- Well, welcome gentlemen. We've had two days of tremendous preaching, tremendous singing. It is a joy to hear men sing who love Christ. - Amen. - And to be able to be with them. Now we've heard some great preaching on the topic of truth triumphs. Now we're gonna come down to implementing it.

Truth triumphs, how do we live it out? Come on up Bill. How do we live it out down in the trenches? When you're hand-to-hand combat, when you're fighting spiritual forces of darkness? How are we going to work through that? So we're going to have a discussion. My name is George Crawford.

I've had the privilege of serving as an elder here since 1996. We have a saying here that some of our elders are good for something and some of them are good for nothing. The former being guys who are on staff, the latter being guys who, using a very non-biblical term, are lay elders.

I am one of the latter. With me, and I'm gonna ask the gentleman to give, in the interest of brevity, in the interest of a military carryover, name, rank, and serial number, starting with Mr. Hargrove. Carl Hargrove, one of the elders here, pastoral staff overseeing Grace Advance, and also faculty at the Master's Seminary.

And what areas of ministry do you do here at Grace? Grace Advance is a ministry where we help churches in North America plant churches and revitalize. And also with Bill Shannon, pastor fellowship group here called Anchor. Some history with Grace Church, just briefly. I was sent out by Grace Church in 1993 to plant a church, and did that for 20 years, and 10 years ago asked to come back.

So I've been back here for 10 years now. I've been 20 years of ministry. - Tom? - Tom Patton, I'm a pastor here at Grace Church. I'm an elder as well. I also have a fellowship group that I pastor along with John Street, who's right over there talking as I'm talking, which is interesting.

(laughing) He knows me, so he doesn't care. And been here for about 30 years. Since 1991 is when I came here, been on staff since 2001. And also teach at the seminary, I teach preaching there. And I'm a part of Grace Advance, of Carl's ministry as well. And we all kind of do a lot of things around here.

We all wear a lot of different hats. But that's what I do. - We wear a multiplicity of hats. - We do. - One of the hats that Tom wears is that of Ranger Joe. - Yes, I should have brought my hat, sorry. - So if you want to catch-- - Truly another hat.

- Truly another hat. - Ranger Joe episodes, you can find them on Grace Media. - Yes, Grace Media app. - I've been telling him, Mr. Rogers, move over. (laughing) Tom is also the voice of Grace Church. Most of the time he is the emcee, if you would want to call it as such, for our morning worship service and even the evening worship service.

And we're grateful for it. - It's a privilege. - Bill, have a seat. - First of all, I need to seek forgiveness. I got up here late, but I can't get through that courtyard without seeing an old friend. (laughing) And they're all old, I don't know why. (laughing) I've been here for 42 years at Grace Community Church.

I've been on staff for 34 years now. And I oversee the counseling department here at Grace Church. We teach counseling. We try to train folks that can help with counseling, whether it be prayer room counseling or it be individuals in Bible study, whatever it is. That's what we do.

As Carl has already told you, we co-pastor Anchored Fellowship Group. We take our own, somebody always asks me, "So, do you follow each other in the Bible?" No, we do our own thing. Because Carl doesn't let me tell him what to do. - Yeah. (laughing) He's tried. (laughing) All right.

- That's my history. I have two girls. Both of those girls are married to fine men. One of them, my son-in-law's down in the main sanctuary, my competition right now, speaking there. And the other one is in Arizona, and he's the elder of his church that he goes to.

- Yes. You can always tell a lot about a man by looking at what his adult children are doing. And there's been a history of faithfulness here. I work in the area. My secular world employment was as a prosecuting attorney. And as an administrative law judge, I taught part-time at Masters University for something like 30 years.

Since I was able to walk away, I have been redeployed into ministry here. I serve on our Grace Advance team. That is one of the most important ministries we have here, and probably one of the least known ministries internally, and outside, most appreciated. I also serve on our missions board, Grace Missions International.

We do everything we can to try to proclaim the word of God throughout the nations. Book of Malachi, my name will be great among the nations. So we passionately committed to that. Now, what are we wanting to accomplish today? Again, as I indicated earlier, we've heard some great preaching.

Now we need to think through how it is that we can encourage ourselves in the process by wrestling with some challenging questions in 1 Timothy 3.15, Paul writes, he says, "I write so that you will know "how one ought to conduct himself "in the household of God, "which is the church of the living God, "the pillar and support, the buttress, "the bulwark of the truth." We are going to try to start off with some questions that we'll ask internally.

Wanna get you to start thinking. I'm gonna have three somewhat abstract questions, and I'll move to three very practical questions that if you've been in ministry for any length of time, you've probably, to one extent or another, addressed these or thought about them. My son, Steve, who's in pastoral ministry in Kansas, was cautioning me that we need to include something like this.

Then we're going to turn the mic over to questions from the floor. Make sure, and I've already asked the guys to screen them, make sure that if I ask you, "Is there really a question here?" you can answer yes. We all know of guys that come to the mic under Q&A, and they want to pose a statement.

So make sure it's really a question. And we'll try to ask them, we'll try to get them. We want you to feel the freedom, to the extent you can, the freedom to be able to speak questions that are from the heart, that are really on your mind. We have an hour.

We are more than willing to talk after the expiration of that hour, fully expecting, fully realizing that that may need to be done. So let's start with a word of prayer, and then we'll get going. Father in heaven, I want to thank you for each of these men, many of them I've not seen in years.

Thank you for their commitment to Christ. Thank you for the love for your church that has brought them to this particular point. Father, we pray that men will be encouraged, they will be strengthened, they will be injected with iron, and a determination to continue serving as the foundation and bulwark of your truth.

Guide us, Lord, in all we do today. We trust you, amen. Now, in keeping with the theme of the conference, as you think through the question, frame it. Keep in mind that it needs to be approaching the idea centered around the truth. So I'm gonna start this off with number one.

