(upbeat music)
- Greetings and welcome to the Here We Stand
podcast.
We're coming to you from God's country here
in central Louisiana on the corner of Hooper
and Love It Road at Providence Baptist Church.
And I'm joined today by Shows producer,
co-elder, Roger Dale Peters, who makes all of
this work.
And our special guest today are Pastor Rusty
Reed
and also Pastor Brian Gunter.
Thank you guys for coming today and joining
with us.
I've tried to get Pastor Larry Hubbard to come
and to do the biographical podcast with me.
And I was working really hard on him to get
him,
but all that could get out of Brother Larry
was look.
If you buy me lunch, I'll tell you everything
you wanna know.
And that was as far as I could get with him.
So I said, okay, I give.
And so I wanted to get you guys in here today.
And I'd like to start today just with the
ministry report
from how your ministries are going.
Rusty, I'd like to start with you.
I know you got some exciting news
to tell us about Reformation.
- Yeah, we do.
The Lord was faithful as he always is.
And we were able to secure financing for our
building
and should be starting within the month.
Hopefully finish this year.
We're looking to try to celebrate Christmas,
2026 in the new building.
But Easter 2026 will work as well.
But we're trying.
- So there won't be a slab to do Christmas on
the slab
because you're being middle of construction
at that point, right?
- That's right.
Yeah, we hope to start construction by the end
of the month.
- Awesome, awesome, that is great news.
I'm excited about it
'cause I live literally about 45 seconds
around the corner.
So I'm gonna be able to watch as this thing
comes up.
It's very, very exciting.
And really the answer to a lot of prayers,
right?
- Really is, and a lot of work.
And our finance team was really remarkable.
They did a great job putting together
all the facts and figures for the bank.
And we were able to make it work.
- Yeah, that's definitely hard work.
Well, thank God for that.
After all the, really the trauma of watching
that,
that you and I together standing out in front
of that building that was burning.
But to see this come about is really God's
blessing.
- It really is.
- His hand in blessing.
Brian, how about you?
What's been going on, man?
I think a few things have been going on
in Brian Gunner's life here lately.
- A lot has been going on.
Yeah, so I'm actually preaching now
at Salem Baptist Church just north of the town
of Walker.
Those who know me know that I was at First
Baptist Church
of Livingston for the past three and a half
years.
I recently had to step down as pastor
for the sake of that church.
I don't wanna go too much into the details of
why that was,
but largely much of the issues that I had
was concerning the doctrines of grace
and reform theology and disagreements
among church leadership about that.
I think there's, as in all situations
where pastors and churches have to go separate
ways.
I think there's always many other reasons
that I won't go into.
But largely, you know, I'm a pastor who deeply
believes
that the Bible teaches that God is sovereign
in salvation.
I always have taught that for the past 20
years
of pastoral ministry and just deeply convicted
of that.
And the reality is, is that these truths
are very controversial in our day.
- Absolutely.
- When we think of the fact that salvation is
all of God
and not of man, that is something
that often separates congregations.
And frankly, the doctrines of grace are very
humbling
and very challenging for people to accept.
And that was a big part of why I had to move
to Salem.
And so I'm preaching there now,
being considered to be their pastor
so that that could possibly come in the future
.
But those things have to be considered prayer
fully
and carefully both among myself and my family
as well as the church at Salem.
And there's about 135 former members
of First Baptist Livingston who also feel
that they could not stay at First Livingston
largely due to opposition to the doctrines of
grace.
And it was just a very difficult, sad
situation
where a little more than half of the church
was no longer welcome.
And so we had to find another place to worship
.
And it's very difficult, sad situation,
but God is bringing blessing through it.
And the Lord is doing some incredible things.
And to tell you a little bit about Salem
Baptist Church.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- Which I know is near and dear to Brother
Philip's heart.
- It is indeed.
- For the past few years, when I talked to
Philip,
I mostly heard about Salem Baptist Church
more than Providence, the very church he
pastors
or any other because, and a lot of it was,
and I know Philip shares a love of history
with me.
Salem Baptist Church is just a historic church
founded in the year 1854,
just north of the town of Walker, Louisiana,
in just an incredible church with an
incredible history.
And one of the pastors who's preached
at the Here We Stand conference before,
Brother Chad Chauvan was pastor there for the
past two years.
And he was bivocational and no longer able to
serve
as pastor of that church because of the
responsibilities
of his other job.
And so he had to step down as pastor recently.
And as my time at Livingston came to an end
and I was thinking about where the Lord would
have me.
Brother Philip had been my goodness for the
past few months
asking me to get men to fill the pulpit at
Salem.
And so we had sent some men who are candidates
to later be ordained as pastors from our
fellowship.
