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That's very harsh, Les. You're going to hurt somebody's feelings. They're happy to be theonomists. I don't think
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I'm offending anybody. Let's do... This is a good one.
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Let's do that one. Take your time with it. You want me to read the title in German too?
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They might not know who this is though. The title of this is Bad Christian Pod is
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Better. And this is what they wrote. Legalist. Legalist.
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Yeah, Bad Christian is definitely better. No question. What are we missing that Bad Christian has?
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We need to curse a lot more. We need to talk about vulgar acts.
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Okay. Yeah. And we're not...
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We weren't in a band that... Like a theme band?
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We shouldn't say any of the things that we're saying. Good. Okay.
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That's fun. Hey, guys. If you would like to follow along with our pub journey, you can join our
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Facebook group. It's called The Reform Pub. How many of you guys are in The Reform Pub? That's our people.
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Right? They're here. You can follow us on Twitter at Reform Pubcast. So we want to talk about some doctrine stuff.
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And as you know, if you listen to the show, we aren't very smart. And... Why are you standing?
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Can you please... You're making me nervous. Sit down. I'm more comfortable this way. And plus I'm making a chair for our guests. Well, there's one right back there.
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The podcast is for fun. And although Les and Tanner like to talk about theology, they're not ordained, and they are not your pastors.
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So we should bring up the actual pastor of this church. Please welcome to the stage,
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Jeff Durbin. Party fouling already, man.
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It's only 11 .50. Do you have a mic? I do. Can you guys get me in this? Yes? Okay.
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I think I'm on. Jeff, thanks for joining us. Yes. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thank you guys for coming.
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I'm glad Tanner made it. Yeah, I know. It was a close one. Yeah. It was very close. Your church family has been an incredible blessing to me over the past couple of years.
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Praise God. Good. I want to thank you for that. Yes. We love them. So you're a smart guy, and we want to talk about some theology with you.
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Okay. Yeah. You like talking about it. I do, a little bit. You're into that? So let's talk about practical reform theology for a minute.
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I know that you do a lot of evangelistry, evangelism and stuff. Yeah. Can you talk about how reform theology has, or how it just typically changes our evangelism?
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What does it look like before, and what does it look like after? Yeah. So I think one of the blessings for me, and when
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I fully embraced reform theology, when I first read the Bible, thankfully
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I got to read the Gospel of John, according to John, like first. It was my first thing, so I read it just a bunch of times.
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So I had already gotten the full weight of Christ as the sovereign over salvation.
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John chapter 6, no man can come to me unless the Father's in me draws him. I have my sheep. They'll never be lost.
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All that was like in my mind. But I was part of a church initially that was really kind of an
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Arminian -ish tradition, and so I had all the concepts and traditions of free will and those sorts of things, and there was conflict in my mind over it.
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So I can say that when I was doing evangelism before I was fully reformed, there was something within me that was more concerned about, am
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I saying the right thing? Do I know enough? Did I do something wrong? It was just really kind of a fearful scenario at times to go into like a context, say the
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Mormon temple, to do evangelism where there's so many people there, and there's so much hostility, and some people are receptive, some people aren't.
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There was really a tension there, and one of the, I think, glories of being reformed and knowing full well
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God's sovereignty over salvation and his granting of repentance and faith, I don't have to pull any punches.
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I don't have to soften the blow. I don't have to try to know everything.
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I can just go to be faithful, and I know this is the encouraging thing. I know that when I call people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ that God's perfect will is done, and God is glorified through the proclamation of the gospel whether or not people receive it.
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So I can tell you about one time, this is where it really hit me. I was at that point really fully embracing reformed theology and God's total sovereignty over salvation, and I went out to the
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Mormon temple, and I remembered that there was a period of a couple days where there was a lot of hostility.
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I mean, people were really angry. I think this is one of the times where I got kind of roughed up by somebody. A guy came and grabbed our tracks.
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A Mormon missionary came to Christ on his mission at the temple. We were evangelizing him, and like two weeks later he was standing with us outside the
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Mormon temple reaching Mormons with the gospel. It was really incredible. But there was a period of time where I was getting roughed up where this guy grabbed my tracks.
