Voddie Baucham -Above All Earthly Powers Courage for Christ in the Public Square

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
S S S S S S S S S S.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
S, the.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Plain, the word, the newbor. Let me s.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Founder's pre
Conference above all earthly powers, courage for Christ in the
public square. My name is Jared Longshore, and I'm the
vice president of Founders Ministries, and it's my joy to welcome.

Speaker 5 (12:48):
You this evening.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
We are delighted about how this event came together. Given
many people assembling here for the Founder's Conference which begins
tomorrow in McGregor Baptist Church's kindness and this facility, and
of course the chaos in our public square over the
past many months, now, it seemed fitting to hold a
pre conference commending.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
Public courage for Christ.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
Before we get into the details of the evening, it
is a very special day, as you all know. Of course,
you'll know that it is the inauguration, and I do
not mean the inauguration of President Joe Biden. I mean
the inauguration of another year in the life of Tom Askell,
the president of Founder's Ministries. He of course did not

(13:38):
know I was going to do this, and I apologized
to him before I came up here, and he did
not know why I apologized. But Pastor Tom, if you'll
come on up here, we have a gift, a very
small gift that we want to give to you from
all of us here at Founders Ministries.

Speaker 5 (13:52):
We love you. Dear brother.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
Tom is a wonderful spiritual father to me.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
Come here, I love you, and it's his birth A
small gift there.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
Stay up here because Tom loves when people sing him
Happy birthday.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
He just does.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
He comes in and he tells me we please sing
me Happy birthday, Jared every time he come to work.
So let's give him what he wants. Let's sing him
Happy birthday.

Speaker 6 (14:14):
Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Tom,
Happy birthday too.

Speaker 5 (14:29):
All right, sorry, get done one there.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
All right, I'm looking for a job. He's gonna fire me,
so if anybody's hiring, we'll do that. As you know,
some of you know, Tom is an Aggie, so he's
a Texas ain't in aggie, that's right. And he likes
steak and so we found his ministry's got him a
steakhouse gifts Hard Longhorn steakhouse gift.

Speaker 7 (14:53):
God.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
We understand, all right, this pre conference, this is being
live stream, so we're very grateful for those who are
tuning in. And the Founder's Conference which begins tomorrow is
going to be live streamed as well, but you will
need to go to live stream Press. I'm sorry, not
live stream Press. You need to go to Press dot
founders dot org Ford slash fham FAM. That is Press

(15:19):
dot Founders dot org Ford slash fham. If you would
like to tune into the live stream of the conference
that begins tomorrow, and to do that you will join
our FAM that is our Founder's Alliance Membership. It's a
way to join us and support us monthly and tap
into that you will be able.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
To access the live stream that begins tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
This pre conference event is sponsored by the recently established
Institute of Public Theology. The institute was announced only a
short time ago, and we've already received a great amount
of encouraging feedback and much interest in this new work.
Doctor Tom Askell serves as the president of the Institute.
I serve alongside him as Vice president and dean. Faculty

(16:00):
includes doctor Askell, doctor Vode Bacam, myself, and doctor Tom Nettles.
Courses begin in the fall. For information, you can go
to Institute of Public Theology dot org. It is a
three year program and it is a sixty three credit
hour program. Classes will be offered in Cape Coral and

(16:23):
you can come to Cape Coral to take those classes.
You can also take some of them online. Some of
them are required to be taken in Cape Coral. This
institute has come about along with an increasing conviction that
Jesus Christ is truly Lord of all He and his
word are above all earthly powers. Christianity is not a

(16:45):
private religion, and the Christian ministry was never meant to
be done in a corner. There has been a great
attempt to cut off various areas of life from the
authority and sufficiency of God's word, and too many Christian
leaders have conceded these various areas of life to the secularists.
We see that the men who are leading this institute

(17:06):
have gone through the theological education, and we look back
and see that this is a new day and we
need the same doctrine, but we need that doctrine thoroughly
applied to all areas of life. As Abraham Kuiper said,
there is not a square inch in the whole domain
of human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign overall

(17:27):
does not cry mine. So as the sons of Isacar
lived in tumultuous times, we do as well. And those
sons of Issacar knew two things. They understood the times,
and they knew what Israel ought to do. The Institute
of Public Theology aims to train a coming generation of
pastors and Christians to know the times, to know God's word,

(17:51):
to believe God's word, and to do God's word. To
that end, tonight we have the privilege of hearing from
doctor tom Askell and then doctor Vode. After hearing from
both of them, we will have a short break and
reconvene for a question and answer session. Let me introduce
to you our first speaker, doctor tom Askell, and then
I'm going to pray for him and he'll come to

(18:12):
deliver God's word. Tom Askell has been the senior pastor
of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, since nineteen
eighty six. He is the president of Founder's Ministries and
the Institute of Public Theology. He has edited and written
many books, including Dear Timothy, Letters on Pastoral Ministry and
the recently published Strong and Courageous Following Jesus amid the

(18:33):
rise of America's new religion. Tom and his wife Donna
have six children, three sons in law, and fourteen grandchildren.
Most importantly, he is a godly man, and he is
quick to remind everyone of God's sovereign and amazing grace.
So pray with me for Pastor Tom as he comes
to deliver God's word. Father, we glorify you, for you

(18:56):
or God, and there is no other. We rejoice at
who you are and all that you've done for us.
We thank you that we're able to assemble here tonight
to hear your word, and we pray that you would
have your way among us. Strengthen Tom, even as he
comes now to teach your truth, give us ears to hear,
hearts that are quick to respond. And then all exalt

(19:18):
your son, Jesus Christ, who has crucified and risen for us.

Speaker 5 (19:22):
We fix our eyes upon you. For all of this
we prayed in Jesus' name.

Speaker 8 (19:26):
Amen.

Speaker 9 (19:37):
But what a joy to be here, And especially I
want to say thank you to McGregor Baptist Church and
Pastor Russell and others that have gone out of their
way to make this hospitable event and time for us.

Speaker 7 (19:50):
We're delighted to be here for this occasion.

Speaker 9 (19:54):
Beginning of the new year, I've started reading through the
Book of Acts again, and I was struck quickly with
just how the Gospel of Jesus Christ advanced in the
first century. To see how the Church of Christ in
the New Testament era got its footing, got its marching orders,
and continued to go throughout the whole Roman Empire. And

(20:16):
the way that it happened is that regular men and
women met Jesus, and they never got over it. They
came to experience life with Jesus Christ by turning from sin,
trusting him, and being reconciled to God. Of course, Jesus

(20:36):
is the center and the foundation of the Christian faith.
He is the chief cornerstone of the church, which he
himself is building and is promised to build.

Speaker 7 (20:48):
The church's responsibility is to proclaim Christ. And we are
to do that.

Speaker 9 (20:54):
Humbly, boldly, unapologetically, joyfully, and obediently. And we're to do
it in every area that we have influence. There is
no sphere in this world which is off limits to
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. We see how in
the Book of Acts, the Church spread through these everyday.

Speaker 7 (21:18):
Normal means, just as it has continued to spread throughout
the last two thousand years.

Speaker 9 (21:24):
Christ must be known, he must be proclaimed, he must
be trusted, he must be loved.

Speaker 7 (21:32):
No matter what the cost are consequences.

Speaker 9 (21:36):
And I say that because where Christ is proclaimed, where
He is known and loved, and where his people seek
to call others to come to know Him and trust
him and love him, there will be opposition. And sometimes
that opposition can be fierce. At times it could even

(21:57):
be violent, and it's not all that unusual for it
to be deadly. Just read the Book of Acts, or
read the history of the Church of Christ. After the
Book of Acts, the Lord Jesus said to his disciples
in John sixteen thirty.

Speaker 7 (22:13):
Three, in this world you will have tribulations.

Speaker 9 (22:19):
Peter or Paul said in tewod Timothy three, all who
desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will
be persecuted. Those are promises just as sure as any
other promise given to us in scripture. God has been
so good to us in this land for so long
that those promises of persecution and opposition sound a little

(22:41):
bit strange and foreign to us. Because we have lived
under the blessings of God, and we have had so
much religious freedom here in this nation. In fact, He
has been so good to us on this front for
so long that I fear many believers, when faced with
persecution in our context, or even just opposition, might actually

(23:06):
fold and walk away. I believe we have been given
a little glimpse of this, a foretaste of what that
might look like in this last year, when too many
evangelical leaders and churches were so easily brought to heal
by governing authorities, medical authorities, and ideological bullies who tried

(23:30):
to dictate what we must do, what we must say,
and even what we must think if we're going to
be loving according to their definition of love. So what
are Christians to do when we face opposition? What are
we to do when we are threatened with severe consequences
if we do not comply with the new moralities of

(23:53):
the ideological agendas that are gaining ascendancy in our culture.

Speaker 7 (23:58):
What we need to do have been doing for too millennia.
We need to be strong and courageous. We need to
love Christ, trust Christ, follow Christ, and proclaim Christ.

Speaker 9 (24:14):
Our marching orders have not changed Jesus told his disciples
before he ascended into heaven, all authority in heaven and
on earth has been given to me. Go therefore make
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you, And behold,

(24:38):
I am with you always.

Speaker 7 (24:39):
Even to the end of the age.

Speaker 9 (24:43):
In Acts, chapter one, verse eight, Luke's account of this
commission is worded a little differently. There, Jesus said, you
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all
Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. And
then Luke adds this footnote. And when he had said

(25:06):
these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted
up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
That final scene of Jesus ascending into heaven was a
very important reminder that will help God's people stay at
our post when things get difficult. This is why we

(25:30):
need to remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, as
Paul writes to Timothy of the Seed of David.

Speaker 7 (25:37):
According to my.

Speaker 9 (25:38):
Gospel more specifically, we need to remember Jesus Christ, crucified,
risen from the dead, and ascended to the right hand
of God, the Father Almighty. We need to become reacquainted
in our day with what the older writers of the
Christian faith referred to as the heavenly session of Christ

(26:01):
and recognize that right now our crucified, risen Savior sits
enthroned in heaven.

Speaker 7 (26:10):
He is ruling, he is reigning.

Speaker 9 (26:13):
Psalm one hundred and ten declares this, and Jesus quoted
this to his detractors. In Mark chapter twelve, it says,
the Lord says, to my Lord, sit at my right
hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Father
says to the Son, here's your seat, rule until all

(26:35):
of your enemies are subdued. The Book of Acts is
a record of normal Christians living like they really.

Speaker 7 (26:42):
Believe that a dead man came back from the dead,
never to die again, and.

Speaker 9 (26:50):
Has ascended into heaven. In other words, the Christians in
the Book of Acts had a two world view of reality.
They recognize that there are unseen realities, and at the
very heart of those unseen realities is the Lord Jesus,

(27:10):
who walked among them, who laid down his life on
a cross in order to redeem them from their sins,
and then was raised from the dead on the third
day and ascended into heaven, where he lives as.

Speaker 7 (27:22):
The God Man now and one day will.

Speaker 9 (27:25):
Return to bring everything to its proper conclusion. You read
through the Book of Acts, and you see immediately after Pentecost,
as the gospel continued to be preached, that there was opposition,
first from religious authorities and then from more formal governmental authorities.
Chapter four, verse two, we read that the priests and

(27:46):
the Sadducees were greatly annoyed by the apostles because they
were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus the
resurrection from the dead really exists.

Speaker 7 (27:58):
So they arrested them, and then the whole council questioned
them and asked them, by what power, by what name
did you do this? Did you heal this?

Speaker 9 (28:07):
Lame man Peter, seizing the opportunity, begins to seek to
evangelize them to do what Jesus told him to do.
He said, let it be known to all of you
and all the people of Israel, that by the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God
raised from the.

Speaker 7 (28:26):
Dead by him. This man is standing before you.

