October 10, 2017 Show with David Miller on “The Need for the Return of the Dying Breed of Country Preachers”

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October 11, 2017

October 10, 2017: DAVID MILLER, a “Country-Preacher-At-Large” from Heber Springs, AR with a keen mind & ability to memorize Scripture, who has been preaching the gospel since the age of 18 in 1965, having preached more than 2,100 revival meetings (in spite of a degenerative disease known as muscular atrophy that has caused him to lose much of his mobility), & who is a regularly featured preacher at Josh Buice’s G3 Conference in Atlanta, GA, who will discuss: “The Need for the Return of the Dying Breed of COUNTRY PREACHERS”

00:01: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:08: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16: Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:23: Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.
00:32: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:46: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour. And we hope to hear from you, the listener with your own questions.
00:56: Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,
01:05: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.
01:10: We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Tuesday.
01:20: On this 10th day of October 2017, and I am so delighted to have for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio ever,
01:29: David Miller. David Miller is a country preacher at large from Heber Springs, Arkansas, with a keen mind and ability to memorize scripture, who has been preaching the gospel since the age of 18 in 1965, having preached more than 2100 revival meetings in spite of a degenerative disease known as muscular atrophy that has caused him to lose much of his mobility and who is a regular featured preacher at the
02:01: G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where God willing, I will be in attendance with an
02:06: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth this January. And today we are discussing the need for the return of the dying breed of country preachers.
02:15: And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, David Miller. Hello, Chris.
02:24: It's great to have you on the program, David. Thank you so much. Well, what
02:29: I'd like you to do to start with, David, is I'd like you to give our listeners your testimony of salvation.
02:35: I understand that you were saved at 16. And tell us something about the circumstances surrounding that, what kind of a religion was surrounding you in your upbringing, if any, and how the
02:50: Lord sovereignly drew you to himself and providentially brought you to embrace the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.
02:59: I am delighted to give my testimony of faith in Christ.
03:06: I was born in 1946. My mom and dad divorced when
03:13: I was five years old. We lived out in the country. I had the wonderful privilege of growing up in country churches.
03:26: Things were not all that bright for me when I was five years old.
03:33: My right arm had been partially undeveloped from birth.
03:39: My mom and dad are separated. My mom has no job, no education, and no training.
03:49: Things were not that bright except for this. Our modest praying home was situated in the middle of an equilateral triangle of Baptist churches.
04:06: In that grace, it was only about a mile over to the Fair Ridge Church, only about a mile over to the
04:16: Good Hope Church, and only about a mile up to the First Baptist Church.
04:23: And Chris, it seemed like every time I looked up, someone was coming by to get me to go to church.
04:34: Mr. Ray Milner, Mr. Oakland Hill, and Mr.
04:40: James Black all took an interest in my family. I have ridden down many dusty roads on the way to church in the back of someone's pickup truck.
04:57: I had the grand privilege of growing up hearing old -time gospel country preachers preach the old -time gospel.
05:12: They might not have had the greatest vocabulary. They might not have been to the university or the seminary, but they had been in the book.
05:27: They had been in the scriptures. They knew how to depend upon the
05:32: Spirit for action. They didn't preach in the wisdom of men's words, but in the power and the demonstration of the
05:43: Spirit of God. And I grew up hearing these men preach.
05:50: They told me, it seemed, each time I was present, that I was a sinner, that I had broken
05:59: God's moral law, that I was guilty, that I was condemned.
06:07: They even told me that I was guilty in Adam. And as my representative, he brought corruption and condemnation to my soul.
06:23: They told me that God had provided a remnant, and said that he had sent his only son, impeccable.
06:34: Without sin, he came to be my substitute, that he came to do what
06:43: I could not do. He fulfilled the law of God on my behalf.
06:52: And not only did he fulfill the law, but he suffered the curse, the penalty, of the law on my behalf.
07:02: The law had said, do this and live. But if you do not keep all the law, you shall die.
07:13: And Christ became my sin bearer. He became sin for me, though himself had known no sin.
07:24: And when he became sin for us, God poured out his awful wrath upon his own son, crushed him, put him to death.
07:39: Christ was buried and resurrected, the country preachers told me.
07:45: They told me that the grave could not hold him, that God raised him from the dead.
07:53: They told me that he was in session, that he was open for business at the right hand of the majesty on high.
08:05: They told me I ought to repent, to turn from my sins, and to turn to Christ, to appeal my case to him.
08:16: I grew up hearing that. It seemed every time I went to church, I would hear something, some part of that story of the gospel.
08:29: And when I was 16 years old, though I had heard that message many, many times before, yet on that occasion, on that Sunday evening,
08:41: August 5, 1962, that gospel became the incorruptible seed, and it brought forth life.
08:56: I was quickened by it. I was born again. I turned from my sins, and I turned to Christ, cast myself wholly upon him.
09:13: And the Lord converted me, turned my life around, lifted me up out of the mire, placed my feet on the solid rock, and established my goal.
09:30: That's my testimony. Hallelujah to Jesus. Amen. And it appears that you and I share a birth date, not the same kind of birth, but you were born again the same year
09:45: I was physically born, 1962. I was born in February of 1962, and you were born again, if I remember correctly, in August of 1962.
09:58: That is correct. Praise the Lord. Well, praise God. Now, it is interesting.
10:03: This is not something that happens a lot. Maybe it happens a lot in the Bible Belt, but it doesn't happen a lot in most other places.
10:11: You began preaching at the age of 18. Tell us about that. Well, I began to have some impressions from the
10:23: Spirit immediately after my conversion. I began to teach a
10:30: Bible class in our church. I began to witness the gospel aggressively to my friends, and I read my
10:42: Bible on a daily basis, and I began to make progress in sanctification.
10:51: And as all of that began to work in my life, I began to wonder if the
10:59: Lord wasn't calling me to preach. But, Chris, when I was 16 years old,
11:06: I also began to be affected by a rare form of muscular atrophy, and in a few short weeks,
11:18: I went from playing football on the high school football team to hardly being able to get up the steps at the school.
11:29: And so, I was greatly concerned about that. Local doctors didn't know how to diagnose my issue.
11:42: I was still healthy. I just couldn't run fast like I had before.
11:51: And so, I was processing all of this at the same time, and I was conflicted in my soul.
12:03: I had to figure out if the Spirit of the Lord was leading me to preach, or if I was trying to figure out what
12:16: I could do with my life in light of my health issues.
12:24: And I didn't want to announce that I'd been called to preach simply on the basis of not being able to do something else.
