SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Effective ministry, discernment, Roman Catholicism, Protestant Reformation, five Solas, Scripture alone, spiritual authority, doctrinal preaching, gospel message, church growth, false gospels, prayer discipline, New Covenant, Mosaic law, pastoral encouragement.

SPEAKERS: Cory Piatt, Dave Harrell

Cory Piatt  

Hello and welcome to the Fortified podcast with author and pastor, Dr David Harrell. We're delighted you're here. Well as Christians, what is to be our central message in ministry? In this internet age in which we now live, there seems to be a steady stream of new ideas, opinions and doctrines that all vie for our attention in seeking to answer the question, what is the chief end of man? There is no shortage of answers out there. And because we're faced with so much data each and every day, it can be easy to get distracted and take our eyes off of that which really matters in light of eternity. Well, as we continue our chapter-by-chapterexamination of Dave's book, Seven Key Principles for Effective Ministry, today, we'll be looking at principle number four, namely, that we must be controlled by one message; and we'll see how God, in His Word, can give us discernment to know truth from error. In the midst of this age of informational overload, as always, we pray you're edified by this conversation, and we hope you enjoy.

Cory Piatt  

Well, as of this recording, Dave, we are about 12 days past the introduction of the new bishop of Rome, Pope Leo, the 14th. Now, according to Roman Catholicism, he's considered a successor to the apostle Peter, who, in their mind, they believe him to be the first pope due to a misreading of Matthew 16. Now, within Catholic theology, there are three distinct sources of authority: scripture, tradition and the magisterium, which is a word that simply refers to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. You begin the chapter in the book by reminding us of the triumph of the truth in church history during the Protestant Reformation. And the rallying cry for the Reformers was the five Solas, which is a kind of doctrinal summary of the gospel. A person is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone, all according to scripture alone. Now that last point there referring to our singular authority as Christians - scripture alone. My question is, why is it so crucial that we hold the line on that point, Dave, and not allow for other sources of authority, as in the case of our Roman Catholic friends?

Dave Harrell  

It's very important because man is fallible, and we are to guard ourselves against the wisdom of man and depend solely upon the wisdom of God. I mean, there's so many passages that speak to this issue. I think Jude three, for example, we are told that we need "to contend earnestly for the faith that was once and for all given to the saints," right? And as soon as you move away from the canon of Scripture -- what God has revealed in his inspired, infallible, authoritative, inerrant, all-sufficient word--once you move away from that, then you're allowing poison to enter into all of these great theological truths, and at that point Satan can do his mischief. And you know, I think when Jesus was going to the cross in John 17, he prayed to the Father, "Father, sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth." And again, so many other passages that warn us against the wisdom of man and the way Satan can deceive. He's the father of lies and certainly one of the primary ways he brings deception into our lives is by questioning, distorting the truth. I mean, it began back in the garden, didn't it? And it continues to this day. And certainly, if you look at Roman Catholicism, which in many ways, is a Mary cult; it is just so errant on so many fronts. It's hard to even know where to begin, but you see that it is truly a false religious system. It is an apostate religious system; a system of works righteousness, if you will. And so as soon as you allow tradition and the magisterium and all ofthose things in along with the word, who's going to be the final arbiter here? Is it going to be scripture? Is that our authority? Or is it going to be scripture plus tradition, Scripture plus what the church has taught, which is many times in contradiction of itself, right? Or what the Pope has said ex cathedra. Of course, there's a big mess right now, even within Roman Catholicism, with the whole trans and LGBTQ you just go on and list the things where they're all fighting amongst each other, and so that's what you run into. So to answer your question, I mean, we've got to hold the line on the authority of Scripture, and not deviate from that, because as soon as you do, you open yourself up, you open your own heart up, you open your church up, to all kinds of error that the enemy would love to bring in to the church, and then gradually begin to distort things. We begin to compromise and then you got one group going off here and another group going off here, and it's a mess, so we have to hold the line.

Cory Piatt  

And I'm reminded of in Deuteronomy 13; we have one of the tests given for how we can evaluate whether or not someone is a legitimate prophet in the Old Testament. And that test in Deuteronomy 13 reveals that even if what this person says comes to pass, but they lead you after another god, they're to be rejected as a false prophet. So you have that principle really playing out, even into Acts where the Apostle Paul commends the Bereans, for example, for testing his word against scripture. And man, it’s so helpful and just so I'm clear on what you're not saying when we refer to Scripture as our sole authority. You're not saying that we can't read other sources or avail ourselves of other resources, right?

Dave Harrell  

Right. I think the key word is authority. Our spiritual authority has to be the word of God. It is God breathed. It is inspired by him, and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, training in righteousness, etc. But of course, there are many other resources out there that that can speak into our lives and elaborate even more on the great truths that the word of God has given us. But the real key is the authority, and scripture has to be the final arbiter in all of that and that's why, if you look at the beginning of Philippians, if you look at even the beginning of Colossians, you'll see how the apostle Paul, for example, prayed that the people would have the knowledge of Christ  In the original language, the epigenosin - the term that it has a preposition in front of gnosin, which means knowledge - that little preposition would expand it so it's like the full, thorough, complete knowledge. And you go to Ephesians four, you get the same thing and in so many places. So we have to have the full knowledge of who God is, just doctrinally in his Word. And then once you have that, then isn't it wonderful to read about church history? Isn't it wonderful to read how God has worked in so many other avenues through his church. And then, of course, there's all the things that we have in science and music and so many other things. Second Peter one three, says that He has "granted unto us all things pertaining to life and godliness," and it's through the knowledge of him, so that has tobe foundational. But we all need to be reading other things; I don't mean other things in terms of to find out a different gospel. We have to guard against that, but we need to be reading great theological works that help expand upon what God has said in his word. And I love to do that. I encourage everybody to do that. I know you do that.

