TSTT Regenerate Church Membership Sexual Abuse in the SBC ChangeTheDirection

Welcome to the Sword and Trowe podcasts. The Sword and the Trial is a ministry of founders. Ministries and founders exist for the recovery of the Gospel and the reformation of local churches. I'm Tom Askell and I'm Graham Gundan. Glad to have you with us today as we look forward to having a wonderful conversation with our dear friend and brother Vody Balcom coming to us all the way from Lusaka, Zambia. So Vodi, welcome to the Sword in the Trial. Hey, thank you, brothers. I'm glad to be with you again. I always look forward to our time together always. I do too. This is great now, of course it's best. It's best in studio. You know. It takes too long because we cut up so much. So I'll take this. Yeah, these podcasts would be two hours long if we if we didn't have so much fun beforehand. So yeah, that's true. We got some things coming up. Graham, just quickly before we jump into the conversation, tell us what's going on. Yes, So we have a promotion going through to the end of this month, the end of May, and that is for those who want to join and support of Founders Ministries as a fan member of Founders Alliance member. For anyone who joins at the Shield Sword or Ally level, which are different levels of support, you can find that on our website. For anyone who joins at one of those levels you get a free signed book by either doctor Askell or doctor Bachham, and so it's a great opportunity to be able to get some good books and get some signatures there. Also, the conference rates go up for our conference coming up in January at the end of the month as well. January first rates are going up, so if you plan on coming down to Southwest Florida, Palm Trees, Sun all the good stuff in the middle of January, be sure to register before the end of the month. Yeah. The theme is what is Man? And we'll also just be able to tell you what a woman is as well, so you know if you've been in the dark about that, we're going to address those issues. Body, you will be there, I'll be there, Ji'll beeek, you'll be there. We look forward to having you. Which one of you as a biologist? Hey, body, can you take up a few biology courses between now and the end so we can't address. What we'll work on it. Yeah, we'll work on it. We get some credits. Well, most of you will know, and if you don't, we want to inform those of you who have not heard that vote. Balcom is going to be nominated for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention. It's me, my bad, sorry about that. Just get calls all the time here. Let me make sure that doesn't happen again. For the Southern Baptist Convention's Pastors Conference, and that's going to happen on June the thirteenth in Anaheim, California, and then I'm going to be nominated for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention. That vote will take place June fourteenth, also in Anaheim, and voting and I will be together out in Anaheim on June the twelfth, where there is a conference that the Conservative Baptist Network is hosting where John MacArthur, Vote, myself, and Javier Chavez will be speaking. Javier is going to be nominated for the recording Secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention. That will also take place on June the fourteenth during the convention. Some of you may not know how beer, but he's a brother I've gotten to know the last couple of years, and what a wonderful man he is. This guy's got political experience in Peru, he worked in the proving government. He is a church planter in Georgia. I mean, he's like a church planner on steroids. He's like the energizer bunny. When I'm around him, I always feel like a sluggard, you know, because of everything that he's doing. And he's just a godly man, great family. I've gotten to know his son who's in college that has some aspirations for being a pastor as well, and really have hit it off with Josh. So I'm delighted for Hobbyer. I look forward for devoting for him for the recording secretary. One of the things people don't know about that position, recording secretary is it also provides a seat on the Executive Council and are not the Executive committee, and so it's a pretty important opportunity. So Vodi and I and Javier will be there on Sunday night, and you can register for this. I think there's a minimal cost to it, but we'll put a link in the show notes so you can get information about that. So people continue to ask me, oh, man, you know, how did you and vote get into this and you, in voting hobvier, are all kind of putting yourself out there willing to be nominated. Why and what do you hope to do? So you probably don't get that question as often over in Lusaka as I'm getting it here in the States. But help me with some answers. Man, Yeah, I'm just doing it because you told me to. I like it. I like it. Look, if you go do everything, I'll tell you I got a list. Oh no, you know, in all seriousness, I think you know, both of us are in the same position of loving the convention and desiring the best for the convention and really being worried about what we've seen lately in the convention. I think the SBC is in trouble. I really do. I don't think people realize how bad things have gotten over the last few years. I don't think people realize the magnitude of the unfaithfulness that we've seen over the last few years. And then, you know, I've been learning more about things happening