David Woollin - Complete Discussion

How God Brought David Woollin to Faith

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast, I'm Jon Snyder, and with me we have a special.

Treat.

We have David Woolen with us from Michigan, and David is the pastor of Grace Emanuel Baptist.

Church.

He's also the executive assistant to Dr. Joel Beeky, and he is the CEO of Reformation Heritage.

Books.

So, three pretty significant hats you wear, David. And David is in our neck of the woods for some other business, and he was very gracious to come by and spend some time with us here for the podcast and to preach for us tonight.

So welcome, David.

It's a delight to be here.

We thought we would just introduce you to David and the ministry of RHB, because the significant things the Lord is doing there, and we're very encouraged and want you to know more about it. So David, would you tell us how God brought you to Himself?

Yeah, I've been reading a very small book by Day One Publications, a very small publisher in the UK, just in the last couple of weeks on aeroplanes, which went through the story of two new churches in West Yorkshire, England.

You can tell from my accent I'm not from Michigan, slightly east of there. And it's an unremarkable book in many ways. I know the names, but you won't. And how in the mid -60s, early 70s, God in two mill towns in the middle of nowhere, nondescript place, really brought some young people to Himself, which included both of my parents who then got married.

And then they would start reaching out beyond their Methodist circles. You know, at that time, that's your local church, you walk to it. But on a Sunday afternoon, they started driving about 40 miles, they'd now got a car once they got married.

And they went to listen to a man in a place called Hebden Bridge, up a beautiful valley in Yorkshire. And that man was preaching the doctrines of grace, a man called Dick Eccles. And he and others encouraged my parents and a couple of others to start an evangelical church in a town called Dewsbury.

And my oldest sibling was born into that church almost immediately. I was probably two, three years after the church was founded. So I grew up in an evangelical church that embraced the doctrines of grace after a year or two of listening to cassette tapes and having visiting speakers.

They called a pastor who's literally only just retired after more than 50 years. And they've since planted churches. And in that environment, I grew up with the pastor's kids. And I have to admit really that I've professed faith three times.

And the first time was as a 10-year-old in that church. I did feel an impact from the messages that were preached. I did feel convicted for my sin at that point as a 10-year-old. I remember it. I was the kind of kid that could win all the prizes.

And in fact, it was me and another kid. It was a competition. It's nothing to do with the actual content of the answers. It was who could get the free candy, free book, whatever it was. And my friend, who we're ultimately best man for each other many years later, Matthew, the pastor's kid, he became a believer and kind of left me behind a bit.

He got baptized. He was a couple of years older than me. And so I sort of felt the pressure that I'm not a Christian now, and he is. And I should really think about this and pray about this. And I made a profession of faith to sort of still be in the club, so to speak.

And one of the elders came and chatted with me and wisely could see that there was nothing there, nothing serious. And then as a 12-year-old, I think that was like the mid-'80s. It was when Billy Graham was in the UK.

He used some big football, soccer stadiums, Liverpool, Sheffield. And busloads of people would go down to them and fill the stadiums. And then people would go forward, and it was like rolling over dice who you'd get as a counselor as you went onto the field.

And I went forward at one of those as well. And this was the second time that I professed faith, because I went forward. I made that commitment, that step. Again, it doesn't reflect well on me, but how many other opportunities do you get to walk on a professional soccer field?

And that was one of the motivations for going down there. But I literally experienced what many people fear at these kind of events, which was a random guy coming up to me, telling me I was now a believer, and to write the date in the front of my Bible, and never to doubt.

And I just always thought that never happened. But it literally happened to me. And it followed up a couple of times. I got free books out of the whole thing. I got sticker bags because I was a young kid.

And I went home, and I did pray. Again, conviction of sin. The gospel was clearly preached at my home church. I knew I was a sinner. And because of the first time I'd confessed faith, I was more hesitant.

But this time, something different happened. It was almost like a cookie recipe. You've got to do A, B, and C, and then you're a Christian. You've got to pray this, this, and this, and then you're in.

