or you know nobody well that's that's fair it's when you put all the other missionaries up but anyway he's from pennsylvania he thrives on harassment yelled it if you didn't know that i'm here to tell you that he meant but uh... Yeah, and again, we both got our wives from Illinois, so again, I still haven't figured out what that means, amen? But my children live in Illinois, some of them, and I tell people when they ask where they're at, I tell them they're missionaries to a communist country, amen? And all the former leaders are sitting in the federal penitentiary, and I'm not joking about that either. You wanna ever do a tour of the former leaders of the state of Illinois? They're all there in the state pen, amen? But it is good to be with you. I've got a lot I want to cover. And we were here last year, did All-American Baptist Heritage. If you remember this book, I probably give you nightmares when I show you that, amen? But we covered as much as we possibly could about America. And what we basically came to last year, if you remember, we looked at that church planting revival. And that's really where All-Baptist History leads you, to obedience to the Great Commission. That's what it ought to do, amen? Inspire us, remind us. who we are, where we came from, what our place is in time and space, and what we're supposed to be doing. And that is fulfilling the Great Commission. But we also said that if you remove the Baptist influence from America, it falls flat on its face. And we demonstrated that, I think, as much as we possibly could last year. This year is a whole lot different. I want you to take your Bible, go to Matthew 28 with me. And he told me I had an hour, and so I almost hit him. Amen? But anyway, I thought, for which point? For which point do I get the hour, amen? But anyway, you remember I got a lot of material. I probably have at least double that just on slides, but I want to try to give you the highlights. And there's really some things you need to understand. And I'm not going to start tonight on the church. What I'm going to start with is a problem that we're facing, and we're going to be talking about the beginning of the church tomorrow morning, and I think we're doing eight hours tomorrow. So we'll be dealing with that tomorrow. But once you meet me there, Matthew chapter number 28, and let me just mention real quickly as well. We do conduct Baptist history tours. We won't do one next year. That's my 30th anniversary. My wife and I are taking like a three week sabbatical. We're going to try to get to some of the supporting churches have supported us at least a few of them and try to get a break from ministry for our 30th anniversary. Haven't really gotten away much from Florida. in the four and a half years that we've been there. But then the following year, we'll be doing that European tour, Lord willing, unless they come up with another COVID, amen, and shut her down again. I don't know what, you never know what they're going to do, but that's the plan. But this fall, we're doing an open tour. That means you can be a couple, a single, whatever, but that is a New England tour. And that is some of the best history on the East Coast. You remember John Clark, remember all that last year, the pilgrims, we looked at all that, the Puritans and everything. So that's what that tour is. And all of that is on baptisheritagerevivalsociety.net. And my pastor, Pastor Burke, will be speaking, myself and Brother Terry Danford and Brother Paul Davis. He's kind of a Revolutionary War historian and pastors in the state of Arkansas. But if you have any questions about that or any of the books, please do let me know. I'll be highlighting some of the books as we get a little bit further. Before we look at this, let's do this. Let's open in prayer. And then I'm going to try to jump on here. I'm not going to do a whole lot on this, but I do want to try to have your mind start thinking in terms of the church age. And one of the ways I've found that it's easy for me to memorize history and to be able to reproduce the history and teach the history is by being able to visualize it. So you can look at the slides. The slides are there. They're gone. But I want you to remember the overall schematic, okay? And so we're just, we're not going to do a big comprehensive one tonight, start with the garden and kind of shrink it all the way down to where we are. We're just going to really start with Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, the apostles, and we're going to go. And I just want to lay out just a little bit of a framework and then show you the problem that we're dealing with, okay? So let's pray. Father, Lord, I need you tonight. Amen. And we need you tonight, Lord, and we pray, God, that you would help us to see what God hath wrought, what your hand has done, Father. This is your invisible hand working in the midst of your churches, Father. Thank you that you came to start the church. And Father, even though the Jews missed it, Father, I'm thankful to be a part of it, Lord. I'm thankful that Gentiles can be saved and be in the bride and be in the body and be in the building and father I'm so thankful for all that you've given to us in the church Thank you for not just starting it, but thank you for preserving it. Thank you father for purifying it Thank you for protecting it and Lord I pray God that we would see all of that tonight in a whole lot more May you be glorified as we realize just how important and central the church is to all that you're doing in this world father help us to grasp our history and our heritage, and we love you and thank you for all that you'll do now in Jesus' name. Amen. I cannot promise how far I'm going to get or if it's going to have to be abruptly cut off at some point, but I want to try to show you something if I could real quickly. So this is kind of makeshift, but it's going to work for our purposes. I just want you to realize that Jesus Christ came to start a church. Church was not plan B. God was fully aware of the fact that you Jews were going to reject their Messiah. He didn't come to start a kingdom. They tried to forcibly make him their king, but Jesus didn't come for that purpose. He said the kingdom of God is with you and shall be in you. The kingdom of God is within you. It is not with observation. So Jesus came to start a church and Jesus accomplished exactly what he said that he was going to do. Okay, so I'm going to start here with the cross and this is going to represent the beginning of biblical baptist assemblies from henceforth i'll simply call them jesus is my church amen that's what you're looking at so regardless of what country we're in as we go through this conference regardless of who their key leaders were or whatever doctrinal differences they may have had or migrations persecutions this is just going to be jesus is my church traced all the way from his earthly ministry all the way down through the 2000 year church age, okay? So that's what really, what the purpose of this is, but I'm gonna do this, okay? So God sent a forerunner, John the Baptist, of course, he baptized the suitable building materials that Jesus Christ would take and lay down as the foundation of the church. The apostles are the foundation of the church. Jesus Christ is the head and the chief cornerstone. So I'm gonna put John here as well. Not that John is over the cross, but he fits pretty good right there. Okay, so he came pronouncing the coming of Christ. Christ came and died on the cross. Now, just remember this, that Jesus, an ekklesia, the Greek word for church, is an assembly of people gathered together. I'm just teaching in my church recently. In fact, we've been going through 1 Corinthians 12, 12 and 13 for four weeks. We have a fifth week. Might be six weeks on those two verses. Vitally important that you understand that. But Jesus Christ started a church. Let me get off that, because if I get on that, we're going to be there too long, okay? Let's just say this. This is the beginning of the Baptists. Now, I want you to notice something. The Baptists are going to go right here, and then they're going to go up. I'm talking about saved Baptist people, people who are truly, Jesus is my church, okay? So we're going to call this Baptist Beginnings right here. all right? They have a perpetuity. Now what is this right here? So why are we saying they're heading out? Because there is a rapture that is coming. No, I haven't cashed in the biblical view, dispensational view of the scriptures. There is a rapture that is coming. It is imminent. It is pre-tribulational. It is prior to all seven years of the tribulation and the millennial kingdom and the second advent. So all of the saved of this dispensation, not just Jesus is my church, but also the family of God outside of Jesus's churches. When I say church, I hope you understand I'm using that in the institutional sense. We don't believe in one big conglomerate. Throughout the New Testament, you see churches, the churches of Revelation, churches here, churches, it's used plural. That's one of the things I've been teaching on the last four weeks. That's kind of fresh. So I have to be careful not to just divert onto that. But the rapture is going to take place. And let's just say it this way, all the saved of the times of the Gentiles from the time of the preaching of the Baptist all the way down to the rapture, they will go up in the rapture, okay? So that includes Jesus's church and all those in the family of God. And by the