I had sent some men, Richard Davis and Brandon
Stafford
to go and fill the pulpit and preach there on
Sundays
and had plans to send some other men
that I'm mentoring and deciphering.
- I had to scratch them off my calendar.
- Yeah, and so, yeah, so we were talking
about how we were gonna get some of those
other men there.
I think we were telling Luke that, weren't we?
- Yeah, yeah.
- And you were gonna get Luke.
- Luke was next man up.
- Yeah, he's only an 18 year old young man.
He was gonna go and preach and Luke Claimaw.
And instead, I ended up being the one
filling the pulpit here in the month of
October.
So it has indeed been a very busy few months
and no doubt painful things I would not have
chosen,
but God is good and he is gracious
and he is bringing much beauty from all this.
And I will say that the Lord has brought
myself,
my wife, my children, and those in our
fellowship
who are looking to join at Salem
has brought us all much closer to the Lord
as a result of these trials.
And so I'm thankful for that.
And so I don't want to share any details
that I should not share publicly
out of consideration for the saints
at First Baptist Livingston.
But needless to say, it was a very difficult,
very painful,
very sinful division that took place.
And we felt that we had no choice
but to go and worship elsewhere.
And God is indeed bringing much blessing
and much beauty from that.
And I'm more committed to the doctrines of
grace than ever
because at the end of the day,
whatever the word of God says is what we must
believe
and what pastors must preach and teach.
And the last sermon I preached from the pulpit
at First Livingston was from Acts chapter 20
where the apostle Paul looked at the Ephesian
elders
and said, I am innocent of the blood of all of
you,
for I have not neglected to proclaim to you
the whole counsel of God.
And that is what I have sought to do in my
ministry.
And even when that is not fully appreciated
or even welcome, the reality is, brothers, as
you know,
we must proclaim the whole counsel of God,
regardless of the cost.
And whether it's in season or out of season,
and that's what I've sought to do.
And that's really why I'm at Salem
and I'll say one more thing.
I think the name of the church is providential
.
Brother Phillip, because as we know,
Salem comes from the Hebrew word shalom and it
means peace.
And that's what we're seeking,
a place of peace where we can worship Christ
who is our peace and serve him together.
And so I just welcome anyone who doesn't have
a home church
to come and worship with us at Salem Baptist
Church
Sundays, 10 a.m. Sunday school worship at 11
and evening worship at 6 p.m.
- Amen.
And my favorite theological word, of course,
is providence.
- Amen.
Like a good Baptist.
- Exactly.
And I see nothing but the hand of providence
because it was really pretty remarkable.
And, Rusty, it speaks to this relationship of
churches
that we have with the Here We Stand conference
when I found out about the need for pulpit
supply.
It was on a weekend.
And by Monday, when I first found out about it
,
noon, by Monday, we had 11 preachers lined up
wanting to do pulpit supply.
Not just from your church, your guys,
but other guys as well who were saying,
"Yeah, we'll stand in the gap and do whatever
is necessary."
Because it was really important to me,
I could not fathom a 171 year old church just
going down.
We wanted to hold that together.
And so what's fascinating to me
is the fact that three of the guys
that we lined up just needing to fill that
slot
wind up coming with you.
And I could have never imagined when we were
doing that
that there was one day soon in time
be you being the supply preacher
with 135 other people.
So providential is certainly when we look back
at how it all is.
And painful as I know it was, there is
blessing.
- Amen.
And Salem has a whole lot more people
worshiping there on the Lord's Day
than has in many years.
And it is a beautiful thing.
I'll just say one more thing.
And that is, we love to sing.
- I can testify that firsthand the first,
maybe Sunday night, Christy and I went out
there.
And so now, and in the room is like not any
bigger
than this one. - I was wondering
how big it was.
- And it's just as many people as you can pack
in there.
And so now Christy's twisting my arm every
Sunday.
Now, hey, let's go back out there to Brian
to just experience that singing in that small
room
with that many people.
Fantastic. - Yeah.
- And Salem has 22 members currently.
And we brought about 135 with us.
And so we have a congregation that loves to
worship
and serve the Lord.
And I got to tell you, it is the highlight of
my week,
not only to preach the word of God, that
always has been.
But now just as much I look forward to singing
with the saints at Salem, it has been
incredible.
If you get the chance to come and worship with
us,
especially maybe a Sunday evening service
or a Wednesday evening, if you don't have
worship
at your home church, it is such a blessing.
I'm just thankful for what the Lord's doing.
- And the great possibility of knocking out
some walls,
probably.
- There's gonna need to be something done.
- Something's gonna have to happen.
- Because we barely fit, but God will provide.
- He will.
- And wherever he guides, he provides.
And I have learned in 20 years ministry,
trust the Lord with all your heart,
do not lean on your own understanding.