even behind the scenes over the last few years, that a lot of people are just not aware of and These are not small issues. These are major issues that are having a ripple effect and will continue to have a ripple effect. So it's really important to I mean, to change the change the direction, you know, as we've said, So for me, this is not necessarily something. I don't need to add another thing to my plate, and I know you don't need to add another thing to your plate. But you know, there are times when it's not enough to just talk about how bad things are. You have to be willing to stand up and be counted and to do whatever you can to make it better. And so for me, this is an opportunity for me to do precisely that. Yeah, amen, and that's you hit it exactly the way I would want to say it too. And you know we're recording this just a few hours after the Sex Abuse Task Force report has been made public. And I've gotten text some phone calls, people ask me what do you think? What are you going to say? And I haven't read all of it. I've read maybe one hundred and forty pages or so fairly carefully, and I haven't gotten to all the proposals and recommendations. There's some things in there I didn't know that that are heartbreaking. I mean, and a lot of things I knew already which are still heartbreaking. It's tragic to see how poorly at so many levels we have handled things in our churches and in our denominational structure, a sex abuse being the key item. That's this task force was commissioned to investigate, and we need to do what the Word of God calls us to do. I think one of the dangers that I see in the SBC right now, Vodie, is that people have almost a utopian vision. You know, they want everything to work in such a way that no bad things ever happen. Of course that's not going to happen. That can't happen in the best family. That can happen in the best man. That can't happen in the best church, the best state. I mean, it's just we live in a broken world, but where sin manifests itself in all of these horrific ways. Even we have a savior, and we have the Word of God to instruct us. And I think what's thrown some people off is okay, but we say we have this word, we all claim to be an Arrentis and look at all this rot that exists, so obviously the Bible's not enough, and that's not true. It's not that the Bible has been tried and proven not sufficient. It's that the Bible really hasn't been followed. And that's where I think our issue are. That we've got to come face to face with the reality that we have rebelled against God. We are not what we claim to be. We must humble ourselves, confess our sins, and look to God for mercy and pray that he'll show us that and commit ourselves to doing what the Word says, regardless of cust or consequences. Yeah, vodda. You talk about the lack of faithfulness, the faithlessness in so many of our churches, and I think that's I think this is one of the driving forces behind what's going on today. You know, we know what things should be, you know, we have almost, like you said, this utopian vision of what things should be like things are not that way, and so we think, Okay, what do I do to manage the situation so that things can be the way that I know that they should be. And so what you end up doing is you end up trusting in yourself, trusting in your own processes or processes the world has given you, rather than trusting in the process that the Word has laid out for us. Yeah, the Lord has the Lord has given us means by which we are to operate in the church. And I think so many churches are just not trusting those means that the Lord has given. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put that. And in the SBC, and we have an opportunity. I don't think it's a guarantee that we will seize it the way we should. I hope we will. I'm praying that we will, But we have an opportunity to humble ourselves to come to terms with these realities that this report and other things. It's not just the report. I mean, we've been talking about problems for years in the SBC, and so this Sex Abuse Task Report it is part of that. It's kind of highlighting a very horrific element of that. But this is all a part of a bigger problem of how we have tried to live and manage our relationships in the convention of churches contrary to the Word of God. One of the things vote that makes this complicated, And again I'll talk about the Sex Abuse Task Force report after I've read it, so I'll make a statement on that. People want me to do that, and I'll be glad to do it. One of the things that complicates this when we talk into our Presbyterian friends, our Methodist friends, as they said, well, man, the Southern Baptist Church ought to do this or that, and there is no Southern Babist Church. We're prevention of churches. We're an association of churches, and that polity that's different than a top down structure, and that creates some challenges. I mean, you've you've been a Baptist all your life as a Christian, so talk about that a little bit, But how do we navigate those associational connections. Yeah, it's really interesting to hear people talk about this issue in terms of you know, church government, as though what we need to do in order to fix this is to move toward either from the congregational quality to a Presbyterian you know polity, or to an episcopal polity. But the fact of the matter is, if you look at the epitome of each of those different