Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #138： Overcoming the Fear of Man with Tom Ascol and Dale Partridge

00:00:00.000 Welcome to a special edition of Real Christianity.

00:00:09.320 I'm your host, Dale Partridge, and over the past several months, I've had the privilege

00:00:13.240 of interviewing 12 of the top theologians of our time.

00:00:16.560 We discuss everything from apologetics and church history to the biblical family and

00:00:20.880 standing firm on sound doctrine.

00:00:22.740 The objective of this series was to strengthen the theology of listeners and give them the

00:00:27.060 tools they need to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. So listen up, focus in, and prepare

00:00:32.960 your mind for volume one of The Theologian Series. In this episode of The Theologian Series, I

00:00:40.720 interviewed Dr. Tom Askell of Founders Ministries on how to overcome the fear of man. Tom is the

00:00:46.860 author of several books and has served as the pastor of Grace Baptist Church since 1986. His

00:00:52.800 ministry at founders.org has become a robust hub of trusted theological content, podcasts,

00:00:57.920 articles, and videos. And in this interview, Dr. Askell and I are going to be discussing an issue

00:01:02.960 that confronts all Christians, the fear of man. Today, more than ever, Christians are compromising 0.90

00:01:09.820 with the culture and watering down the truth for fear of being hated, politically persecuted, 0.95

00:01:14.440 or even canceled. In this episode, Tom offers Christians practical advice for remaining bold

00:01:20.080 and a society that is becoming increasingly more hostile toward biblical Christianity. 0.88

00:01:25.760 So guys, grab your Bible and sharpen your pencil,

00:01:28.140 because it's time to tune in to another powerful episode of the Theologian Series.

00:01:40.880 One.

00:01:42.880 Welcome to the show, Dr. Tom Askell.

00:01:46.060 Well, thank you very much. I'm delighted to be with you, Dale.

00:01:48.700 Hey, excited to have a discussion about boldness, proclamation of the gospel, things that are

00:01:52.980 happening in the culture today. There are so much, there's so many changes that are going on just in

00:01:58.720 the last year. And I've always said that the church is always better on the defense in terms

00:02:06.080 of the purity. And we always get lazy and spiritually, you know, spiritually fat when

00:02:13.520 we're on the offense for especially decades at a time. I'm excited to have your perspective on

00:02:19.280 this, Tom, and we'll talk at the end here to give you some more information about Tom's ministries

00:02:24.940 and the things that he's been doing. Many of you, I'm sure, have already heard of Tom and his work

00:02:28.960 at founders.org, but we're going to dive right in. So, Tom, the Western church is entering into

00:02:37.140 an era of increased hostility towards Christians and biblical values. We're seeing it everywhere.

00:02:43.520 What's your outlook for the next five years for the church?

00:02:47.000 Do you expect to see, again, greater aggression?

00:02:50.980 And if so, what do you think we're looking at?

00:02:54.880 Yeah, I do, actually, in America.

00:02:57.540 We've been blessed so long in so many ways that we've kind of taken it for granted,

00:03:02.480 and we've lost perspective that what we've experienced over 200-plus years here in the

00:03:09.440 United States is really an anomaly in terms of church history. So we have been incredibly

00:03:16.400 favored by God. And what we've begun to experience over the last several years is just a little bit

00:03:22.820 of a taste of what many of our brothers and sisters around the world throughout history

00:03:26.600 have lived with, some of them for all of their lifetimes. So yeah, I don't think things are

00:03:31.880 going to get any better in terms of it being opportunity for Christians to live without

00:03:40.660 conflict in our culture, and particularly with our government. I think our government has revealed

00:03:46.800 itself to be increasingly hostile to Christian churches, and we've seen it in what's happened in

00:03:54.400 this 2020 with California, Nevada, Washington State, where there have been all these policies

00:04:00.540 that have been handed down.

00:04:02.120 Churches have been told that they can't meet.

00:04:05.760 They're not essential.

00:04:06.620 And I just read an article yesterday

00:04:08.380 about a church in California that's now facing a,

00:04:11.700 I think it's a $15,000 fine

00:04:14.320 because they've continued to meet week by week

00:04:17.140 over the last few months.

00:04:18.720 And I think those things are gonna continue.

00:04:21.220 We've seen it.

00:04:21.860 You know, don't meet, you don't have to meet.

00:04:23.300 Now we got government officials

00:04:24.700 trying to instruct churches

00:04:27.280 on how we can do what we're called to do well don't you know you can meet online and don't you

00:04:33.500 know you can be with god anywhere and these types of things and it's just they're they're trying to

00:04:39.480 to they're overreaching is what they're doing and i think we're going to see increased governmental

00:04:44.340 overreach where proper governmental authorities because god's the one who ordains governments

00:04:50.960 and governmental authorities get out of their lane by trying to restrict freedoms that they

00:04:58.000 have no business restricting, and especially in the United States. I mean, we're a constitutional

00:05:03.240 republic, and the very First Amendment guarantees our right to practice religion. So this is not

00:05:11.320 something the Constitution gives to us. It's something the Constitution recognizes that is

00:05:15.520 inalienable. It is given to us by God. So I think churches are going to face increasing

00:05:21.840 challenges about, are we going to meet? And are we going to meet according to the way the

00:05:25.960 government says we must meet? Not singing, wearing masks, or only limiting the amount of time we have

00:05:31.600 together. And then beyond that, just not just Christians, but are we going to be forced to 0.60

00:05:38.320 have vaccinations? Or are we going to be required to have proof of vaccinations in order to access

00:05:46.400 certain goods and services or travel? All this, I think, is on the precipice, including even the

00:05:55.520 tax-exempt status that has been recognized as appropriate for churches, religious organizations

00:06:02.160 for the last many decades of our nation's history. So I just think Christians need to gear up 1.00

00:06:08.280 get ready. We have probably relied too much on the blessings that we have had that come from 1.00

00:06:15.400 our freedoms, rather than focusing on those freedoms and trying to contend for them,

00:06:20.540 protect them, and defend them. Yeah, we're seeing basically the

00:06:24.680 fruitfulness or lack thereof of comfortable Christianity or costless Christianity.