And all your ways acknowledge him
and he will make straight your paths.
That's exactly what I've seen.
And I know that God has a bright future for us
and for Salem.
And so I'm just thankful for that.
- Amen.
Well, I've had Rusty and Brian on before.
And as a matter of fact, while I'm thinking
about it,
you can go to the Here We Stand Conference
Facebook page.
And you can see a lot of our former sermons
from different conferences that we've had.
This is actually our fifth conference coming
up this year.
We started in 2021.
Other podcast episodes are there at that
Facebook page.
But I also wanna talk about just a little bit
something
that's happening here in our building at Prov
idence
that started with Reformation Church men's
meeting.
And this thing has grown organically
into usually four to five churches are
represented
with men.
Last night we had 32 men and Bobby Green came
and brought the hammer and brought the fire.
And I learned something new, BTA.
I'm gonna put that into my, about that action.
I'm gonna put that into my lexicon now of
things to say.
And Bobby definitely put the BTA on us, you
and I.
- Both have a lot of upgrades to make.
- Yes, we do.
I had never heard that before.
Apparently it's pretty popular.
- I gotta tell you, when I prayed for the Lord
to send me another man to shepherd the church
of God
with me and to pastor with me.
I am very blessed to have Bobby Green.
He is quite the servant of the Lord
and love him and his wife, Jordan.
They're such a blessing, great fellowship.
And the young man can preach.
- He can, great pulpit presence, great deep
voice,
really confident.
And I look forward to hearing Bobby again.
So we're doing that men.
If you ever wanna come to one of our meetings,
we post it on all our socials.
And it's usually the third Friday in the month
,
but sometimes it's not.
So be on the lookout for that.
But not having to do these biographical
podcasts anymore
with Brian and Rusty.
Now we can really start to talk about some
topics.
And one of the topics I wanna bring up today,
and we're gonna get to the conference
on the backend of this podcast,
is something that just was really the most
incredible thing
I've ever seen in politics.
And that was the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service
.
I was, I'm still stunned by what I saw.
And it was actually that day that that evening
was the first evening we were coming out to
Salem,
me and Christy, and I was just transfixed.
I'm seeing the top cabinet people
from the Secretary of State, Vice President on
down,
one after another, and every one of them
declaring the kingship of Christ
and literally gospel, I mean, Frank Turrick,
substitutionary atonement. - It was.
- Even Marco Rubio, and you had different
stripes
of professing Christianity at this thing,
but there was nothing really unorthodox
that was said, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State
, Catholic,
but talking about how God became a man
in the person of Jesus Christ
and died on the crossroads and rising on the
third day.
I mean, it was just, I was stunned
and I never saw anything like it.
And so then the aftermath of this
has been a great swell of interest.
As a matter of fact, I wrote some of these
statistics down.
Fox News had reported last week,
and this is actually since 2019 and '22,
but you can even go more than this right now.
Since '22, there's been a 41.6% increase in
Bible sales.
Since 2019, 79.5% increase
religion and spirituality downloads.
And of course that covers just anything, but
still.
And then, since 2019, a 50% increase
in contemporary Christian music on Spotify
streams.
So I don't get too excited about contemporary
Christian music,
but it shows you a direction.
- Well, it beats Cardi B.
- Yeah, it definitely means Cardi B.
There's no questions.
There's no question about that.
And so we're seeing it.
And I've even had two people come to our
church
as a result of being affected by Charlie Kirk
and everything that happened and then looking
in.
And I knew a little bit about Charlie Kirk.
I looked to a lot of clips,
but I didn't realize how gospel centered that
he was.
And so as I began to look to the clips,
yeah, like everybody else, it was like, wow,
man, this dude was really bringing the gospel
and also combining it with a biblical
worldview
in the world of politics.
And he's hitting these kids straight on, on
these campuses.
And so we're seeing this swell.
And then Apology, a podcast with Jeff Durbin
and Luke,
they were there.
I posted it on our Facebook page
and they gave a really great review of what
happened.
And it was, it was sound.
It was good and all the good aspects of it.
But then our guy, Dr. White,
about three or four days later,
he comes out with a podcast and he begins to
say,
hey, wait a minute, this is great.
And he said all the things that were great,
but we need to beware doctrinally
about the ecumenism that is taking place
that we're starting to see.
Eric Metax is wanting to bring back ECT
and these different things.
And so--
- Tell us what ECT is.
- ECT was back in the 90s.
Evangelicals and Catholics together.
Dr. Sproul, if you ever want to look up on "L
ickin' Ear,"
he tells a great story about that.
John MacArthur tells a great story about that
where they all got in this room.
And of course, for Dr. Sproul,
the issue was justification by faith alone.
And it comes down to that.
