When to Stop Listening to This Podcast
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Well, when should you stop listening to this podcast?
00:00:08.180 | Who would ask such a question in the first place?
00:00:11.000 | I don't know, well, we did.
00:00:12.720 | It was our very first episode.
00:00:15.080 | We recorded together on stage in public
00:00:17.360 | and we pulled it off at the Getty Sing Conference
00:00:19.080 | in Nashville recently.
00:00:20.200 | About 2,500 friends joined us early in the morning.
00:00:23.240 | A lot of you who are regular listeners were there.
00:00:25.960 | So have a listen to our interchange.
00:00:29.640 | How many of you are regular listeners to the podcast
00:00:31.760 | by a show of hands?
00:00:32.600 | Oh, wow.
00:00:33.440 | Wow, thank you.
00:00:35.320 | It's just amazing to be here with you.
00:00:37.600 | Typically, this is not our recording setup.
00:00:39.840 | This is not how we do it in front of a live audience.
00:00:43.240 | Typically, Professor John is in his home study
00:00:46.280 | and I'm in my home study and we connect over Skype.
00:00:49.800 | We bounce all over topics.
00:00:51.520 | - And usually I have a computer screen right here
00:00:55.080 | in front of me with all the answers.
00:00:57.040 | (laughing)
00:00:58.480 | And I don't have one or a manuscript this time.
00:01:02.000 | I do have some notes,
00:01:02.840 | but I don't know if I'll look at them or not.
00:01:05.120 | So I don't wing these answers.
00:01:07.200 | Believe me, they take a lot of preparation.
00:01:08.960 | - They do.
00:01:09.800 | - They're hard questions, usually.
00:01:11.120 | - We have over 200 email questions come in to us each week.
00:01:16.040 | 200 email questions.
00:01:18.320 | And in those emails, I see a lot of recurring questions
00:01:21.400 | that come in to us that are very situational.
00:01:24.240 | So should I marry this lady or this lady?
00:01:26.920 | Should I marry this guy or this guy?
00:01:28.560 | Should I take this job or this job?
00:01:30.960 | We appreciate those situational questions.
00:01:33.580 | But it raises another question for me,
00:01:35.320 | and that is, where do you want this podcast
00:01:38.680 | to serve our audience when they have spouses,
00:01:42.400 | they have parents, they have pastors, they have churches,
00:01:45.300 | they have other voices in their lives?
00:01:47.920 | Where do you want, ask Pastor John, in your wisdom
00:01:50.320 | to come into their lives in light of all the other voices
00:01:53.920 | God has given them as well?
00:01:55.660 | - So how to listen to APJ or how to fit it into your life,
00:02:00.280 | if it fits in at all, probably should be something
00:02:05.280 | that you decide on the basis of what it is.
00:02:09.680 | So what are we trying to do?
00:02:11.940 | Why do you guys do this?
00:02:14.080 | You've been doing this for six years, 1,400 episodes.
00:02:18.280 | Why in the world do you do this?
00:02:20.880 | So let me give you some roots,
00:02:24.080 | and then say so in view of those roots
00:02:28.000 | and what we're doing, should you listen?
00:02:31.280 | And if so, why?
00:02:32.880 | And how does it relate to your pastor's preaching and so on?
00:02:37.880 | So go back with me to 1966.
00:02:41.360 | I'm in the hospital with Mono at Wheaton College,
00:02:50.160 | and about 200 yards away is Edmond Chapel,
00:02:55.160 | and Harold John Ockengay,
00:02:58.480 | pastor of a big church in Boston,
00:03:03.120 | was the guest preacher in Spiritual Emphasis Week,
00:03:07.840 | and he was preaching.
00:03:09.080 | And WETN is the radio station,
00:03:11.920 | and I was listening on my bed to his preaching.
00:03:17.520 | Now I was a pre-med student and excited
00:03:20.560 | that God had made plain to me
00:03:22.160 | that I was gonna be a medical doctor.
00:03:24.000 | And lying there and listening to him,
00:03:28.240 | my world absolutely changed.
00:03:31.040 | And to sum it up would be,
00:03:34.680 | I came away from those several days of listening
00:03:37.720 | with this passion that has never died.
00:03:41.320 | It is as close as I've ever had to a call.
00:03:45.880 | And it was, you're not gonna be a medical doctor.
00:03:50.880 | You're gonna be a Bible guy,
00:03:53.920 | and your job for the rest of your life
00:03:55.920 | is going to be to look at it,
00:03:58.260 | see what's there,
00:04:00.360 | try to savor it according to its value,
00:04:04.280 | and then say it for other people to enjoy.