(laughing) Technology. Over the last five to 10 years in our culture, in the church at large, and at Grace Community Church, where and how have you seen departures from or disobedience to the truth? - Oh my, five to 10 years? - Five to 10 years? - Of disobedience to the truth?

And we have an hour. (laughing) Yeah, well, I think you go back to just that the truth. So all of the departures are gonna find their origin in a denial that there is an absolute truth. So I just think it's been manifest in different ways, whether it be manifest in how we understand gender, whether it's been manifest in how we understand a woman's role, a man's role, whether it's manifest in how we preach, whether it's manifest in what we believe about Christ.

All of those things have an origin, and the origin is based in a denial of an absolute truth. You know, it's the question that Pilate asked, what is truth? Well, we have the definition for that, because the church, according to Paul's words to Timothy, the church is the pillar and support of a truth.

Did it say that? No, the truth that we proclaim the gospel and all of its implications that come with it. So it's just the manifestations of disobedience are varying. - Okay. - Everything, like I said, from how do we understand a man to same sex attraction to the list goes on and on and on.

But the basis of it is a denial of truth. - Yeah, I mean-- - And if you're not sure what truth is, Mark Zakevich is doing a seminar right now on the topic, if you wanna transfer. - You can leave now, that's fine. - Tom, you were gonna say something.

- No, I was just gonna piggyback off of what Carl said. I think, you know, when you think of the culture, the departure from the truth is probably most manifested in the fact that they no longer really hold to a truth. They no longer really hold to some of the things we're used to.

I'd say, generally speaking, it's more permissiveness in sin, that would be the general topic. Being more permissive, less guilt, even on a very superficial level, to feel any kind of restraint upon them. It says in the scripture that the Holy Spirit, in the days of the ban of lawlessness, will release his restraint.

And so it seems as if that restraint is becoming less and less as time goes on. So without the particulars of how that looks in the world, I think my mind goes to how it looks like in the church, what it's been the big effect over the last 10 years.

I remember when my dad was in the church as a young man, there was always a sense that maybe the church was more biblical back in the day, we're talking about in the '50s and '60s. But I've learned as time goes on, that's not necessarily the case, it was more masked.

More and more, the church was kind of just being moral and trying to not really speak about things that were urgent, for instance. Church discipline, we think, or I used to think, was something that was a part of church history when my dad was growing up. I asked John MacArthur one time about that.

He said, you know what, I don't remember church discipline even being in my father's church or the churches at his time. So this is something that, in some ways, we've come more advanced in some of our reformed circles to be taking the Bible more seriously. But you see more permissiveness in the culture, and I think you see, at least in our circles, more seriousness about the doctrines of grace and the truth of the scripture.

So that's happening, but I know it seems, to some people who are looking at it maybe a little superficially, like this is an avalanche, and where is this all coming from? But it seems like the storm has been building for a very long time. So I think Martin Lloyd-Jones is the one that said, you know, I'm really never surprised because the Bible tells us that these things will happen.

I'm not sitting in shock thinking, how can this be? But I think our people are in shock, and our people have to be fortified. And so one of the greatest things I think we can teach our people is this is not a surprise to God, and we can prove that by going to the scripture and showing that these things have been predicted from Jesus' day and before, and I think that's a helpful way to look at it.

>> So we, to some degree, react to that by helping our people get past the shock, by helping them to realize that this is nothing that has taken God by surprise. >> Right, and I think they find comfort in their pastor having that kind of poise about the truth so that they're not seeing you shaken by the things in the world because you're rooted in the scripture and you know what our Lord has said and what the book of Revelation has said and the book of Daniel that we found out from Abner.

These things are to make us shock-proof, if you will. We might be surprised, but we're not shocked. >> And to some degree, we help people by helping the weak, strengthening the weak, dealing with situations where people have been scarred. Bill, you wanna talk to that? By the loss of-- >> This idea of what's coming into the church, I think is what's been in the culture for a while, is the cancel culture is starting to come into the church.

Some of you men start to feel that pressure from people. That are not liking what you're doing or how the church is doing it and those kinds of things. And they bring those questions in all the time. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the truth, but they're hammering away at you ever so slowly, and I think that's part of what Satan's plan is, and he's using the people of God, even, to do those kinds of things.

How do we help them, though? How do we help our brothers and sisters? And the only way to do that is through the truth. I think of 1 Timothy 1.5, the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a sincere faith. That's the goal of our instruction.

We need to keep teaching them, and teaching them, and teaching them, even when they don't listen. I can remember, not too long ago, receiving an email from a husband and wife, and the husband and wife wrote, "We are not listening to you in the counseling room." You're not the only one, is what I answered.

(audience laughing) But that's what happens. - If Bill wanted to hear that, he could talk to his wife, Donna. - Well, I do listen to her. (audience laughing) But, I mean, that's part of what the people wanna do. They wanna throw back at you that you're not what you are saying you are.

- Okay, great. Now, it's interesting that you mentioned Satan. In my own personal study, I've been reading Luther's commentary on the book of Galatians. Galatians 3.1, and this is from the NKJV. "O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you "that you should not obey the truth," and that's added in the King James and the New King James.

You won't find it in the NASV or the ESV. "Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth "before whose eyes Jesus Christ "was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?" Any thoughts as to the extent to which this departure, this rejection of the truth, is due to the evil one, and how do we react to that?

Thoughts on that. - Well, we know that society is under the god of this world. That's clear. That's why when a person comes to face 2 Corinthians 4, this veil is removed, but prior to it, they were blinded, their minds were blinded. So you say, well, their mind was blinded, because that's Ephesians chapter four, because they walked in the futility of their mind.

They were darkened in their understanding. So we can see that there is an influence that is there. It's a spiritual influence. So if he's the god of this world, you're going to orchestrate the world in accord to your ultimate goal. The ultimate goal would be to thwart the plans of God, but we all know, praise God, that that cannot happen, right?