Cory Piatt  

Amen, yeah, it's a blessing. We stand on the shoulders of those.

Dave Harrell

Don't we though? Absolutely and so there's so many wonderful works out there. But again, our authority has to be the inspired, inerrant Word of the living God.

Cory Piatt  

Thank you, brother. As we as we think about this chapter again, principle number four, which is that we are to be controlled by one message, you argue here that in the chapter that we should be controlled by that message. I guess I'd give you the opportunity, what is the message that we're to be controlled by? And then, why is it central to our work in the ministry?

Dave Harrell

Well, the message we have to be controlled by is the word of truth, which is the gospel. In fact, you will see that phrase used in a number of places in the New Testament. And so our message has to be Christ and Him crucified. And when you think about God's self-disclosure in Scripture, you know he didn't write all of that and disclose who he is in all of his glory just to tell us a story, but rather, it's to demonstrate his holiness and his plan of redemption that would ultimately bring him glory. So all of Scripture combined is the gospel, ultimately; it's the word of truth, and so that has to be our message. Now, that doesn't mean that you always just preach on soteriology, all right? That you always just give an evangelistic sermon, but it means that you preach as Paul did, the whole counsel of God. And that's why, like right now, we're in Zechariah eight - I think maybe last week I finished chapter eight - but wherever you go in Scripture, even in the prophets, in the Old Testament, you see the glory of God and his plan of redemption and restoration of the kingdom, and all of these things fitting together. So they're interwoven in a way that produces a beautiful tapestry, which is the good news of Christ and him crucified, and the need for us to come to him in saving faith. So that has to be the message, so when we get up to preach, the message can't be, let's just talk about politics, or let's talk about self-esteem or let's exegete the latest movie, right? But rather, let's look into the riches of the word. Let's examine what is there. And when you do that, flowing out of that will come these magnificent truths that speak to the glory and the greatness of our God and the joy of knowing Christ, the power of his transforming grace and the hope of our of redemption - the plan of the ages. You can't plumb the depths of it. And so that has to be the theme. And if it's not there, then you will find, as many preachers do, people just talking about superficial silliness, things that just don't really matter that much, and real shallow types of topics. As I say, shallow as water on a plate, or as shallow as frost on a pumpkin. It's those types of things. And it's like everybody's heard all this before and instead, what we've got to do is dig into the Word and give people the riches of what an exposition will reveal. Otherwise, you literally banish people to an island of spiritual infancy because they just don't know the word, and we need to grow in the grace and the knowledge of God and so forth.

Cory Piatt  

I'm reminded, you alluded to Second Timothy three, that great text on the inspiration of Scripture, all of it being God breathed. And then, and it's benefit to us. And then right after that, that a man might be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. And then he goes on in chapter four to say, now I charge you preach the word.

Dave Harrell

Absolutely. Yeah, so this isn't an option. I mean, this is what God has called us to do, and to do it in season and out of season, you know? And it's really out of season, right? In fact, it's always been out of season for the most part, because people hate the gospel. I mean, nobody likes to hear that all that they are and all that they do is fundamentally offensive to a holy God, and that because of your depravity, you are absolutely unable to save yourself, and the only thing you can do is cry out to God to save you and place your faith in his provision for your salvation, which is the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I mean, that's the good news, but people don't want to hear the bad news. They'd rather hear how good we are and how we've been a victim, and we need to change society so that we can feel better about ourselves. And then it all gets off and then you get all these ridiculous gospels that are out there - prosperity gospel, which is rooted, rooted in the garden, and the social gospel and all ofthis silly stuff that's just such a distortion.

Cory Piatt  

Well, we'll get into some of those distortions to the gospel in a little bit here, but before we do, let me ask you this, early in the chapter, you explain some of the historical context for the book of First Corinthians, explaining the way in which many philosophers within the city of Corinth would gain power and influence as a result of their oratory skill or persuasive speech, contrasting this worldly method of growth with that of the apostle Paul, whose message was uncompromising and whose manner was unconventional. I wonder if you could comment briefly on the tendency that many have in the ministry to seek church growth as the end goal and thus may employ these extra biblical or worldly tactics in order to accomplish that. And then as a follow up, was that ever a tendency that you faced in your own heart, your own ministry, and if so, how'd you address it.

Dave Harrell  

Okay, Boy, that's a question and a half. I've certainly been tempted with that over the years, but I've tried, by God's grace, to avoid that. But let me back up. When you think of Corinth, for example - and I was just there in the ruins of Corinth not too many months ago - it was a vile, wretched place. And you’ve got all of the Roman and Greek mystery religions going on and then you've got some Jews there; most of it was apostate. To come in and to preach the gospel, it’s like, how's anybody ever going to hear this, right? And by the way, the answer to that is, it's solely by the sovereign grace of God that anybody would ever be saved. But anyway, what was interesting was what was going on culturally there. Since they didn't have televisions and Hollywood and all that, what they had were great orators and great philosophers that would come in and they would speak. And they even used to practice with rocks in their mouth to be able to say things clearly and powerfully. And people would pick which orator they liked the best and which philosophy they liked the best. And it became very sectarian. Which, by the way, was part of the problem. Some of these people got saved, they brought it into the church and be saying, "I am of Apollo," all of that type of thing. And sopeople, for entertainment, would go hear these men, these great orators, talk about whatever issue they believed in and they would get people to follow them, and everybody gets worked up.