12:34: So, quite frankly, I struggled with that for a couple of years.
12:40: But as I began to grow in my knowledge of the Scriptures and my relationship with the
12:46: Lord, it became clearer and clearer that it was the will of God for me to preach.
12:56: And so, I was a freshman in college in 1965 in February, and the
13:04: Lord settled the matter in my soul. He came repeatedly and gently and convinced me by His Spirit that He had separated me unto the gospel.
13:22: That was on a Thursday evening. I came from college on Friday afternoon and visited with my pastor on Saturday, and I preached on Sunday.
13:36: He asked me, when did I want to start? And not knowing exactly what to say,
13:45: I said, I suppose whenever I have an opportunity. And he replied, well, what about tomorrow?
13:57: And so, I was kind of committed already if I had an opportunity.
14:04: The only problem with that was I didn't have a sermon, and I didn't have a clue on earth how to get a sermon.
14:15: So, I spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening that Saturday trying to come up with a sermon.
14:24: And I had a Bible that had a concordance, and I flipped through that concordance, saw all those topics and those references, and I settled on the topic of faith.
14:40: I looked up 20 or so of those references to faith and built me a sermon.
14:48: I started in the Old Testament and worked my way down through the
14:53: New Testament and preached a topical sermon on the subject of faith.
15:00: And that's how I got started, and I've been preaching ever since. Well, praise
15:05: God for that. And just so our listeners have even some more details about your background, you have served as president of the
15:16: Arkansas Baptist Pastors Conference. You've served on the committee on the board of the
15:24: Southern Baptist Convention, the resolution committee, and preached at the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors Conference in 1987.
15:32: And you were on the board of trustees of Southern Baptist College in Walnut Ridge for six years, two years of which you served as president of the board.
15:44: And you have served as a member of the board of trustees of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky for eight years.
15:53: That's where Al Mohler is currently the president, and we here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio have interviewed a number of the faculty at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on this program, including
16:06: Dr. Mohler, and we hope to have Dr. Mohler back at some point in the future. What do you think, as an old -time country preacher, country preacher at large as you identify yourself, what do you think are the most important things that are missing from pulpits today and missing from the content of the messages of evangelists and preachers and pastors?
16:40: Well, I shall respond by telling you, in my opinion, the greatest single need in church life is for a steady diet of verse -by -verse preaching through the
17:03: Bible to move away from topical service.
17:11: That's where you read a verse, depart from it, and nevermore return.
17:19: You've had enough of that. And to move away from skyscraper preaching, that's one story on top of another story.
17:34: I had never heard that description, skyscraper preaching, before. That's great. Yeah, that's not
17:40: Bible preaching, that's storytelling. What folks need is for a preacher who has spent much time in the booth, wrestling with the text, to stand and declare, thus saith the
17:58: Lord, to start at chapter 1, verse 1, take a sentence or a paragraph, and preach out of that text.
18:08: That gives the saints a good balanced diet. That keeps the preacher off his hobby horse.
18:18: Chris, do you know the difference between a hobby horse and a regular horse?
18:24: Why don't you tell me? A hobby horse gets, a real horse gets somewhere. Well, you can get off of a regular horse.
18:34: When preachers get on hobby horses, they can't ever get off.
18:42: Expository preaching prevents that. It keeps the Calvinist from preaching election every time he gets up.
18:52: It keeps the Arminian from preaching on free will every time he gets up.
19:00: If you're at the passage that talks about the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of the election, well, explain it.
19:10: Expose it, elucidate it. But when you get through with that text, move on to the next.
19:17: If it's talking about human responsibility, explain it, expose it, elucidate it.
19:24: Whatever's in the text, that's what the people need to hear. That way the preacher never runs out of something to preach.
19:34: This will eliminate having to take a survey among the members to see what their felt needs are.
19:45: That will eliminate them having to make suggestions about things they'd like to hear from the pulpit.
19:53: Man, preach the Bible. Preach it systematically, verse by verse.
20:00: Amen. Now, yeah, that's called expository preaching. And do you think there are times when topical preaching is appropriate?
20:10: For instance, you might have a major calamity that's taking place or has taken place near where your congregation is, perhaps even something like one of the recent floods or some other thing that is of global importance that has the attention of everyone.
20:29: Is it appropriate in your mind to interrupt, for instance, an expository series on Romans or something to interject something new that's topical because of a current event issue?
20:44: I certainly do think that that is permissible. When I say the church needs expository preaching,
20:54: I mean that's their main diet. Hey, I like, last evening,
21:00: Glenda and I, my wife and I, did something a little out of the ordinary with our diet.
21:07: We had eaten a full meal mid -afternoon, so last night we decided not to eat a regular meal, but she decided we ought to just have some ice cream and a chocolate chip cookie that she had made.
21:26: It was wonderful. It fit the occasion. We didn't need to eat a full meal again after eight o 'clock.
21:35: The same is true with preaching. Obviously, there are times when it's legitimate to give a testimony, when it's legitimate to address certain topics, as you indicated, but the main course of preaching ought to be verse -by -verse preaching through the
22:01: Bible. Obviously, the one preaching has to be trained and has to continually remind himself not to be guilty of eisegesis because there are many people who might be going through a text, but they bring their baggage into it anyway and start importing things into the text that were never intended to be in there in the first place.
22:25: That is exactly right. One can be guilty of what
22:30: I call topical exposition, and that is every single topic that they run across, they depart from the broader exposition to preach just on that topic, and sometimes preachers say, well,
22:49: I've been in the Book of Philemon now for three and a half years. That speaks more of their inability to preach than it does their ability to exegete.
23:07: They might be going on an exhaustive research to every single word.
23:17: If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for David Miller, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,
23:24: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please make sure that you give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
23:34: USA, and only remain anonymous if you're asking about a very personal and private matter that compels you not to identify yourself.
23:43: But other than that, please give us your name, your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old
23:51: USA. We do have a listener already with a question. Erin in Indianapolis, Indiana has a question for you, and it is, thanks for interviewing this gentleman.
24:06: I'm sure you'll get to this, but I wonder, hold on a second,
24:12: I have to enlarge her email, the text is too small. Thanks for interviewing this gentleman.
24:19: I'm sure you'll get to this, but I wonder if he has tips to memorize scripture as he has.
24:25: That's a very good question, because yes, you are known for your memory of scripture, so if you could, do you have any tips?
24:36: Well, I can tell you what I do to memorize. I don't have any shortcuts.
24:47: I have a fail -safe method. I call it,
24:54: I call it, are you still there?