way, if you never join a church, then you're not a member of the church, okay? Don't give me this, well, I'm a member of the true church and I'm a member of the body. Whatever the church is, that's what the body is. The church, which is His body. The Bible is very clear, the church is the body. So, we don't buy that garbage. We believe in physical, tangible assemblies. That's what Jesus envisioned. That's what He came for. That's what He started. And by the way, that's the only thing that can fulfill the Great Commission. Last week, the Universal Church baptized zero converts, won zero people to the Lord, sent out zero missionaries. So we're talking about a physical, local, tangible assembly, and the family of God will go up. But this is what we'll look at. This is the beginning of Baptists, all right? Now, were they always called Baptists? Not necessarily, but just remember this. A Baptist, a true Baptist by any other name, is still a Baptist. In other words, they're identified primarily because of their doctrine. the word Anabaptist, which was not just used during the time of the Reformation, but much prior to that. In fact, Philman J. Van Brought documented about a thousand years before that. In the Dutch, they called them Doopsensiders, which meant they were Baptist-minded. It was about what they believed. It was about what they practiced, okay? It wasn't just a name, okay? So this is Jesus's, my church. But what happened here was, as you get out here to about, we're gonna put it right in here, okay? 313 AD, you know what happened, Constantine, the murderous villain, he joined state and church together, stated that he was giving Christianity liberty, and of course, by the way, Augustine, we'll get to him hopefully throughout this conference, we'll not get to him right now. Let me just tell you what happened here. For the first several centuries, first three, four centuries, by the way, you see it in your Bible, Paul's dealing with doctrinal problems in the churches, okay? Now, by the time you get down here, some of these assemblies, many of them had already apostatized, okay? That is the correct pronunciation. It's not apostatized, in case you think I'm crazy. But nonetheless, they apostatized. And so they were already moving far away from what Jesus had envisioned and what he desired for his churches. So when Constantine, okay, If I spell something wrong, it's just because I'm hasty. When Constantine started this new entity, marriage, state, and church together, there were already some of these that were deviating. They're already heading the wrong direction, and they're already heading towards a sacral society, a marriage of state and church, a theocratic mindset, dominion theology. So when this started, this institution, this is going to be the beginning of Roman Catholicism. Now you'll watch this because Roman Catholicism does come all the way down through history, and they have a very lengthy history. However, they go into the tribulation period. So my friend, why? Because in Revelation chapter 17, sits on many waters, golden cup, vestments, Purple scarlet sitting on seven hills drunken with the blood of the Saints and the martyrs of Jesus the mother of harlots Meaning that she's hatched a bunch of babies. That's Protestantism. All the earmarks are there Roman Catholicism is at the head of the Antichrist One World State Church and is judged in Revelation 17 Babylon and Revelation 18 So you have political Babylon you have spiritual Babylon both them are judged by God Almighty But what happened here was so you have this this is Catholicism. So this is Catholic beginnings See, I thought Peter started the church. Well, you thought wrong, amen? I don't have time to develop that, but no, Peter did not, and the church wasn't built on Peter. It was built on Jesus Christ, okay? So this is Catholic beginnings, all right? So what happened was Constantine, he desired to make all of the churches that existed of Jesus Christ fall under the state church jurisdiction, change their very nature, and yoke up with Romanism, okay? Yoke up with the, literally, he was a Roman emperor, so he wanted the state of Rome and Jesus as my church to be married together, okay? So many of them did, and that became the beginnings, these ones that were apostatizing, and yet the Baptists just traveled right on, okay? So right in here you'd have the Novatians, and you'd have the Donatists, and right over, so, let me just do this real quick, hold on just a second. Let me jump out here quick, I'm gonna throw this framework on quick. We're gonna do it about right there. Okay. So, all right, let's do this. Hold on just a second. All right, so we have Catholic beginnings, all right? Let me jump ahead, because I've got to get to my slides quick, okay? So Roman Catholicism comes down, they go into the Tribulation period. Now right out here, this is what we call the Reformation. So pastor, you told me to talk to Reformation, I got to it already, amen? My mind's going a thousand different directions, all right? So, I gotta show you tonight what one of the problems is, okay? So, you have Protestantism come off, and Protestantism largely goes also into the Tribulation period. Why? Because they have gone right back to Mama, espoused her doctrine, infant baptism, not salvation by grace through faith, and all of that. Now, what is there left, okay? Let me write Protestantism down here. I'll just abbreviate that. So that's Protestantism right there. What is left is this crazy time that most people have not given a whole lot of thought to. Okay? And I am going to do it this way. One, two, three. We're going to make this 18 70 to 1900. We'll do it that way, okay? So what happened in here, okay? Well, first of all, Now let me show you something. Baptists had always been ecclesiastically separated from Romanism. The Roman Catholic institution slaughtered approximately 50 million of the human family for their faith. That was Jesus is my church. But the Baptists were separated from Catholicism. all the way down through. When the Protestant Reformation began, this was not somehow a bunch of people who also believed like the Baptists, got in their corner, helped them, and now they're all joined together. That was not the case at all. What happened was now the enemies of the Baptists were multitudinous. In other words, it wasn't just Rome, but it was all of Rome's babies, okay? So, Martin Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli. By the way, I've been to the very spot where Zwingli used to throw the Anabaptists in, chain them together in the Limat River, and drown them to death. Whether it was Knox in Scotland, John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland. They were all persecutors, okay? And so the Baptists now had more enemies because the mother of harlots had birthed a bunch of harlots. Well, who's the mother and who's the harlot? So mama's Rome, and then all of her babies are the harlots, okay? But again, Baptists were largely separated from both Catholicism and her babies, okay? Until you get to about 1870 to 1900, okay? And the first thing I want to put up here is, the beginning, and I'll come back to this, of the fundamentalist movement. A preacher, I thought we were fundamental Baptists. You might be, I'm not. I'm a Baptist. I have nothing to do with fundamentalism. I disavow it. It's history stinks. It's origin is wrong. It did nothing but bring great corruption. Baptists should have never been a part of it. So I've never heard this before. Well, then listen real well. Amen? The second thing was the RV Committee of 1881 Westcott and Hort pushed their newly revised text on the RV committee of 1881 and so the RV comes out and now some unsuspecting Baptists are going to start using that. The other thing that happened was the William Whitsitt controversy. What in the world is that? Well, we're going to get to that today as well. I would state to you that prior to this right here, this line of demarcation right here, The vast majority of Jesus's, my churches, God's true people, they understood that Jesus started a church and he promised his protection, preservation, and perpetuity, and that he had kept that promise, and that church was always Baptist Assemblies down through the ages. We were ecclesiastically separated from the Catholics and the Catholic daughters, until you get up to this point right here. through the Fundamentalist Movement, which was a big tent movement. And I'm just going to give you this in a nutshell. The Fundamentalist Movement started because the Evangelical Alliance, these are largely a group of Protestant churches throughout America, were having theological problems in their churches. Why were they having theological problems? After the Civil War, a lot of their schools of learning, their church buildings, their congregations were decimated. Obviously, there was great destruction. So what they began to do was, because they didn't have the means, the money, or the places to be able to train their ministerial students, they began to send them to places like Germany for their theological training. Huge mistake. Although the Protestants and us We were never a part of Protestantism, folks. You are not a Protestant. Don't ever sign an application saying, I'm not a Catholic, therefore I must be a Protestant. We were never in Rome, therefore we never protested and came out of Rome. We have an unbroken chain through Jesus is my church all the way back to John standing in the Jordan River. Amen? And so, but the