Speaker 9 (28:31):
Well, he preached a crucified risen Christ, a Christ who
lives now. In chapter four, verse thirteen, when the Pharisees
the Sadducees, the religious leaders saw the boldness of Peter,
and John Luke says, they perceived that these were uneducated men,

(28:52):
common men, and they were astonished, and they recognized that
they had been with Jesus. Well, if you've been with
a man who died and came back from the dead
and is alive now, it probably be noticeable in your

(29:14):
life too. Later in that chapter, they are admonished by
the religious authorities not to preach, not to teach, to
quit preaching in the name of Christ, and Peter responds,
whether it's right in the side of God to listen
to you or rather than to God, you must judge.

(29:34):
But we cannot but speak of what we have seen
and heard. And so they continued, and they get arrested,
and God miraculously lets them out of jail, and they
go back to preaching, and then they call them. The
religious leaders call them to account in chapter five and

(29:57):
ask them how this has happened, monish them, saying, we
strictly charged you not to teach in this name, Yet
you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. And again they responded,
we must obey God rather than men. Peter continues, on

(30:18):
that occasion, the God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom
you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted
him at his right hand as the leader and savior,
to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

Speaker 7 (30:32):
And we are.

Speaker 9 (30:33):
Witnesses of these things. They knew the risen ascended Christ.
They knew that he was in heaven right now, ruling
and reigning at the right hand of God, the Father.
Persecution spreads as the Gospel spreads. We see Stephen stoned

(30:56):
to death in chapter seven, Saw breathing out and curses
as one of those persecutors in acts chapter eight, and
Saul himself being converted and then himself becoming the object
of persecution in chapter nine. The gospel continues to spread
to the Gentiles in chapters ten and eleven, and chapter

(31:16):
twelve is the martyrdom of.

Speaker 7 (31:17):
James, the brother of the Lord Jesus.

Speaker 9 (31:21):
The Antioch Church in chapter thirteen sends Paul and Barnabas
to Galatia Chapter fifteen to the Jerusalem Council to receive
the report of what happened in Galatia and to settle
the question do you have to become a Jew in
order to become.

Speaker 7 (31:32):
A follower of Jesus Christ?

Speaker 9 (31:35):
And then antioch sends Paul and Silas to Macedonia and
they go to Philippi in chapter sixteen, and from there
in chapter seventeen, to Thessalonika and Berea. And it's fascinating
when you read in Acts chapter seventeen Paul and Silas
going to thesal Andika having been in Philippi. It's about

(31:59):
one hundred miles or so, as it would have taken
them a few days to get there. And when they
get to Thessalonika, this is what's written in Acts seventeen six.

Speaker 7 (32:11):
These men who have turned the world upside down have
come here also, I.

Speaker 9 (32:20):
Mean they just got to town, and their reputation preceded them.
They were men who turned the world upside down. Where
can such accusations like this be found in the borders
of our own nation?

Speaker 7 (32:38):
How did they do it? The Resurrection of Jesus.

Speaker 9 (32:44):
Was an ever present reality in their thinking, and that
truth is essential to living courageously for Christ in the
face of hardship and opposition. But we see this as
Paul lays it out for us theologically in First Corinthians
chapter fifteen, because there where he argues for the literal
bodily resurrection of Jesus, and he says, if this is

(33:05):
not true, then we're all fools. We're on a fool's
errand our faith is in vain. And in verse twenty
of that chapter he says, in fact, Christ has been
raised from the dead.

Speaker 7 (33:15):
He's the first fruits of all who have fallen asleep.

Speaker 9 (33:17):
And then listen to his theological reasoning that puts steel
in the backbone.

Speaker 7 (33:24):
Of all those who know Christ.

Speaker 9 (33:26):
For as by a man came death by a man,
has also come the resurrection of the dead. For as
Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive,
but each in his own order. Christ the first fruits.
Then it is coming those who belong to Christ. Then
comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom of God
to the Father, after.

Speaker 7 (33:45):
Destroying every rule and every authority.

Speaker 9 (33:49):
And power, for he must reign until he has put
all his enemies under his feet.

Speaker 7 (33:58):
Paul was confident there's going to be victory.

Speaker 9 (34:02):
There's going to be success because his crucified risen Savior
is exalted in heaven and.

Speaker 7 (34:08):
Ruling and overruling for that very purpose.

Speaker 9 (34:12):
He goes on in that chapter and he says, if
the dead are not raised at all, why are we
in danger every hour? He says, what do I gain
humanly speaking, if I fought with beasts at Ephesis? If
the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die. The beasts at Ephesis were not
four footed creatures, they were two footed creatures.

Speaker 7 (34:32):
They were people. And Paul says, why do I put
up with this? Why do I let people abuse me?

Speaker 9 (34:38):
Why do I get back up and go back into
the towns and preach Christ when they don't want me there?
If there's no resurrection from the dead, well it's a
foolish erran, isn't it. It makes no sense better to
pull the blinds and pull the covers up over your
heads unless Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead
and has exalted in heaven right now. But if that's true,

(35:03):
then dying daily. If that's true, then gambling your life
for the sake of the Gospel.

Speaker 7 (35:10):
It makes perfect sense.

Speaker 9 (35:13):
I love Paul's prayer in Ephesians chapter one, and again
I think he prays for the very things that we
need today, at this moment of our history in this nation.
We ought to pray this for ourselves and for one another.
He speaks of his prayer that we might have an understanding,

(35:34):
a knowledge of the hope to which God has called us,
we might experience the riches of his glorious inheritance in
the saints, and that we might know what is the
immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe. And
then he elaborates that power, this power which is according
to the working of His great might, that he worked

(35:55):
in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and
seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule and authority, and power and dominion,
above every name that is named, not only in this age,
but also in the age to come. And he has
put all things under his feet and gave him as
head over all things, to the Church, which is his body,

(36:16):
the fullness of Him who.

Speaker 7 (36:17):
Feels all in all. Paul says, I want you to
get that.

Speaker 9 (36:23):
I want you to know this power that raised Jesus
from the dead and has exalted him into heaven where
he rules and reigns over everyone and everything.

Speaker 7 (36:36):
Brothers and sisters.

Speaker 9 (36:37):
If we could get that, if we could know that,
if we could see that and remember that, we wouldn't
be so quick to be silent when we should speak.
We wouldn't be so easily intimidated whenever someone comes and
tells us what we must or must not do that
is contrary to what Christ has called us to be

(36:57):
and do. Our Lord giesus. Christ is enthroned in heaven
right now. What's he doing? What's the Lord doing in heaven? Well,
one thing he's doing is he is interceding for his people.
Hebrews tells us he ever lives to make intercession for us.

(37:20):
Romans eight thirty four says, who is the one who
condemns Christ as he who died, Yes, rather who was raised,
Who is at the right hand of God who also
intercedes for us? If you're trusting Christ, he is in
heaven for you, interceding for you right now.

Speaker 7 (37:42):
The Scottish pastor.

Speaker 9 (37:44):
Robert Murray MacShane said, if I could hear Christ praying
for me in the next room. I would not fear
a million enemies. I wouldn't it be true of you
if you could hear Jesus praying for Youmshane says. Yet
distance makes no difference. He is praying for me. What's
he praying? Well, we read in John seventeen the Burdens

(38:09):
of Jesus's High priestly Prayer. There, listen to what the
systematic theologian Lewis Berkhoff says about what Jesus is praying.
He said, he's presenting to the Father those spiritual needs
which were not present to our minds, and which we
often neglect to include in our prayers, And that he
prays for our protection against the dangers of which we
are not even conscious, and against the enemies which threaten

(38:32):
us though we do not notice it. He is praying
that our faith may not cease and that we may
come out victoriously in the end. Brothers and sisters, we
have a risen savior who prays for us. He intercedes
for us. Why do we need to be fearful? Why
do we need to back away from any duty that

(38:54):
he lays upon us. In addition to praying for us,
he is ruling and over ruling in the affairs of
the world again at one Corinthians fifteen Passes of the
Prayer and Ephesians one. Christ is enthroned in heaven. He's
at the right hand of God, the Father. That is
a place of authority. He said, all authority in heaven

(39:14):
and on earth belongs to him. So there's not any
empire that is raised up or that is cast down
apart from his authority. There's not any advance of ideologies
or refutation of ideologies that doesn't occur out from under
his sovereign authority. He's ruling and overruling in heaven. You

(39:39):
know another thing he's doing in heaven, he's laughing.

Speaker 7 (39:45):
He's laughing.

Speaker 9 (39:46):
Psalm too, Whye of the nation's rage and the people's
plot in vain. The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and
against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us. He who sits
in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision.

(40:15):
Every godless proposal of the new President Biden will cause
God to laugh, just as every godless proposal of President
Trump calls God to laugh.

Speaker 7 (40:36):
He laughs at Klaus Schwab of.

Speaker 9 (40:42):
The World Economic Form, with all of his great plans
for the great reset that are godless. He laughs at
Jijinping in China, who masterminds his strategies for his country,
thinking himself able to overthrow the chords.

Speaker 7 (41:01):
And the bonds of his creator.

Speaker 9 (41:04):
He laughs at any other king or ruler who plots
against Christ, thinking they will reject his authority and deny
his prescriptions. Brothers and sisters, how can we who believe
these things about Christ not be bold and courageous as
we live in this world that opposes Christ? How can

(41:24):
we quickly crumble and fade when we're remembering and believing
these truths. I understand that in one sense, the world
has changed over the last several years, and in some
dramatic ways. Here in our country, it's happened rapidly. We
well may be living in one of those evil days
Paul speaks of in Ephesian six, or in those perilous

(41:47):
seasons that he speaks of in two Timothy three to one.
But no matter how much things have changed that we
can measure, the most important things have not changed. Our
mission hasn't changed. God doesn't say go make disciples unless
it's hard, or unless your person is not in charge Politically,

(42:13):
The Gospel hasn't changed. It's still the power of God
to salvation to all who believe. Human nature hasn't changed.
It's still depraved, it's still enslaved to sin, it is
still in need of being liberated by the Gospel.

Speaker 7 (42:30):
And Jesus Christ has not changed.

Speaker 9 (42:33):
He lives to make intercession for his people and to
save all who trust in Him. So, rather than being
intimidated by the growing darkness around us, we should see
the dimming of the light of the Gospel and our
culture as an increased opportunity.

Speaker 7 (42:50):
For us to shine brightly in what Paul calls this crooked.

Speaker 9 (42:54):
And perverse generation. We have the Gospel and we are
charged by our Master to go make disciples. So, brothers
and sisters, in that sense, as we look around and
we see godlessness rising up all around us, as right
thinking Christians, we should.

Speaker 7 (43:10):
Say, you know what this is. This is a target
rich environment.

Speaker 9 (43:17):
I love the story of Lieutenant General Chestey Puller, World
War two veteran Korean War veteran, the most decorated US
marine in history, in December of nineteen fifty at the
Battle of Chosen Reservoir, when ten Chinese divisions surrounded him
and his marines. On that occasion, Puller reportedly said, those

(43:37):
poor souls. He didn't call them souls, those poor soldiers.
They've got us right where we want them. We can
fire in any direction now, a target rich environment. Where's
the gospel not needed in our community? Where's the Gospel

(44:00):
not needed in your own spheres of opportunity and influence
at work in your home, in your neighborhood, in your
extended relations, anywhere everywhere. Is becoming increasingly evident that people
need to know about Jesus Christ.

Speaker 7 (44:19):
They need to be taught the Gospel of Christ.

