Is Cremation a Sin? (Ep. 208 Audio)

In the 1960s, less than 4% of bodies were cremated. Now, it is about 2 out of 3 and by 2040, it is expected to be around 80%. Much of that is driven by the rising cost of funerals, since the burial plot is expensive and you can send a significant amount of money on a nice casket. On average, a cremation probably costs half of the cost of a burial. Another thing that seems to drive it is that the church typically doesn’t explain why burial matters and why cremation is wrong. While many people do not think deeply about it, cremation has always existed and from a Christian perspective has been viewed as a picture of the body going to hell while burial is the picture of the body waiting for the resurrection.

In this episode, we look at what scripture has to say about cremation and burial. We look to the Old Testament which contains the laws that detail dealing with the dead and where most of the narrative surrounding death and burial is written. We also look to church history and see how as Christianity spread, so too did the idea of burying the dead rather than burning them. We talk about how death and our handling of it is a significant testimony to the world about our faith and when done properly is something that the world cannot fully understand.

So here’s the question: If we are going to be resurrected anyway, does it matter how the body is treated? Or does our handling of death and burial testify to our faith?

Conference mentioned in the episode:
https://warhornmedia.com/conferences/last-enemy/

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Interpreting Types and Shadows: Old Testament Hermeneutics (Ep. 207 Audio)

How you read the Old Testament impacts how you read all of God’s word. It frames the questions that shape our understanding of God and His purposes. What was the purpose of the garden? Why did God choose, separate, and protect the nation of Israel? What is the church? Who is Jesus Christ and the nature of his atonement? It frames all of these and a hundred other questions as well, none of which are trivial or unimportant.
In this episode, we want to look at how broadly and deeply the Old Testament shadows run. And while we start with God’s word in Hebrews that “the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things” which is talking about the ceremonial, priestly laws of Israel, by the end of the episode, we want to go broader still to where Paul looks at the crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism, and Christ declares the manna in the wilderness to be bread from heaven which points forward to Him as the bread of life.
We also want to emphasize that Scripture teaches us that these pictures are for us. We should not say, it is only Christ and Paul who can understand them. Jesus promised that after He left, He would send the Holy Spirit, who Paul reminds us in Corinthians understands the deep things of God. God’s word declares that “all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” When the church refuses to look deeply at the Old Testament, we misunderstand the New Testament as well, as God does not spend a great deal of time repeating himself. The shadows are important because by them we can better understand the substance, which is Christ. Please join us as we discuss this important topic.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

The Hypocrisy of Baptists (Ep 206 Audio)

Credobaptists and Paedobaptists differing views of baptism have real-world implications over how they view their children and their relationship to the church. Presbyterians (paedobaptists) hold that baptized children are part of the church, with the church having authority over and membership responsibility toward the child. Baptists (credobaptists) hold that they only become part of the church through faith and membership, and see baptism as a result of their faith.
Often though, credobaptists treat their non-professing, unbaptized children like they are part of the church and as if they have been regenerated, going so far as to create practices that are inconsistent with their theological views of salvation, faith, and baptism.
In this episode, we want to look at some of these inconsistencies, compare them to scripture, and discuss how they cause harm and confusion. So here’s the question: What practices do churches need to watch out for so the children at the church are not deceived about their state with Christ?

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Should Wives Be Homemakers? (Ep. 205 Audio)

A hundred years ago in America most wives considered themselves to be homemakers with very few working outside the home. Now about 57% percent of them do. What should we think about this shift in the fabric of the American home, and more importantly what does God’s word have to say about it.

Throughout history, there have been societies that have been very confused about men’s roles and women’s roles. Frequently, the men don’t do much work. They just do the things that please them. Hunting, fishing, maybe going to war while women do most of the provision for the household. But when Scripture began to inform a society, the roles of the husband and wife have typically been changed. Men begin to recognize they have a duty to provide for their family, to lead, and to make their household productive. Wives see their role as submitting to their own husband. Over the last hundred years, we have been losing that Christian influence in America and we’ve made an enormous shift that the church has largely gone along with it.

In this episode, we look at many of the passages in Scripture that frame God’s design for the home. We discuss how the curses from the fall continue to shape men’s and women’s rebellion against God’s design. We also talk about what it means to build a home, to be productive, and how our unwillingness to hold the structure and purpose of the household in high regard has caused our courtship rituals to become focused on shallow concepts such as pleasure and comfort rather than long-term purpose.

While modern culture has many problems that need to be resolved and fixing marriage and the home will only solve some of them, the home and family are fundamental building blocks of society and any movement back towards God’s design will have a profound positive impact. Please join us as we discuss this important topic.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Should All Christians Prophesy? (Ep. 204 Audio)

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, that we are to pursue love and to be zealous for spiritual gifts especially that we may prophesy. We are not just to sit back and wait for God to bestow them on us. It is part of pursuing love and edifying one another. And if prophecy is about love and edification, then it cannot be primarily about telling the future. So what is prophecy?

Prophecy is about declaring the truth regarding the nature of God. It means to speak forth, and while prophets did often declare future events, a key reason those events were foretold was to warn Israel and others to turn from their sins, thus declaring the justice and faithfulness of God. This is why Moses was a great prophet, not because of all his foretellings, but because by him the law of God was given. This is why Jesus Christ was the greatest prophet of all, because He is the very image of the invisible God. Everything He did and said declared his Father and the nature of God.