Dave Harrell  

Don't we see this in our own politics, you know? You know, guys can say things that's just utterly stupid, but because of the way he's saying it, people are just excited and carrying on. And so anyway, you would think that Paul would say, okay, this is the method that gets their attention right? So I need to to speak that way, I need to learn to conduct myself in that way and be a great orator in order to present the gospel. Because, after all, the real key for people believing in the gospel is in the preacher. You're laughing because, yeah it's not in the preacher at all. It's in the power of the message. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to the Jews and to the Greeks and so forth. So what did he do? He tells us very clearly, in First Corinthians, he said, "I determined to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified." And he wasn't a great speaker. In fact, they made fun of him, but God used that to absolutely change lives. And so the power is in the message preached, not in the preacher. And as soon as you start thinking that there is a better method for evangelism than preaching the gospel with all of its offense - and I'm not saying you preach it offensively; you want to be gracious and kind, but you've got to be authoritative - but as soon as you start thinking there's a better strategy for evangelism than preaching the gospel, which would become like the world in order to win the world; which is at the heart of evangelical pragmatism, seeker sensitive, all that type... as soon as soon as you start thinking that way, you're going to run into trouble. Now you can fill up stadiums with that. You can really attract a crowd with it. But there's a big, big difference between a crowd and a church. And as you see in the New Testament, God never affirmed, never commended, a church because of their size. He did so because of their faith and their love for him, and their sincerity of heart and the gospel and all of those types of things.

Dave Harrell  

I've been in ministry now for 40 years, the pastor of the same church for a little over 30 years and I've seen the power of the gospel to absolutely change lives. It changed my life, and it's changed many others; and it's also run a lot of people off. And that's God's deal. We are simply to sow the seed, and the seed that we sow has to be the seed of the gospel. Sometimes it's going to fall on soil where it won't grow. Sometimes it'll fall on some soil where it'll grow real fast, but it'll wither away because it wasn't real. But what we're never told to do is somehow come up with a hybrid seed that will grow in any soil, right? No, you sow the real seed, and God will cause it to germinate in the hearts of his elect that he has set his love upon in eternity past. And according to the efficacious call of the Spirit of God on their life, they will be saved. "All those that the Father has given Me will come to Me," Jesus said. Anyway, we can trust in the gospel. That's what Paul did. And that's why, I'm not sure how I put it in the book, it was his confidence in his soteriology, confidence in his understanding of the doctrine of salvation and therefore, the power of the gospel that really informed his methodology. His message is what informed his methods. And so his method was very unconventional. It wasn't like what everybody else was doing. But the reason it was unconventional is because he knew it didn't have anything to do with him. It had everything to do with the truth that the Spirit of God uses to bring conviction to sinners and save them by his grace.

Dave Harrell  

So now you were asking me, have I been tempted to do the seeker sensitive thing? Yeah, I have been, over the years and I've always fought it because I know down deep, it's going to produce the wrong results. Years ago, when I was at Moody Bible Institute, I was very close to Dr Culbertson, who was the president, and he had a great statement that I'll never forget. He said that "What you win them with; you win them too." And, and I've seen that by God's grace. Before I became a pastor, I was in biblical counseling for about 10 years, and I worked primarily with highly visible Christian leaders, a lot in the music industry, a lot of big-namepastors and organizations, and consulted for them and all of that. And I saw firsthand the hypocrisy and I saw the immorality. I saw firsthand what a distorted, compromised gospel can do. And, it was really horrifying to me, and God certainly used that to basically inform me: now you know what the Word says, so don't fall off into that pit like so many of these other people have done. And so guard yourself here, because it's always easy to say, well, let's come up with a new program or something really cool to get people to come to church and then maybe they'll get saved rather than, hey, let's just stay focused on the systematic, in depth, teaching, preaching and application of the word of God, and let God do what only he can do in the lives of the people. Build the church like that and trust in Him to do what only he can do. And he's been faithful to do that in our church, as you know, and in so many others.

Cory Piatt  

Man, one quote that I'm going to take away from this, I love what you said there that the Lord never commended a church for its size but for its faithfulness. Thank you, brother. Thanks for walking through that with me. If we could turn back now to discuss some of those errantgospels. You say, on page 96 after discussing heresies such as the prosperity gospel and the carnal Christian gospel, etc., you say, "The common denominator of all perverted gospels is that they make people's felt needs the center of gravity around which God's plan of redemption must orbit. With God playing second fiddle, man distorts the message of the gospel and creates what Jesus described as "a wide gate" and "a broad way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it," quoting Matthew 7:14. I wonder if you can, you've done so a little bit already, but I wonder if you could elaborate more on that point and help train our discernment as we seek to recognize and call out these false gospels before they come.

Dave Harrell

Well, of course, all false gospels are going to have the common denominator of some form of salvation by works that you're not really all that bad and you're really a victim and if you'll do these things, you know, you'll make the cut, some version of that. But so much of what we've seen in evangelicalism over the years, and I think that's probably the context - I forget what all I wrote, frankly - but it has been a very man-centered gospel, right? A man-centered church. You come into a lot of these churches, and the music is all very man centered. It's kind of "Jesus my boyfriend" type stuff, and it's very emotional. Rather than the music being used to express worship, it's used to induce some kind of worship, some kind of feeling. And so, you get people in an emotional state, and then you'll hear a whole lot of stuff about felt needs; that God wants you to have a great marriage. He wants you to feel good about yourself. And a lot of those things can be true, but it's all focused very much on the man. It's on man and his needs, rather than God and his glory. And so, rather than the emphasis being on the attributes of God - and what he's saying in the text, and how that applies to the big picture of redemption in our lives in general, and how we should yield ourselves to these truths - instead, that's kind of set aside over here, because nobody really wants to hear that stuff. It's a little too heavy. You know, we need something a little more therapeutic. We need to feel good about ourselves when we leave here. We need to hear how we've been mistreated and how God just loves us just like we are, and of course what people hear is, you really don't have to change that much; the whole idea of being broken and really repenting of our sins. I mean, you just don't hear that in a man centered church. But you'll hear a whole lot of stories, personal experiences. Oh, God did this. God did that. And the idea is that if you’ll just do some of these things, he's going to bless you the same way. And the poor guy sitting over there whose child is dying with cancer, is saying, "that's not working for me."