fundamentalist movement began because when these men began to come back from Germany, they were getting up in pulpits and getting into their schools of teaching and their theological seminaries, and they were denying cardinal doctrines of the faith, okay? They were denying the virgin birth. They were denying, you know, the blood atonement, denying, you know, all the major things that you would believe as a Bible believer, okay? So what they decided to do was they began to come up with this idea through these big conferences that they begin to meet in. We're the ones that are really standing and all these other people in our denominations are apostatizing, therefore we're going to start a litmus test. Everybody's going to have to get on this line or this line and those that believe the quote fundamentals of the faith will be on the right side of history. And those that don't believe the fundamentals of the faith will be on the wrong side of history. And so they came up with a list of the fundamentals. Now, there's a whole lot more to it than this. I'd recommend some books for you to read if you have the time and desire to do that. But what happened was they came up with about 20 fundamentals. When it all boiled down, it ended up to be a five-point Presbyterian confession of faith. Now, let me tell you what the problem is right on the face. This was not a Baptist problem. When they began to finally take a stand on things we had ever stood on, we should have simply said, we're glad you Protestants are now going to stand for things that we as Baptists have held to ever since the days of Jesus Christ. But instead, what some unsuspecting Baptists did, because of guys like W.B. Reilly and a couple other high-profile Baptists, they decided to get under the umbrella with Protestants. This had never happened before, folks. So they decided, and by the way, can I tell you what the key issue was? It was pride and bigness. Bigness is a massive danger to scriptural churches. I'm in Florida. If we have 20 on Sunday, I'll praise God. If we have 40, I'll do backflips, amen? We've been there four and a half years laboring. I'm not there for bigness, I'm there for obedience, amen? But what happened was, Bob Jones Sr. was having massive success. Billy Sunday, big citywide campaigns, D.L. Moody. By the way, all the guys I just mentioned, non-baptist. All the guys I just mentioned, no scriptural baptism. All the guys I just mentioned, wrong on church government, wrong on a whole host of biblical issues that Baptists understand are Bible truths, but what happened was Baptists got drug under the tent and everybody said, hey, if you just believe these five things, then we're all fundamentalists, we can all just get along. Do you know that the Lord's table had nothing to do with the fundamentals of the faith? You know, it didn't matter which Bible version you used. You could be a fundamentalist. You could be a Calvinist. Your church government could be messed up. Folks, there were a host of problems. Can I just tell you, I believe the whole Bible. I'm not a half Baptist or a quarter Baptist. We contend for all. This is all fundamental. Nowhere in the Bible does it say minimize some doctrines and maximize other doctrines. We stand on the truth of all of the Word of God. Now the only thing that could happen through this is corruption in Baptist churches. And that's exactly what happened. Pastor, let me ask you a question. When's the last time you guys had a Presbyterian stand in your pulpit? There's a very good reason for that, amen? Because we cannot allow people who believe error to stand behind the sacred desk. I'll give you an example. Big College in Tennessee. The man is now deceased who I'm speaking of was the pastor there. He had a big shot Irish preacher come in who was well known in the world of fundamentalism and Bob Jones University. And because this man supposedly took a stand on the King James Bible text issue, He was allowed as a Presbyterian, listen, who allowed sprinkled people into his membership to stand up in a Baptist college. My phone was ringing off the hook. I had pastors and students that were there, people that got saved under my ministry, got ordained under my ministry. They're down there on staff, they're down there in school, and my phone's ringing off the hook. What am I supposed to do? There's an Irish Presbyterian in the pulpit who doesn't believe this and believes this and doesn't believe this. But he's King James. And so this man was asked, the guy that ran the college and ran the church and all of that, the pastor, well, what are you first, a Baptist or a fundamentalist? And his response was, well, a fundamentalist, of course. You're teaching a generation of preacher boys that a Presbyterian who allows spring... Can I tell you, can I remind you? Listen, baptism is one-third of the Great Commission. Don't give me this stuff. One of these big famous Fundy preachers was preaching in a youth conference some time ago, and he said, I'm not talking about eternal security, or I'm not talking about some minor issue rather like baptism, I'm talking about eternal security. So now baptism is a minor issue. Jesus Christ walked 60 miles for the one authoritative baptism on this planet. Millions of people died over their baptism. They recanted what they had in Rome and said, I have to go get a scriptural baptism. They were called re-baptists or re-baptizers and their guts were cut out over it. One-third of the commission is baptism. You have gutted the commission when you say baptism doesn't matter. Well, how could they do this? How could they get up with a Billy Sunday? How could they stand on a platform with a Methodist, Bob Jones Sr.? How could they fellowship with anybody as long as they believe five things? Because as long as you're a fundamentalist, well, that could only breed corruption. Do you know Methodists have never been closed table? Isn't that shocking, amen? Do you know that Presbyterians wouldn't know a scriptural authoritative baptism if they tripped over it? It corrupted us. There's a lot of problems that came in through that and their multitudeness. That's one of my forte, so if I stay on that, I'll never get off it. I got to move on. Problem one, the fundamentalist movement. So what we did was we began to accept Protestant doctrine. through fundamentalism. Okay? Now you have the RV. Now we're going to accept. By the way, Protestant doctrine is Catholic doctrine. Okay? And when you say, well, that guy's reformed, tell it right, he's Catholic reformed. It's reformed Catholic doctrine, okay? So Protestants are those that protested, moved out about this much, and then went right back in. All of the major Protestant Reformation leaders still clung to their infant baptism. Now, the RV. What happened here? Well, nothing much. Just Baptists begin to use the Catholic Bible. But what happened in this time frame? Some really bad things. This is like the Baptist-Bermuda Triangle, man. The devil really got a foothold here. So for the first time, the modern versions came in, the RV, and a lot of unsuspecting Baptists said, hey, you know, the King James is hard to understand. Same thing they're saying today. And I'm going to tell you what, my cold, dead fingers, that's when you get my King James, amen? But listen, they began to use the Catholic doctrine. Baptists began to allow in the Catholic Bibles. And then William Whitsitt. What happened here? They begin to take the Protestant origin theory. What does that mean? That means that there are those out there today in Baptist seminaries, those air quotes are really important throughout this conference, just understand that. That means they claim they're Baptist but they're pseudo-Baptist. They want us to believe and they'll not leave us alone about it. They'll fight and die to try to prove that we have no origins in Jesus Christ, but Baptists are just another one of the Protestants, just like the Presbyterians, and just like a mess of dust and all that other stuff, all right? So this is the problem. Hopefully, you'll understand what I'm talking about. Okay, I've got to get to the slides. We're going to shift your focus over here, if you would, really quickly. All right, an introduction to Baptist Heritage. Now, I want to start really basic because I don't know what you remember from last year. Some of this stuff we just kind of have to buzz through. People have often asked, why do we need a Baptist Heritage Conference? I think that word need is really important. We do need one. We need to constantly be reaffirming ourselves and teaching others of the perpetuity, preservation, and protection of Jesus's. By the way, Jesus preserved some things. Amen. He promised. Look, He told us in Psalm 12, 6, and 7, that the words, Lord, are pure words, tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times. I shall keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. He promised the Jews that he loved them with an everlasting love, and yet he would scatter them, but he would also bring them back, write the law of God in their heart, put them in their kingdom, take them one by one out of their graves, and march them into Zion, and that he was going to be their God. Okay, so God preserved the nation of Israel. It's good for us to remember that, folks. We're living in a climate today when everybody just wants Israel to be dead. I didn't say Israel's doing right. I didn't say Israel's not in sin. I didn't say Tel Aviv's not a cesspool of homosexuality. But I'm telling you, governmentally, we