The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Puritans Message To The American Church

00:00:00.000 On today's episode of Theology Applied, I was privileged to have as a special guest, Dr. Joel Beakey, to discuss the topic of the Puritans.

00:00:08.520 At the end of this episode, I specifically asked Dr. Joel Beakey in regards to what he sees as one of the greatest weaknesses of the Church in America today,

00:00:17.780 and what the Puritans would have to say in response. His answer was insightful and profound. I hope you enjoy the episode.

00:00:26.120 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.

00:00:29.480 This is Theology Applied.

00:00:37.240 All right.

00:00:37.960 Well, it's a privilege to have you, Dr. Beakey, on the show this evening.

00:00:41.420 And the first question, just to help our audience get familiar with you, is who are you?

00:00:45.700 And tell us a little bit about your ministry.

00:00:48.940 All right.

00:00:49.660 Well, my name is Joel Beakey, and I grew up in Michigan.

00:00:53.960 and felt called to minister when I was 15 years old.

00:00:59.920 I was converted when I was 14, really.

00:01:01.540 I came to liberty when I was 15, spiritual liberty.

00:01:05.540 And I trained for four years in Ontario, St. Catherine's, Ontario.

00:01:11.880 And then I accepted a call to 700 farmers in northwest Iowa

00:01:16.600 with no farming experience.

00:01:19.340 That was my first church.

00:01:20.840 and I was there for three and a half years and then accepted a call to

00:01:26.540 the Netherlands Reformed Church in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey and while I was there for

00:01:34.120 five and a half years I went to Westminster, Philadelphia to get my PhD and when that was

00:01:41.720 just about complete I accepted a call here to Grand Rapids where I've been for the last 34 years

00:01:46.860 so it's been a long ministry here and then uh 26 years ago or so i began puritan reform

00:01:57.640 theological seminary due to um circumstances that were rather trying at the time with a church split

00:02:06.620 and at the same time i began reformation heritage books which is a big part of my life

00:02:13.520 So the denomination stood behind me, the Heritage Reformed denomination, starting the seminary, I should say.

00:02:21.480 And Reformation Heritage Books, I established as an independent ministry with a board of interdenominational men.

00:02:31.220 And so right now, I'm a quarter time in my church as a pastor, Heritage Reformed Church here in Grand Rapids.

00:02:38.900 three-quarters time in the seminary when I worked for Reformation Heritage Books as much as I can

00:02:44.060 on the side. And I'm married to a wonderful woman named Mary. I have three wonderful children,

00:02:52.740 and they're all married to godly spouses. So I'm really blessed with a God-fearing family,

00:02:59.300 which is God's amazing grace. And five years ago, if you asked me, do you have any grandchildren?

00:03:05.320 And I'd say, no, not yet.

00:03:07.520 And now five years later, I've got seven of them.

00:03:11.340 Wow.

00:03:12.140 The two oldest have had three children in the last five years, and the youngest has had one child.

00:03:17.320 That's great.

00:03:18.980 That's great.

00:03:19.540 That's similar to my wife and I.

00:03:21.060 We had our three children in the last, well, less than four years.

00:03:26.380 Really?

00:03:27.200 Once people get started, sometimes they come in bunches.

00:03:32.520 Yes, yes.

00:03:34.200 Yeah.

00:03:34.420 Yeah, the oldest child could not have a child for several years.

00:03:39.420 And so then the other second child was married by that time as well, actually had the first grandchild.

00:03:44.740 And then suddenly the Lord opened the womb for the oldest, and we thought maybe it was just a one-off because they had so much difficulty.

00:03:52.800 And wow, within four years, they had three children.

00:03:56.740 Wow.

00:03:57.300 Wonderful.

00:03:57.640 So here at the seminary, Joel, we now have 219 students this past year.

00:04:04.680 We train men from all over the world.

00:04:06.460 They come from 30 different denominations in 20 different countries. 1.00

00:04:13.860 And we train them with MAs, MDivs, DMs, PhDs, THMs, send them back to their own country. 1.00

00:04:22.040 and they get positions there 0.99

00:04:26.620 and bring the Reformed biblical faith

00:04:29.400 to those countries.

00:04:31.560 So it's an exciting ministry.

00:04:32.920 Praise God.

00:04:34.160 That's great.

00:04:35.360 Well, with that said,

00:04:37.140 it seems like many people are familiar with you

00:04:40.900 through your work on the Puritans.

00:04:43.580 And so could you just talk to our audience

00:04:46.020 a little bit about your love for the Puritans

00:04:47.740 and maybe explain to some of us

00:04:50.360 who may not be familiar with the Puritans.

00:04:52.460 Who were the Puritans?

00:04:53.920 And what are some of their greatest contributions to the church?

00:04:58.600 Yes, well, I grew up in a very conservative Reformed church,

00:05:02.220 came under severe conviction of sin when I was 14.

00:05:07.160 And I would come home after school every single day,

00:05:11.960 finish my schoolwork by 8 or 9 p.m. or so,

00:05:15.580 and then I would read my dad's bookcase of Puritan writings.

00:05:20.360 And I would read them until midnight or later.

00:05:25.020 And this went on.

00:05:26.540 I mean, I read the whole Bible a couple times through.

00:05:29.020 And I was just reading, reading, trying to find liberty for my own soul.

