Category: Audio Episodes

Recently, Cliffe Knechtle was interviewed by Tucker Carlson and he was asked if he thought there was more Christian persecution in the world or if there was a revival of Christianity in the US and he answered “Both”. In his explanation, he referenced a statistic that the 20th century had more martyrs than all previous centuries combined, specifically mentioning that since the year 2000, more than 50,000 Nigerian Christians have been slaughtered for their faith. And while this episode is not intended to critique everything that he said, we do want to focus on the statistic that he cited, why it is not correct, and why we shouldn’t use it to imply that the church is about to expand because of all the blood that has been shed. Besides it being a serious confusion of cause and effect, we first need to understand what persecution and martyrdom are and how they differ from God judging his church for its lack of faith and obedience.

In this episode, we spend time discussing how easily persecution is misunderstood. For part of this discussion, we leverage specific information we have from over a decade of ministry in Nigeria, specifically in the Northern areas where Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsman have been most active in their attacks. While many people in Nigeria have been killed, the disagreements and attacks have been much more over politics and resources than over faith. The church in Nigeria is largely corrupt, ironically, with much of it dominated by those who preach the prosperity gospel, many pastors there openly admit to sleeping with congregants, and theft and lying is rampant among church leadership.

The point of all this is not to be discouraging. God is working among his people, but we should recognize that in Nigeria and in the United States, we are not being persecuted for righteousness, but for our sins. It is not that revival is far away from us, but that the path to that revival lies not through enduring God’s judgment but in repentance.

Timecodes
00:00:00 The Clip
00:02:49 What Is Actually Happening in Nigeria
00:14:08 What is a Martyr
00:29:11 Reason for violence in Nigeria
00:37:51 Call to Repentance
00:50:02 True Witnesses
01:03:40 Do Martyrs Have To Die

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

While scripture commands those who follow after Christ to marry in the faith, many Christians end up in the situation where they are married to a husband or wife who is not a believer. And while there are times where the unbeliever chooses to leave or divorce, there are many cases where they do not. For a wife, there are explicit instructions in how to live in that marriage. (see 1 Peter 3:1-2), and while there are definitely nuances there that are worth discussing, for this discussion we are going to focus on the situation where a believing husband is married to an unbelieving wife. This is actually a growing problem. For many years, more women attended church than men, but recently that trend has reversed. So here is the question: how should a Christian man live in obedience toward God with his unbelieving wife?

Thumbnail image by Wyatt Fisher under CC BY-SA 2.0

Timecodes
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:34 Ephesians 5
00:06:15 Different Situations
00:12:01 Practicing Love from 1 Cor. 13
00:19:32 Leading an unsaved wife is your ministry
00:31:26 Sanctification is the Goal
00:46:18 Wisdom in God’s Ways
00:49:43 Don’t Lose Hope
00:51:34 How to bear her burdens
00:58:24 Watch out for bad influence
01:02:36 Sex as a weapon
01:11:29 Examine what your wife is bringing to you

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 is the American church so desperate to receive a handout from the government? Why are Christians so willing to approve of men with no testimony of faith and to follow after them, seeking their approval in return? Is it because of a lack of understanding or a lack of faith?

For the purposes of understanding, it is true that God created the church and state to accomplish different roles. The church is the people of God, made to know Him and to understand His Word. The church’s power is in its intimate knowledge of God, both that the church communes with God and that it speaks God’s words to the world. The state was created to serve God in a different way: to punish evil and reward good. The state wields the sword, and in many ways it is dependent on the church to teach it right from wrong and how to properly discern evil.

But in terms of faith, the church is never to look to the state for protection or power. The church knows God and receives its blessings directly from His hand. The church should never look to the government to do its work or to be its provider. In doing so, it ceases to trust in God and becomes dependent on the government, and in that dependence, it finds itself no longer capable of speaking the truth for fear of loss.

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

Whether it is politicians saying that we can deport illegal immigrants because you are separating children from their parents or the bill needs to pass because it is the biggest spending cut ever, politicians lead primarily with stirring up emotions. The church isn’t much different as music and stories are used to create an atmosphere so the people first respond emotionally rather than with reason. It is then easy to get them to agree with the reasoning when they are emotionally invested already. So here’s the question: How should emotion be used in leadership?