Speaker 9 (44:21):
They need to be called to turn from their sin
and entrust themselves to Christ that they might be reconciled
to their creator. The need is great, the mission is clear,
and the Captain of our salvation has placed us exactly
where he wants us to be right now. He has

(44:43):
put us behind enemy lines, and he shed his blood
and has been raised from the dead to guarantee our success,
so that with clarity and with confidence, we can firmly, hopefully,
joyfully ride to the sound of the guns. This is
not a day for Christians to become timid. It's not

(45:08):
a day for us to sit back and to lament
what used to be, or to think that all is
hopeless in the future. As the darkness increases, let us
take the light of the Gospel and do our best
to shine it forth, all the more energetically. I love
what Charles Spurgeon said, acknowledging these same battles in his

(45:33):
day in the nineteenth century in England. He said, we
admire a man who is firm in faith, say four
hundred years ago, but such a man today is a
nuisance and must be put down. Call him a narrow
minded bigot, or give him a worse name, if you
can think of one. Yet, imagine that in those ages
past Luther's Wingley, Calvin and their compeers.

Speaker 7 (45:55):
Imagine if they had said.

Speaker 9 (45:56):
The world is out of order, but if we try
to set it right, wee shall only make a great
row and get ourselves into disgrace. Let us go to
our chambers, put on our night caps, and sleep over
the bad times. Or perhaps when we wake up things
will have grown better. Such conduct on their part would
have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after

(46:17):
age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and
the pastiferous bogs of error would have swallowed us. All
these men loved the faith and the name of Jesus
too well to see them trampled on. It is today
as it was in the reformers day. Decision is needed.
Here's the day for the man. Where is the man

(46:39):
for the day. We who have had the Gospel passed
to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it,
nor sit by and hear it denied by traders who
pretend to love it, Traders who pretend to love it,
but inwardly abhor every line of it.

Speaker 7 (46:59):
Look you, sir, their ages yet to come.

Speaker 9 (47:01):
If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come
another generation and another, and all these generations will be
tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God
and to his truth.

Speaker 7 (47:11):
Today we have come to a turning point in the road.

Speaker 9 (47:15):
If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and
our children's children will go that way. But if we
turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our
names for having been unfaithful to God and to his word.
Here's the day for the man? Where's the man?

Speaker 10 (47:33):
For the day?

Speaker 7 (47:35):
Brothers and sisters, before God, let us.

Speaker 9 (47:39):
Repent of every fearful imagination and impulse that we have
had in the face of this rising darkness. May God
expose to us where we have given in to the
temptation to be afraid of people, because we've not been
fearful of Him. And may He teach us that what

(48:01):
we have in Christ is a crucified, risen ascended, heavenly.

Speaker 7 (48:07):
Ruling and reigning Lord and Savior.

Speaker 9 (48:10):
And that our lives are in his hands, and that
He has commissioned us to go into the world and
to make disciples. May He empower us by his spirit
to give ourselves to that for the sake of this
generation and the generations yet to come.

Speaker 7 (48:28):
Let's pray, our Father, We thank you for giving us
your word.

Speaker 9 (48:37):
We thank you for faithfulness of those who have gone
before us, on whose shoulders we stand, who serve their
generation well, and who have handed down to us understanding
of your word that we would not have had had
they failed and been derelict in their duty.

Speaker 7 (48:57):
We asked that you would make us faithful in our day.

Speaker 9 (49:00):
God give us a sense of wonder and joy, that
you would call us into your very family, that you
would forgive us our sins for Christ's sake. That you
would commission us and empower us by your word and
spirit to go into this world for the sake of
your kingdom, to be a part of what Jesus Christ
is doing now and for eternity. Strengthen our faith, increase

(49:22):
our joy, give us boldness and determination to live for Christ.

Speaker 7 (49:27):
For we pray in his name.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
Amen, Praise God that Jesus Christ hassen from the dead
in view of our ascended Christ. Let's stand, Let's sing
the doxology, rejoicing in this blessing that God has given us.

Speaker 11 (49:54):
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Oh, praise all
creatureous heby.

Speaker 12 (50:09):
Praise, himbove he heavnly host, praise fins son and holdly.

Speaker 5 (50:23):
Go Ah, you may be seated. Amen.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
We have the joy now of hearing from doctor vode Bocham.
Let me introduce him to you, and then I will
pray for him as he comes to deliver God's word.
Doctor Vodie Backham is a husband, father, former pastor, author, professor,
conference speaker, and a board member of Founder's ministries. He
is a founding faculty member of the Institute of Public Theology.

(51:02):
He currently serves as Dean of the School of Divinity
at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia. Doctor Bockham holds
degrees from Houston Baptist University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern
Baptist Theological Seminary, an honorary degree from Southern California Seminary,
an additional post graduate study at the University of Oxford, England.

(51:26):
Doctor Bockham and his wife, Bridget have been married since
nineteen eighty nine and have nine children and two grandchildren.
And we are delighted to have him here with us
this evening. So let me pray and then he will come. Father,
We rejoice that you have since your son Jesus Christ
for us, that he lived for us, and he died

(51:47):
for us, and he has risen for us, and he
has ascended for us, interceding for us.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
Even now. We rejoice that he is above all earthly powers.

Speaker 4 (51:55):
We asked that you would strengthen our brother voting as
he comes to deliver your work. Now, empower this word
by your spirit, and we would receive it strengthen our faith,
give us courage.

Speaker 5 (52:05):
Will we pray this in Jesus' name? Amen?

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Amen, Well greetings, I do bring you greetings from the
African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia, and from my family
who's there. My wife, Bridget and our seven youngest children

(52:31):
are there. We've been there for a little over five
years now. Our two oldest children and our grandchildren of
course reside here in the US. And so I am
excited and honored to be with you to have made
this journey. I'm excited and honored to be here with

(52:53):
Founders Ministries and to be a part of Founders Ministries
and a partner with Founders Ministry in this great work.
I've known Tom for I don't know how many years now, Tom,
it's been. It's been a long time. It's been decades now,
and I remember I don't know if it was the

(53:16):
first time that I met Tom, but if it wasn't
the first time, it was shortly there thereafter where he
said to me and has not stopped saying since God
loves you, but I have a wonderful plan for your life. No, brother,
there's been wonderful getting in trouble with you, over these

(53:39):
last decades. And I want you to know you you
you bout gave me a heart attack just a little
while ago, because my text tonight is Acts chapter four,
and I wouldn't sure. I wasn't sure for a moment
if that wasn't what you were getting ready to do.
And I's got to make something up. So if you

(54:01):
have your Bibles with you, please open them to Acts
chapter four, Acts chapter four. As we look at this boldness,
this public boldness to which we're called Acts.

Speaker 8 (54:15):
Chapter four, and we'll look at.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Really that last well, not that last paragraph, but verses
thirteen through twenty two, thirteen through twenty two, and take
a look at this public boldness to which we're called

(54:47):
beginning of verse thirteen. Now we remember what has happened
here is that Peter and John were there by the
Gay Beautiful and there's a man begging for alms. They
don't have anything to give him, at least not what
he's asking for, and Peter instead heals him in the

(55:12):
name of Jesus and tells him to rise and walk.
The man doesn't follow directions very well, because instead of
rising and walking, he's shouting and dancing and running and
everything else, and there is a great stir. This brings
them to the attention of the leaders, and it brings

(55:36):
them before this council. And that's where we picked this
up in four and verse thirteen, where we read, now
when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and
perceived that they were uneducated common men, they were astonished,
and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. The

(55:59):
first thing we see about this public boldness is really
the nature of it. The nature of this boldness is
incredibly important. And in order to understand the nature of
this boldness, you have to understand the way it was
perceived by the leaders, the way it was perceived by

(56:19):
the Sanhedrin. They perceived that they were uneducated common men. Now,
this is one of those instances where you know, a
nice concordance can get you in trouble because you look
at your concordance and essentially you say that the word
that's used here is a word that refers to men
who are illiterate men. That's not what's being said here.

(56:46):
We know for a fact that that's not what was
being said. That's not what was being charged, that these
were somehow illiterate men. If for no other reason. We
know that these two men gave us first and second Peter,
Gospel of John first, second, third John, and the Book
of Revelation. They mean somebody. That's not what's being said here.

(57:13):
What's being referenced here is not the idea that these
men aren't smart, that they aren't intelligent, or really that
they have no education. What's being referenced here is the
idea that they have the wrong education. They haven't gone

(57:37):
to the right schools, they haven't studied the right things.
Therefore they don't think the right things, and they don't
say the right things. And that's what was astonishing about
their boldness, because boldness in the public sphere is supposed
to require that first you get the credentials that the

(57:59):
public respects, and if you don't have the credentials that
the public respects, it makes no sense for you to
be bold in the public sphere. It's true then and
it's true now. In many ways, we are, regardless of

(58:23):
our levels of education, considered the untrained, uneducated men the
common men of our day. And it's been that way
for a while, although things are ratcheting up, and it
used to just be based on a few issues like,
for example, our understanding of the way the world came
to be, the privilege from time to time of speaking

(58:48):
on public university campuses, and I love when I'm on
public university campuses to camp out or at least spend
some time in the Book of Genesis. I love it
because it astonishes people there and they hear me talk
about the Book of Genesis, and oftentimes they'll come and
I've had on a number of occasions a conversation that

(59:09):
goes something like this. People don't want to just come
straight out with it, but they sayself, say something like,
you know, it's interesting the way you were talking about
that is almost like you you're one of those people
who you know, takes the Genesis accountant literally. I just
to say you seemed like such a smart man. On

(59:35):
one occasion, I had somebody just sort of walk right
into it. You know, you want of these people who
believes that God created.

Speaker 7 (59:41):
The world in a week, of course, not.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Did it in six days and took the last day off. Brother,
But the point is an obvious one. Sophisticated and educated
men know better, and in fact, even those who who

(01:00:12):
who are Christians in the public sphere have have learned better?

Speaker 7 (01:00:17):
Have you not learned better?

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Are you not aware of the towering theological intellects out
there who don't hold to your small minded belief in
the way that the world came to be?

Speaker 7 (01:00:32):
But it's not just that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Other issues about who's supposed to occupy the position of
pastor amen, about whether or not the board of education
is supposed to be applied to the backside of an unruly,
disobedient child. But today there's even more to today. There

(01:01:06):
are things like, you know, do you really not understand
that sexual orientation is just that sexual orientation?

Speaker 7 (01:01:18):
Are you really that ignorant?

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
If you watched any of Amy Cony Barrett's hearings, you
saw that moment where she used the phrase sexual preference
and senators bounced because the term sexual preference is an
offensive one, and anyone who is anyone worth knowing realizes

(01:01:50):
and recognizes that there is no preference involved. The educated
among us know that you don't say preference, you say orientation,
and they scolded her.

Speaker 8 (01:02:05):
One of the finest legal minds of our day, or
those who.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Believe that your chromosomes determine your sex, amen, somebody, are
you so common and uneducated that you don't recognize that.
If you want to know whether a five year old

(01:02:40):
is a boy or a girl, you don't check the plumbing.
You ask a question, and if what they say contradicts
the plumbing, you believe them.

Speaker 7 (01:02:58):
And not your lying on.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
These are just a few of the areas right now
where we're being referred to as uneducated common men in
our day. And so the nature of their boldness had
to do not with their action in this healing process,

(01:03:27):
but in the message that accompanied the healing. If you
go with me, for example, in that last phrase, they
recognized that they had been with Jesus go with me
earlier on earlier in chapter three, because this is where
it all started.

Speaker 7 (01:03:42):
In chapter three. Look at verse six.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, But
what I do have I give to you in the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Rise and walk.

Speaker 7 (01:03:56):
Verse eleven.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
While he clung to Peter and on, all the people,
utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico that
is called Solomon. So there thousands of people could now
come and gather in here verse fourteen, in the midst
of his sermon, But you denied the Holy and Righteous
One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you.