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He grabbed my shirt and pushed me, and there was just a lot of hostility, and I remember that I started to sort of feel like, is this even worth it?
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I remember I went home one night, and I was really grieving over the fact that so many people were just cussing us out.
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They were angry with us. They were hostile towards us, and I went to this book, and from my perspective, accident,
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I read in the foreword of this book, not even the book itself, that night when I was grieving over this, this author says that God is glorified in the proclamation of the gospel, whether or not people receive it, because when we proclaim the gospel, the good news of what
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Christ has done, and we call people to repentance and faith, we give out that command, God commands you to repent and believe, people reject it, people receive it by the grace of God.
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For those who reject it, it is on the last day, testimony to God's love and mercy, because even when he sends people to them with his message of love and forgiveness, they are so hostile towards God, they so hate
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God, they don't want God, they reject God, and that just shouts over them in eternity, that they so hated
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God, that even when love was communicated to them from God, they hated him, and they rejected him.
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It's a testimony to God's graciousness and love, and it's a testimony to their wickedness.
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Yes, and it's also going to glorify God. In his justice.
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Because it testifies to their utter depravity and hatred of God, and when they go to hell, they go to hell because they want to be there.
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They wanted to be there. And that's to God's justice. That's what's glorified. But, when the gospel is proclaimed to rebel sinners who hate
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God, and God comes into their life, refuses to let them be what they are, and brings them to life, and grants to them the ability to come to him, he frees them from their slavery,
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God is glorified through the proclamation of the gospel in his grace in that respect.
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So when we go out and proclaim the gospel as reformed people, we go out with 100 % guaranteed assurance of success.
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100%. This is successful. Why? Because God is in it, and he will be glorified one way or the other, either in his justice and judgment, or in his grace and his mercy.
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So we can go out now with full confidence that God absolutely accomplishes his purposes.
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So what I used to think was if I go out and preach the gospel, and people reject it, that somehow
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God was thwarted because he wanted so badly to save and was trying so hard, but these people with their free will were resisting
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God in such a way that he could not do what he wanted to do in their lives. Or you didn't preach it well enough.
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I didn't know enough. I said the wrong thing. And so that's how practically reformed theology blesses you.
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And I just want to say the last thing. This is crazy because what's the charge we get sometimes from people is they'll say, well, if Calvinism is true or reformed theology is true, they say, well, then that means that there's no point in preaching the gospel because God's already determined who he's going to save, and it doesn't matter.
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You don't need to do it. Well, it's sort of a facile understanding of reformed theology, and it's really the other way.
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It's completely the other way. Because I ask the Arminian, why do you preach the gospel?
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Because according to your belief system, God has already done everything that he can, and he so desires to save people, and he's accomplished redemption for them because Jesus has died for their sins, but they can thwart
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God, and he's already done everything he can, and nothing could be really ultimately added to it because God could even, and some people say
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God does draw them, but they resist. So God can want to save.
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Jesus can die for all their sins, and God can try to save them, and it's up to the creature to accomplish salvation at that point.
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And so my question to the Arminian is why are you praying for salvation? God's already done everything he can. Why are you preaching the gospel?
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Because ultimately, they can thwart God and his purposes. When you're reformed, you can say, why do
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I preach the gospel? Because it's 100 % guaranteed success that God accomplishes all of his purpose.
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Amen. Yeah. So one of the things, I came across your videos on YouTube like long before we ever started talking and stuff, and one thing that I really admired is just like your boldness and just courage completely, like to just tell people how it is.
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And so one thing I was thinking about actually on the trip here because I was thinking about things that I've been wanting to ask you, and one of them was that anybody who's spent any time even in the pub, our
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Facebook group with so many people, I find that as, I can only kind of, are microchasm of reformed people, but reformed people are really bold at calling out
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Arminians or even calling out other reformed people who disagree with them and arguing with those people. But one thing that I think we would probably all agree is that on the whole, we're not all really going out and arguing this way with people,
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I don't want to say arguing, but defending our faith this way with people on the street like you guys do with atheists and cults out there.
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Why do you think that we're so comfortable and so courageous with each other, but we're not with people that we need to be preaching the gospel to?