polities, you find the same problem, and in many instance it's worse. So if you look at the ultimate top down expression, which is which is Rome, right, the Roman Catholic Church will well, they have they've had horrible issues with sex abuse with that kind of hierarchical, top down structure. So we're at the opposite end of the spectrum with a convention of confessing free churches. And you know, in either instance, people are trying to look to the structure as being the problem and therefore another structure as being the solution, when the fact of the matter is, this is not a structural issue. This is a sin issue, and regardless of the structure that we have, this sin is there. This sin is real, and so our response to this cannot be to try to find another structural solution that violates our theological convictions. And so, you know, I'm all for, you know, let's look at this, let's let's find out what's broken and deal with what's broken. But the problem for me is that in many instances, people are either assuming that there's a type of polity in the SBC that doesn't exist in the SBC. Ergo, you know, why aren't the people at the top of the convention doing the things that they need to do to fix this, or they're assuming that the fact that we don't have. That kind of polity is the problem, and so we need to move in the direction of another kind of polity, which also has this problem, and in fact has had it worse. Yeah, that's right. And if we take if we get on that road and stay on that road, it never ends because we'll always be looking for that next silver bullet that that, oh, well, this time will get it right, this time it'll be better. And the issue is sin. The answer is the Gospel. We have the Bible. God's giving us his word, and if we will take his words seriously in our local churches, then it'll be equipped, as the Second tim Ofty three sixteen seventy says, for every good work. The Man of God will be thoroughly equipped for every good work, including dealing with sin and helping the church lead well in that area. And we've seen that. I mean, I think you know, we can get beyond the report itself. But you've been a pastor. I mean, we're pastors and we've had to deal with some horrible tragedies in our churches. I mean, it's inevitable. We're just going to live east of Eden. There's no way around it. And I've said this from day one. Since I've been pastor of this church thirty six years. I remember I preached an eighteen sermon series on sin in the church about a year after I got here, because I mean, every time something would happen, and there was a lot going on here when I got here, people thought, oh, this is going to blow us apart. This is horrible, you know. And the thesis of that eighteen sermon series was this, as long as I'm your pastor, we're going to have problems in this church. And the point I was trying to make is, look, sin is inevitable, and sin is not what wrecks the church. It's how the church deals with sin. If we deal with the second way that we've been told to deal with it, than by God's grace, we will find everything we need to keep moving forward. As sinful people who live in forgiveness, who are born of God's spirit or growing in grace, and who understand the commandments of God enough to delight in them, to love them, and to seek to implement them both personally and corporately. I think that's that's what we got to recover. It's basic, you know, it's not complicated. It's just really hard and we're gonna have to help up. Yeah, it is, and especially you know, we also have to be really careful because beyond this issue of polity, there are there are other issues at play as well. And so there are a lot of people who are coming at this and basically saying the problem is not necessarily our polity. Uh, but the problem is, you know, our position on women and if we had, if we had more women in positions of authority than then that would mitigate this problem. And if you believe that, then I would ask you to merely look at the government education system, which is overwhelmingly female at every level and has far more sexual abuse than anything the Southern Baptist Convention has ever seen. It is far more you know, egalitarian, It does not hold to our positions on leadership, on male leadership, and it is a far less you know, comfortable place, far less safe place for women and for children than the Southern Baptist Convention has been. And so again I think, are there issues, Yes, there are, But what we can't do is come at this and say, now we have to make theological decisions, you know, apart from our theological convictions, because somehow that is what's going to solve our problems, and it absolutely won't. That's an excellent point, you know. I remember two years ago, three years ago something like that the US Education Department put out are the commissioned to study about sex abuse in public education systems in the United States, and they determined that one out of ten students that started with like pre K or first grade all the way through grade twelve, one out of ten we have some kind of improper sexual conduct or sex abuse committed against them, one out. Of ten by a teacher or administray by SUD even countings other students. That's right, Yeah, this is by those employed through the public system. And I remember having this conversation with a guy who's an SBC exec now and he was adamant it's worse than Southern Bapist churches in