147: The Confessional Baptist

0:00Welcome to the rule church podcast is my beloved son with whom I am well Please he is honored and I get the glory and by the way, it's even better because you see that building It carries a lot and so you see that one in Patota in Mexico Do you see that one in Tixla good or asked down there in Chiapas that building has my son's name on it The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy Christ is king You can be Christian without a local church You can do anything but and to them joy be and bow your heart turn from your sin in the sentence Believe on the Lord be to try and join up with a good Bible believing church and spend your life serving Jesus in a local Visible Welcome to the rule church podcast. We have a first ever today to my knowledge I don't think that we've ever in my and our Existence goodness how long have we been going this has been well, we're we're going on like four years

1:03So we had the podcast and this is really and it with me and another brother and now this is the rule church podcast 2.0 because we stopped for a while when we came back on and so now we've been going on for about four years He had to drop off last year to focus on his local church But I think this is the first time ever that we've interviewed a beacon so Yeah, so Play the ominous music in the back We're welcome to the rule church podcast my name is Alan Nelson. I'm your host I'm an elder at Providence Baptist Church in Periville, Arkansas. We are a 1689 Confessional Church 2nd London Baptist Confession and We are located almost a center part of the state and I'm thankful to have our guests today Benjamin Allen do you go you go by Benjamin or Ben? Which which you prefer you just fine. I mean whatever works people People come to write things my last seems like a first name lot people call me Allen, too

2:07So I just roll yeah, I like that you spell Allen correctly Yes That's right people well people joke with me. They say that my first name is spelled like a last name So anyway, whatever but We're we're grateful to have you on you serve as a beacon of remind me of the church name It's redeeming grace church in Carter'sville redeeming grace church in Carter'sville Georgia, I will I want to get into why I asked you on originally in just a minute But before we get to that, why don't we just start out tell them tell us about who you are your family? Let's all start with that. Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I live I live in Atlanta, Georgia I've been here for about 10 years. I live with my I live in a severed called Dallas ironically not Texas old Dallas, Georgia I've been married to a wife Hannah for almost 10 years I'm married the pastor's daughter, so I have to behave

3:09I have three kids Heather is seven Ethan is five almost six and my son Peter's almost three Lord's blessed me those and Yeah, I'm very Thankfully, I've been kind of a nomad growing up. I'm not my wife and I kind of opposite backgrounds She's lived in Georgia whole life my family moved a lot. So I was born in Florida But I've lived in you know, we lived in New Jersey Iowa, Alabama I lived in New York for a while and then I finally ended up in Georgia So I've kind of been all over. I'm more of like I guess we've got switched state I associated with I'm like I guess I would American, but But I do love Georgia. I mean, have all the states the Lord's placed me in Georgia's my favorite So I told my wife I said look you started off in the best state, but yeah, I've just I'm a deacon as you mentioned. I enjoy serving the church Really enjoy reading the Bible and I love studying theology in my spare time And that's one of things where you know, my page couldn't grow out It was just I wanted to share some of the things I had learned and stuff I was you know discovering online So that kind of just started from there about two years over two years ago and took off

4:11So yeah, so I So just a couple a few weeks ago, which actually I don't know when this is gonna come out I have to after we get done recording after look and see it when it's coming out But not long ago this year we I had a brother from well you you at the G3 conference, right? Uh, the union crisis. Yes, the last one. Did you did you get to meet Jeff Johnson or listen to I did Yeah, well actually I hate on I didn't talk to I'm sorry. I didn't talk to Jeff this time around I've talked with him. So Jeff's part of fire Uh, we're all are so are sure just part of two organizations fire the fellowship of independent reforming juggles and arby net I've met Jeff at fire events before and and the bigger G3 events I I neglected to get to talk to him this time around. I always enjoy talking to him But I just I just got busy you missed him. So he's also I mean, he's a lot busier than me. So Well, one of his elders One of his fellow elders Danny Thursday. I don't know if you've met him or not But yeah, I've talked with Danny a couple times. Yeah, Danny was on the show Recently and we talked about deacons and others good episode. I thought it's really helpful

5:16But so I'm not I mean our this episode is not about you being a deacon But since you are a deacon I thought just thought I'd give you the floor for a few minutes and just say okay Tell us tell us what you see the role I'm gonna say a reformed beverage church, but I mean in any church really but you're part of reformed beverage church But but what is a deacon's role in uh in the church and um and how do you how do you personally fulfill that role? Yeah deacon's role in the Greek is Dacconus or Dacconus Deacon's role is to be a servant that's kind of the main you know And it's funny when the Lord ordained this position through Paul He just he just called it a servant and the main role of the deacon is to serve the church in any area Well, what's interesting about the role of a deacon is the scripture I could be wrong this but never explicitly lays down any specific duties for deacons other than serving right? So it's very open-ended You know practically in bigger churches like I've seen like they'll have 10 or 20 deacons and they'll have very specific areas of responsibility