00:06:31.980 And we are seeing it in a variety of ways. I think this just, again, a lack of clarity of

00:06:37.340 doctrine, a lack of, um, of boldness, uh, fear of man that is incredibly strong in the church

00:06:44.560 right now. Uh, you know, I, I believe I could get this wrong, but Vladimir Lenin said the goal of

00:06:51.100 socialism is communism. And I think about this, as we look at this as from a government perspective,

00:06:56.260 um, I just watched not too long ago, um, uh, the founder of voice of the martyrs,

00:07:02.560 documentary called Tortured for Christ, which is only 60 years ago, that we're talking about

00:07:09.560 the communist Romania era. And it's quite amazing how the default government of humanity throughout

00:07:20.060 the ages always comes back to a form of communism. And while we might not specifically be dealing

00:07:27.320 with that now, it does seem like those values are on the precipice or on the horizon.

00:07:35.260 And I guess what I should ask you, in light of this, in light of the governmental side,

00:07:41.620 in light of the political side, in light of the moral side where you have gender and sexuality 0.76

00:07:50.200 at the forefront fighting and pushing the boundaries harder and harder, church and religious

00:07:57.100 freedom. You made the statement, Tom, about we need to get prepared. What does that look like?

00:08:04.240 How should we be preparing ourselves as Christians in these coming months to years 0.94

00:08:10.860 for the time that is coming in the next generation? Yeah, well, I don't want to speak 1.00

00:08:16.700 in platitudes or sound trite, but it is fundamentally important to get serious about

00:08:21.500 Christ, to really get serious about the faith. Don't take for granted what it means to repent

00:08:28.040 and believe and to live in repentance and faith. So many of the challenges that we do not navigate

00:08:36.860 well as Christians today can be traced back to our failure to really understand what it means

00:08:43.240 to live in repentance and faith. We have a gospel. We have a Savior who shed his blood for us. We do

00:08:48.860 not live in condemnation. Because of that, he died for every last one of our sins. Therefore,

00:08:54.020 we really can repent. We really can look honestly at our failures, at our shortcomings, and confess

00:09:00.460 them to God and know that we have a Savior from them. And we can trust him. We can take God at

00:09:06.180 his word. He gave up his son for us. And if God did not withhold his son from us, then he will

00:09:13.120 not withhold any good thing from us. And we ought to believe that, take the promises seriously,

00:09:18.280 and stake our lives on that.

00:09:20.340 More practically, I encourage every Christian

00:09:24.100 to find a good, godly church with courageous leaders

00:09:30.000 and build your life around it.

00:09:32.880 I mean, that is one of the most practical safeguards

00:09:36.760 that I know for Christianity anywhere at any time.

00:09:40.240 It's the prescription that God himself has ordained

00:09:43.140 for Christian growth and discipleship.

00:09:45.700 So the church is vitally important, but again, we've seen the idea of the church get watered down, and then in practice, many things going on in the name of church that really extend far beyond what the Bible tells us the church is and is to be and is to do.

00:10:02.540 So find a good, healthy church and build your life around that church.

00:10:08.600 I've also begun to encourage our people and others as well to think about and look for work opportunities that you can take advantage of without compromising your devotion to Jesus.

00:10:21.760 And we're having in our church, and I know we're not unique.

00:10:23.980 I've talked to other pastors where some of our folks are having to turn down opportunities.

00:10:30.060 They're not advancing in their companies because to get to the next level requires them to buy into ideologies or at least to sit quietly by why things like transgenderism are being promoted, and they're just refusing to do that. 0.82

00:10:45.140 So they're having to rethink their careers, and man, we're encouraging folks to start businesses, look for ways that you can engage in the mandate that we all have as Christians anyway to subdue the earth. 0.90

00:11:00.060 and to exercise dominion over it and build companies, build opportunities for work

00:11:06.620 out of your devotion to Christ. And don't just roll over when you see your workplace being

00:11:14.280 infiltrated with these wrong ways of thinking that are trying to demand from you that which

00:11:19.280 belongs only to Jesus. And then another thing I would say is especially important for us to train

00:11:25.300 our children. Dale, you and I were talking earlier about your catechizing your daughter.

00:11:30.380 Well, praise God for that. We need to be catechizing our children to think biblically 0.96

00:11:34.920 about the world and their place in this world. We need to teach them from their earliest days

00:11:41.260 what it means to live for Jesus and to understand the cost of taking up the cross and following

00:11:47.200 Christ. Of course, we can't save our children. God's spirit must do that regenerating work,

00:11:52.220 but he does it through the gospel.