the public education system. I said, what are you doing? He made that argument, and he talked me down. He said, no, LifeWay issued a study. This is right before last year's convention. And I said, where is it. So he's telling me about so I go look it up, and of course he told me one out of four women in Southern Mamblist churches are being abused. Wow, this is a guy who's in a high level position today, and I said, well, I'm going to have to go read it. Well, I went and read the report. That's not what it says at all. The women who were surveyed in the report, they were asked one of the questions was do you think that this problem is more widespread than we know? One out of four said yes, we think it's more wide spread. But he's going around telling people that what's going on in southern Mabash churches is worse than the public education system. So I mean, again, that's just a matter of truth and understanding. We got to know what the realities are before we can address them as we ought. And your point about the egalitarianism in the public education system is a brilliant point, because that's another thing I'm afraid people are going to try to do. You need this solution that's contrary to the word of God, But things are so bad. You had the word of God and it didn't work. You've got to try what we're now suggesting. And brothers and sisters, we can't do that. We need to at where we've failed the word of God, where we have sinned against God and his clear revelation. But we must never let ourselves jettison the word of God because of our failures in seeking to live up to it. Yeah, you know, and this brings up another issue I think within just broad evangelicalism. I think we see it in the culture, but in broad evangelicalism as well, and that we sometimes we behave as though men are sinful human beings and women really not so much so, and so we tend to minimize the sin of the sins of women are kind of lesser sins. The sins of men, those are the real serious sins that are driving the church into destruction. And I don't want to minimize the sin of men. And this is not victim blaming or anything, but we need to get serious about the sin in all of the members of our church. The sin of women can be just as destructive to families, to churches, to our nation as the sin of men. Yeah, we need equal weights and measures. And I think one place where this is playing out right now, VODI is in the whole debate over here about abortion and how we ought to treat preborn children. The EERLC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and so as Convention signed on with over seventy five pro life groups a couple of weeks ago to speak to state legislatures throughout the United States, including Louisiana that had a bill that was coming out of committee to recognize the personhood of a preborn child and to call for the equal protection under the law of preborn children, and the ERLC and others signed an open letter that just canceled it, that said, no, no, no, we can't do that. You cannot hold women accountable for abortion. Women are not culpable for abortions. They're victims. And now we're being told that's always been the pro life position. Wells, so I'm speaking for many. I know because I've had the conversations. I've been pro life a long time, and I've been deceived because I thought pro life was really wanting to end abortion and if that's not what pro life and I need another name because what I saw happened two weeks ago with that open letter was shameful, and they've doubled down on it. When they've been called on it, they've doubled down on it. And again it comes back to are we going to use equal weights and measures? Are we going to say what the Bible says is right, wrong, just unjust, or are we going to listen to the cultural wins and what they are telling us that we ought to employ for those categories. And this goes back to a conversation that we've had on a number of occasions, which is this entire idea of intersectionality, right, and this is about you know, women being considered a victim class. That's where this is coming from and stampoint epistemology. You know, all these things that we've been talking about for a long time are continuing to manifest themselves. And I mean, I've said it before and I've said it again, According to social justice ideology of abortion is not the justice issue. Access to abortion is the justice issue. That's been the position for a long time, and it's because of this intersectional understanding. And so, you know, it may seem like we're going you know, far afield here, for we were talking about this with this abuse issue, but we're talking about the same thing from an ideological perspective when it comes to the way that we frame the issues and the way that we discuss the issues. Amen, You're exactly right, and and so you know. I mean, here we are on the brink a couple of weeks away from the Southern Matters Convention meeting in Anaheim, where you'll be nominated to be president of the Pastor's Conference. I'll be nominated to be president of the convention, and people are asking, Okay, what would you guys do? I mean, what would you guys do? So if God were to put you in that position where you got to plan the Pastor's Conference next year that scheduled to meet twenty twenty three in New or Earlians body, what what would you do as president? Uh, the Southern Baptist conventioned Pastors Conference. Yeah, there's a couple of