00:05:33.180 And the Puritans really did lead me to spiritual liberty in Christ.

00:05:37.100 And I realized as I read them that I've never read anything like this before that had so much substance.

00:05:44.560 And it was so rich.

00:05:46.040 And so I immediately began, when I was 16 years old, a ministry called Bible Truth Books Ministry, which was mostly selling Puritan books.

00:05:55.260 And I've been selling them basically ever since.

00:05:58.460 I've sold, I don't know how many millions, probably $50 million worth, somewhere around there, of Puritans writers in my books in my lifetime.

00:06:10.140 When I go to conferences, you know, when people start to read the Puritans, when Christians, I should say, start to read the Puritans, their level of holiness rises almost inevitably because the Puritans are so thoroughly biblical. 0.78

00:06:26.700 I mean, that's the first thing they really want to teach us. 0.84

00:06:31.260 Their blood is bibline.

00:06:33.380 Everything is biblical.

00:06:34.460 That's why there's, I mean, they're as familiar in Habakkuk as they are in Romans.

00:06:40.480 And they had probably 40 to 60 scriptural citations across the average two pages when you open the book.

00:06:50.220 The Puritans were largely a 17th century movement, but it began already in the 1560s.

00:06:56.420 And it didn't really finish until 17-teens or so, thereabout, I believe.

00:07:02.340 So you're talking 160 years, but the apex of the Puritan movement was definitely in the 17th century.

00:07:12.480 And what they did, the best way to describe it, I think, is that they were thoroughly reformed in their theology.

00:07:19.920 It didn't really advance any substantive new doctrines, but they took what the reformers said,

00:07:25.600 they sat on their shoulders, and then they took it and applied it to everyday life.

00:07:30.340 everyday life. I mean, every aspect of your life. So if you think of it this way,

00:07:37.580 reformers are busy hammering out major doctrines like justification by faith or right principles

00:07:42.260 for worship, priesthood of all believers, et cetera. Puritans come along and say,

00:07:49.940 that's wonderful. We agree with all of us, but you reformers, you've written so many books on

00:07:54.920 that, but how do you use this doctrine of sanctification that you've developed? How do

00:08:01.720 you use it as a husband, as a wife? How do you live as a Christian at work? So the Puritans are

00:08:08.660 really head, heart, hand theologians, and they minister to the whole man. William Gooch, for

00:08:17.920 example, is an 800-page folio volume on marriage and childbearing. And it's just incredible,

00:08:25.980 the detail to which he goes, to show you biblically how to live in nearly every area

00:08:32.120 of your life. So that's one contribution they make. Another contribution I think that's very

00:08:39.020 important is that the Puritans are really, really godly people, so godly that in our worldly age,

00:08:46.580 There's actually people that think they were legalists and maybe a few Puritans, you know, in a couple of areas of their life were a bit over the top from our modern perspective, at least.

00:08:58.520 But they were just intent on a living, a Trinitarian centered, God glorifying life in which Christ is all and in all.

00:09:10.340 So they were very zealous.

00:09:14.280 They spoke of zeal as a white-hot flame for the glory of God.

00:09:18.620 And they had a high view of the church, a high view of worship.

00:09:23.340 They really believed that every sermon God is speaking to you directly through the external minister.

00:09:32.040 The internal minister, which is the Holy Spirit, they got that from Calvin,

00:09:35.940 is putting the Word into his bow and shooting it out as an arrow,

00:09:40.020 directing the arrows to the hearts of every hearer according to that hearer's need.

00:09:47.640 So they have a strong stress on individual conversion that we're often lacking today,

00:09:53.720 the need to really know by experience what it means to repent of sin and become a lost sinner

00:10:00.080 before God and find salvation rich and full and free in Christ. And so the vitality, the living

00:10:08.100 reality of their christianity is almost tangible when you when you read the puritans

00:10:16.660 and the amazing thing about them joel is that this movement lasted for 150 years usually a movement

00:10:22.100 that's so full of zeal so full of life so full of the holy spirit so full of scripture

00:10:29.620 is kind of short-lived it's hard for natural man to live with such intensity for more than

00:10:35.460 six months

00:10:37.720 but by the grace of God

00:10:40.620 this movement

00:10:41.280 it was dissipating

00:10:44.420 by the late 1680s

00:10:45.800 but for well over a century

00:10:47.980 it was a very

00:10:49.100 alive movement

00:10:51.700 you've got me thinking

00:10:54.000 Dr. Beeky a few things

00:10:55.740 one, I'll just rattle off

00:10:58.080 a couple questions here

00:10:59.040 one, I know he was a Baptist

00:11:00.800 and I personally am

00:11:03.680 a Reformed Baptist

00:11:04.540 but would you consider John Bunyan

00:11:07.320 because you said the word Bibline

00:11:08.760 and it just made me think of Bunyan

00:11:10.400 would he be considered one of the Puritans?

00:11:13.440 Oh absolutely

00:11:14.160 yeah Bunyan is one of the lead Puritans

00:11:18.040 there were a few Baptist Puritans

00:11:21.060 maybe the very end of the Puritan age

00:11:24.500 there were a few coming in

00:11:26.540 Bunyan was the eccentric guy 0.99

00:11:30.200 among the lead Puritans

00:11:32.140 because he was the only one that really wasn't educated at Oxford or Cambridge, just about.