And I prayed that with no heart involvement. I was fearful of hell, but no heart involvement, no true repentance. But I did the words, the magic recipe, and nothing happened. And again, an elder came and spoke with me, because I asked for baptism.

And again, wisely, they saw that there was nothing of regeneration in me at all. And then for five years, the strangest thing happened. I don't know if I'm unique. I'm sure the devil uses this many different ways.

But I sort of rationalized the whole thing, that God, I have asked you to save me. I have asked you to forgive my sins. I've done all that you said. And I kind of sort of reasoned that if I did die, and I was scared of dying as a child, or if nothing else ever happened in my life, then I could get to heaven and have a successful argument with God on this point, because I did ask him to forgive me.

I did say the words with no heart involvement. And I was in that state for like five years. Like, well, I'll be OK, because I've done all that I should have done. And then when I was 17, one of the churches that my parents used to go to, to hear Reformed doctrine, before they even helped plant a church with a few other people, they started organizing camps in the Yorkshire Dales.

And I'd been going there. It was almost my last year. We'd go kayaking, climbing up mountains in the Lake District, the greatest time. With all my friends. And I realized, wow, I think this is the last year I can come in my age group.

And I sat there every morning before we went and did the activities was a full sermon. And the speaker that week, and he'd done it many times before, was a man called Phil Arthur. And he was pastor of Lancaster Reformed Baptist Church.

And a Cambridge historian has written books for Banner of Truth and things like that. And he was preaching. I distinctly remember the series was on 1 Corinthians, but he referenced John 12. I've got it here.

John 12, halfway through verse 36. These things Jesus spoke, and he went away and hid himself from them. But though he had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, which he spoke, Lord, who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this reason, they could not believe. For Isaiah said again, he has blinded their eyes. And he hardened their heart so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart and be converted and I heal them.

That terrified me. I was literally sitting there in the oldest age group. I'd been every year, younger camp, older camp, I don't know, 11 years or something. And there were kids there, young people there, who were hearing the gospel that week for the very first time.

I'd heard it in Tuesday night kids club, Friday club, prayer meeting, morning and evening, I assume every Sunday of my life, because I think my mom just took me that first Sunday to church, I don't know.

And I'm sitting there still under the sound of the gospel preaching as a 17 year old, thousands of times I must have heard that message in different ways, but the same message. And I was thinking, God, why would you give me the thousandth and one time?

This next opportunity, you've been so gracious and all the messing around before. Deep down, you know, you're being false. You know, this is ridiculous.

You're stupid.

I could never have a successful argument with God and win. Okay, well, I'll let you into heaven then come on. I never really believed that deep down below the surface. And I was there fearful that this is my last chance.

I've rejected this so many times and the message that he was preaching was, every time you reject this, it's easier and easier and easier to reject. And I feel that I see that in the young people in my own church where you think you're coming up to a deadline, a tipping point, 17, 18, you're about to consider college, or you're about to choose a life partner.

And if you've not got these things resolved, the trajectory of your life could just drift you away from, you might not intend it, but you might drift away from church. And you never actually made a profession of faith.

You never actually came to Christ. And there's a real danger there. I mean, the biggest danger is them not being a believer and going to hell ultimately. But I could see that tipping point coming, that I was about to get out from underneath the influence of my parents and maybe go to university.

And then why do I go to church if it's not personal to me? And I was fearful that God had every right. He had every right at any moment. He had every right to say, well, that's it. That's it for David.

That's the 1200th time he's heard the gospel. And I was terrified. And so all that week, we were walking up mountains and all sorts of things. And my tent leader and the other pastors that were on that vacation camp were very patient with me answering questions.

And it was all the red herring questions that I'd built up during my teen years that are just nonsense. And eventually they just sort of all ended up in the same place saying, David, you've got to do something about this.

Some of these questions, there's answers. There are. If you need them, you'll get them. But the most fundamental thing is, are you right with God? Are you forgiven? Have you repented? And it was a camp out in the Yorkshire Dales in a field.