25:04: Yeah, I'm here, David. I'm still listening, you just cut out there. What do you call that fail -safe memorization tip?
25:14: I call it the grind it out method. I get in a quiet place, and I grind it out.
25:22: By that, I mean I read the context. For example, if I was going to read or memorize the 11th chapter of Hebrews, I read that chapter a few times to get myself acquainted with the text, and then
25:45: I start at verse 1, and I will read it out loud so that I can hear it, and then
25:55: I will analyze the verse. I will pay attention to the clauses and the phrases.
26:06: I will pay special attention to the punctuation, and then I will go very slowly, and I will over -enunciate at conjunctions.
26:20: There are some advantages to having been reared in the South, where we don't speak as quickly as you
26:29: Pennsylvania folks. I'm a New Yorker, by the way, abridgedly.
26:35: Yes, I knew you were. For example, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
26:55: I say that slowly and deliberately so that I see clearly the two parts.
27:04: Once I do that, then I just repeat this rote until I have it memorized.
27:13: And I look at that, and I say, there are only two statements in verse 1.
27:19: Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
27:27: Now, I could say it backwards. The evidence of things not seen, etc.
27:35: Now, then I move to verse 2, and I might point out,
27:40: I memorize the address each time as I go along. When I get verse 2 memorized,
27:49: I go back and quote from verse 1 again, and as I work my way down through the chapter,
27:58: I go back each time to verse 1, and just the repetition of that etches that onto my memory.
28:10: That's been my approach for 50 years. I'm not saying it's the best approach.
28:17: I haven't written a book on it. I haven't done a video. I'm just telling you it's as simple as that.
28:24: I don't see a lot of use in complicating a simple matter.
28:32: Right. And thank you very much, Aaron, and keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Indianapolis, Indiana, and beyond.
28:40: And we're going to be going to our first station break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air as well with your own question for David Miller, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
28:51: C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And as always, please always give us your first name, city, and state and country of residence if you live outside the
29:00: USA, and only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with David Miller right after these messages from our sponsors.
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32:25: Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon
32:31: Eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. And that was the voice of Bill Shishko, who is my keynote speaker coming up later this month,
32:42: Thursday, October 26th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the next Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastor's luncheon.
32:50: If you are a man in ministry leadership, whether you are a pastor or an elder, which I happen to believe are the same office, deacon, parachurch leader, whatever kind of leadership position you hold, if you are a man in ministry leadership, you are invited to the free
33:06: Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastor's luncheon. And as I said, our guest speaker is
33:12: Bill Shishko. He is the regional home missionary for Reformation Metro New York.
33:17: He is a faculty member at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, and he is the former pastor of the
33:26: Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square in New York. He's been a dear friend of mine since the mid -1980s, and I'm looking forward to having a time of fellowship with him again on Thursday, October 26th.
33:38: Not only will you be fed physically for free and spiritually for free, you'll be leaving there with a very heavy sack of free books that nearly every single major publisher in the
33:51: United States, major Christian publisher in the United States and the United Kingdom, have donated to us.
33:57: They do that every year. They each give us 100 titles approximately of a title that I specifically pick for the pastors in attendance.
34:10: And so you will be leaving most likely with a couple of dozen books at least, and that would obviously be valued at hundreds of dollars.
34:18: You're getting that absolutely free. There is no ulterior motive. There's no hidden agenda. This was just developed by my late wife,
34:25: Julie, who is now in eternity with Christ. She came up with this idea of an annual pastor's luncheon back in the 1990s, and I have picked up the mantle after she has gone home to glory, and I am continuing these luncheons, and I hope that you could join me at the next one.
34:42: If you would like to register, please just send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com,
34:51: and let me know that you want to register for the pastor's luncheon. This is going to be held at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
35:01: So I look forward to hearing from you very soon, and please try to RSVP by October 23rd, which is the
35:09: Monday before the event. Well, we are now back with our guest,
35:14: David Miller, who is a country preacher -at -large. He's also one of the speakers at the upcoming
35:20: G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. He is among many speakers at that event.
35:26: That event is being held January 18th through the 20th on the theme, Knowing God, a
35:31: Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. And David Miller will be joined by Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.
35:39: Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, Paul Tripp, and Todd Friel, and Martha Peace and Justin Peters.
35:52: So if you want to register for that conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,
35:58: and please let them know that you heard about that conference from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
36:06: And David, you have mentioned already that one of the things that are most unbiblical, most troubling to you in regard to much of modern -day preaching, you have mentioned that the, and I love the phrase that you came up with, or at least the phrase that you used in the show today, skyscraper preaching, story upon story upon story.
36:32: What else might be a factor in today's preaching and teaching from pulpits and from crusade podiums and everywhere else where preaching is heard on television and radio?
36:46: What are other missing elements that you think need to be restored, or just fallacious elements that need to be removed?
36:57: I think that preachers ought to be leaders and not follow.
37:11: Preachers themselves follow what I call the bell calf.
37:20: You and your listeners are familiar with the herd mentality.
37:28: When I was growing up, we would put a bell around the lead cow, and when she would come to the barn, all the other cows would follow her.
37:43: Now, if preachers are too inclined to follow trends, they hear of some television preacher or some pastor who has done this or that or the other, and it has worked.
38:09: It's pragmatism. It has worked. And so if this pastor has removed his jacket and his tie and gotten him a
38:22: Hawaiian open collared shirt, sits on a bar stool and dialogues with the congregation, then many preachers are going to follow that trend.
38:41: When that seems to wear thin, they are going to get him a backpack and a laptop and a designer coffee mug.
38:57: They are going to do nearly anything except systematically stand before the people and declare, thus saith the
39:09: Lord. They will be masters of the mundane rather than doing that which
39:20: God has called them to do. They feel responsible to build the
39:30: Lord's church when he said himself, I will build the church.
39:37: They don't want to deal with the messy aspects of ministry, that is, dealing with disciplinary issues.
39:58: What I think we need, Chris, is a revival among preachers.
40:07: There's not a fraternity out there that needs revival more than the fraternity that I represent.
40:20: Preachers are guilty of busying themselves with everything under the heavens except the one thing
40:31: God has called them to do, and that is to study and to investigate the scriptures and to organize that into a sensible presentation of the word of God.
40:53: That's what the church needs. I am encouraged because in my travels
41:02: I learn more and more preachers and churches who are doing this very thing, returning to the basics of old -time gospel singing, praying, and systematic preaching of the word of God, and leaving off some of the glitter, some of the smoke and fog, and get back to the basics of worship and the preaching of the word of God.