00:04:08.040 | And I have not been able to shake it
00:04:13.640 | for what is this, 55 years or whatever, 50 years now
00:04:18.440 | that what I do and what we do is look at the Bible,
00:04:23.440 | try to understand what it says,
00:04:27.760 | love what it says,
00:04:29.760 | and then tell people what it says.
00:04:33.200 | That's what we do.
00:04:35.120 | So fast forward to 1980.
00:04:37.400 | Now I'm the first year of in the pastorate,
00:04:41.960 | and I get to preach twice on Sunday.
00:04:46.400 | Back in those days, we had evening services,
00:04:49.620 | and I preached twice on Sunday,
00:04:52.560 | and everything in me said, "That's not enough.
00:04:57.560 | "I got so much more to say to these,
00:05:00.780 | "this is my flock.
00:05:03.680 | "My job is to tell them what I see in the Bible.
00:05:06.520 | "I'm seeing things in the Bible every day,
00:05:09.660 | "and I can't not want to tell people."
00:05:12.720 | I mean, that's just what it means, I think,
00:05:16.400 | to be called in this way.
00:05:20.080 | So we created the star, Bethlehem Star.
00:05:24.480 | One page, no email, no internet, no nothing in 1980,
00:05:29.480 | just snail mail.
00:05:30.920 | One page, a letter from Pastor John
00:05:33.480 | with what I'm seeing in the Bible,
00:05:35.240 | and the other side,
00:05:36.880 | here are all the youth ministers that are happening.
00:05:39.120 | And so fold it up, mail it to every member.
00:05:41.720 | That's APJ.
00:05:43.500 | It's me not able, not to savor,
00:05:50.760 | and not to say what I'm seeing in the Bible
00:05:54.100 | about all kinds of issues,
00:05:55.400 | like billboards with half-naked women, okay?
00:05:59.620 | So that's what my people are driving by every day.
00:06:02.640 | I'm writing, I'm gonna say something about that
00:06:05.400 | from the Bible.
00:06:06.520 | I'm a pastor.
00:06:08.640 | And then you advance forward to,
00:06:11.520 | when do we start this, 2013.
00:06:13.560 | - 13 January, yep.
00:06:14.720 | - Okay, 2013, I've done star articles for 33 years.
00:06:19.720 | They're all in books everywhere now.
00:06:23.000 | But they're stars, and I'm done.
00:06:25.040 | I leave the pastor.
00:06:26.600 | I'm not preaching every weekend.
00:06:27.960 | I'm not counseling anybody.
00:06:29.640 | I'm just working for DG.
00:06:31.960 | What should we do?
00:06:33.300 | And let's do some pastoral counseling.
00:06:36.840 | Let's read our Bibles, and let's tell people,
00:06:40.040 | [laughs]
00:06:41.080 | let's tell people what we're seeing in the Bible.
00:06:43.880 | So that's what we did.
00:06:45.680 | We started long distance while I was down in Tennessee.
00:06:49.880 | And so basically, think of me
00:06:54.600 | as a guest preacher at your church.
00:06:57.280 | So I'm invited by your pastor to come.
00:07:01.280 | I preach a sermon, then he does a little Q&A
00:07:03.280 | with me in the afternoon or something like that,
00:07:04.840 | I don't know.
00:07:05.680 | And you miss it because you're sick.
00:07:08.760 | And the pastor says, "Not a problem.
00:07:11.720 | "We've got our little website.
00:07:13.240 | "We'll just put it up there, and you can go listen to it."
00:07:16.360 | And that's the way you should listen.
00:07:18.400 | And that changed my life when Harold John Ockengay
00:07:21.640 | did a little guest preaching at Wheaton College,
00:07:24.080 | and my life got turned upside down.
00:07:26.040 | Now, should you listen?
00:07:27.720 | And my answer is this.
00:07:30.640 | You test all things, hold fast to what is good.
00:07:33.600 | 1 Thessalonians 5:21.
00:07:35.820 | Here's how you decide whether it's good.
00:07:40.480 | Number one, after I've listened to a handful of APJs,
00:07:46.360 | do I love my Bible more than I love APJ?
00:07:50.000 | Do I go to my Bible with more confidence and more joy
00:07:55.440 | because of APJ?
00:07:56.440 | Number two, do I love Jesus more than APJ?
00:08:01.460 | Do I love Jesus more than I did before I listened?
00:08:05.300 | Number three, do I love my church more?
00:08:08.980 | Do I love my pastor more?
00:08:12.220 | Do I pray for him more earnestly?
00:08:14.540 | Do I care for the people in my small group?
00:08:18.180 | Do I do my Sunday school class better?