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I'm not trying to say, I'm not trying to. No, I'm trying to think about it. Because you're not post -mill.
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I'm just teasing. No, that's not what it is.
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Goodness, I don't know if I have a good answer for that. I'd have to probably really think through that.
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Man. Okay, well, I'll take a shot at it, I guess. I think that all of us have a bit of a natural fear of combat.
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So you have somebody that you have to face that's out there, an atheist at the
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Reason Rally, or a Mormon, or a Jehovah's Witness that comes to your door, and maybe you're worried that you haven't studied enough and you don't know enough.
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Maybe you're worried about losing. Maybe you're worried, maybe it's pride, that you're worried about looking bad.
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Will I lose this argument? I'm just taking a stab at it, but I think from my own experience,
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I can tell you that what you see online today of when we get video footage of us out doing evangelism, by the way, we do that so that people can be encouraged and see it and be encouraged to go out and do it themselves, or you might say a
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Mormon will see it and they'll hear the same message and come to Christ. What you see now is a very different Jeff Durbin than when
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I first started. I can tell you that early on I was extremely prideful. I definitely think that there were elements of truly righteous desire to see people come to Christ.
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There were also elements of a lot of just human pride that I want to win and I want to beat you and I want to win this argument.
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And so my pride has been squashed by Reformed theology. That's another practical benefit of Reformed theology is that it sucked the haughtiness right out of me because I realized it's got utterly and completely nothing to do with me in terms of the ability to finesse the situation and show my fancy biblical footwork to win this person to Christ.
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I realized it's all God. I have to be present and just proclaim the truth and let God have His perfect work.
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So pride was sucked out of me. But I can tell you another thing that changed is courage. My courage, my ability to go out there and to do it was definitely affected by going out and doing it.
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So this is what I want everyone to hear. I can tell you right now that without question that every single time
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I go out to the Mormon temple, every single time I hit the street with an atheist, every single time I've ever gone into a public debate, which is twice now, public debate with atheists,
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I can tell you right now that there's terror that falls on me.
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I remember the first time, my first public debate was like a sold -out event. The place was packed with two very well -known local atheists.
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I was doing it with Vocab Malone. I woke up that morning and as soon as my eyes opened up and I realized this is the day of the debate, my heart almost came out of my chest.
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I remember I jumped out of bed and I just fell on my knees. I just started pleading with God, God, take away this fear.
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Let me communicate in a way that is going to glorify You. The whole day I had to fight fear that just was overcoming me.
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Was the fear, was it just you were afraid of looking wrong or not doing well?
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I think bringing shame to Christ in some way. Am I going to say the wrong thing that is going to not glorify
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Jesus? There's that fear of presenting the Word of God. I want to not say the right thing because I think somehow
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I need to, like I said, finesse the person in some way or manipulate them so that they come to Christ.
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But I'm always afraid of saying something that is not true or doesn't glorify God. There's that that washes over me.
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Here's what I'm getting at. After all these times where I've just said, okay, I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to preach,
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I go out, I ask God to remove my fear and just to speak through me. Each and every time, God moves.
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There's times I open my mouth and stuff comes out and I'm like, where did I get that? Where did
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I even learn that? I don't even remember even getting that anywhere. I'll give you one example. This was my favorite.
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I was like, that's it. I went to the Mormon temple one year and I'm trying to reach people and talk to them.
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Dr. White's down the way. He's in a circle of people. I'm in a circle of people. We're all surrounded by Mormons. And this guy was just drilling me.
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And he's aggressive and he's putting his finger on my chest and he's just drilling me, drilling me, drilling me. And he's like, no, we can become gods.
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And I was like, no, the Bible says you cannot become a god one day. And he was like, where does it say that? And so I go to open my Bible and he slams it shut.
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And he's like, no, come on now. You're Mr. Smarty Pants spiritual. You know it. Quote it. Quote it.
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I was like, I know the reference and I was like a young believer. He was like, no, no, quote it right now. Quote the text right now.
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Just do it. Come on now, you're so spiritual. You have all the answers. I was like, no, no, let me just read the text.
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He was like, no, don't read the text. And so I honestly didn't know it by heart. And I was like, and then all of a sudden the verse flooded out of me.