Dave Harrell  

And in fact, you brought up the Matthew seven - which let me just turn there - that's part of the of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew seven, he speaks to this whole thing of how you know, "Not everybody who calls Me 'Lord,’” verse 21, "will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven." And what's fascinating is, in this whole section here, he's talking about professing Christians. Doesn't mean they're possessing Christians, that they possess Christ, but they profess him. And as you look at it, you'll see that there he's talking about, "enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide in the way is broad that leads to destruction." And what we see in this text is that there's a contrast here. There's two ways:  there's the narrow and there's the broad. Both of them say this way to heaven, right? But only one of them is real. And there's two gates. There's the narrow gate of genuine repentance, and there's the wide gate of easy believeism and that's where the big crowd is; everybody's running through that gate. And then there's also two destinations. There's the destination of eternal life. There's the destination of destruction. There's two groups of people, the few versus the many, right? It's only the few that are going to enter; they're going to strive to enter into the narrow gate and the striving, the agonizing groaning of genuine repentance and acknowledging our desperate need for a Savior.

Dave Harrell  

So you've got two groups, the few and the many. And then he goes on, he talks about two trees, there's the good tree and the bad tree, and they produce two types of fruit, the good fruit and the bad fruit. And there's two professors of Christ, there's the sincere, and then the false; the true and the false. There are two builders, right? There's the wise and there's the foolish. And there's two foundations. One's building on a rock, the other is building on sand. And then there's two types of houses. One house is secure, one is insecure. So he's making this contrast. And the point with all of that is that so many people, and again, the few versus the many, he's saying that most people who profess Christ will never enter the kingdom because they've been self-deceived. And this whole man centered gospel is one of the greatest tools that the enemy has ever invented to deceive people. This idea that that somehow you can just make some lighthearted profession, and just kind of believe in Jesus and with no real repentance, no real remorse, no real brokenness over your sin, no real understanding of God's holiness and your sinfulness and the glory of the cross and what Christ really did. None of that, but, but rather just kind of a cultural Christianity, and you become a Christian in name only. And that's the real danger. You may, you may call him Lord, and you may do religious things, because he says "'Many will say to Me on that day,'" referring the Day of Judgment, "'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy,'' in other words, preach in your name, "...and in Your name, cast out demons and in Your name, perform many miracles.'" And he says, "'Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'" And so back to the topic here, a man-centered gospel will never save. Only a God centered gospel that exalts the glory, the holiness of God, and helps people see that they have offended a holy God and that they deserve his just wrath - which could be for eternity - but be solely because of his grace, you have an opportunity to be reconciled to him through faith in Christ. A faith that comes through genuine repentance, genuine humility and even that is a work of the Spirit. So anyway, that's going to be the true gospel. But so much of that gets watered down because it's offensive and so let's just kind of set that aside.

Dave Harrell  

In fact, I remember years ago, when I was teaching at Master's University, I had a seeker sensitive church call me and I'll never forget, they wanted me to preach. And I thought, oh, this is going to be interesting. And he said, there some concepts that we want you to avoid. We would prefer that you not talk about sin or repentance or about hell. And they had a few things like that. And I mean, right there, you just eviscerate the gospel? Because, you know, Jesus said that he sent the Spirit of God to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. I mean, what am I going to preach about? And so anyway, I'll never forget that. As I told the guy, I said, I think I'm out. I tried to explain to him a little bit, and I could tell it, it wasn't what he wanted to hear, and so I didn't go. 'll never forget it.

Cory Piatt  

That's wild. As you're discussing that, I'm just reminded of the Psalms. You know, the irony of that therapeutic gospel that promises a kind of comfort is that it's really robbing people of true comfort, lasting comfort and satisfaction in the understanding of who our God is. And so you think of the psalter, where you know Psalm 46 for example, where he says, "The Lord is," oh, I'm blanking now..."my refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. And he goes on to just extol the greatness of God. So that's the place where true comfort in the midst ofaffliction can be found, not in this counterfeit here.

Dave Harrell

And the counterfeit, certainly, in that whole prosperity gospel that that, "come to Jesus and you're going to be healthy, wealthy, successful," all that type of thing. Well, it didn't work out for Jesus, did it? It didn't work out for Paul. It didn't work out for Peter. I mean, you start going down the line; Hebrews 11. I mean, it's so powerful to people, and it fills stadiums. People in Africa, for example, you know, they see this prosperity gospel, which is essentially a Ponzi scheme. And they see this guy, man, he's got a plane, he's got a Mercedes and all this stuff,and I want to be like that. And that's why you have as many going out the back doors, coming in the front door with that whole thing, because after a while they realize it's phony. It's heart wrenching. What a wicked distortion of the gospel. That's why people that preach that type of thing are accursed, we read in Galatians.

Cory Piatt  

Well, brother, I've always appreciated your clarity on that issue. Let me ask you this, quoting you on page 98 you say, "The New Testament makes it clear that doctrinal preaching bathed in prayer is what God has ordained for the growth of his church" - what we've been talking about here. Would you give us some passages that demonstrate this and help us to understand what you mean by doctrinal preaching?