Brothers? That can't happen. We know how it ends. Our God is victorious. But he is doing everything he can to disrupt God glorifying himself, which means operating through principalities and powers and higher entities in society, in politics, in culture, in religion itself, because every other religion, its backdrop is going to be the enemy, because he's the enemy of the souls of men.

So that's where we come back to. Ultimately, the devil is, the scripture is clear, he is a liar, and he has been a liar from the beginning. - What passage is that from, Carl? - So John. - 844. Make sure, two things. He is a murderer, and he is a liar.

And when he speaks, he speaks lies. It is his native language. Go ahead. - Which is the opposite of what we're talking about. Lies don't triumph, truth triumphs. So he will not triumph. The truth will be triumphant. So Christ told us that's his very nature to do that. So in society, we can say that the lies are propagated by the hand of the enemy.

So we do battle. And this is why Ephesians chapter six tells us what? That we're not fighting against flesh and blood. This is why Paul said, even what we heard in the first message from 2 Corinthians, that these spiritual fortresses, we bring down. We bring them down with different weapons.

And that weapon is the truth of God's word and his preaching. - Ultimately, the key approach is bringing truth to bear. - Tom, you had something in mind. You're looking for a passage. I can read that in your face. - No, I just noticed you were quizzing us, so I thought I might be prepared.

(audience laughing) - Good man. - I'm reading that back, I didn't know. - You kind of already went through ordination, George. (audience laughing) - Always be ready to speak and give a defense of the hope that is in you, George. - Especially with George. - Go ahead, Tom. - No, I was just gonna say, in our particular context, because of the fact we are just down the street from one of the largest charismatic churches in California, we have dealt over the years with the fact that people have come and done a lot of confessing blame on Satan for their sin.

And so instead of going to the book of James and speaking about, well, isn't that from the temptations which wage war in you, and isn't that also your own sin giving birth to that? And so we've had to kind of walk people back from emphasis on, as Sanford and Sons used to say, the devil made me do it, if you remember that.

Some of you are not old enough to know that. - That was Flip Wilson, Tom. - Flip Wilson, excuse me. I defer, so I can't get the scripture right or the television program right. (audience laughing) But do you know the idea there is, that's a real thing that sometimes our church, I believe, can almost discount because we're trying to overcorrect from people who think that there's so much influence by Satan that the devil made me do it.

So it's a balance that we walk. Years ago, people would come here and have just been so obsessed with the idea that Satan is guiding their every thought, even though they're believers. And we're saying that can't be true. You can be influenced, you can be harassed. Satan is powerful.

You go to the book of Job chapter one, and you see with God's permission, he can do whatever God allows him to do. As Luther said, the devil is God's devil. And so that is something that we have to keep in balance here. So instead of overcompensating and trying to say, no, it's all just your sin, we have to have an appreciation for the fact, no, Satan is real, is the tempter.

Even in the Lord's Prayer, many translations will say, keep us from temptation and deliver us from evil or from the evil one. - The evil one. - So you have to be mindful that there is a balance in that, and you're always kind of never wanting to discount the power of that creature, as was described earlier today, but also on the other side, not to de-emphasize someone's own sin for leading them into temptation.

- Excellent, excellent. Bill, you wanna add anything? - Yes, I do. I'm thinking, I'm looking out here, and I see either men that are elders, men that are about to be elders, maybe men that are thinking they'd like to be elders. How do we protect the church? We have to know the truth ourselves in order to protect the church, 'cause you have people that come, that wanna become members even, and I've seen that at Grace Church, wanna become members and they can't give a testimony or they don't know the answer to some simple questions.

That's how we protect the church. When we just give 'em a rubber stamp and let 'em in, all you're doing is letting in trouble. So you have to protect that church as much as possible, and that is not only just the preaching, but then when you're visiting with them, even one-on-one, wait a minute, that's not true.

I had somebody give me a testimony once. He says, "Yes, when I was three or four, "I went to sleep and I believed I was in heaven. "I saw Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and I became a Christian." I knew right away he didn't become a Christian, 'cause he did not know what it meant to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So make sure of protecting the church first, right up front. - Acts 20, Paul writes to the Ephesian elders, "Keep watch over yourself, keep watch over the church." One of the most thought-provoking passages in all of the New Testament, he says, "From among yourselves there will arise men," and these were men who he had discipled, these were men whom he had served with, prayed with, cried with.

He says, "From among yourselves there will be men "who arise to pervert the truth, "to draw people away after themselves." We have to be vigilant against even that. Fantastic to point that out, Bill. If you want any more thought on this information, I would recommend, first of all, John's sermon, November of 2017, on this particular text, Galatians 3.1.

Also, Luther on Galatians 3.1. We don't wanna make too much of it, but we do not want to ignore the reality of it. Now, we're living in a world, as a culture, we've talked about this already, Romans 1.25. We're looking at a world that has perverted good and evil.

Isaiah 5.20, Malachi 2.17, people are saying, "Where is the God of justice? "Why isn't he doing anything about this?" They're calling that which the scripture says evil, they're calling it good, and they're doing the converse. How do we cope and respond to that within the church? I'll start with Bill, and then we'll work our way back to Carl.

- Again, you still have to come back to teaching the truth. If you're just having coffee and just having those kinds of times, I think you need to be upfront with your people and teaching them all the time. That is what's, I think, most vital, is somebody came here and visited Grace Church.

They took a walk around. They spent two weeks here. The guy came to me afterwards, and he says, "All you guys do here is teach God's word." (audience laughing) - And we say, "You have a problem with that?" - I looked at him, and I said, "Is there something else to teach?" Because, I mean, what do we have?