00:11:38.460 And he was mainly self-taught through books he read and spirit taught.

00:11:44.680 And he was the only major Puritan that was a Baptist.

00:11:50.580 But Bunyan's views were quite congenial.

00:11:54.600 If you were a paedo-baptist in his church, you could become a member.

00:11:57.960 You just couldn't become an elder or deacon.

00:12:00.300 but you could become a member

00:12:02.380 and if you wanted your kids baptized

00:12:04.520 he'd say okay

00:12:06.420 we'll get another

00:12:07.420 get one of my Puritan friends here

00:12:09.580 and he'll baptize your kids

00:12:11.180 and it's okay

00:12:12.360 so he was

00:12:13.320 quite understanding of the paedo-baptist view

00:12:17.040 yeah

00:12:18.700 well that got me thinking also

00:12:20.860 you said something when you were giving us

00:12:22.840 a little bit of your testimony

00:12:23.980 you've used the phrase a few times now

00:12:26.640 in regards to

00:12:27.900 you said you were converted when you were 14

00:12:29.860 but at 15 you said you experienced liberty and it just made me think of john bunyan and pilgrim's

00:12:36.840 progress and you know the the law of the lord comes to him he finds this book in a field and

00:12:41.800 he's burdened by his sin everything loses its taste and enjoyment in life his family all these

00:12:47.760 things and he's just weighted down and miserable and uh and then he goes to the wicked gate and

00:12:52.900 there's it's it's confusing and so i kind of want to get your take from your testimony but also

00:12:57.880 bunions because you know the law of God comes to him and then he goes to the wicked gate and meets

00:13:03.100 goodwill and he says are you willing to receive me with all my heart and he goes through the

00:13:07.220 wicket gate but then it's later so it's kind of like three different progressions that the law

00:13:11.580 comes to him and that burden falls on his back and then the wicked gate where he goes through

00:13:16.480 and then there's also the sepulcher and the cross and the the three shining ones or you know who

00:13:22.700 speak to him and his burden rolls away into the sepulcher and he bears it no more and so i guess

00:13:28.560 my question is uh in terms of your own conversion what do you mean by those terms conversion and

00:13:34.100 then and then liberty uh coming later on and does that relate to bunyan's experience i can put it

00:13:39.320 in bunyan's framework i i went through the exact same things um but i don't want to set it as a

00:13:44.680 pattern for everyone else because my my experience was very very intense i was i was the sinner

00:13:51.400 hanging on a thin spider's thread over the pit of hell, as Edwards would say.

00:13:58.440 I was the sinner in the hands of the anger of God.

00:14:00.340 I thought for sure I was a reprobate, and yet there was a love for God in my soul,

00:14:07.000 but I just was overwhelmed that God could never save such a sinner as me.

00:14:13.680 So, yeah, my burden was really heavy on my back for close to 18 months.

00:14:19.340 So it was a long period. And then, you know, I did have a very powerful experience in my own soul, where I finally understood the gospel. I understood, though I didn't understand the language, but I mean, I didn't know the language yet, but I understood for the first time in my life, the double obedience of Christ, that his passive obedience, pain for my sin, and his active obedience to being the law for me.

00:14:49.340 uh wiped away my sins and gave me a right to eternal life and he was the savior of the

00:14:54.140 greatest of sinners who just cast themselves upon him in faith and um yeah when that happened to me

00:15:01.260 i i i uh i got my i got my dad out of bed at 3 30 in the morning so i've been saying my sins are

00:15:10.620 washed away that i couldn't sleep i was overwhelmed so for me these experiences were very very real

00:15:16.700 all three actually the conviction of sin and then my first view of what i might call christ as the

00:15:24.300 way of escape that gave me a little bit of hope but then i didn't think it could still be for me

00:15:29.020 kind of like going through the wicked gate um where there wasn't a full closure with christ

00:15:34.780 but there was some hope in christ and new new life sprang up within me um so yeah when i use

00:15:43.580 the word conversion i mean you can use in different ways i could i could say you know i was regenerated

00:15:49.260 um when i was 14 or 15 but it's hard to mark the exact moment of regeneration sometimes

00:15:55.260 right but conversion was the whole change of lifestyle and then but when i went when the sins

00:16:00.220 rolled off my back into the empty sepulcher using bunyan's language um i was just set free i came to

00:16:07.180 spiritual liberty big time i was very shy no one can believe that anymore but i was very very shy

00:16:15.260 in my life up to that point and my tongue was just on loose i talked to everybody everybody at work

00:16:21.100 everybody at school um they didn't know what got into me but i just couldn't hold back from telling

00:16:27.660 people about my wonderful savior and then it was about six months after that that i felt called to

00:16:32.940 call to ministry. Wow. Okay. Well, are there any criticisms towards the Puritans? And I know there

00:16:41.660 are, but what are some of the primary criticisms? And are there any that you might sympathize as

00:16:46.900 someone who loves the Puritans? Are there any criticisms that you can see where the critic

00:16:51.680 might be coming from? Oh, sure. I mean, there's no age that's perfect. There's no group of people.