It comes down to "Sola Fide"
and they refused to sign that document over
that issue.
And so Eric Metax is just as an example
that Dr. White used was like,
hey, since we were seeing all these good
things,
why can't we all come together?
And there is a sense in which there can be
a co-belligerency like, Brian,
when you do things on the abortion front
with those who we may not agree with
on the very cardinal doctrine of the Christian
faith,
"Sola Fide," and we can do things together
in the public square.
But we have to be very careful
about making these doctrinal distinctions.
And so what I want to talk about a little bit
is the response that we should have,
because this is like,
Roger and I were talking earlier,
it's always a wave,
and then this wave is going to die down, right
?
And so while we're in the middle of this wave,
we as Bible-believing Christians,
how do we make the best use
of all of these people's renewed interest in
Christianity?
And I'm afraid that if we're not careful,
a lot of people can fall into places
where they're not getting the true gospel.
And so I feel like it's kind of up to us.
And let me start with this, I'll give you an
example.
And I'm gonna start with you first, Rusty.
I was asked to go out to one of these Charlie
Kurt memorials,
and I had to stand on stage with those
of different belief systems.
And there I was, and I'm like,
I'm uncomfortable, I'm validating,
but at the same time,
here's my shot to preach the gospel.
So when I got my eight minutes,
I just went hard gospel,
like Doug Wilson, White Hot Gospel.
And so I think it's,
if we get ourselves into those spaces,
we need to be discerning,
but we also need to make sure
that we're bringing the gospel.
That is our number one most important reality,
whether we're one-on-one with people,
or whether we find ourselves in these public
spaces
where we get our opportunity,
it's one shot to give the biblical gospel.
Rusty, what are your thoughts on that?
- Well, it's interesting that you brought up
Dr. White,
who's all about dividing lines.
That's the name of his show.
And we should take advantage
of the current times when these things get
exposed.
Charlie Kirk was exposing dividing lines
between right and left,
between reason and complete lunacy.
And it opens up a door for us to step in
and say, you know, the gospel is reasonable,
but we're also uncomfortable with dividing
lines.
As Dr. White was saying,
we would like for, there tends to be a push in
our society,
even in Christian society, to close these
dividing lines,
but there are some dividing lines that are
necessary,
and always will be necessary.
And so we don't, we should take advantage, I
think,
when the opportunity is given,
like it was given to you to preach the gospel,
it's been done for me and for Brian
and for people all over the place, I'm sure.
Dr. MacArthur took advantage of that
opportunity
on Larry King Live, you know.
- Often.
- Oftentimes, and never failed.
You know, he always came, rose up to the
occasion
and refused to close those dividing lines.
Larry King would seemingly be begging for him
to close those up, and he wouldn't do it
because right is right and wrong is wrong.
And in the end, I think he earned Larry King's
respect.
- Oh, he did, yeah.
- And the gospel was presented in clarity.
I remember you were talking about Dr. Sproul
with ECT,
and I can't remember who it was.
I don't remember if it was Don Carson
or who it was, a respectable theologian.
- It's J.I. Packer, I think.
- It was Packer, that's who it was.
- Which was surprising.
- And stunned R.C.
- It did.
- That Packer went to the other side there.
And I think it's the same thing.
There is this desire to close ranks
and say, hey, let's put our arms around each
other.
And we think that something will be beneficial
will come out of that, but I think in the long
run,
what happens when you do that is the gospel
loses clarity
and you fall back instead of moving forward.
So I think we need to take advantage of these
things,
move forward, put our arms around people
and say, yes, we agree.
LGBTQ is insane and all this other stuff,
but we need to make sure
that we give a clear gospel presentation.
- Absolutely, I even feel like in the reform
world,
we get under that bigger and bigger tent
that the reform world has become in the past
10 years.
We tend to not want to get outside our walls
too much
and get into that uncomfortable space.
So it requires diligence and discernment
to not only have the comfort level
to just kind of branch out outside of our tent
,
but while we're out there, be strong with the
gospel.
Brian, what are your thoughts on that?
- You know, I have done a lot of work in the
public sphere
where the law of God meets public policy
and specifically as it has to do
with the sanctity of human life
and the issue of the murder of the pre-born
by abortion in this land and across this world
.
So as I think through the issue,
and I think over many years of advocating
for changes in law in Louisiana as well as
other states,
I understand the concept of co-beligerancy
and think it is very valuable
because if you take something like the issue
of abolishing abortion, so the abolition of
abortion,
I would define that as saying
that the abolition of abortion is the biblical
position
on abortion, which states that life begins
at the moment of conception
and should only end by natural death
and that life should be equally protected at
all points
between when it begins at conception
and when it should end at natural death
and that we should treat all human beings
equally.