00:11:54.180 And so I like, I forget who it was that made this analogy

00:11:57.620 that when we teach our children sound doctrine,

00:12:00.820 when we catechize them, it's like we're laying wood on the altar.

00:12:04.500 The fire has to come down from above.

00:12:06.680 We can't do that.

00:12:07.860 But when the fire come, let's do what we can to make sure

00:12:10.560 there's something there to burn.

00:12:12.380 So train your children, prepare them for the world

00:12:15.420 that is coming upon them, and they're going to need

00:12:18.340 every opportunity that we can give them

00:12:21.080 so that they'll be prepared to stand firm.

00:12:24.020 Amen.

00:12:24.440 And I also want to talk about just this.

00:12:26.940 You talked about the idea with children and doctrine.

00:12:29.300 There are so many perversions and distortions of the gospel 1.00

00:12:33.220 that I don't think are able to sustain the persecuted, suffering Christian 0.98

00:12:39.120 when that time comes. 0.96

00:12:41.900 And the prosperity gospel that just stands in stark contrast

00:12:46.420 to the reality of church history and would not sustain someone

00:12:49.720 in a moment of imprisonment or a moment of martyrdom or a moment of immense social pressure.

00:12:58.380 How do we as Christians really work on getting our doctrine straight again?

00:13:05.440 And how do we, you know, what you don't know is you, or you don't know what you don't know.

00:13:09.420 And so what are some resources maybe that we can go and say, we need to get an orthodox view of the

00:13:14.600 gospel, because when we understand the gospel in its true biblical form, it is so good that

00:13:22.680 it allows us to not have conditional joy. It allows us to have unconditional joy in any circumstance

00:13:30.880 and will sustain us through whatever suffering. I think about Paul singing hymns on the bottom of

00:13:37.980 the prison floor with his back lashed open. How can you have that joy in a moment like that? And

00:13:44.760 how can we as believers find that joy through sound doctrine? Yeah, well, that's a great

00:13:51.980 question. And I'm a big advocate of historic Orthodox confessions of faith and the Orthodox

00:14:00.260 creeds. And so I encourage Christians and Christian churches to get familiar with those

00:14:06.700 ancient documents that have served the church well. So in the more orthodox, older stream,

00:14:13.860 the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Creed of Chalcedon, just familiarize yourself with them.

00:14:21.020 And we recite the Apostles' Creed right now in our church services. We do that just to remind

00:14:26.900 our people, this is what all Christians everywhere have always believed. And then a confession of

00:14:31.920 faith find a good confession our church uses the second london baptist confession of faith

00:14:37.360 that was published in 1689 the westminster confession of faith the presbyterian document

00:14:43.000 is a stood the test of time as well the savoy declaration for the congregationalists and there

00:14:49.140 are other good confessions of faith and and then again catechisms man i mean i wish i had been

00:14:55.140 had grown up being catechized i catechized my kids and that's that's helped me as much as anything i

00:15:01.500 spent a lot of time in formal theological education, but there's nothing that has been

00:15:06.700 more significant to me than catechizing my own children so that you get a mental framework

00:15:13.660 of a systematic understanding of key Bible teachings. So the shorter catechism is a wonderful

00:15:22.720 instrument to use. I mean, the children's catechism that introduces that shorter catechism.

00:15:27.700 And at Founders, we produced a series of booklets for that based on the Children's Catechism,

00:15:34.400 the Baptist version of the Shorter Catechism, and then a Baptist version of the Heidelberg

00:15:37.700 Catechism, which is my favorite catechism because it just is so personal and Christological.

00:15:44.100 So I would encourage all Christians to become familiar with and learn good catechisms and

00:15:49.920 good confessions of faith.

00:15:51.080 I think you'll be well served if you give yourself to that exercise.

00:15:54.820 Amen. Yeah. I was telling you, Tom, before we got on our call, I've been doing this with my

00:15:58.700 daughter and I'll tell you what, there has been some crystallizing of doctrines in that little

00:16:05.240 book that has helped me frame up my doctrine. And it's just these simple answers is what does it.

00:16:13.780 You go, oh yeah, that's what that's about. And it is. It's a wonderful tool that I recommend

00:16:19.860 many people to do as well. I want to talk about, you know, I think a lot of believers in this

00:16:28.220 generation are concerned with removing fear more than they are concerned with being obedient to

00:16:37.240 God's command of proclamation through the Great Commission. And I want to know, how do we

00:16:45.500 proclaim Christ, the gospel, in the face of fear? And how do we do it boldly? Where do we get rid

00:16:56.320 of the fear of man in the midst of that? Because again, I always say, and it's not my quote, but

00:17:02.500 the Great Commission is in the Great Suggestion. And so how do we get out there and do this, Tom,

00:17:08.320 without letting fear take over our hearts? Yeah, well, it comes, again, back to scripture. We need

00:17:15.160 to think biblically about life and death the fact that we live is because god and when we die it

00:17:23.960 will be because of god he's sovereign over the beginning and the continuation and will be

00:17:30.120 sovereign over the end of life i think it was george whitfield that said that a man is immortal

00:17:35.520 until it is his appointed time to die so we just know that to be true and the more we know god the

00:17:42.980 more we take him at his word, the greater confidence we have in him, then the greater

00:17:48.600 will be our ability to trust him as the one who has ordained every one of our days before any of