things. Number One, God has put me in a very unique position in that you know, I'm living abroad, been serving abroad for seven years, have have this, you know, this this broader picture of really Baptist work in the world, and I would really like to bring that flavor to the Pastor's Conference. There's some great guys out there that you know, like my you know, my my co laborer Conrad and Beway, you know, who are just wonderful Baptist voices you know out there around the world. So I'd love to see a mix of you know, some of the best people that we have within the SBC, within the US and other people perhaps you know, Southern Baptists, you know, so abroad, so that kind of flavor. And also to do something in the realm of systematic exposition, perhaps exposition through an entire book, or exposition through a significant portion and segment you know, of scripture, but really highlight exposition, and to highlight exposition that deals with you know, some of these issues that we're dealing with. You know, so for example, you know, exposition to the Book of Titus, you know, where we you know, push through the entire Book of Titus and get the hit on a lot of these issues that we're dealing with, but hit on them from the perspective and standpoint of systematic exposition with some of the best expositors around. Yeah, Amy, I think that would be incredibly valuable because what it would do it was unleash the Word of God that is authoritative and sufficient, and then it would model how to do that because pastors we need encouragement, you know, I don't know, every once in a while, you know, the devil whispers in your ear. This really isn't working. You know, this is not this is too important. You need to do something different and to have the Word of God preached powerfully, simply systematically under the spirits anointing. That could be profound. And just think of the effects that could have. You know, we want to see reformation within the Southern Baptist Convention. To have thousands of SPC pastors all gathered together, not only to have the pastoral epistles preached to them, but like you said, to see that model and to be able to take that back to their church. And I think could be as big as anything else we would see in the Convention as far as reformation goes. Amen. Yeah, man, that makes me want to vote for you, so I might do that. Yeah, I mean having a Southern Baptist missionary, you know, lead the pastors comed a Southern babtisht missionary pastor lead the pastor's conference just makes perfect sense to me. I don't think it's ever been done, and uh man, it's be a great change of direction to have that done this year. And then with all the challenges we've got in the SBC, I had people ask me. I get this question all the time now I've been traveling the last week and preaching different places, and people regularly coming up to me, why are you doing this? You know, why are you doing this? And what you said a while ago vote, I just resonate with it. Well, I didn't wake up one morning and say, you know, my life is so boring, I need something else to do. What can I do to spice it up? You know? I mean, it wasn't that. It was being prevailed upon and being convinced okay by good counsel. I trust that this is where God would lead me. Uh. And if God puts me in that position, which I don't know if he will or not, people ask me to you know, what's your sense? Do you have a read on how the vote's going to go? I don a clue. I live in an echo chamber, you know, So I don't know. I mean, God knows, and I'm content to leave it with him. Maybe we can commission to arrest me some poll or something. That's yeah, that's right, that's right. But I just if God puts me in that position, I'm not going to say anything different than I been saying for years, because I see these things fairly clearly about the nature of the Church, the nature of the Gospel, the nature of Christianity, and I don't think we can assume on those things anymore. We cannot presume that we all understand the Gospel, we all understand what a Christian is, how you become one? Are we all understand what a church is and how church st to operate. And if we can just come back to thes that'd be helpful. You know. And one of the things, to circle back to what we were talking about earlier, Tom, one of the things that I love about the prospect of you being in that position of president of the SBC is that for years and years you have been beating the drum of regenerate church membership, which includes the proper exercise of church discipline. And I don't think we need to, you know, hasten to run by that issue right now, because not all of but much of what we're dealing with with with this report that just came out, and much of what we're dealing with with these sex ofb these issues in these churches is a lack of a proper understanding and application of church discipline. People not dealing with sin the way we're supposed to deal with sin and people allowing, for example, you know, staff members to just move off quietly, you know, without them being disciplined, without them being excommunicated, and without communicating that to the next church that's coming. I know our church, you know that we planted dealt with this, and I know your church has dealt with this where somebody comes to your church and issue arises, and all of a sudden, when the issue arises and you have to deal with discipline with someone, now the other church