And we were in a tent at the top of the hill. And all the, to get graphic, all the bathrooms were sort of holes in the ground. And it was a very rainy week. And the men's standup was overflowing and running through our tent, which was pleasant.

And so our tent and the tent next door relocated to the church building. And we were sleeping under the pews. And so I wonder if I'm one of the only people to be converted under a pew rather than sitting on a pew.

So I don't know, that's something I think about. But I prayed and prayed night after night, repenting of my sin, fearful of God, but thankful, so thankful that I had another opportunity. And I believe that's when I was saved.

But because of all those previous experiences, I don't really want to tell the elders this time. I don't want to tell my parents this time. You know, they've heard all this before. And so I just prayed and prayed for weeks into months.

Eventually, I think it was my mom or my mom and dad in the car on the way home from church one time just said, Hey, why don't you? Why don't you speak to the pastor about baptism classes and talking about it?

They'd seen something that changed in me, even though I'd not professed faith. And ultimately, I was, I went through that and I was baptized and then went to university, had, you know, good churches and ultimately met my wife there.

And she was three years behind me when I graduated. We got married and I, you know, we got a house and things and she was still doing teacher training and a little church in a little town called Ripon, an ancient sort of city.

It's tiny, but it's a city because it's got a cathedral. It, I started teaching youth group and there was my first preaching experience. The pastor called me about two o 'clock in the afternoon on Sunday saying, I'm throwing up.

You were doing youth group tonight, weren't you? Yes. Could you do that youth group message as the Sunday evening message? And it was two of us. We were doing youth group and we were doing 10 minutes each, two points each.

And so we said, okay, well, we'll do, we need to do something. This is like a church of 15 people. This isn't like, you know, a big sort of present, you know, professional presentation, like whatever.

So everyone knows each other. It's all very comfortable. And I stood up to do my, my, my 10 minutes, first two points and sat down 45 minutes later. And the other guy just said, we'll just stop there.

I won't do my, won't do my bit. And so that was my first experience in the pulpit. And then I ultimately became an elder in a Grace Baptist church in a village called Haworth in West Yorkshire. William Grimshaw was from there and the Brontes.

Lots of history all around. Yorkshire's a beautiful place, which seemed to have, at the same time as my parents coming out of Methodism, seemed to have like a dozen evangelical churches in the mid seventies, all start at once.

It was a movement of God that you would, probably nobody outside that movement would have noticed. And yet many of those churches are still, still going, still faithful. And many of the young people who were born into them are now becoming leaders and, and things like that.

So yeah, it was, it was a time of great growth and the benefits are still being seen, the ripples. We would have the young people from those churches all meet together for a September Bible school. And all these well-known teachers would come down.

Sinclair Ferguson and Ian Hamilton would just come and spend three days intensively with 20 teenagers, young twenties. And quite a few of those people became, you know, either missionaries or pastors.

And so I was working for a software company and then moved to Evangelical Press as their mission manager. So I was in the first year managing their French and Russian work. So we had quite a few West African countries that used to take our books and lots into Belarus and into Russia, and then became their marketing manager.

And ultimately did the transition to Michigan early in 2012, January 2012. So my role was coming to an end at Evangelical Press. And on my final day there, I sent an email around saying, thank you for everything.

You know, they were using a different sales organization then, so I was no longer needed. If you need me, this is my personal email address. And Joel Beakey emailed me that same day within about an hour and said, what's going on?

Do you need a job? Would you like to be our European sales manager? And so I emailed him back saying, do you know, we have been praying that perhaps I could do seminary one day. And now the email came back after about 20 seconds saying, get on the phone.

And between December 9 and January 20, we got rid of all our worldly goods, reduced it to six boxes, and we'd moved to the US. And I was sitting in my first seminary class and at the time working 20 hours a week for Reformation Heritage Books.

So that was our move to the US. And it needed to be a definite work of God for my wife to move with me. And I'd been looking for other jobs and nothing was coming up. And to get right to the end of ourselves, we'd looked at other jobs.

