Dale Partridge - Can I Expect My Kids to be Saved？ Yes, Here’s Why…

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity, my friend Joel Webin of Right Response Ministries is here

00:00:24.180 and together we're going to be tackling the discussion about covenant succession.

00:00:28.080 Now, the term covenant succession has been predominantly used in Presbyterian circles

00:00:32.340 as a coherent doctrine with their view of paedo-baptists, and that's the baptism of

00:00:36.680 babies. But as you know, Joel and I are both Reformed Baptists who hold to the 1689 confession

00:00:41.940 of faith. In other words, we do not baptize babies. But today's discussion will be answering

00:00:48.080 this question. Can Reformed Baptists hold to the doctrine of covenant succession, or

00:00:54.080 is covenant succession only coherent with the Presbyterian view? Now, this is a big question

00:01:00.000 because historically, Reformed Baptists have not associated themselves with the doctrine of

00:01:04.760 covenant succession. This is really new territory for Baptists. In fact, I called Dr. Jeffrey

00:01:09.740 Johnson, who is the president of Grace Bible Theological Seminary and the founder of Free

00:01:13.520 Grace Press, to talk to him about it. And this guy is a scholar in Reformed Baptist theology in

00:01:19.100 1689 and even he said this was new territory for our generation and it needs to be discussed

00:01:25.020 now i know most of you are wondering what is covenant succession so here is a working

00:01:30.620 definition covenant succession is the doctrine that children of believers are expected to succeed

00:01:38.620 in the faith of their parents and this is accomplished through divinely ordained means

00:01:43.740 of covenant nurture now you're going to ask me okay what is covenant nurture well covenant

00:01:48.220 Nurture is the faithful work of covenant parents to raise their children in the nurture and

00:01:55.180 admonition of the Lord. So we're going to dive in right here with Joel, asking him some questions

00:01:59.140 about this relationship for Baptists to covenant succession. So Joel, why is it an important

00:02:05.220 discussion for Christians in general, but Baptists specifically, to talk about covenant succession?

00:02:13.220 Thanks for having me on the show, Dale. You're right. It's absolutely important. You and I have

00:02:17.180 talked offline about this more than once, and both kind of experiencing some of the same 0.96

00:02:22.260 frustrations as we are dealing with Baptists who have been raised in Baptist churches their whole

00:02:28.660 life, most of them probably in kind of a SBC, Southern Baptist, you know, just typical American 0.92

00:02:34.800 Baptist type church. But one of the things that we're having to deal with, and in many occasions

00:02:41.000 having to deal with gently and lovingly and pastorally, because there's a lot of guilt around

00:02:45.540 this topic, but it's basically just drawing the correlation for parents that their parenting

00:02:50.740 matters. I think it's important for all Christians, but especially Baptists right now, because I think

00:02:55.360 a lot of Baptists, to put it frankly, a lot of Baptists, I think, with grown children are trying

00:03:01.580 to use the doctrine of unconditional election, Calvinistic Baptists, trying to use the doctrine

00:03:06.420 of unconditional election to assuage their guilty consciences for the fact that their children grew

00:03:10.980 up and abandon the faith yeah so you have these people that essentially go hey you know what my

00:03:17.720 child just wasn't elect and that's why right they uh they don't follow the lord anymore and so they

00:03:23.440 yeah they put their guilt there uh they throw it on god instead of saying you know i was actually

00:03:28.900 an unfaithful parent i wasn't i wasn't applying covenant nurture to my child and if i was it was

00:03:35.100 i i sent them to church they were in sunday school but there was no catechesis there was no

00:03:40.600 deep theological relationship with their child. There was no gospel preaching every week. There

00:03:44.400 was no family worship Bible time. Right. And in many cases, if we're honest,

00:03:47.900 they didn't even bring their children to church because the Bible has a strict criteria for what

00:03:52.540 actually constitutes church, right? The church, I mean, even Calvin in his most simplistic

00:03:58.240 definition says that it's, you know, the right preaching of the word of God and the right

00:04:03.040 administration or administering of the sacraments. And then we would maybe add to that, that a

00:04:08.100 faithful biblical church also practices church discipline when necessary with an unrepentant

00:04:14.200 individual. And so, you know, church is where the word is preached, you know, it's where the

00:04:18.320 ordinary means of grace, and that's what we're talking about, covenant, nurture, means of grace,

00:04:22.720 where the ordinary means of grace are administered each Lord's day in the gathering of the saints.

00:04:26.840 To break that down, four main things, publicly preaching the word, publicly praying the word,

00:04:31.780 publicly singing the word in hymns and psalms and spiritual songs where we address God first and

00:04:37.760 foremost, but also horizontally, we are addressing one another, as Colossians and Ephesians says,

00:04:42.860 and that's one of the ways we stir up one another to love and good works. And then number four is

00:04:47.620 not singing, but seeing, S-E-E-I-N-G, seeing the word in the only two images that the Lord has

00:04:54.780 actually prescribed to us, which are the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. So it's public

00:04:59.640 preaching, public praying, public seeing, and public singing, all those four things, all word

00:05:05.860 centric, and that in this environment, Jesus Christ, and this is why it was such a big deal

00:05:10.500 during COVID for churches to close their doors, because we know that Christ is always present

00:05:15.700 with believers by virtue of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit, but the Bible

00:05:19.820 teaches that Christ, who is always present by virtue of the Holy Spirit with all believers,

00:05:24.960 he promises to be especially or uniquely present on the Lord's day when the church gathers together

00:05:32.460 and where these ordinary means of grace are administered.

00:05:36.020 And the reality is that most children in most Baptist churches,

00:05:40.160 at least for the past few decades, have never gone to church.

00:05:44.300 What I mean is they go to a building called church,

00:05:47.700 but then their parents actually go to the place that by biblical criteria

00:05:51.640 would actually constitute church.

00:05:53.260 And their parents, before going to that place,

00:05:55.480 drop their children off in a separate building or a separate room

00:05:59.040 where they have a Christian child care. 0.68

00:06:01.400 And there's a Christian lesson and Christian activities and Christian this and Christian that, but it's not church.

00:06:07.720 So there are a lot of children who it's like the parents, not only is it we put our kids in public school and we didn't do family worship in the home, but we took them to church.

00:06:17.180 No, you actually didn't even do that.

00:06:19.920 Yeah.

00:06:20.360 So you're saying that we should be singing the Jesus culture song that says, Holy Spirit, you are welcome here.

00:06:25.900 yeah well we should be we should be singing uh the song that jesus himself sang which is

00:06:32.540 the little children are welcome here amen yeah this is a central uh perspective obviously the

00:06:39.240 church has been um distorted perverted twisted morphed into something that we don't see that

00:06:46.540 is congruent with the scriptures um we we don't even know what a church is we've turned the church

00:06:51.240 into many different things. I think that there's a quote, I forgot who originally said it, but

00:06:56.680 when the Greeks got the gospel, they turned it into a philosophy. When the Europeans got the

00:07:00.820 gospel, they turned it into a culture. When the Americans got the gospel, they turned it into a 0.71

00:07:04.960 business. And this concept that we have basically taken free reign to determine what a church is,

00:07:12.200 therefore our kids haven't even experienced a true, full, robust, biblical experience of church

00:07:18.660 and therefore are missing out on some of the covenant nurture that we're going to be talking

00:07:22.600 about today. Now, yeah, if you're a Baptist and you're getting tripped up by the word covenant,

00:07:27.180 another term that we've been using is expectant redemption. The idea that we expect as Christians

00:07:34.440 our children to be redeemed, not because we have applied a sign of baptism to them,

00:07:44.980 but because they were born, blessed, and placed into the family of two regenerate believers,

00:07:54.740 or at least one regenerate believer.

00:07:57.120 This is God's provision of the blessed child.

00:07:59.700 It makes them holy.

00:08:00.380 That's right.

00:08:00.620 They're set apart. 0.83

00:08:01.860 And Baptists have to do something with that verse in the Bible.

00:08:04.880 The children of even just one believing parent are holy.

00:08:08.200 And I would strongly object to the Baptist who says that that simply was the Apostle Paul's way

00:08:14.180 of saying that if a Christian was married to a non-Christian and wondering about whether or not 0.99

00:08:19.380 their children would be spiritual bastards because they don't have a father or they only have one 0.99

00:08:26.660 parent. And Paul is saying, well, this still constitutes in the sight of God as a legitimate 0.99

00:08:31.960 marriage. So these are not illegitimate children born out of wedlock, but rather legitimate

00:08:37.620 children. I don't think that that's what Paul's saying because we know that marriage was not given

00:08:43.180 exclusively to God's people, namely the church, but marriage was given by God, instituted by God

00:08:49.440 for all people, even those outside of the church. So by that argumentation, well, the counter would

00:08:54.760 simply be that if there are two unbelievers, if there's not even one believing parent in the

00:08:58.620 marriage, in the sight of God, that can still be a legitimate marriage. You can have two atheists,

00:09:04.160 so long as it's a biological man and a biological woman of legal age, consensual, who make a covenant

00:09:10.180 to one another. Obviously, their view of marriage and the robustness and depth of their marriage is

00:09:15.740 going to be lacking according to the Christian biblical worldview, but that's still a legitimate

00:09:20.020 marriage. And Christians, we would recognize that. If two unbelievers come into our church

00:09:24.900 to visit and they're exploring faith, we want to say, hey, your marriage isn't legitimate because 0.99