00:16:57.880 there's no individual pastor that's perfect so yeah my criticism of those who criticize

00:17:04.760 the puritans lightly and glibly is that what i've experienced in my lifetime

00:17:12.760 of talking about the puritans to thousands of people is that with very rare exceptions the

00:17:18.600 people that seem to have a real bone to pick with the puritans are people who haven't read them

00:17:23.160 so they're going by scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne other 19th century sources and you see

00:17:31.540 the puritans are very open for substantial criticism by groups that are much more liberal

00:17:38.120 than they are because as soon as you have a group that is much more conservative than you

00:17:43.400 and has more focus on godliness you want to you want to kind of if you're a christian

00:17:49.900 even in some sense of the word even if you're just a nominal christian you kind of want to

00:17:55.420 pick them apart because they make you feel a little uncomfortable because they're so godly

00:17:58.960 so you come up with criticism like this while they're way too legalistic

00:18:03.660 i've read the puritans all my life and they come down hard on legalism but they are very strong

00:18:11.740 are living wholly and solely for Jesus, out of gratitude.

00:18:16.200 But yeah, what that means then for them in their life

00:18:20.280 is that they deny themselves certain things.

00:18:23.140 For example, they weren't into dancing. 1.00

00:18:25.520 In fact, they thought most dancing, bisexual dancing, was sinful 1.00

00:18:29.220 because it aroused the lust of the flesh. 1.00

00:18:32.500 Is that legalism?

00:18:33.900 Could be.

00:18:35.900 But in my book, when I read the Puritans, 0.83

00:18:38.940 they rejected that and denied themselves that because they didn't trust their own heart and

00:18:44.560 they wanted to live close to god so like daniel and daniel one didn't want to defile himself

00:18:50.240 for the portion of the king's meat so a lot depends on your motivation so what happens today

00:18:56.660 of course is that people look at things like that and say oh wow they're legalists

00:19:01.020 but they're usually people that haven't read them if you read the puritans and you see their love

00:19:07.300 for christ and their love for living holy and solely for a triune god and wanting to dedicate

00:19:12.960 their entire lives to them you'd be hard pressed to find hardly any puritans puritan ministers i'm

00:19:20.140 not saying all the people that that were legalists but that is a criticism and there were a few that

00:19:26.560 overdid it sometimes out of zeal um yes there's been a lot of criticism lately about owning slaves

00:19:35.680 There were a few Puritans, very, very minor amount that owned some slaves.

00:19:45.980 Jonathan Edwards, who sometimes counted as a Puritan, the last Puritan, sometimes not, was more in the 18th century.

00:19:52.020 In fact, his whole life was in the 18th century.

00:19:54.700 Most scholars say that's beyond the age of the Puritans.

00:19:58.440 He had a few slaves.

00:20:00.540 Treated him incredibly well, by the way, but it was still an awful thing.

00:20:03.380 You can't justify it. 1.00

00:20:05.680 But very few Puritans.

00:20:07.960 It's mostly a post-Puritan thing, and people get that mixed up.

00:20:12.200 A lot of people think Spurgeon in the 19th century was a Puritan.

00:20:18.200 Well, he may be Puritan-minded, but the small people, but the Puritans as a movement were

00:20:25.500 fading away when slavery became something more common.

00:20:30.580 And a lot of Puritans spoke against it.

00:20:32.200 Richard Baxter wrote against it.

00:20:33.520 so when they speak about puritans being slave owners what we do there is we say something like

00:20:41.140 this yes and that's a real shame that there was even one but there were there were there were

00:20:47.840 some small number very small percentage but are there any christians today who support abortion

00:20:56.500 unfortunately there are but i would hate to have our generation one day be labeled as 0.95

00:21:04.140 oh yeah those christians were terrible because they believed in slaughtering their babies

00:21:07.960 um i think the majority of christians today are against abortion at least real christians 0.97

00:21:16.060 and that's the way the puritans would have would have been as well in fact most of the

00:21:20.400 The early Puritans didn't even know anything about slavery.

00:21:24.340 Is there other areas?

00:21:27.080 Yeah, I think there were a few Puritans that probably were too prolix in their preaching.

00:21:37.960 Preaching for 23 years on the book of Job may be a bit overdone.

00:21:41.400 But don't forget, in their day, again, the people wanted them to go deeply into various subjects.

00:21:51.980 So Thomas Hooker, for example, has, I don't know, like 30 sermons in a row, 35 maybe, about humiliation for sin.

00:22:02.580 But then he preaches 65 sermons right behind it on redemption in Christ.

00:22:07.620 um in our day where people are attracted to sermons where you go through a whole chapter

00:22:15.100 in one sermon puritans were used to you know dissecting it bringing unpacking it and that's

00:22:21.880 the way the people wanted it that's the way they were in their education as well they studied

00:22:26.480 thoroughly and uh in detail so a few puritans overdid it there and i would not imitate that i

00:22:36.060 I have a lecture that I give on how we should emulate the Puritans in preaching today,

00:22:41.780 and then a follow-up lecture on how we should not emulate the Puritans today.

00:22:45.940 Certainly, it's wrong to take over everything from the Puritans and try to plop it into the 21st century.