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I'm talking like a long verse flooded out of me, word for word.
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And I was like, I finished and I was like, wow, that was crazy. And so it's funny because he had shut him down immediately and he was done.
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And he was left to go home and wrestle with God. And as soon as he turned around and walked away, I turned around and grabbed my
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Bible and I was like, I was like, oh my goodness. Yeah. You want to make sure you got the answer right?
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It's experiences like that that make me want to go out and do more.
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And it's experiences of seeing somebody come to Jesus Christ through a proclamation of the gospel right in front of me and their lives change that causes me to say it's worth my life to lay it down to get to do that.
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And in terms of like online stuff, you won't catch me or Pastor Luke engaging in a lot of really extended conversations online just because I would prefer
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I would prefer real face -to -face contact or conversation to really get at fruit.
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Not to say that online conversation can't produce fruit, but I've tried to avoid spending my time arguing with Christians as much as I'm arguing with the unbelieving world to see them come to Christ.
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I'd rather invest my time in seeing people come to Christ than fighting with Christians. Yeah. You know, you talked about like being careful with what you say like especially before you were reformed like you had to be you wanted to be so careful and it's funny because when you if you're it seems typically if you're not reformed at least in my experience in my evangelism
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I found comfort in a script right to make sure that I got it right that I nailed every point that I needed to nail and it's obviously there are specific things you want to bring up in evangelism but when
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I became reformed and I realized that it's all about the power of the Holy Spirit it's all about this means that he uses
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I don't have to say everything perfectly I should say things accurately and that's sort of the irony is that you want to be so careful with what you say when your theology is not as good and then once you understand like the necessity of saying right doctrines now you have more confidence in the power of the
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Spirit so instead of me trusting in the script once I became reformed like I remember like just courage bubbling up right because it's not it doesn't matter like yes
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I'm going to speak truth I'm going to be bold but it's not me that's doing this and that takes all of the pressure off I'm just going to go to this person that needs
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Christ I'm going to share Christ with them and if the Holy Spirit chooses to bless this interaction he will use me as an instrument in his amazing plan of redeeming people right the confidence is it's an endless well of confidence and what happens is we often times becoming reformed we get this righteous kind of confidence that's so settling it brings so much solace to us to know that God's in control and he can do all these marvelous things through like this jar of clay but what we do because we're sinners is that confidence early on becomes cage stage danger right because there's so much confidence in the sovereignty of God you try to lop everybody's heads off like to destroy them with truth so there's definitely like a learning process of like how that confidence is supposed to look and where it becomes an error and pride
36:05
I think a part of that is like just you lose the interaction part of it like you realize like it doesn't matter what you say it's all about what
36:11
God says so I'm just gonna kill you with what God says but then you're not interacting with their fallen notions you're not allowing them to share them with you you're not taking the time to understand them you're just like I don't care sovereign
36:25
God Romans 9 get out of my face if you don't believe it like we just we stop caring about the other person well that's what
36:32
I do I bring that up a lot I think seems like it's a part of my conversation pretty regularly that just that specific point that when you came to understand
36:43
Reformed Theology and when you did and when I did I'm willing to bet that you didn't someone didn't beat you to pieces like God didn't come into your life and just hurt you and wound you and make you just you know
36:56
I mean it was like definitely a righteous kind of humility crushing of your spirit to realize that God is God and you're not but what
37:03
I want to say to people who get mean spirited early on in their Reformed Theology and just sort of careless and unkind is how are you one to this by God like you were one to it because God wooed you into it and you saw it for yourself in the text and God changed you and I think we need to have that same kind of respect and grace for the person we're trying to communicate these truths to because you weren't one to it by being annihilated you were wooed into the truth we talked about that recently because we've changed so much and matured so much even just in our understanding of Reformed Theology since we started the podcast and we've had a few critics that have kind of bombarded us and stuff and it's the people who have taken time and been gracious and when we've said really stupid stuff and have sent us an email or called us and said hey
37:55
I think you might want to like maybe look at this about that I think you misspoke there and they were gentle about it and that's those are the interactions and the means that God has used to really mature us both in our faith yeah when somebody criticizes your theology criticizes your behavior like if they're not for you you don't care what they're saying to you you're not actually for me you're for you you want me to look like you but if you're for me and you want me to look like the image of Christ and you're going to come to me lovingly and show me where an angel is and allow me to admit my error if you come at somebody violently they have to become defensive that's just how we work so when you have interactions with people it's so important and I watch you you know when you do street evangelism with Mormons especially like you allow them to say what they believe so that they've said it with their own mouth and then you can actually break it apart and say well let's actually talk about that belief then instead of just going to them and telling them what they believe and then telling them how stupid they are so it's important to actually interact yeah and I would say this too
39:13
I think that it's important for us to recognize that say in the reform pub it's awesome but I think sometimes we can see that conflict can arise quickly and sharply right?