Dave Harrell  

Okay, and doctrinal preaching is essentially exegetical, expositional preaching. Where you're clearly communicating the authorial intent of the passage in its context and helping people understand the language - all of the technical aspects of it - but then doing it in such a way as to apply it to our lives. Passages... one of the first ones that comes to mind is in the qualifications for an elder in Titus one, and verse nine, he says that we need to "hold fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching." That is the apostolic teaching of Scripture, okay? So that that man can be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. We've got to be able to do that. There's a couple of other passages. I think of what Paul told Timothy in First Timothy four, verse 13, he says, "Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture," which, by the way, it's not just reading it, but expositing it, explaining it. It's more than we just read it, we explain it. The public reading of Scripture, and then also to exhortation. Which exhortation would be application. So you have reading, exposition, application, and he says, teaching. "Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching." And that is Titus one nine that I just read; that's sound doctrine. That's doctrinal teaching. Later on in verse 16, he says, "Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching." Again, your doctrine. "Persevere in these things. For as you do this, you will ensure salvation, both for yourself and for those who hear you." And so look at Peter's sermon. I mean, he was all over the place, just explaining great doctrinal truths; in Acts...you look at, obviously Jesus - anything that he taught - you look at Stephen, you look at Paul, you look at Peter. Like the book of Romans, my goodness, it was all doctrinal up until about chapter 12, then all of a sudden there's application, right?

Dave Harrell  

So I forget, I'm going off here on a tangent, but you asked me a question. I think it was about doctrinal preaching. What is it? That's what it is. And that's why it's important, because it's the rich truths of Bible doctrine that inform our conscience and animate our souls to a deeper level of worship, because the more we know who God is, the more we're just completely blown away and the more we can celebrate his grace. Now that's not to say that a child that doesn't understand a lot about Bible doctrine can't worship the Lord, or even an individual that hasn't been taught very much. Of course, they can. But boy, the more you know about who he is and what he's up to, and the more you see that opened up in the word; I mean it just takes you to a different level. I don't mean just intellectually, but I mean in terms of your worship, and that's why it's so important,

Cory Piatt  

Amen. Yeah, it's been well said that as our understanding of the truth of God's word goes deeper, our worship goes higher. Okay, well, let me ask you this, you mentioned Jude three earlier. So we've established that in our churches, we are to be controlled by one message, - the gospel of Christ and Him crucified - and we're to be devoted to systematic preaching and teaching of the doctrines of the faith, which we are called to contend earnestly for in Jude three. In contrast, you say on page 100 of your book, "Sadly, contending earnestly for the faith is now being defined by some evangelical leaders as creating a hostile environment that is injurious to the gospel. Such an errant position will continue to produce unimaginable forms of moral and religious compromise." Now I absolutely agree with that quote, Dave, however, is it possible to speak the truth in such a way that is damaging to the flock and ultimately, our witness to Christ, and how might we avoid erring in either direction?

Dave Harrell

Oh, yeah, you can. You can speak the truth in such a dogmatic, almost mean-spirited way that it drives people crazy. I mean, there's nothing more vicious than a young person who just discovered, you know, the doctrines of grace. And he's cramming tulips down everybody's throat. You know, there's some passages that that come to mind about this topic. First Thessalonians five. And this is really to all of us, but he says, and "We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly." Okay? Admonishes - "noutheteō" - the idea of counseling them; you confront them. It's like, you know, brother, look, this is what God is saying. This is what you're doing. Let me show you from the word, this is wrong, and I just want to call you to repentance here for your own good. To admonish means to instruct, it means to warn. So we're to admonish the unruly, and then he says, "encourage the fainthearted." By the way, the unruly are those people that are undisciplined. They're errant in their thinking. They're kind of lazy, those type of people. But he changes it here when it comes to the to the fainthearted, you encourage them. The fainthearted are those that are easily discouraged. And you know the difference, I mean, you got some people are just unruly. I mean, they're just, they're just all over the place. There's other people that just kind of timid, and they're just easily discouraged all the time.

Cory Piatt  

Man, I'm reminded of something you said Sunday; is someone who's living in unrepentant sin is going to live under divine chastening. I think something like that, you said, and so, you know, our desire is to see people grow in their love for Christ and in so doing, enjoy all the blessedness that comes along with that.

Dave Harrell  

And then it says, "help the weak." The weak here, in this context, is referring to those that are spiritually, morally weak, and then he says, "be patient with all men." Now, so when you're preaching, you may have some great doctrinal truth that you're presenting, but you want to realize that in your audience, out there, you're going to have the unruly - and at some level I want to admonish them in the context of what I'm saying - but I'm also going to have some that are faint hearted, and so I want to be careful with them. I'm to encourage them, all right? And then I'm going to have some that are just weak, and I just need to help them. I want to say things in such a way, and I'll say this a lot of times, "I hope this is helpful for you to understand"...that this and this and this will help you in that, you know, whatever. And then the real key here is "be patient with all men." So it's not like, you know, here have another tulip or whatever, you know, I'm making fun of that. In Ephesians as well, let me give you another passage. In Ephesians 4:2, well, let me begin in 4:1, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness and patience." Humility refers to lowly thinking. Be very humble as you communicate truths to people and "in all gentleness and with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love." And forbearance is an interesting term - and you want to keep this in mind when you're preaching great doctrinal truths that you know some people are struggling with, and they're going to resent you -  forbearance means to not only submit to an injustice, but to stay in it until the provocation is passed. Okay? And so you know, there's going to be people that I've had them come up to me after church, say, you know, I don't agree with that, because it says right here, and they want to pick a fight. And we're not going to do that. I want to be patient. Well, okay, that's an interesting perspective. Can I challenge you that, that perhaps what you're saying isn't right because of what the Word says here and there and maybe we can talk about this more later. What that's got to be my attitude. Now, if they get downright belligerent, I mean, there comes a time when a shepherd has to use his rod, but back to your question, my goodness, we have to be careful, even in our preaching. Galatians six, if you see someone that's in sin, we're to try to restore them in a spirit of gentleness. And we're to bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ, which is the law of love. And to bear their burdens, it doesn't mean commiserate with them in their misery, it means to help them as they're carrying their burden of sin that you've confronted them with; to help them deal with that. Brother, let's talk more about this issue, because what I want you to see are some of the magnificent ways that the Spirit of God has given us in His word that can help you deal with your pornography addiction or whatever it might be, right? And so in gentleness, I'm not going to come to him with guns blazing, and don't you know what God said, you know, whatever. And so I think your question was a good one. Something about, you know, do we have to be careful when we...yeah, we do.

