Gordan Runyan:
Welcome once again. This is episode two of the Ragtown Reformed Forum, the best podcast that you will hear during this time. My name is Gordan Runyan. I'm the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari, New Mexico. And from right to left on your radio dial, my cohorts today are my good friend, longtime friend, and music minister, David Morris. How are you doing today?
David Morris:
I'm good, sir. And you?
Gordan Runyan:
Good. You know, I was just looking at it and just trying to figure out the times, and I think the first time that you and I ever worked together in terms of trying to put a service together and minister the gospel to people, I think that was—it's going on 25 years. Does that sound right?
David Morris:
That's real close to that. I believe it was 21. 21? It was either 20 or 21 when we—I can't remember. I moved to town in 20— I mean, 2000, I mean. Right,
John Train:
right. 2000.
David Morris:
In 2000, we actually moved to town in' 99, but 2000 was when I started doing stuff. So 25, 26 years.
John Train:
Doggone. All right.
Gordan Runyan:
It was kind of surprising to me to think of it. I'm terrible with dates, but that seems like a long time, brother.
David Morris:
Yeah, it is. That's right. And we haven't been together the whole time, but we always circle back to each other somehow or another.
Gordan Runyan:
God works things out that way.
David Morris:
He sure does. He works it out.
Gordan Runyan:
Next to my friend David is my friend Tom Miller, and pastor of First Christian Church here at Tucumcari. Tom, how does the day greet you today? How are you doing?
Tom Miller:
Warmer than I like, but—Perking right along.
Gordan Runyan:
Okay, good. And on my left is my friend John Train, our deacon here at Immanuel and theologian par excellence, and we're happy to have you with us. How are you doing today?
John Train:
Doing all right. Awesome, hanging in there. Awesome.
Gordan Runyan:
So we're continuing in our discussion, loosely framed, using the book by R. C. Sproul, What Is Reformed Theology? Before we get there, though, let's tell you about our website. It's ragtownreformed. com, and there's a lot of stuff you can do there. You can get transcripts of these messages, these podcasts. You can submit questions to us. You can submit episode ideas to us. What else can you do?
John Train:
Yeah, any resource we talk about in the episode will be linked there: books, scripture, you name it.
Gordan Runyan:
All right, sounds good. You can also find it at pretty much, I think, the podcast catcher of your choice will pop it up.
John Train:
Just search Ragtown Reformed. It should show up.
Gordan Runyan:
So we had a, I think it was to us, it was a surprising response to our first episode. I don't know if I've told you guys, but in two weeks we got more downloads and listens from the place where my sermons are posted. We got more downloads and listens in two weeks for episode one than anything else we've had up there. And so that's kind of exciting. I think today I looked and it was over 130 downloads and stuff. The sermons I post generally get around 30, and so... 130 is a big deal.
David Morris:
Yeah, big deal.
Gordan Runyan:
Big deal. All right, Tom, I'm going to let you lead out on our discussion here. So what are we doing first?
Tom Miller:
Well, I had a loose, I guess, syllabus over what we would be going over week by week. And last week we discussed, the last time we met, we discussed that Reformed theology, in opposition to, let's say, dispensational theology, is God-centered. Not only is God the center of the universe, but He is the center of what we believe.
Gordan Runyan:
Sure.
Tom Miller:
And as a shadow topic, I wanted to talk about the fact that God is the foundation of what we believe as well. That this is, I guess you'd call it, the facet of the first discussion. But we do not base what we believe as Reformed theologians and even just Reformed students on feelings or situations or trends or the going population, but God is the foundation of everything we believe. And one of the bywords that I like to hang my hat to in this general subject, which can be very greatly summed up by the aseity of God, or God's—A oneness. The fact is, he doesn't need anybody.
David Morris:
Right.
Tom Miller:
The aseity of God is that God is alone in the universe as himself.
John Train:
That word is A-S-E-I-T-Y.
Tom Miller:
Yes.
John Train:
Aseity.
Tom Miller:
Believe me, it took me a while to find it in the Funk& Wagnalls, because I didn't know how to spell it. I tried to sound it out, and I guess I'm too much of a hillbilly. But I always teach my congregations, when I discuss the aseity of God and Him being the foundation alone, in other words, there is not an equal or opposite foundation than God.
John Train:
Right.