39:27
especially online there's no accountability no one's standing right next to you you're not looking at somebody in the eyes that's always a problem for humans especially when you look at like some of our videos we release the comments section so people can make comments because every time an atheist comments we get paid and so God sovereignly uses their nasty comments to help fund our ministry so thank you for all your comments but thanks for your support yeah but you especially see with unbelievers the just nasty nasty things they can say especially online but I think reformed folks should have the most gracious interaction with one another like in somewhere like the pub because if our theology matters to us and we really believe it like Nate said yesterday do you really believe what you say if you really believe it then even interacting with other reformed folks over maybe baptism or issues of law or politics like those conversations should really be the most gracious because of what we believe about God don't we believe as reformed folks that God is sovereign over our sanctification yes don't we believe that God is the one who changes our mind yes that God gives to us truth as a grace yes don't we believe that he's sanctifying the body of Christ worldwide whether your
40:39
Baptist or Presbyterian or whatever yes so shouldn't we be able to take our time with each other and just be gracious and calm and why am
40:50
I in such a hurry one to adopt a new view why am I in such a hurry to adopt we do that Christians we hear about some new view and we immediately go oh
40:59
I'm trying to figure it out and just figure it out we're in a hurry I gotta hurry up and get this done why don't you take your time and why don't you take your time communicating with another believer why do we have to be in such a hurry to quickly change our minds it's also a danger there you can fall into error quickly when you're willing to bite down too fast open mouths are good to receive stuff but you shouldn't bite down too quickly so it's important for us to take time with one another and to be gracious reform pub should be like kumbaya it should be like peace and grace and blessing well of course some sharp swords we try yeah we try real hard and it is and I think what people love about the reform pub
41:38
I think I imagine what I do is that it's probably the best online forum on the internet for reform
41:45
Christians because it's such a great community these are our people right it's a great community but I just think the interaction we have with each other as saints should be gracious because of what we believe about God's sovereignty yeah
41:58
I think there's like a natural we always have a battlefield in our minds we always we have to it's like a natural innate thing like the image of God in us we have an enemy whether or not our enemy is not flesh and blood spiritual enemy but we have an enemy and then we have our family and there's always that division the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent the division is always there but we decide who the enemy is and I think sort of this online like nastiness that happens it's like you get so insulated into the only people you're communicating with is other
42:34
Christians and then you're the battlefield that you're like forming in your mind is doctrines between Christians right you're not so concerned with the enemy who is deceiving the world and now you become the so concerned with tearing down other
42:54
Christians because they're not where you are and it's just a matter of a paradigm shift of where your battlefield is these people are actually in need of medical care they're on our team and we should be medics helping them to get up and fight the enemy who's actually who's the actual enemy right and to kind of go back to what
43:16
Jeff was talking about when I asked the question about the division we have in the pub versus or just in reform with reform people versus actually going to the world and preaching to people that have completely different views as we do
43:30
I think hearing you talk about even the division with the family and the enemy
43:35
I think part of it might just be that ultimately we know we'll be accepted even if we disagree on baptism we know that there's rules to the game and that person has to play by the rules too and how we argue and if one of us messes up graciously we have forgiveness and repentance and I think for me
43:57
I can speak for myself that I feel safer arguing with a brother about stuff because I feel like ultimately we have common ground and so there's that safety there and then
44:09
I know when I argue with an atheist or if I go out and try to preach the gospel there could be no acceptance whatsoever and so knowing that there's some acceptance in the end of that conversation is a safety net for me and not having that with somebody who is a complete atheist naturalist where we see things completely differently
44:33
I basically run the chance of being ultimately it's rejected by the world which
44:39
I shouldn't care about but I take safety and acceptance instead of caring more about just truth and bringing it to the world.