Now, most people who call themselves per life
would agree when I say that,
but when I say that life should be equally
protected,
I mean, it should not be legal for anyone
to murder another person.
And the reality is, is that right now
in all 50 states of the United States of
America,
it is legal for a mother
to murder her pre-born child by abortion.
Some might say, oh, abortion is not legal
in this state or that state.
Oh, contrary, abortion is legal
in all 50 states for the mother.
Now, it might not be legal to operate
an abortion facility, a clinic, as it's often
called,
an abortion mill in the state of Louisiana
and some other states,
but it is perfectly legal for mothers
to get the abortion pill by mail
and to take that abortion pill to murder their
child
and to flush that child down the toilet
in the comfort and convenience of their own
home.
That is very legal in all 50 states and it is
ongoing.
And the reality is, is we have more abortion
in states like Louisiana now,
after the abortion clinics have been closed
down,
than we did several years ago
prior to Wade being overturned in 2022, three
years ago.
And so, as I think of this concept of co-bell
igerancy,
the question would be on God's law,
I might say to a Roman Catholic or even a
Muslim,
I might say, do you agree with me
that it should not be legal for anyone
to murder another person from the moment
when life begins at conception,
which scientifically is called the moment of
fertilization
when the sperm and the egg meet and the child
begins to grow,
from the moment of fertilization,
which is conception, biblically speaking,
until the moment of natural death
should all life be equally protected
in abortion thereby abolish.
Now, abolish means legally prohibited by law.
I know we can't stop all abortion,
just like we can't stop all bank robberies and
murders,
but that doesn't mean that bank robbery
and murder should be legal.
It should be illegal and we should do
everything we can
to prevent it and prohibit it by law
and we should punish it severely.
And so the question is,
do you believe that abortion is the murder of
a human being?
If the answer is yes,
then the only consistent answer is abolition.
And I am glad to work with Roman Catholics
toward passing a law to abolish abortion,
although not all Roman Catholics are gonna
seek that,
just like not all evangelicals are gonna seek
that.
The reality is, is there is a divide
that cuts across denominational and religious
lines
as it concerns abortion here.
But if a Roman Catholic priest wants to go to
the legislature
and testify alongside me, after me, before me
on a bill
that would abolish abortion
by granting equal protection to children in
the womb,
then I'll be thrilled to have that Catholic
priest support.
But what I'm not gonna do is pretend
like we believe the same things
concerning the gospel and salvation.
And I just wanna say this,
I don't think it's very respectful of Roman
Catholics
or other faiths to pretend like they believe
what I believe and teach
when clearly our beliefs are different.
I don't understand how that is respectful.
It seems to me like I would be minimizing
and dismissing what Roman Catholics believe
if we wanna use them as an example
here on the issue of abortion.
I think I ought to have enough respect
for my Roman Catholic friends and neighbors
to be honest with them about where my beliefs
differ from their own and they for me.
And I don't see why that should be seen as
disrespectful.
I think it's very respectful to honestly
and sincerely address the differences between
our faiths.
- Absolutely, and this is one of the hardest
things
for me, having been raised Roman Catholic,
I got into it today on Twitter with Todd Erzen
and so did Dr. White.
And there was a little back and forth that we
had.
And my thing is this, I don't wanna get into
it.
I don't wanna have a fight.
I don't think it's an attack for me
to take out the catechism that I have right
behind me
and say, okay, this is what Rome, for example,
is teaching that how a simple man gets right
where the holy God goes ahead and when he dies
.
This is the plan of salvation according to
Rome.
This is what it is.
It's laid out, it's been there for centuries.
Council a trend on that they still hold to.
And so by just saying that
and then by just comparing that with the
biblical gospel,
I don't consider that an attack.
I just consider it comparing these two
understandings
of how we get right with God.
But it's so very difficult, I find, especially
,
and the most place I do that is on Twitter,
is to have that kind of just a relaxed
conversation
without all the hostility of your attacking me
.
And I'm constantly trying to find ways of,
hey, how can we sit down and just say,
hey, there's a clear difference here.
And at the same time, yeah, we can do things
together
if we go to the legislature on things that are
moral evil,
whether it be abortion or transgenderism
or any of the evils of our day.
So I think that's a space that we have to
learn
how to really be discerning as to how do we
get that done?
How do we get that across?
What do you think about that, Russell?
- As a confessional Baptist,
I'm perfectly happy for a Roman Catholic or
anybody else
to pick up a copy of the 1689 second London
Baptist
Confession of Faith and say,
is this representative of what you believe?
And yes, and I'll defend that.
And if you wanna debate that, we can do that.
I would think that Roman Catholics would be
the same way
that they would say,
this is what we have historically held to,
this is what we believe.