41:37: Amen. And when you used the term smoke and fog, you weren't even just being figurative.
41:45: I mean, our churches are actually using smoke and fog, and I'm not talking about the Eastern Orthodox or the
41:50: Roman Catholics. I'm talking about evangelicals trying to make dramatic theatrical performances when they have their so -called worship services.
42:01: Would you say that one of the problems with a lot of modern -day preaching is that they're very often in the messages that I have heard on radio, television, and sometimes on rare occasions when
42:17: I'm visiting a church that I don't necessarily agree with where they stand theologically.
42:23: But there may be much said in the messages that are true, but there isn't a lot said that is uniquely and exclusively
42:33: Christian. A lot of what is said and taught seems to be just proverbial lessons to improve your life that could be possibly gleaned even from Mormons and Orthodox Jews and Muslims, perhaps, and others who just have some semblance of morality that reflects what the
42:59: Bible teaches about that. And they are merely just promoting things that are universally held as wise approaches to living, but there's nothing exclusively
43:09: Christian about it that demands a sinner fall to his knees and cry out to a
43:15: Savior for mercy. Brother, I couldn't agree more. The same can be said about the cry that they preach.
43:25: You know, everybody believes in Jesus. Politicians believe in Jesus.
43:32: Hollywood believes in Jesus. The Mormons, even the
43:39: Muslims, believe in Jesus. Until you begin to expound the text about Jesus that speaks of his divinity, of his eternality, his preexistence, those things that make him divine, his lordship, and when you speak of his incarnation,
44:08: God in human flesh, of the necessity of the incarnation, the reason the blood of bulls and goats being unable to take away sin, the absolute necessity for the humanity of Christ and the divinity of Christ in order to be a sufficient propitiation for sins, when do you hear these things?
44:42: Everybody believes Jesus is love, but we neglect to preach the
44:52: Christ of the Bible. My wife and I were involved in the conservative resurgence in the
45:06: Southern Baptist Convention. I am a Baptist by choice.
45:12: I believe there are Baptist distinctives that hold to those, and I was a foot soldier in the conservative resurgence back in the 70s and 80s and 90s, but I said to my wife on several occasions, if Southern Baptists can ever settle the matter of inheritance, then it is my strong conviction and hope that we will then move on to studying the weightier matters of the gospel itself.
45:59: Perhaps we will look into the nature of Christ's atonement. What was it that he accomplished?
46:08: Was it theoretical, or was it real? Was it potential?
46:16: What did it accomplish? In our case, Chris, as Southern Baptists, that's what's happened.
46:27: You are aware, I'm sure, that there's quite a discussion, perhaps even a debate going on in Southern Baptist life regarding Calvinism, and some are afraid they shrink back from the discussion, but I think the discussion around the weightier matters of the
46:58: Christian faith is a natural outgrow of the conservative resurgence, settling the matter of the scriptures.
47:11: Now let's get down to the business of preaching this inherent word.
47:18: Let's get back to the basics of Bible exposition, and when we come to these terms, when we come to these great themes, let us explain them.
47:30: Let us illustrate them, and argue them, and apply them, because that's what's happening, and I for one am thrilled about it.
47:41: Amen. Yeah, one of the things that never ceases to baffle me is how many of these men who would have stood alongside you in defending biblical inerrancy, and who were a part of the conservative resurgence in the
48:02: Southern Baptist Convention after there was so much apostasy there, knowing that the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at one time was nearly entirely given over to leftism and apostasy, but at the same time many of these same men have now become the most vociferous enemies of the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, and it just baffles me that these men who know the scriptures so well, and also
48:29: I would think would have to know something of the history of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is thoroughly steeped in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, how they could think that these doctrines of Sovereign Grace are somehow new and novel, and an enemy of Southern Baptist thinking.
48:48: That just is a total mystery to me. It is a mystery.
48:55: I don't have the answer. I don't know why this is, other than, well, let me illustrate.
49:08: I was on the trustee board when we hired
49:14: Al Mohler to be the president, and we had met at the
49:22: Marriott Hotel in Atlanta near the airport, the trustee board, and Al Mohler was giving a little brief explanation, his take on each of the 20 articles in the
49:39: Abstract of Pentecost, and we had had a little discussion about Article 5 on election, and Dr.
49:50: Mohler just laid it out clearly what the implications of that statement were, and Dr.
50:04: Rick White, a prominent pastor in the Nashville area, and a super fine brother, a conservative, just a handsome
50:18: Christian in every way, had gotten his doctor's degree from Southern Seminary, stood with tears in his eyes, and asked this question, how is it possible that I could have gone to school at Southern for three years to earn a master's degree, and gone on then to earn a doctor's degree, and only until the last few days have
51:00: I ever heard these doctrines brought up or discussed?
51:08: How can that be? And so, that's what happened to a whole generation of preachers in the
51:18: Southern Baptist Convention. It wasn't so much that they went to Southern in the 60s and 70s and 80s and heard anti -Calvinism.
51:33: They just didn't hear anything about these doctrines, period.
51:40: It's as if Article 4 on providence and Article 5 on election had not even been in the answer.
51:50: They were just totally neglected. But there's biblical precedent for that.
51:57: You know, everybody, you and I, other preachers, are familiar with the great story in Nehemiah chapter 8, where the people gathered themselves together at the water gate, and Ezra and the brethren expounded the word.
52:18: He had an entourage on the platform with him, and he had others dispersed throughout the congregation to give a further exposition to make the folks understand the law.
52:36: So, everybody is familiar with that. They stood, they said amen, they gathered themselves together, six in the morning till noon.
52:46: But there's something else in that chapter. In the latter half of the chapter, it says the leaders remained after the crowd was dispersed.
52:58: And the next day, they looked into the scriptures again, just the leaders.
53:05: And this time, the King James Version says, and they found written in the law where they were to observe the
53:17: Feast of Booze, and they decided that they would observe the festival, and they did.
53:28: And the text says they observed it in a fashion which they had not done for decades.
53:39: Now, that was a very prominent feast among the
53:45: Jews in earlier centuries, but it had not been kept.
53:53: And there had arisen a generation or two of people among the
54:01: Jews who had absolutely no exposure to the
54:07: Feast of Booze. It was as if it was a new revelation.
54:15: And that's what happened in the Southern Baptist Convention. Through sheer neglect, we lost these doctors.
54:27: My advice to Al Mohler, soon after he came to be the president,
54:36: I was one of the officers on the trustee board, is that we must never sit on our lawn and expect that now that we have gained these victories, that things will be better.