00:09:29.880 you don't have at least one of you being saved. So my point is Paul, his whole force and weight

00:09:35.120 of argumentation is on there being at least one believer. And if Paul is saying one believer,

00:09:42.100 a believing wife with an unbelieving husband, or vice versa, constitutes a legitimate marriage,

00:09:48.560 and therefore the children being holy simply means that they're not born out of wedlock, 0.80

00:09:52.820 but they're legitimate children rather than spiritually bastard children, that argument

00:09:57.600 doesn't work. Because Paul would make that argument, if that's all that he was being asked, 0.91

00:10:01.640 paul would make that argument for two unbelieving spouses with not not even a single one so holy 0.80

00:10:07.480 has to be more than just legitimate children born into legitimate wedlock it means something more

00:10:13.800 than that it has to yeah it does i mean we know that yeah you would say that you're going to be

00:10:18.840 entering into holy matrimony even if you were unbelievers uh in that situation and we obviously

00:10:24.520 know that the world uh the passage of scripture we're talking about it's first corinthians

00:10:28.520 chapter 7. I'm looking at it in the Greek right now, so it's hard for me to get my verse notes

00:10:33.340 here. But the reality is, yes, we have a child that has been born of a believing parent that

00:10:39.540 is set apart, that has some sort of special provision for this child. Special in the sense

00:10:44.900 that it is set apart in a way that the Muslim child or the pagan child is not. And there is 0.74

00:10:50.460 a blessing there because this regenerate parent will make provision and make covenant nurture

00:10:56.760 occur to this child by blessing them by the hearing and proclamation of the word of God,

00:11:00.640 the gospel to this child. And so, you know, we need to talk about some other things. This is

00:11:06.060 a bigger discussion. If you're new to theology and you're struggling just to kind of hang with

00:11:11.020 our conversation here, just continue with us because we're going to have some important topics

00:11:16.060 and points that are made that'll help put that mosaic of theology together for you.

00:11:20.880 You know, when we talk about covenant succession, Joel, how does this relate to the doctrine of unconditional election?

00:11:29.380 I think that we think that unconditional election means lottery, that just God is randomly just choosing individuals.

00:11:38.540 But how should we view this doctrine of covenant succession or expected redemption as it relates to unconditional election,

00:11:47.060 which is the U in TULIP for Calvinistic, you know, soteriology, right? We have total depravity,

00:11:52.720 unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.

00:11:56.380 How do these two relate? Yeah. So we should view these two

00:12:00.760 doctrines as being conducive and not at odds. The reason why this question has to be asked is

00:12:07.900 because this would be what we would refer to as an apparent paradox, right? You know,

00:12:12.660 another example of that would be God being meticulously sovereign over everything and all

00:12:17.220 the universe, right? Like the old Sproul, R.C. Sproul adage, you know, there's not one maverick

00:12:22.720 molecule in all the universe. But then saying that on the one hand, and then on the other hand,

00:12:28.020 talking about the responsibility, moral agency of human beings. And it's like, well, these things

00:12:33.780 can't both be simultaneously true. This is a paradox. But what we would actually say is no,

00:12:38.920 in philosophical terms, this is what is referred to as an apparent paradox, meaning that it appears

00:12:44.580 to be a paradox, but there is actually a biblical and logical way of understanding the relationship

00:12:50.860 between the two. They are not mutually exclusive. So as it pertains to our conversation in terms of

00:12:56.680 expectant redemption or covenant succession and unconditional election, it's important that the

00:13:02.240 Calvinist who's listening to this or watching this video, it's important that they remember

00:13:07.600 how it is that God carries out election. Yes, God, before the foundations of the world were laid

00:13:15.180 and the councils of eternity, God, according to his foreknowledge, he predestines, right? That's

00:13:21.340 what, that's the golden chain of salvation that we find in Romans chapter eight. All those he

00:13:26.180 foreknew, he predestined. And just to be abundantly clear, we are card-carrying Calvinists,

00:13:33.180 both dale and i and so we're not going to to try to cheat and say well that foreknowledge that

00:13:37.780 means that god in eternity past look through the quarters of time in his omniscience and and he was

00:13:44.180 able to identify those who would once being born and at a certain point in their life would choose

00:13:49.380 him and then based off of that knowledge of man's choice of god god then back before the foundations

00:13:54.700 of the world were laid he chose man that would not be um unconditional election that's literally

00:13:59.540 conditional election. The condition being God in his future knowledge, knowing who would choose

00:14:04.380 him. And based off of man's initial choice of God, God then would be responding to man by choosing

00:14:10.480 man because man first chose him and just using God's ability to be outside of time and his

00:14:16.160 omniscience as some kind of cheat code. We're not saying that foreknowledge simply means pre-love.

00:14:21.360 Gerhardus Voss, he said, I am convinced that there will never be a time that God will stop loving me

00:14:26.720 because there was never a time where he began to love me.

00:14:30.620 And what he means by that is there's a very real sense

00:14:32.860 in which you and I, even though we are finite creatures,

00:14:35.980 we have a definitive origin point

00:14:38.880 where we came into physical existence,

00:14:41.600 but there is a sense in which we are eternal beings,

00:14:43.960 not just forever life moving forward,

00:14:46.560 but even moving past that we have always existed,

00:14:50.100 not in a physical, literal existence,

00:14:51.920 but there has never been a time

00:14:53.580 where you and I did not exist, if nowhere else,

00:14:56.720 simply in the mind of God. And for the elect of God, we have always existed in the mind of God

00:15:02.720 before the universe was shaped. And there has never been a time in the mind of God that he has not

00:15:07.820 loved us, right? So John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only son. It's important

00:15:13.720 that Calvinists remember, it's not just that Jesus came and died to make us lovable, but God sent

00:15:20.040 Jesus to die because he loved us enough to make us love. God loved us. Very rarely will a man die

00:15:27.760 for another man, though for a good man, someone might dare to possibly die. But God showed his

00:15:32.560 love for us in this. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So God has always loved us.

00:15:38.360 It's true that the mind of the sinful man is hostile towards God. So before conversion,

00:15:43.680 before a person is saved, before justification, we are at enmity with God. And there is a sense

00:15:49.180 in which God hates the sinner, even the sinner who's elect, and that he's about to save. But

00:15:54.260 there's also a very real sense in which God has always loved the elect, even before the conversion,

00:15:59.660 which is precisely why he sent his son to die for the elect, that they might be redeemed. And so my

00:16:05.500 point in all this is to say, as we understand unconditional election, we have to understand

00:16:10.860 that it's God's sovereign choice. It's not contingent on anything in the creature. It's not

00:16:16.760 because we would eventually choose him. And it's not because of any merit. It's not because of any

00:16:21.480 will. It's not the flesh of man, nor the will of man. There's no elect biology that we pass down

00:16:28.220 to future generations, to our children and grandchildren. We're not making any of those

00:16:32.240 arguments. But what we are saying is this, God's election, although completely unconditional,

00:16:37.860 gave all of that as a thorough disclaimer to show you that I am a very strong card-carrying

00:16:44.140 calvinist um although we affirm all those things about unconditional election god has never carried

00:16:50.380 out his predestinated ends apart from his predestinated means meaning the same god who

00:16:57.740 in his unconditional election in his sovereignty decides that the end will be salvation of this

00:17:04.780 individual that same god also in his sovereignty his meticulous sovereignty he determines the means

00:17:12.380 in that individual's life by which he will bring about their salvation the clearest biblical

00:17:17.820 example of this would simply be romans chapter 10 verse 14 that says how will they believe

00:17:23.740 unless they hear and how will they hear unless someone preaches to them and how will they preach

00:17:28.300 unless they are sent for it is written blessed are the feet of those who bring good news meaning

00:17:33.260 people come to saving faith because god in eternity past ordained it to be but that same

00:17:39.740 god who ordained the end of the matter namely an individual salvation also is the same god who

00:17:46.620 predestines the means including the sending and the ministry and the preaching the gospel going

00:17:53.900 forth to that individual that they might believe by hearing for faith comes by hearing and hearing

00:18:00.780 the word of christ so what does that look like if we take that same thoroughly biblical principle

00:18:06.300 that does not deny the doctrine of unconditional election,

00:18:09.500 what if we just talk about hearing the gospel

00:18:12.120 and not just once from a missionary

00:18:14.160 on the other side of the world,

00:18:15.600 but again and again and again and again and again

00:18:18.100 in our homes?

00:18:20.160 Yeah, so this is essential.

00:18:22.340 And I'm gonna steal your thunder for a second

00:18:23.940 because I know you have really worked out this theology here

00:18:28.660 is that unconditional election is not,

00:18:31.120 as you said, arbitrary election.

00:18:32.980 It's not random election.

00:18:35.060 It is not that we have any creaturely value or meritorious works that God is looking at us and

00:18:42.540 going, I'm electing this individual because of X. No, that is what it means by unconditional

00:18:48.300 election. But really, there is a reality that God saves through the ordinary means of spiritual,

00:18:54.980 generational, familial lines, which is what we need to be talking about here is that at a basic

00:19:01.080 level. We see this in scripture from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We also see that through Joseph

00:19:06.060 or Boaz or Jesse and David. We see this trend in scripture. Solomon, you know, goes after it. We

00:19:13.600 see Lois and Eunice and Timothy. We see this trend of familial multi-generational faithfulness

00:19:22.340 is the normative reality in Christian life. I did a little bit of note-taking in Polycarp,

00:19:28.560 Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, or Augustine, all came from lines of faithful parents, at least one

00:19:35.320 faithful parent. We know Augustine's story about his mother consistently praying for him. We know

00:19:41.900 this is also true of Spurgeon and MacArthur and Sproul. And so again, this is the normative means

00:19:47.340 of grace extended through the familial line of covenant nurture experienced by the blessedness

00:19:59.040 of being born to two or at least one regenerate parent. And so this is, again, unconditional

00:20:05.600 election and expected redemption or covenant succession is not at odds, as you're saying.