Tom Miller:
You know, I'll go along with Newton that for every action force there is an opposite but equal reaction force, because I used to be an Army aviator. But when it comes to the aseity of God, or the fact that He is our foundation alone, not only does that mean that we build on Him alone, but nothing ever happens to God.
David Morris:
Amen.
Tom Miller:
God makes things happen.
John Train:
Right.
David Morris:
Yeah.
John Train:
That'll preach. Write that one down. That'll preach. Yeah.
David Morris:
Not only does nothing happen to God, but nothing surprises God either. That's right. Everything that happens is, it don't blow him off his horse like it does us.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
Tom Miller:
Right. And the reason that I like to bring that up, and why it is part of the aseity of God, is the fact that we have a large portion of what they call themselves Christendom that believes, number one, that Israel was Plan A.
Gordan Runyan:
Sure.
Tom Miller:
But Israel didn't come out right. So the church is Plan B. But those of us who God is the foundation of what we believe and teach, there is no Plan A and Plan B. There is only Plan God.
David Morris:
Amen.
John Train:
I was telling my son the other day, we were talking about God's sovereignty, His providence, right, predestination, how comprehensive God's plan is. And I used as an illustration, you know, does God know that you're going to go to the fridge tomorrow and choose the vanilla yogurt and not the orange yogurt? And I explained biblically, yes, He not only knows, but He has written that into the plan of what's going to occur. And there's some professing believers that their God does not know what flavor yogurt you're going to choose tomorrow. He's going to learn that when you do it. And that's, I think, a woefully sub-biblical conception of who God is. Yeah. His greatness.
Gordan Runyan:
If your God is learning things about the future as they happen, then your God's knowledge is never complete. He never—He's always learning. He's always growing. And so to speak of God's omniscience as some kind of perfection, it can never be that if He's gaining information as we go.
David Morris:
Right.
John Train:
If that's who God is, how could we trust any of His promises?
David Morris:
There you go. I was going to say, how do you hook an anchor onto a rock that moves?
Tom Miller:
Right.
David Morris:
How can there be a future?
Gordan Runyan:
Somebody write that down.
Tom Miller:
For you, if the Creator doesn't already know the future, or I think more Reformed to me, God has already laid the future. My living it is window dressing.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
David Morris:
Yeah. Right. There you go.
Gordan Runyan:
God doesn't know the future because he's foreseen it. He knows it because he's an actor in it. He's one of the people doing things.
John Train:
His story, right?
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
David Morris:
Yeah, he's producer, director, star, and writer of it all.
Tom Miller:
What I like to point out is in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6, the second part of the verse is more apropos to what I'm saying, but it says, And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists. So hence, what's the foundation stone of what we believe as Reformed theologians? That God alone is the subject of all of it.
John Train:
Right. Right.
Tom Miller:
That he exists and that he rewards those who what? Earnestly seek him. Yeah. I'm not earnestly seeking the next spine tingle. I can do that with horror movies. Right. Or a good scary book. Out of my God, I want this firm foundation.
Gordan Runyan:
Sounds like you're running really close up against the idea that our faith is revelatory, revealed. We didn't come up with this. We didn't put it together from the available clues. It was handed to us by God. He's the only one who could. And to me, that's important. It's a revealed faith, and that has issues for how you receive it.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, I think that I'd have to say that Dr. Kim Riddlebarger has written on the subject, and like me, he can get on his high horse. And Christianity is an objective faith, not a subjective faith.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
Tom Miller:
An objective faith is handed to us. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
John Train:
We don't worship at the altar of the unknown God. Right.
Tom Miller:
No.
John Train:
Our God has spoken.
Tom Miller:
Nor is my God left-handed today and tomorrow right-handed.
John Train:
There you go. So what other scripture would you bring up to demonstrate God's self-sufficiency, right, his separation from everything he's made? He's not dependent on anybody. For just one, I'd go with Isaiah 44, verse 24, right?
Tom Miller:
Yes.
John Train:
Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb: I, Yahweh, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone.
Tom Miller:
I start in Genesis, where God created the universe, and he saw that it was good. Only an alone, aseitic Creator God can pronounce his own creation good. That would be the subjective opinion of someone else. Well, God, as he told Job, I did this by myself.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. Yeah. The other passage that's like that for me is Psalm 50, where God says to the wicked who claim to be believers, If I was hungry, I would not tell you. I own all of the things, and I can feed my own self. I don't need you to be. And even if I was hungry, I wouldn't have to tell you about it. Right.
David Morris:
Yep.