00:22:51.240 We're in a different age, with different needs. 0.81

00:22:53.500 But in terms of substance, spiritual, godly, confessional, doctrinal, experiential, practical, biblical substance, 1.00

00:23:03.340 the puritans are light years ahead of us in all kinds of areas

00:23:08.040 just take the area of marriage they wrote 29 books on marriage

00:23:13.220 and in an age when it was very hard thing to get a book published because it was very complicated

00:23:19.620 very expensive and those books reveal their understanding of ephesians 5 on the theology

00:23:28.960 of marriage to be so far beyond ours that there's hardly any comparison.

00:23:36.000 So I took those 29 books, for example, with another colleague, and we co-authored a book

00:23:40.140 called Living in a Godly Marriage, in which we summarized in contemporary language what

00:23:47.500 the Puritans were saying in those 29 books.

00:23:50.420 And I've written another book on marriage and another book on family, or two books on

00:23:54.680 family, I guess, or two books on marriage and one book on family.

00:23:58.060 And what happens is inevitably when people read those books, they come back to me and they say, wow, that book you did of what the Puritans taught on marriage, that was really something.

00:24:08.600 That was beyond your own books on marriage.

00:24:11.040 You know, they're just so substantive, so biblical and so practical that we can learn a lot from them.

00:24:19.080 Well, that kind of brings us to the next question, which is, what do you personally, Dr. Biggie, see as one of the biggest failures or the biggest weaknesses of the church in America today? And what is something that the Puritans would have to say to us?

00:24:33.680 well the word that would pop in my head right away would be worldliness 0.82

00:24:40.060 shallowness easy believism puritans would have a lot to say

00:24:49.280 william greenell wrote a book called stop loving the world

00:24:52.280 we're just travelers through vanity fair here on our way to the celestial city evangelize

00:25:00.320 have friends in the world to evangelize them

00:25:02.740 but don't cozy up to the world

00:25:04.680 don't become worldly

00:25:05.700 again people might see that as legalist

00:25:08.800 but for the Puritans it was

00:25:10.440 jealousy for your own soul

00:25:11.960 to be a chaste virgin for Christ as it were

00:25:14.960 to live holy and solely for him

00:25:17.040 and once you start

00:25:19.340 mixing with the world

00:25:21.160 and creeping back to the world

00:25:23.740 doing the things of the world

00:25:25.460 talking like the world

00:25:26.680 you lose your your spiritual vitality so for example in our culture i mean

00:25:36.560 even in my own church and we we've got a lot of very godly people in our church

00:25:43.120 but if i talk to this typical 75 year old and say how old how old would you like to be if you could

00:25:50.080 be any age probably a number of them would say oh i wish i were younger

00:25:56.100 puritans would say why why would you say that why would you want to be closer to being with

00:26:03.140 jesus forever i have a lady in my church every time i wished her happy birthday she'd say one

00:26:08.900 year closer one year closer to being with jesus and you see that antithetical approach to the

00:26:16.960 world is much more poignant in in puritan thinking so say say instead of saying happy new year

00:26:24.420 they would say blessed new year to each other and by blessed they meant a deeper spiritual word in

00:26:31.120 scripture that means internal happiness regardless of external circumstances

00:26:36.000 so what do we mean when we say happy new year we mean i hope everything goes your way this year

00:26:41.780 hope you don't have many afflictions hope no one dies in your family hope you don't get cancer

00:26:47.000 what the puritans meant when they said blessed new year was i hope that you learn to submit more

00:26:54.040 and more this year to God's sovereign dealings in your life because all things work together for

00:26:59.860 good and the more you're at one with his will the more you will grow spiritually I really wish you

00:27:05.420 spiritual growth this year in submission to God in bowing under his inscrutable sovereign dealings

00:27:12.220 with you well you feel right away it's a whole different spiritual depth a whole different way

00:27:20.140 of life now granted the world wasn't as worldly as it was today so the temptation wasn't as severe 0.97

00:27:26.800 in some ways but still the puritans have a lot to say to us about living godly in an ungodly world

00:27:38.200 what do you think the puritans would have to say in regard because i completely

00:27:42.460 agree with everything you've said thus far so one big problem the american church today's

00:27:47.840 worldliness, and the Puritans would have much to say about holiness, and then also in regards to

00:27:52.540 that blessed word, high esteeming of the providence of God in life and forming more and more the image

00:28:00.280 of the Son in us through suffering. But that said, what do you think the Puritans would have to say

00:28:06.860 in regards to the fear of man? That's something that I see as a pervasive problem with pastors

00:28:13.620 and leaders in the church today let's see well that's just an inevitable fruit of the whole 1.00

00:28:19.500 thing we're we're we're flirting we're talking about at least um that really the puritan strength

00:28:27.560 is a high view of god a trinitarian god who's to be adored and worshiped and loved who's to

00:28:37.360 nothing is to be put before God.

00:28:41.640 To the Puritans, anything that would rival God 0.97

00:28:44.900 would be sheer idolatry and not to be tolerated.

00:28:51.700 So God was big.

00:28:53.720 And when God is big, man is small.

00:28:55.800 The Puritans would say this,

00:28:57.160 like Lloyd-Jones said about them, Martin Lloyd-Jones.

00:28:59.260 He said, the thing about the Puritans is

00:29:01.860 when you're done reading something, 0.81

00:29:04.860 you feel like you've been in the presence of God.

00:29:07.360 and they've made God big.

00:29:11.020 That's the gift they had.

00:29:12.880 You know, you read The Boundless God by George Swinok.

00:29:15.800 Oh, man.