6:16Usually the small church is like ours. We have two deacons like I do pretty much everything So like I you know, I assist with that financial report. So I teach sunny school. I teach the kids sunny school You know, I purchase you know security cameras for the church, you know File our incorporation forms, you know work with our account on taxes. So whatever the church needs on there to serve and do um You know at our church we have a man who's a very godly man who just became a deacon He's very skill is a contractor I'm kind of more on like I work in IT So the way we kind of divide stuff is like we had a tree fall on one of our church fellowship halls So he's handling all that he's preparing the stuff and like what we go help him, but he plans that And then I sort of lead like the digital side because since I work at it. You know, I our Facebook Our Google Maps listing the various things that I do online are more about by me because since I'm more familiar with that So the Lord has gifted us, you know, give it as like it's kind of like we sort of settle into our natural sphere of serving Um part of it also, though, is more important than that is like looking out for the congregation You know trying to see if someone falls into like has financial problems giving them, you know

7:19Trying to support them if people come to our church and ask for money like generally We don't always like to give money, but maybe like evaluate their need and maybe buy some food There's a variety of things, but I mean first and foremost serving the flock and freeing up our pastor And the kids of a small church is more important Because he's very busy. So freeing him up to just spend his time studying He works like our pastor works like 60 hours a week on his normal job And so he's you know, and I do preach from time to Um, you know, I've preached a couple different. I think maybe about 20ish sermons I've done one on holy violence and I preach through name in and I'm working through a series on bailum now from numbers So it's kind of a you kind of a jack hole trades when you're a decent small church You're gonna do a little bit of everything most of the time Yeah, I love what you said about, you know, making sure that you're freeing up The uh the pastor we were talking about a a book Um Let's see I thought I maybe had a quote, but uh we were talking about the book earlier that the

8:24Um that nine marks puts out which I mean I don't know I'm not trying to run anything down. There's some issues. I've had With nine marks. That's all so I'm not like giving a blanket A blanket endorsement of everything they put out, but here's what here's what a quote from that book on deacons from Matthew Smithhurst. I thought was great. He said a church without biblically functioning deacons will be perpetually distracted from its central mission of making disciples So the whole that's you know the whole point of the deacon ministry is to keep the pastors able to focus on The ministry of the word and prayer. So I that's better Yeah, now Alexander Strauk has a good version too on deacons um the new testament deacon. That's an older version Um, you know smith and smithers version is a little more modern which it's got some good stuff. Alexander Strauk is good I also have it's funny. I have it here in my desk Um, this is the I'm sure as a reform Baptist you're familiar with Albert Martin

9:25Um, this is the This is the deaconal manual from his church and actually I have a brother. Uh, I don't know if you know Luke Peterson. He was part of arby nat He recently became a missionary to Costa Rica Okay, he got his hands on this back in the day when he was coming to deacon He sent it over to me So I've I've read through that. I don't think and now I don't think out martin put it together I think some of his elders are deacons did but it's an excellent like 60 page like just laying out Everything biblically like the roles what they can do what they shouldn't do even some practical tips and finances So that's a resource too. I've shared it my page for and like it's not you know, they don't you know, I I you know, I know I've talked with uh, pastor um At the day chance he's one of the pastor up there, you know, they're you know, they're they're fine with it being published and stuff It's very very helpful. I mean if all the resources on deacons I think that's probably the best in my opinion even on over the two books that I previously mentioned Yeah, um Almarin's always when I can I try to give it a plug his pastoral theology three volume

10:27It's kind of underrated. I don't see a lot of people talking about it But there is a niche group that like they know it, you know, and it's it's Yeah, I mean, it's yeah, I've got the second volume on my desk right here I just have it you know how like you you see kids see a bunch of bites of apples and leave them unfinished That's me with all my people I think that's a problem with all uh reform Baptist brothers. So Well, that no, that's great. Like I said, I didn't want to take up too much time on deacons But I thought it was cool that we'd had that conversation not long ago and then here we are a real life deacon in the flesh So our our church doesn't have deacons presently. We had a a situation um, we had deacons uh several years ago when a situation where Well, I mean long story short they they basically said hey you're out and um by god's mercy It didn't happen that way and they ended up leaving and so um, so we don't have deacons at this point, but we are I've I'm preaching through acts right now, and so

11:29I've been walking through that and so you know lord willine maybe in a Into this year maybe first part next year. So we'll be able to Select a few deacons or whoever, you know, we'll see we'll go so unless you want to move to august saw you moved around So hey, yeah, my wife and I'd be want to move back to rural areas. Yeah, well Now yeah, and that's something too that is a problem even in some conservative churches as you see kind of this tyrannical deacon Where the deacons kind of run the church. I talked to a lot of pastors who Just in my clon in fire and arby net about like church they've moved into with the deacons kind of run the church And because the deacons had been there for so many years they had this reputational capital that can't be overcome very easily And a lot of dad sit down and say, you know, this is You know you do have more power than you should right and that and biblically if you look at the model like, you know Biblically, you know deacons they're they're surgeons They're not overseers or bishops and so like if you become like if a deacon starts making spiritual decision

12:30Though the time then it's like well you either if people think or an elder make you an elder but a deacon's not that Yeah, what what is an interesting thing I think about deacons in general though is some of them You know, it's we were talking about them some of them were very noted preachers obviously um Steven was one I think there's some discussion on whether fill up the fill up of the evangelist was all for the deacon It was different fill up. I've seen different things from like commentators on that But obviously you do see like a strongly evangelistic role and that's not that's not to say that like that's their primary task What is interesting like you know, you see them you know fill up being up And I do tend to think that the fill up that was a deacon was also the Evangelist so but you do see like evangelism and you see Steven being a powerful preacher as well So deacons they can do a variety of things, but it shouldn't take away from their serving I mean if they're if they're doing those things that they're not serving enough then you know issues. Yeah Yeah, well the whole reason um that I reached out to you and I don't really remember how we got connected I know that I messaged you because I I do work for free grace press