Gordan Runyan:
And that's a big deal, just the self-sufficiency of God is—that may not be the way the Reformers talked about it, but he's self-sufficient. He doesn't need help. He doesn't need our efforts at ministry. Don't add anything to him or even to his plan. You know, it's our privilege to be counted in and included, but we're not adding anything to God. No. I had a shipmate in the Navy, happened to be a female, and she was convinced every time she sinned, she hurt God's feelings. And I don't know if you run into that, but just observing that from the outside, just as a friend, I could say— She was never happy. She was always feeling like, you know, Oh, I hurt God's feelings. And I just finally told her one time, No, you sinned, and you just need to repent, be sorry for it, and let's move forward from here. God's a big boy. He doesn't need you to coddle him or,
John Train:
you know, nurse him back to health.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, you know.
David Morris:
Yeah. Isn't that a— wouldn't that be a scary way, or maybe even a sad way to live your life?
Tom Miller:
Absolutely.
David Morris:
You know, because you would never be able to, as I like to say, wake up on top of the world. You could never get there if you were thinking that every time you turned around, you were causing sin or causing Jesus or God to be hurt or, you know, that you're going to have to crucify him all over again. You know, that just don't make sense to me.
Gordan Runyan:
Why worship a God who is that vulnerable, right, who can be so easily hurt?
Tom Miller:
Yeah. And how can we believe in a God-centered universe and faith if he isn't exactly what and who he says he is? I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Only a God of oneness, aloneness, can make that claim, because he has no rivals.
John Train:
Right. Only that kind of God can declare the end from the beginning, right?
Tom Miller:
Exactly. I don't want to throw rocks at anybody's house, but in the Roman Church's Catechism, Mary being an intercessor between man and Jesus, the intercessor, and then God. God is not alone. He has rivals. Not only does he have rivals, he has advisors. But the Creator of the universe, who is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, cannot have rivals or advisors or counselors.
John Train:
The Roman Catholic saints definitely ape the divine prerogatives, right, and attributes even. Right.
Tom Miller:
And so then that destroys the aloneness and the oneness of our God. Now here's one I want to throw out for everybody's enlightenment. He is the fullness of the revelation. Sure. Who wants to add anything to that? He, God, is the fullness of the revelation.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, it reminds me of the first couple of verses in Hebrews. Wasn't that long ago I preached on them, and it says that God spoke in many ways in various times to the fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. And that doesn't just mean that Jesus was speaking the words of God and revealing things about God, but that Jesus himself is the revelation of God. He is the message. He's the content, but he's also the carrier and the deliverer of the message. But he's the content. God is the content of the revelation.
David Morris:
That's right.
Tom Miller:
So here's my other dog bone to throw out. If that is all true, and I believe it is—
David Morris:
Yes, sir.—
Tom Miller:
do we need fresh revelation?
John Train:
No. No, I mean the scriptures are sufficient to equip the man of God, fully equip him, right, for every good work. And the canon's closed. We're not looking for any more books to be written.
Gordan Runyan:
That's right.
John Train:
We've got what we need, essentially.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
David Morris:
If you use the scriptures as you're supposed to, and by saying that I mean, if you study the scriptures, and I forget who it is that uses the term knee-ology, but if you use that scripture like you're supposed to, and you use knee-ology like you're supposed to, then your connection with God is going to be a firmer foundation. It's not going to, you know, but it will be that you can have some new guidance in your life. But there's nothing—I mean, there's no need for new books.
John Train:
The Spirit applies the scripture to your situation.
David Morris:
Right, exactly.
John Train:
I was going to say that.
David Morris:
That's exactly right. See, there's, you know, when you're using the scriptures and you're reading them and you're putting them in your heart, then you have no need for other books or other revelations except what God's going to give you through the commentaries, or, you know, He may tell you to read another book. Who knows? But I was thinking earlier today, somehow or another, and what come to my mind is Scripture, the Bible, and its commentaries are good enough. You know, you don't have to have other books. But that's also like saying, okay, so here I've got this job, I can make$ 3, 000 a month. But over here's this job that I can make$ 5, 000 a month. So why would you want to not do the best you can? So the Bible works the same way. You've got to get into it with a learning attitude and a giving attitude to give everything over to Christ so that everything that He's got for you, you can get it.
Gordan Runyan:
You're saying there's some amount of diligence that's expected of the one who wants to hear from God.