00:29:17.840 Read 10 pages of that.

00:29:19.700 You're just moved.

00:29:20.380 You're just falling on your knees.

00:29:21.440 You're falling on your face.

00:29:22.900 Oh, God, forgive me for having such small thoughts of thee.

00:29:26.880 And, yeah.

00:29:29.420 So, the Puritans were very big on the fear of God.

00:29:32.600 Here's how they defined it.

00:29:33.740 The fear of God is to esteem the smiles of God to be of more value than the smiles of man, and the frowns of God to be of more value than the frowns of man.

00:29:45.320 So they could bring the fear of man down because the fear of God, the childlike fear of God, was so big in their lives.

00:29:58.340 Yeah, I agree.

00:30:00.260 I've often said in my church here, but also my church back in California, that I'm concerned that the love of God has been wasted on a generation of people who have not been properly taught the fear of God.

00:30:16.840 And it's just, you know, the reason why we need to esteem the holiness of God, you know, the first use of the law.

00:30:24.680 We see the law of God as a reflection of his own holy nature.

00:30:29.160 And by that, if the Spirit is willing, then he graciously provides a conviction of our sins.

00:30:35.040 So we see the holiness of God.

00:30:36.260 We see the sinfulness of ourselves. 0.86

00:30:38.440 And the gap, not in an objective sense, but subjectively, for the Christian, the gap seems to get even bigger. 0.82

00:30:46.060 It's as though the chasm is growing between the holiness of God and the sinfulness of the sinner,

00:30:53.100 even the redeemed sinner, that as we see more and more of God.

00:30:57.040 So not in any objective sense.

00:30:58.920 In an objective sense, we're being sanctified and we're being made holy,

00:31:03.600 although the gap, if it is shrinking at all, it's minuscule because God is infinitely holy.

00:31:09.200 But we are getting holier.

00:31:10.540 We're getting better, not worse.

00:31:12.200 But subjectively, we feel as though the gap is widening. 0.52

00:31:15.360 But that's not to leave the Christian in despair because the gap is filled.

00:31:19.940 It's bridged by the cross of Christ.

00:31:22.160 It's bridged by the grace of God, the love of God.

00:31:25.800 And so if you've never seen that gap, if you've never seen the holiness of God and the true vile sinfulness of sinners,

00:31:33.880 and you hear sermons again and again and again about the love of God without first coming to fear God,

00:31:40.720 then the love of God is just puny.

00:31:42.760 It's anemic.

00:31:43.540 It's shallow and weak.

00:31:45.420 Right.

00:31:46.380 That's a concern.

00:31:47.420 Which is exactly what's the problem with the American church so much today.

00:31:52.900 Everything is so shallow and everything is so man-pleasing.

00:31:56.140 And the goal is to make people feel good when they walk out of church.

00:31:59.720 Just the expression that so many ministers use, I'm sorry to be critical here,

00:32:04.080 but if they say something that really produces some guilt or has potential to produce guilt,

00:32:11.500 they say, I don't make you feel guilty or anything. 0.98

00:32:13.200 I don't trust that with the Puritans 1.00

00:32:16.260 it would say

00:32:16.640 one Puritan said

00:32:18.240 I take a stick in my hand

00:32:19.780 I go around and beat every bush

00:32:21.480 until I find old Adam

00:32:23.720 hiding behind a bush

00:32:24.680 and I bring him out

00:32:25.460 and I stand him naked before God

00:32:27.120 you know

00:32:28.940 that's what that man needs 0.87

00:32:31.280 so that he becomes a lost sinner

00:32:32.640 before God

00:32:33.280 and he cries for mercy

00:32:34.460 you know

00:32:35.880 even back in the Middle Ages

00:32:37.680 you know

00:32:38.000 the famous classic

00:32:39.120 with Anselm 0.99

00:32:40.480 which the Puritans would totally agree

00:32:41.960 with this particular point

00:32:43.120 But, you know, Anselm is the wise, seasoned pastor who's having an interview with a beginning disciple named Bozo.

00:32:52.500 And he's trying to show Bozo in the dialogue going back and forth why conviction of sin is important to appreciate the magnitude of God's grace.

00:33:02.380 And Bozo just can't seem to get it.

00:33:05.220 And finally, the necessity of the God man.

00:33:09.080 Finally, Pastor Ambrose then looks at Bozo and he says, Bozo, your problem is you don't understand the enormity of sin.

00:33:21.860 So you can't understand the enormity of grace. 0.95

00:33:25.860 And that's what the Puritans did. 0.91

00:33:28.300 You know, they made you feel the enormity of God, the enormity of sin, and the enormity of grace.

00:33:37.540 then there's room huge amounts of room to preach the magnificent amazing love of god i just preached

00:33:46.220 tonight to my own church on mosea 2 19 through 20 it's preparatory sermon for the lord's supper

00:33:52.420 next sunday on i will betroth thee to me forever all the whole sermon is basically on the love of

00:33:59.480 god but it's love of god over against the enormity of our sinfulness right so that the congregation

00:34:10.460 walks out just shaking their heads in amazement that's the goal of my head when i was preaching

00:34:17.320 anyway this gospel is such an amazing thing if you don't see the seriousness of your sin

00:34:23.140 and you're just told well you don't believe in jesus and you're saved and everything goes

00:34:29.320 like in 10 seconds and now you're saved and i assure you you're saved and you've raised a hand

00:34:34.720 you've walked in the aisle you've done something um i'm not saying it's impossible to be a true

00:34:42.100 conversion but most of the time it doesn't bear fruit but the danger is that then people think

00:34:49.080 they're saved and the preacher told them they're saved and so they go on thinking they're christians

00:34:53.300 and they've never been born again.