The only thing that makes it valid right here is God's truth, and he's given it to us, and we need to continue to teach that. - And that, by the way, is the basis of all of our counsel. There is, at times, very subtle ways of trying to inject something else into being the basis of our counseling.

No, we are from the scripture. We will not speak beyond what God has called us to say. Tom. - Well, just listening to what you were saying, the world does say what is evil is good, and we say that no, that's defined by scripture. So it does go back even to what Bill's talking about, which is to be known by being a man of the word.

And what I've noticed is that it's very, very easy just to get into kind of practical, one-on-one discussion with your flock, social things, issues in life, and to try to kind of relate to them, and to stray away from just going to the Bible, because people might think, well, they know this, they've heard this, this is not something that, I just don't want to be a person that's like a Bible thumper, if you will.

But in my experience, when you don't do that, at least at our church, and again, I haven't been anywhere in years and years, he's thumping the Bible, is that when we don't do that, people will literally criticize, and will sit there and say, you know what, so-and-so, I went to see him, and he didn't open up in prayer, he didn't direct me to passages with addresses assigned to them, all we did was talk about my issues, and I'm thinking, that happened here?

That happened at Grace Church? So, don't be afraid to just open the Bible, in fact, in my office, if you come in, I just have a Bible that's already open on the other side of the table, and it's there so people don't even have an excuse, because if they don't bring their Bible, there's one right there, it's open, and then I have them read out the passage that I'm directing them to, because sometimes it's even more effective for me to have them hear their own voice speak God's word, than even me to speak it to them, so they have to actually take the time to do it, it's a simple little technique someone told me years ago, but again, it goes back to the question, how do you discern between what is good and what is evil?

Well, there's only one way to discern it, and that is through God's word, and we believe that, but sometimes through time urgency, or just, I don't know, the desire to be, maybe if you have a small church, the desire to be more kind of a friendly, user-friendly kind of church, where you're not trying to quote-unquote judge them, that you might talk politics, you might talk philosophy, or whatever you might do, and you know it's not what they need, but you're trying to be relatable, I would just really say that the most relatable thing in the world is just cutting it straight, and cutting it straight with the Bible is the only option that we have.

- Great, and Tom, Carl? - Carl, yeah, let's just kind of be direct here, it's the word of God, we all agree with that, that's why you came here with 5,000 other men to this conference, because you knew you would hear the word of God, so look at 1 Timothy with me, you would notice if you were to go through Timothy, I think it was like 13 places where you're going to see the doctrine either said specifically or by clear inference.

Verse three, not to teach strange doctrines, so you're instructing, which means you're teaching. Verse five, the goal of our instruction, love, pure heart, good conscience, sincere faith. Notice verse 15, it's a trustworthy statement, deserving full, notice, full acceptance, full acceptance. Verse 17, this lofty theology of God, king, eternal, immortal, invisible, only God, glory and honor forever and ever.

Look at chapter two, there in verse five, there's one mediator, God and man, this is teaching doctrine. Verse 13 and 14, Adam was first created, then Eve, the woman was deceived. Look at chapter three, verse one, it's a trustworthy statement, he says. Chapter 315, how you should conduct yourselves.

Now, this is your behavior in the household of God, which is that pillar in support of the truth. Chapter four, verse one, let me tell you, the latter times, we've already talked about that. Expect it, this is what Tom was saying, expect it, the doctrines of demons. Again, there is doctrinal misappropriation error in the church, who's behind it?

Well, the scripture just says demons are. So verse six, the words of the faith and the sound doctrine which you've been following. Verse nine, trustworthy statement. Verse 11, prescribe and teach these things. Verse 16, pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching, he says, and then it ends, I think the last one is chapter six, verse two.

Teach and prescribe and preach these principles. Pretty convincing, at least for me it is. - All scripture is inspired by God. We read that in 2 Timothy 3. And yet, there is a sense in which those of us who are in leadership find ourselves again and again and again in the pastoral epistles.

In fact, I came across a quote in none other than Augustine, which says if you have any position of leadership, the pastoral epistles need to be continually before your mind. So I appreciate you mentioning 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. Don't let them get out of your thinking, ever.

We're gonna have three questions, and then we're gonna try to, what's that? - The timing. - Yeah, three questions. - Time's running out. - Number one, pastor, my wife has just been diagnosed with fill in the blank, incurable disease of some sort, Alzheimer's, ALS, whatever it is. How do I cope with that?

How does the truth come to bear on this? Bill? - Again, you're going to go to trusting God. Some have had that, heard those words, trust God. I was in a foreign country and heard those words, trust God. That's what you have to believe. - Very quickly. - I'll defer.

- Well, I mean, something like that. There's so many different nuances, but ultimately, you first start with their faith. Are they really believers? And I know that seems like such a, it can become such a difficult thing at times. You have somebody in your church for a long time, and they're going through a hardship, and as you look at that, you might sit there and go, well, let's go back over first the truth before we get into the particulars of your situation.

Yes, of course, this is hard, but what does God teach us about our faith? What does God teach us about perseverance? And you might find out oftentimes that, I mean, you know that there's goats and sheep in your flock. You know there's no question. And after you establish that, they sometimes will come to the realization of what their faith is, and therefore, those obstacles become not so incredibly difficult anymore because they realize it's the burden of suffering like Christ.

And if they are believers, then you can get into the specific application of, yes, like you said, trusting the Lord with all your heart, leaning not on your own understanding. I taught through the book of Job for 60 messages, and at the end of the book, as you know, Job through the whole time is complaining and lifting his fist and is being barraged by all these different teachers giving him the implication that he was the one that sinned, and therefore, this is why this has happened.

And at the end, God comes in in the famous monologue, longest portion of God speaking in the Bible, and he never gives him an answer. He never tells him why. He never tells him why his family was destroyed. He never tells him why his health was devastated. He never tells him why everything was taken from him.