(01:04:20):
And you killed the author of life, whom God raised
from the dead.

Speaker 7 (01:04:25):
To this we are witnesses, and his.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Name by faith in his name has made this man strong,
whom you see and know.

Speaker 7 (01:04:35):
And the faith that is through Jesus.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Has given the man this perfect health in the presence
of you all And in verse nineteen, repent therefore and
turn back, that your.

Speaker 7 (01:04:48):
Sins may be blotted out.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
That's what makes them uneducated common men.

Speaker 7 (01:04:55):
The gospel that they preach, that's what.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Classifies us as uneducated common men.

Speaker 7 (01:05:04):
The gospel that we preach.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
That we believe that God created the world, and that
we believe that He created one man, Adam, and through
that one man Adam.

Speaker 7 (01:05:19):
Created all men.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
And we believe that because that one man Adam fell,
all men fell into sin. Because of that one man Adam,
and because of that one man's sin, sin reigns in
all of us and needs to be dealt with. And
because of that one man's sin, that another atom had
to come. That the last atom was born of a virgin,

(01:05:44):
lived a sinless life, was crucified, dead, and buried, and
rose again on the third day. Having died, a penal
substitutionary atoning death through which men might be saved if
they come to faith in him. That's what makes us
uneducated common men, because we believe that. That's what marginalizes us, because.

Speaker 7 (01:06:10):
We believe that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
You see, here's the thing. Their problem was not as
somebody got healed, it couldn't care less. Chapter four, verse seven.
When they had set them in the midst they inquired,
by what power or by what name did you do this?

Speaker 7 (01:06:39):
How about that? Oh boy couldn't walk.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Now he can walk, running, shouting, dancing, everything else.

Speaker 7 (01:07:02):
And the Sanhedrin wants to know.

Speaker 8 (01:07:07):
What name did you do it?

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
In that's their most significant issue. That is the nature
of our boldness. It's a gospel centered, gospel rooted, gospel

(01:07:29):
oriented boldness, and that is where and when our boldness
is required. Newsflash, the world couldn't care less about us
ministering to people.

Speaker 7 (01:07:43):
In fact, the world loves it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Over the last several generations, if you will, we've been
herded into one particular pen And if you watch television
or you watch movies, there is a brand of Christianity
that is completely and utterly acceptable, and it is that
brand of Christianity that sees the church as merely a
place that does soup christiens soup kitchens, and helps people

(01:08:15):
with addiction, finds homes for orphans. If that's all we do,
if that's all the church is, If we give sage advice,
nobody cares.

Speaker 8 (01:08:32):
They will love us.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
But the minute our boldness is attached to the message
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we become uneducated common men.
And if we're not careful, we fall for it. This

(01:09:01):
is why Paul tells Timothy, look with me if you will.
Two Timothy, Chapter four, Two Timothy.

Speaker 8 (01:09:21):
Chapter four.

Speaker 7 (01:09:30):
I charge you. Here is a charge.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
I charge you in the presence of God and of
Jesus Christ. By the way, this is, he starts this
off to Timothy, my beloved son.

Speaker 8 (01:09:43):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
So this is this is a letter from a spiritual
father to a spiritual son. Now, all of a sudden,
stuff's getting formal. I charge you in the presence of
God and of Christ, Jesus who is to judge the
living and the dead, and by his appearing and by

(01:10:06):
his kingdom. What is it that makes this intimate letter
all of a sudden get so formal. Preach the word
be ready in season and odysseason, reprove, rebuke, and exhort
with complete patience and teaching. And why does this need
to be so formal? Why why does Paul, as it were,

(01:10:27):
need to come to this point at the end of
his letter and say, boy, if you don't hear anything else,
listen to this.

Speaker 8 (01:10:38):
Why is this charge so necessary?

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
For the time is coming when people will not endure
sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for
themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn
away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do
the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Speaker 7 (01:11:06):
Why do we need to be charged to do that?

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
Because there's a price to pay when you do that
in the midst of a culture that loves you, if
you do everything else.

Speaker 7 (01:11:21):
But that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
The nature of our boldness has nothing to do with
feeding the poor, nothing. It has nothing to do with
caring for the orphan. You don't need Christian boldness to

(01:11:50):
do that. Pagans do that, and they're loved for it.
They're given awards for it. There are ceremonies in their
honor for it, but not when the gospel is attached.

(01:12:23):
And so the temptation is to do all of that
and not attach to the gospel. That's the nature of
our boldness. But what about the fruit of our boldness,

(01:12:48):
what does it produce? Verse fourteen with Actus, chapter four.
But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them,
they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they
had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with
one another, saying, what shall we do with these men?

(01:13:10):
For that a notable sign has been performed through them
is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we
cannot deny it. Again, the issue is not the sign,
but the sign is there. Essentially, what they're saying is
is neutrality is not an option. These people can't be ignored.

(01:13:35):
These people have to be dealt with, And that's the
fruit of our boldness. We can't be ignored.

Speaker 7 (01:13:48):
We have to be dealt with.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
In the midst of a culture that hates our God
and that hates the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who preach Jesus,
and who do so boldly and publicly and bear fruit
from that preaching, cannot be ignored. Something has to be done.

(01:14:14):
There is a clash that takes place, and this is
why it's so easy not to preach the gospel, because
you can avoid the clash. You can avoid the opposition,
you can avoid the hatred, you can avoid the name calling.
In fact, you can be on the other end of
the spectrum. You can have people love you and applaud you.

Speaker 7 (01:14:37):
If you just stop.

Speaker 8 (01:14:57):
You can get into the Ivy League school, and you
can have.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
A successful matriculation at the Ivy League school and get
a degree from the Ivy League school and do all
the networking that the Ivy League degree brings you. But
if you show up on day one at the Ivy
League school preaching in that name, and you write papers

(01:15:29):
at the Ivy League school.

Speaker 8 (01:15:34):
Based upon that name and that worldview, then it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Doesn't matter if you graduate from the Ivy League school.
Do you know what you call a Christian who graduates
at the top of their class at Havard an uneducated
common man. There is no degree, there is no credential

(01:16:10):
that will wipe the stain of the Gospel off of you. Compromise,
it's the only thing that will do that. The fruit
of our boldness is our position.

Speaker 8 (01:16:39):
Marginalization. It's inevitable.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
We will be called names, we will be shunned, we
will be passed over, we will be accused, we will be.

Speaker 8 (01:17:06):
So what do we do.

Speaker 7 (01:17:10):
Set apart?

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
Christ the Lord is holy, and always be ready to
give an answer to anyone who asks you the reason
for the hope that is in you.

Speaker 7 (01:17:16):
Yet do it with.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
Gentleness and respect, And that brings us to the consequence
of our boldness verse seventeen. But in order that it

(01:17:37):
may spread no further among the people, let us warn
them to speak no more to anyone in this name.
So they called them and charged them not to speak
or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

Speaker 7 (01:18:09):
Just don't use the name of Jesus.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
Heard a testimony recently of one of the biggest, most
successful Christian bands of the nineties, I believe maybe the
early two thousands, and they talked about how you know
this leader of the band talked about how you know
their star was on the rise, and an industry leader

(01:18:38):
came to him and basically said, listen, you guys have everything.
I mean, you've got it all, your sound, your look,
you're this, you're that. You guys have got it all,
if you would just slightly change your lyrics essentially, if

(01:19:11):
you would just not use the name, sing about the
same stuff, just don't use the name, do the same work,
just don't. Just don't use the name. And it's yours.

(01:19:41):
And the fact of the matter is he was telling
the absolute truth, and there are many, there are many
who've done it.

Speaker 7 (01:19:59):
In the name of advancing the gospel.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
We don't want to be a stumbling block and we
don't want to offend people. So what we will do
is we will keep talking about the same thing. We
just won't directly refer to Jesus. But everybody who's a
Christian will know exactly who and what we're talking.

Speaker 8 (01:20:24):
About until they don't, until they don't.

Speaker 7 (01:20:46):
This is where we live. This is where we live.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
I know there are many of you who, on your
jobs you've been told don't use that name. Some of
you may have even been reprimanded for using that name.

Speaker 7 (01:21:09):
And here you are.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
You're forced supposedly to choose between your job and your
sustenance and feeding your family and using that name. And
the temptation in that moment is to say, listen, I
will do the same thing. I will say the same
thing I will just tiptoe around the name. Earlier on,

(01:21:43):
Peter has a word that we need to hear begetting
it in verse eight, remember the question in verse seven,
by what power and by what name did you do this?

Speaker 8 (01:21:54):
Verse eight?

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them,
rulers of the people and elders, if we're being examined
today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by.

Speaker 8 (01:22:10):
What means this man has been healed?

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
Let it be known to all of you and to
all the people of Israel, that by the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised
from the day.

Speaker 8 (01:22:24):
By the way, all he asked for was a name.
Hey man, that's all.

Speaker 7 (01:22:30):
That's all. That's all he asked.

Speaker 8 (01:22:32):
So we just asked for a name. We just asked
for a name.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
But Peter says, I want to make sure you get
the right one, because he's not the only person named Jesus.
I want to make sure that you know which Jesus
I'm talking about.

Speaker 7 (01:22:51):
And I want to make sure that you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
Understand why why this name is significant, why Jesus name
is significant, Because here's the thing. You can use the
name without using the name. You can use the name
in the midst of this culture that just sees Jesus
as as a good man and good teacher and good prophet,

(01:23:15):
and is glad to hear the sayings of Jesus next
to the sayings of Gandhi, next to the sayings of
Muhammad and whomever else.

Speaker 7 (01:23:24):
That's fine if you use.

Speaker 8 (01:23:25):
It that way.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
Ah Peter says, let it be known to all of
you and to all the people that Israel, that by
the name of Jesus of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom
God raised from the dead by him, this man is
standing before you.

Speaker 7 (01:23:41):
Will He's not done. This Jesus, not another Jesus.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you,
the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is
salvation in no one else, For there is there's no
other name under Heaven given among men by which we
must be saved.

Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
That's the name.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
So that's the context here verse eighteen. So they called
them and charged them not to speak or teach at
all in the name of Jesus. Notice what they didn't say.
They didn't say stop healing people. They didn't say stop

(01:24:41):
doing good to people. They didn't say, and they wouldn't
say shut down the soup kitchen, close the orphanage, stop
the recovery meetings. They didn't say that, and they wouldn't

(01:25:08):
say that because all of that is fine Verse nineteen.
But Peter and John answered them, well, we'll just witness
with our lifestyle.

Speaker 8 (01:25:32):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
But Peter and John answered them, whether it is right
in the sight of God to listen to you rather
than God, you must judge submission to authority, submission to authority,
You do what you gotta do, for we cannot but

(01:26:03):
speak of what we have seen.

Speaker 7 (01:26:06):
And heard.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
Let me translate that, for you called him in and said,
do not speak or teach at all in the name
of Jesus anymore. And Peter said, nah, what do you

(01:26:43):
do with that kind of boldness Verse twenty one. I
love I just this is like my favorite. This makes
this makes the text for me. And when they had
further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way
to punish them.

Speaker 8 (01:27:03):
Because of the people. For all we're praising God for
it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
For the man on whom the sign of healing was
performed was more than forty years old that first phrase,
and when they had further threatened them, they let them go.

Speaker 8 (01:27:19):
Don't preach in the name of Jesus. Do you understand me?

Speaker 7 (01:27:26):
Nah, they.

Speaker 8 (01:27:37):
Said no.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
They okay, all right, stop preaching in the name of Jesus,
or we'll take everything you own. Really, because we already
gave away all our stuff and shared it among the brethren.

(01:27:59):
They I got, now, stop preaching in the name of Jesus.
I will put you in jail. You mean like like
Peter was in jail and the Angel got him out.