13:33Yeah, I messaged you I think back when we were doing the sale on the um I think you were going to like buy um Oh Sam Waldron's the optimistic on millennialism and yeah, I'd mentioned something like hey wait If you'll wait like a week, it's gonna be on sale or something like that But yeah, I appreciate that that's it. Yeah, I did end up. I think I didn't I didn't get that book yet I have a couple of his I mean his books that really helped me you know I you know my soldier was a seller for a while his books kind of helped me on the on I'm all mill That's kind of you. I think there are things I spend my wife I said there are things that I think I can't explain with the all mill view There's always that with every view, but I think the all mill view fits best Than any other view in my opinion, right? I don't see the To me the millennial rate of price on earth. I've always would you says my kingdom's not of this world You know, and I'm just like that seems sort of versatile. So you know, you know, we had disagreed like our church our pastors historic pre-mill Yeah So I mean we I mean we we just agreed to disagree there, but I mean we're for the most part most of them are fairly aligned

14:34Except for dispensations about tends to be the one that's kind of far off the corner. So your your church. Do you guys what? What is y'all y'all's official confession? It's a six and nine confession. That's our mission one. Yeah, we're we're more you know We realized that a lot of people come into the church from different backgrounds We're more strict about elders and deacons holding to it like yeah people can take exceptions I mean even even our church at the leadership level. We do have a few exceptions. I don't think the Pope see in a Christ for one. Um, I think he's and in a Christ and I've heard Rendon Hins um, I've heard Rendon Hins explanation of that But like I don't think that this or the Pope is the answer Christ I guess and that probably is a little deviation from the one of you But we think it's very so us to 69 is very very important for leadership Because it sort of gates the leadership in from going down weird rabbit holes, right? I mean for the people of the church it's we teach the Bible. We do teach the 69 in the Sunday school class But for the leadership is important because it's like we're saying the congregation We're not going to go outside the bounds of this Yeah, so you know

15:34So that's good. We're very similar. So we don't say like Now, yeah, we don't we're not like hey, we'll just believe whatever, but we are like This is this is our confession. This is what it's going to be taught. This is what our church believes If you disagree, that's okay as long as you know, we're not going to To an extent obviously if you're like well, you know, I don't think Jesus is is the son of God. Well, okay Whoa, whoa, whoa, but if there's something that um You know that you disagree on we're going to take that in the consideration back. Okay, and something else I think it's like Do you want like So I think the 69 is a robust mature Fashion do you think that only people can join your church if they're robust mature Believers or do you have room in your church for immaturity so that they can cut so that they can grow You know and learn And you may have people I know people come from back downs It's not on the reform side much, but some people come from backgrounds

16:34They're kind of wary of creeds and confessions and they say all their man made and they and they don't understand it like You got to come around realize, you know, you know, that like you know, these are formulated I forget who said this and he said well creeds and confessions don't have more forward in the Bible But they do have more authority than you Right, I mean, we shouldn't lightly, you know with with you know, we are church also of course You know the nice scene creed the that that the nation creed the the Christology part of it of course calzone Christology All that's important to affirm because you do have stuff like process theology and annihilationism and just read them So that tries to sneak back in the church And if you hold to the creeds and confessions, it says no, we're not going to go that route But um like you said, it's a process. I mean we we're first trying to raise up people that are you know mature Christians and then once they're mature, they can kind of see like they can understand that like We told people like we teach through this. This is our doctrinal statement Rather than making a whole doctrinal statement or self, which is tough It's just easy to say the 69 confession is our statement take a look at it, right? Yeah And I mean, I I can't improve on that. I mean, I'd be prideful to say I could

17:37No, that's good. Well, well The whole reason I ask you on and just talk a little bit about it um So you have Which it you're also an ex and Instagram, but where I see you the most and interact the most is the Facebook Page the confessional Baptist so it's just the confessional Baptist pretty easy to find you have I'm looking right now eight point six thousand followers. That's that's pretty good You have thus says the Lord walking the old path path Jeremiah six I have a story about that from my church. We I preached on that 2022 about some directions That we needed to to take and Anyway that be that kind of that's kind of led to the whole situation our reference earlier So I like that and then your most recent like your most recent Post I shared it. It's a John Gil quote Christ church is a kingdom and he is a king in it and he is king in it

18:38Pastors of churches are subordinate governors who rule well When they rule not in an arbitrary way according to their own wills But according to the laws of Christ with all faithfulness prudence and diligence That's John Gil and then that's the kind of stuff you share Oh, and other things the multiple multiple sort of streams of Of things that you share so why don't you tell us a little bit about how did this Come about that you started this little page and you got quite the following Um, obviously not the biggest ever, but I mean, it's a it's a it's a notable following, you know, so what uh How did the page come about and what are you trying to do with it? Yeah, so I started I think it'll be around two or three years in april Um, it's her couple of years ago like I shared a lot of theological content on my personal Facebook page And I still do from time to time, but what I kind of realized is like you know You know, I have a variety of interests like a lot of people, you know Don't want to hear about immediate versus media revelation Personal that Facebook page I wanted something where I could share kind of like more of like theological things that are more in depth