00:17:55.380 them came to pass. You know, I was thinking about this a few weeks ago and was struck by Hebrews

00:18:01.280 chapter two, where the author says, you know, since therefore the children share in flesh and

00:18:06.780 blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death, he might destroy the

00:18:12.620 one who has the power of death, that is the devil. And he's talking about Jesus there. It says,

00:18:18.740 so Jesus became flesh and blood to destroy the power of death, the one who has the power of

00:18:25.160 death, that is the devil. And then it goes on to say, to deliver all those who through fear of

00:18:30.460 death were subject to lifelong slavery. The fear of death is slavery. And if you live with a fear

00:18:39.140 of death, you're going to live with lifelong slavery. And one of the very purposes for which

00:18:45.120 Jesus died on the cross is to destroy the one who has the power of death and to deliver us from

00:18:52.940 this fear. Later on in that same passage, it says that Jesus suffered when he was tempted so that

00:19:01.900 he could be able to help those who are being tempted. Well, tempted to what? Tempted to fear

00:19:06.840 death tempted to live in slavery out of this fear of death and man that happens and there's just

00:19:13.960 something liberating that comes by uh getting over the the fact that you're going to die so much in

00:19:22.820 our culture is designed to keep us from thinking about old age and the inevitability of death the

00:19:28.840 way of all flesh the scripture says and you know god gives experiences i've had a couple of

00:19:34.260 experiences that have taken me to the brink of death, one just since last year. And I have to

00:19:40.960 say that the effects of that, I wouldn't want to choose it. I wouldn't say that I want to do it

00:19:46.420 again. But having gone through it, the effects of it, to think, okay, I'm going to die, and that's

00:19:53.740 okay. It's okay. Well, it sets you free to really live now. And the Apostle Paul says this, and very

00:20:01.080 often when I'm reading scriptures, you know, the Psalms, I say, God, show me what you showed David.

00:20:05.920 I see what he says here. I want to be able to say that honestly. Well, Philippians 121 is one of

00:20:10.500 those places with Paul where, you know, he says, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. Well,

00:20:16.180 I want to see that. I want to believe that. I want to be able to say that so that with Paul,

00:20:22.180 I'm not terrified by death. I mean, it is an enemy. Paul says it's the last enemy. So I'm

00:20:28.980 not going to whitewash it, whitewash it, pretend like it's not serious. It's not frightening. It

00:20:35.540 is serious. But I don't want to be afraid of that frightening thing. One of the things that helps

00:20:41.900 the thing more than anything else that helps me overcome the fear of man is the fear of God.

00:20:49.260 And boy, what a great study that is. I'd encourage everybody to do a study on the fear of God

00:20:54.680 from Scripture. I've got a friend who recently did that, and I think he told me he wound up with

00:21:00.320 over 30 pages of notes just from his own diving through Scripture. Well, there's over 150 references

00:21:06.740 in the Bible to the fear of the Lord, either by express statement or description. And Psalm 111,

00:21:15.060 verse 10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and all those who practice

00:21:18.360 it have a good understanding. Well, I want to understand my life. I want to understand this

00:21:23.800 world and i can't do that if i'm not fearing god so study the fear of god it will set you free

00:21:30.420 from fearing the face of any person and if we're right about god if we get that straight

00:21:37.240 then you know what can man do to me you know the lord is my strength and he's my shield

00:21:42.260 another thing we need to do that regularly is remember our mission and we we don't we have a

00:21:48.100 very clear mission. Jesus told us to go make disciples. I mean, it doesn't get much plainer

00:21:54.700 than that. And so we can do a thousand things, but if we're not doing the one thing that he

00:21:59.820 specifically commissioned us to do before he ascended into heaven, then we need to re-examine

00:22:07.040 those thousand things because they might be crowding out time and energy that should be

00:22:11.360 given to the one thing. And we're never free to shirk our mission. How can we call Jesus Lord

00:22:17.620 and not do the things that he commands us to do,

00:22:20.080 which specifically he commands us to make disciples.

00:22:23.540 Another thing is we need to learn to love our persecutors.

00:22:27.880 I was having a conversation just this morning about this

00:22:31.240 with a dear brother who's having to have a hard conversation,

00:22:34.300 and he doesn't want to have it with the people that he's going to have to talk to

00:22:38.360 because of the way they've treated him.

00:22:41.000 But we need to love our persecutors.

00:22:43.560 Jesus prayed for his persecutors.

00:22:46.620 Father, forgive them.

00:22:48.300 And Stephen prayed for the people, stoning him as he heard Jesus pray.

00:22:52.820 And he tells us the word to love even our enemies.

00:22:57.220 I mean, that's a challenge.

00:22:58.820 It's beyond us doing in our own strength.

00:23:00.940 But it is something God calls us to do.

00:23:03.240 And by his spirit, we can do.

00:23:05.380 Our Lord did it.

00:23:06.480 His faithful disciples throughout history have done it.

00:23:08.880 And we need to pray and not be satisfied until we see his spirit working in us.

00:23:12.980 a genuine love for those who, given the opportunity, might take our very lives.

00:23:19.980 We realize that they are being duped in ways that it weren't for God's grace.

00:23:24.700 We ourselves would be duped as well.

00:23:27.320 Yeah, I think about, oh, that's a heavy topic.