54:54: We must always keep a vigil over the truth. We must always be visiting these truths.
55:03: These must be foundational. We must always be teaching them.
55:09: We must never take it for granted just because they're in the abstract of principles.
55:16: The students who graduate here understand the gospel like the founding fathers of this seminary,
55:27: J .P. Boyce and John Garbus and those guys. Or for that matter, that they understand it like you and I understand it.
55:39: That's what happened in Baptist life. We just, through sheer neglect, lost these grand truths on a couple of generations of Baptist preachers.
55:57: Well, we have to go to our midway break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, we do have several of you waiting already, and we'll get to you as soon as possible.
56:06: But if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, please send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,
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01:05:09: and put advertising in the subject line. Now we are back to our discussion with David Miller, who is a country preacher at large, and he is one of the regular speakers at the annual
01:05:22: G3 conference, and today we are talking about the need for the return of the dying breed of country preachers.
01:05:29: If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c h r i s a r n z e n at gmail .com,
01:05:39: and as always give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence. David, we have a listener in White Plains, New York, RJ, and he says,
01:05:50: I'm wondering why a biblically knowledgeable individual like you is still affiliated with the
01:05:56: Southern Baptist Convention. In 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 through 17, we read,
01:06:02: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers? For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
01:06:10: And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Bilal? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
01:06:20: And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living
01:06:26: God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their
01:06:33: God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the
01:06:41: Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. And again, my curiosity is in regard to your remaining connected with Southern Baptists who have been either liberal or who have been vehemently against the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.
01:07:00: Brother Chris, I'm happy to address that matter. Probably in early 1971 -72,
01:07:14: I wrestled with those same questions that the caller has raised.
01:07:21: I had been reading the Sword of the Lord publication by John R.
01:07:29: Rice and other similar writers. I was aware to some, at least elementary degree, of things in the
01:07:41: Southern Baptist Convention that I thought were unsavory. And I finally, after many weeks of wrestling with that, decided that I would stay in the
01:07:57: Southern Baptist Convention, work through the mechanism that was in place to try to bring about change.
01:08:08: Often, it seemed I was a voice crying in the wilderness.
01:08:17: Often I was frustrated and disappointed, but after a while,
01:08:24: I began to realize that others in the convention shared my feelings. And I soon discovered, like Elijah, that the
01:08:35: Lord had reserved several more folks who believed the truth and who had not abandoned the faith.
01:08:46: And after a while, prominent men like Adrian Rodgers, Jerry Vines, and Paige Patterson, Dr.
01:09:05: Paul Pressler, began to take up the banner, and there began to be a concerted effort to turn things around in the
01:09:18: Southern Baptist Convention. And if you know our history, you know that this is the first time that any mainline denomination had drifted out into liberalism and modernism and turned around and came back to its roots.
01:09:39: That's never occurred before, to my knowledge, and it took a long time.
01:09:46: It took at least 25 years. In some cases, it took 30 years.
01:09:55: Things had to work slowly through the process that was in place, and the convention did turn around.
01:10:07: There's always been some room in the convention for Calvinists and non -Calvinists.
01:10:18: It's never been required that one be a Five -Point Calvinist to be a
01:10:25: Southern Baptist, nor was it a matter of rejecting
01:10:31: Five -Point Calvinists. There's always been the two streams, and there are today.
01:10:39: There are more Calvinists today. There are more folks who believe the doctrines of grace than at any point in my 52 and a half years as a
01:10:51: Southern Baptist. I rejoice in this. I'm proud, if there's a righteous way to be proud, that I stayed the course, that I did not abandon the ship.
01:11:09: I look at Southern seminary in Louisville. I think about how far they had gone out in the left field.
01:11:21: Folks who weren't aware, who were not there, can hardly comprehend the depths of liberalism and even wickedness that existed there.
01:11:38: Yet, in Providence, God turned that school around, and now
01:11:46: Al Mohler's there. He's been there over 20 years now. It's a flagship seminary for, not just for Southern Baptists in general, but for those of us who believe the doctrines of grace.
01:12:05: Hallelujah for me. How else would that ever have occurred if some of us hadn't stayed with the convention?
01:12:16: I make no apologies for having stayed a Southern Baptist through the years.
01:12:24: Even today, I don't agree with the things that go on, but I don't agree with some of the things that go on at my church.
01:12:33: I don't have freedom to quit tithing and giving offerings above that.
01:12:41: I don't have the freedom to lay out on Sunday mornings when the saints gather at the local church, just because we're not perfect yet.
01:12:53: At the same time, I would say to your caller that I still have some, what
01:13:01: I call, healthy tithing. On the one hand,
01:13:06: I am not proud of some of the things that some of the brethren believe and or do, but as a whole,
01:13:17: I am glad to be a Southern Baptist. I believe in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.
01:13:26: I'm glad God raised up Southern Baptists to be a part of that great enterprise.
01:13:33: I'm thrilled about the resurgence and the preaching of the doctrines of grace today.
01:13:42: Some of the brethren don't like it, but I love them anyway. I remind them that back in the day when
01:13:52: I was a foot soldier, I drove all the way from Arkansas to Los Angeles with a half a dozen other preachers from our county just so we could elect
01:14:09: Bailey Smith to be president of the convention.
01:14:15: Not because he was a five -point Calvinist like myself. The brethren
01:14:20: I went out there with were not all Calvinists like me, but we had a common cause.
01:14:27: We rallied around the notion of the inerrancy of the Bible. Let's settle this matter and we'll go from there.
01:14:37: That's what happened and I'm thrilled about it. Amen. Well, it is said that a couple of the names that you mentioned, the late
01:14:46: Adrian Rogers and Paige Patterson, it seems that they do want to drive five -point Calvinists out of the convention.
01:14:54: Oh, I don't think they want to drive us out. They often confuse
01:15:02: Calvinists with hyper -Calvinists. Some of us who know them and love them have to remind them along the way.
01:15:16: Of course,
01:15:25: Adrian Rogers knows better now. He's in glory on Providence and some of the great themes and said amen to everything he said.
01:15:38: For over 25 years, I preached at Mid -America
01:15:45: Baptist Seminary in Memphis and I preached right before Adrian Rogers.
01:15:52: I loved him and I don't remember ever hearing anything from him that I disagreed with.
01:16:00: He was one of my heroes. He was one of those whom I met early in the late 1970s.
01:16:07: I thought, dear me, I didn't know there were men like this who believed the
01:16:14: Bible, who were willing to stand for the Bible. I had the privilege of preaching for him.