(01:28:29):
Stop preaching in the name of Jesus, or will kill you.
You mean like you did him before he rose again
on the third day. How do you threaten a dead man,

(01:28:59):
a man who truly believes for me, to live is
Christ and to die is Gain. How do you threaten
that man?

Speaker 7 (01:29:10):
The answer is you can't. The problem with most of
us is we're not dead yet.

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):
We haven't died to self, we haven't died to the world,
and so we desperately desire, and we desperately want, and
we desperately.

Speaker 7 (01:29:40):
Need to be liked and applauded.

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
And so when they threaten to take our stuff, we say, okay,
we'll find a way, we'll find a way to comply.

Speaker 7 (01:29:52):
And then it slips.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
Out and we come back again, and they threaten to
take our freedom when we say no, no, no, no, no, please,
I promise I'll do.

Speaker 7 (01:29:58):
Better this time.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
And then again it slips out and they say we'll
take your life, and you.

Speaker 7 (01:30:03):
Say no, no, please, please don't, please don't.

Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
But when we get a hold of the fact that
we have been crucified with Christ, and yet we live
not I, but Christ who lives in me. Listen, when
we get a hold of that, it changes everything, and

(01:30:49):
we can't be threatened anymore, because no one can take
when you've badly given away already.

Speaker 7 (01:31:05):
It is only then.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
That we can can can rightly exercise this boldness. But
you know how you get there. Peter and John didn't
get there because they tried hard enough. Peter and John
didn't get there because they were made of the right stuff.

Speaker 8 (01:31:26):
Ah, No, we know they weren't. Peter, Peter neither the
crucifixion Peter.

Speaker 7 (01:31:39):
Ah you uh, I don't know. I don't know him.
Three times.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
That Peter. This didn't happen because they were made of
the right stuff. This boldness didn't come from them being
made to the right stock. This boldness was a byproduct
of their genuine, legitimate, life changing encounter with the risen Christ.

(01:32:23):
And that same risen Christ is as real and as
alive to those who place their faith in him today.

Speaker 7 (01:32:34):
As he was to those who saw him after his resurrection.

Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
Who want to be bold, flee to Christ, run to Christ,
cling to Christ, because in and of ourselves we have
no boldness.

Speaker 8 (01:33:05):
But in Christ.

Speaker 2 (01:33:10):
We have only boldness, because in Christ, the spirit who
raised him from the dead abides and resides in us,
and He is the spirit of boldness. Let's bring, Oh,

(01:33:48):
Great God, God, our heavenly Father, God, the creator of
the world and everything in it, God, the sustainer of
the universe, God and Father of our Lord.

Speaker 8 (01:34:12):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 7 (01:34:17):
God.

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
We bow before you as a humble and grateful people,
pleading with you that by your spirit you would make
us as bold as we are, humble and grateful to

(01:34:38):
the end that we might proclaim faithfully the good news
of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray
and ask all these things.

Speaker 8 (01:34:54):
Amen.

Speaker 4 (01:35:04):
Praise God that Jesus Christ is strong and courageous, and
he in us supplies.

Speaker 5 (01:35:10):
Us with what we need that we can be as well.

Speaker 4 (01:35:14):
It's been wonderful for us to be together tonight and
hear God's word preached by doctor Tom Askell and then
doctor Vodi Backam and we're going to take a brief
break now. And there are some among us that are
from McGregor Baptist Church here and who have taken advantage
of childcare that is routinely provided here on Wednesday evenings.
During this break, you will need to go pick up

(01:35:35):
your children. The childcare will not continue. But we're going
to reconvene here in just a few moments. We'll be
back at eight fifteen and at that time we're going
to have a panel discussion with Tom Anddie and myself.

Speaker 5 (01:35:49):
So you're dismissed. We'll return at eight fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
O.

Speaker 10 (01:36:01):
The mayd ad, the bad ad they.

Speaker 13 (01:36:41):
Had the main had go sound s.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
S S.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
S S sound. I suppose at.

Speaker 3 (01:42:01):
St st st st st st st st stop stootsing

(01:44:52):
the thinking.

Speaker 13 (01:44:55):
Nothing you.

Speaker 3 (01:45:01):
Completing thing.

Speaker 13 (01:49:49):
St stem steell st st.

Speaker 1 (01:50:06):
St st st st st st st st st st
st st st st st still.

Speaker 3 (01:50:28):
St st st st st st st st st st

(01:51:25):
st st st.

Speaker 1 (01:51:29):
St si.

Speaker 3 (01:51:34):
Si sign st.

Speaker 1 (01:51:40):
St st st.

Speaker 3 (01:51:45):
St st st stating difftttttter diff.

Speaker 13 (01:55:02):
Play the game.

Speaker 4 (01:58:00):
Well, hey, everybody, if y'all come on in and grab
a seat, we'll go ahead and get started with our
little panel discussion here this evening.

Speaker 5 (01:58:08):
Come on in.

Speaker 4 (01:58:10):
It's been wonderful for us to be together tonight and
hearing the word from these two brothers that was wonderful,
spirit empowered and strengthening to our faith. And it's just
been really good for us to be together and to
remember that Jesus Christ indeed is over all earthly powers.

Speaker 5 (01:58:28):
And we wanted to take some time.

Speaker 4 (01:58:29):
This is slotted for about an hour, maybe just shy
of an hour, where we want to discuss amongst ourselves.
This is going to be much more of kind of
a discussion than a Q and A. For those of
you who don't know voting mentioned voting and Tom go
way back, and I've gotten to know voting in Tom.
I've known for ten to twelve something.

Speaker 5 (01:58:47):
Like that years, and since you were about five, since
I was about five.

Speaker 4 (01:58:52):
Yes, Often in our discussions these guys are talking about, yeah,
it was a great year, it was nineteen eighty three.

Speaker 5 (01:58:57):
I'm like, yeah, I was negative one.

Speaker 7 (01:58:59):
That was great.

Speaker 4 (01:59:00):
So there's just such a rich history and really friendship
and fellowship that we're basically going to kind of be
informal and just discuss a number of matters at hand,
so I'll get it kicked off with this. The Institute
of Public Theology is now launched and classes coming up
in the fall. Three found faculty members here, founding professors,

(01:59:24):
and one of the thrusts of the Institute of Public
Theology is to take the word and apply the word
to all areas of life and just say, this division
of the sacred and the secular has been pushed far
too far. Jesus Christ, King of Kings, He's ascended into
the heavens. His gospel is true, gives us courage, and
we're watching the secular commitments of our own land here

(01:59:47):
in America.

Speaker 5 (01:59:47):
Vote.

Speaker 4 (01:59:48):
He's now over in Africa, has spent life in America.
He's over there watching and aware of what's going on.
We're watching the secularism bear its ugly fruit in our
civil life.

Speaker 5 (01:59:59):
So we're seeing things fall apart.

Speaker 4 (02:00:01):
And the question is to begin with, what role has
the church in America, the Christian Evangelical church played in
that falling apart? Where's our responsibility. What have we left undone?
What have we been doing wrong?

Speaker 9 (02:00:15):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think that's where it begins.
You know, judgment begins in the household of God. It's
time for that, and we need to honestly assess what
we have done and really what we've not been doing.
And in so many ways, the church in America, the
evangelical churches in America, we have been easily swayed by

(02:00:37):
the world.

Speaker 7 (02:00:38):
We have been syncretized. So we've adopted so much of.

Speaker 9 (02:00:43):
The world's way of thinking, so much of the philosophies
and attitudes, dispositions, understanding of things like what success is,
what proper metrics of evaluation for the Christian life and
for church life life is. And we've just been we've

(02:01:03):
been syncretized. So we've become kind of a part of
the culture and satisfied with that, and we've assumed things
to the point of either losing them or marginalizing them.

Speaker 7 (02:01:17):
Most significantly is the Gospel.

Speaker 9 (02:01:19):
And I don't say it lightly, and people get upset,
you know when I say, when we've lost the Gospel
and so now I believe the Gospel. Well, I'm not
saying we don't believe it. But it's like the Gospel
is central, it ought to be central. Everything God has
done for us in Christ. That's not just the threshold
that gets us into a right.

Speaker 7 (02:01:36):
Relationship with God. That is all of life.

Speaker 9 (02:01:38):
If you just read the New Testament letters sometimes and
see how Paul addresses everything in light of the Gospel.
So you know, one Corinthians two, he says, I've determined
to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and crucified.
And it sounds reductionistic. You think, oh, what Paul do,
just stand up and say, Jesus Christ was crucified. Jesus
Christ was crucified. But you read that letter. He deals

(02:01:59):
with sexual emory, he deals with money, he deals with lawsuits, and.

Speaker 7 (02:02:03):
He does it all in terms of the Gospel. It's
all related to Christ. It's not moralism.

Speaker 9 (02:02:08):
It's not hey don't sue each other, and hey, don't
have sex outside of marriage, and hey, you know, do
these right things. It's no, it's Christ. You belong to Christ.
And because you belong to Christ that changes everything. And
because of what God has done for you in Christ,
you need to think about your money differently. You need
to think about how you work differently. A lazy Christian

(02:02:30):
should recognize that he is going against the gospel that
he professes. A stingy Christian she realize that a Christian
who engages in lewd behavior jokes should realize he's going
against the gospel. He's violating his commitment to the gospel.
He's not walking according to the Gospel. So in all

(02:02:51):
of these ways, I think we have had a truncated
understanding of the Gospel.

Speaker 7 (02:02:54):
We've assumed it, and we've tried to do things.

Speaker 9 (02:02:57):
You know, we tried to do what we think might
be good or are right without seeing the fulsome nature
of the Gospel and helping our people to understand it
so that they can do what you preach tonight and
they can stand up and be unintimidated in the face
of all kinds of opposition. So all of that to say, yes,

(02:03:18):
it is time for this kind of evaluation to begin at.

Speaker 7 (02:03:22):
The household of God.

Speaker 9 (02:03:23):
And what we ought to do personally as a pastor,
what I feel very deeply is to repent, acknowledging our failures,
acknowledging that we have not done as we should have done,
and God being our help, we will seek to do
better in whatever time and energy he gives us going
forward to cling to the Gospel, to be unapologetic about it,

(02:03:46):
to be joyful, to not be depressed, to not be defeatist,
but to realize, no, this is the power of God's salvation.

Speaker 7 (02:03:54):
Everybody believes.

Speaker 9 (02:03:55):
And we need to have our churches ordered according to
what the Bible says and not be satisfied to just
do church. We've always done it, but look at what
the Bible says and what a church is has to
operate and then be the stewards of the gospel the
Guy's called us to be.

Speaker 7 (02:04:10):
And we've not done that well.

Speaker 9 (02:04:11):
And I'm talking about me personally, talking about the church
I served, talking about the evangelical churches in this nation.
I think all of us need to honestly evaluate how
we have not done what we should have done with
all that God has entrusted to us.

Speaker 7 (02:04:29):
When we.

Speaker 5 (02:04:31):
Did the film, by what standard right here was in
on that and that was we remember showing it.

Speaker 4 (02:04:38):
So we showed it at the Founder's conference, I guess
two years ago at the Grace Baptist Church, and we
worked so hard on that and there was a lot
of sweat and blood and tears that went into that
and when it got when it was done, the sense
was we needed to repent. We needed to repent because
pastorally it like this happened under our watch. And so

(02:05:03):
we were committed to a number of things, committed to
the Gospel, Jesus Christ, committed to the inerrancy of the Word,
committed to the Confession, committed to reformed doctrine, committed to
all of these things.

Speaker 5 (02:05:13):
And yet how did we miss this?

Speaker 4 (02:05:15):
Like how did these terrible ideologies not only advanced in
the in the world around us?

Speaker 5 (02:05:22):
But then we're coming into the church.