better take the right posture as a nation towards a nation of Israel, because in Matthew 25, when the judgment of the nations takes place, what Jesus is looking at is what you did to the least of these, my brethren, we better be on the right side of history and stand behind the nation of Israel. But you know, everybody will shout you down. You ever been to a camp meeting? Hey, King James Bible is a preserved Word of God. Hallelujah. I'm telling you Israel, man, God preserving the nation of Israel. Amen. I'm telling you, God preserving the church. Uh-oh. Wait a minute. The same Jesus Christ that preserved the Word of God for His church would have been foolish not to preserve the very institution to whom He committed it. He gave these letters to the churches. So you believe He preserved the letters and the words to the churches but not the institution to whom He gave the letters? It makes zero sense. His promises of perpetuity, preservation, and protection are all through the Scripture. Look at Matthew 28 real quickly. Notice really quickly, verse number 18, Jesus came and spake unto them, his disciples, that's the first church, saying, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Now, he did this also in John 20. He talked about, as my father has sent me, even so send I you. He was channeling the authority of heaven through Jesus Christ as the head to the body, the local New Testament church, and he's doing it here as well. So we notice that. So the scriptural churches, first of all, how do you know a scriptural church? They have authority. Okay, so if Joe Schmo down the road decides he's going to start having Betty Sue and Bobby, you know, whatever over, and they're going to start a church in the living room, no one ordained him, no one checked out his qualifications, no one laid hands on him, where to lay hands on no man suddenly needs to partake of another man's sins. So my friend, if we relinquish and say we'll not lay hands on somebody, they run unsent. And a lot of what's in the world today is stuff that popped up in a garage. Joe Schmo got mad at the preacher because he was living like a heathen, and the preacher preached against it. So he split the church and took a bunch down the road. Then they start baptizing people, so-called, and they want us to accept their baptisms. And we make no note of it, because that is not an authoritative church. There is an order in the Word of God, okay? There's a normative pattern, and that normative pattern is that churches raise up young men, and train them, and then check out their qualifications, and ordain or not ordain. And when they bestow the authority, they're extending an arm of authority to start the church. And if there's no arm of authority, there is no church that is formed. So the first thing he tells us is you can identify a church because it has authority. Then he said this, Go ye therefore, churches go. Okay? I'd be a really bad Calvinist. Amen? By the way, hyper-Calvinist is a misnomer. Do you know why? Because I've never seen a Calvinist hyper about anything. Amen? Churches, go. They're evangelistic. Amen? We'll find that out when we look at the Waldenses in depth this week. Very evangelistic. Go ye therefore and teach all nations that you know that those who... What do they teach them? The gospel? The word of God? How do you find a scriptural church in history? It was started correctly. It goes, it's evangelistic, and it is a teaching church. It's teaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But let's go a little bit further. He says, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Do you know how to find a scriptural church? They scripturally baptize. They immerse people one time backwards in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Not once in Jesus' name, not three times forward, not sprinkle, splash, pour, down a water slide, nothing else, water balloons. There's a crazy so-called church in California with a water slide baptism. Can I just remind you, this is the water. This is the candidate. What does it picture? It is a like figure, Peter told us. Amen? The baptism pictures the death. When you go down in the water, pictures the death. When you come back up, pictures the resurrection. What you're stating is I've gone down to Calvary, and my life is hit with Christ and God, and I died down there, but I've been raised to follow Him in newness of life. Scriptural churches, scripturally baptized. That's how you identify them. You show me somebody baptizing infants, that wasn't Christ's church. Why? Because Christ's church has Christ's doctrine. Amen? It's really simple. Alright? Let's go a little further. Teaching them to observe all things. Did you know that scriptural churches train people? They teach the Word of God. There's so much of pick a verse and holler junk today. And man, it is killing us. And there's a lot of these outfits out there that are shooting at Baptist preachers for shallow preaching. And honestly, if I could get away with it, I'd probably send them a $5 offer and say, keep the pressure on. Amen? Because we got to get Baptist preachers back to opening and alleging and teaching. I'm on 55 messages in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Not because I tried it, because I want my people to understand the Word of God. Where is that today? That is our charge. That is our command in the Bible. We're to teach them all things whatsoever I've commanded you. But let me tell you something else about the church. Jesus promised the preservation, perpetuity, and his empowerment all the way down to the end. He said, I'm with you, who? The church, always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Jesus Christ started a church. All right, now, let me get back to this. There's a biblical basis for the study of our Baptist history. I just want you to know that we have been hurting ourselves and our children because of our ignorance. We're going to embark upon a study of rich, pertinent heritage, not just another history lesson. If you ever heard me speak on Baptist history, I probably beat this dead horse last time I was here. There's a difference between history and heritage. We're not just telling you about the history. If I went off on Witset's life and just told you all about William Witset and told you his history, it'd be kind of meaningless. But when he connects with us and tries to brainwash a generation to believing that we came from the Reformation, now that enters into, now that's a part of my heritage, okay? What I'm telling you is we're not just talking about some vague offshoot people. Every group we will look at They're your spiritual predecessors. These are the ones that blaze the trail where you and I are sitting tonight. These are the ones that preach the doctrines that allows us 2,000 years after Jesus started his church to stand up tonight, hold up the perfect Word of God and continue to preach that Jesus Christ saves, plus nothing, minus nothing. We owe it all to those people that went on before us. So that's what we're talking about, okay? So this is your heritage. These are your people, alright? Let's go a little further. Alright, Joshua chapter 1. Many of you know this, but let's turn there and start real simple tonight. And you thought we already started, amen? We're going to start four times tonight, amen? And then the last time we start, we'll stop right after that, amen? I want to try to give you as much information as I can while I'm here. Now, I want you to see something here. What I want you to recognize in this is this was not thought up by man. It was not man's idea to be, you know, a history buff. Was it man's idea to just say, hey, maybe we ought to remember some of these things and tell them to our kids? This was fully God's idea, okay? And it wasn't just an idea, it's a doctrine of the Bible. And it's a practice of His people because it was bestowed upon them by God Almighty. Joshua chapter 1, verse 1. The Bible said, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of none, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, and I'm going to stop there for sake of time. You remember, on this momentous occasion, they're finally going to go into the promised land. Can you imagine sitting around those thousands of flickering campfires and talking about the day we're finally going to cross that river? Oh, we wanted to so badly, but we haven't been able to get in there yet. So let's just put it this way. This is a mountaintop in Israel's history. This is a big day, amen? It's a big day in their history. So what's the Lord going to do on this big day, okay? Notice in Joshua chapter number 4, verse 1. Joshua 4, verse 1. And don't ever forget this. Now some of you are going to say, well, man, that was pretty elementary. We'll get deeper. Just trust me. But I want to make sure everybody gets on the same page and understands this. I didn't just like one day say, hey, I ought to be a Baptist historian. It's biblical. We need some mouthpieces in our generation that will spend the time, study it, rehearse it, regurgitate it, write books on it, teach it, and hold other people to charge it. We need to remember these things. Joshua chapter four, verse number one. It came to pass when all the people were clean, passed over Jordan, that the Lord's speaking to Joshua saying, take your 12 men out of the people. Did you notice the Lord's speaking to Joshua saying, it was his idea. Take your 12 men out of the people, out of every tribe a man. Command you them saying, take