He just says, I am God, and where were you when I did all of this? And that's a lesson. That's a lesson that I've actually taught to people in the hospital when their little girl was sick and has a form of cancer, and the in-laws have come into town and were speaking about that.

And I say because God says the answer to the issue is I am God. And then we'd have to go down the elevator with them, walk them to their parking space, and they're silenced because they don't even want to talk to me because they think I've been so insensitive and so harsh because I didn't give them an answer other than what the scripture says, which is we submit to God.

This is God's will, and we know he's righteous and good, and there is no answer other than trust him. So it puts us in a situation where making sure, first, they're saved to the degree that we can, and then administering the truth, and then actually being prepared for being misunderstood and just prayerful and hoping that the Lord softens their heart.

>> Can I say something to this? >> Yes, go ahead. >> I think this is important, too. Truth triumphs. We're hearing a lot of excellent preaching about these things. We are men who believe truth. But as a pastor, learn that you don't always have to give an answer. >> True.

>> Here's something else you can do. Someone comes to me, and I've had it before, and I've had this particular pastoring for those 20 years. I don't have to have a solution. Silence can be ministry for someone. Hold their hand. I'm there with you. Don't think that somehow you have to walk them through what I just walked through in 1 Timothy.

Then you're an expositor now because you've given them all these wonderful biblical answers. Be quiet for a while. Cry with somebody for a while is what you need to do. >> That's the best thing that Job's friends did. The only good thing they did. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so be careful, guys, in thinking that, so, okay, I'm a believer in truth.

Okay, I've got a Romans, what, Romans 8:28. I've got a good job. I've got to do this. I have to say that. I have to say that. No, just, what are you feeling? >> We have an Alzheimer's support ministry here at Grace Church. We've had people who have gone through that route.

We've had families that deal with it. We've been meeting for about something like 11 years. We've seen something like 20 people. We took stock this week to try to think through. When you get this kind of word, you will become a theologian, one way or another. You will either be a theologian that is solidly biblical and right and good, or you'll be a bad theologian.

You'll be blaming God. One way or another. So, focusing on truth is sometimes extremely important. We've looked at the reality of aging. This last time we met, we looked at the importance of being created in the image of God, the imago dei. How is it that we treat the individual, the family who's going through that?

We remember that they are in the image of God. We remember the reality of the fall. Truth helps. Sometimes it's the only help that you're going to have when you're going through that crisis. Next question, pastor. And this is actually a pastor who's giving the question. I've given everything I've had, I could, to the sermon I just preached.

Time away from my family, time away from my kids. I worked hard into the evening. I poured out my heart, and I go into the office on Monday morning, and I've got half a dozen emails from people who listen to me, and they're just ripping me apart. Or you could change the scenario and say, I've been counseling this couple for the longest period of time.

Now I open up the newspaper, or I turn on the internet, and I see my name being just ripped to shreds. Never thought of that. Never thought of that. How does truth triumph? How does truth help you to cope in that? Tom. - I'm gonna do something a little bit different here.

I, not that I don't know the answer, 'cause I'm just gonna do what Carl says and be silent. - Giving Bill time to think. - No, no, no, no. - I don't know the answer, Tom, so please. - I would, I really want to, I'm not trying to forgo it, but I think we only have like 20 something minutes.

I want to hear from you guys. I want to hear questions that you have, and if that's your question, I'd love to answer it, but I'd love to know what's on your all's hearts, too. So when you come for a question and answer, I want it to be at least partially towards you as well.

Is that okay? So do you have a question? If you could walk up to the mics and ask something for us for the last 20 minutes so that we can, I want to know what's on your heart, and if your heart is about those emails, then I'd just say be silent, be kind.

The longer the email, the shorter the response. That's what I say. - All right, so we've got an answer. I was gonna overrule the brother. - That's the answer. - All right. - There you go. - Committed to Christ. - All right. - Thank you. - I wanted to know how Grace Church handles a divisive person, or identifies a divisive person versus somebody that's hard to handle.

And especially, too, if they want to come back to your church, is there a re-matriculation? And as far as the, when they first come to Grace Church, I've heard good that they don't have to subscribe to everything in the doctrinal statement perfectly, 'cause you want to give people that are new to the scripture more time.

This church is by me in New York, where they have the 1689 Confession, and you gotta subscribe to it as soon as you come to the church. So speak to those issues for me. - Gentleman? - I think for the divisive person, if I may speak to that, I mean, Titus 3.10, they would be put out of the church.

- Some of the characteristics? - Yeah, that person who is divisive, you know, divisive. What is a divisive person? They would be calling up others and saying the pastor did this, or the pastor's wife did this, or they're talking about the doctrine then. They could be divisive with the doctrine.

Those kinds of things, they should be put out of the church. Matter of fact, we did it in one week once, where the fellow said that on a Sunday, and next Sunday he was gone. Because you don't want the church to be divided. That's one thing. How do you get 'em back?

How do you get 'em back? That's gonna take some time. The elders are gonna have to sit down with him and talk with him, or her, and work through the issues. It's not just one sitting that you spend 15, 20, an hour minute, an hour with them. You need to spend time, because you wanna make sure the person that's coming back actually knows what they did wrong-going.

And some of 'em don't understand that sometimes. They can have doctrinal differences. You know, if you wanna believe in certain things, that's okay, there are certain key doctrines that they must believe. It's like, I had this couple for counseling once, and I asked for their testimony. He's like, "Al, give me your testimony." And I'm in my mind going, "I don't know." The guy gave me his testimony, and they said, "But I don't believe that Jesus is God." I said, "You just made that easy for me.

"You're not a Christian." I mean, I did that immediately. He said, "You're not a," he started arguing. I said, "We'll get to that, okay, we'll get to that. "We'll talk about that." But you obviously have a terrible marriage. Let's work on that a little bit. But let's get that.