01:16:22: He was a handsome Christian, any way you sliced it. Now, toward the end of his ministry, he and Dr.
01:16:32: Paige and a few others, I call them the tongue -in -cheek, the
01:16:38: College of Cardinals, would get together and make decisions and that was fine.
01:16:50: You can't involve everybody for every decision.
01:16:55: But along the way, after Calvinism began to take hold and after Al Bowles came to Southern, they decided they needed
01:17:08: Barney Fafner. They needed to dip it in the bud.
01:17:15: So, they began to try to exert their influence and only to discover that they were in fact fighting against the
01:17:27: Lord. They were kicking against the pricks. When the
01:17:34: Lord is ready to raise up a new movement, he's well able to do that. And 30 years or so ago, 35 maybe,
01:17:45: God started a movement within Southern Baptist ranks toward the doctrines of grace.
01:17:55: With all of the fussing about it and all the chatter and the clamoring against it, it hasn't stopped the movement and there are more
01:18:08: Calvinists today than there's been in my lifetime. Hallelujah.
01:18:15: Amen. Well, we have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says, while you remained with the
01:18:25: Southern Baptist Convention, would you also give the similar advice to those who are remaining with the
01:18:32: United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and other of the more liberal denominations, even though they might be conservative and actually believe in the inerrancy of scripture and believe in the biblical gospel?
01:18:47: Should they give up and depart from those denominations or should they hang in there as you did?
01:18:54: Well, I am not a gambler, but there's a thing called odd.
01:19:01: And the odd of turning the Methodists around and some of these other groups are slim to none.
01:19:12: Southern Baptists may have drifted into liberalism regarding their views on the scriptures, but the rank and file never did.
01:19:26: But the Methodist folk and some of the other groups, they have not only rejected the inerrancy of the
01:19:37: Bible, they've rejected the authority of it and the sufficiency of it.
01:19:43: And they have embraced immorality and being openly in favor of abortion, same -sex marriage, transgenderism, and all of the other stuff that goes with it.
01:20:06: I would simply ask the question, what is there to say among these denominations?
01:20:18: I know that there are individual churches out there that still qualify as evangelical, but the denominations themselves are far gone.
01:20:33: And they're much further gone than the Southern Baptist Convention ever was.
01:20:41: I would urge these folk, serious -minded Christians, to find them a good
01:20:51: Bible -believing church somewhere and join up. And that might seem inconsistent with what
01:20:59: I just said about why I stayed in the Southern Baptist Convention, but again,
01:21:05: I'd repeat my reasons. There was hope for the Southern Baptist Convention. We had not gone over the cliff.
01:21:14: We were near the cliff. Some of these other groups have gone over the cliff and probably are never coming back.
01:21:25: And I'm assuming you would agree with, there may be occasions where you have an entire congregation within the
01:21:32: United Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church USA or the Episcopal Church that is biblically sound.
01:21:39: And I'm assuming you would urge them to, as a whole, as a congregation, leave those denominations.
01:21:47: Absolutely. I would say that they ought to renounce the denomination at large.
01:22:00: Yes. Now, we touched on the problems that you have found with the modern church, the modern methodology of preaching, the content of modern sermons.
01:22:17: Do you have a word of warning to those, not only who are your colleagues in ministry who come from the same soil that you come from, who are country preachers, or perhaps they are young people who have as their heroes country preachers, and those would today predominantly be found among the fundamentalists, who have their own serious problems, who believe that the main content of their messages should really be focused around things like women wearing dresses and men having short hair and all these other things that seem to preoccupy a lot of what fundamentalists preach on or against.
01:23:06: And of course, I'm not broad -brushing. I know that there are fine fundamentalists out there that do delve deeply into the word, but there are also those that are surface -level preachers that don't really seem to get into deep expository preaching, and who also typically may be enslaved to that topical preaching pattern that you have mentioned.
01:23:28: What do you have to say to those kind of folks? Well, I would say to them that that that's a cop -out to preach only on hot -button issues, whether it be the old sermon bobbed hair, bossy wives, and women preachers.
01:23:56: And you can preach on that kind of stuff till the cows come home and the chickens come home for roost, but you will never fulfill your calling.
01:24:10: For example, in the book of Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 4, the word which came to Jeremiah from the
01:24:20: Lord said, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb,
01:24:30: I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
01:24:38: Then said I, O Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child.
01:24:44: But the Lord said unto me, Say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever
01:24:55: I command thee shalt thou speak, and be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the
01:25:05: Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth, and the
01:25:11: Lord said, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
01:25:17: See, I have this to say, sent thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.
01:25:36: Now, Jeremiah is being called to preach, and the sovereign prerogative of God is seen.
01:25:48: I sanctified thee, I ordained thee, the sure predestination is seen, before I formed thee in the belly, before thou camest forth out of the womb,
01:26:05: I sanctified thee, and the sovereign power of God, I formed thee in the belly.
01:26:17: These are the foundations upon which the prophet stands. Now, here's his ministry.
01:26:25: Go where I send you, and preach what I tell you, and that found two bases.
01:26:37: You're to throw down, pull down, destroy, and you're to build and to plant.
01:26:43: In other words, you're to preach against sin. I admire and applaud the fundamental brethren who preach against sin.
01:26:55: If I was in their congregation and they were preaching some of these things,
01:27:01: I'd probably say a hearty amen. But if that's all you do, you're never going to fulfill your calling.
01:27:12: You are to build and you are to plant, and the only way you can do that is through systematic preaching of the
01:27:24: Bible, verse by verse, clause by clause, phrase by phrase, word for word.
01:27:36: That's how you build, that's how you plant. The truth is, you can be a topical preacher and never have to wrestle with the great questions of the
01:27:55: Christian faith. Excuse me.
01:28:06: Preaching verse by verse is tough. You can't skirt the issues.
01:28:17: You can't just say oopity -oop. You have to deal with the grand doctrines that are in the scriptures.
01:28:28: A pastor must be a pastor theologian. If you've been at your church for three or four years and the people are still theologically, doctrinally inept and unlearned, it's your fault.
01:28:51: You can't keep blaming Bush. You can't keep blaming the previous administration.
01:29:03: Somewhere along the line you have to assume responsibility for building the saints up in the faith.
01:29:13: You've got to do both. You've got to preach against sin and you have got to build and to plant.
01:29:21: And you can do both when you preach verse by verse through the scriptures. That's David Miller on preaching.