your hands out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priest's feet stood firm, 12 stones. You shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the 12 men whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And Joshua said to them, pass over before the ark of the Lord your God in the midst of Jordan and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder according to the number of tribes of the children of Israel. Notice verse 7. Let's just keep reading. All right. I don't want to skip anything. That this may be a sign among you. Verse 6, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come. Now, wait a minute. He said, I want you to set up stones so that it inspires your children to come ask, what's with the stones? Okay, God's idea. Great idea, by the way, man. Notice this, then you shall answer them that the waters of Jordan were cut off. Wait a minute, who cuts the waters of Jordan off? Wasn't that cool how Joshua cut the waters of Jordan off? God did it. He said, I'm giving you something so your kids will ask what happened, and you can point back to what God did in the past. That's what we're talking about, by the way. We're going to mention tons of names as we did in the last conference, all kinds of happenings. You're going to see more slides. It ought to be legal, all of that. But what we're pointing to is this is what God did. God was in the midst. God was moving, not a movement, but moving Jesus's my churches all the way down through the age, okay? Let's look at verse 7. Wow, so we shouldn't just stop telling history someday? Right. And the children of Israel did so. As Joshua commanded, took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan. As the Lord spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them into the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bear the ark of the covenant stood. Interesting last final statement I'll read, and they are there unto this day. Now this is interesting. God's people took it in hand that they were going to preserve history forever. Amen? And I will just tell you that one of the greatest things that I get a chance to do as a director of the society is to go around and research all the sites prior to us going to them. Now most of them I've been to at least once or ten times by now, but it's awesome to go in some of their history rooms. churches that are 300 years old, and churches that are 320 years old, and going in there and seeing that, man, some people actually kept the original minutes of the church. They kept the original book when they organized the church. They've got this Lord's Table set from 1692, and all these other things, you know, all the artifacts. It's wonderful. So, you know, and I just, it's sad to state this, but the Southern Baptists have been much better at preserving the history of the Baptists than Independents have. It's sad. Now, we know the Southern Baptist Convention started with the old separates. In 1845, over the issue of slavery, largely, the Southern Baptist Convention started. Pretty much everything south of Mason-Dixon line, which was largely those separate Baptist churches from the revival we preached on much last year and taught on, those almost all became Southern Baptist churches. So at the first, other than their affiliation and starting a convention, their doctrine wasn't wrong. A lot of them were local church like we're local church, but they believed in preserving their heritage and they didn't drop that right away. Many of them have kept it up to this very day. I can drive you to Cheshire, Massachusetts right now and show you the ordination papers of John Leland, amen? I can take you to Mercer University and show you Adoniram Judson's trunk, amen? And then we could just go on from there. But yes, it has been preserved. I sat on the cobbler's bench where William Carey sat. How cool is that, amen? And been to the cave church where the Waldensys met a thousand years ago, hiding for their life in the coach house. I've been to the Lullard's Tower where they put them up there. By the way, it's funny how they're ashamed of their own history. That's what John Fox told the Queen of England, by the way. He said, there'll come a day when we'll be ashamed of our own history. We've got to stop burning people on the public square. Even in the Old Testament, they bleed the blood out of the animal before they burn it. We've got to stop doing that. He said, please. He said, there's going to come a day we're ashamed of our own heritage. There's going to be a black spot on us. So I go to England all over, and you ask these guys, these dummies they put out there. who read a couple cards, got a job, and they're just happy to say a few words when you get there. So I go to Lullard's Tower, okay? And you're there at the palace, and I talk to this guy, and I say, now, where did they torture the Lullards at? Oh, that really never happened, sir. And then, by the way, here's the snake in the woodpile. Before I left, he said, but if they did do that, it would have been up right up in the air. And then he kind of walked away. Just like when I was at the, not the Tower of London. Yeah, the Tower of London. I was at the Tower of London, which is one of the big sites there. And they said, now, barely anybody was killed here, martyred on this spot. And then they said, now, they believe there's 400 bodies under the church floor here, just a few minutes later. And then they have the torture chambers right down the road. I'm not sure I got on that, but you must have needed it. Amen. I gotta get off that, all right? All right, they preserved their history. We've gotta do the same. Now, why did God do this? He didn't want the future generations to forget how he worked in the past in the lives of their forefathers. We have forgotten. We don't know our heritage. We don't know where we came from, okay? Now, last year, you got acquainted with your American Baptist heritage, but again, we showed you in the beginning of that conference how John Clark picked up liberty in the gospel and sailed it across the ocean and almost single-handedly entrenched it into the early colonial experience. And we're going to go back way beyond that. Joshua 24. Joshua 24. I'm watching the clock, preacher. My glasses are a little foggy, though, I've got to say. Joshua 24. Now what's interesting here is another one of these examples. Joshua 24, verse 26. The Bible said in Joshua, wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and the Lord doesn't seem to come to him now, he learned. You only had to hear it once. You only had to be told once. You've got to preserve heritage forever, okay? Amen. And he took a great stone and set it up there under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said, and all the people, behold this stone. Wow, I heard of some stones before that somewhere, amen? Shall be future tense, down the road, a witness unto us. In other words, we begin to deviate. This stone, when you walk past, it's going to remind you, this is what God said. This is what God did in the past, amen? And he said, which spake unto us, it shall be there for a witness on you, lest you deny your God. Can I just say that those that do not know their heritage can deny their God? Oh, preacher, is that not an exaggeration? There used to be a church in our area. It was a Baptist church. It now is under another name. I'm not going to blast them publicly, but it is a rock and roll church. They took the Baptist money and the Baptist people's blood, sweat, and tears. People had strong conviction about solid music, dressing right, living right, looking right, preaching right, starting churches. And they took all that, and then what they do is they push all them people aside. Once they get the money out of them to get everything they want, they start by doing two services, by the way. And by having two services, we get to keep the pocketbooks in the church with the traditional service, but we're still going to have this one to bring in. This is the direction we're really going. Mark it down. Nobody's going back. Nobody. Show me one. Here's your challenge. Show me one church that's going back and saying we're going to get closer to God. We're going to get less worldly. We're going to kick the entertainment out. We're turning off the purple lights. We're shutting down the speakers. The pantomime people are getting fired. And the ladies twirling the flags are out of a job. We're going to go back to God. Where is that happening? It's not. And as soon as they get enough money and a big facility, and they got a big enough crowd in the rock and roll service, buddy, they go to one service Sunday morning, that's it for the week, and then they start their campus satellite churches, where you are privileged to go with no conviction and sit down and hear some mealy mouth who's projected on a television. It's drive-through Christianity, and it's imposter. But how did I start? Baptist church. How many examples do you want? I've got tons of them on here. We're probably not going to get to them tonight. But no, this is what you've got to... Why? Because if you don't remember, you could deny your God. That's what the text said. Lest we deny our God, you better remember this, okay? Deuteronomy chapter six, I'm not gonna go there for sake of time. The Jews were instructed to instruct the next generation to pass on the things of God generationally. Write the scripture down, you know it well probably. If one generation fails, the next generation pays the price. So God wants us to be taught of our heritage and then pass it on to future generations. Psalm 78. Let's go to this one. We'll go to this one simply because this illustrates the chain reaction that's got to take place. So guess what? In 20 years, I'll probably be croaked and gone, okay? But what I do right now needs to be what I need to do right now. I don't know what the chains coming down the road are going to do, but I've got to do my job right now. My job is to make sure that I'm thundering forth the truth of the Scripture and drawing people back to their heritage and what God has done, not just what He's doing today, what He's going to do tomorrow, but what He has done in the past. Okay, so notice this generationally. Psalm 78 verse 1. Give ear, O my people, to my law. There's five generations talked about here. He now is giving us an example of that chain. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth, and a parable I will utter, dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us. There's two generations. We'll not hide them from their children, okay? Showing the generation to come the praises of the Lord. There's three generations and his strength and his wonderful works that he had done. What do they show him? The things that God did back yonder. We don't want to forget those things, okay? We're not living in the past, but folks, we don't even know the past. We forgot the past and we're therefore doomed to repeat it. Notice verse number five, for he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children. that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments. Wait a minute. So knowing our heritage and passing it on will not only help us keep His commandments, but it will help the next generation and the next generation and the next generation to keep the commandments if we remember what God did. See folks, this is bigger than just this gen-whatever-it-is culture that we're in the midst of today. This confusion where men don't even know what bathroom to use and girls don't even know if they're a woman or a man and can't even define a woman. This is much bigger. There's a God and He wants us to stand for Him in our generation. We can do that as we look back and see Him standing for His people. According to Deuteronomy 6, Psalm 78, we as the people of God have a duty to pass on the history and heritage. Now, Hebrews 11 is another example of the fact that we're not just to pass on the Word of God, but also to share His mighty acts with future generations. This is often called the Hall of Faith. I like to think of it as the Hall of Grace, amen? All those people that had faith, God had grace upon them. Nonetheless, God Himself shares with many generations what He did in the lives of His servant. It's like you're having a chat with God. Hey, let me tell you about what I did with Moses. Amen? Hey, let me tell you about what I did with Abraham. Amen? He goes through a list of them, cataloging what he did in their lives. God is a historian. Did you know that? Did you know that this book is his story? Did you know that all of world history and beyond is his story? He's the one that wrote the overall schematic of it. The Bible's clear about that. Isaiah chapter 46. But God himself isn't, so I just don't think God cares about history, then why did he write a history book? Why did he write, this is a history book. Some of it's already taken place, some of it's taking place right now, amen? And that some of it is still yet to take place, but it's all his story. So yes, absolutely God is concerned about history. What is the book of Acts? If God don't care about history, explain. The book is literally a church history class. When we read Acts, we see their struggles, their triumphs, their martyrdoms, etc. God is showing us, hey, here's the history of the first churches, amen? Here's the history of the first missionaries. Here's the history of the gospel going to the Gentiles. Here's the mystery of the baptism. Not of the Holy Ghost, but with the Holy Ghost on Pentecost. Here's another outpouring with Cornelius. He's showing us the struggles and the calling of the apostle born out of due time. Chuck, full of all different types of history. That's what it is. You know what we do when we read Acts? We say, wow, by the way, we don't practice what they practice. We practice what they taught. So we must learn from this history book, and there's a way to interpret the problem today with a lot of your charismatics and all the ones out there practicing apostolic signs. Look, the signs died with the apostles. They were the signs of an apostle. The Bible's clear about that. The apostles, quote, whom he had chosen. Jesus' hand chose them. They had to have the baptism of John, other than Paul, who was born out of due time. All the rest of them had the baptism of John and were hand chosen by Jesus Christ. And when they died, the apostolic sign gifts died with them because they were simply there to authenticate the gospel to the Jews. I don't know how I got on that either. Amen? Why remember, teach and perpetuate our history and heritage? Okay? 2 Peter 1. Turn over there real quick. Is it really that important? It is. Second Peter, notice chapter number one real quick. I don't know if I told this story when I was here, but I'm not sure if I did, but my former pastor who's been in heaven for many years now, Dr. James Beller, he came out of a high old background. Okay, now if that offends you, then you need some more education. I'll be happy to talk to you about that. He came out of a product of the fundamentalist problem, which is multitudinous. One of them is man-worship. One of them was an absolute redefinition of repentance to a definition that never existed before among Baptists ever. Godly sorrow always led to repentance. You had to have sorrow before you could even get to repentance. It wasn't just, I changed my mind. I didn't know what tie to wear tonight. That's not repentance, okay? I got to get off this, amen? Pastor Beller came out of that, and he got his head screwed on straight. I didn't always agree with everything Brother Beller said. Well, I don't always agree with probably everything you say, and you probably don't always agree with everything I say. But man, he found out what a Baptist was. Last time I was there, and I preached on the Lord's table, and Brother Beller passed it out, and he went individually to each person. And some got it, and some didn't. He said, that's cruel. No, that was biblical. because some should have. Look, if God kills people and people are sick because they eat unworthily, then we have just made a mockery of it, minimize it. I know a guy that advertises it in the newspaper, a Baptist. So every time Dick and Harry can come in and eat, drink, drink, and drink damnation themselves, their brother Beller became a Baptist, a decided Baptist. And when he found out that a Baptist, what do they do? They plant churches. Is this all coming back 365 days ago? I was saying this same day. What is it? What about this do they plant churches? No that like that's what they do by their nature This is as their manner is they go everywhere and they plant churches and then they plant more churches and then they die and other Baptists plant churches that amen So he figured that out, okay? And what happened was, when he realized going around different Baptist history sites and finally studying Baptist history, which he wasn't taught in his fundamentalist Baptist college, because all they teach about is the old fundamentalists. That's a fact. We're going to get some of this hopefully, maybe not today, maybe tomorrow, amen? But you know what he decided to do? He decided to start churches. Amen. And 1 Peter 1, verse 12, looked at, just real quick, he got stirred up. The Bible said, verse 12, wherefore I'll not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth, yea, I think it meet as long as I'm in this tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. What does that mean? Paul said, Peterson, as long as I am in this temple, this tent, as long as God has me here, I've got a duty to stir you up by putting you in remembrance. You know what Brother Beller did? He got stirred up when he found out what a Baptist was. When he started looking into his history, he wrote the quintessential encyclopedia of Baptist history. It's really what it is, American Crimson Red, the most wonderful American Baptist history book ever written. But nonetheless, he went to the pulpit. Arnold Baptist Tabernacle. And he got up in the pulpit. Well, that afternoon he announced at the morning service, we're going to have missionary James Beller tonight. Everybody's like, huh? Missionary James Beller is going to be here with us in the service. And they thought, man, does he have a brother? Is this his cousin? Everybody's all confused. Well, he didn't talk about it. He just left. Came back that night, got up. He put a bunch of slides up. You know what he did? He went down St. Louis and took pictures of pitiful neighborhoods. People with sad, ashen faces, and people with needles hanging out of their arms, and sunken eyes, and broken off teeth because of their meth addiction. And he put them up there, and he played people needs the Lord. And he said, look, it's time that we start doing what we're supposed to be doing, and reproducing ourselves in other biblical churches. So I started going into St. Louis. And they started one church, and another church, and another church, and another church. And by the time he