Speaker 4 (02:05:24):
And as I've reflected on that, it does it seems
that there was there was a disconnect in my own
thinking some kind of there was.

Speaker 5 (02:05:31):
A space in which Jesus was not king.

Speaker 4 (02:05:34):
I wouldn't have said that, but it's like that his
ethic did not apply, like the Jesus was king of
the church, not necessarily king of kings, all authority in
the church, but not all authority in heaven and on earth.
And therefore, even when it comes to issues of politics,
issues of economics, issues of vocation, those things are not

(02:05:57):
outside of what God has revealed to us in in
the Word.

Speaker 2 (02:06:01):
And so.

Speaker 4 (02:06:03):
I think that I think that's law. So if you
have Gospel has been neglected, I think God's law also
has been assumed, wrongly understood, certainly wrongly applied.

Speaker 5 (02:06:14):
We haven't understood the connection between that law and all people's.

Speaker 7 (02:06:19):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:06:19):
When I think about that and the church and its role.
Having lived outside the country for the last five years
and this is the second time living outside the country
in the longest time living outside the country, there are
a couple of things that.

Speaker 8 (02:06:36):
Come to mind.

Speaker 7 (02:06:37):
One, America is huge, and the church is huge.

Speaker 2 (02:06:44):
It's almost not fair to talk about the church in
America because America is so huge. There are thousands of
prophets who have never bowed the need to bail, and
there are faithful brothers all all over this country who've
been faithful, who've remained faithful. But one of the things,

(02:07:07):
one of the other realities that I think about in
America is.

Speaker 8 (02:07:12):
Power and acceptance.

Speaker 2 (02:07:16):
Like Christianity in America is so powerful and so accepted,
and churches are so huge, and because of that, there
is this sense in which there's a very public face
of the church. There's a very successful face of the church.
There are churches that have thousands upon thousands of members.

(02:07:39):
You know. I remember one time and here this is
the first time when it just kind of dawned on me.
There was a pastor in the Houston area who talked
about his church and talked about pastor in a small church, Well,
there are five hundred members in his church. That's ridiculous.
You know, the average church in america's less and one

(02:08:00):
hundred members. But he was talking about you know, but
that's because we lived in a city where there were
dozens of churches running five ten thousand, you know what
I mean. And so I think sometimes what we did
is we got this view of American Christianity that was

(02:08:22):
a faulty view of American Christianity, and we thought, what
the big churches are doing is what the church is doing.
What the churches on TV are doing, that's what the
church is doing, right, that's sort of represented what the
church was doing.

Speaker 8 (02:08:38):
And the other thing is we got this.

Speaker 2 (02:08:40):
Idea that that pastor in that small church with fifty
seventy five one hundred people who's faithful, marrying, burying, you know,
preaching and do it, that somehow he was a failure
and he doesn't count in terms of what the church
in America is, or what the church you know in

(02:09:02):
America does. And so I agree that all of these,
all of these things, and all of these problems were
very real, but these problems were really manifested within that
context where this huge country with these huge churches allowed

(02:09:22):
us to see a false picture of what was really
going on and really load us to sleep in a
lot of ways. And the measure of success changed, you know,
even among good brothers, the measure of success changed, and

(02:09:46):
the level of compromise that we can be comfortable with
kind of changed when compromise gets so far out among
those churches that are big, and until you know it's
easy to see like that guy's compromise, then I don't
see my own compromise, you know. So I think there

(02:10:06):
was a whole lot of these other factors at play
that led to some of the downfalls that we've seen.
And I think as I look now, I see all
of a sudden church Christianity falling out of favor in

(02:10:27):
this country where it's been king of the Hill and
the rest of the world knows persecution. We haven't used
those muscles in a long time. So we're absolutely terrified
as to what we're going to do right if we're
no longer you know, king of the hill.

Speaker 8 (02:10:47):
But we'll be okay.

Speaker 2 (02:10:50):
Why because the church has always been okay and the
church always will be okay. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:10:58):
I think we've squandered blessed. Yes, I mean we've had great,
incredible blessings in this country. I mean as a nation,
it's easier to see. I think that you look at
how God's blessed America and what we've done with those blessings.

Speaker 7 (02:11:10):
We've turned them into platforms to rebel against him.

Speaker 9 (02:11:13):
But I think in a similar way the churches, you know,
we've been able to preach without fearing somebody busting through
the door to arrest us. Yep, and without fearing that
you know, our non tax status is going to be
taken from us, or tax exemption can be taken from us.

Speaker 7 (02:11:31):
Well, we may be.

Speaker 9 (02:11:33):
We've already seen this last year doors being closed and
authorities saying you can't do that, and there's already a
lot of talk about the tax exemption being withdrawn.

Speaker 7 (02:11:44):
And I think, well, you know, now we saw that's
that's horrible. We've got to do something. Yeah, we should
have been.

Speaker 9 (02:11:49):
Doing something back there when we had all the blessings
and the freedoms, and we just kind of grew lazy
and we forgot that those freedoms came at a cost.
And people who understood the word, who we're unafraid to
assert the word and to think from the word to
this culture, to this political system, they were under God,

(02:12:12):
the ones that were used to provide the freedom's for us.
I've said before, if we had to, if all the
Christians in America had to get together and found a
new country tomorrow, we'd be in trouble.

Speaker 7 (02:12:24):
Oh yeah, you know we could. We couldn't do what
those guys did back in seventeen seventy six. Yeah, we
couldn't do it. We just don't have it.

Speaker 4 (02:12:31):
And the squandered blessings is really convicting, because you know,
it's just like generational blessing and wealth that comes down
the first guy earns it, you know, second guy.

Speaker 5 (02:12:43):
Uses it, their guy loses it.

Speaker 4 (02:12:45):
And we had these blessings and part of squandering them
is we didn't we didn't have the wisdom and the
teleology to think, I'm going to build something, I'm gonna
do something, I'm going to speak, I'm going to address
the next error I'm going to employ all of these
resources in the battle, and I know there's gonna be Christians.

Speaker 8 (02:13:06):
Because it was right right, it was.

Speaker 7 (02:13:09):
It was all built. I didn't have to plant that.

Speaker 5 (02:13:11):
Yeah, I to sha, yeah, it was built.

Speaker 4 (02:13:14):
And then and then we we secluded us the church
like the you know, big wonderful churches and all of
these things and lots of people that are coming while
there was this secularism out there in the streets that
we were.

Speaker 2 (02:13:26):
Just kind of.

Speaker 4 (02:13:28):
You know, our resources aren't to aren't to go storm
the gates of Hell. I mean, our resources were used
to help us kind of grow fat, you know, and
so we we employed them there. And now the threat
seems to me, the challenge seems to me we weren't
using the resources.

Speaker 5 (02:13:46):
We've been squandering them.

Speaker 4 (02:13:47):
But we still have so many like we still have
so many, right, and so now it's an opportunity for
us to wake up and say, oh, let's start employing
all of these resources, the people and what we have.
I'm not just talking mind plitarily, but the rich theology
that is there in our history. To pray and say, God,
please help us to now be good stewards of what

(02:14:08):
you've given us.

Speaker 8 (02:14:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:14:09):
Yeah, And we were building big churches. And I mean,
I don't think there's anything wrong with big churches. I
praise God for big churches.

Speaker 8 (02:14:18):
Don't hear me saying that.

Speaker 2 (02:14:19):
It's wrong for churches to be big. But I think
the way we were loaded to sleep is our churches
were growing and our influence was growing, and that kind
of lulled us to sleep. While another group of people

(02:14:39):
were saying, let's take that long march through the institutions. Yeah, right,
And they were saying, let's get to the root of this.
They were saying, let's train the next generation of teachers,
Let's train the next generation of lawyers, Let's train the
next generation of politicians with this worldview.

Speaker 8 (02:15:01):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:15:02):
And now a little over a generation later, we're looking
out going what happened?

Speaker 7 (02:15:12):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:15:14):
And there have been people for an entire generation who
were saying, this is happening in the institutions. And we
were saying, but look, we're building this army. We have
churches of thousands, right, we have voting blocks, we have
you know, and so.

Speaker 7 (02:15:35):
We were doing that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:36):
They're playing the long games, we're playing checkers, they're playing chess.

Speaker 5 (02:15:41):
Yeah, that is really that is so convicting and challenging
because it's so right.

Speaker 7 (02:15:47):
Yeah, they were far more entrepreneurial and far more loyal
to their.

Speaker 9 (02:15:53):
Gods than we were to ours. You know, that's the
bottom line, is you think about opportunities. We have to
think beyond this moment and my generation. I mean, I
guess the older I've gotten, the more this has landed
on me heavily too, because I've got, by God's grace,
I've been able to see my children's children and I'm
looking in their eyes. I'm thinking they're growing up in

(02:16:15):
this world and it ain't the same world. And you
know what am I going to do? What are we
going to do for the sake of those kids and
their kids? And I'm not going to live to see
a lot of the fruit of the labor that I
want to engage in. But I benefited from a lot
of the fruit of the labor of people who didn't
see it either, but they labored.

Speaker 4 (02:16:36):
One of the messages that we've been trying to sound
a lot, and you probably hear it in this preconference,
is you know, now is not the time to run
for the hills. I mean, there's a there's an appropriate
way to run from the hills, right to run for
the hills and the Christian commitments.

Speaker 5 (02:16:50):
But now is the time to build and fight. Now
is a time, a maia time.

Speaker 4 (02:16:54):
It is sword and trowel, and you're watching like now
sand Ballot is there, and it's sand Ballot makes things
harder because it was already hard to build the walls,
and now Sandbalot's doing his thing, and we still have
to build the walls. And if we have a Christian
community that has not been taking the long march to
the institutions and really seeking to build, and others have

(02:17:16):
been building, and now the fruits being the fruits now
budding and growing, and we've got people that need to
be trained now to think this way again. And it's
not just about a particular kind of institution, but it's
a vision of building and laboring this cultural mandate of
being fruitful and multiplying and exercising dominion and being wise

(02:17:39):
and looking to proverbs and knowing how to live in
God's world. And so and the challenge is we're kind
of back to the beginning. You might not have a
lot of resources. It might be like, well let's start,
where do we start? You start with the first Brick
and you know ACU, so African Christian University in Zambia,
you're involved in that voting. You're dean of the School
of Divinity there, and you've talked a little bit about this.

(02:18:02):
But why is that university not just a Bible school? Like,
why is it covering? Why is it a university? What
are you thinking about as your laboring there?

Speaker 2 (02:18:10):
Yeah, it's very interesting and I hear that all the time,
especially when we were getting ready to leave. You know, oh,
you guys are getting ready to go start a Bible college, Joe.
You know, you guys are getting ready to go start
a seminary. You guys are getting ready to go. And
I would tell people, no, no, no, First of all,
the reform Baptists of Zambia are starting this institution.

Speaker 8 (02:18:29):
I'm going to put my hand to the plow with
my brother.

Speaker 2 (02:18:31):
I'm not going over as the American with all the
answers to take something right. This is a thirty year
old indigenous, sound, reformed, healthy, multiplying movements that's starting this university.
That was number one, number two. We were going to
help start a classical Christian, liberal arts, biblical worldview university,

(02:18:56):
not just a Bible College, and I would say that
in people's eyes would sort of glaze over, But it's
the same thing, because what I was talking about was
going over there to play chess, not checkers, going over
there to be a part of an institution that would

(02:19:18):
be foundational right, an institution that would play the long game.
And because for so long we haven't thought in those terms,
it was really hard to get people to even register
what it is that we were over there doing and

(02:19:40):
why on earth, you know, we would you know, be over.

Speaker 8 (02:19:44):
There trying to do it.

Speaker 7 (02:19:47):
And so.