You understand, you're not a Christian. So I think those are the kinds of things. - Guys, wanna add to anything? - Well, you asked a question about re-matriculation. If they're repentant, sure. But what Bill is saying, observation based on the gravity of why they left, and that may take longer, could be a shorter period of time, based on how repentant they are.

We wanna restore, Galatians, we wanna restore. We wanna set the bone in order again. But we have to look out for the flock. - Factious and divisive conduct, by the way, is recognized as a public sin. Calvin points this out, that will require quicker action to protect the flock on the part of the elders.

- A lady once said to me that she didn't believe although we believe the grace. I said, "What do you believe that we don't?" She said, "Speaking in tongues." I said, "Well, you can become a member still." She wanted to become a member. "But you just don't go around professing that as doctrine." Three years later, she walks up to me, she says, "Well, I believe like you do." I said, "Can you please tell me what I believe?" I want you to tell me and articulate that.

And she said, "Well, I realize speaking in tongues "is not something for today." - Sure, if we can make the distinction, we believe that if you're part of the body of Christ, you, at least in theory, should be able to be a part of our church, a member of our church.

That does not mean that you're going to be asked to teach a Bible study or lead a fellowship group. - Yeah. - Okay. - All right, thank you. Over here, Chris. - Over here, Chris. - Hi, thank you. - There we go. - Hi, I had a question in...

- Okay. - Okay. - In a conference about truth triumphs, there's definitely big theological differences between John MacArthur and John Piper. So, and then you have another category of like Romans 14 issues of conscience issues. So, how do you stand for the truth dogmatically, but also leave the door open for disagreements on other matters and then disagreements on conscience issues?

- Well, something that it's kind of alluded to by the first man's question as well is, we have a statement here that's been very specifically called what we teach, not what we believe, because we have thousands of people here that might believe different things. But this is what we teach from the pulpit.

So, that's a very important distinction right off the bat. So, yes, there's differences between John MacArthur and John Piper. And we used to joke about the fact when R.C. would come here and preach that we'd love to have him come here and preach, but he wouldn't join the church because he wouldn't want to join our church because we wouldn't let him teach.

So... (audience laughing) And he wouldn't want to 'cause there's no way he'd wanna join a church that wasn't a preterist. Anyway, so, but the point being is, so we can, as Bill said, as Carl has alluded to as well, you can come here and believe our soteriology, you can believe different aspects of the doctrine of sin, et cetera, but when it comes to some things, and it's always eschatology and it's always the gifts, that's what it boils down to.

Sometimes it has to do, lately, with some aspects of the atonement, but usually it's those two things. Then we try to say we're all in process of learning. If you have a teachable spirit, I think this might be what you're asking, I'm not sure, then you can, of course, be here and we wanna come alongside.

If you become divisive or you wanna teach a Bible study, like we said, or you want to make your stand, then you're not gonna be happy here. Why would you be here? You wanna go someplace else. People go, well, you're the only Reformed church that's in the neighborhood or in the area, maybe the state, and we're sitting there saying, well, that might be true, but can we just agree, while you're here, on those things, like the deity of Jesus, like the doctrine of atonement, and not major on those things that are secondary until they become primary in your mind and then we have to address them.

And that takes a lot of sensitivity to the nuances of that. That's not a hard and fast thing. That's through hours of counseling and talking to people and trying to be sensitive to that. - 1 Corinthians 15 talks about matters of first importance. And you mentioned Romans 14, and you can see some of the matters outlined there that we would probably not consider to be of first or primary importance.

Next question, over here. - Yeah, I would love to know from each one of you, just like, y'all have been doing pastoral ministry for so long, and I'm pretty young, I'm 24, and I'm just curious why each one of you has done pastoral ministry and why you have chosen to stay in it for so long.

- Oh, well, that's fairly simple in one sense. It's a calling. It's a calling. My life was on a very different pathway when I was in college, and the Lord saved me and totally changed my career thought, things that I was gearing to do since I was about so tall, and I could not ignore it.

And so it sought me out, and then what happened in life is that there was a transference of what I was desiring into now what I desired. And that desire now overwhelms me, and it keeps me. And as Paul would say, "The love of Christ controls him." So now, because it's been shed abroad in our hearts and shed abroad in my heart, now I am, like Paul would say to Timothy, "No soldier in active service entangles himself "in the affairs of everyday life "so that he may please the one who enlisted him." So now that I've been enlisted as a new soldier, because that's what I wanted to do, make a career in the military, and I was headed down that path, the Lord says, "No, you will fight another type of battle." So why do I remain?

Because I'm still enlisted. (audience laughing) And the problem with the soldier, there's something that's called AWOL. You cannot go AWOL, which means you're away without leave. And the only leave that I'll get is heaven. So that's it, I'll do this as long as I can. It may not be in the same capacity, but I'll still do it.

- Have any former Marines in here? Marine Corps motto? - Simplify. - Simplify. - What's it mean? - Always faithful. - Always faithful. - That's right. - Yes. - Okay. - For myself in 1982, I got saved to Montreal, Canada on a business trip. And I had no idea what that meant, getting saved.

I mean, I had no idea what it meant, reading a Bible. I had never seen one before. All of those kinds of things. And instead of divorcing my wife when I was coming back home to California, which I was going to do, so I gotta find out how to be a husband.

I gotta find out how to be a father. I gotta learn how to do all these things. So I got somebody to start speaking into my life, right here at Grace Community Church. By the way, the lady in Canada's pointed me to this church. So that's what I did.

And when I was meeting with this man, he poured his life into me. He taught me these things. And so when these master seminaries started, I said to my wife, "I think I've been called." She says, "I don't know how to play the piano." (congregation laughing) I said, "Don't worry about the piano." She said, "But I don't have a flower dress." - We'll get you lessons.