00:20:11.340 they are absolutely congruent. When you see that the unconditional nature, what that means is that

00:20:17.540 it's talking about meritorious or creaturely value, but there's still a means of electing grace

00:20:24.540 that is traveling down through familial lines. It's just how God has saved. I mean, we saw that

00:20:34.740 obviously with the election of Israel and the promise to Israel. We see this obviously as a

00:20:39.540 normative flow of reality in Christian parents, meaning that my son does not have the same 0.81

00:20:46.000 likelihood of being saved as the Muslim child or Indian child or pagan child who is not under the 0.68

00:20:55.380 covenant nurture and means of grace of the gospel proclamation to his ears as a steady diet of

00:21:01.860 covenant blessing. Right. And this, just to pick up on what you're saying, this

00:21:08.600 lineage of salvation that we can track from generation to generation with a singular family,

00:21:15.520 it is not, what we're not arguing is it's not a matter of nature, family nature, but it's the

00:21:23.560 whole point, the way that we're defining, and we didn't, this isn't our own definition, this is the

00:21:27.840 definition of covenant succession. We want to emphasize here, covenant succession, according

00:21:33.060 to this definition, is saying that it's the expectant. So number one, not presumptuous,

00:21:39.000 not guaranteed with 100% success rate, not without ever having any exception,

00:21:46.160 but it's the expectant, and it's expected not just with a wishful thinking. That's not Christian 1.00

00:21:51.720 hope. Christian hope and faith has substance. So it's expectant because we are resting in the

00:21:56.800 goodness of God, his faithfulness to the thousandth generation, but also because we believe

00:22:02.340 that this is his ordinary practice.

00:22:05.060 I'm not guaranteeing, not 100% of the time,

00:22:07.100 but it's normative that God would save

00:22:08.960 not just some or a few of our children,

00:22:11.460 but all of our children.

00:22:12.660 So there's this expectant hope

00:22:14.200 of the salvation of our children

00:22:16.080 and that predestinated end,

00:22:18.440 our children being saved,

00:22:19.620 brought about by the predestinated means

00:22:22.420 and the means being covenant nature,

00:22:25.020 no, covenant nurture.

00:22:27.000 So when we say that we can track through family lines,

00:22:29.680 the reason why is not because of genetics. It's not like regeneration flows in someone's blood.

00:22:37.120 No, it's because what we're assuming, and what the Bible, I think, assumes is that with parents

00:22:44.220 who are believers, the reason why it is a benefit, there's a real advantage to being born into the

00:22:51.080 household of parents who are believers, is because believing parents, if they are truly believing,

00:22:56.640 that faith will work itself out in love. It will manifest itself in obedience, including the

00:23:03.780 obedience to be a Christian father, to be a Christian mother, to lavish upon your children,

00:23:09.800 not covenant nature, but covenant nurture, godly Christian parenting. And when we see the absence 0.78

00:23:16.460 of this, when we see parents who truly are regenerate, but they neglect that, so they

00:23:23.420 they actually have Christian nature. They are new creatures themselves, but they're neglecting

00:23:28.920 covenant nurture in their parenting in the way that they're not catechizing their children.

00:23:33.520 They're sending them to public school. They send them to Christian childcare on Sunday instead of

00:23:37.560 taking them to church. They don't have family worship in their homes. There's none of those 0.68

00:23:42.780 kinds of things. Then that person should not be expectant. They should not have a hopeful

00:23:48.880 expectancy that God is going to save their children. Because here's the deal. Again,

00:23:54.060 all this is unconditional. And the things that God has revealed belong to us and our children

00:24:00.000 forever, but the hidden things belong to God. And this is speaking of God's sovereign will.

00:24:04.060 So we can't see these things, but we can, without having omniscience, we can still get a good idea.

00:24:10.360 We can have an educated guess, is the way I would put it, right? It's not just a lottery

00:24:15.280 crapshoot, but we can have an educated guess in what God's ends might be by observing what God's

00:24:23.880 predestinated means in the present are. Meaning, I can see what God is doing today, and I can have

00:24:30.540 at least an idea of what he may be planning to bring about tomorrow. Now, certainly, we're not

00:24:35.860 going to have a 100% success rate with these kinds of things, but my point is, because God

00:24:40.860 confounds the wise, you know, but my point is I can look and say, you know what? It's not earning,

00:24:49.000 it's not meriting the salvation of our children. My faithful Christian parenting, catechizing my

00:24:53.660 kids, working hard so I can afford to send them to a Christian school, or then I'm not relying

00:24:58.000 on my wife or second income so that we can have Christian homeschool, all these different things,

00:25:02.000 doing family integrated worship at our church, all these things. I'm not saying if I do these

00:25:06.560 things, God owes me the salvation of my kids. Not saying that. That is wrong. That is unbiblical.

00:25:13.680 What I am saying, though, is God works through means. And if I'm doing these things, it's only

00:25:19.100 because of the grace of God. I don't have the strength to do these things. Left to myself,

00:25:23.280 I'm a lousy dad. So if I'm doing these things, it's because God is willing and working in and

00:25:29.620 through me in my parenting that which is good and pleasing in his sight. So God is working these

00:25:34.400 means through me by grace. And why does God, more often than not, why does God work his means of

00:25:43.600 grace in an individual? Well, it's usually to save them. Now, God does send missionaries and send

00:25:50.160 preachers to go and preach. And the word of God never returns void. Sometimes it saves. And

00:25:55.400 sometimes God uses the means of grace simply to further condemn an individual. And Dale and I

00:26:00.580 have, we have that category in our theology as well. Sometimes God may, he may use an individual

00:26:06.680 as his mouthpiece, as his instrument in the means of grace, lavishing the gospel on someone again

00:26:11.920 and again and again with the intent of simply further hardening that person's heart and further

00:26:18.640 justifying himself on that final day when he ultimately judges that person as being wicked.

00:26:25.060 So God can do that, but what we're arguing is that's not normative as it pertains to Christian households. 0.56

00:26:32.300 Yeah, and this is the same flaw of presumptuousness that occurred under the Old Covenant with the Israelites. 0.65

00:26:41.500 They believed that birthright was some sort of assured salvation of their children.

00:26:48.560 In fact, if you read in Romans chapter, really, 118 through chapter 3, verses 20, it's Paul

00:26:56.260 systematically stripping away any redemptive hope that they have in those actions, that they are the

00:27:02.740 seed of Abraham, that they have the covenant sign of circumcision, that they have access to the

00:27:08.280 moral law of God. Paul is saying none of those things actually bring justification before, you

00:27:14.340 know, none of those things can make you righteous. Essentially, you need the righteousness of Christ

00:27:18.380 imputed to you by faith and so he's stripping them down saying that no man is righteous that

00:27:23.100 actually all of us are absolutely impartial between gentile and greek and the question that

00:27:28.300 the jews ask is then well what advantage do we have right and and that's the that's the big

00:27:33.820 question well if none of these things matter in terms of our justification before god then what

00:27:38.620 advantage do we have well in the question or the answer that paul offers is that you have the

00:27:43.500 oracles of God. And he says actually in Romans chapter 11 that the table becomes a snare. And

00:27:50.540 the idea that I think about that table as kind of an elevated platform, they had a kind of a head

00:27:57.420 start to the gospel. They were spiritually blessed. And now in the Jewish epic or epoch,

00:28:06.380 there was this, it became a stumbling block to them. Those things they actually thought that

00:28:13.180 they merited themselves salvation through works. They didn't understand the need for grace. They

00:28:18.940 didn't understand that they had fallen short of the glory of God. And what we need to see is this

00:28:25.360 can absolutely become the same thing for us. What we need to realize is that our kids do have an

00:28:30.680 advantage. And the advantage is that they are around the oracles of God. They're under the

00:28:35.880 covenant blessings of witnessing prayer and witnessing singing and witnessing the means of

00:28:42.800 grace are literally saturating their lives. And so it's not birthright. It's not presumption.

00:28:49.700 It's hopeful expectation for faithful covenant nurture. And so that was a great way

00:28:55.600 to discuss that. Now, I want to talk real quick, Joel, about the other pitfall, which is the

00:29:03.000 common American Baptist, not as much the Reformed Baptist, but also the Reformed Baptist, but the

00:29:07.820 common American Baptist pitfall of essentially discipling doubt into our children. So why don't

00:29:14.120 you talk about that? Yeah. So yeah, we want our children, okay? So, you know, both you and I are

00:29:22.920 1689 Reformed Baptists. And so we don't hold to a Westminster Presbyterian view of the covenants.