00:23:30.100 I mean, I think about what, you know, I just spent, I don't know how many hundreds of hours

00:23:34.880 studying church history through seminary, but you get to see this ongoing trend of martyrdom

00:23:42.140 of these people that scream out their last words.

00:23:45.920 William Tyndale, you know,

00:23:48.740 pray that the king's eyes may be opened, right? 0.73

00:23:51.980 As the king's killing him.

00:23:54.640 And, you know, there's just this heart for that.

00:23:59.720 Church history, I can say, is such a critical discipline

00:24:03.740 and a critical study for such a time as this.

00:24:07.980 Amen.

00:24:08.360 We need to see the encouragement that can come

00:24:11.100 from those in the past who have overcome fear through the grace of God, the power of the Spirit

00:24:16.600 in the moments of such turmoil. I think it was George Swinock who said, the time is short,

00:24:23.540 the task is large, and the work is important. And I have that in our studio just hanging on the wall

00:24:30.840 just to remember that, hey, we don't got a lot of time. The task is huge and the work,

00:24:37.120 it's critical. Amen. So, Tom, how do we pick and choose the issues that we stand for?

00:24:45.840 We got a culture that's infatuated with identity politics, tribalism, and things get very...

00:24:52.660 The tip of the spear is getting pretty sharp on where you find unity. And even denominations are

00:24:59.600 getting more starkly different. Wokeness is entering into the church. You have the issues 0.98

00:25:05.680 with sexuality that are going on. How do we discern what's worth drawing a line and standing

00:25:13.720 firm in a certain area? Yeah, well, we need to settle at the outset that we're going to stand

00:25:22.040 firm on the Word of God no matter what. And then I think an equal commitment is to try to live at

00:25:31.340 peace with all men as much as far as it is possible and dependent upon you you know so

00:25:38.060 try to be a man of peace but not at the expense of the word of god so the word is our guide the

00:25:47.680 word is god's revealed truth for us we're not going to compromise on that we're going to be

00:25:52.780 shaped by that our minds are going to be renewed by that and then we can't discount providence

00:26:00.160 There's so many battles, as you said.

00:26:01.980 There's so many things that are going on today that if you just wanted to spend all your time fighting,

00:26:07.400 you could do that as a Christian, and you could find legitimate objects of your opposition

00:26:14.000 because they're inside the church, they're outside the church.

00:26:17.800 But I do believe that providence is a significance determiner of what battle to fight.

00:26:23.520 I've had brothers say to me, you know, things I've been engaged in pretty strongly and polemically, they just say it's not my battle. 0.63

00:26:31.740 And I get that.

00:26:32.520 I don't fault them for that.

00:26:33.800 You know, some of them are in different countries and different settings and contexts that it's not what they have to take up at this time.

00:26:41.020 But what all of us must be prepared to do is to stand firm in the evil day when the fight comes to us.

00:26:49.020 One of my favorite psalms is Psalm number 120.

00:26:51.900 It's a brief psalm, and the psalmist at the end, he's lamenting the fact that he's faced opposition and there's persecution.

00:27:00.720 There are people that do evil to him, and he says, I am a man of peace, but when I speak, they are for war.

00:27:09.640 And so you can have peace if you just don't speak, but God's people are not free not to speak what God has said

00:27:18.660 or to remain silent in the face of our Lord and Savior being denigrated by word or deed.

00:27:27.820 We've got to obey God rather than men.

00:27:30.120 We've got to be willing to speak.

00:27:32.520 And then I think a principle I've tried to operate on is that wherever and whenever the truth is being attacked,

00:27:41.120 I have some obligation to speak given opportunity.

00:27:44.440 I'm not going to have opportunity always.

00:27:46.100 You know, there'd be some things beyond my influence and beyond my ability, but I have a responsibility and I want to own that responsibility.

00:27:56.640 The more important the truth under attack, the quicker ought to be my response.

00:28:02.820 And so if somebody's making light of or dismissing areas that are disputed areas of Christian teaching, you see this sometimes happen with eschatology.

00:28:14.380 Well, eschatology is important, and I'm not going to say it's unimportant

00:28:17.920 just simply because good men disagree about it.

00:28:21.140 But I'm going to not be as quick to come after those areas of disagreement

00:28:26.340 in that realm as I am on Christology.

00:28:30.040 So when someone says, you know, well, Jesus Christ really isn't God.

00:28:33.480 He's just a creature.

00:28:34.980 Well, I'm going to be quicker, stronger to address that

00:28:38.340 because now you're touching upon something that if you get wrong 0.84

00:28:41.940 will take you to hell.

00:28:42.980 and you will miss God completely. 0.96

00:28:45.740 Yeah, I think about,

00:28:46.600 there's an article I read many years ago now.

00:28:50.020 It was by Al Mohler who wrote about theological triage

00:28:55.860 and the idea of having level one issues,

00:28:58.920 level two issues and level three issues.

00:29:00.680 I think it's critical.

00:29:02.000 I think also what you said, Tom,

00:29:03.220 is just being willing to not keep your silence

00:29:07.420 in the face of your Lord being diminished in any way.

00:29:12.720 I, there's a story just as we were talking about the worm brands and the, uh, tortured

00:29:17.680 for Christ documentary, his wife, Sabina wrote a book, uh, called the pastor's wife.

00:29:23.920 And she talks about a section in there that the communists were, were cursing Christ on

00:29:30.080 a stage.

00:29:30.660 And there was a crowd of them standing around and she looked at her husband, Richard, and

00:29:34.760 said, are you going to say something?

