Above All Earthly Powers Courage for Christ in the Public Square

S S S S S S S S S S. S, the. Plain, the word, the newbor. Let me s. 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. You this evening. 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. Public courage for Christ. 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 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. We love you. Dear brother. Tom is a wonderful spiritual father to me. Come here, I love you, and it's his birth A small gift there. Stay up here because Tom loves when people sing him Happy birthday. He just does. 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. Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Tom, Happy birthday too. All right, sorry, get done one there. 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. God. 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 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. To access the live stream that begins tomorrow. 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 your son, Jesus Christ, who has crucified and risen for us. We fix our eyes upon you. For all of this we prayed in Jesus' name. Amen. 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. We're delighted to be here for this occasion. 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 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 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. The church's responsibility is to proclaim Christ. And we are to do that. 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. Normal means, just as it has continued to spread throughout the last two thousand years. Christ must be known, he must be proclaimed, he must be trusted, he must be loved. No matter what the cost are consequences. 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 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. Three, in this world you will have tribulations. 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 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 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 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 the ideological agendas that are gaining ascendancy in our culture. 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. 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, I am with you always. Even to the end of the age. 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 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 need to remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, as Paul writes to Timothy of the Seed of David. According to my. 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 and recognize that right now our crucified, risen Savior sits enthroned in heaven. He is ruling, he is reigning. 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 of your enemies are subdued. The Book of Acts is a record of normal Christians living like they really. Believe that a dead man came back from the dead, never to die again, and. 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, 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. The God Man now and one day will. 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 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. 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? 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. Dead by him. This man is standing before you. 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, 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 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. 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 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 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. And we are. 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 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 twelve is the martyrdom of. James, the brother of the Lord Jesus. 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. A follower of Jesus Christ? 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 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. These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, I. 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? How did they do it? The Resurrection of Jesus. 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 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. He's the first fruits of all who have fallen asleep. And then listen to his theological reasoning that puts steel in the backbone. Of all those who know Christ. 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. Destroying every rule and every authority. And power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. Paul was confident there's going to be victory. There's going to be success because his crucified risen Savior is exalted in heaven and. Ruling and overruling for that very purpose. 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. They were people. And Paul says, why do I put up with this? Why do I let people abuse me? 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, then dying daily. If that's true, then gambling your life for the sake of the Gospel. It makes perfect sense. 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, 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 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, the fullness of Him who. Feels all in all. Paul says, I want you to get that. 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. Brothers and sisters. 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 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. 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. The Scottish pastor. 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 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 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 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 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 know another thing he's doing in heaven, he's laughing. He's laughing. 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. 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. He laughs at Klaus Schwab of. 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. And the bonds of his creator. 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 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 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, 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. And Jesus Christ has not changed. 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. For us to shine brightly in what Paul calls this crooked. 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. Say, you know what this is. This is a target rich environment. 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 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 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. They need to be taught the Gospel of Christ. 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 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 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 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. Imagine if they had said. 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 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 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. Look you, sir, their ages yet to come. 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. Today we have come to a turning point in the road. 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? For the day? Brothers and sisters, before God, let us. 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 we have in Christ is a crucified, risen ascended, heavenly. Ruling and reigning Lord and Savior. 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. Let's pray, our Father, We thank you for giving us your word. 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. We asked that you would make us faithful in our day. 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 our joy, give us boldness and determination to live for Christ. For we pray in his name. 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. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Oh, praise all creatureous heby. Praise, himbove he heavnly host, praise fins son and holdly. Go Ah, you may be seated. Amen. 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. 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. 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 for us, and he has risen for us, and he has ascended for us, interceding for us. Even now. We rejoice that he is above all earthly powers. 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. Will we pray this in Jesus' name? Amen? 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 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 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 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 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 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. Chapter four, and we'll look at. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 one occasion, I had somebody just sort of walk right into it. You know, you want of these people who believes that God created. The world in a week, of course, not. 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 who are Christians in the public sphere have have learned better? Have you not learned better? 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? But it's not just that. 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 are things like, you know, do you really not understand that sexual orientation is just that sexual orientation? Are you really that ignorant? 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 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. One of the finest legal minds of our day, or those who. 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 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. And not your lying on. 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, 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. In chapter three. Look at verse six. 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. Verse eleven. 