And we can have,
I don't know if they would be productive
conversations,
but at least they would be conversations
that were meaningful.
- That's the usefulness of the confession.
- Yes, exactly right.
And that's the usefulness of confession.
They have the same thing in their confession,
I mean, in their catechism and all of that.
Brian asked a good question.
Why would they wanna be,
it's not only disrespectful for me to treat
them
like they don't have a 1200 years of history,
it's disrespectful to their forebears for them
to do that.
But I don't understand that.
- Yeah, and it just requires for us to prayer
fully consider
if we get into these spaces,
how we're to go about doing that.
But one thing is for certain,
like I'm working right now on a possible deal
on LSU's campus with TPUSA.
And what I would like to do is bring together
pastors
and politicians to have an event on campus
that says,
hey, TPUSA, we in the local community of local
pastors
and local politicians, we have your back.
And we want LSU's TPUSA organization to thrive
on campus.
So like, if we get to go to that event
and we get our chance to get to the mic,
we're gonna say a few words about TP,
but buddy, we better be ready to let it fly.
- Yeah, is that the one that Ali Beth is,
or did she already do that?
- She's having one in October the 27th at the
Central Plex.
But I'm talking about a later event
where it's just local people instead of those
guys.
'Cause we do want to keep that momentum going.
I do want to see people that really have
bought into
the transgender madness and all the rest.
I really do want to see them continually be
confronted
and not in a bad way, but the way that Charlie
did it.
And that was what was so crazy about
everything.
I mean, here you had this guy who in the most
reasonable way
possible would engage and they killed him.
- Well, that's the thing, you know, you think
of Charlie Kirk
or if you want to go the other way, you can
take Doug Wilson.
These are, at the very least, these are great
examples
to all of us in Christianity of how to speak
and how to not be lazy in our study
and how to speak in a passionate but non-
violent way
get to point across.
They just did a good job.
That was where I was exposed to Charlie Kirk.
I'm like you, I really wasn't really a part
of the turning point ministry or anything.
I didn't follow that.
Where I interacted with Charlie Kirk, you know
,
right or wrong was when his videos would pop
up on my feed,
you know, and I would think, well, this is
impressive,
you know, and even maybe sometimes helpful,
you know,
to help me in a kind of whenever I was
engaging
in the public.
So we need that, that's good.
- Yeah, we do.
And learning how to do that in the way that
they,
and Doug too, like on CNN, he is really great
at that.
With that latest interview, and there's one I
want to watch
where he got an interview with a New York
Times guy.
And the guy got some really challenging
questions
about Calvinism in particular.
And I hadn't got a chance to see that,
but it's the way we go about engaging.
And I really want to, Bobby talked about it
last night
in his message about discipleship.
And so to me, the really right now in this era
of time
that we're in, considering all that we've
talked about,
really getting our, especially our young men,
to have such a thorough understanding of the
gospel,
that if you wake them up at two o'clock in the
morning
and say, give me the gospel right now,
they can just spit it out.
I mean, it's just all the components of the
gospel
that you can have that type of gospel
conversation,
where it's not just, you know,
let me give you these four points and wrote,
man, we can talk about it in such a way
that they don't feel like we're disarming them
or we're being antagonistic toward them.
But that, the way that Charlie Kirk exempled
it.
And so what we're looking at for our
conference coming up,
I don't think it could be a better time
to have a conference on the name of our
conference this year
is our sovereign God.
And we have certainly seen in 2025,
when we, I love last night's verses
that Bobby quoted about soldiers, being good
soldiers.
And we lost two generals this year in 2025
and John MacArthur, which we kind of knew he
was coming.
But Vody still is in a complete, it's a shock.
- Absolutely. - And of course,
we know it was exactly in the sovereignty of
God,
the timing, exactly when God decreed that that
would happen.
But it's still nonetheless, we're down here
in responsibility land and it's still a shock
for us.
But it really, to me, it says, okay,
where do we go from here?
We've lost several guys, some not only to
death,
but to failure in ministry.
We've lost some really heavy hitters in this
year
and in recent years.
And then you go back to Dr. Sproul.
Rusty, I think about just in the last five
years,
personal guys, Brother Huey Moke at Lacey,
David Miller.
There's just been a lot of them strung along.
And so to me, it's now, where do we go from
here?
Who carries the torch?
Well, nobody can take the place of a Vodybacom
.
There's nobody that can take the place of a
John MacArthur,
or Charlie Kirk for that matter.
I've never seen anybody argue like that on a
campus.
- But I would just say, remember that it was
God
who raised up Vodybacom and John MacArthur
and it's God who raises up leaders in the
future.
And so I do trust that the Lord will have men
to lead our churches faithfully.
And I don't see why the future can't be even
brighter
than the past, you know, brighter than the
past.