David Morris:
Right, I do. And I believe that, and I also believe that, I believe that you will come across books, like John's always talking about books that he's read and how interesting, and I love that. I mean, I haven't read them, and I haven't, you know, I don't have that ability to just go read like he does. But I think that's so awesome because not only is he taking the scriptures that he's got, but he's putting some other— he's not changing Christian theory or anything like that. But he's just getting more education in certain areas sometimes, and that's what we're supposed to do, get more education.
Tom Miller:
Yeah. The only addition I would make to using the scriptures would be, I believe in applying the scriptures.
David Morris:
Applying them, that's right.
Tom Miller:
You know, I may have the handbook on changing the transmission in my car, but those are no good until I apply them. In other words, I can just go out there and start tearing down. Boy, I better have a big credit card because I'm going to break some stuff. I need to apply the scriptures.
David Morris:
Yeah, and take that one step farther because I also have pulled transmissions, but I also had a good teacher, and said, What does the scriptures do for you? See, I had, in the realm of pulling transmissions, I had a good teacher. He taught me a lot about a lot of stuff on a car, but yet that's what we got scripture for.
Tom Miller:
Well, that's also why God raises up pastor teachers.
David Morris:
Yep, that's right.
Gordan Runyan:
And the Holy Spirit is supposed to lead you in those.
David Morris:
Yes.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, y'all were talking about pulling the trannies, and it reminded me of a book that Dr. John Frame wrote several years ago, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, and he made the point—it was, I think it was a minor point in the book, but I thought it was really good to just have somebody come out and say it—but he made the point that there's a certain type of knowledge we gain... From the Scriptures by walking it out. That just like y'all, you can read all day about changing the transmission, but I bet you knew how to do it a lot more than what the book said because you actually did it at one point. And truthfully, it's a real thing, and it makes us nervous because it's a little bit less objective. But the truth is that as we walk in the things that we have received in the Scripture, we are going to subjectively grow in knowledge just through that experience, and that's all by design. That's how God teaches us. I just find that fascinating, that there's something about doing it that makes you understand it more than a classroom full of—
John Train:
Your head knowledge, right? Yeah. Pure theoretic, pure theory.
Tom Miller:
Well, also, God has raised up pastor-teachers who have applied the Word to help learners, disciples, also to apply the Word. Yep. I had those before me, and I've had others below me, and I continue to impart application to those who, as our Hebrews scripture says, earnestly seek Him.
Gordan Runyan:
Can I ask you a question that may— I don't want to destroy the flow here, but it's a personal question for me because my— My own experience of seeking to follow God is that I don't think that I've ever heard His voice say anything to me. I've never heard anything like that. And I do hear a lot of my fellow Christians talk about, Well, then the Lord said this to me, and the Lord led me to do this, and I'm not sure I can point to a lot of that. But what I do know is that after praying about something at night, I'll very often wake up in the morning with just new thoughts and new way of realizing that, oh, what I needed was this Bible verse right here to come in and illuminate my situation. For me, that's the surest way that I think I'm hearing revelation knowledge from God.
Tom Miller:
Yes.
Gordan Runyan:
I think it does take the ministry of the Holy Spirit to take that objective Word of God and rightly apply it to subjective situations that are around us. It's a prophetic thing, really, when the Holy Spirit comes to you and shows you, Now is when this verse applies, and now is when this verse applies, and here's how you walk that out. I think that's a prophetic thing. Yes. And I don't think we need to shy away from those words, titles.
Tom Miller:
No, and sometimes He uses other saints.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
Tom Miller:
I was going to drop out of Bible college because I was having doubts about myself and about my calling, and a ministry opportunity come up and I seized it, and—The one who is actually over me, you know, bishoping me, says, I better not hear another word about you quitting, because you just demonstrated your call in a shepherd's concern for one of the sheep. That's not by accident. You can't learn it. And occasionally, you have a question, and God has left you all that He needs to say to you, but you still don't get it. He'll send someone who does with the right words that all of a sudden the code is broken.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, that's what it's like sometimes. Yeah.
David Morris:
Yeah, I mean, I've, as a handyman and a heavy equipment operator and mechanic, whatever have you that I've done in my lifetime, I know that there have been times when I would go to bed troubled about something that I wasn't getting, you know, I wasn't getting it. I didn't have the fix for it. But in the night, or in the night I would wake up and just say, Well, that was off the plane. I should have seen that. Well, I really believe that that was the Spirit getting in touch with my headache, you know, and saying, Hey, hard-headed guy, if you just listen and let me get to you and talk to you a little bit, I can show you how to do this. And so, you know, I truly believe that. He does a lot more. I don't know how to say it, but he does a lot more inside you than he does where you hear it in your ear, is what I'm trying to say.