00:29:37.540 And he says, if I say something, you won't have a husband. 0.74

00:29:40.700 And she responds to him, I don't need a coward as a husband. Speak up. And you think about those

00:29:48.400 moments and you go, okay. We are not far from those moments in a conversation with just about

00:29:57.360 anyone today. Right. You're exactly right. And it's become far too common for those who know

00:30:07.480 better to be silent and to look the other way because it is going to bring all kinds of

00:30:14.400 difficulty if you speak, if you stand, but consequences belong to God. And if we can get

00:30:21.080 that straight, you know, our, our responsibility is to do our duty, to live well, to die. God will

00:30:27.820 take care of consequences. And if we can get that clear and remember that, then whether we live or

00:30:33.580 die, it doesn't really matter as long as God gets the glory that is rightly his.

00:30:38.200 Amen. Yeah. Just resting in the reality of just, you just be faithful. Let the results go to God.

00:30:43.880 I want to talk just as we get ready to close here, we have a couple more questions, but

00:30:47.340 we talked a little bit about church history. When you look through the history of the church, Tom,

00:30:56.220 Who do you look to as mentors, pastoral figures, teachers, men that you've thought, wow, if

00:31:08.100 I could just have a little bit of that, what they had, who are those figures in your life

00:31:14.580 and which books maybe could we consider picking up or are must reads of biographies of great

00:31:22.160 saints and pastors throughout church history?

00:31:23.960 yeah well those are those are great questions and I do I've benefited so much from those who've gone

00:31:32.480 before and I'm thankful for teachers that have introduced me to our heritage as Christians

00:31:38.600 I remember learning about Athanasius long ago you know who was a fourth century bishop of

00:31:45.900 Alexandria. And just his life was just tumultuous. I think he was exiled five times. And I think it

00:31:54.880 was like 40, 45 years that he served as bishop and 17 of those years, he was in exile. And so

00:32:01.040 it was, you know, Athanasius against the world. That was the motto that attended his life because

00:32:06.140 the world, it seemed like he was the only one standing for solid Christology at times when he

00:32:12.180 was being exiled so learning from him and being willing to stand firm like he did has been a great

00:32:19.660 encouragement to me and then certainly Martin Luther you know who can't love and doesn't love

00:32:25.580 Luther to see what he did when to take the stands he took meant he was bringing down on his head

00:32:33.000 not just excommunication but a ban politically that put a price on his head but he did so

00:32:41.780 because as he popularly said, you know, my conscience is captured to the word of God.

00:32:46.120 Here I stand. I can't do anything else.

00:32:49.040 There's the Roland Bainton's little popular biography of Luther is really good.

00:32:54.680 And I encourage everybody to read it because it is so accessible.

00:32:58.640 But then you can read Luther himself and his bondage of the will,

00:33:03.280 which is a debate, a literary debate over the issue of the freedom of the will,

00:33:10.040 predestination and the sovereignty of god with erasmus that is a i think that's the most important

00:33:18.000 book in the 16th century quite honestly and in that you get the flavor of luther's dogmatism

00:33:25.580 and determination not to back up luther did some things that we can learn from that you don't we

00:33:31.140 don't want to emulate because we see how he got untethered at points but i i look at that and i

00:33:36.780 think, well, a lesser man than Luther couldn't have done what he did, and it took great courage

00:33:41.080 for him to stand. I mean, the martyrs, some of which you've already mentioned,

00:33:45.000 the Fox's Book of Martyrs has been a great encouragement to me through the years, too,

00:33:50.520 to hear about these people who, to us today, are largely forgotten, who went to the stake or died

00:33:57.020 by having their heads taken off their shoulders, or died in prison because of their commitment to

00:34:02.520 Christ and just realizing that we have a noble heritage of men and women who refuse to bow the

00:34:09.400 knee to anyone but the Lord Jesus. There's a man I met years ago. You mentioned Richard Wurmbrand.

00:34:17.040 He was an associate of Wurmbrand. His name is Joseph Son. And I don't know if he's still alive

00:34:22.780 or not. He's elderly, if he's still alive. But he also was a Romanian pastor, a Baptist pastor,

00:34:28.380 was imprisoned, arrested multiple times. His ministry went throughout Romania under Ceșescu

00:34:35.020 at great cost. And so there were cassette tapes of his sermons in those days,

00:34:40.280 and they spread throughout the whole nation. He tells the story of one time being accosted.

00:34:48.160 There's a price on his head, and so the secret police accost him on the street and pull a gun

00:34:53.220 on him and they say, you know, you're Joseph San. So, you know, we could shoot you on the street 0.98

00:34:59.800 and there's a reward on your head. And he said, well, that's true. He said, you could 1.00

00:35:05.560 shoot me. He said, killing me is your greatest weapon. He says, but as you know, said my sermons 1.00

00:35:10.740 have spread all throughout Romania and dying is my greatest weapon. Because if I die, the people

00:35:17.860 who have my tapes and who will know of my ministry will see that I really do believe what I have

00:35:22.820 taught and it will multiply the effectiveness of my ministry so he said your greatest weapon is

00:35:29.600 killing me my greatest weapon is dying if you use your weapon you will force me to use mine

00:35:34.720 wow and he said the guy just kind of freaked out and put his gun away and left but he he had he

00:35:42.200 overcame a fear of dying he was willing to die and he wrote a book i think it was his dissertation

00:35:50.000 at Oxford on martyrdom.