44:50
Yeah it's funny how you talk about we have our own rules that we hold each other accountable to like every
44:55
Calvinist knows what a straw man is because we've all been accused of making a straw man out of another position.
45:02
At some point in the argument especially online it just comes down to who's using the most philosophical philosophical or obscure of fallacious ad hominem yeah.
45:16
Oh you're right ad hominem I lose. Let's move into everybody in the pub hey
45:22
Tim do you want to go into everybody in the pub? First of all what is sudo su? It's warm beer.
45:28
Okay. All right. It was on a plane it was brought across the country. No I know I'm not I'm just saying it's we'll have to drink it later we have to cool it.
45:36
So exciting. So we're going to do everybody in the pub and what we're going to do is Luke has a microphone
45:42
Luke is going to wander around and if you have a question for Tanner or Jeff anything you want to ask you got a few minutes so just raise your hand if you would like to ask anything of any of us.
45:57
Anybody. It doesn't have to be like a smart question. What's your favorite color?
46:08
Hi Luke from Toronto. What's up? What's up? Quick question like know how the reform reformation happened in the 1600s?
46:19
Yeah. So yeah. And then so again momentum and then the 1800s came and the dispensation was right.
46:28
Why did the reform group like suddenly became a minority in the 1900s and then onto the 20th century and let it happen that way?
46:41
Yeah it's a really good question. Like Arminianism just straight up we just allowed it to happen that And it's a really good question.
46:52
I mean it's a really good question.
47:08
it's a really good question. It's a really good question. It's a really good question. It's a really good question.
47:15
It's good question. It's a really good question.
47:45
It's a really good question. It's a really good question.
48:09
It's a really good question. It's a really good question. It's a really good question. It's a really good question. It's a really It's a really It's a really good question. It's a really good question.
48:56
It's a really good question.
49:15
It's a really a really It's a really good question.
49:33
It's good question. It's a really good question.
49:45
It's a really good question. It's It's a really good question.
50:15
It's start separating realms of Christ's authority, that does damage to the church and its witness.
50:21
I think you're right when you bring up dispensationalism, not to, I don't want to destroy my brothers in Christ, sisters in Christ, for dispensational, but dispensational premillennialism does have within it, we have to confess to it, it does have within it the type of escapism from the world and that kind of escapism from the world looking to get out quickly does it does do damage to our ability to be sanctified as a church, to work hard here and now in theology and in building up, you know, society around us and so there's a lot of answers,
50:56
I don't think there's a single one, but there's a few. Any more questions? Can we throw a question at the audience?
51:06
Sure. So, and then I'd like to hear you key on this too.
51:12
Okay. So Les and I are always talking about how we started off as like these young restless and reformed guys and we've attempted to mature from that, we're super mature now, yeah, well maturing, and so I guess
51:29
I am curious as to, probably the older guys in the room, no offense, not to not to dog on you, but guys who looked at the young restless and reformed group and was like what is wrong with these kids and now seeing some of those people grow up and mature, where do you, where would you like to see them go?
51:53
Like what is the next, like are there, where are there, where are we still in error? Where are ways that we can still improve?
52:01
Does that make sense? Does that question make sense? Anybody? Yeah, I think,
52:25
I think that's one of the, like there's the whole like resurgence, right, of like Calvinism that happened and then it's like Mark Driscoll falls from grace and stuff and you know we can we can say a lot about that, but we won't, and it's like people weren't sure where to go and their church life was never really actually like quote -unquote reformed, right, it was like it basically looked like the popular the way to do church, mostly.
52:55
So it was like do you, you either go back, you hold on to your Calvinism, and then you go back to the way that churches, you know, that churches, or you actually say there is a historic confessional way that this
53:11
Calvinism plays out in all areas of life, right, and I'm gonna pursue that, or I put
53:19
Calvinism in my pocket and go back to my non -denominational church that, you know, I guess
53:25
I'm not trying to doggone, non -denominational church is too bad, but like we don't really change much else, we just get our sociology right, and we don't care.