The reality is, is I see a crop of young
pastors
and teachers who are more committed than ever.
And I'll just say generationally,
it seems like in my parents and grandparents
generation
that America was largely lulled asleep
spiritually speaking.
It was almost like in the '50s and '60s,
there was this assumption that we were somehow
more godly
than the rest of the world or something like
that.
And the truth is, is a lot of complacency cre
pt in,
in recent decades in America.
And I think what's happened after COVID
and the digital revolution is that
this has all been pulled back.
And we see now that we can speak of America
being a Christian nation and its founding.
Certainly the founders of this nation were men
who largely believed the word of God
and followed its teachings.
I mean, I'm not saying that every founder was,
you know,
a card-carrying, born-again Christian,
but nonetheless, there was a biblical
worldview.
- A lot of them were, yeah.
- A lot of them were.
And those who were not, like Thomas Jefferson
and others,
they certainly had imbibed a biblical
worldview
that informed the way they saw civil law
and how government should function
and where rights come from that they come from
God
and not government and things like that.
And so, you know, when I look throughout
American history
and I look at our founding in this nation,
what I realize is that whatever our founding
was
in the last 100 years or less,
we have gotten so far away from a biblical
worldview
that I feel like 2020 was a year when America
woke up
and realized we're not a Christian nation,
not even close.
I mean, just look at what is commonly believed
by the people in this nation.
Whatever a Christian nation should be,
it should be characterized by people,
a populace, who are genuinely,
generally Christian in their worldview.
And that's not the culture we live in, not
even close.
And it is the job of pastors and preachers
and the local church to go out
and proclaim a biblical worldview.
And you know, I'm gonna be preaching on the
issue
of if God is sovereign, why vote?
I wanna say something about this,
that I believe pastors have more of a critical
role
in this than politicians.
And we flipped that.
We, Bobby quoted Spurgeon last night in his
sermon,
calling men to step up and to disciple other
men
and men and to lead in these issues.
And Spurgeon once said something along the
lines of,
"If God has called you to be a preacher,
why stoop to be a king?"
And Spurgeon's point was,
is that the call to pastoral ministry
is a higher calling than to be a president
or a prime minister.
- I believe that firmly.
- Now, many people might think that's absurd,
but I believe it.
I believe that the prophet Nathan, in many
ways,
had a more critical role than King David.
- Absolutely.
- And the reality is, is that we need men to
stand up
and boldly proclaim the truth in this
generation.
So I'll just say, Philip, I think,
I don't know who they will be,
but I believe God has leaders for the church
in coming days that we're gonna hopefully get
to see
in our lifetime, who will be just as excellent
or even better than men like Vodibacum and
John Macaulay.
And I'm so thankful for the revival
and really the reformation that I'm watching
in young men in their teens and 20s and 30s
right now.
- Well, you're kind of reading my mail of
where I was headed
and where I was headed with that is,
with them gone now to carry the torch on,
it's up to us as local pastors to lead
and bringing that younger generation
out of which may come a Vodibacum, John Macaul
ay Arthur,
and for us to carry the torch of the gospel
and to also piggyback on what you're saying,
part of the problem that I see that has
happened
over since really the '60s
and the sexual revolution in the '60s,
I think you can dial it back really to
pinpoint that,
is that the church stepped back from the
public square.
The church believed in that myth of neutrality
.
We're gonna stay back and we're gonna stay
inside the church.
We're not gonna get involved out there in the
public square
and the results have been plain to see.
And so when people say to me,
"Well, Pastor, you need to stay in your lane
"and just preach, you don't need to get
involved
"in politics."
I said, "Wait a minute, number one, I have to
live here."
Number two, I've got five grandchildren
that I don't want to grow up in a totalitarian
society
because at the end of the day,
what we see underlying the left is Marxism.
That's what it is.
I mean, that's not hyperbolic to say in any
way.
And I think it's that pastors need to lead the
way
like you were just saying in the public square
,
but what it is that we bring to the table is
the gospel
because that's the only thing that can change
hearts
from somebody who's antifa over into being a
regenerate
Christian is our gospel message.
And I agree with you,
I tell my folks at Providence all the time,
and I firmly believe this,
that my vocation as a pastor, even being bivoc
ational,
even in this very small church,
the work that I do that you guys do is more
significant,
more important than any president, prime
minister,
or king, why?
Because it is what we are doing
is of the highest eternal value.
Every Sunday, large day in and out,
we're behind those pulpits and we're opening
word of God
and preaching to the people of God
and discipling the saints
and doing the work of the ministry.
When it comes time for judgment day,
is it gonna matter when the presidents are
bending their knee
what their legislation was,
but is it gonna matter who we discipled as
saints?
It will carry on for all eternity and that's
our role.