01:29:33: Amen. Well, when we come back I'd like to discuss a little bit on that same line, a little bit about homiletics and the manner with which preachers should preach, in your opinion.
01:29:48: Does style matter, etc. And we'll also take some more of your questions when we return.
01:29:54: This is our final break. So if you'd like to ask a question of David Miller, I would strongly urge you to email in your question very quickly because we are rapidly running out of time.
01:30:05: Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away,
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01:35:19: Well, we are back for our final 20 minutes of today's interview with David Miller, a country preacher at large, and we are discussing the need for the return of the dying breed of country preachers.
01:35:31: If you'd like to join us on the air, please do it now at chrisarnzen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.
01:35:40: And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old
01:35:46: USA. And David, there is something known as homiletics, where preachers learn the manner and style with which to preach the good news.
01:36:00: And there are, as you know, different styles of preaching. You have some perhaps typically of many more intellectual congregations and pastors, those that are more emphasizing the things that they have learned through rigorous academic training, where the preaching will be more aligned with what would be called lecturing and teaching, perhaps.
01:36:30: And then you have, on the other end of the spectrum, more passionate preaching that would very often entail the raising of the voice and moving about on the platform of the church, not being glued to a pulpit, perhaps.
01:36:50: And sometimes that other extreme is lacking in content.
01:36:56: Is there, in your opinion, a way that those two should be wedded together?
01:37:03: Absolutely. I've had the privilege, Chris, of conducting expository preaching conferences for the last 20 years.
01:37:17: I've had the privilege of inviting 50 men and their wives to our local church here in Hebrew Springs.
01:37:27: And Dr. Herschel York from the Southern Seminary and I talk to them about expository preaching.
01:37:36: We do all of that at no expense to them for their motel and meals, and we give them a theological library.
01:37:45: We talk about these things in the conference. No two of us are exactly alike, and we are always to be improving upon our gifts and abilities.
01:38:02: The thing that we all have in common, however, is we need a clear vision of our own unworthiness and our inability to properly handle the
01:38:25: Word of God on our own. We need a serious and somber dependence upon the
01:38:33: Spirit of the Lord. Whether our style is lecturing or whether we're bombastic and loud, we need to begin there.
01:38:49: I agree with the fellow who said, I'd rather hear a preacher say,
01:38:56: I've seen, if he had actually seen something, than for him to say,
01:39:05: I saw when he ain't seen nothing. And that's what people pick up on.
01:39:15: People are not married to a particular style. If they hear a man lecturing, and yet they perceive him to be passionate about it, to really believe it himself, for him to be anointed of the
01:39:34: Spirit, for him to be clearly communicating biblical truths, those people can leave blessed by that.
01:39:45: And so we must develop our abilities to communicate gospel truth.
01:39:58: We must learn to use the full range of our vocal capacity. We must learn not to stand rigidly behind the pulpit, holding on as if it was a sinking ship.
01:40:14: We got to avoid the polar bear at the zoo approach, where you're just pacing back and forth.
01:40:26: Doc Parker, just where he is, doesn't matter what he's saying, the time he gets through, you're just worn to the press.
01:40:34: You got to avoid being a change jangler, with your hand in your pocket, jangling your chain.
01:40:44: All kinds of stuff that preachers do inadvertently, not even aware of it.
01:40:52: We talk about these things. They're simple things, if you're aware of them, that you can always be improving.
01:41:00: But these things are ancillary. They are collateral. They do not make up the sum and the substance of a sermon.
01:41:10: What counts most is, what do you have to say about this day?
01:41:18: And how are you going about it? What kind of organization do you have for your sermon outline?
01:41:28: What is your aim? How are you going to apply this to the congregation?
01:41:34: These are things that we have to always be giving attention to and improving.
01:41:42: Yes, but at the same time, don't you think that if you really believe what the scriptures teach, and you really are truly compassionate and fearful of the eternal destiny of your hearers, that there will be some kind of an urgency and passion in your voice, where the hearers don't view you as being completely bored with your own message.
01:42:10: It's as if you're knocking on someone's door, and they answer it, and you just say calmly, I believe that your house may be on fire.
01:42:18: I just wanted to let you know, instead of being more urgent about it. I agree wholeheartedly.
01:42:25: Charles Spurgeon used to say that when you preach on heaven, your face, your countenance ought to glow brilliantly.
01:42:37: But when you preach on hell, your ordinary face will do. Yeah, and those that preach passionately,
01:42:50: I love passionate preaching. I love emotional preaching. But sometimes preachers that are accustomed to that manner of preaching, they speak everything in that excited and urgent manner where it becomes banal, where it just becomes noise after a while.
01:43:08: If everything that you're saying is said with urgency, even when you're just telling people to turn to a certain text, it really loses its power and meaning.
01:43:19: That's exactly right. I've had the privilege of introducing dozens and dozens of men to the expository approach to preaching, to give them libraries, to help them get started, and then to sit back and watch them grow and develop into great expository preachers.
01:43:56: I'm going to do this just for tongue in cheek. I often see my good friend
01:44:03: Josh Nye, who is the pastor of the
01:44:10: Praise Meal Church in Douglasville, Georgia, and who also is the organizer and the moderator of the
01:44:22: G3 Conference. Great brother. Love that brother. He is just one of the most outstanding young men that I know.
01:44:33: I've known Josh since he was a teenager. Shortly after the Lord called him to preach and he went to Southern Seminary, he came over to one of our expository preaching conferences.
01:44:47: He was already sharper than me. He should have been talking to us about expository preaching.
01:44:55: Anyway, I teased him because he was one of our students in one of our first expository preaching conferences.
01:45:06: So often, men will do better if they are exposed to better men.
01:45:16: Very often, men are doing the best that they know how to do. It's not so much that they have just decided after careful analysis that I am going to be boring, that I am going to just lecture until the saints faint in exhaustion trying to follow me.
01:45:41: It doesn't happen that way. More often than not, they're doing the best they know how.
01:45:47: They just simply need to be exposed to better methods and they need to be encouraged in that.
01:45:55: That's one of the reasons we not only invite the men at our expense, we want them to bring their wives.
01:46:05: Believing that the wives don't need another coffee or tea or shopping excursion at a conference.
01:46:14: They need to sit in the class and learn something about how to handle the scriptures and then when they get a little taste of verse -by -verse preaching, they like it and then no one has more influence on the preacher than his wife.
01:46:33: She holds his feet to the fire. She encourages him and I do that on purpose.
01:46:42: I believe that to be the case. The wives encourage the preachers and that makes a lot of difference.