(congregation laughing) - And she said, "I don't have a flower dress." I said, "I can take care of that." But that's what, and why do I stay? I stay because I see God's people being helped. I see people getting saved. Stop from getting a divorce, stop from doing sin.

I love to see that. And my wife and I rejoice with that regularly in our home on a Sunday afternoon when we have people over. - Tom? - Well, first of all, what a great question from a 24-year-old. - Yeah, that's right. - And I pray that that's on your heart.

I'm sure that's why you're asking the question. I wanted to be a pastor when I was five years old. The only problem was I wasn't saved till I was 30. (congregation laughing) So I think for me it's been trying to catch up for lost time. - Sure. - But honestly, if you have a heart for people, you're gonna be, just to be full disclosure, you're gonna be hurt, you're gonna be wounded.

There's a lot of disappointment. In fact, I'd say the closer sometimes you feel that you're getting to a breakthrough with someone, the quicker you can find out that they will malign you, turn from you, and then-- - Sure. - It's very painful at times. But there are those moments where God supports you in your own soul and in prayer, and also from others coming alongside from time to time.

In fact, just real quick, I was just getting my coffee. This is such a funny thing. And this young man comes up to me, he says, "Pastor Tom." And I said, "Yes," he goes. He goes, "Well, time has certainly been hard on you "the last 10 years." (congregation laughing) I said, you know, "Bless you, brother.

(congregation laughing) "Be warm and be filled and get out of my way." No, I didn't say that. (congregation laughing) And it kind of threw me, 'cause I've never had that compliment. And he said, "I was in your preaching lab 10 years ago, "and when I came up to preach, you told me to sit down "and come back only when I was prepared." And I'm thinking, that's why he said that.

(congregation laughing) And then he said, "Thank you so much for telling me that, "because I wasn't ready." So sometimes it takes a while for that to come, and that encouraged, 10 years for me. Of course, by God's grace, I didn't remember who he was, 'cause I blocked those things out.

(congregation laughing) But so-- - And Tom, you still don't. - Yeah, but what an encouragement, and I pray for your encouragement. - I was in college, and I distinctly remember the evening. Somehow or other, one evening, the passage, John 21, "Feed my sheep." You know, the three times repeated phrase, just began to drum itself into my mind, and I have never fully been able to get that out of my mind.

And that, I think God used to start pointing me in the direction. I'd been a preacher's kid, and yet, at that point in time, it started moving me in the direction. It takes a while to be able to see how it all gets implemented, but that passion is there, that realization, Acts 20, the Holy Spirit, despite the fact that some men connive themselves into the position, the Holy Spirit makes men elders.

And when we are put in that position, we stay at our post. Semper fi. - One last thought, real quick, though, before he leaves. Spurgeon's lecture to my students-- - I just bought it today. - Okay, on calling. He has a great section on calling. - And I'll tell you what else, since about calling, something that impacted me when I first came to the seminary, Albert Martin, the call to the ministry.

Wow, every man should listen to that. The call to the ministry, Albert Martin. - And if you start listening to Albert Martin, you wonder whether you should go into the ministry. - Yeah, you're right. - We got a brother over here. - Brothers, thank you for your wisdom. I have a question.

So, you know, when you get saved, right, you start reading the Bible, and this is amazing, right? You start learning and growing, and then you start discovering all these different truths and theologies and just deepening that, right? And then, you know, 10 years will pass. You've read your Bible every year.

You've read your Bible 10 years, 10 times, 20 times, maybe 30 times, and sometimes you kind of get the curse of knowledge where you know what the next page is gonna say. You know what the next chapter contains. You've preached through it, right? How do you prevent it from just being, I'm reading this to preach, to serve, but I'm reading it for my soul, for my spirit.

How do you rekindle that? - Sure, yeah, that's a great question. You know, I teach a course at the seminary. It's an elective. It's called Pastoral Holiness. And we address the issue of how does one maintain a spiritual life in the ministry. And one thing is that you have to take care of your own soul.

There has to be a delight. You have to cherish the Lord. You have to believe what the psalmist did in Psalm 37 and four, delight yourself in the Lord. You have to believe what the psalmist said in Psalm 27, that he wants to behold the beauty of God and the gaze at his beauty in the temple.

There has to be that sense of I need my soul to be nourished for my people. So one reason you do it is not simply for an academic exercise and even to prepare a servant. You do it because first, you are a child of God. Before I had a call to the ministry, I was simply a child of God.

And so I have to nurture my life just as a child. And what happens with preachers, they can learn too much and they forget what is absolutely important, which is first, I'm his child. Let me behave like a child. Let me sit at the feet of my father. Let me cherish Jesus Christ and his death.

Let me be appalled if I preach on hell and I don't have, like Whitfield said, tears in my eyes. Let me be like an Owen who said when he felt a sense of worldliness, that he would read like just 40 chapters of the Bible because he felt worldly. And this is Owen as well with his communion with God.

So we do this out of communion with the living God because of a relationship. And so it's not just another page. It's not just another sermon. This is a relationship that you're nurturing with the living God. And we have to keep that in front of us. - Tom? - I just think exactly what he said.

But to add to that, when you're saying I'm just preparing sermons and I get dry, you know, the big thing that I deal with, 'cause sometimes on a Saturday, I'll listen to six or seven sermons that I have to critique. My whole Saturday is called Sanctification Saturday. (laughing) And it's just sermon after sermon.

And my number one critique many times is not their exegesis, is not the fact that they didn't get the point, but the fact that they speak it as if it's some kind of flat, unaffected. And so my question always goes back to them. I go, how much time did you spend really grappling with your own heart in this text?

So you might be giving sermons every week, but, and they may be biblical, but you're not really allowing yourself. I think John MacArthur says he has two positions when he studies, either this position or this position. He's either here or here. And I said so many people don't spend enough time with their back contemplating their own life in the text.