was done, there were six attempts, five churches started by the time God took him home. But it was a short amount of time from the time he got his head screwed on straight. You know what happened? He looked at his history, and he got stirred up by way of remembrance. And he went back to his roots. Why is it important? Maybe somebody gets stirred up this week. Amen? In the few days we have together, I wouldn't put anything past the Lord. Amen? Learning also why study it learning about the millions of bleeding suffering martyrs could stir you up to live for God also their dedication Literally puts us to shame The fact of little children running to stakes and the only thing Holding them there is they would grip their moms and daddies being burned at the stake was the bonds of love saying if daddy dies I die too That's the kind of thing we're talking about little kids moms and dads listen to me children who had to see their mother raped Because she won't recant her faith. Tied up and watching this. Watching the rest of their family being butchered to pieces. And when it came time for them, they said, I will not turn my back on Jesus Christ. Folks, we got people today splitting churches over a stick of bubblegum. Well, preacher went ten minutes late, he knows, but my back just can't take it. These people died by the millions, and when they had a chance to live, they said, no, Jesus Christ died for me, and I will die for him now if I have to. They wouldn't turn their back. Tell you what it does to me, it stirs me up. And I look around at a cold type of Christianity today, and I wonder, does it make God sick? Studying Baptist history is vital to our very existence. It'll prepare us for the coming persecution. So it's one thing to look at others being persecuted, but folks, it is right around the corner. And I'm going to say this, I can catalog Mr. Donald Trump's problems and ego issues and sin and all that stuff. But had he not been inserted into history, I think we'd be a lot further along right now. America would be going down the tubes. And I'm not just talking about socially. I'm not just talking about fiscally. I'm talking about totally committing suicide as a nation. I'm talking about giving up our guns and giving up our liberty, giving up our tongues. England's done it. Have you seen what's going on in the UK right now? If you say anything that even bothers somebody, they'll report you. I was there with Brother Clow, I think it was, or Brother Hodnett sent out of our church. He's in Scotland. I was with Brother Clow doing a conference. I think it was when that law first was passed. And the first weekend, I want to say there was 300 reports of people that said something that bothered them. Now, if it can happen in the UK and it's happening up in Canada, folks, and they're arresting preachers just for speaking their mind and speaking their conscience, we are the last bastion of liberty. And had Donald Trump not gotten in, I don't care if you hate him or not, folks, the lefties were taking us right down to Primrose Pass to stop our speech and take away our liberty. And I'm not a 100% Trumper. I'm just trying to tell you, folks, pull your head up out of the sand and see what's going on. The lefties don't want you to have liberty. And if you think climate change is about anything more than them controlling you, you're dumber than a box of rocks. Amen. One of my favorite memes is when a guy asked the Amish, he said, how come y'all aren't worried about COVID? He said, because we don't own TV. Think about that. You don't know TV. It's like, well, God created her. This is the Amish. Nine, ten, some are lost. God created her. The blue sky, it's always been here, it'll always be here. That's pretty common sense. By the way, God did promise that it's not going anywhere. When God's done with this mess, He's going to crumble it up, roll it up like a scroll and cast it aside and bring in a new heaven and a new earth. Amen. I know some of you are green leafers. Now I'm in trouble. Amen. God help us. Studying Baptist history is vital to the future of America. It will reacquaint us and reattach us with the separate Baptist church planning model. So we looked at that last year. Now you know what I'm talking about. See, here's one of the problems. People don't care about history. Why is it that the separate Baptist church planning model is so important? Because it's the model of the Apostle Paul, which is the model of God Almighty. It is birthing New Testament churches out of New Testament churches, amen? Which is the normative pattern of Scripture and the only church planning the Bible knows of. But most people don't know anything about this. All right, I've got to hurry. This generation of young Baptists are in the midst of an identity crisis. Brother McIntyre and myself have a mutual acquaintance. And we have been on Facebook, and I'll try to be discreet as I possibly can. But would you, by the shake of the head, agree with me that there are some young men that are as confused as a termite yo-yo, and they're asking every question in the world, not to find out answers, but to try to suck you in with them, because they're decidedly heading left. And they have no idea that when you move that marker, you're never going to get it back. And they're throwing away that which they don't understand that cost them nothing. They had to pay nothing for it. And so, yeah, we're in an identity crisis. Young people are going over to church and saying, well, this one's just as good as that one. What makes us any different? I'm telling you what makes us different. We're the church of Jesus Christ and they're not. It's a cheap knockoff imposter. Many BAPs have compromised, many have become purpose-driven. The Rick Warren movement, that's what I talked about when they have the two services. Ultimately their aim is to go to one morning service after they get all the money from the elderly people and kick them out. Then it's just you can go to clubbing on Saturday night, come to church on Sunday, and the party never stops. That's the end of it. They've renounced the Baptist doctrine and the Baptist name. Think of Temple Baptist in Detroit, once pastored by G.B. Vick and J. Frank Norris. Now they were never 100% where we're at, but they're a whole lot closer to where we're at than they are now. It's a neo-evangelical mess. Tennessee Temple apostatized, closed the doors. Northland Baptist Bible College and Northern Baptist, conservative Northern Baptist, apostatized and closed the doors. Pillsbury Baptist College apostatized, closed the doors. It's just a small listing. There are many, many more. Thousands of Baptist churches are now demonic rock concerts. I'm sorry, Kiss will have to forgive me. On the eighth day, God did not create rock and roll. The devil did. The chief musician, the anointed cherub with pipes and tabards built in him, he's the Pied Piper of that ungodly music. We look around and wonder, how can they just discard the Baptist doctrine and aim? How can they leave and join these non-denominational monstrosities? The answer is simple. Most Baptists are completely ignorant of our heritage. I've got about 38 seconds. And I want you to understand, I came here to tell you tonight, I love you, but most of us are ignorant. Not in the sense that we're mad and mean to people, ignorant, but we're just completely unlearned. Like, when's the last time you heard any of this stuff? Where's our guys that actually are talking about this? Why isn't this normal for us to be pointing back to our heritage and reminding ourselves of who we are? We're mostly ignorant of our heritage because it's not being taught. More than a hundred years it's not been taught. We've been ignorant of our heritage because the Baptist waters have been muddied through the creation of the fundamentalist movement. There's much more. By the way, did you know that there were Lutherans and Episcopalians and fundamentalism in the beginning? A lot more I could say about that. The biggest effect the fundamentalist movement has had on Baptist's cause, if you'll give me five minutes, I promise I'm going to get you out of here, okay? Bear with me. It has caused us to look to fundamentalism for our history. A hundred years old trans-denominational Protestant originated movement instead of two thousand years of glorious Baptist history. That's all we know is a hundred years. How do I prove it? Okay, let me hurry on, okay? Take the Baptist-Protestant fundamentalist challenge. Here we go. You ready? This is participation time. Many Baptists have heard of R.A. Torrey. I'm not going to ask you to raise a hand. I've gone across country and done this in churches of five and done this in churches of 500, and I got the same response all over the country and on foreign fields. Most everybody's heard of R.A. Torrey. He was a big mover and shaker of the fundamentalist movement. But he was a congregationalist who used the revised version. A lot of people, oh, R.A. Torrey, man, what a great man of God. All right. But most people never heard of John Clark. The man that picked up liberty sailing across the ocean wrote the Portsmouth Compact, the Rhode Island Charter, and literally started a colony which became the cookie cutter for the great America that we have today. We looked at this man in depth last time I was here. And the fact is, if you get up in the Fundamentalist Conference, Fundamental Baptist Conference, say, R.A. Torrey, and then you say John Clark, and they're like, who? Isn't that the mailman? Is that the guy that works at the Five and Dime down the road? Many bats have heard of Billy Sunday. I'm not going to take away some of these men saw some folks saved. They had some things right. I'm not here to say they were terrible. Don't leave and say he just hates everybody. I'm glad for all the good that anybody does. He was a fiery preacher, saw many saved, but he was also a Presbyterian who dabbled with the RV on occasion. I already asked you men when's the last time you had a Presbyterian in the pulpit. But most Baptists have never heard of Shubal Stearns. And I'm just going to tell you, as Sunday had his thousands, and as Whitefield had his thousands, Stearns had his thousands of churches, which would you rather? greatest revival in American history. Until 20 years ago, you could go to any church in America, virtually any church in America, saving one or two, and say, have you heard of Shubel Stearns? And nobody would have said yes. Nobody. 