19:42And then like have a select group so like on my personal page, I'll share Bible verses and quotes sometimes But it kind of grabbed the desire to do that and then um, you know, I read a lot reading is my favorite hobby I just I read all the time um, and I come across a lot of things when I read and I think hey, that's a good quote I want to share that, you know, I love church history especially I've almost I've almost finished um Pilip shafts eight or nine volume on church history and so it just kind of it kind of I've started the page You know three or four years ago. It kind of became an outlet just for me to share various things I also try to do stuff like I feature different churches every week for form Baptist churches I also feature um, you know, sermons from past I think I've featured one of your sermons before and I think and hopefully in the maybe the next couple weeks I'm gonna feature your church as well, but trying to like, you know Most reformed Baptist churches are smaller. I mean, there's not most of them are not You know to 300 people. They're mostly a hundred or less And so trying to like you know direct people to reform Baptist churches in their area where they can find good solid preaching And not have to worry about like, you know, you know, fluffy preaching, you know, man-centered evangelism all that stuff

20:46So that's kind of my thing and like I have you know um, you know, just kind of like a sort of like a central hub. I've recently Um, I think about last maybe last eight months. I've been riding tracks Um, because I'm very I love evangelism. That's one of my you know, one of my favorite things to do our church evangelists quite frequently and I get a lot of tracks from the chapel library. They're good tracks still getting wrong But there are certain things like that are more niche than I'm like I want to address and so I've decided to run if he tracks them So I wrote a track on if you remember the Titan sub going down and blowing up going to the Titanic I'm going to track about that called the Titans descent into eternity, right? Because that's something that's more of a recent event I want to use it in the same way that the Lord our Lord and Savior used the the I think the Tower of Silone fell Right, and he said it wasn't those people so he used that to steer people to the gospel I want to use that to steer people to the gospel And then I've written a few more I written one called cosmic trees and an eternal love I wrote one Since Pokemon's all the rage. I wrote one on I wrote like a Pokemon theme track So I can leave it on Pokemon machines and you know, so I'm trying to like just write various tracks like Phil certain issues

21:50I did one recently called Isaac Faith as well on what's the most important thing So that's one of my things. I'm also a love Thomas Watson. He's by far my favorite Bible teacher I'm writing a study my favorite verse in the Bible is Matthew 1112 It came heaven separate violent violent take it by force. Yeah, so I'm currently I'm trying to write a study guy to go with his book I'm about I so far I have an 8,000 words in about another 2,000 ago So I'm working on that. That's one of my other projects. I peck at here and there So you know kind of a variety of things I do in the page like some you know writing some tracks You know writing a book and you know, hopefully making some good resources available people for free You know, that's my plan. So no, amen. Yeah, that's great. I would just Scrolling through here and looking at some of the churches featuring and just the the the idea of getting the Rule of not not just rule churches, but So I rule doesn't have to mean small and and by the way with the rule the rule church podcasts I say this a lot, but like we're not just for rule churches

22:52I just feel like the smaller sort of rule area church is underrepresented on Yeah, it is. So I just kind of like to give from that perspective. Yeah Well, and I tell people this too because sometimes people get on my page will get mad at me I say I am a confessional vatis that doesn't mean I only share quotes from confessional vatis Sometimes they're from vatis sometimes they're from people that are like Presbyterian So it's like the confessional vatis to see who I am, but I had that people say well that kinds of Presbyterian or tozer Was it necessarily fully calibrated? So I'm like well I should put a bunch of variety of sources, you know, I do Go ahead. Just tell them brother if they If they've gone to be with the Lord their confessional vatis now That's right Yep, I've got people like hey RC Sprouls reform vatis now I you know, I think and you know all in every reform vatis of surely is benefited from you know, oh and Sproul yeah Edward yeah Yeah, I'm going to covet theology comes

23:52I've told multiple Presbyterians this like reform vatis coveted theology Comes a lot from Owen, but like his work is very His work on the discontinuity between the covenants and the very major differences When you start following that line of covenantal thinking that's what makes you a vatis not a Presbyterian and like I am convinced that if Owen was alive in our days He probably would be reform vatis just because of his thinking like when you start because I agree vividly with what he's saying I think there are there is you know Presbyterians talk about the continuity between the covenants They try to want to flatten them out But there is a strong discontinuity as well And when you talk about that that's when you see the sign change and the focus is on Adult membership and the regenerate and not on just the you know totally nations or families And so you know, I told people I said look for vatis come theology John Owen These were the main people that started like that's where we get a lot of our stuff from so we do have a strong base in the Puritans like we're not Because I remember when I was growing up I asked my dad once I said are we from are we decided from the in a baptist and he corrected me and said no He said we're not we do have the same sign as in a baptist