And we must understand this because Paul says that prophecy is for edification. How can we edify one another without understanding? This is one of the key differences between the Pentecostal view of prophecy and a Biblical view of prophecy. Pentecostalism keeps a great sense of mysticism around prophecy. It is cloaked in spiritual artistry and emotionalism. But Biblical prophecy brings all things back to scripture. The Spirit of God, as we are told in John 16, “will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” And some people will fixate on the phrase, “He will tell you things to come”, but look at what is said in full: “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” Consider this in light of II Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” This is the fruit of what the Holy Spirit has declared through God’s word. This is its purpose. He still works through his people to declare its truth, that the church might be edified and God glorified. Please join us as we discuss this important topic.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Why Oaths of Office Matter to God (Ep. 203 Audio)

People often think that what made America unique was its separation of powers and system of checks and balances, but those ideas were not really new at the time or unique to America. What actually was unique was having the Constitution as a single written document that formed the structure and scope of powers of the government and having every officer in that government take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. In almost every other government, the standard expectation was that officials would try to use their authority in any way they could get away with and the checks and balances against one person becoming a tyrant was that others who had power as well would stand against them. But the oath of office was different. It constrained by establishing that those who did not keep their oaths were both morally and legally impeachable. This allowed for powerful figures to be held in check or even removed without violence and bloodshed.

And one of the reasons for taking oaths is to ask God to judge when the oath is broken.
So here’s the question: Does God still care about oaths and does he still judge people and nations when they fail to uphold them? Because that’s really the key point about oaths. They aren’t just super-serious secular promises. They invoke the name and identity of God. And God promises that He will judge, not just the person who swore the oath (Leviticus 19:11-12), but also the people who were witnesses to the oath, if they do not require it to be upheld (Leviticus 5:1).

So in this episode, we want to look at what God says about oaths, and how we as Americans have broken our promises made before God. We also want to specifically consider how God has judged our nation, not just in general ways, but in ways that are directly tied to our broken promises.

Here’s the important thing to take away: God has not changed. He does not think it is foolish to involve Him in matters of solemnity and seriousness. What is foolish is to believe that his name is nothing more than a societal tool for deepening and embellishing the ceremonies of state, church, and family. God cares about his name. He is a jealous God and a consuming fire. We should not think we can take Him lightly and not be judged. Please join us as we consider this serious matter.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Can Reformed Baptists Be Reformed? (Ep. 202 Audio)

Can Baptists actually be Reformed? To answer that, we probably have to answer another question, “What does it mean to be Reformed in the first place? Is it a tradition, a specific set of beliefs, or something else entirely?

There are a lot of online debates and discussions about whether Baptists can be Reformed or not. And while some of those debates are just good-natured ribbing between Presbyterians and Baptists, it’s a subject worth thinking about seriously. When Baptists say they are “reformed” what do they mean, and are they correct? In one sense, the term “reformed” doesn’t have only one definition or use. Words are like that, in the abstract, they can have multiple definitions. But when a specific word is actually used, such as to identify a group of Baptists, that use must have one specific meaning. So are Reformed Baptists really Reformed?

In this episode, we want to talk about why Reformed Bapsists are Reformed and what we mean by that. We discuss some of the history of the Protestant Reformation and how Reformed Baptists emerged as a group in the UK. We discuss some of the doctrines that are specific to being considered Reformed, and we also talk about the unifying spirit of the Reformation that existed well before Luther or Calvin and goes back to the leadership and direction of Christ and His Spirit.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Can Christians Be Vigilantes? (Ep. 200 Audio)

Both Daniel Penny and Luigi Mangione were in the news recently due to associated murder charges. Both men claimed they were trying to stop evil. Both men claim their use of force was justified. The public is also divided, with some claiming one or both of them a hero and many others strongly believing the opposite.

But for those of us who believe in the sufficiency of scripture, we should be able to go to God’s word to understand these two situations as well as the general question of, “When does God say that men are allowed to use force?” Please join us as we discuss this culturally relevant topic.

Podcast on self defense
https://theconqueringtruth.com/2022/01/why-christians-must-defend-themselves-ep-53/

Sermon on Sampson
https://legacy.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=72224183820340

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Jimmy Carter’s Legacy: Was He a Christian President? (Ep. 199 Audio)

Jimmy Carter was one of the most outspokenly Christian presidents of the modern age, but was he an accurate representative of Christianity in the public sphere? His view of Christianity was that his beliefs should not impact his decisions or inform his policies, a view that many professing Christians shared at the time.

In this episode, we examine the legacy of Jimmy Carter, both during his time as president and in the years that followed. Please join us as we consider this topic.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Does the Church or State have Authority Over Marriage? (Ep. 198 Audio)

Who has authority over marriage? When a man and a woman are married, the official often says something like, “by the power vested in me by…”. But what does that mean and it is even remotely Biblical? Does the civil government have any authority over marriage? What about the church? And do people need to get married in a church by an ordained minister for the wedding to be recognized by God?

In this episode, we want to look at many of the different issues that relate to authority over marriage. We look at the Old Testament passages where God frames and defines the institute of marriage, and then discuss how this design plays out in society as the civil magistrate, the church, and the family, each of which are divinely-appointed authorities, work together at times and in other ways against each other. Marriage is both simple and complex. The union itself is fairly straightforward, a man and a woman are joined together – two previously separate people now become one flesh, but because marriage is the foundation of societies and nations even small errors in how we understand that union can have huge impacts. Please join us as we discuss this important topic.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Permanent Hosts – Dan Horn, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

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