00:29:29.780 We are covenantal in our theology. We're not dispensational, but we would hold to like a

00:29:35.840 1689, Reformed Baptist, you know, federalism or covenant theology. And so what that means is that

00:29:42.960 we don't believe that our children are physically born into the new covenant by virtue of being the

00:29:48.760 children of believing parents. We believe that there's only one door, one entrance into the

00:29:55.600 new covenant, God's new covenant people, and that that door is faith. And it's not the faith of the

00:30:00.580 church institute. It's not the faith of the ministers, not the faith of the parents. It's

00:30:04.980 the faith of the individual, that that individual has to appeal to God for a clean conscience,

00:30:10.760 a clear conscience. That's what 1 Peter says when he talks about baptism, that baptism,

00:30:16.120 it now saves you, right? And then we have to finish the verse. But it doesn't save you as

00:30:21.680 a magical mechanical ritual, not as the removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God

00:30:29.240 for a clean or clear conscience. And we believe as Baptists, in terms of answering that rhetorical

00:30:35.360 question of, well, whose appeal is it? It's the individual being baptized. It's not the corporate

00:30:41.380 appeal of the church. It's not the appeal of the parents on behalf of their infant. It's not even

00:30:47.020 the appeal of God, God appealing to himself to clear the conscience. I understand that argument.

00:30:53.140 That's probably one of the better arguments. But I think that clearly what's being said in the

00:30:57.020 scripture is the individual who is being baptized is appealing to God, which means they are not

00:31:02.840 saved. Baptism does not save them as a physical mechanical ritual. If I just dunk you under the

00:31:09.220 water, you'll be good. Like Nacho Libre style, where it's just like, man, this guy can hate

00:31:13.620 Christ, but if I can just baptize, you know, and dunk him under the water, then, you know,

00:31:17.280 his soul will be saved. We don't believe that. We believe that baptism, water, that it actually

00:31:23.580 does save the person, but only insofar as the outward immersion of water represents the inward

00:31:32.100 appeal of an individual crying out to God for a clear conscience. And so there needs to be that

00:31:40.060 appeal, that there needs to be faith. So we believe faith is the door into the new covenant.

00:31:45.840 And in terms of continuity, because we're not dispensationalists, you know, people say, well,

00:31:50.900 we just see the continuity, you know, the Presbyterian brother or sister, we see the

00:31:54.020 continuity. You Reformed Baptist, you're still chopping. You may not be chopping it up, you know, 0.98

00:31:58.460 the Bible as much as the dispensationalist, but you're still getting too choppy with your covenant

00:32:02.740 theology. And we just have more continuity. We see, you know, the continuity between the old

00:32:07.260 covenant with Israel, you know, this one covenant of grace, two administrations, and under the first

00:32:12.660 administration with the old covenant of Israel, you know, we had circumcision, and now, you know,

00:32:17.680 we have baptism. And I would say, you know what? I do see that continuity and I hold to it as a

00:32:21.680 Reformed Baptist 100%. And under the old covenant, you got circumcised. If you were a male, a Hebrew

00:32:28.360 male, you got circumcised right after birth. And guess what? Reformed Baptists, we baptize right

00:32:34.200 after birth, right after new birth, the spiritual birth. So circumcision according to the flesh,

00:32:40.400 right after physical birth in the old covenant. And then there's baptism, a new covenant spiritual

00:32:45.820 sign right after spiritual birth and the new covenant that is continuity and so you know it's

00:32:50.740 the types and shadows finding their their fulfillment in the substance and so all that

00:32:54.960 being said my point is we are covenantal we see the continuity all those kinds of things the only

00:32:59.540 difference is we're making an argument about um what is the door into the new covenant we would

00:33:05.880 say it's faith alone and and then you know when the signs and seals the sacraments of baptism

00:33:11.420 in the Lord's Supper should be applied. Both us and the Presbyterian would say that the seal of

00:33:16.560 baptism, that sacrament of baptism, should be applied right after someone is in the New Covenant.

00:33:22.600 And they just see the children of believers in their physical birth being born into the New

00:33:27.300 Covenant by virtue of being the children of believing parents. Whereas we would say, no,

00:33:30.480 faith alone is the door. And so we're applying the sacrament of baptism right after someone

00:33:35.500 gains entrance into the New Covenant. We disagree on what the door is. We would say that the door

00:33:41.340 is faith alone. And what makes the new covenant so wonderful is that the Baptist, we would say,

00:33:46.680 it's not just wider in its scope for you and your children and all those who are far off,

00:33:52.920 but the new covenant is actually deeper in its promises. It's not just bigger, as the

00:33:59.020 Presbyterian would argue, but it's better. And one of the things that makes it better,

00:34:03.540 one of its promises, is that God will put his law within us and he will cause, he himself will

00:34:10.120 cause us to walk in his ways. Meaning what makes the new covenant so much better than the old

00:34:15.960 is there's a 100% retention rate. Meaning that anyone who has entrance into the new covenant

00:34:22.680 by faith, which is also a gift given by God, they will be kept by God. They will be caused by God

00:34:28.720 to walk in his ways. And so that's our belief. Now, all that being said, the children, to answer

00:34:35.380 your question, the children who are born to believers within a 1689 Reformed Baptist perspective

00:34:39.860 we're saying until you exercise faith until we see signs of faith that has been granted by god

00:34:45.360 we cannot baptize you and and baptism would be the initiating oath sign the lord's supper is

00:34:51.040 the renewing covenant ceremony the renewal of signs so no baptism no lord's supper uh to put

00:34:56.860 it to put it bluntly so what we're saying is that as baptists we are going for the first few years

00:35:01.640 of our children's lives we are going to be withholding from them the sacrament of baptism

00:35:06.160 of the Lord's Supper. How do you do that without discipling the child in a mindset of doubt,

00:35:13.660 in a mindset of exclusion, that this is the house of God, the people of God of which you

00:35:19.880 do not belong? In a literal theological sense, they don't belong. And we have to hold that line

00:35:25.560 because I believe it's biblical. So we should have this sense in which our children, until we

00:35:31.180 we see faith until there's regeneration, and we're not saying that children of believers are

00:35:36.360 regenerate from the womb. So the Baptist, in being biblical and faithful to the scripture, has to say

00:35:40.700 there is a very real sense in which my children do not belong to the new covenant. My children

00:35:45.740 currently, there is enmity between them and God in some sense, and yet we can't go with some guys,

00:35:52.880 they acknowledge that, and that's the objective theological reality, but then they take that all

00:35:57.600 the way without any, without any other side of the coin being factored in. And so that's where

00:36:03.200 you get, you know, sayings like, you know, vipers and diapers, you know, and you know, it's, it's

00:36:07.160 hard. Me and my wife, you know, two saints living with four unregenerate pagans, you know, and

00:36:11.300 well, how far are you going to take that? What about the Lord's prayer? Are you going to teach

00:36:15.320 your children to pray our great enemy who art in heaven, who hates me with a passion of a thousand

00:36:20.840 sons? Or are you going to teach them to pray our father who art in heaven? My two-year-old can pray

00:36:26.480 our father who art in heaven. And I don't tell her that God's not her father and that she

00:36:31.780 shouldn't say that. What I say is God is the father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all those

00:36:36.380 who through faith have union with him. And this is for you. And the expectant, hopeful view of

00:36:43.680 salvation for our children in our home, in our household, is that it is simply a matter of when,

00:36:49.120 not if. So we recognize that there is a point and it doesn't happen. New covenant doesn't happen

00:36:54.260 from the womb. There is a point of conversion and faith alone is the door. But we have this

00:36:59.180 expectation, this hope that God is going to save all of our kids. So we're not sitting there,

00:37:05.580 well, if God saves our kids. No, it's just when God saves our kids. So how do we disciple our

00:37:11.140 kids? We are discipling them as pre-Christians, meaning we view our children. I don't view my

00:37:18.660 two-year-old as elect or i'm sorry as regenerate i do view her as elect not as regenerate but as

00:37:27.380 elect so what would i be teaching a pre-christian to do and i and i i take some of my cues from

00:37:33.540 jesus christ himself at what point did the 12 become christians like at what point can we nail

00:37:40.660 down their conversion i think we can have a decent idea with some of them like peter but

00:37:44.660 But when is there conversion?

00:37:46.800 And here's the crazy thing.

00:37:49.060 It's not as though, you know,

00:37:50.400 unless you're going to argue that they were all converted,

00:37:53.040 minus Judas, 11 of them were converted

00:37:55.260 at the moment of Jesus' initial calling.

00:37:58.360 Unless that's going to be your argument,

00:37:59.960 then what you have to say is that somewhere along the road

00:38:02.900 for three years, they actually began to believe

00:38:06.160 with saving faith.

00:38:07.680 They were actually brought from death to life.

00:38:09.680 But then you have to ask the implicit question.

00:38:11.740 The question that that begs is,

00:38:12.960 is there a point in Jesus' ministry with his disciples where his discipleship changes?

00:38:18.920 Or does he just simply disciple them to conversion and from conversion into maturity?

00:38:25.780 And does that look like the same thing that gets us in is the same way on?

00:38:30.580 The same grace that saves us is the same grace that deepens us and grows us and sanctifies.

00:38:35.600 So I'm using the same means of grace that I use for regenerate members of my church to sanctify them.

00:38:41.240 I'm using that same language, that same discipleship, that same grace for the justification, for the saving of my children.

00:38:49.640 I know Baptist guys who literally, they'll have their children pray in their family worship time.

00:38:55.080 And then afterwards, these are Baptist seminary professors.

00:38:58.420 There's at least one.

00:38:59.440 I won't name him.

00:39:00.420 But after his children pray, his young children, he'll say, God did not hear you.

00:39:05.840 I think that that's horrid.