53:35
So yes, I absolutely agree, that's the key, like find out what the historic, what's the consistent way
53:41
Calvinism works in every other area of life and pursue it, and ultimately it's confessional, confessional historic, reformed theology, right?
53:52
Does the rest kind of just play itself out once you get your work, you know, once you take you, because I feel like the big disconnect between who
54:00
I was when I was young, restless, and reformed, and where the Lord has matured me now, is that I have a much higher view of worship,
54:08
I'm a part of a confessional church, my whole family life is different, and my understandings of prayer,
54:17
I mean that kind of came from just a higher view of worship, right, and is that the kind of the stepping stone out of the
54:25
YRR to kind of where the Lord can, you know, just sanctify from there, or is there still some stepping stone or deficit that, you know, this group is still blind to?
54:39
Yeah, goodness, yeah, I think, so take for example, I think you're exactly right, and it does become kind of a burden when you see people who are saying, well, we're reformed, we're reformed, and it almost feels like it's because it's popular in some instances.
54:56
I know a lot of local churches where guys are like, well, we're reformed, we're reformed, but when I look at kind of like practice, you know, the overall shape of it all,
55:04
I think like in what way because you hold to the doctrines of grace, oh, okay, that's reformed theology, when in reality, if you pick up someone like Bavink, Reform Dogmatics, four volumes, right, start reading it.
55:15
The first part of volume one in the Prolegomena is hard. If you want to,
55:21
I don't think you should skip it, but if you want to skip it, skip it, and get to the part about revelation. You begin to see the reformed theology, my goodness, the part about the doctrines of grace is a snapshot in a single little area of reformed theology, right?
55:37
Like the four volumes in Bavink will blow your mind and take your breath away, and you realize that it's an entire whole, like, system -set structure of your life and everything.
55:50
It's how you live your everyday life. It's how you conduct corporate worship, which is actually a specific thing that needs to be practiced and done in a certain way.
55:59
Yeah, I think that getting back, how you said it is perfect, getting back to the confessional standards as, basically the confessions will flesh out what does this life mean as reformed, like, what does all that mean?
56:15
So the Bible says this, here's how that's expressed, and so whether you're, you know, Westminster Confessioner 1689, the point is, is the confessions distill this whole life and worldview, and it's not just about the doctrines of grace.
56:31
So I do, I think it's a perfect thing to talk about. If you want to talk about, like, what change needs to happen, we need to get away from the idea that it's about the doctrines of grace only.
56:38
It is much bigger and broader than that, and there's so much more to learn, and I think one of the damages of that, the thing that is damaging to us as evangelicals in the
56:49
West, is that we act often like we are the first ones here. Like, we just, we're just, we're just figuring this out for the first time, we got our
56:57
Bibles now, let's figure it out now for the first time, when in reality you're missing out on all that God has done with his bride, when you don't actually dig into the
57:07
Westminster divines, or dig into, like, a Bovink, you know, you're losing so much, because why are you trying to reinvent the wheel and start over?
57:16
These men poured over the scriptures their whole lives and were gifted as teachers, learn from them, and let that affect your life, and so we need to get back to our heritage, for sure.
57:26
Amen. It's like you have to move away from being a Calvinist because it made you unique and a hipster in your
57:36
Southern Baptist, you know, your parents' Southern Baptist Church, and move into believing it because it has a high view of God.
57:44
Yeah, yeah. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff, for answering those questions.
57:51
My pleasure. So now it's time for the first annual ReformCon baptism debate, right? Okay, let's do this.
57:58
All right. What's ReformCon without a baptism debate? That's right. You should, I mean, you should have one every year.
58:04
What else is real hot right now in the pub? What's another... Baptism, two kingdoms.
58:12
Two kingdoms, baptism, Deadpool. King James, yeah, King James has been one. The authorized verse.
58:20
Cool. Recommendations. Jeff, do you have any recos, like maybe like a church plant or something that you're into?
58:31
Well, if you guys have watched the live stream and it's blessed you in any way, or if you guys are in attendance, if you can help with Apology of Kauai, that would be a huge blessing.