Speaker 2 (02:19:49):
Even even there, even even on the ground there, there
were people who just it was so so different that
people just didn't sort of register with people, you know,
why we would do that kind of institution. And so
it's not that we don't care about people dying and

(02:20:10):
going to hell and we don't care about the gospel
being preached, and that we're choosing instead to take this
sort of long view. That's a false dichotomy. We're about
both and right. We're about the sword and the trial
right to borrow from founders. We're about fighting that fight

(02:20:32):
right now, proclaiming the gospel right now, but also recognizing
that should the Lord terry and give us another one
hundred years. There's a specific way that we need to
be planting and sewing right now so that we can

(02:20:52):
see in generations to come the kind of fruit that
led to those great freedoms that we enjoy here. So
I'm living in a country that's the size of Texas
with half its population, So the size of Texas, but
it's got.

Speaker 8 (02:21:10):
Like fourteen to fifteen million people.

Speaker 2 (02:21:12):
It's a constitutionally Christian republic, which you know doesn't mean
a whole lot other than there's no antagonism towards you
know what we're doing. And it gained its independence in
nineteen sixty four from the same people we gained our
independence from. But there George Washington is still alive. Just

(02:21:37):
just think about that context, right, And so we're starting,
you know, a school in the vein of our early
Ivy League schools, the Harvards and Yales and Princeton's who
started with that. You know that that right kind of

(02:21:58):
vision and bore tremendous fruit until they went off the rails.
Number one, We know that they went off the rails.
We know how they went off the rails. So that
gives us great advantage but number two, we have the
great benefit of people who've who've seen the consequences of

(02:22:20):
not being faithful with that kind of opportunity. So, I mean,
it's a it's a really exciting place to be and
it's a really exciting opportunity to have. The other thing
is this, I mean, Europe's gone in terms of the gospel.
Europe's gone. Europe has fallen. So when we think about

(02:22:41):
evangelizing Africa, that's not going to happen from the north
because Europe gone. Right after Europe, you got the Middle East.
They're trying to evangelize Africa, but with with with with Islam.
So if Africa is going to be evangelized, it's going
to happen from the south.

Speaker 8 (02:22:59):
And we're tell Central Africa.

Speaker 2 (02:23:01):
But at ACU, we're not even thinking about We're not
just thinking about that, right, We're not just thinking about
evangelizing the rest of the continent, but we're thinking, who's
going to re evangelize Europe?

Speaker 4 (02:23:16):
Yeah, Tom, you president of the Institute of Public Theology,
and so we've got institutions going on here and this
has recently launched. You know, if you're looking at the
landscape of the chaos that they you know, you kind
of would ask, well, why would I go build an institution?
Now people are burning down buildings, Like why would I

(02:23:36):
go start something that people that when it seems everything
is being torn down? Wouldn't you kind of go once
you go to the monastery, why don't you flee and
go away?

Speaker 5 (02:23:45):
But here's an institution?

Speaker 8 (02:23:46):
Why?

Speaker 9 (02:23:47):
Yeah, Well, I see this as some of the fruit
of my own repentance to try to labor for this.
And we send missionaries around the world, rightly so, and
I would love to be able to send missionary to
the future and to have men trained with the kind
of thinking that we're talking about that we tried to

(02:24:09):
articulate tonight some where that is common, that's foundational to
the way that they understand gospel ministry. That this kind
of subjective pietistic view. And by pietism, I don't just
mean holiness and devotion. I mean the sense that it's
this way, it's me and me and Jesus, or maybe

(02:24:30):
me and you and Jesus, you.

Speaker 7 (02:24:31):
Know, in the church.

Speaker 9 (02:24:32):
But we don't think in terms of culture. We don't
think in terms of the mandate to go and to
spread the Kingdom of Christ.

Speaker 7 (02:24:41):
Throughout every arena of life.

Speaker 9 (02:24:45):
I want to see men trained to think this way
and to understand what it means to minister this, so
that others can be raised up, churches can be raised
up where this is just kind of warp and wo
of how they view the Christian life.

Speaker 7 (02:25:03):
And so we're shooting for ministers. I meant pastors. That's
our primary target.

Speaker 9 (02:25:06):
But we're not going to limit it to just pastors,
so others can take classes. But if God would grant
me enough years and strength to see some men trained
going out planning churches or leading churches with this kind
of holistic view of how the Gospel applies to every
area of life, I would die ecstatic.

Speaker 7 (02:25:27):
And it needs to happen.

Speaker 9 (02:25:30):
I'm not saying it's not happening anywhere else, but I
want to see it happen with the particular kinds of
insights and understandings that have become common in.

Speaker 7 (02:25:40):
Our pretty small circle. You know, we got larger circles
of fellowship and friendship. Praise God for it.

Speaker 9 (02:25:46):
But in terms of thinking like this, thinking aggressively about
how the law of God and the Gospel of God
apply to every area of life, we want to see that.

Speaker 8 (02:26:00):
I think the other issue is.

Speaker 2 (02:26:03):
We have to recognize the reality of institutional inertia. Right.
We tend to have these ideas, and this goes back
to our churches and the way we think about our
churches and putting all of our energies into raising the
church bigger this way instead of multiplying, right, And I

(02:26:24):
think we think that way in terms of institutions as well.
You know, you start a seminary and then the goal
is to make that as big as it possibly can
so that everybody can come here and be trained.

Speaker 8 (02:26:39):
That's not New Testament thinking, right.

Speaker 2 (02:26:42):
We need to multiply these institutions like we multiply churches,
because the other side of that is it's the church's
job to raise up multi generational leaders, and institutions need
to partner with churches in that process. And if we
believe that, then we won't have just a few institutions

(02:27:04):
that say everybody come here, but we will multiply institutions
so that there can be more of that kind of
partnership happening. And beyond that, we need to recognize that
we don't need the same kind of institution. We don't
have a corner on the truth you know, one of

(02:27:26):
the things that I've been learning and realizing is we
don't all have to stand on the same wall. What
I mean by that is this, we've all run into
Christians who are passionate about their thing, right, whatever their
thing is. I mean, they just get on fire about

(02:27:48):
their thing, and it's the most important thing in the world.
They're committed to it. They give their time, they give
their energy, they give their effort.

Speaker 8 (02:27:57):
This it's the thing.

Speaker 2 (02:27:59):
Not only is it the thing for them, but anybody
else who doesn't see it as the thing is not
being a good Christian.

Speaker 8 (02:28:07):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:28:09):
It's not that other Christians can have other things right,
or even have a different part.

Speaker 8 (02:28:16):
In that fight for example, right, And.

Speaker 2 (02:28:22):
I think sometimes we're guilty of that when we think
about our institutions. Right, Not every institution is going to
be great at everything. And so that's another reason we
need to multiply these types of institutions so that there
can be people standing on different walls and training people
for different posts, and not everybody is being a cookie

(02:28:45):
cutter going out there to do the same thing and
fight in the same area of the fight.

Speaker 9 (02:28:50):
That's a great point, and that does come right back
to the Institute of Public Theology.

Speaker 7 (02:28:56):
We're putting this thing together.

Speaker 9 (02:28:58):
The thought in my mind was, okay, that we need
to have men who will teach in this institution who
have rock ribbed convictions.

Speaker 7 (02:29:08):
So they're not just theoretical in their confession.

Speaker 9 (02:29:11):
They're not saying, oh, I've signed the abstract principles, or
I'll sign.

Speaker 7 (02:29:14):
The Baptist faith the message of course I believe that.

Speaker 9 (02:29:16):
No, they're rock rib They're down on the ground saying
this is what our confession means, this is how we
apply it, and not just men a conviction. But this
is a phrase I've used and it's resonated, and so
I'm going to keep coming back to it. I want
men who have blood mixed with their convictions and so
their convictions have cost them something. And by God's grace,

(02:29:39):
he has assembled that type of team. And what you said, Yeah,
we're not trying to be some other school over here.
We've got a pretty clear sense of what we're hoping
to see men access and grow in to serve and
be a part of churches that will do something similar
to that may not look exactly the same, but we're

(02:30:00):
they will go and try to replicate this same understanding
of how the Gospel works in these areas and if
God enables us to do that, and I believe he will,
I really do. It's amazing. It is amazing how this
has come together in less than a year. Although somebody
asked me the other day, you know how you been

(02:30:21):
thinking about this? That's about thirty five.

Speaker 7 (02:30:23):
Years, you know.

Speaker 9 (02:30:23):
So it's happened in a year, but it's been out
of a lifetime of kind of thinking about these types
of things. But to see the way God has assembled
the team, and it's still assembling.

Speaker 7 (02:30:34):
We're not finished.

Speaker 9 (02:30:35):
And the response, the responsiveness from students. We got folks
already interested in and churches and pastors that are interested.
I'm very, very hopeful that this can be a useful
instrument for if God pleased, for generations to come.

Speaker 4 (02:30:51):
There's a number of doctrines that have to be addressed,
and Tom and I recently wrote a book, Strong and Courageous,
following Jesus amid the Rise of America's New Religion. In
the front and the very introduction, we detail a number
of doctrines and there's just so many doctrines that are
important to grass. But one of them, one of them
is just thinking about your life for the service of Christ.

Speaker 7 (02:31:14):
And by that.

Speaker 4 (02:31:16):
The problem is we interpret even that phrase and kind
of light of this Pietism that I was just steeped
in myself, and we don't mean anytime we talk about Pietism,
we don't mean to talk. It's not saying that reading
the Bible and praying is bad or wrong, absolutely, but
you know, I remember equating that with godliness. So godliness
is reading the Bible and praying and going to church,

(02:31:37):
and then the fruit of the spirit and the work
of faith and the labor of love, like living in
the world for Christ is kind of I don't have
to do that. And what I do with work as men,
what we do is, well, we just provide for our
households and we'll kind of do that, whether it's just
moving a rock from one side of the street to
the other. We're not thinking about the world and not
loving people, and so we say, well, we're not entrepreneurs.

(02:31:57):
Well maybe not everybody's wired up in the same way.
But my hope is as we're as at this conference,
we're talking about institutions that have been started and worked
that people would see I don't have to be a
pastor to get some of that flavor. You know, there's
a member of our church. He contacted me and said,
you know, Pastor, I'm at my work. I met a
zoom meeting COVID. Stuff's going on.

Speaker 8 (02:32:20):
Hr is there.

Speaker 4 (02:32:21):
Everybody's on the screen and they say, everybody John here
is now Jill, and everyone will refer to John as Jill.
You'll use her personal pronouns. She'll be used in the
ladies bathroom. If you get calls from people that ask
for John, you need to explain the situation to them
and transfer them to Jill.

Speaker 8 (02:32:39):
And he said, I don't think I can do this.

Speaker 5 (02:32:42):
I said, you're right, I don't think you can.

Speaker 4 (02:32:43):
You know, John, you know, and as he's dealing with
that in vocation, I said, you know, I bet there's
some employees at that company who don't want to live
under that tyranny, who don't want to live under that system.

Speaker 7 (02:32:58):
And so what do you do.

Speaker 4 (02:33:00):
I'm going to start. I'm going to serve people well,
I'm going to initiate something and that can be replicated
over anything. If you're a homemaker, if you're a student,
if whatever it is you do. Starting to think no,
Jesus Christ is King, and yes, this world is crumbling,
and rebellion is never a good long term strategy in
the world God made, and so starting to make some
of those connections in our lives thinking of our families

(02:33:23):
that way. You know, when we I mean think about it.
If you're a start an institution, we want to raise
up men who will go do things, who go start institutions.
I don't want to raise up people that are only
going to come back. It's like our children are meant
to be arrows. They're raised up and sent out to
serve Christ in the world. We want the same thing
in the institutions. And it used to be a pattern
of our thought as we're watching things crumble around us.