Tom Miller:
In the military, we call this one-on-one training.
John Train:
Yeah, wall-to-wall counseling.
Tom Miller:
And because I have had—I can't be the only one at this table who has ever had a question about something, and you're really trying to bury the question because you're embarrassed you ever asked it. And you're doing your daily devotions, and you run into something, and here the answer to your question is as plain as the nose on your face, and you say, Yes, Lord, I got it.
David Morris:
Got it this time.
John Train:
That was beautiful.
Tom Miller:
So God does speak to you.
David Morris:
Yes, he does.
Tom Miller:
But not with his audible voice. And on the other hand, I ask this question to people who are seeking God's voice speaking to them: Do you really understand what you're asking for? When Moses came down from the mountain, he was a physical wreck.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
Tom Miller:
Because fallen man is not supposed to be in the presence of the thrice holy God. We're not made for it.
John Train:
Israel begged not to hear the voice anymore, right? That's why they sent Moses up the mountain so he could do the talking for them. They were filled with fear and trembling. Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
In the Bible, the more clearly you hear God's voice, the more likely you are to get murdered because of it.
Tom Miller:
Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
Which is fine. Just, you know, know what you're asking for. I mean, master what God has given us first, you know, and then be open to hearing an audible voice, you know. Yeah, I feel the same way about, like, Bible codes where—People are looking for hidden meaning in the scriptures of, like, just master what it says on the page. Then we can talk about hidden meanings after that.
John Train:
Just every third letter, you know, if you jump five lines.
Tom Miller:
Well, we've already jumped from the original subject to sola scriptura, so we might as well pursue it as long as we are still able and, you know, continue on that. I think there's only one source for our understanding of this foundational truth of the aseity of God, and that would be the Word of God, wouldn't it?
John Train:
That's right. You know, part of what that doctrine means is God didn't create because he was compelled to or lacked something. He wasn't lonely and needed companionship. He's totally self-sufficient from all eternity.
Gordan Runyan:
Within the Trinity, he had all the companionship that he needed,
Tom Miller:
right?
Gordan Runyan:
God the Father had two other infinite persons to commune with.
David Morris:
Yeah, and being part of the Trinity, what more could he have asked for? You know, it was out of his good grace and mercy and ideas to create the world under his plan. But he didn't have to do that.
Gordan Runyan:
No, he didn't have to do that. I think that's part of the aseity doctrine, is he doesn't do anything because he has to.
John Train:
That's what makes it so astounding that he's bringing rebels into fellowship with himself out of no need to do so, just purely of grace.
Gordan Runyan:
That's what makes the whole salvation story so amazing.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, it's also, we're talking about books and such things. We also do need sometimes the wisdom of those who have gone on before. And I'm sitting here thinking of the Catechism. What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy His fellowship forever. What's the first reason He created us? His
John Train:
glory. You know, on that note, this popped in my brain, but a few years ago, the late Pastor Tim Keller made a little hay on Twitter with a controversial statement. This is what he said. He said, The God of the universe became a wiggling baby in order to get close to you. All right.
Tom Miller:
Isn't that sweet?
John Train:
That's kind of that sickly sweet sentimentality that Pastor Gordan here was mentioning last Sunday. So if you can get past that, I mean, I'm sure it could be read in a charitable way. I mean, the incarnation is a great marvel, right, that God Himself would become one like us.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, the incarnation is certainly extolled and exhaustively taught in that dribble.
John Train:
Yes. So there is the marvel of the incarnation, certainly, but God didn't do that in order to get close to you, you know. He did that to glorify himself, the redemption of his chosen people, right? To magnify his name, demonstrate his incredible power, right?
Gordan Runyan:
Part of that God-aloneness has to be, who is the Bible really about,
John Train:
right? You know, and yeah,
Gordan Runyan:
we're so zealous to make it be about me.
John Train:
This statement,
Gordan Runyan:
right,
John Train:
makes it about you, Christian, right? God did all this just for you, right? And that's shifting the focus of where the Bible places it, right?