24:55But our heritage comes from the reformers and the Puritans It's just we held on to that theology, but we just went to back to the biblical practice of believers baptism So that's what I was going to ask you that So now that brings it so one thing I was going to say And then I'll ask you this question, but I was going to say that you know, we as a specialist reform Baptist Oh brother, I don't know how you feel about but sometimes we can get really really niche and really really narrow and really you know And there's even you know, even even right now People who are listening to this they'll know I don't have to say everything but like There's even conflicts between you know reformed baptists You know, it's like we're a small group of people We're two reformed for the Baptist and we're two baptists for the reform So we're we're a small group of people and then we decide to point the guns at each other as it were and and have some infighting So I I get not that not the discussions over theology are unimportant. I don't mean to say that at all I'm just trying to say that sometimes we can try to gatekeep one another

25:58We can and I think it's you know, I just came back from the G3 conference on Union Christ and and Joel Beaky was talking there about having our Renek spirit I think that's so important because so many people today are so quick to have a polemic spirit It were even an apologetic spirit which is not bad, but I thought about going through or maybe having chat GPT going through and categorizing Jesus' statements like he was a very peaceful person. I mean he did push back into the Pharisees and he did defend the truth But I did a season they think sometimes I see a lot of fractiousness in reformed baptist circles and it kind of grieves me because We're already like four percent and then it's like a split that eight percent and I you know I tell people like there are things godly men are gonna differ on you know, I mean, I'll give you a class example In passability qualified versus classical that's that split some reformed baptist nominations in the past Ten to be that the class will side myself, but I understand you know, they're godly men that hold the qualified I'm not gonna make a like a huge bite and start fighting like a baller over that you know, I mean to me It's like I do think I God is you know the concept of God and you know, it's a mystery

26:59So some you know on one side I think I would hold the Malachi three six. I'm Lord. I changed not therefore you're not consumed some men might say Well try to say well we are made in God's image So therefore there's something about him that's analogy, you know, analogous to us like Those type of debates have really driven reformed baptist circles and like to me is like I you know I like to it's a nice to disagree about them But understand like we can still be brothers in Christ and not tear each other down over it, you know Yeah, and we can even have say look, you know, this brother You know, he may not because of our church's position He may not be able to be an elder at our church. Yeah, but we still You know like for example Joe I'll just give you an example Joe beaky and this is a thing You know, but Joe beaky he couldn't be an elder at our church. Obviously because of our differences on Baptism, but he certainly could preach, you know, and we can and we can respect him and love him and have You know benefit and obviously that's that's Credo Pato situation, but even within the credo Baptist reform Baptist world. I wish there was some more

28:04Unity and I've tried to try to kind of I feel like I've befriended brothers on On multiple sides of various debates, you know, I can passability and such So I hope I can be a force of of unity and courage. Yeah Even without, you know, like you say it's like these things are not unimportant. We want we absolutely they're important But um, are we should we divide over some of these things? Yeah, you know And I think I've been point out too like even Calvinistic or dispensational Baptist like, you know, we wouldn't We've had them in the past for our church. We want we would tell them like, you know There's no please don't preach anything that related to dispensationalism But I mean one of my favorite pastors is John McArthur. I mean, he's a faithful of spots. We're a preacher like There are times he says stuff on Israel. I'm kind of like, yeah, I kind of wins a little bit I'm like, I don't that's not how the Bible says it And I I strongly disagree with him on Sunday because of course he believes Sundays abolished Which I don't think that's a that's a creation ordinance But as long as he's not preaching on those two topics, he's just preaching through the gospels Or I'm gonna agree with him 99% of the time, you know

29:04So they're faithful brothers. I mean, there's I think it's good to recognize too Sometimes reform folk throw all the dispensational people into the same camp And there are more of your sober dispensational types like a McArthur or an avenue or chow Like what we don't want to put him in the same group as like a hee They're just not even close to the same orbit like there's your extreme dispensational So it's like I do the like you said it's important. Let's understand that we can have fellowship with Presbyteria It's a spatial Baptist, you know, Baptist and you know, no, we're gonna have our differences. We're not gonna Obviously, we're probably not gonna have a sensational Baptist ever preach on the old testament But you know, you come and preach something general on you know, unity in the church or loving Christ or Christ be sacrificed Yeah, we're gonna agree with them nine times out of ten on that, you know So I was gonna ask you because you mentioned earlier about asking your dad. So It sounds did you grew up in a in a in a like a reform Baptist Yes, how did you become a reform Baptist? Yeah, so I'm very blessed. I have to compare myself to the in the parable of talents

30:04I got ten talents both of my parents are solid Christians and as far as I know Like at my church, I'm the only person that has that everyone else. Well, my wife does too But everyone else other than me and my wife has either no Christian parents are only one or maybe none, right? So No, my dad was my dad the Lord saved my dad in his 30s. He actually it's funny. He met my mom at grace at many church out in California So Lord saved him he met MacArthur's church and what his introduction to being reformed Baptist Was MacArthur used to bring in various pastors at night and this and this kind of shows you like MacArthur's ironic spirit because He brought Al Martin in one night when my dad was at grace And he said you guys listen to my tapes. I listen Al Martin tapes, right? That's how that's how you explained it to the congregation. So that was my dad's introduction on Martin So they moved to Florida. We attended a reform Baptist church down there for a while that's grown quite big It's um, it's now um, it's a coconut creek manual Baptist. This is where they had the last Arby net assembly And then after that we moved to Mississippi went to a smaller form Baptist church there and you as you see that's gone