00:39:07.780 I don't think that that's what we need to be doing.

00:39:10.060 Yeah, this is a wicked posture to have, and it's not something that we see in Scripture as well.

00:39:14.240 I mean, we know that Ephesians 6.4 says,

00:39:16.620 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

00:39:22.160 We also know Proverbs 22.6, right?

00:39:24.120 Train up your child in the way he should go.

00:39:26.160 Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

00:39:28.380 We also know in Deuteronomy 6.7, you shall teach them diligently to your children.

00:39:33.040 This is talking about the law of God.

00:39:34.300 And shall talk to them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you wake up.

00:39:38.840 And we know that 2 Timothy 3.15 is Timothy talking about how from childhood that he's been acquainted with the sacred scriptures, which are able to make them wise or make him wise for salvation.

00:39:51.000 And so there is an actual intentionality that is biblical here that we must partake in as parents to raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

00:40:01.160 And so we can't abandon that reality.

00:40:03.800 And so, yes, the same way is that we need to be catechizing our kids in truth.

00:40:07.820 we need to be sharing the gospel to them. And I think this is one of the great privileges of

00:40:12.220 parenthood is that you get to explain the gospel to children, which allows you to actually better

00:40:16.940 explain the gospel to adults. It refines your ability to communicate the gospel to its most

00:40:22.560 simplistic forms. And another thing is, now we don't want to be delaying baptism, right? This

00:40:29.300 is something that obviously the American Baptist community, and again, not as much as the Reformed

00:40:34.020 baptist, but it depends on the individual, but we will delay baptism. It's almost like, hey,

00:40:38.740 dad, I want to be baptized. And you're like, ah, let's wait and see. Let's just see if what,

00:40:43.960 prove it to me. And that posture is also a pitfall on the other side of this road here.

00:40:50.840 And so what we need to be doing it, for example, my eight-year-old daughter was able to

00:40:57.540 accurately communicate the gospel. And I'm not talking a John 3, 16 gospel. I'm talking a

00:41:03.800 2 Corinthians 5.21 gospel, a penal substitutionary atonement gospel. Basically, her sins imputed to

00:41:15.720 Christ and Christ's righteousness imputed to her by faith. I mean, she knows these realities. She's

00:41:19.880 been catechized. She understands the gospel. I see fruit in her life. And she was baptized at

00:41:24.980 eight years old. So she had a credible profession of faith. And that word credible is important

00:41:28.740 because you don't necessarily want to,

00:41:31.860 we know that our children will basically communicate

00:41:34.080 exactly what we taught them,

00:41:35.440 especially when they're young.

00:41:36.920 And so you want to have a balance

00:41:39.320 of a credible profession of faith

00:41:41.740 that you're seeing an actual comprehension

00:41:43.400 and understanding of the gospel

00:41:44.660 and a true repentance and desire to follow Christ

00:41:48.820 before someone is actually going to be baptized.

00:41:53.640 Now, you might be able to see that.

00:41:55.040 I mean, even Charles Spurgeon would say

00:41:56.580 that you could be regenerate at the age of five.

00:41:59.920 And even I would say his story is in alignment with that.

00:42:03.580 I mean, the kid was reading Pilgrim's Progress

00:42:06.060 at five or six years old

00:42:07.860 and enjoying it and comprehending it.

00:42:10.440 So there's obviously blessing that can occur

00:42:12.060 and regeneration that can occur at that young age.

00:42:14.900 So we don't want to discredit that.

00:42:17.240 So we want to have a balance of

00:42:19.180 when a child can profess faith,

00:42:22.280 a credible profession with a theological comprehension

00:42:24.820 and really understand the gospel

00:42:27.060 because you have shared it with them

00:42:28.300 over and over and over again

00:42:30.020 and raised them up in the nurture

00:42:31.160 and the admonition of the Lord

00:42:32.300 and taught them the way of the grace of God

00:42:34.720 and the way of the gospel

00:42:35.560 and their need for salvation,

00:42:36.600 their need for repentance.

00:42:37.880 And if they start expressing those realities to you,

00:42:40.660 we shouldn't be saying,

00:42:41.860 well, you know, let's just wait and see.

00:42:43.160 Maybe when you're 12,

00:42:44.040 maybe when you're 14,

00:42:45.060 maybe when you're 16,

00:42:46.340 that is also the wrong posture to be having here.

00:42:50.040 Right.

00:42:50.200 And what I would say with that is,

00:42:51.540 you know, we're looking for faith

00:42:52.700 and that sounds so vague.

00:42:54.440 So to make, you know, make it a little bit more specific, the reformers argue there are three

00:42:58.380 primary components of faith, right? You had knowledge, assent, and trust, personal, implicit

00:43:03.080 trust. And so when it comes to the age of our children, there's no, the Bible doesn't have an

00:43:07.940 age of accountability. So, so we're not saying, oh, you know, you don't, you baptize kids at 10

00:43:13.260 or you baptize them at eight. We're just not going to do that. We're just, we're going to be silent

00:43:17.340 with the Bible silent. We're not going to add that to the text and Icate that in. There's not 0.95

00:43:20.900 a certain age um but there is certain components of faith and faith is the door and faith can come

00:43:26.640 at four years old faith can come at 40 years old and so we're looking for faith and when we look

00:43:31.140 for faith specifically what we're looking for is knowledge assent and personal implicit trust

00:43:35.900 um so knowledge that that does bring into um the equation age because we actually have minds that

00:43:44.200 develop and we grow in our ability to comprehend and to reason and rationale and all those kinds

00:43:49.780 of things. But here's the deal. Each child is different. There are some children like Charles

00:43:53.500 Spurgeon that you use that can be reading Pilgrim's Progress at five. And then, you know,

00:43:57.480 some other children that, you know, maybe you're still trying to encourage them not to eat rocks

00:44:01.520 and sand, you know, when you go to the park, you know, and so, you know, it depends on the kids.

00:44:05.720 Some kids, their gifts lie elsewhere, you know, but every kid is smart, right? No, not all equally.

00:44:11.980 We are not egalitarians. And so every kid's different. So one, you're looking at their

00:44:15.960 ability to comprehend the gospel. But here's the deal. It's a sufficient, and what we're looking

00:44:20.860 for is a sufficient understanding, not the most robust understanding, right? Because God saves

00:44:26.460 people with Down syndrome. God saves people with mental disabilities. God saves, so we can't hold

00:44:32.040 the bar way up here for kids and then not, think about that for a second, logically draw out the

00:44:37.140 implications. If we're holding the bar for our kids, you know what, we just shouldn't ever

00:44:40.920 baptize a child. And we need to put 18 years old as the bar. And if you're making that argument 0.99

00:44:46.780 based off of the first component of faith being knowledge, then you have effectively just made

00:44:51.120 an argument that the logical implications of your argument discludes those with mental disabilities

00:44:57.220 from salvation. Is that where you want to be when Jesus comes back? Discluding people with

00:45:02.620 Down syndrome from salvation? That's not where I want to be, right? So that's a bad argument.

00:45:05.980 okay so so we're looking for faith like um but sufficient the kernels right the understanding

00:45:12.300 um there's got to be a basic understanding but it doesn't have to be the most robust understanding

00:45:17.180 they're going to grow in that um they're going to grow in that um but but that doesn't mean that

00:45:21.260 until they've grown with perfect faith the door is faith let me just say it like this the door

00:45:26.220 to the new covenant and therefore baptism and the lord's supper is faith the door is not perfect

00:45:31.900 faith yeah and i'm gonna and i'm gonna say it's not overwhelming fruitfulness because

00:45:38.780 the reality is is that so many parents go well my kid professes faith but you know then they

00:45:45.340 talked back to me the next day and then i shouldn't have been baptized right it becomes this reality

00:45:52.140 where they they stop looking at their own sin and i want to look at that parent and go yeah and you

00:45:56.620 also disrespected your husband and you also um you know had that lustful thought or whatever it

00:46:02.380 might be and so we can't again lay down the the salvation by works and that we need to be justified

00:46:09.500 in evidences that we are reaching this fruitfulness of obedience that that now justifies our ability

00:46:15.420 to become baptized and so really is i i think what you said joel is the door is faith and as

00:46:21.820 you walk in the sanctification is the journey that's right so the door is faith and faith

00:46:26.860 requires a sufficient measure of knowledge that's doctrine theology and a sufficient

00:46:31.820 true living faith will have a sufficient measure of fruit and that's what you're talking about

00:46:36.220 obedience but again it's it's the kernels it's sufficient not necessarily perfect and not not

00:46:41.420 necessarily robust but sufficient but we are looking for both because that's that's the third

00:46:45.820 component so it's knowledge it's uh ascent which simply means because you can know something that

00:46:49.980 you don't uh give your assent to like i know the prosperity gospel and then and i could articulate

00:46:55.500 it for you um and then i would say and i don't agree with it so so it's knowledge um you got

00:47:00.540 to be able to have some basic comprehension of the gospel ascent you you are giving your sense

00:47:05.340 saying this is true but then personal trust meaning um that you're actually going to to

00:47:10.060 rest cast your weight upon jesus as your personal savior actually you're not just saying i know this

00:47:16.540 I agree that it's true, but then you're also going to live in such a way that you personally

00:47:21.200 are trusting in the truth of the gospel.

00:47:23.960 And that's where the fruit comes in.

00:47:25.140 But in both of these things, it makes me think of Pilgrim's Progress, the second book.

00:47:29.320 The first is kind of, you know, it's almost discouraging.