Dave Harrell

Absolutely, I had an individual just recently, I mean, their life's a dumpster fire, okay? And, and when you hear the story, it's one of those things like, what were you thinking? I mean, and I think I used, I talked about this Sunday, you know, to talk with so many people, didn’t you not know that God would not want you to have done that? I mean, did that ever go through your mind? And of course, the answer is, well, I never really thought about it at the time, because they're not setting their mind on things above, you know, and all of those types of things. But anyway, even with those people, you want to come alongside them and say, man, some of the things that you've been doing are just so contrary to the Word and the will of God. And because of that, it's no wonder your marriage is a disaster. It's no wonder your kids are the way they are. It's no wonder, and you just start going down the list. I mean, God is not going to bless any of that because you're not honoring him in your life. And there has to come a point in time where you get serious and you truly come to a place of brokenness and repentance and start putting off and putting on and, you know, all those types of things. So that has to be the attitude with people, rather than some heavy handed...all it does is just drive people away or make them a rigid conformist. It'll either do that or make them a total rebel.

Cory Piatt  

Man, okay, well, you go on in the book, Dave, to describe the indispensable role of prayer in relation to preaching - we could probably say all of ministry -  setting the Lord Jesus as our supreme example in this, you point out how, although he was God incarnate, he nevertheless understood his utter dependence upon the Father and the Holy Spirit to carry out his work. I wonder if you would just elaborate on the role of prayer in preaching and in carrying out that work of the gospel ministry that we've been called to.

Dave Harrell  

Well, certainly Christ is our supreme example. And in his humanness, he relied solely upon the power of the Spirit of God to help him do what he did. And prayer is not just; I'm going to set aside an hour now and pray. I mean, there's times where it's an event, but more often than not, it's a constant attitude, especially when you're studying the Word. You're you know, when I study the Word, I'm just in communication with the Lord the whole time. It's not like I study some and then I'll talk with him. I mean this is him speaking, and Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and they follow Me." This is his voice, and so I'm interacting with him, but I have learned that the closet is more important than the library. You learn the word. And of course, we're always learning it. We're always learning more about it, but it's not so much I need prayer and understanding of the word, I do - and I'm always going to ask the Spirit of God to help me make sure I understand the text so I can communicate it accurately - but beyond that, Lord, my prayer is that somehow you will use your word to conform me more into the image of Christ, that it will speak to me and that by your power, people will hear in my voice what is truly in my heart, that I want to honor you with this. Lord, this is only something you can do. And soyou know that that's not just something you do every now and then, that's just kind of an ongoing attitude. It's like we’re told, pray without ceasing; it's that type of thing. And so it is very important that we spend time in prayer, and then also praying that the Lord will soften hearts, right? Because when the Word goes forth, it's either going to harden or soften hearts, one of the other, and that's going to be his deal. I just want to make sure that I'm crying, I'm pleading, you know, for those dear people that are under my care, that they might have a heart that's soft to the truth that they might be saved or sanctified, you know, depending upon where they are. Are they lost or are they saved?

Cory Piatt  

Right, okay, excellent brother. Well, you go on to say that it is the indispensable discipline of prayer that unleashes unfathomable spiritual power that alone can accomplish what man can never do. I love that you use the word discipline here, because in the midst of our busy lives, devoting time to personal communion with the Lord in prayer is often the first thing to go by the wayside. What encouragement would you give to the Christian or a pastor out there who's struggling in that discipline of prayer?

Dave Harrell  

Well, if you're struggling in the discipline of prayer, it means that there's something awry in your relationship with the Lord. You know, it's just like in my relationship with my dear wife. Now, 51 years, you know. If I'm not wanting to talk with her, if I'm not wanting to commune with her, there's something wrong. And so we need to get that worked out, whatever it is. I mean, she needs to straighten up (laughter). But my point is, if you're struggling with your prayer life, your relationship with the Lord is not what it needs to be, and you've allowed other things to distract you in subtle ways, that you may not be aware, your soul has gone in search of some other secret lover, whatever it might be, and it could be, video games or, I don't know, people can get distracted with all kinds of things, and you just get caught up in the busyness of life, your own family.  I remember one pastor told me that one of the things that almost destroyed his ministry was his son's soccer. Because they just got so caught up in with that, and they were spending all their time and money traveling all over the place to watch soccer games. But what I would say is you need to examine your heart before the Lord and see - where is there something broken in our relationship? And then along with that, I mean, there is a discipline there. I mean, Paul told Timothy, you need to discipline yourself for the sake of godliness. And so there has tobe a priority, a commitment; and everybody's going to be different. But for me, years ago, I developed the habit of just spending time alone with the Lord early in the morning, and that's usually when Jesus did it. And I thought, well, you know, I think I'll do it do it his way. But that's with the word, or something else that I'm reading, along with just communing with him. Lots of times with a cup of coffee. And those are precious times with him for me. And it's just like those precious times we would have with our wife, where let's go get something to eat, or honey, let's go for a walk, or let's sit on the porch. We've got all the things that we do to commune. We have to set those things aside and make them a priority. But if it's not a desire and it's just a duty, where it's like, oh boy, it's time for me to go work out, it's not going to last, right? And soyou have to figure out, why is this such a dude? Why is it that I don't want to commune with the lover of my soul? Why is it that I don't want to immerse myself in his Word and have him speak to me through it. I would also add that, if you're truly all about shepherding, and all of the duties that are part of that that God has commanded us to do, all of the one anotherings - discipleship, evangelism, all the counseling, sometimes the confronting - if you're not into all of that, then prayer won't be that important. But if you're dedicating yourself to that, you won't have to say, I need to take some time to pray. I mean, if the phone call comes and it's cancer, you don't say, "no big deal." No, all of a sudden there's a huge priority. What I'm trying to say is, when you're really ministering to people, there will be those phone calls all the time in terms of distress, conflict, problems, you're just dealing with things all the time, and because of that - because we're not made to deal with all of that - what do we do? We run to the Lord. I just have to live at his feet, you know, Jesus said, "apart from Me, you can do nothing." So that's part of abiding in Him (John 15 and so forth), and so let me say it a little bit differently, I'm rambling here, if you're really doing what God has called you to do as a pastor, in shepherding your people, you'll pray; because your very life will depend upon it. Your very ministry will depend upon it. It will be the nourishment that you need for your very soul, and it will become the power that you will have once you get in the pulpit and when you're dealing with the lives of other people. And so those are the things you need to look at.