00:35:52.380 I forget the exact name of it, but it got published.

00:35:54.480 And in that book, there's some wonderful insights into the mentality

00:36:00.440 that we need to have as Christians and those who have gone before us

00:36:06.420 who have shed their blood for the cause of Christ, for his gospel,

00:36:11.000 that they've paved the way for us that we're to walk in.

00:36:14.380 But, you know, it's not just people in history.

00:36:17.820 I mean, they're contemporary people as well.

00:36:20.000 Christians right now who are worthy of knowing and emulating.

00:36:24.480 I mean, John MacArthur, people have criticized him so much in 2020

00:36:30.040 because of his stand and leading his church to reopen and stay open.

00:36:35.320 And, I mean, he's a hero.

00:36:37.720 You might not agree with all the way he did it and all the things he said,

00:36:42.380 but can we at least as Christians applaud his courage

00:36:45.780 in standing in the face of opposition from the government

00:36:51.280 and saying, no, we're going to do

00:36:52.760 what Christ has called us to do as a church.

00:36:54.780 And Rob McCoy is another pastor out in California

00:36:57.300 that I've gotten to know this last year

00:36:58.900 who went to trial and they brought him to trial

00:37:03.140 because they told him they're going to fine him.

00:37:05.820 I think they were fining him like $500 a service,

00:37:08.200 $1,500 a week if they didn't shut their church.

00:37:11.740 And I don't know what the fines are up to now,

00:37:13.760 But he went and he testified in court.

00:37:15.900 He looked at the judge.

00:37:16.780 He said, Your Honor, I know you don't want to be here.

00:37:18.940 I don't want to be here.

00:37:20.460 He said, We respect authority.

00:37:22.120 He said, But we're under a greater authority to Jesus Christ,

00:37:26.320 and we cannot compromise.

00:37:28.600 You know, our brothers and sisters in China, I think of Wang Yi,

00:37:31.680 the Chinese pastor who in late 2019 was arrested

00:37:35.840 because of his commitment to the gospel.

00:37:40.400 He anticipated it, so he wrote a series of articles

00:37:43.160 for his church. You know, that when I'm arrested, this is how you are to live. You're not to

00:37:47.520 compromise. And he's been sentenced to nine years. I guess he's, you know, in the midst of that nine

00:37:52.980 year sentence. I've been privileged to sit down and share meals with men in China who, one of them,

00:38:01.080 25 years in prison, another 17 years in prison. I got to meet Samuel Lamb for over 20 years,

00:38:07.700 was persecuted, beaten in prison as a martyr because he suffered for the sake of Christ.

00:38:14.980 And every time I've come away from those meetings, those conversations, those meals,

00:38:21.100 I just thought, man, I'm not worthy to even tie the shoes of these men who've loved Jesus at

00:38:27.120 great cost. And yet I've been so challenged and encouraged because every one of those men

00:38:32.880 have spoken with joy. They're not bitter. They're not complaining. They're full of joy

00:38:39.180 at what Christ has done for them and that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name.

00:38:45.440 So, boy, learn what you can about those who have blood mixed with their convictions.

00:38:51.580 Yeah, and this is the time to do it. We, again, have been so blessed for so long

00:38:57.020 with such a easy Christianity

00:39:01.460 that take advantage of this moment

00:39:06.160 to have that study, have that look at scripture.

00:39:10.400 I think about, you know, you said earlier, the creeds.

00:39:13.380 I mean, the people didn't have Bibles to carry around,

00:39:16.420 especially not, they didn't have them on their phones.

00:39:18.460 They memorized these creeds

00:39:19.920 because if they were imprisoned,

00:39:21.640 they would have these core essential truths

00:39:24.780 of the gospel in their hearts and minds

00:39:26.980 that they could recite to themselves.

00:39:30.480 And again, it's a weird thing to talk about,

00:39:32.580 but there's a possibility that we may live

00:39:34.500 through a season just like that.

00:39:38.060 Amen.

00:39:38.840 In closing here, Tom,

00:39:41.640 tell us a little bit about your ministry.

00:39:44.460 How can we find you?

00:39:45.700 How can we support you?

00:39:46.600 You guys do quite a bit,

00:39:47.660 so you can take a minute to tell us

00:39:50.100 how we can get involved in what you're doing.

00:39:53.320 Yeah, well, thanks for that.

00:39:54.640 But Founders Ministries began literally in a prayer meeting in 1982.

00:39:59.560 A group of seven men got together outside Dallas in a hotel room.

00:40:02.740 We spent the day in prayer, reading scriptures, singing together,

00:40:07.300 and thinking of what we could do to try to be useful in the kingdom of God

00:40:13.020 to encourage people to take God's word seriously.

00:40:15.760 And out of that prayer meeting began what we called the Founders Conference,

00:40:19.200 and from that conference began what we now call Founders Ministries.

00:40:22.280 So we're committed to the recovery of the gospel, the reformation of local churches.

00:40:26.080 We want to see the gospel receive its pride of place in the life of every Christian, in the life of every church.

00:40:33.100 And we want to see churches ordered according to scripture.

00:40:36.760 And that's really our burden.

00:40:38.340 So we try to resource and help pastors and church leaders and other serious-minded Christians to understand what's involved in that.