And so as we look forward to this conference,
our sovereign God, the way we came up with
designing
these messages are answers to common questions
that people have about sovereignty and
responsibility.
So we're gonna have Mark LaCour from Grace
Bible Fellowship.
He's gonna start the conference
and kind of lay the foundation with how
sovereign is God.
And then Larry Hubbard from Riverside Baptist
is gonna come back with,
if God is sovereign over all things,
why do we need to pray if he's to create all
things
whatsoever before the foundation of the world?
Then Rusty, you're gonna come with a message
on if God is sovereign, why press on in the
Christian life?
Why endure to the end?
And then as you said, Brian,
why vote?
What's the point?
If God sets all the leaders in place
and he's sovereign over that, why vote?
And then Rusty Grant is gonna finish up
from his church, Grace Covenant Baptist,
I believe his name is Church?
Yeah, and why evangelize?
Why tell?
If God's to create all who's gonna be saved,
why do we need to spread the gospel?
And so I think those are very important
and good questions that people need to wrestle
with,
especially if they're wrestling even now
with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.
And we would love to have you come out.
Let me give you the dates for our conference.
It's gonna be Friday, October the 24th.
That's gonna start at 6 30 in the evening
at Riverside Baptist in Watson.
And then Saturday morning,
we're going to meet at 10 a.m.
Friday night, we will have two messages
with a dessert fellowship in between the
messages.
And then on Saturday,
we'll have a luncheon in between the messages.
And maybe I can talk Larry into doing a Q and
A.
I don't know if I can do that.
- Probably, well, probably if you feed them.
- Probably if I feed them, that's exactly
right.
Now, I want to say one more thing too about
this book.
And Rusty and I met this man, Ed Lacey,
over 25 years ago.
And when I first heard Brother Ed Lacey preach
over at Foster Road, I was a brand new
Christian
and I was just absolutely blown away
by his power and his clarity
on specifically the gospel.
And the way a lot of you that are watching
probably
at one time or another sat under Brother Ed L
acey's ministry.
And what he had was these interactive work
books
where he would walk through things
like he had one on prayer,
but his magnum opus was Christ-centered
evangelism.
So he was writing a book about really comp
iling all his notes
on Christ-centered evangelism.
And sadly, I think it was 2020 when he died
from COVID
and went to be with the Lord.
Well, he hadn't finished the book,
but his wonderful wife, Diane,
finished compiling his book and put it
together
in this book, The Surpassing Power of the
Gospel.
And as we have been talking about the
necessity
of being able to proclaim the gospel
with clarity, with power,
this is one of the best resources that you can
get
as far as a book outside the Bible
to really put in your toolbox,
a great understanding of the gospel.
I remember about a year before Ed died,
he told me that Paul Washer had called him on
the phone
and he had a group of missionaries
that he was fixing to send in Romania.
And when he called Brother Ed, he said,
"There's only one man I want to come
"and preach to these missionaries
"before I send them over into Romania."
And as you, Ed Lacey, and Ed got on the plane
and went over there and preached to those
missionaries.
And then without even being asked,
and we're gonna show this at the conference,
Paul Washer did a promotional video for this
book.
He just, God, Ms. Diane, left a message,
"Hey, I'd like to help sell this book,"
because it's such a great resource,
because the gospel explained so very clearly.
So the places that you can go to get this book
are on Amazon, you can go to Barnes & Noble,
you can go to edlaceyministries.org.
They're also having an audio book come out in
a few months.
And I talked with Diane Lacey today, Ed's wife
,
and she is sending me 40 books
and we're gonna be selling those at the
conference.
So we would love for you to come.
We've got multiple churches
that come together each year.
This is our fifth year to do it.
If you love sound doctrine, and I've posted
this before,
I'm a little biased, but I really, truly
believe this,
that we have collected at this conference
some of the finest local Bible expositors in
this area.
And so if you love sound doctrine,
if you love expositional preaching,
if you love the doctrines of grace,
if you love singing the great old hymns of the
faith,
we would love to have you come out
to our conference October 24th and 25th at the
fifth.
Here we stand conference.
Well, man, it's been great to have you.
- Absolutely, thank you.
- I think we could talk for another three
hours
on these topics, but I know we can't go that
long.
Thank you so much for being here with us today
.
And we look forward to the Lord's Day.
Look, we're not in competition here between
our churches,
but you could come to Providence at 10.45.
Rusty, what time?
- 2.45.
- 2.45 for now until the building is built,
right?
And Brian, what time?
- 11 a.m.
- 11 a.m. at Salem Baptist Church.
And we look forward to serving in our churches
this Sunday
and preaching the word, the whole counsel of
God.
God bless.
- Good job, man.
Really appreciate it.
- Thank you.