00:47:32.440 It's beautiful, but it's almost discouraging at certain points because Christian and faithful

00:47:35.780 and hopeful, the main, you know, protagonists of the story are just giants in the faith

00:47:40.380 in many ways.

00:47:40.960 And yeah, you know, Christian loses his assurance for a while, the scroll and has to go back

00:47:45.240 and find it.

00:47:45.720 And yes, he gets off the road and tries to take an easier route and ends up in, you know,

00:47:50.120 Doubting Castle with giant despair.

00:47:51.840 And yeah, there are some pitfalls.

00:47:53.120 But I mean, Christian is a rock star, you know, and hopeful is a rock star and faithful

00:47:56.800 is a rock star.

00:47:57.520 I mean, martyr, you know, being faithful and martyr in the faith.

00:48:01.180 And so, but the second book is really kind of like the picture of the church.

00:48:05.080 It's the corporate journey to the celestial city where Christian's wife, Christiana, and

00:48:09.660 her four boys are now trying together to get to the celestial city and living the Christian

00:48:15.600 life and other people join their company and there's strong people like Great Heart, who it's

00:48:20.900 almost like they wouldn't make it without him. But then there are weak people that join the company

00:48:24.700 and one of them is ready to halt. One of them is feeble-minded and one of them is called

00:48:29.740 Little Faith. And Little Faith is, you know, there's a certain point where someone's criticizing

00:48:34.460 Little Faith and saying, I don't even know if he's a Christian, you know, is the synopsis of

00:48:38.700 what's being said. But then someone else comes to his defense and says, well, notice his name is not

00:48:43.580 no faith, but little faith. And so when we say faith is the door, we're saying faith, any ounce

00:48:50.660 of faith, right? It's the old adage, it's not the size of our faith, but the object of our faith

00:48:54.780 that saves us. Jesus doesn't say if you have the faith of a mountain, you can move a mustard seed.

00:49:00.500 We act like that sometimes, but he says, no, if you have the faith of a mustard seed,

00:49:04.940 you can move a mountain. And so just a little bit of faith. So what are we looking for? We're

00:49:09.500 looking for sufficient knowledge, not necessarily the best knowledge. Do you agree, sweetheart,

00:49:14.560 with what you just articulated? Do you agree that that's true? Yes, I do, dad. Okay. And are you

00:49:20.760 repentant over the fact that you haven't been sharing with your sister lately? And what does

00:49:24.860 that repentance look like? And is there going to be improvement in this? And so the point is,

00:49:28.980 for a lot of children, they probably won't get baptized until they're eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.

00:49:33.020 But some children in faithful homes with covenant nurture may get baptized at three.

00:49:39.500 or at four, or at five, and the Baptist can do that, right?

00:49:43.680 The point is this, at the end of the day,

00:49:46.100 if we're faithful as Reformed Baptists,

00:49:47.880 the difference between us and our Presbyterian brothers

00:49:50.500 and sisters in regards to our children

00:49:52.280 is about two or three years.

00:49:54.360 That's the difference.

00:49:55.600 That's the difference.

00:49:56.840 And we're just simply saying,

00:49:58.680 we're going to apply these signs and seals

00:50:00.400 at the right time, and not too early,

00:50:04.220 but sure as heck, not too late.

00:50:06.140 We don't want to postpone.

00:50:07.120 yeah this is the key to finding out that balance that we're talking about here in speaking to this

00:50:14.760 reality of just practicality on trusting and that third element of faith I mean we think about

00:50:21.720 obviously the parable of the sower we see a sower that's sowing seed and we see that it's seed and

00:50:28.580 that it eventually grows but it starts as seed and so when that seed takes root it's important

00:50:34.380 that we as parents recognize that the seed has landed on the good soil and is bearing fruit

00:50:40.860 and we're not waiting for that thing to become a tree before we baptize it that's right now

00:50:45.420 as it pertains to faith something that's been helpful for me

00:50:48.540 and that third element there is i i teach my children that what do you have faith in christ

00:50:53.500 to do i often ask them this and they say well we have faith in christ to earn the righteous verdict

00:51:00.860 that i can't earn on judgment day and so i really help them understand the forensic view of the

00:51:07.100 gospel a legal case a court case i've used you know rc sproul's method of wrapping children in

00:51:16.220 blankets and showing them that they'd have new clothes or that they've been covered with the

00:51:21.180 atonement the atoning blood of christ so there's all these methods that are really great to

00:51:26.460 communicate but one thing is teaching your child to trust and rely upon the righteousness of christ

00:51:32.300 because they are not righteous and asking your children are they sinners what happened if you

00:51:35.660 sit before god as a sinner oh we would be doomed dad now what happens if you stand before god but

00:51:41.340 you have the righteousness of christ wrapped around you oh we'd be saved dad and and so you

00:51:46.220 need to communicate over and over and over again and it shouldn't be abnormal to have an eight-year-old

00:51:51.900 understand the gospel to show evidence of regeneration and show an evidence of faithfulness

00:52:00.780 and that you're ready to baptize this individual my daughter came to me and asked me i want to

00:52:06.620 be baptized and yes we did have a conversation we went over those things we waited a couple

00:52:11.340 weeks to have those discussions we didn't go immediately to that because of the situation

00:52:15.740 that it was in it wasn't an adult conversation with a 24 year old person that you can really

00:52:20.940 clearly get those three points uh with great assurance um compared to a little girl and so

00:52:29.820 we wanted to have those discussions and so i just think it's a balance that baptists need to figure

00:52:35.580 out and we should be baptizing uh not not early for the sake of early uh but not late for the

00:52:41.340 sake of late that's right and so um as we get here but as real quick but as baptists become

00:52:47.020 more faithful with covenant nurture if that happens in a widespread fashion in a local church

00:52:53.660 you will find that in that local church children tend to get baptized sooner early yes and this is

00:53:00.460 what i want to talk about is just as a closing comment here uh how to how can we as reformed

00:53:06.920 basically remove this apathetic view how can we really encourage and pastor uh hopefulness into

00:53:15.940 our congregations? How can we, as parents, really adopt these realities? What practicalities need

00:53:24.500 to change for us to really embrace this and really celebrate covenant succession or expectant

00:53:32.580 redemption? What should we be doing as parents? What should we be doing as pastors? I think that's

00:53:37.620 a great way for us to close today. Okay. Yeah, well, one of the things we should be doing is

00:53:43.220 taking responsibility for our children and the salvation of our children and i know that that

00:53:48.260 sounds counterintuitive it's like well you know salvation belongs to the lord yes and amen salvation

00:53:54.180 only belongs to the lord the salvation of our children is not the product of our good parenting

00:54:03.300 exclusively in the sense that that by my good parenting i can work the god of the universe

00:54:09.300 into my debt to where he owes me now the salvation of my children we reject that

00:54:14.820 outright however um there is a sense in which we should take responsibility we we we understand the

00:54:22.580 relationship reform baptist we understand the relationship between god's sovereignty because

00:54:28.020 we don't just say that god's sovereign over salvation we believe that god is sovereign over

00:54:31.220 all things and yet we're able to understand god being sovereign above above it all um and and yet

00:54:38.340 human agency and our moral culpability responsibility when it comes to other things

00:54:43.220 right when it comes to um obedience or disobedience sin we're able when somebody sins what do we say

00:54:51.480 right i mean think about that like just just all we have to do is logically draw out the

00:54:55.660 implications right as baptists we would never say if somebody um if a husband commits adultery in

00:55:01.440 his marriage and we're doing the pastoral counseling um what are we going to say are we

00:55:04.900 going to say you know um the lord gives and takes away blessed be the name of the lord the lord uh

00:55:10.880 sorry sweetheart wife you know the lord just he just gave you an adulterous husband and uh no

00:55:16.880 we're gonna say yeah god is sovereign over all things including sin um but that husband also

00:55:23.460 is morally responsible for his sin and and when it comes to evangelism just apply that now to

00:55:30.560 evangelist, will there be people in hell? I mean, think about this because I think as Calvinists,

00:55:34.860 sometimes we overcompensate. I think we overcompensate and we actually are unhelpfully

00:55:41.060 minimizing human agency. But is there a sense in which there will be people eternally in hell

00:55:47.900 because we refused, we refused to obey God's call for us to go and preach the gospel,

00:55:55.400 to do the work of an evangelist? I would say, yes, there is a sense in which those people

00:55:59.580 will be in hell. Now, at the very same time, will there be any elect people that God determined to

00:56:06.320 save in hell? No, God will get it done one way or another. If we refuse, he'll send somebody else.

00:56:12.860 Like God, there's no one that God wants to save or wills to save or has ordained to save who will

00:56:18.440 not be saved. So God's plan, no one can thwart his plans, right? So when we speak of the sovereignty

00:56:23.440 of God, what man meant for evil, God meant for good. No one can thwart his plans. God is sovereign

00:56:27.840 over all things. If disaster comes to a city, the Lord caused it like God's sovereign over

00:56:32.160 suffering. He's sovereign over sin. And he's certainly sovereign over salvation. But when

00:56:36.660 we think about it pastorally, or just simply as Christians, when we think about our daily lives,

00:56:42.440 our actions, our behaviors, our obedience, or the lack thereof, we do not put the full onus

00:56:49.000 on the sovereignty of God. We also speak in terms of personal human responsibility,

00:56:55.000 moral responsibility. You sinned, brother. You should repent, and you're responsible for that

00:57:01.140 sin. You did it. We don't go and say, hey, you know what? You're absolved of all moral guilt

00:57:06.740 because God is meticulously sovereign. No, no. Both things are simultaneously true.