David Morris:
See, we have probably already said it three or four times, I don't know, but we believe that God created the world because he had a plan. He sent Jesus to Earth not for me or you, but he had a plan. And Jesus had to be a virgin birth to help make this plan good. And not only that, he walked on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, and then another plan was put into action, and that was taken care of. And then on the cross, Jesus said, It is finished. And so that didn't mean God's plan stopped right there, but it means that the fulfillment of God's plan from the beginning of the world till Jesus comes at the end of the world, the plan has been laid out and is finished. Everything is going to take its place.
Tom Miller:
Well, St. Paul's put it probably the best, that Christ came so God could have a people of his own.
David Morris:
You're right.
Tom Miller:
Not a nation. He wasn't raising any flags.
David Morris:
No.
Tom Miller:
He was calling a royal priesthood, a peculiar people.
David Morris:
Yep.
John Train:
And the whole focus is his kingdom, right? The kingdom of God,
David Morris:
right.
John Train:
That's what history is marching forward to.
David Morris:
Yeah.
John Train:
And, you know, we can marvel at how God condescends, you know, stoops down and deals with us, but that should shift the focus to us, right? We should marvel that such a great being is willing to do that so readily. Yeah. Focus should always stay on him,
David Morris:
especially. It's only on God. I mean, it should—everything should point to God and only God, because outside of God, everything is vain and empty, useless.
Gordan Runyan:
Yep. Well, you know, one of the atheist objections is if you really believe that God is self-contained and self-sufficient and does all these things, then who made God? If, you know, God made everything, who made him? And because we insist that design points to a designer in nature, and creation itself points to a creator, and so their comeback is, Well, who made God then? If everything has to be made, who made God? But we're talking about the uncaused first cause, the original mover of all things, and I think that's super important.
Tom Miller:
Mm-hmm.
Gordan Runyan:
And the Christopher— it wasn't Christopher Hitchens, but... Richard Dawkins, he believed that whole who made God thing was an unanswerable thing. It's so ridiculous to think of a God who is unmade, according to Richard Dawkins. But then, on the other hand, he thinks all the universe is unmade and eternal, and nobody made it. So he thinks we're on the hook for an unmade eternal God, but he's just fine with an unmade eternal universe full of matter.
John Train:
Oh, unbelievers do that all the time. They shift divine attributes to created things, right? Created institutions even.
Gordan Runyan:
Absolutely.
Tom Miller:
Yes. For the same reason that God became a wiggly little baby in the manger, so that he's a market basket God. I can put God in my market basket, and I can tote him where I want, and I can leave him home when I don't want him around.
John Train:
Right. And Jesus is not the wiggly baby anymore.
David Morris:
Right. Sure,
John Train:
and he certainly won't be when he returns.
Gordan Runyan:
No.
Tom Miller:
Nor was he sent here to be the wiggly baby. He was sent here to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
David Morris:
That's right.
John Train:
Contrary to Talladega Nights, you know, we don't pray to little baby Jesus in the manger.
David Morris:
Right.
Tom Miller:
Well, if you can find me in the New Testament anywhere that the celebration of his birth is commanded to be celebrated, what celebration did he command us to keep?
John Train:
The Lord's Supper.
Tom Miller:
The Lord's Supper, a remembrance of His vicarious death on the cross and His resurrection to glory. That's what we're supposed to celebrate. So that shows us that we want to refocus the focus of our worship from an all-knowing, inerrant, aseitic God to one we can carry around like we used to carry around our idols.
John Train:
Convenient pocket God, right?
Gordan Runyan:
Yep. What's next on your agenda, Pastor Tom?
Tom Miller:
You want to talk about the fact we're committed to sola fide?
Gordan Runyan:
Let's see. We've been at this for about 45 minutes, 41 minutes.
John Train:
Sounds like a good stop. Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
Opening up that doctrine as a kind of, well, not worms, but we're going to have to...
John Train:
Glorious worms.
Tom Miller:
Manna.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, there you go.
John Train:
Bread from heaven.
Gordan Runyan:
All right, so we'll go ahead and end then, and make sure you visit our website again.
David Morris:
It's
Gordan Runyan:
ragtownreformed. com. There's a lot of stuff you can do there. Visit us on YouTube at Immanuel Baptist Church is the channel there. And anything else?
John Train:
That's it. That's it.
Gordan Runyan:
Contact us. Let us know. We'll talk at y'all later. God bless y'all. Thanks, guys, for joining. Appreciate you.
David Morris:
Thank you.