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. And you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses, and his. Name by faith in his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. And the faith that is through Jesus. Has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all And in verse nineteen, repent therefore and turn back, that your. Sins may be blotted out. That's what makes them uneducated common men. The gospel that they preach, that's what. Classifies us as uneducated common men. The gospel that we preach. That we believe that God created the world, and that we believe that He created one man, Adam, and through that one man Adam. Created all men. 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, 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. We believe that. 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? How about that? Oh boy couldn't walk. Now he can walk, running, shouting, dancing, everything else. And the Sanhedrin wants to know. What name did you do it? In that's their most significant issue. That is the nature of our boldness. It's a gospel centered, gospel rooted, gospel oriented boldness, and that is where and when our boldness is required. Newsflash, the world couldn't care less about us ministering to people. In fact, the world loves it. 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 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. They will love us. 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 is why Paul tells Timothy, look with me if you will. Two Timothy, Chapter four, Two Timothy. Chapter four. I charge you. Here is a charge. 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. Amen. 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 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, 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. Why is this charge so necessary? 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. Why do we need to be charged to do that? 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. But that. 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 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. 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, 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? 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. These people have to be dealt with, And that's the fruit of our boldness. We can't be ignored. We have to be dealt with. 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. 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. If you just stop. You can get into the Ivy League school, and you can have. 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 at the Ivy League school. Based upon that name and that worldview, then it. 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 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. Marginalization. It's inevitable. We will be called names, we will be shunned, we will be passed over, we will be accused, we will be. So what do we do. Set apart? 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. Yet do it with. Gentleness and respect, And that brings us to the consequence of our boldness verse seventeen. But in order that it 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. Just don't use the name of Jesus. 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 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 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. And the fact of the matter is he was telling the absolute truth, and there are many, there are many who've done it. In the name of advancing the gospel. 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. About until they don't, until they don't. This is where we live. This is where we live. 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. And here you are. 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, 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? Verse eight? 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. What means this man has been healed? 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. By the way, all he asked for was a name. Hey man, that's all. That's all. That's all he asked. So we just asked for a name. We just asked for a name. 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. And I want to make sure that you. 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, and is glad to hear the sayings of Jesus next to the sayings of Gandhi, next to the sayings of Muhammad and whomever else. That's fine if you use. It that way. 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. Will He's not done. This Jesus, not another Jesus. 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. That's the name. 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 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 say that because all of that is fine Verse nineteen. But Peter and John answered them, well, we'll just witness with our lifestyle. I'm sorry. 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 speak of what we have seen. And heard. 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 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. Because of the people. For all we're praising God for it happened. 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. Don't preach in the name of Jesus. Do you understand me? Nah, they. Said no. 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. 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. 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, a man who truly believes for me, to live is Christ and to die is Gain. How do you threaten that man? The answer is you can't. The problem with most of us is we're not dead yet. 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. Need to be liked and applauded. And so when they threaten to take our stuff, we say, okay, we'll find a way, we'll find a way to comply. And then it slips. 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. Better this time. And then again it slips out and they say we'll take your life, and you. Say no, no, please, please don't, please don't. 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 we can't be threatened anymore, because no one can take when you've badly given away already. It is only then. 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. Ah, No, we know they weren't. Peter, Peter neither the crucifixion Peter. Ah you uh, I don't know. I don't know him. Three times. 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. And that same risen Christ is as real and as alive to those who place their faith in him today. As he was to those who saw him after his resurrection. Who want to be bold, flee to Christ, run to Christ, cling to Christ, because in and of ourselves we have no boldness. But in Christ. 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, 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. Jesus Christ. God. 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 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. Amen. Praise God that Jesus Christ is strong and courageous, and he in us supplies. Us with what we need that we can be as well. 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 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. So you're dismissed. We'll return at eight fifteen. O. The mayd ad, the bad ad they. Had the main had go sound s. S S. S S sound. I suppose at. St st st st st st st st stop stootsing the thinking. Nothing you. Completing thing. St stem steell st st. St st st st st st st st st st st st st st st still. St st st st st st st st st st st st st. St si. Si sign st. St st st. St st st stating difftttttter diff. Play the game. 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. Come on in. 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. And we wanted to take some time. 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. Like that years, and since you were about five, since I was about five. Yes, Often in our discussions these guys are talking about, yeah, it was a great year, it was nineteen eighty three. I'm like, yeah, I was negative one. That was great. 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, 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 in America. Vote. 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. So we're seeing things fall apart. 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? 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 the world. We have been syncretized. So we've adopted so much of. 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 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. Most significantly is the Gospel. 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. Relationship with God. That is all of life. 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 with sexual emory, he deals with money, he deals with lawsuits, and. He does it all in terms of the Gospel. It's all related to Christ. It's not moralism. 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 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 of these ways, I think we have had a truncated understanding of the Gospel. We've assumed it, and we've tried to do things. 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, it is time for this kind of evaluation to begin at. The household of God. 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, to be joyful, to not be depressed, to not be defeatist, but to realize, no, this is the power of God's salvation. Everybody believes. 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. And we've not done that well. 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. When we. Did the film, by what standard right here was in on that and that was we remember showing it. 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 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. And yet how did we miss this? Like how did these terrible ideologies not only advanced in the in the world around us? But then we're coming into the church. 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. A space in which Jesus was not king. 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 outside of what God has revealed to us in in the Word. And so. 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. We haven't understood the connection between that law and all people's. Well. 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. Come to mind. One, America is huge, and the church is huge. 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, one of the other realities that I think about in America is. Power and acceptance. 