I'd looked at, is it financially feasible to go to seminary with three young kids at the time? And we'd concluded that it wasn't possible for us to humanly do that. And then God took over right at the 11th hour.

And within a month and a half, we were in snowy Michigan starting seminary. And really at that point, Reformation Heritage Books was a fairly small organization, six, seven, eight, maybe 10 employees when it got a bit busy, a little bookshop in the corner of the seminary.

And then God over these last 11 years has really, really blessed.

The Growth of Reformation Heritage Books and Ministry in Michigan

Yeah.

It's really interesting to see, you know, as you can look back, you mentioned an unusual work of the Lord in the 1970s in that Yorkshire area and how your parents were not just converted, but were then under good teaching.

And you were brought up under that and the Lord bringing you then all the way over here to become the CEO of Reformation Heritage Books, which has, you know, such a worldwide impact in the very area that, you know, of theology, those great truths being re-emphasized, rediscovered for many people.

And now you have that significant opportunity to continue that great work, but not in Yorkshire and not, you know, not in England, but around the world.

Yeah, I mean, I see waves of God's blessing in Yorkshire. You can look back to Miles Coverdale, William, John Wycliffe, William Grimshaw, and others. And you can go to all these wonderful spots where their names are carved in stone on the wall.

And yet, then there's another wave in the 1970s, which still has these ripples. I'm sort of a grandchild of that wave. And God led to the US. We still feel a burden for the north of England, where there is a great need.

You know, 50, 60 people is a mega church. If you can support a pastor, that's a real blessing. And there's lots of little churches with good works going on there who need good resources. And so I do feel, yeah, I could still have an impact even in my homeland, even whilst Dr. Beakey convinces me to stay in the US.

So he's quite persuasive in that way. So when I joined, I joined as a student, full-time Master of Divinity student, and invested our family in Grace Emanuel Reformed Baptist Church. They're in Grand Rapids, less than a mile from the seminary.

And graduated in the summer of 2016, at which point I became full-time with RHB and ultimately, probably within the year, became pastor at Grace Emanuel alongside four other men. And we saw the blessing.

You know, we're now at 30 employees. We now have a building separate to Puritan Seminary, but we're still affiliate organizations. We pray together every Monday and every Friday, and then we have our own prayer times at 9 .45 on the other three days.

Dr. Beakey still comes down to meetings, like acquisitions meetings, what books should we publish. But we're an independent organization in a 44 ,000 square foot warehouse with a bookshop, you know, a beautiful fireplace, kids' story time on a Tuesday morning, trusted books.

It's been through our filter. So we distribute the best of the rest, as well as publishing perhaps 45 books a year. And then with organizations like Media Gratia, we publish the Puritan movie, the documentary, and all the additional resources and lessons with that.

And then other media products like the revival documentary we've just brought out. So we're trying to reach people on all different levels. We sort of, we do have a focus on the Puritans, but we have plenty of living authors as well.

But I think we're utterly convinced that when you look back at the giants of previous generations, there's so much gold there. And so we're trying to get that gold in front of the kids. We're trying to get it on the original language, you know, which is a little bit harder to read, but in between, we're sort of putting that, we crudely call it the gateway drug, sort of the slightly modernized, easy to read one hour, two hour Puritan book as well to really just get people looking at what these men wrote and how it still applies today, you know, and how they wrote under great pressure.

You know, we've just experienced the end of another year. And my understanding is that they wouldn't wish each other a happy new year. It's a blessed new year. This year might be the year they get persecuted and killed and go to heaven, still blessed, you know, and I often say, these are the guys writing these books under great duress.

You know, they really mean all of this stuff. And some of the modern stuff, you know, you're sipping a latte whilst you're writing this thing and fairly comfortable circumstances.

But yeah, Spurgeon said he liked books that smelled like the prison cell. You know, for that reason, which is one of the reasons that Rutherford is one of my favorite, because of the extraordinary seasons of suffering and the cost and then the things that come from.

Him.