01:46:50: We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, what can you say about the old -time country preachers?
01:46:59: And there are some modern preachers that also imitate this pattern where they manipulate people emotionally to make decisions to accept
01:47:09: Jesus into their heart. Sometimes even prolonging altar calls and scaring people with the notion that they will not cease from speaking until someone comes forward.
01:47:22: Yes. Well, obviously I reject that approach.
01:47:28: I heard some of that when I was growing up, but not a lot.
01:47:35: And today I still offer an invitation after a sermon, not every time, but often.
01:47:45: I'm not opposed to urging people to repent. That's a recurring theme in the scriptures.
01:47:52: I'm not opposed to using the emotion of fear.
01:48:00: As a matter of fact, this very morning I was working on a sermon for Sunday.
01:48:08: I'm preaching on my faith alone at a conference in South Arkansas and I am going to preach from Hebrews chapter 11.
01:48:22: I'm going to use the text about Noah. It says,
01:48:27: By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
01:48:52: And when God said to Noah, the thoughts and imaginations of men's hearts are only evil continually, and it repenteth me that I've made him, and now
01:49:07: I'm going to destroy him, and build an ark, that had a deep impression upon Noah.
01:49:17: He feared. He believed that what God had threatened,
01:49:23: God would perform. And this righteous man, righteous before God told him about the flood, a man who walked with God prior to this, he was moved with fear.
01:49:42: There's nothing wrong with that approach in preaching. We ought to warn men.
01:49:48: We ought to try to motivate them to fear God as much as hope, as much as love.
01:49:58: Fear is a legitimate emotion in man's heart.
01:50:05: Do you think though that one of the main objections that those of us in the Sovereign Grace or Calvinist or Reformed community, one of the greatest objections we have to the altar call system is that very often a promise is made by the pastor or the preacher or the evangelist that those people that come forward are saved.
01:50:26: In fact, sometimes they're warned, don't let the devil make you doubt that you're saved.
01:50:34: You are saved. And just because of the fact that they've come forward and recited some kind of prayer, many people, multitudes of people are deceived into believing a lie when they leave that auditorium or that tent or that church just as lost as they were when they came in.
01:50:53: I agree 100 % with what you just said.
01:50:58: I've preached that same thing all across the country. But having agreed with you, having said that,
01:51:06: I still think that you can offer a public time of exhortation where you urge people to repent and receive the gospel.
01:51:19: Paul did that at the Parthenon in Athens. He urged them to repent.
01:51:28: Amen. I agree with you. And of course, that could be done right where people are sitting in their pew. Absolutely.
01:51:34: That's why I said I agree with you. We must make it clear what we are doing.
01:51:43: And we must never attach legitimate salvation with a move geographically from eight or ten feet back all the way down to the altar.
01:51:58: That saves no one. We know that. And I don't want to be guilty of leaving that kind of impression.
01:52:07: And I certainly don't want to leave the impression that just because you did that and repeated a prayer after some well -meaning pastor that you are converted.
01:52:20: I don't believe that at all. We have a listener from Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, Christopher, who wants you to list your top three favorite living preachers.
01:52:38: Well, Dr. Jimmy Millett is a professor at Mid -America
01:52:44: Seminary. And he, to this day, is one of my top favorite preachers.
01:52:54: And then I like to listen to Jeff Nopley preach.
01:53:03: He is the pastor of the Grace Life Church in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
01:53:12: And then I like to listen to Herschel York preach.
01:53:18: He is the pastor of the Buck Run Baptist Church in Franklin, Kentucky, and is a preaching professor at Southern Seminary.
01:53:33: And could you repeat the last name that you said? Herschel York. Oh, yes.
01:53:41: Well, thank you, Christopher. And keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, and beyond.
01:53:49: I'd like you to spend now two minutes or so just summarizing what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.
01:53:58: Well, I shall begin by thanking you for allowing a country preacher like myself to be on the program.
01:54:07: I don't claim to be an expert in preaching, though I've been at it 52 and a half years.
01:54:15: I'm still learning. I am grateful that God called me to preach.
01:54:23: Apart from my salvation, the greatest thing the Lord has done after that was to call me to preach.
01:54:33: I love preaching and I love preachers. I've had the wonderful privilege traveling all across this country preaching the gospel.
01:54:44: What a blessing. You know where I started preaching, Chris? Where? I started at Snowball, Arkansas.
01:54:53: My brother drove me in a long truck 65 miles to Snowball, Arkansas, and I preached to six older women, and they called me to be their pastor.
01:55:08: And the treasurer's name was Miss Icy, Miss Icy Ferguson.
01:55:15: That's where I started. Now think about that. First Baptist Church, Snowball, Arkansas, with a treasurer named
01:55:24: Miss Icy. They just sunk in. I did not start on the conference circuit in a motor coach.
01:55:36: I started as much in the grassroots as it gets.
01:55:41: I've had the grand privilege of preaching in many venues, but I've never gone anywhere anytime when there was any more sense of dignity or nobility about who
01:55:54: I was and what my business was than when I'd go to Snowball, Arkansas and preach to those ladies.
01:56:03: It's a gift of grace, and for all of the preachers that may be listening today,
01:56:09: I would encourage you to keep your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone.
01:56:17: Stay in the Word. Stay in the book. Keep preaching the gospel.
01:56:22: The gospel is able to save. Amen.
01:56:29: And I know that the website for the G3 Conference where you will be speaking in January is g3conference .com.
01:56:37: G3conference .com. Do you have any other contact information to give in case some pastor listening perhaps wants to invite you to preach at their own congregation?
01:56:48: Sure. My email address is dm underscore line upon line at yahoo .com.
01:57:01: You recognize that phrase, line upon line? Precept upon precept.
01:57:09: I'm sorry? I said in precept upon precept. When I told my wife
01:57:16: I was going to change my ministry line upon line, she reminded me that Kay Arthur had that line in precept upon precept, and she said perhaps you should use that third line.
01:57:33: Here a little, there a little. But I would be happy to entertain a conversation with any of the folks listening.
01:57:48: I was up in your neck of the woods last year, and I'm not too proud to come again.
01:57:56: Oh, great. Well, I would love to know that, and so I want to make sure I have your email address right. It's dmiller underscore line upon line at yahoo .com?
01:58:07: Only the initials dm, lowercase dm, and then underscore line upon line at yahoo .com.
01:58:18: Okay, dm underscore line upon line at yahoo .com. Thank you so much David Miller for being on the program.
01:58:24: I look forward to having you back on the program soon and often. I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who wrote in questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.