00:08:20.820 | Am I better invested locally
00:08:23.180 | 'cause I listened to this guest preacher?
00:08:25.220 | And fourthly, do I love lost people more?
00:08:30.540 | Do I love the nations more?
00:08:32.140 | Am I praying more earnestly for the mission of the church?
00:08:35.340 | If those four things aren't happening, don't listen.
00:08:38.740 | (audience laughing)
00:08:43.900 | - Wow, thank you.
00:08:45.320 | - Is that what you were getting at?
00:08:48.100 | - Yeah, that's what I was getting at.
00:08:49.940 | (audience laughing)
00:08:51.620 | Here's the lingering question for me.
00:08:52.860 | Did your wife think she was marrying a medical doctor?
00:08:55.660 | - No, no, but she thought she was falling in love
00:08:58.740 | with a medical doctor.
00:09:00.060 | So I did bait and switch,
00:09:01.900 | (audience laughing)
00:09:03.340 | but not intentionally, and she was very, very forgiving
00:09:06.960 | because she came to visit, I mean,
00:09:08.500 | she fell in, we fell in love in 6666.
00:09:13.500 | (audience laughing)
00:09:14.460 | It's an easy date to remember, we celebrate it still.
00:09:17.620 | That's when we met in Fisher Hall,
00:09:20.020 | and madly in love, yeah, I'm gonna be a doctor
00:09:23.620 | like your dad, and then three months later,
00:09:27.900 | she can't find me on the first day of class,
00:09:30.620 | and I'm in the hospital, and then two weeks later,
00:09:33.900 | she walks into that room, and I look at her and say,
00:09:36.700 | I'm going to seminary, hope that's okay.
00:09:42.580 | (audience laughing)
00:09:44.940 | She's been great all the way along.
00:09:46.580 | Tell you a story, I mean, I don't know how this fits
00:09:48.980 | into the recording, but I just gotta celebrate Noel.
00:09:53.980 | I mean, we were married 50 years last December,
00:09:56.300 | and-- (audience applauding)
00:09:59.880 | I got so depressed my first year in preaching.
00:10:07.820 | I thought, oh, my, have I done the right thing?
00:10:09.820 | You know, I love teaching, and now I've become a pastor,
00:10:12.420 | and I'm just depressed out of my mind one Sunday afternoon,
00:10:15.740 | and sitting at the dining room table,
00:10:17.140 | the bedroom is just off to the right here,
00:10:19.240 | and she's in the bedroom doing something,
00:10:23.340 | and I'm sitting at the table, and I say,
00:10:25.540 | I think I'm gonna go to Africa.
00:10:29.740 | And you know what she said from the other room?
00:10:34.980 | Tell me when to pack.
00:10:37.260 | That's an awesome woman.
00:10:40.060 | - Yeah, amen.
00:10:41.140 | (audience applauding)
00:10:42.620 | Amen.
00:10:43.900 | - So I didn't throw her too much when I said,
00:10:47.340 | from doctoring bodies to doctoring souls.
00:10:51.660 | I love that story, so good.
00:10:53.700 | And please, please continue to seek the wisdom
00:10:56.880 | of those that God has put in your life.
00:10:58.900 | As Pastor John has said in another context,
00:11:00.860 | as you read 1 Thessalonians 5:21,
00:11:03.420 | don't miss verses 12 to 14 of that chapter two,
00:11:06.300 | which gives a beautiful little sketch
00:11:08.100 | of why we need people in our lives, in our local churches,
00:11:11.120 | and what those relationships should look like.
00:11:13.500 | Really helpful.
00:11:14.820 | And thank you to everyone who turned out
00:11:16.300 | for this first ever APJ Live recording
00:11:18.660 | for Pastor John and me in Nashville.
00:11:21.540 | Apparently it went well.
00:11:22.620 | We're gonna do it again in Louisville
00:11:23.700 | at the Together for the Gospel Conference
00:11:25.140 | in a breakout session on April 15th in Louisville.
00:11:28.340 | Maybe we'll see some of you there in person.
00:11:30.540 | Well, Pastor John just finished writing a 600-page book
00:11:34.040 | on the providence of God, and so our next question
00:11:36.660 | is providentially well-timed.
00:11:38.340 | Is God's providence and God's sovereignty the same thing,
00:11:42.140 | or are those different things?
00:11:43.740 | It's a really great question.
00:11:45.460 | It was actually on Pastor John's mind
00:11:46.980 | when he was writing the book,
00:11:48.460 | and it's up next time on the podcast.
00:11:49.820 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:50.840 | We'll see you on Friday.
00:11:52.040 | (upbeat music)
00:11:54.620 | (upbeat music)
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