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago. So yes, we have been cut off. We know all the Protestants, we know the Sundays, we know the Moody's, but we don't know the Baptists. Why? I thought we were Baptists. Most people have heard of George Whitefield. He was the lead non-Baptist preacher in the Great Awakening, which many again wrongfully believe is the greatest revival in American history, and it is not. He also attempted starting his own new light denomination out of thin air with zero authority. He defended infant baptism, criticized the Baptist for opposing it, and for the Baptist stand for immersion. That's why he said, oh, my chickens turned to ducks, you remember that? Because he was mad because these dunkards were getting us converts and teaching him the Bible. He was mad about that, okay? But everybody, oh, Whitefield, Whitefield, I'm a great man, full of the Holy Ghost, man, greatest man. Okay. What about Daniel and Abraham Marshall? Of course, Daniel Marshall was the brother-in-law of Shubal Stearns. Abraham was his son. Daniel was the undisputed leader of the Separate Baptist Revival Southern Arm. He introduced the gospel into Georgia. Not sure if I talked about him much last year, but when he went into Georgia, remember a guy named Cartledge? The constable arrested him. It was an Anglican colony. Then he won him to Christ. Then the man became a deacon. Then the man became a preacher. Then he planted a church out of the First Baptist Church that Daniel Marshall started in Georgia. One of the most amazing stories in our Baptist history. But he was greatly used to spread the gospel into the South and give us the Bible Belt along with Stearns. There's old Coyoke. That's one of the old Meeting House, the original Baptist Church. We put up a marker there years ago. There's the younger version of me, amen? We put up a cemetery directory years ago there because that was falling to pieces. But this is right on the site. His son Abraham. Abraham is little known, but he preached up and down the East Coast for months at a time. It was recorded some towns were so changed and so many saved that people gathered to shout, clap, and throw confetti when he returned. So he did tours like Whitefield, but no one's ever heard of the man. Why is that? Something's happened to us, folks. By the way, these things are passing off the scene many times forever. We're right now trying to put up an Isaac McCoy marker. I'm going to get this. I'm going to be done. Many people have heard of David Brainerd. I've been to conferences, and I've had classes in different colleges, and I've heard guys get up, Brainerd, Brainerd, Brainerd, Brainerd, Brainerd in the snake story, Brainerd in the break of sweat on a cool morning story, Brainerd melting a six-foot circle of snow because he prayed so hard story. Brainerd, Brainerd, Brainerd. and he was a Congregationalist who never started a single church, had a short-lived ministry, became famous mainly because of affiliation with Jonathan Edwards. Otherwise, you'd probably never heard of David Brainerd. Well, he was the greatest Indian minister that ever lived. Stop lying. Read a book, any book. I'm not mad at David Brainerd, but please educate yourself. We're ignorant. Most people never heard of Isaac and Christiana McCoy. He, countless Indian missions he started and preaching stations. I have toured all of his stuff. By the way, all you have to do is drive into Topeka, Kansas. The Kansas State Museum. Walk onto the property, and when you walk on, there's a massive building right there. You know what it is? It's a mission station that this guy, Isaac McCoy, started to educate and win the Indians of Christ. He started 13 churches, 13 trips to Washington on horseback to persuade the House and Senate with the plan of colonizing the Indians. He had 62 Indians living in his house at any given time. Let me tell you one story about Isaac McCoy that everybody ought to know. He was out raising money and trying to get food because people were starving to death, and he was trying to prosecute or execute the Indian mission in Niles, Michigan. He goes for months. They lose their horses in the middle of the night. They have to chase the horses and find them. And pouring, driving rain, three days later they find the horses. Takes two days to find the trail. They're now out of food. They're drinking out of mud puddles. They're boiling turtle eggs to try to stay alive. He gets all the way through this massive event, almost six months of trying to raise money and to take food back to feed these 62 Indians that he clothed, fed, taught, and slept right under his own roof. They chopped wood and made house while he was gone. His wife was sick with sore eyes, looking out the door, wondering when her husband would ever get back. On this one particular trip, this is just one little snippet of his life, he gets all the way back after six months. gets to the Nile River and all of his supplies are accidentally dumped in the river as he's 10 miles from getting back home. He said in his own journals he sat down and wept and said, what a terrible day this was. But if you drive across Interstate 44, and you get past, where's that big tornado down there in Missouri, right down there? Joplin, Missouri. You get right into Oklahoma across from there, and the first rest stop that you pull off, there's a big sign, Oklahoma Territory, started by Isaac McCoy, Indian missionary. He literally saved the Indians from extinction. You talk about Joel Haynes, we were talking about Brother Haynes earlier. I wrote that Isaac McCoy booklet. Man, those people love Isaac McCoy out there. They know the truth of this. Why do we not know this guy? Because all the guys in the conferences are fundamentalists. I'm not mad at them. When I first learned Baptist history, years and years ago, I thought, man, these people, they lied to me. Why are they telling me all this fundamentalism? They never told me about any of these Baptists. And I got mad. And then I realized, wait a minute, they were never taught. And then I got sad. And then I realized further, the ones that taught them were never taught, and the ones that taught them were never taught. And then I got inspired. And then I said, you know, somebody's got to start teaching this because everybody's getting lied to today. Now, I'm not mad at any of these other guys, but I'm just... By the way, they had 14 children on the mission field, and they buried 11 of them on the mission field. And it was said of his faithful wife, Christiana, that often alone she bore them, and alone she buried them. We don't deny these Protestants were used of God, but for every Protestant fundamentalist there was always a Baptist counterpart that God used in a greater way. But we cannot name those Baptists. Satanic influence has caused Baptists to be blind concerning their forefathers while at the same time knowing minute details of Protestants and fundamentalists alike. It is time to wake up and study. I'll leave you with this and I'm done. Sewell S. Cutting, much we could say about his background. He was probably one of the greatest publishers of Christian literature during his time frame, 1800s. He said, no Christian denomination has been so indifferent to its own history as our own. Our fathers have been left to sleep in unhonored graves. The labors they performed, the sufferings they endured, the heroic characters they bore have alike been forgotten. The books which amid penury and toil they wrote in defense of their persecuted faith are almost wholly unknown to those who now possess the noble heritage of religious freedom and Christian truth which they bequeath." They're unknown today. It's time for the honor of our name as a Christian people that this indifference were broken up and that we begin to study for ourselves and to teach our children the lives and deeds of the founders and fathers of our churches. We hail, therefore, with delight any discussion which will make our brethren acquainted with the early history of their own denomination or lead them to linger in pious reverence around the graves of those who amid obloquy and contempt first taught the faith we cherish, and first established the institutions of religion and learning to which we are so largely indebted. No Christian denomination has been so indifferent to its own history as our own. May this be the last day for that in your life. Amen. Father, thank you, Lord, for allowing us to go through some things tonight and talk about some things. God, I pray that this would start making sense,