31:06When we moved to New Jersey, we did a 10-hour Martin church for a couple of years And so we've we've I've been in reform Baptist to reform churches my entire life. So I've been very blessed But with the one exception it's funny since this is the ruling church podcast We moved to Iowa. I was very rude. There's in Iowa. You're either Baptist or you're reformed. You're not both So we spent most of our time out there going to like OPC We went to a CRC church for a while. I think maybe an RPC US or something USA So we we stayed at reformed churches not reformed Baptist because you're Baptist out there where are many in Baptist Usually pretty strongly anti-calonist usually so you know It's funny my friends. I always say you're either reformed or you're Baptist. You're not both and I'm like what about John Bunyan? You guys ever heard of or Charles version Yeah So but no my my parents brought me up and like we've you know We've been in a lot of reformed Baptist churches over the years And so I've been very blessed because the theology you know Sometimes that and I try to this is I take for granted the the foundation my parents gave me the churches I've been in like I do see some of my friends drifting off into annihilationism or maybe process theology or open

32:10Bees or something like that and I'm very thankful the Lord gave my parents You know my mom would do the devotes of the morning my dad did devotes at night. We read church twice a week It's a very solid foundation for me and I'm very grateful for it You know, I don't I didn't deserve the Lord's mercy in that area for sure That that that's amazing. I hope it's I hope it's an encouragement Uh to to brothers out there who are raising children right now and just an encouragement that like yeah This is this is great. It's great to hear that because you hear a lot of It's it's a you know like you said you'd be in the only the only one in your church with that kind of background That's that's a blessing that you grew up But it's also an encouragement. I hope to other brothers And even sisters listen to this podcast to say hey raise your children up in the nurture and admonition of Lord I'm not saying it's a guarantee. Obviously it's Lord is sovereign, but um, but man it is a absolute Encouragement to to hear that Yep, that's right. So yeah, we were yeah, go ahead

33:12So many people consider kids ministry kind of throw away ministry and like I You know, I um, I teach our kids at school and that's one of the pair of things I do and you know when I was I was at a weekend or a few years ago in DC Capital about this church I remember mark Debra said, you know, he had everyone sit down and he you know He always does the same when stand up and then he said sit down at the Lord's age at the various ages And then when he got to age like 17 or 18 I think I want to say 90% of the room was sitting down And he said you know so often at churches people make the kids ministry kind of the throwaway ministry or you start with the kids and you move up to the adults But he said how many of you are pastors and leaders and eagans and the Lord saved you through the kids ministry right Because that was probably like you you know the the sunny school and the and the things that you learn then and and also in church too Obviously, I'm not saying people are in church, but it's like it is important like teaching little souls is the one of the most important things You can do it's not like a and it's not like it does support ministry and I that kind of opened my eyes too Like it's very very important training of the next generation I mean those little souls a lot of times

34:14The ground is most tender in those years and they're willing they have tender consciences they hunger for god Like when you get to older people doubt the Lord or it's it's hard ground now the Lord can break any ground up But no, I mean ministering to kids is very important. It's not one of those things because I see a lot in evangelical churches People kind of start off as youth pastors and they move their way out That's kind of like their entry-level position You know and he pointed out that like if you look back at the Puritans and Reformers they took childhood education and catacausing The kids very very seriously right one of those first things Luther did was write a cat like one of his first things after he Trans into the Bible I think the second thing was to write a catacism and he was very I was reading about what he did with his kids. They'd recite the Apostles Creed They'd say the Lord's Prayer they'd sing Psalms and he would expose a section of scripture I mean he would give his kids a mini sermon every day right a mini-serving And that's kind of like that's so important because that's just lacking today in Christian families, you know Yeah, you know, I think the the Vody Bachum Position which I do agree with and he was right. He he got me

35:15You know that he pulled me out of the the the the evangelical sort of You know youth ministry children's ministry mindset that is unhealthy and and unbiblical But the problem is if you're not careful it always happens. I think Luther said, you know Sometimes we're like a drunk and we we get up on The horse from one side and then we fall out on the other side and yeah, and the point he's making, you know, it's like so You know generally speaking we are family integrated as far as like our main service, you know Sunday morning Sunday night But we do also have like children's sunny school Some children's Wednesday night classes and then of course the encouragement we do catacias as a church, but then also the encouragement Of and I'm even teaching on this tonight actually It's it's Wednesday that we're recording this on on Family worship, you know, so you're right like like give children the gospel and yeah, let's

36:17And we're very much the same as you. I mean, we practice him integrated worship I think one of the reasons one of one of the big problems that modern evangelical church they split the adult worship and the kids worship up Like yeah, I guess I actually clarified his sunny school is where we and say the school going through Joel beekies He's got some great books for kids on like, you know, going through the Old Testament So but like we we are because you know, when you train your kids is my my friends when this is a week You know when you train your kids to eat you want to train them to eat adult foods You don't want to be kids foods forever, right and when you bring them into the worship service We're preparing them to be a little adult So why would you give them their own worship experience right they they are training is important to learn to sit still It's important to listen to sermons and so we're the same way We split Sunday school up to get a little more age-appropriate training But then we're very much a firm believer in like everyone from two to 98 is in the general you know auditorium That's something like like to your point like up until about maybe 80 years ago or maybe 60 70 years ago Like that's the way it's always been throughout the history of the church It's always been everyone together So it's only recently been this whole like Kids church and adults church that's that's that's a new thing