Speaker 5 (02:33:48):
Well, how about this pragmatism. We've been dealing with that
a lot, and.

Speaker 4 (02:33:57):
Both you Tom, you mentioned both President Ronald Trump and
now President Joe Biden, and it's been something that's been
talked about a lot in relationship to materialism and to
Marxist thought. There's just a material world, just a pragmatic world,
and all we do is we kind of pull levers here.

Speaker 5 (02:34:14):
That seems to be a present thought in all of this.

Speaker 4 (02:34:17):
And when you think about building institutions and trying to
serve the Lord.

Speaker 5 (02:34:21):
You can start to say, well, I see that works,
that's what works. I'm going to do what works. What
is pragmatism? What's the danger of it?

Speaker 8 (02:34:28):
What are we to do?

Speaker 7 (02:34:33):
Well? Yeah's your birthday, you know, so you should answer.

Speaker 9 (02:34:40):
Right, Well, pragmatism is basically not thinking that there is
a god, you know. It's it's viewing the world in
terms of cause and effect that you have control over.
So you do whatever works, and you've got a certain
set of metrics that are applied to determine whether it
works well or not. And those metrics then determine what

(02:35:03):
you're going to do.

Speaker 7 (02:35:04):
So if you.

Speaker 9 (02:35:06):
You know, you use red light. I'll just give you
an example from my own church background. The second church
I ever served, we were told by some consultants that
we had the wrong colored lights in the auditorium and
that if we would put in a different colored.

Speaker 7 (02:35:21):
Lights that we would see growth. And so, at great expense,
all the lights.

Speaker 9 (02:35:28):
Were changed to a different hue so that we could
see growth, and I think we did see people come
in and so they said, well, you see there, it works,
And so we just got on that train and it
was one thing after another. I was young and foolish
as a staff member, and this didn't go well. But
it was in a staff meeting. They were talking about

(02:35:50):
the church down the road had a lot of people
that were walking down the aisle every Sunday, and the
pastor I was serving with said, you know, even if
the spirit's not at work, it looks like he's at work,
and said said, we got to do something like that.

Speaker 7 (02:36:02):
And I said, well, I got an idea. Why don't
we give everybody a color TV that makes it down front?

Speaker 9 (02:36:07):
And I think it would have worked, But they didn't
try it, you know, and I didn't get any bonus
points for suggesting it.

Speaker 7 (02:36:13):
But that's I mean, pragmatisms. What works? What are you
trying to do? Let's figure out the best way. You
forget that there's God in heaven.

Speaker 9 (02:36:19):
And so the contrast to pragmatism is being principled. It's
having principles that God has that arise from his word
and you say this is what.

Speaker 7 (02:36:29):
We're going to do.

Speaker 9 (02:36:30):
We're going to plant, we're going to water, and we're
going to trust God to give the increase. And if
we don't see the increase exactly the way we think
it should happen, or we'd love for it to happen.

Speaker 7 (02:36:38):
We're going to continue to plant and continue to water.

Speaker 9 (02:36:41):
We're not going to manufacture plants and stick them in
the ground and say, look, we got to harvest.

Speaker 1 (02:36:47):
It.

Speaker 9 (02:36:47):
Was not going to do that because we have a book,
and this book comes from our God, and so we're
going to try to live according to that and pragmatism.
There's a difference between pragmatism being practical. We certainly want
to be and the Bible's practical. So I'm not suggesting that,
but it's ordered on the principles that God has revealed,

(02:37:10):
not just basing what we think will work, letting that
be the determining factor of what we do.

Speaker 8 (02:37:17):
The end doesn't justify the means.

Speaker 7 (02:37:20):
I wish i'd said that I could have saved twenty minutes.

Speaker 5 (02:37:24):
That's why you wanted to go second.

Speaker 8 (02:37:28):
Yeah, that and I remember that that whole era. You know,
I sort of came into.

Speaker 2 (02:37:36):
Pastoral ministry public ministry during that whole era of pragmatism
and the church growth movement, and you know, going to
different meetings and being on church staffs and being taken
to different churches that were big and successful, so that

(02:37:56):
we could learn how to become big and successful.

Speaker 9 (02:38:01):
Did you ever hear about Disney University. No, Disney University.
I don't know what they do there, But there was
a time, maybe still is, where churches would send their
pastors to Disney University in order to learn methods of
growth and way things could be done more efficiently and success.

Speaker 7 (02:38:24):
And that's it.

Speaker 2 (02:38:24):
Yeah, and that that that that spirit of pragmatism. There
was a whole generation marked by that, that spirit of pragmatism,
and really sort of the emerging, the emergent church movement.

Speaker 8 (02:38:40):
The emergent church movement was a response to that era.
And it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:38:48):
You had a generation of young people who grew up
in you know, youth ministry and their churches that were
purely pragmatic and they were looking for something transcendent. And
that that whole emerging Church movement, Emerging Church movement was
was was sort of a reaction, if you will, to

(02:39:10):
that that era of radical pragmatism in church growth. And
of course they fell in the ditch on the other
side of the road, you know.

Speaker 4 (02:39:21):
Yeah, those are those are pietism and pragmatism Pietism. The
danger is you're not you're not paying attention to the
world God made, and you're not trying to live wisely
in God's world, seriously committed to devotional life, but you're
not thinking about you know, what is the way of
wisdom here? That The danger of that pragmatist is he
gets something right. He sees blue lights work. I don't

(02:39:43):
know if that one actually true, the pink pink lights work.
But he, the pragmatist, sees I pull that lever and
that happened, and well, God, we know God made the
world to work this way, and so there is some
wisdom in it. But the pragmatist forgets the God who
makes it work, and so he just begins to pull levers.
And what's why I think that's such a danger now

(02:40:06):
is because I do believe that we've adopted the pragmatism
of American life in the way that we're operating in
Christian institutions.

Speaker 5 (02:40:16):
And we see who now has the upper hand, and
it's not the Christians.

Speaker 4 (02:40:21):
And so you know, you look at the different lobbying
communities and you're thinking about tax exempt status, and you're
looking at that hill, and you know, courage says, go,
I need to die on that hill. You mentioned this,
die die itself. But pragmatism, full fledged pragmatism doesn't say die.

(02:40:42):
Full fledged pragmicism. We're not going to win that battle.
We're not going to win that battle. You're not Old Testament.
You know you you take that side. I'll take this side.
Make God do what seems good to him.

Speaker 5 (02:40:54):
We have to fight, we have to go. And you know,
I mean there's just two men, any.

Speaker 4 (02:41:02):
Shrewd and wise leaders right now that are seen that
that haven't grasped there's a God in heaven and that
the spirit works and that you know, I mean dry bones, Hey,
dry bones. You don't preach to dry bones. If you're
a full fledged practice, they're dead bones.

Speaker 5 (02:41:19):
I'm not going to preach to them. But there's a
God in heaven and we need that.

Speaker 4 (02:41:22):
Again, it just seeded throughout the Christian community as we're
watching kind of the enemy come in. Yeah, what else
do you I, guys have I'm out of questions?

Speaker 5 (02:41:34):
Do you have anything else you want to say?

Speaker 2 (02:41:36):
Well?

Speaker 5 (02:41:36):
I got notebooks of questions, but I think I'll get
them all. Man, what else do you want to talk about? Anything? Else,
courage for Christ.

Speaker 4 (02:41:42):
Any final words of encouragement to folks here as they
are going to go to the Founder's conference, but then
they'll be going back to their homes. Some pastors, some Christians,
you know, inaugurations just happen.

Speaker 9 (02:41:53):
Man, Yeah, I just want to underscore that this is
a this is a great day, This is a day
of been, this opportunity for us, and the opportunity is
not going to be glamorous, but it is an opportunity
for faithfulness and to really take God at his word.

Speaker 7 (02:42:11):
You know, there's there's that who is it a Paphrus?
I think it was at Paul Comman's and Philippians.

Speaker 9 (02:42:18):
Who risked his life for the sake of the gospel.
And the idea is he gambled his life. It's like, okay,
you got the dice. You know, I've got one life.
You roll it, you know, you trust God to see
how it turns out. And we needed we need that,
We need to do that because I do think compromise.
We've seen compromise, and I think we're going to see

(02:42:39):
increasing compromise. And I you know, I don't, I don't don't.
I've got enough send in my own heart to deal with.
And I'm not trying to cast stones at others, but
i can tell you I've been very disappointed, very disappointed
with many evangelical leaders in how this last year has
just revealed things in their thinking and in their counsel. So,

(02:43:04):
how to have the Lord's Supper online? You know, how
to have baptisms online? And you know, and praise God
that we got technology, let's use it. Well, but when
you start talking about church online, baptism online, Lord's Supper online,
you've forgotten we.

Speaker 7 (02:43:24):
Have a book.

Speaker 9 (02:43:25):
And whenever you've got like the governor of Virginia said,
you know, you don't have to you don't have to
worship God with other people. I believe that you can
with God is wherever you are. And so do the
right thing and just you know, keep dish. And you
got some church leaders and well, yeah, that's right, that's right.

(02:43:47):
I mean whenever whenever our evangelical leaders start taking counsel
from our politicians.

Speaker 7 (02:43:54):
You know, Houston, we got a problem, right, we just
we got to.

Speaker 9 (02:43:58):
So so what an opportunit unity though for us to
come back to the scriptures and say, wait a minute,
does God say anything about this? Has there ever been
a time in the history of the church, or was
there a time in the Bible when things were a
little dangerous to meet you know, I mean good night.
Well anyhow, so opportune day, opportune day, let's take advantage

(02:44:22):
of it. Let's risk our lives and if we perish,
we perish. But man, that'll be more christ So if
God will help us to see that, to live that way,
so that we're not holding our lives dear to ourselves
and we are determined to live as boldly as we
can for the advance of this gospel that has been
given to us. I think that there are people who

(02:44:45):
will see that, and, by the grace and power of God,
will respond to that.

Speaker 7 (02:44:51):
I mean, I've seen it. We've seen it in our church.

Speaker 9 (02:44:53):
We heard stories from other churches where we've let people
show up just because they I wanted to be where
there wasn't a lot of fear and where there wasn't
a lot of capitulation without thoughtfulness. I'm not casting stones
at anybody that has done it differently than we've done it.
But this is an opportunity for God's people to go

(02:45:13):
back to the book, take God to this word, to
live wisely and to live in faith, not capitulating to
the gods.

Speaker 7 (02:45:21):
Of the age that we're all being told that we
need to.

Speaker 5 (02:45:24):
Bow to Amen.

Speaker 4 (02:45:27):
Well, brothers, thank you for this conversation, and thank you
all for coming to this preconference. And we do request
your prayers for the coming days. We have been working
and excited about all that's coming and just rejoicing the
way God has already blessed it. And we've been reminded
of the need to pray that God indeed would empower
his word as it's priest by the spirit. So let

(02:45:49):
me pray now and then we'll be dismissed. Father God,
we thank you for your grace among us and for
your word. Thank you for the word that's been preached
tonight by Tom and vote. Thank you this discussion, and
we pray that you would give us wisdom and that
you would give us courage, and that you would remind
us that Jesus Christ is at your right hand interceding
for us.

Speaker 5 (02:46:09):
Even now. Why in the world should we be dismayed?

Speaker 4 (02:46:12):
Oh God, we confess that we've been dismayed, and we've
been fearful, and we've been anxious, and we haven't done
all that you've told us to do in your word,
and we're eager to do it now. We thank you
that Jesus has shed his blood for us, and that
he has risen again. And we pray that you would
bless all these who've gathered here tonight, that they would
greatly benefit from the word that has been praised, that
you would strengthen their faith, that you'd make them strong

(02:46:34):
and courageous.

Speaker 5 (02:46:35):
And we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.