00:34:55.280 A false assurance.

00:34:57.460 Yeah.

00:34:59.140 So that leads me to maybe one final question,

00:35:02.340 and we'll go ahead and wrap up.

00:35:03.680 But I have a feeling I know what you're going to say,

00:35:07.560 but I think of, whether this is legend or true,

00:35:10.940 maybe you can confirm,

00:35:11.840 but I think of stories of George Whitefield

00:35:14.040 going all the way up the coast,

00:35:15.940 preaching conviction, preaching judgment,

00:35:19.800 preaching condemnation,

00:35:20.680 and then coming back down and preaching grace.

00:35:22.440 Or I think of, you know, sinners in the hands of an angry God with Edwards. 0.60

00:35:26.260 Or I think of what you've already mentioned, some of the Puritans, you know, just, you know, 35 sermons in a row on humiliation of sin.

00:35:34.760 You know, and now in our gospel-centered everything, you know, world in the church that we live in, obviously, all the scripture speaks to Christ.

00:35:48.060 And Christ is in every text.

00:35:49.840 I think it was Spurgeon who said maybe not every verse, but every chapter, you know, but Christ, Christ can be found in every text and Christ should be preached.

00:35:58.740 But I wonder that even in those reformed churches that are willing to preach on sin, even then, it seems as though we can only preach on sin seriously for maybe five, six, seven minutes, maybe 15 if we're pushing it.

00:36:14.180 But we've got to quickly, so quickly alleviate the congregation, the hearers, so quickly get to Christ.

00:36:24.040 And, of course, we want to get there.

00:36:25.620 I guess my question is just, is it permissible?

00:36:30.220 Do you have to get to Christ right away?

00:36:32.800 And is it permissible to preach about the humiliation of sin for a sermon and leave the people under that weight?

00:36:41.340 Yeah, you let your text be your guide, right, Joel?

00:36:44.180 So the point is, are you thoroughly preaching your text?

00:36:49.500 So if you're preaching through Ephesians, for example,

00:36:53.560 and you get to Ephesians 2, Ephesians 1,

00:36:59.300 you're going to be preaching just a lot of gospel.

00:37:01.340 Ephesians 2, at the beginning, you're going to be preaching

00:37:04.640 about what natural man is.

00:37:08.240 Or think of Romans 3.

00:37:09.900 if a preacher just takes

00:37:13.360 Romans 3 1-20 in one sermon

00:37:15.840 and then

00:37:17.240 spends five sermons on the rest of

00:37:19.720 Romans 3 which is all gospel

00:37:21.280 yeah

00:37:23.240 you've got an imbalanced

00:37:25.340 preacher

00:37:26.060 Romans 3 1-19

00:37:29.840 needs to be preached solemnly

00:37:31.600 and thoroughly

00:37:32.860 just as Romans 3 20

00:37:35.260 through the end of the chapter

00:37:37.300 needs to be preached solemnly and thoroughly

00:37:39.180 So, for example, in Romans 3.19, Jonathan Edwards has a whole sermon on every mouth shall be stopped and all men shall become guilty before God.

00:37:51.500 A whole sermon on that.

00:37:53.520 Now, there's a few paragraphs at the end about deliverance in Christ and directing the smitten conscience to Jesus.

00:38:01.000 But there's only a few paragraphs there because really there's nothing in the text there about that.

00:38:05.820 But then, if the text is on heaven, for example, Edwards will have the whole sermon on heaven,

00:38:14.960 and then maybe he'll spend the last one or two paragraphs warning those who are not prepared for it about the dangers.

00:38:21.220 So the Puritans were so biblical that they would preach the text to the full in every situation.

00:38:29.980 And if they weren't preaching straight through a Bible, they did variety.

00:38:34.800 They didn't do strictly what's today called expository preaching.

00:38:38.920 They did do quite a bit of that.

00:38:40.820 But at times they would just pick some of the isolated texts in the Bible, what they

00:38:46.360 called the grand texts of the Bible.

00:38:48.840 But then they would be careful to pick texts from different areas of Christian experience

00:38:55.340 so that their preaching over a period of time was balanced.

00:38:59.980 And a lot of preachers did not have the problem.

00:39:02.120 Probably most of the Puritan preachers did not have the problem preaching 35 sermons on one subject.

00:39:09.420 So that's only a few.

00:39:13.480 Many Puritans had a really good balance that would be accepted today in terms of preaching.

00:39:20.040 The main thing a preacher needs to be able to say to his conscience, the Puritans would say, is, am I bringing my people, the whole counsel of God, as deposited in Scripture?

00:39:29.300 with the balance that scripture has.

00:39:33.680 I want to be thoroughly scriptural in my preaching.

00:39:37.720 And that does not seem, to me, in my assessment,

00:39:41.280 that does not seem to be the primary concern of many preachers today.

00:39:45.640 Even in some of the better churches, it seems like the primary concern is,

00:39:50.100 did I get to the gospel? Did I get to Christ?