I mean, in my opinion, Rutherford is not the best writer that we have from Puritanism. He's not the clearest. But when he describes Christ, it's just, you know, he just seems to soar. And you have Rutherford's works in the works, right?

Reformation Heritage Books Projects and Puritan Publishing

So tell us about some of the things that, you know, that you're particularly excited about in the coming days with RHB, the projects you're doing.

Yeah, we have a number of projects which are kind of the long burn. So right now, we've completed the set of William Perkins, the architect, the father of Puritanism, sort of that linchpin between the pillars of the faith to the Puritans who are now saying, hey, okay, we agree.

Wonderful. Now, how does this affect every area of my life? Very simplistically. Experiential Christianity. How does this impact everything I think, everything I do? And so we're continually sort of on that treadmill of bringing out the classic individual books, individual sets.

We have translators in Dutch, in Latin. And Rutherford, his works have still quite a lot in Latin. And so this is not an inexpensive project to do. And so we're ultimately coming out with 13 volumes, the first volume of which comes out at the end of this year, God willing.

TJ's buying that for me.

Okay, well, bizarrely, it will be volume two that comes out first. And then we'll plug in volume one, about as about the seventh volume we bring out. It just, there's all sorts of reasons for that. And the Latin translation is a big part of that equation.

But alongside the individual books and the interesting books, like we have a new Paul Washer book coming out in the spring this year on the preeminent Christ. But we also have those huge projects, like we just signed contracts on the works of Thomas Watson.

Never been done before. We are reprinting a number of things as well. The works of Thomas Boston are coming this spring. So that's a copy. It's a facsimile. But we're bringing it back into production because it's been out for such a long time.

We are bringing out new editions of Matthew Henry's works, everything but the commentary. And there's about two volumes in there that's never been published before. Then we've got the works of Anthony Burgess that's just been signed.

And so that's coming over the next five years. I think that's eight volumes. And so there's always projects like that on the treadmill, if you like, that are coming out. So many to be excited about. And many kids books that we're excited about as well.

We're really trying to reach people and get people to read at a young age and keep them reading the right stuff, where they can find the meat to chew on, rather than all the fluff that you can get if you go into a random Christian bookshop.

Books for the Christian Life and the Value of Church History

Today.

So, personal question, if you were limited to just two or three good books and your Bible, and you were going to be put on an island, what would you pick?

Yeah, I know Dr. Beakey cheats here because he always goes for Phil Helmer's Sobracol, Christian's Reasonable Service.

So he picks a set.

He picks a set as one book.

Yeah.

So I don't know if that's if that's allowed, then, you know, obviously, you'd go for something with substance and lots of volume. I think I could get away with the one volume, Matthew Henry. I think that would be a good one for me that would keep me going and going and going.

And for year after year, among my favorite books, I think the little Puritan paperback by John Bunyan, Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ. It's just tremendous. And he deals with all the objections to the free offer of the gospel, all the objections to election and predestination.

And he says what John 6, 37 says, just come. You know, you worry that you're not elect. You worry that you're not predestined. Well, you know what?

Come.

And it says, you will in no wise be cast out. And then you are elect. Then you are predestined. And I just think that's just such a golden book for me. I could read that time and time again. There's another book that sort of marries another interest of mine.

I love war history and Normandy and all of that kind of thing. And it's a book from my old evangelical press days by a man called Don Stevens called War and Grace.

Yeah, I've purchased that a number of times and given it to men of that generation. You may not be converted, right?

I think you can give it to teenagers and everything. And it tells the individual stories of, you know, the guy who makes the gadgets and.

Oh, yeah.

And that kind of thing. But the lesson that struck me and the story that struck me, I don't even know how to say his surname, his last name, even till now. I'm called Henry Garecki. Henry Garecki. I don't know.

And I think he was the chaplain at the Nazi war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg. And he had access to these. I think it was like eight guys who were the top leaders who were left after the war, who ultimately, I think, pretty much all of them were executed.

And he carefully, he says there is the strong possibility that two or three of some of the worst men you could ever imagine were converted before they were executed. And that just leaves me in awe at God.