that they came from wants to say, oh, well, yeah, we kind of dealt with that before, but they didn't discipline them, and they didn't tell you so that you can point them back to go and deal with the disciplinary issue. So I think this goes back to things that you and others and including myself, have been screaming from the rooftops for many, many years in the SBC. Discipline needs to take place. It needs to be biblical. We need to be serious about it, and that needs to be part of our response. Amen. And you're exactly right on that. And that's both formative and corrective. You and I and Graham, we know what we mean by those terms that a lot of people want so who do you let into your church. Not anybody that can waddle down an aisle, you know as a two year old. I mean, you have a regeneray church membership for a reason that you want to help ensure that those who join your church are actually professing Christ and living for Christ. We're not infallible and making those judgments, but we have to make those judgments to the best of our ability, according to the Word of God. And so when you have that, people join your church and they are in agreement to live a certain way, and when they fail to live that way, you correct them. If they fail to be corrected, move them, as the Bible clearly teaches to do. But it's hard. And one of the things I have seen in the little bit i've read of this report is cases where like a minister has been guilty of horrific crime of abusing minor children and they just dismissing quietly and he goes down to another church. And I mean, that's wicked, And you don't do that if you have the kind of church you just described, practicing what the Bible teaches us to be as Christians and churches. So, yeah, you're right, there's nothing in terms of the message and the goals what we ought to be aspiring toward. There's nothing new this God's given us his words true, it hadn't changed. We just need to do better in trying to understand it and apply it humbly, taking him in his word. Yeah, and just a clarification as well. You know, when it comes to issues like the one you just mentioned, and discipline needs to take place, discipline takes place within the church, and the church is the one who exercises the kingdom. It's not submitting a name to a committee somewhere that's not a part of that right. That can be fine, But it's the church itself which exercises disciplined that's right. And this so this whole credentials committee, which you know, I've got some ideas. I mean, the Credentials Committee, bless their heart, they've been given tasks that they cannot handle because they don't have the tools to handle it. But I've got some ideas based upon Baptist eclesiology, Baptist history, the Philadelphia Association. You know, we're not the first people to have to deal with these problems. Baptist historically dealt with them. There have been such a thing as ecclesiastical courts in Baptist associations, and we need to revive that. We need to look at that and figure out how do we do this and consistent with our polity. But on the SBC level, it's not report this person, it's report this church. Because churches are autonomous, associations are autonomous, The SBC is autonomous. So if a church is going to harbor any kind of open, unrepentant center, any kind, then that church is not going to be in friendly cooperation with who we say we are as a convention of churches, and so a church can be removed. We said, well, look, you're not part of us. We're not telling you that you can't do this. We're telling you can't do this and be a part of us because that's not who we are. And think about think about the precedent that we've set by not by being unwilling to do that. The SBC has been unwilling to disfellowship churches. We've been unwilling to you know, to to to stand on principle, to stand on scripture, to stand on our confession, and disfellowship churches. Now all of a sudden, you know this report comes out and we want to we want to start doing what we were unwilling to do before because now we have a hierarchy of sins. I mean, you know, these these issues are not new. These these are issues that have been raised before and that have been rejected by the SBC. Mm hmm. That's exactly right. If we were doing what God's called us to do in our churches. I'm talking and everybody says, you know, local churches, headquarters in the SBC, Well that's true. But it's time for headquarters to get on their knees before God and say, oh God, we have not been living as you called us to live as a church. Will you forgive us, and will you help us now to take seriously your word, regardless of cost or consequence, and living the way the church is supposed to live. If we do that, then whatever the issues are, whatever the sin is, whatever the chrime is, the church will already be pre committed to dealing with it the way the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ says it's to be dealt with. And this is one of the things we've got to remind ourselves of regularly to is, Look, we don't have to be ashamed, embarrassed, or afraid of whatever we find as we deal honestly with our own lives as Christians or churches. Why, because we have a savior, Jesus Christ has died for our sins. There's no conbination for those are in Christ Jesus. Now we can be full of sorrow. We ought to lament every sin and especially where we see sin has gone rampant and dealt with. But we don't have