00:57:11.560 An apparent paradox, yes, but an actual paradox, no. God is sovereign in such a way that he does

00:57:18.480 no violence to the creature in his will, and yet he is sovereign over all that comes to pass.

00:57:25.760 God ordains all that comes to pass, and yet the creature also is free, free in his rebellion

00:57:31.700 against God and free in his love and submission to God because God changes his nature and causes

00:57:37.640 him to become a new creature in Christ Jesus. So apply that now to not just daily obedience

00:57:42.220 of God's sovereignty and man's moral culpability, but apply it to evangelism and then more

00:57:48.000 specifically apply it to a parent's evangelism with their own children in their home right if

00:57:54.640 our children don't grow up to become christian um is it our fault i would say yes at some level we

00:58:01.680 will be able to look back and say yeah there was a failure here i like what parent is going to stand

00:58:06.400 before god and say um you know what i i literally could not have done a better job there's not one

00:58:12.240 thing I neglected, not one way that I failed. I could not have improved, no matter what. I did

00:58:18.100 the perfect job of parenting. So my point is, all children who grow up and deny the faith,

00:58:23.800 we can root that in God's sovereign will, and in their parents' failure, and of course,

00:58:30.060 in the child's own rebellion. And then all children who go to heaven, we root that first

00:58:35.860 and foremost in God's grace, but then also in God's grace, not just in the ends of grace,

00:58:41.020 but also his means of bringing that grace about through the parents parenting and in the child

00:58:46.460 and so my point is in all these things i think we have to have the same kind of mindset as calvinist

00:58:51.700 the same way we view our daily lives in terms of obedience and disobedience knowing god's

00:58:57.760 sovereign over sin but we're still morally responsible why can't we take that same concept

00:59:03.480 that that's what that's the inconsistency that i'm bothered by i'm noticing that some of my

00:59:07.700 Baptist brothers is they would preach that way about sexual purity. They would preach that way

00:59:12.380 about your speech. They would preach that way about ministry. They would preach that way about

00:59:16.120 all other realms of life and obedience. But when it comes to their parenting in their home,

00:59:21.400 it's as though moral culpability of the parents and human agency has no effect whatsoever. And I

00:59:27.540 would say, you don't ever talk like that in any other matter. Yeah, there's inconsistency in their

00:59:34.040 logic there and their spiritual reasoning. And this is obviously a difficult concept for us to

00:59:41.400 even self-examine, but we do need to take that examination. I think that faithful parenting

00:59:46.360 is obviously something that is missing for the last century in the church because we're seeing

00:59:52.940 it. Multi-generational faithfulness, we can see the results. They're here in front of us. And we

00:59:59.380 are in a generation of parents who have outsourced their children to youth pastors and to youth

01:00:07.580 ministries. We are in a generation of people who have outsourced their parenting to babysitters

01:00:14.360 and double income positions for mom and dad. We are in a time where we have very few adults

01:00:22.280 who have ever been catechized, who have ever been systematically taught the word of God. I mean,

01:00:26.240 catechism to this generation of parents of which I am part is a very new concept for us. I can't

01:00:33.280 tell you how many 30-year-old men and women I talk about catechism and they're like, what is that?

01:00:38.860 And they are raised in the church, but they've never had been catechized. I think that the

01:00:43.640 Protestant community thought that Catholicism had taken that word catechism and we just had

01:00:49.120 ran from the concept altogether. And as a result, we've never nurtured our children in the word of

01:00:54.420 truth and ever systematically taught them the word of God and it's showing. And so we are absolutely

01:01:00.620 seeing that in this day and age. Now, one thing I want to close with, and we're going to talk about

01:01:05.180 one last thing, Joel, about you and your ministry, as well as an event that you're doing. But one

01:01:11.440 thing that I want to close with, just as a metaphor, if anybody has done any agricultural

01:01:17.640 work or farming or gardening, you will understand the Bible much more clearly. We know that the

01:01:24.580 Bible is basically written in an agrarian culture that is using metaphors of branches and vines and

01:01:32.360 seeds and roots. And this is very common understanding of biblical vernacular. When I

01:01:39.380 look at a branch on a tree, and let's just say that that branch was grafted into the

01:01:47.620 this vine and this branch is growing, if you know anything about vine dressing, you can look at this

01:01:53.840 branch and you'll see that the vast majority of that branch, if it's a fruitful branch,

01:01:58.460 is growing. But even on that fruitful branch, you will also see a dead shoot. It's very common to

01:02:05.640 see like a leaf that's just dead or to see a twig that just never grew anything off of it.

01:02:13.620 And I find that to be a very helpful reality when you look at your own life, is that you can be a

01:02:19.640 faithful parent. And generally, the rule is that you will have a fruitful branch as a result of

01:02:24.980 that. But the reality is, is that for some reason, under God's mysterious means and will that is

01:02:32.700 difficult for us to understand, there may be that twig. There may be that dead leaf. And those

01:02:39.920 things happen. It's not normative because the normative flow is that it's fruitful. If you look

01:02:44.940 at any branch in a tree branch, you go, you look at it and you go, it's generally green and bearing

01:02:49.120 fruit. But look, there's that one stick right there that doesn't have anything coming from it.

01:02:53.640 And that happens. And so I'm not saying that this is a biblical mandate, but I think it's a helpful

01:02:59.560 metaphor to realize that if you have 10 children, by God's blessing, you might have all 10 children

01:03:04.880 to believe. Now, it also might be a reality that you have one of those sticks that doesn't come

01:03:10.360 to faith. And so, we don't have, again, that assuredness of absolute certainty. But we also

01:03:19.000 do have this reality that if we're abiding in the vine and we're fruitful and faithful,

01:03:27.780 that we do see that the normative result of that is fruitfulness. And we see that when the gospel

01:03:35.820 is preached, that the word of God does not return void. And that God saves in familial lines.

01:03:44.020 And this is normative with reality. So have hope. Don't be apathetic about your children.

01:03:49.620 They are, you expect them to be elect. You expect them to follow Christ, raise them as Christians.

01:03:56.800 and rest in that reality.

01:03:59.300 You don't have to rest in worry, rest in hope.

01:04:03.200 And that's how Christians rest.

01:04:04.840 We're to rest in hope and we're to be hopeful people.

01:04:08.520 So great conversation.

01:04:10.260 There's way more to be discussed there.

01:04:12.940 There's lots of books and articles and videos

01:04:15.600 that you can talk about,

01:04:16.480 understand the difference between Presbyterianism

01:04:18.420 and Reformed Baptists.

01:04:19.620 I would say that Joel and I are probably

01:04:21.460 the closest Reformed Baptists

01:04:22.960 that you can get to a Presbyterian view.

01:04:24.960 we are also under the view of what we would call baptismal Catholicity and the reality that we

01:04:31.040 would work together with Presbyterians. We have Presbyterians in our churches. We would even have

01:04:36.340 Presbyterian elders in our churches in the sense that we would have confessionalism, that we work

01:04:42.360 together with Westminster Confession of Faith and Reformed Baptists. So we love our Presbyterian

01:04:47.120 brothers and our Presbyterian brothers love us. And so that is to be made clear when having a

01:04:52.280 discussion about this reality. But brother, you are having an event about further discussions

01:04:59.420 that are theologically important and vital, especially in the world that we're living in,

01:05:03.520 talking about post-millennialism, theonomy. And I want to just briefly mention this. I know that

01:05:09.120 if you're listening to this five years later, it's not going to be applicable to you. Maybe we're

01:05:14.280 going to have this event every year, but you are having an event down in Texas. Just give us a

01:05:19.580 two-minute synopsis of that and how we can maybe come to this event, watch this event, get involved.

01:05:24.860 Yeah. So this is our official debut. Now, I don't know when you're going to release this,

01:05:28.760 but it may be the first time that it's public, but we have myself, Dr. James White, Dr. Joe Boo,

01:05:35.620 we have Dr. Gary DeMar, and we have a fifth speaker now, Dale Partridge. And so you are

01:05:41.100 our mystery speaker, our extra bonus speaker that you and I have talked about this. I invited you.

01:05:46.780 I think that you're a great addition to come and speak at this conference.

01:05:50.280 And so now you're going to be there as well.

01:05:52.140 The conference is going to be May 5th, 6th, and 7th, the year of our Lord, 2023, right?

01:05:58.000 So if it's five years from now, if it's 2027 right now, you missed it.

01:06:02.100 But yeah, 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, that's a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

01:06:08.540 I'm probably going to, I think the plan as of now is to have Dr. White speak at church

01:06:13.300 and that Sunday, continuing the same kind of topic.

01:06:17.580 But Friday night, we're going to have a barbecue meal

01:06:19.280 that's catered and provided for everybody.

01:06:21.260 Full day on Saturday of lectures and speaking.

01:06:24.940 And it's about as cheap as you can get in a conference.

01:06:27.360 Now, the rate is going to go up starting November 1st.

01:06:29.440 We're going to hold it in honor of Reformation Day, 0.51

01:06:31.660 October 31st. 0.99

01:06:32.520 We'll hold it through Reformation Day. 0.97

01:06:34.500 But right now, the current rate is for an adult.

01:06:36.800 It's 100 bucks.