37:20Yeah, yeah, that's right Well, let's say um Just kind of shifting gears or maybe kind of start landing and playing here, but like what What what is your goal now, you know from from here on out like what what what do you see The confessional Baptist page going and how can folks like you know Just to you go ahead and give them your ex and Instagram and and how they can find you on these places and and connect So like what's your goal? And then how how can people find you? Yeah, I mean, I'm just I think my handle is just at just the confessional Baptist on Facebook I think it's I think the handles of the same place thing on Instagram and also on Twitter Twitter might just be confessional Baptist, but No, I'm at my goal is to eventually like I don't have a website yet I've built I built a square seat space website very church when I get time one of these days I'm gonna try to build one for here as well But my goal is to kind of like just collect different resources You know, I have some tracks. I've written there's other reform about this chap pastor in our area bob cell He's a very faithful. He was according here for our committee years

38:21He's giving me his whole library of tracks and he's written a lot I think he's written over a hundred maybe eighty or a hundred And I've gotten his permission to share them Kind of like just make a general like resource hub for people to share kind of stuff for free Especially you know stuff like tracks or like resources that you know other like You know, maybe then like I mentioned the diagonal manual from From Montville Almarne Church. I'm sorry. I'm I'm I'm losing the name here, but Anyway, it's been a while since I was there. No, that's my kind of my plan is do that and keep I like to get a blog up Eventually and get like some guest bloggers to write various articles on topics like I do blogger church website I have my own blog as well But you know, I like to get various people to write different blog posts on areas of ex you know at their own expertise Well, they have noticed that Christian conferences even reform circles and someone pointed this out to me a few years ago My former pastor in fact is you tend to see the same people over and over preaching the on different topics And really the body of Christ is so diverse that like you know, you know someone like let's take

39:22Um Well, for the sake of the argument. I'm just gonna use Steve Lawson right since he's since he I fell out there like when you see Steve Lawson multiple times over the topics. It's like what I said it'd be better if you said you know He's good in these areas There's someone else that's got more strengths in another area Let's get him to speak on the atonement right and so it's less celebrity driven and more like you know Different pastors had different niches like some people are good on like you know talking about serving some more devotional Something give it a give you a really good lecture on classical theology Like finding different niches and you bring people in rather than the same famous people year over year Which I think sometimes that does kind of build up a cult of personality like let me solve Lawson and at least to a fall right Um, and so that's what I'm trying to do is like I'd like to find and I'm like you said I'm very One of the things I do on my page purposely is I try to feature smaller churches. I'm not saying I haven't done some big ones like you know manual Baptist coconut creak Um, I feature I feature pastor Jeff Johnson's church over there in Conway I know they're a bigger church too, but I tend to focus more on smaller ones because they're the ones that need the publicity right and they're the ones that like I know as a part of being a small church. It's a struggle sometimes like the finances are tight

40:27You know a church of 200 or 300 a family or two ladies on a big deal But for a small church it's like that can be an existential crisis, right? Yeah Let me trust the Lord. I'm not saying we don't trust the Lord, but you know I'm trying to feature smaller churches smaller pastors and just show people that you know I don't want to get into like an Elijah syndrome where we think That we're the only ones left The Lord has you know the more I've you know kind of gone accomplices and met people The Lord's got faith for a point Baptist church all over the country And I want to kind of direct people to those churches and say like What I do online is not a church I want you to get to a local church because that's how we grow and you know build up the body is part of the local assembly So yeah, thank you man brother. Yeah, that's that's great. Well is there uh Yeah, so check out the confessional Baptist Is there anything Anything you feel like we haven't said that you were hoping to get to say I'll give you the floor for that No, I mean, I you know, I've enjoyed being on the podcast and um, you know, I um Yeah, I appreciate talking to you. I've actually um, I've uh

41:27I've listened to some of your sermons that followed your work. There's a lot of reform back as pastors I meet and I'm like oh, I followed your work from afar and that's kind of way I've listened to your sermons and I haven't you wrote the book what the gospel accorded Christmas I think that's exactly okay I haven't got my hands on that The gospel cringes is one of my favorite books. I'm assuming it's like in the same bay. It's gonna be great Um, so yeah, I just I enjoy you know meeting different before Baptist pastors and you know Hopefully like I've had multiple one things that it's really been cool about my pages I've had people message me and say you know, do you have a church in this area and I'd be able to connect them or I've shared a post in a group and someone said hey, I didn't know that church was 10 minutes away from me I'm like go check it out. Go visit So I'm hoping the Lord uses it for his glory to evangelize and to bring people to solid churches I mean, you know, you I've told you to when you go to a small church like A small church doesn't like people always look at a church is like what can I get out of it right? It's always like what can I get get get but with a small church is like, you know They need your time. They need your service. They need your skills like we're we we're we're not it's like for us