58:40
ApologyofKauai .com. You can donate to help us with our missionary efforts out there and our church plan out there.
58:46
I want to say one last thing. This is important to me. So ReformCon is,
58:53
I think, awesome. It was just, this has been amazing. It really has been amazing. Blew me away.
59:01
What I've seen of it has been great. Yeah, it's been a cool week. I thought it was going to be cool. It's been amazing.
59:08
It's surpassed my expectations, for sure. So what I would say I long for,
59:13
I really do long for this, I long for, let's just use two categories here,
59:19
Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians to be together on mission. I long for that because there's so much unity between us, so much unity, so much of the same commitment, and I think it's important for us to recognize that our little battles with each other are important.
59:40
I'm not minimizing them. They're important. But we have greater enemies to slay at the moment, much greater enemies to slay at the moment.
59:47
So I say let's hang with each other and minister together and grow together and let's hash these issues out together with essential unity while we go slay the giants that are in the land.
59:57
And then when all the giants are slayed in the land, then let's get to with each other and maybe have more serious discussions, you know, about our issues, which are very important.
01:00:07
But I think it's important to show like a conference like ReformCon, we're filled with so many different diverse
01:00:12
Reform folks here, and it's not an issue, our little disagreements, because we're unified around the gospel and who
01:00:19
God is and what the scriptures are. And so I think that if we do things like this to bring us together as a church,
01:00:26
I think we're going to accomplish a lot for God's kingdom. Well said. Thank you. Tanner?
01:00:35
Don't try to bring liquids on a plane. Yeah. I don't like that. Okay. Oh and wear your compression socks when you have long flights.
01:00:45
I know that sounds crazy. You want to hear more about that? Why? Yeah, I want to hear why. Okay, so. Hey, listen.
01:00:54
Okay. It does sound like an old man thing to do. It does. But hear me out, and I guarantee most of you, some of you are going to be rebels and not do it.
01:01:02
Okay. So, med school has made me a complete hypochondriac. Has it really? Yeah, totally.
01:01:07
So whatever I'm studying, I automatically have. So I've been on, I've been on, I've been on,
01:01:12
I'm like the Woody Allen in my, in my med school. Yeah. So anyways, I've been on vascular surgery, and I've been operating on all these people with, you know, they're embolizing in their legs and throwing cloths to their lungs and stuff.
01:01:25
And so I went out and I bought compression socks because I was terrified of getting a
01:01:32
DVT, which is a deep vein thrombosis in my leg, on the flight, and I forgot my socks. And I'm like,
01:01:37
I'm on the plane, I'm like, I'm gonna get a pee, I'm sitting here for six hours not moving around. Because the whole point is, if you don't move your legs, like truck drivers get them, people who fly a lot.
01:01:44
Yeah. And I was thinking about this the whole time I was flying. I'm like, I'm gonna throw a cloth to my lungs, and I'm gonna not be able to do the conference and be coughing up blood.
01:01:53
Are you even a Calvinist? That's funny.
01:01:59
But it, no, it, when you're, when you, when you, at this age, I probably don't need to do it. Right, right. But I, yeah.
01:02:05
Where are your compression socks? I have like, I have a lot of flights in the next month, so I should get some compression socks. Yeah, man.
01:02:10
If I do that, my wife will never let it go. No, they sell, so like, check it out. So they sell some stylish ones, man.
01:02:16
Okay. You can get like Under Armour. Okay. Under Armour compression socks, you know. Okay. Yeah. All right.
01:02:22
I know I sound crazy right now, man, but it's serious. I pulled some cloths out of some legs that you would not believe.
01:02:28
Really? Yes. Wow. Serious business. Good record, Tanner. Yeah. Compression socks, everybody.
01:02:34
Take care of your lungs. I recommend Back to the Future 2. It's a masterpiece, but you have to watch
01:02:41
Back to the Future 1 to appreciate it. Back to the Future 3 is okay. It's all right. I think that's it.
01:02:46
That's it? Guys, thank you so much for coming out to the live episode of the
01:02:52
Reform Pubcast. Thank you so much for coming to ReformCon. You guys are amazing. You're our people. We hope you enjoyed watching us as much as we enjoyed watching you.