Cory Piatt  

A friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours, pointed out a quote that you had said. He said, "I've learned that prayer is more important than preparation." That was deeply convicted and very encouraging.

Dave Harrell  

By the way, it doesn't mean you don't prepare, but you're praying all the time, and you just have to be constantly in fellowship with the Lord. That's the point. And when you are, when you're enjoying that sweet communion. It's not like I guess I need to carve out some time. You can't wait to do that, and you just kind of do it all the time.

Cory Piatt  

All right, wonderful brother. Well, the next portion of this chapter describes the growing gap which exists between the so-called churched and unchurched in our society. The churched being those individuals who regularly attend church, and the unchurched being those who claim to be Christian but do not attend worship services. We've seen, Dave, a kind of easy believeism sweeping the evangelical world for many years now, where people will quickly affirm someone to be a Christian based solely on a profession of faith, even if there's an evident lack of fruit, a carnal lifestyle, or even false doctrine. I guess my question is, why is this such a dangerous air to wholeheartedly embrace as Christian, those who refuse to partake in the local church gathering the unchurched that you're referring to in the chapter?

Dave Harrell  

Because you therefore communicate to them that somehow, they are in genuine fellowship with the living God, and they've truly been born again when that may not be the case. Now, obviously we don't know with people but when you see people that have no desire to worship Him, they have no hunger for the Word, they have no love for the brethren, they have no desire to sing praises to his name, and  evangelism and all the one anotherings that are part of the church -  I could go on and on - they have no basis to claim genuine saving faith, because what validates genuine saving faith is a person's love for Christ, who is the head of the church, and a love for the brethren; you're part of the family of God; a love for His word, a love for all of those things. And so people that truly love Christ, you couldn't drive them away from a godly worship service with wild horses. I mean, this is where they go to allow the doxologies of their soul to be expressed. Now I understand there are people that may truly love Christ that don't go to church because they don't have a good church to go to. There's a lot of churches that, my goodness, if that was only church in town, I couldn't go. I mean, sometimes the churches, they are so boring, or they are so ridiculous with the shenanigans that are going on, or whatever. I just couldn't be a part of that. And therefore, there are a lot of people who have come up with, well, we're going to come up with the cool church, the worldly church. So you can just be as worldly and ungodly as you want, we're just gonna love everybody; it's the rock concert, you know, that type of thing. So frankly, what that ends up doing is unchurching the church in a lot of ways. It's a very dangerous thing, and evangelical pragmatism has played a big role in that.

Cory Piatt  

You mentioned Matthew seven earlier, quoting verse 21 of that chapter, "'Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven, will enter.'" So just as you're saying, the Lord has clearly revealed this as his will to us under the New Covenant, to partake of these means of grace.

Dave Harrell  

He's made us a new creature in Christ, right? The old things passed away, the new things have come. So the very disposition of our soul is such that we long to worship. We crave the glory and the greatness of God. We crave his Word. We thrive on the nourishment of rich Bible exposition. We want to sing praises to his name with the saints. I mean, that's just who we are. And so when you say you're a Christian, and you don't like any of that? Now I can understand if it, if it's some boring or some ridiculous thing, I get that, but when there are those kinds of churches around and you don't want anything to do with it, then I have every reason to question if you've truly been born again.

Cory Piatt  

Yeah, so clear. Just a brief, maybe a side to this conversation, you know, we see all of these imperatives in the New Testament that we understand we're to obey as Christians, not in order to merit our salvation, but as a result of it. There are those in, say, the Hebrew roots movement, or those who would argue that we need to be under the Mosaic law; that they would say, well, you're not doing the will of the Father because you're not worshiping on the Sabbath, for example. How would you respond to that argument that we need to be under the Mosaic Law and then maybe help us understand clearly what is the will of the Lord that we're to be submitted to.