to say, oh, we can't admit this. If we admit this, then it's going to destroy us. No, we're not living by performance. We're living by Christ. We're living by grace, and we have grace in Christ that sets us free to look and say, okay, where is it. Is there sin among us? If so, let's deal with it, because we have a savior. He shed his blood for sinners. And it's just like a denial of the Gospel if we fail to live this way. Yeah, and you know we have we have nine marks of a healthy church, which I'm grateful for that. But preceding that, you know, we had three marks of a true church. Church was the right preaching of the Word of God, the correct administration of the sacraments, and the correct exercises of church discipline. And when we don't have any understanding and we don't exercise church discipline, what are we doing. We're saying that mark of a true church is not important, and how can we be in fellowship with churches who don't agree with that statement or don't agree with those three marks? Yeah, you'll get a kick out. The good news ahead, go ahead, man, going to say. The good news is that, you know, these issues that have been brought up before are now coming to the fore. You know, the this this issue of regenerate church membership, this issue of you know, practicing church discipline, this issue of you know this fellowshipping churches. You know, these issues that we've talked about before that we brought up before, you know, and then have people sort of thumb their nose at perhaps uh, this report will lead us to a place where we can address this again and maybe come to some different conclusions about it without going to those excesses that we mentioned earlier. Yeah. Amen, And it needs to be led by pastors and churches who have been doing it, you know, pastors and churches that aren't just Johnny Come Lately's and said, okay, yeah, now we got to start doing the Bible. No, we've got faithful pastors and churches throughout the SBC who have been doing this qu in their own locales, trying to honor Christ. And that's how we ought to be led. We ought to be led by those kinds of churches, those kinds of pastors and members in those churches. I was going to say earlier, you know, talking about the marks of the church. There's a reporter that's not hadn't been honest with me, and so I don't talk to him anymore. And he's upset the fact that I won't talk to him. He's always trying to get me to talk to him. He puts something up on social media the other day about you know, I remember Tom mask has always been mad since I knew about him and covering the convention while he was talking about rejuniate church membership years ago, and he even said this that when John Dagg said that when discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it, you know, I mean, it's like, can you believe this? And everybody's haha, So yeah, man, throw me in the briar patch. Yeah, guess what had we listened back in two thousand and eight, maybe you know we might be in a little different situation. Well, when the authority that Christ has given the church leaves the church, the authority of Christ leaves with that. Church exactly exactly. I mean, it's a frightening prospect. When you read Revelation two and three. How can we think we're above that? Jesus threatens, I'll unchurch you, I'll unchurch you. You'll continue on, but you won't be a church of Christ. And if that could happen, then man that ought to make us shudder, weep, repent and seek him for forgiveness and for grace to live according to what he's clearly revealed a church ought to be. Brother, I can't tell you how excited I am really about prospect of a president of the SBC who's not who's not a climber. And I love how people try to use that against you. Right, you haven't, you haven't held a lot of positions in the SBC. You know you're not a climber. You're a pastor who loves the local church. You're not coming up with gimmicks. You know, you know, vot vote for time ascal because you know here's this gimmick that we're gonna that we're gonna do to try to It's not about that. This is about this is about recovering, recovering the gospel, right, This is about this is about recovering our commitment, our confessional commitments. This is about recovering standards. This is about going back to things we've been talking about for a long time. Nothing new under the sun. Right. You know, this is like, you know, if you want to put it in sports terms, you know, this is like a basketball team that says we're gonna win the championship, you know, by by playing good defense and practicing good fundamentals, you know. And so I am. I'm very excited about this conversation and about what this conversation represents, because we do need to get back to basics and back to fundamentals, and we don't need any more gimmicks. Amen. Amen, Well, the Lord will do what is right in his eyes, and we need to be faithful and trying to discharge the stewardship he's entrusted to us, and we encourage everybody to do that. Just pray that the Lord will help us to do that as we move through these uncertain days. Vodi, thank you so much for being with us, brother, love you, thank God for you and bridget your family and the ministry there. We pray for you regularly and we're grateful for. Yeah, it's been my pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on the Sword in the Trout. We look forward to having a conversation again with you in a few weeks. M