I don't know about you guys, and I'm not trying to make anything about me, but I cry every time I prepare for a sermon because I'm a rotten sinner that needs God's grace every moment of my life, and I'm ready. So if you can go through a sermon and be dry, what's the old saying that Moody said?

This book will keep you from sin, and sin will keep you from this book. And so just remember that and allow God to break your heart down because otherwise you might be effective in word, but not in heart. And I think your people can tell that, too, but God obviously knows.

- Sheldon. - You know, a gentleman once said to me that I study the word of God because I get paid to do that. He did, and I said, well, it's priceless. So you study the word of God because it's priceless. I'm gonna learn more. I'm gonna grow to be the man of God that he wants me to be.

And I know I'm not the man of God that he wants me to be yet. And so I study for that reason. Now, when you hit Leviticus, you go, why am I reading this? Yeah, there's a reason for reading it. You see God's exactness. You see God's masterfulness in putting things together.

That's what you have to see is another aspect of God. It's not always the same. And so see it for those kinds of things that it can just give you a different picture of who he is. - One of the things that I love most about our pastor, he has been pastoring for 55 years.

He was a preacher's kid. He grew up. He still is excited about finding new things. And that is manifest for those of us who have the chance to be close to him and to talk to him. As a practical matter, you're gonna laugh when I say this, allow yourself the luxury of periodically buying a new Bible.

Sometimes it's enjoyable just to be able to look at that, get lost, think about the texture, but then focus on the words. Regardless though, I'm gonna take you back to what Paul tells Timothy, 2 Timothy 3. And it's actually in the imperative mode, verse 14. "As for you, you must continue.

"You must continue in what you have learned "and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it "and how from childhood you have been acquainted "with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise "for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ." We do not have the option of not continuing in the study of the words.

Pray that God will enlighten your minds. Pray that God will show you. We have the expression at times in our culture, stay hungry. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. It's an ongoing present reality. Stay hungry. Do we have any other questions? - We have one more here.

- It's okay. - All right. Aside from the scriptures, for you as pastors, what would be the one book that you would commend to all of the pastors? - Oh, great question. Bill? - Depends upon what week you're talking about. - Yeah. (audience laughing) - I read lots and lots of books.

One of 'em, "The Power of Christian Contentment" just recently has touched my heart. I've fallen in love with that. But I also like to read biographies. - Yes. - And so I'm reading those kinds of things. I've got one now about a guy called R.C. Sproul. We've been talking about him before, and I'm reading that, that Nichols put together.

And so I'm always reading. I've always got something. And then the war with children just came out, a war against children just came out, and I'm reading that as well. So I just like to read. - Is there one particular book that you have read in your life that stands out as perhaps the most important thing you've read outside of the Bible?

- Outside of the Bible, whatever I'm reading. I mean, it's just, I gotta leave it there because I have so many that I've been through. If you wanna talk about missions, I've got books. You wanna talk about history, I've got books. And that's, well, I'll leave it there. - Okay.

Tom. - Boy. - Let's get to Tom, and then we'll get to you. - Are you Tom? I don't know. - Yeah, oh boy, he's thinking about me. No, without a doubt, it's the Martin Lloyd-Jones' book, "Sermons on the Mount." It is, I've gone through that so many times.

I discipled men through that book. If you wanna have your heart reacquainted with the most famous sermon our Lord ever gave, go to Martin Lloyd-Jones. It is priceless. It is so rich. So I can't commend that enough. That's the book I always go back. Because even just going through the Beatitudes, your heart will get refreshed and convicted, and you'll start to just meditate, and it's wonderful.

- Fantastic. - Wow, that's hard. Whitfield, about Dalamore. - Oh yeah, biography. - Yeah, biography. Yeah, theological, going all the way back to my young days in the faith, knowing God. Yeah, Packer. Great impact on me. For me, the book, the one book that has had probably the most overriding influence over the years, what are you gonna guess I'm saying?

- Calvin's Institute. - You got it, absolutely. - I know this man. - And read both the first one and the last one. In the first one, he's fire all the way. A sense of humor that you couldn't use today. In his last edition, reasoning precise, deep, intense. - Yeah, yeah.

- Martin Lloyd-Jones did a course of reading that I had stumbled into myself without realizing that the doctor had recommended it. You read, recommend a book of doctrine, maybe a selection of sermons, a commentary on a particular book, alternate that with a book of biography, a great man in the history of the church, Dalamore's Biography of Whitfield.

- It's just unbelievable. - Two volumes set, if you look close enough, you'll find a great abuse of church discipline. Dalamore writes about how Wesley disciplined a woman out because she did not respond to his romantic overtures. Sense of humor, but you'll see how truth gets ironed out. - Don't try it, guys.

- Don't try it. (audience laughing) - Yeah, let's not have you come back next year. But how truth gets ironed out over the course of time. Read the biography of Athanasius, some of the history of the church, and then go back to another book on church doctrine. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount is fantastic.

But go back and forth. Make sure you know the Puritans. - Amen. - Okay? - Yeah, amen. - Let's see, tell me a choice of, top recommended Puritan, let's give me a choice of names. - Sibbes. - Sibbes. - Yeah, Richard Sibbes. - Yeah. - Watson. - What's that?

- Watson. - Watson. - Okay. Owen. - Owen. - Owen, you want to read the abridgments? Okay. (audience laughing) Let's close in prayer. Father in heaven, again, Lord, I thank you for each of these men. Thank you for the fun that we've had this afternoon. Thank you for their passion for Christ.

Father, I pray that your hand of blessing, chastening, and direction would rest upon each of them. Father, may we be found faithful. May there be none of us who would in any way bring disgrace or disrepute to the gospel of Christ. We love you and we thank you, Lord, for the privilege.

We look forward to the day when we hear you say, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord. Father, thank you for this privilege. Guide us in all we do through the rest of the day, amen.