00:39:52.340 And obviously that's important, but I think there's a way of missing Christ in the text,

00:39:58.600 but there's also a way of preaching Christ at the expense of the text.

00:40:02.320 And I've noticed that if you're not careful,

00:40:04.440 basically it creates where every single one of your sermons is the same.

00:40:09.700 You take a new text each week,

00:40:12.260 you take 5 to 15 minutes to springboard off of that text

00:40:15.640 into your same gospel proclamation with maybe a few slight tweaks.

00:40:21.800 And the people will say, you know, for years,

00:40:24.440 what a wonderful gospel-centered, Christ-centered church.

00:40:27.600 church but they're actually not getting the whole counsel of god you speak to them about the law of

00:40:32.060 god you speak to you and and and they're um they're lacking in those areas and so i think there's a

00:40:39.300 way of being christ-centered that's not that's not actually biblical right if that and i know that

00:40:45.540 sounds funny but i think it's possible i grew up with the opposite joel i grew up where the typical

00:40:51.300 sermon was 60 minutes long, and the first 55 minutes was usually about, yeah, man's depravity,

00:41:00.420 man's sinfulness, and very little gospel. And that's, you know, the danger of a certain

00:41:09.060 brand of sometimes called hyper-Calvinism. Then you've got the opposite extreme,

00:41:16.900 what you're describing. And the balance is obviously in between those two, where I like

00:41:25.020 to put it this way, in the form of, you know, we adhere to the Heidelberg Catechism as one of our

00:41:30.800 doctrinal standards, misery, deliverance, gratitude. We don't preach 50% misery, we preach 100%

00:41:37.400 misery. Man is totally needy. We don't preach 50% deliverance, we preach 100% deliverance in Christ.

00:41:43.380 We don't preach 50% gratitude and sanctification.

00:41:46.880 We preach 100%.

00:41:48.380 Our entire lives are called to be a living sacrifice to him.

00:41:53.100 So it's 100, 100, 100.

00:41:56.260 And we bring that through a judicious selection of text to preach on.

00:42:05.380 And that really feeds the flock with the whole counsel of God and gives them a great variety, too.

00:42:10.460 It does help your sermons from becoming a kind of sameness running through them when you just preach the scriptures.

00:42:20.200 Yeah, I agree.

00:42:21.960 Well, are there any final words that you'd like to leave us with?

00:42:26.040 Yeah, I'd like to say this.

00:42:29.400 I would like to encourage your listener to start reading the Puritans.

00:42:33.340 And we are the leading Puritan publisher in the world today, and we're doing 12 Puritan titles a year.

00:42:44.820 We do 40 titles a year, so 28 of them are not Puritans, so we do all kinds of things.

00:42:50.560 But I would advise them to start by reading a few books from what we call the Puritan Treasures for Today.

00:42:59.800 These are 100- to 150-page Puritan books that we've edited every single sentence, so it reads like it was written today.

00:43:07.440 Very easy for people to get into the Puritans this way.

00:43:10.640 Like William Greenhill's Stop Loving the World or John Flavel's Triumphing Over Sinful Fear, which is a great book, by the way.

00:43:20.680 Heritagebooks.org.

00:43:22.760 Heritagebooks, one word, .org.

00:43:24.660 You can check them out.

00:43:26.820 There's about 15 of them now.

00:43:28.240 there'll be a lot more a few years from now because they're really taking off puritan treasures for

00:43:33.440 today they're called you'll find those extremely easy to read and then from there graduate yourself

00:43:39.640 to reading thomas watson i would say first of all short sentences watson has full of waiting

00:43:45.520 substance quite easy to read and then move on to john fable john bunyan and then from there work

00:43:52.280 your way up to thomas goodwin and john owen um full of substance but more challenging for the

00:43:59.600 beginning puritan reader to to read and if you really take the time i would advise you also to 0.65

00:44:07.100 look up all the texts when you read the puritans because they're they're so big blind you'll feel 0.83

00:44:12.560 like you're you're just being advanced greatly in your head knowledge of what the scriptures 1.00

00:44:20.260 are saying not only but also in heart knowledge and i believe i've seldom met someone who really

00:44:28.980 got into reading the puritans who wouldn't say i've grown like i've never grown before

00:44:35.020 just in so many ways the puritans are just so much better than so much of the fluff out of

00:44:42.620 the market today well thank you dr beakey for coming on the show and i'm sure our listeners 1.00

00:44:49.260 will be blessed is there any way that they can keep up with you and follow you i guess

00:44:53.640 reformation is is probably the chief way that they can follow yeah and i have a i have a blog

00:45:00.020 joel joel beakey and then i've got facebook and so yeah i've got it in twitter you can get me on

00:45:09.420 those those yeah great well thanks for coming on the show i appreciate it thank you as a special

00:45:16.500 thank you for your gift of any amount we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our

00:45:20.760 store to access this offer visit right response ministries.com slash offer we highly recommend

00:45:27.600 pastor joel's book am i truly saved if you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about

00:45:32.560 the love of god this would be a great resource as a reminder to get this offer go to right

00:45:37.680 response ministries.com slash offer and thank you for your generous support

00:45:46.500 you

The NXR Podcast - August 04, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Puritans Message To The American Church

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