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. 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 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 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. And the other thing is we got this. 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 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 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 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 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 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. But we'll be okay. Why because the church has always been okay and the church always will be okay. Yeah. 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. We've turned them into platforms to rebel against him. 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. Well, we may be. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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. Uses it, their guy loses it. 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. Because it was right right, it was. It was all built. I didn't have to plant that. Yeah, I to sha, yeah, it was built. 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. Just kind of. 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. We've been squandering them. 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 you've given us. Yeah. 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. Don't hear me saying that. 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 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. Right. And now a little over a generation later, we're looking out going what happened? Right? 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. We were doing that. They're playing the long games, we're playing checkers, they're playing chess. Yeah, that is really that is so convicting and challenging because it's so right. Yeah, they were far more entrepreneurial and far more loyal to their. 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 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. 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. But now is the time to build and fight. Now is a time, a maia time. 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 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 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. 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? 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. I'm going to put my hand to the plow with my brother. 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, 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 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 why on earth, you know, we would you know, be over. There trying to do it. And so. 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 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 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 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. Like fourteen to fifteen million people. 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 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 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 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 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. And we're tell Central Africa. 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? 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 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? But here's an institution? Why? 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 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 me and you and Jesus, you. Know, in the church. 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. Throughout every arena of life. 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. And so we're shooting for ministers. I meant pastors. That's our primary target. 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. And it needs to happen. 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. Our pretty small circle. You know, we got larger circles of fellowship and friendship. Praise God for it. 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. I think the other issue is. 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 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. That's not New Testament thinking, right. 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 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 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 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. This it's the thing. 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. Right. It's not that other Christians can have other things right, or even have a different part. In that fight for example, right, And. 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 cutter going out there to do the same thing and fight in the same area of the fight. That's a great point, and that does come right back to the Institute of Public Theology. We're putting this thing together. The thought in my mind was, okay, that we need to have men who will teach in this institution who have rock ribbed convictions. So they're not just theoretical in their confession. They're not saying, oh, I've signed the abstract principles, or I'll sign. The Baptist faith the message of course I believe that. 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, 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 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 thinking about this? That's about thirty five. Years, you know. 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. We're not finished. 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. 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. And by that. 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, 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. 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. Hr is there. 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. And he said, I don't think I can do this. I said, you're right, I don't think you can. 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. And so what do you do. 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 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. Well, how about this pragmatism. We've been dealing with that a lot, and. 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. That seems to be a present thought in all of this. And when you think about building institutions and trying to serve the Lord. 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? What are we to do? Well? Yeah's your birthday, you know, so you should answer. 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 you're going to do. So if you. 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. Lights that we would see growth. And so, at great expense, all the lights. 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 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. And I said, well, I got an idea. Why don't we give everybody a color TV that makes it down front? 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. 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. 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. We're going to do. 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. We're going to continue to plant and continue to water. We're not going to manufacture plants and stick them in the ground and say, look, we got to harvest. It. 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, not just basing what we think will work, letting that be the determining factor of what we do. The end doesn't justify the means. I wish i'd said that I could have saved twenty minutes. That's why you wanted to go second. Yeah, that and I remember that that whole era. You know, I sort of came into. 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 we could learn how to become big and successful. 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. And that's it. 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. The emergent church movement was a response to that era. And it's interesting. 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 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. 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 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 is because I do believe that we've adopted the pragmatism of American life in the way that we're operating in Christian institutions. And we see who now has the upper hand, and it's not the Christians. 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. 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. We have to fight, we have to go. And you know, I mean there's just two men, any. 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. I'm not going to preach to them. But there's a God in heaven and we need that. 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? Do you have anything else you want to say? Well? 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. 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. 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. You know, there's there's that who is it a Paphrus? I think it was at Paul Comman's and Philippians. 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 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, 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. Have a book. 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. I mean whenever whenever our evangelical leaders start taking counsel from our politicians. You know, Houston, we got a problem, right, we just we got to. 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 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 will see that, and, by the grace and power of God, will respond to that. I mean, I've seen it. We've seen it in our church. 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 back to the book, take God to this word, to live wisely and to live in faith, not capitulating to the gods. Of the age that we're all being told that we need to. Bow to Amen. 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 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. Even now. Why in the world should we be dismayed? 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 and courageous. And we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.