42:29It's like you know when the Lord finally sent us one or two more men that could help teach and preach That was a tremendous burden lifted off our pastor and my shoulder as well, you know And it's like, you know, I'm some people like my final thing is consider going to a smaller faithful church, you know And not Don't be like well, this church doesn't have what I need. I want to go somewhere else If you find a church that's fabulously solid that has good fellowship where they evangelize and they you know They practice you know, they they do the ordinances correctly and they they'll do discipline if someone balls into You know serious sin they consider going to that church and helping building it up into the trepid church You know, no church is perfect And RCs probably sell the time he said he found a perfect church. Don't join it because you're ruined it No, that's yeah That's a great that's a great exhortation brother Are you you say you like the kid with the by taking a bite out of all the apples and leaving around but is there is there a one book? Recently that you've picked up that you'd say hey you guys check this out of you beneficial

43:30Yeah, that's I mean my you know I there's there's there's there's so many. I mean, I love there's a short book by Watson called heaven taken by storm holy violence That that's one of my favorite books of all time. I love William Gernald's Christian and complete armor Um, but other things like um, I mean those those two to me are like some of my favorite books are read first the Bible and then those two But I see some of the books that I've read recently have been very helpful as I love the Valley of vision I got some I got another book on prayers the church fathers and prayers the Puritans Those have been really helpful for me to just going through them and seeing like I you know You don't on one hand you don't go to the room and Catholic extreme Or they just repeat the same nonsense Hail Mary and you know our fathers. It's not really but on the other hand You don't look at the evangelical extreme from that is to say well who cares what the prayers the church fathers and reformers Will like you your own thing right and it's like no there is value to pray the Lord's prayer and look at the church Father's prayer and how they prayed and learn to model your prayers the way these godly men did I mean, I'm I'm not more you know smarter than Augustine and I'm not you know I'm not as godly as Ambrose right or even the you know Luther or Swingley so that's been really helpful to me

44:35To read those type of books. I mean I even have I picked this one up Grace from heaven prayers the Reformation. I'm gonna see you too Um, there's also found to heaven prayers the church father Those have books have been helpful for me because you know to help me see how these men pray You know because sometimes I feel like I pray the same things over and over And God is a great God. There's many ways to talk about his Majestin and I don't want to just be you know If I came up to you, we always talk with the same thing the same way. You start to get a little like hey, what's going on here? We have variety with people So why should we not have variety when we thank God or thank you that you chose me Thank you for your salvation. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you for my health You know praising him for his various attributes like that's helped me immensely spiritually just reading those books And so I do post Valley of vision quotes later on I'm going to start posting some church father quotes church father prayer quotes But yeah, those books have been really helpful and um, I would say jill becky's and Paul small east is mac theology too is very helpful. Yeah, um Yeah, I love I love I've read the first volume of that in a second. So those are kind of the top

45:37Top books out and read well one more thing too. I'll say I was reading warn wearsby has a collection of sermons It's like 120 famous sermons and that has been very immensely helpful for me reading through I try to read a new sermon every day and Like I was reading the story of my augustine a couple of weeks ago And you know what's funny about augustine when you read his servant. He's so thoroughly evangelical You could bring him back and put him in a pulpit today and reform back his church And it wouldn't be that different like when you look at someone like bozzle or maybe an arm ambrose They're a little bit higher a little bit different and bros could be good too But obviously is so thoroughly evangelical. It's like this guy You could put him in a pulpit today and that would just be just as good as it was that you know Um, he's just timeless. I love I love obviously the sermons and his prayers and I just I really loved everything. I've read by him. I don't agree with him and everything I don't think no he you know, he does he would say there's no salvation inside the church I would say there's no salvation outside Christ. I would I would echo. I think Martin Booger said that But so but I but I love his I mean I was that's the thing too I think sometimes and I'll just say this before we leave

46:38Some some gen I'm sure you've heard the trail of blood and some of the general back Well, sometimes Baptists they try to go back and trace the sign versus tracing the lineage, right We're not we're not we're first reformed and then we're Baptist. We're not Baptist reform So our lineage is not through like the anabaptist and then you know the wild inzians and whatever you know There are various You know sex or maybe so almost cults or kind of linter groups that practice baptism Our heritage comes from down to the apostles the church fathers the reformed and then eventually particular Baptist So that's where our heritage comes from. So it's interesting reading their writing and seeing like You know when you read some of their writing You'll see that even though these guys were in a system They were very thoroughly evangelical as well, right to say god is a god He's always kept his church and when the Roman Catholic church got to a point where it's so corrupt the Lord sent a Lutheran To reform it and we broke away from they broke away from it. So you know I think that's one thing too is you know not neglecting where we came from because I think a lot of heresies and errors Pop up when people say forget the history of the past. Let's just go on the future

47:42You know, yeah Yeah, no, it's a so basically for like $800 you can get the Benjamin Allen suggested reading package, you know No, that's great, but I'm the same way. No, it's good. A lot's a lots of good resources there man, I really really appreciate you taking the time to come on here man and Appreciate your love for the church your love for the Lord love for for robust reformed Baptist theology and You guys check out the confessional Baptist giving him a follow. You'll be blessed It'll be something that will benefit you. Thank you. Thanks for being on Yeah, no problem. Thank you. I appreciate it. Look forward to talking to you Amen. Thank you guys for joining us on this episode of the rule church podcast. We'll catch you next week If you really believe the church is the building of churches the house The church is what God's doing. This this is his work if we really believe what Ephesians says we are the

48:47Poimas the master piece of God How are you gonna respond?