01:06:37.740 And to do a three-day conference

01:06:39.000 with the caliber of these kinds of speakers

01:06:40.800 with a catered barbecue meal for one of your meals,

01:06:44.240 Friday night dinner being provided for $100

01:06:46.760 is pretty cheap.

01:06:49.780 Most conferences of this caliber,

01:06:51.640 I think you'd be hard-pressed to find it under 170,

01:06:55.240 anywhere from 170 to maybe 230, 240.

01:06:57.900 So right now it's $100.

01:06:59.100 So we strongly encourage people to go ahead and register.

01:07:01.440 That's for an adult.

01:07:02.560 If you're 11 to 17 years old, teenager-ish,

01:07:05.760 it's 50 bucks.

01:07:06.820 And then if you're 10 and under child, you're free.

01:07:09.680 And so we want whole families to be able to come to the conference if they want to.

01:07:13.620 And to register, it's rightresponseconference.com.

01:07:17.420 So instead of Right Response Ministries, rightresponseconference.com.

01:07:21.740 And you're able to register and get locked in at the affordable price that we currently have.

01:07:25.740 But the last thing I want to say is this, Dale, I think we may have to do a part two

01:07:29.300 on covenant succession because here's the deal.

01:07:31.900 For me, I feel like my argument is it's not a single punch.

01:07:36.500 It's a one-two combo, right?

01:07:38.540 It's like you stun them with the left and then haymaker from the right, you know, because my

01:07:42.760 argument would be step one, everything we talked about, this is the main thing we focused on was

01:07:47.280 unconditional election is not arbitrary election. God's predestinated end is not severed from his

01:07:52.860 predestinated means of grace, grace in churches and grace in homes. That's, that's argument number

01:07:59.940 one. But, but I just kept thinking the whole time we were talking, I'm thinking somebody,

01:08:03.920 and I don't even know if they'll make it to the end here, but somebody is going to be thinking,

01:08:06.300 yeah families you know this line of salvation through families you you know dale you said

01:08:10.920 abraham and you said you know isaac and you said jacob and yeah but abraham had two sons ishmael

01:08:17.380 jacob had two sons esau uh jacob had 12 and some of them didn't turn out so good david had absalon

01:08:23.980 and this guy like and i and and and so what i want to say is and it relates to the conference

01:08:28.060 our first argument is unconditional election is not arbitrary election uh the means of grace

01:08:33.780 matter. God works his ends of salvation through his means. And if we're faithful in our home,

01:08:39.860 we don't earn God's salvation, but it's a good indicator where it's like we're setting all the

01:08:44.860 the Lord has to send fire, but we're getting as big of a bonfire ready as possible. Or to change

01:08:51.520 the analogy, we plant and we water. God alone gives the growth, but man, it helps when there's

01:08:56.800 good planting and good watering. And so that's the first argument is covenant nurture. But the

01:09:02.380 second argument where I would, somebody would say, well, what about Absalom with David? What

01:09:06.240 about, you know, and I would say, okay, well, Abraham was kind of a bad dad. And so was Isaac.

01:09:10.560 And so was Jacob. And so was David. And I would say, this is some, I can track bad parenting,

01:09:15.160 but they say, well, but these were men, David was a man after God's own heart. You know, Abraham was

01:09:19.100 the man of faith and that's going to be normative today. And then guys would use like the parable,

01:09:23.520 the prodigal son and say, that's normative, you know, like, like rebellion. And he came back,

01:09:27.640 but the older brother never really did.

01:09:29.180 And so it's a 50% ratio, even with a great dad, you know, like the pot.

01:09:33.660 And I would say that not number one, that's not the point of the parable.

01:09:36.320 That's not the way to read the parable.

01:09:37.680 But then even these biblical descriptive examples that we have,

01:09:41.140 like David and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, here's the deal.

01:09:44.420 It's covenant nurture, means of grace.

01:09:47.100 The other half of the argument that we don't have time today, I know,

01:09:50.020 but the other half is post-millennialism.

01:09:52.280 The leaven is working more and more through the batch of dough.

01:09:55.640 the mustard seed, not just in an individual child's heart leading to salvation, but in the world

01:10:00.900 corporately, the mustard seed is growing into a bigger tree. We are not living in the days of

01:10:06.440 Abraham. We're not living in the days of David. And we're not living even the days of the first

01:10:10.940 century Jews that Jesus, because people will quote that. They'll say, well, Jesus said, I didn't come

01:10:15.300 to bring peace, but a sword. From now on, a household of five, it'll be two against three 0.95

01:10:19.300 and three against two, a mother divided from daughter and father from son. And people will 0.81

01:10:23.600 look at that, Dale, and I know you've heard this, and they will use it as their argument to say that

01:10:27.880 is the normative. That's what we should expect. 2,000 years later, nothing's changed. We should

01:10:33.600 expect that if we're faithful, that we'll have a three out of five ratio or two out of five ratio

01:10:40.240 of God saving people in our households. And I reject that entirely. And it's because I believe

01:10:46.340 that God is saving the vast majority of humanity. And that exponentially, as we go further and

01:10:52.080 further into christendom and into the kingdom that jesus is now ruling and reigning uh that

01:10:56.840 that leaven is working through more and more of the batch of dough the the stone cut by no human

01:11:01.760 hands is is growing into a mountain that's filling the whole earth and so i expect to see higher

01:11:07.460 percentages in households of of election and salvation so my argument is means of grace

01:11:14.040 never severed from the end of grace and because some guys will say well even with that argument

01:11:19.340 Joel. And so I'm addressing the counter because everybody will listen to the episode, everything

01:11:24.940 we said, Dale, and then, and they'll still have this counter. And so now I'm shutting them down

01:11:28.280 at the very end, right? The whole time they've been thinking, I got you guys, I got you guys.

01:11:32.000 And here's the shutdown, post-millennialism. And if you're not post-millennialism,

01:11:36.180 then the simple takeaway is this, you just don't love your kids. No, I'm just kidding.

01:11:40.120 I'm just kidding. So anyway, so post-millennial, it relates to parenting. It does.

01:11:46.180 Yeah. And you said something there is that the world's going to get more

01:11:48.620 you're expect to see more election and more redemption.

01:11:52.160 That's right.

01:11:52.440 And I think that is congruent with reality

01:11:54.000 that we're seeing more evangelism.

01:11:55.500 Today, this message that we're talking about today

01:11:58.020 or the gospel, I mean, I have a video

01:12:00.520 that's on social media just sharing the gospel.

01:12:03.400 It's got 200,000 views on it.

01:12:05.040 Wow.

01:12:05.560 The gospel is going out further and further

01:12:07.880 with the internet.

01:12:08.580 So we're seeing, again, a congruency between the means

01:12:11.440 and we should expect a greater congruency with the ends.

01:12:14.940 And so, yes, the discussion about postmillennialism

01:12:17.640 is obviously a vital factor with a base foundational theology on a hopeful expectation, not just for

01:12:24.280 your own children, but for the future of the entire church. And I actually did a video,

01:12:30.100 it's 90 seconds of what is postmillennialism. Joel has done lots of videos on postmillennialism.

01:12:36.000 This conference that we're talking about, we have Dr. James White, who is a postmillennialist.

01:12:40.140 We also have Dr. Joe Boot, who wrote The Mission of God, which is one of the most fantastic books

01:12:44.440 that you need to check out.

01:12:45.620 It's a brick.

01:12:46.420 I mean, you could warm your house with it in the winter,

01:12:48.840 but it's a brick.

01:12:50.740 And Gary DeMar is one of the,

01:12:52.820 I would say the leading minds

01:12:55.480 on post-millennial thinking for the modern era.

01:12:58.760 And so there are some great discussion to be had here.

01:13:01.400 And if you're interested in understanding post-millennialism

01:13:03.580 in comparison to pre-millennialism,

01:13:04.940 to amillennialism,

01:13:05.980 Joel's ministry is absolutely focused on that.

01:13:09.040 And so again, yeah,

01:13:09.720 would love to have you at that conference.

01:13:10.940 If not, just love to have you guys on the journey with us.

01:13:13.020 On that note, thank you guys.

01:13:15.440 Dale, either you or me should post-millennial parenting

01:13:18.480 title of a topic at the conference, don't you think?

01:13:21.360 Post-millennial parenting.

01:13:22.880 That should be it.

01:13:23.600 It's hopeful parenting.

01:13:24.720 Hopeful parenting.

01:13:25.400 Expectant redemption.

01:13:27.080 It's basically podcast number one

01:13:28.740 and podcast number two thrown in together.

01:13:30.400 There it is.

01:13:31.160 Yeah.

01:13:31.640 So anyways, well, okay.

01:13:33.740 We got to stop talking because we can talk for too long.

01:13:36.560 But thank you guys for joining us

01:13:38.540 on this episode of Real Christianity.

01:13:39.640 If you're a regular listener to this podcast,

01:13:41.420 can you guys leave a review?

01:13:42.700 you don't even need to write something. You just need to tap the stars. But if you do write

01:13:48.220 something, I will read it. Those reviews really do help the exposure of the show. They help other

01:13:53.220 people come to the show that are first-time listeners. And so again, thank you guys so

01:13:57.460 much. So on behalf of myself, Joel Webben, thank you for listening to this episode of

01:14:01.800 Real Christianity. We'll see you next time.

01:14:12.700 You

Dale Partridge - October 28, 2022

Can I Expect My Kids to be Saved？ Yes, Here’s Why…

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