That even at that point in their lives, having done some of the most wretched things imaginable in that war, God's grace can still shine through. So I'm eager when I get to heaven to see if those were genuine conversions of some of the most notorious criminals ever.

I hope so.

God's Sovereignty, Mercy, and Church History

Yeah.

Psalm 110, you know, Christ's scepter stretched out, rule in the midst of your enemies. You know, as you mentioned, in the hearts of men that we might have thought unforgivable or too hardened, too, yeah, too despair filled as they look back over what they've done or indifferent, proud.

You know, quite a great test of our understanding of the character of God. Does that thrill us that we belong to that God? Or does that bother us that God would forgive someone that bad? You know, well, I deserve forgiveness.

I tried to do better.

But those men, you know, it's quite a picture of our view.

But I think once we realize the depth of our own sinfulness, we're in the same boat with them. And it's a misunderstanding. If we have a problem with God saving that kind of person, then we haven't understood the depth of our own sin.

Yeah.

One other book, and it's another set, and it's the set isn't finished yet. It started with Grace Publications, a little publisher in England. It's moved since to Christian-focused publications. And it's by a man called Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ's Power.

And it's a readable church history. And he's got the fourth volume done now. I think he's still working on the fifth volume. But that is the volume that really first got me into reading about church history and just the stories of Hugh Latimer and Athanasius and Augustine and all these kind of things.

And from there, I now drive around the north of England, and I can see, oh, yeah, that's where the Synod of Whitby happened in 664. And this is where Cromwell and his New Model Army had their battle and all these kind of things.

And you start connecting places with truth and events. And you start seeing God's continuing, relentless plan of redemption in church history, even after the close of Scripture. And that's a real encouragement to me.

I could read church history endlessly.

Yeah, to realize that we are not dissected from those great days. I remember in doing the PhD, dealing with 18th century men, one of the things that the men in the revivals there in the UK felt, one of the things they felt would be essential in their witness to their community was to demonstrate that what God was doing, while it was extraordinary, it was not novel, that God had worked in extraordinary ways before.

And so we have men like Newton and others who were not really great historians, but they took time to write a Christian history. And I thought, why would Newton write a Christian history? You know, I mean, he's great at this, but he's not great at church history.

But he and so many other of those 18th century men wanted to demonstrate the continuity of this, you know, ever, like you said, this relentlessly progressing kingdom of grace. And, you know, to pray that God would work in such a way in our day that we would have to turn and give an apologetic, an answer to those around us.

How can something so extraordinary be biblical? And we could say, well, actually, it is here. We see the work of our God. And, you know, it's hard to believe, but it's him.

Yeah, and the project we did with Mediogratia on the Puritans, the opening screen was back in Jeremiah, look for the old paths. And it's looking at what God has done as a motivation to trust him today and to step out in faith today.

And if Christ tarries, I don't know, what will the church historians think of the 20th and 21st century Christians four or 500 years from now? What was God doing? Why can't we, well, maybe I rephrase that.

We should believe in this big God. We should trust. We should step out in faith. We should be trying great things for him. And I see a resurgence in interest in Reformed truth. Just in the simple statistics, the number of books going out, it's growing and growing.

And I really pray that these truths contained within these books will impact the world and that God will move mightily. And let's stop settling for mediocrity. In our own lives, in our church lives, and in our nations, we have a big God.

I was just reading Numbers 13 and 14. And God sent these spies into Canaan to check out the land. He didn't send them to ask the question, should we go in? That was already settled, but they came out answering that question.

We shouldn't go in, 10 of them at least. And they were looking at their own power, not God's power. And I think there's an element that we've lost that big view of God, of his wonder, and majesty, and sovereignty, and power.

And I believe that literature can have an influential impact on the church alongside the other means of grace that we know God works through his word and through preaching. Yeah, I just pray that we see this nuclear explosion of God's blessing in our generation.

Well, David, thank you so much for being with us. This is David Wolin with Reformation Heritage Books. And we really appreciate you taking the time to be with us.

Thank you for having me.