00:40:47.740 What is the gospel?

00:40:48.700 How does it work?

00:40:49.500 What is the Christian teaching surrounding the gospel?

00:40:53.380 What does the Bible say about any number of subjects?

00:40:55.800 And then how do we live together as churches?

00:40:58.860 So we have conferences.

00:41:00.280 We have an annual conference each year in January in Southwest Florida.

00:41:04.280 We have regional conferences.

00:41:06.120 We have had pastors fraternals.

00:41:08.460 We publish books.

00:41:09.980 We have a quarterly journal that comes out, the Founders Journal,

00:41:13.160 that you can access for free online.

00:41:15.420 We have a podcast, the Sword in the Trial podcast, that my associate pastor and I, Jared Longshore, hosts.

00:41:23.340 We deal with all kinds of cultural theological issues every week.

00:41:27.540 We've put out, by what standard, as a documentary to address some of the things going on in our culture and our churches in the last few years,

00:41:38.580 particularly pertaining to the critical social justice movement.

00:41:41.840 We're in the midst now of producing a series of small documentaries called Wield the Sword.

00:41:49.220 And so we've got a few of those already available.

00:41:51.820 They're available on Amazon Prime.

00:41:53.620 You can just look up Wield the Sword there.

00:41:55.380 You'll see one on the scripture in the world.

00:41:58.400 You'll see one on manhood and womanhood.

00:42:01.720 We've got others on aesthetics and metaphysics and vocation that are coming out.

00:42:07.080 So we're just going to be doing this.

00:42:08.240 We've got a series of 15 of these small documentaries that we're producing

00:42:12.420 and trying to get out on Amazon Prime in a timely fashion.

00:42:16.920 A new effort that we've just announced and are undertaking is called

00:42:22.080 the Institute of Public Theology, which is going to be a course of training

00:42:26.840 for pastors and pastoral candidates and for others who are interested

00:42:30.600 in learning theology the biblical languages the biblical exegesis philosophy and apologetics

00:42:39.680 polemics all with a view to taking a stand in the public square so we realize that the kind of

00:42:48.180 privatized pietism that has been so popular for so long in american christianity

00:42:54.460 is simply not going to serve the church at all in the days which we are in

00:43:01.740 and the days which we are facing.

00:43:03.520 So we started this Institute of Public Theology to try to think through 0.96

00:43:08.780 Christian life and ministry with a view to the increasingly hostile world

00:43:14.000 which we live in, particularly in the United States.

00:43:17.280 But we think that it will be useful in countries around the world

00:43:21.660 that are not in the United States as well.

00:43:23.340 And then finally, let me just say that Jared Longshore and I have recently published a book called Strong and Courageous, How to Stand Firm in the Midst of America's New Religion, looking at the paganism that has arisen in our nation and what does Christian faithfulness look like in the face of that new religion.

00:43:44.440 So you can access all of this at founders.org, and we have tons of resources for free.

00:43:50.720 We publish articles every week, several times a week, usually five or 10 articles will go up

00:43:56.420 on our website each week that you can access for free and see what other ministries are available

00:44:02.760 that might be useful to you. Amen. And I'll tell you guys, just a few resources that have been

00:44:06.780 helpful to me is the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith in Modern English. So it's a very short

00:44:14.220 book. I mean, what, 50 pages maybe? And it's a great resource if you've never read a statement

00:44:20.700 of faith, like a comprehensive statement of faith, like the Westminster Confession or the 1689.

00:44:25.500 It's a really great way in modern English to read it, check it out, understand, wow, that's what

00:44:31.200 Orthodox Christianity is, and it's backed up with scripture and a good understanding of those creeds

00:44:38.680 and confessions. It's a great tool. Another thing I talked about earlier was I take my children

00:44:44.700 through their Truth and Grace series. It's a three-book series for little kids, 10-year-olds,

00:44:52.680 and then up to 12 to 14-year-old kids, and they get a little bit more complex. The number three

00:44:59.020 book is, yeah, it's harder to memorize all those answers on that catechism, but they're great thin

00:45:05.660 little books and a great resource. Again, I'm on their website right now as we're talking. It's

00:45:10.840 just at founders.org. And so, yeah, big proponent of what you guys are doing over there, Tom. Thank

00:45:15.340 you for being faithful in the ministry there. And Tom, thanks for joining us today.

00:45:22.320 Well, it's been my privilege to be with you, Dale. I'm grateful for what you're doing and

00:45:26.160 look forward to meeting you personally one day. Amen. Well, guys, thank you for listening to

00:45:29.720 the Theologians series. And we're going to have several more of these incredible interviews with

00:45:35.360 other theologians coming up in the following months. Thank you for listening to this special

00:45:41.640 edition of Real Christianity. This podcast is a 100% listener-supported audio ministry

00:45:47.020 of relearn.org. Visit relearn.org for a library of theological resources, articles, podcasts,

00:45:53.300 and videos to strengthen your biblical literacy and support your study of God's word.

00:45:58.260 For those interested in supporting our ministry, you can make a tax-deductible donation at

00:46:02.140 relearn.org forward slash donate.

00:46:04.640 Again, my name is Dale Partridge, and we're excited to have you back next week for another

00:46:08.060 episode of Real Christianity.

Dale Partridge - March 24, 2021

Real Christianity #138： Overcoming the Fear of Man with Tom Ascol and Dale Partridge

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