Dave Harrell

So we got what, three hours to answer that. But yeah, just real simply that's based on, and I just want to say this kindly, a gross misunderstanding of the New Covenant.  Let me put it this way: the Old Covenant was abrogated by the New Covenant. Jesus came. He fulfilled the law. The law was given to the Israelites to basically demonstrate to them that they could not keep the law; that they needed a Savior. All of those things pointed to him. So my mind goes to, for example, Colossians chapter two, where it says, "Therefore, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath, these things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." Soeverything in the Mosaic law - including the Sabbaths - all of those things were the shadow that pointed to Christ. Why am I going to focus on the shadow when we have the substance? I mean, when I see you walking down the street and you've got a shadow, because of the sun, I don't look down there and focus on your shadow, I talk to you. I know there are people who who really focus on what did you call it? The Hebrew Roots thing. I've heard of some of that, but, you know, I was thinking of how the Sabbath was given for given for Israel in the Decalogue in Exodus 20, and he gave it through Moses. But I remember - and I always think about this when I hear this subject come up - I mean, there are 613 rules, okay, in the Mosaic Law, and which ones of them are you not going to keep now? And how do you decide? I mean, how do you arbitrarily choose to do some of these, but you don't do some of those. And, and I was thinking of some passages here how the Mosaic Covenant as a rule of life ended with the death of Christ, because he fulfilled the demands of the covenant, and he established the new covenant with his blood, he says in Luke 22. And by the way, when you think about the Sabbath, Jesus violated the Sabbath; he picked grain with the disciples. And of course, that really wasn't something that they couldn't do, I don't think under the Mosaic law, but the Pharisees had come up with that extra regulation. And he healed on the Sabbath, oh, boy, you can't do that. But we read, for example, in Romans 10:4, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. He also said that Christ became our peace in Ephesians 2:14, "by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances." Hebrews 8:13, "When He said 'a new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." And since the Mosaic Covenant was given to Israel alone, and since Christ brought an end to it in his death, Christians are not under the laws of the Mosaic Covenant. We're just not. Romans 6:14, "For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace." Galatians 5:18, "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." It's interesting too, the new covenant that abrogates the Old Covenant really did away with the Sabbath as well, because believers are never required to observe the Sabbath in the New Testament; it's interesting, we never see that, no command. In fact, Paul rebuked the Galatians for thinking that God expected them to observe the Sabbath in Galatians four. And even at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, the Gentiles were never required to obey the Sabbath.

Dave Harrell  

And so, it's a matter of Christian liberty. But I wanted to close my thoughts on that, because Romans 14 is an important passage on this. There are people who, for whatever reason, are very committed to all of these things. And I want to be very careful with them. I want to be kind to them, because what we read in in Romans 14, beginning in verse three, "Let not him who eats regard with contempt him who does not eat" - remember he's talking about food offered to idols - "and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man regards one day," like the Sabbath, "one man regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to the Lord. For no one lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for, if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."

Dave Harrell  

The point is, if somebody is really committed to keeping the Sabbath and some of these types of things, you know, I don't want you to violate your conscience. You feel you need to do that, but don't tell me or others that that is what God requires. And so often this falls into legalism. It's some kinds of a works righteousness type of a system, and you really want to guard against that. And I've seen that a lot in this, in this whole movement.

Cory Piatt  

Okay, so the those 613 I think you said...

Dave Harrell  

I think that's right. I don't remember for sure.

Cory Piatt  

Which were a part of the Mosaic Covenant are done away with, Christ fulfills them, they were types and shadows that are fulfilled in him. And then now, with the ratification of the new covenant in Christ's blood, we're now under the New Covenant. And so what would you say, just simply, we are to submit to law wise because, you know, Paul refers to the law of Christ in Galatians, for example.

Dave Harrell  

All of those are consistent with, with what we would see summarized in the Decalogue. And ultimately, the Decalogue was a summary of the supreme law - to love the Lord you got with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, love your neighbor as yourself.  There's all kinds of things that the Lord would have us do in the New Testament, but we don't see any place that you need to obey the Sabbath. And if you don't, this is what's going to happen. And here's how you need to obey the Sabbath.

Dave Harrell  

We do want to guard ourselves against being judgmental to those who, because of weak faith, according to Romans 14, kind of bind themselves to that. And that's why, in that day, it was hard for the Jews that had obeyed all these things and made the Sabbath. Now, all of a sudden, the Christians are worshiping on the first day of the week; and it was hard for them to do that. They felt like they needed to keep the Sabbath. I don't want you to violate your conscience, because once you start violating your conscience, that's a slippery slope. But if you look at the early church fathers - Eusebius, you look at Augustine, or whatever - you you'll see that they all believed in the early church. They all understood that the New Covenant abrogated the Old Covenant, and that the Sabbath was over with, and that now we worship on the first day of the week.

Cory Piatt  

All right, excellent brother. Well, this has been so helpful, man. I've got one more question. Let's end on a pastoral note. Let's speak to that pastor out there who's laboring to be faithful to the Lord and His Word, and yet he's discouraged, because oftentimes the responses from those who are outside, and sometimes even within the walls of his church, are critical and condemning. What would you say to that that pastor?

Dave Harrell  

Well, I've never had that happen before. First thing I would say is, welcome to the battle. I mean, you know, this is war. Ministry is war. I mean, it's just the reality of it, and you have toput on the whole armor of God and all of those types of things. But you know what I would encourage him to do - and by the way, I work with various pastors and church leaders from different parts, frankly, of the world, several of them right now that I'm dealing with - and some of them have exactly those issues; and my word to them is  to remember that even Paul realized, with his thorn in the flesh - what the Lord told him - that you you're going to find strength in weakness and just trust the Lord. Just stay faithful to His word. Love your people. Love the Lord and be gentle to those that are mean spirited. Sometimes you have to, just like we were talking, sometimes with the unruly, you got to confront them. And some more so than others but just stand firm to the truth and love those sheep, even the ones that are biting you and kicking you. God's up to something in them and he will take care of them over time; and make sure you've got a good group of men around you that can help circle the wagons if need be. It kind of depends upon the situation, but the Lord has called us to be faithful, and if we just stay faithful to our ministry, God is going to bless that.

Cory Piatt  

Okay, yeah. Well, that's a great word to end on, brother. Let me close with the apostle Paul in First Corinthians two here, "When I came to you brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God."

Dave Harrell  

Amen. Thank you.