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

In 1977 when James Dobson started Focus on the Family, American families were in a great deal of turmoil. Dobson, a Christian psychologist who grew up in the Holiness movement started Focus on the Family to try to help resolve some of the confusion and to strengthen the home. And while he was successful in many ways, the American church began to look to him as more than just a psychologist with much better advice than the world and looked to him as an Evangelical leader. This shift was in many ways not beneficial for either Dobson or the church.

In this episode, we want to look at Dr. James Dobson’s life and overall influence on the American family and the church. One of the main issues we want to focus on is what happens when the church follows someone whose primary focus is on something other than proclaiming and teaching the Word of God. To do that, it’s crucial to understand that every Christian is not called to lead the church. Every Christian who ministers is not required to focus on teaching the church how to understand the Word of God and equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. But the men who lead the church must have as their primary focus how to cause God’s word to shine forth and to transform the hearts and minds of those they are ministering to. And it is as much the duty of the church to follow the right men as it is the duty of the leaders to have the right focus. This is one of the main reasons that Dr. Dobson’s ministry is a bit of a mixed bag. He fought fiercely against the most visible cultural attacks and pressures that were assaulting American homes such as abortion and the sexual revolution, and he championed a return to Biblically mandated corporal punishment. For all of these positions, he was viciously attacked. But at the same time, he was and continued to be first and foremost a Christian psychologist. His fundamental view of man and sin was shaped by psychological principles and while he looked to align those principles with scripture, that alignment limited the extent to which scripture could be the primary focus.

It’s important for the church to examine how it is being led. It’s important to look back and see how past decisions caused significant impacts, not so we can praise or condemn James Dobson. If his faith was in Christ, then he has and will continue to receive His eternal reward from the hand of the one who is the author and finisher of the faith of all who believe, the Lord Jesus 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

Rebaptism has been a discussion since before the Reformation where the Anabaptists openly rejected the Roman Catholic baptism and said that because they worshipped a false god, a Catholic who professed faith had to be baptized “again” – though the Anabaptists would say they were being baptized for the first time. Since then, especially with easy-believism – raise your hand, pray a prayer and you’re saved – many people who made such “professions of faith” earlier in their life have realized that they had no idea who God was when they were baptized as they were complete slaves to sin and continued to walk in that path. The Bible is very clear that there is one baptism, so should people in such a situation be baptized?

In this episode, we want to look at what is commonly referred to as “rebaptism.” While the Anabaptists were a heretical group with no real direct connection to modern Reformed Baptists, it doesn’t mean that their position on a particular topic was wrong. One of the things that gets overlooked with baptism is that while Baptism is more than just an outward sign of an individual’s inward faith, God still says that faith is required to please Him and that without faith, pleasing Him is impossible. When you consider a Catholic baptism, where is there any faith present? The same can be said for many evangelical services. The other thing that comes up quite frequently is the idea that baptism requires some sort of ability to determine if the person is “really saved”, with many jokes being made about “regeneration goggles”. We agree completely that it is impossible to tell if someone is truly regenerate. But what is so often overlooked is that Scripture does tell us how to identify a lack of faith. Those who walk in the flesh, who are slaves to sin, should not be thought of as brothers. The church should make it a practice to recognize known counterfeits. The church should not tell people that God has entered into a covenant with them when they have every reason to believe that is not true. False conversions and false baptisms are real, and “regeneration goggles” are not required. At the same time, no one should be baptized because of how they feel. A testimony is not a feeling, and God desires to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Baptism should always be a serious event, and not performed lightly. Please join us as we discuss this important but controversial 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

While Jimmy Swaggart died in 2025 at the beginning of July, many people only know him because of his public scandals of being caught with prostitutes in 1988 and then again in 1991. But before those revelations that heralded the decline of his influence, he was an internationally known preacher on TV and radio, making around $150 million dollars per year, who had built his ministry over nearly 40 years.

In this episode, we want to look at Jimmy Swaggart’s message and the techniques he used in his ministry and ask some questions about his success. It’s so easy to dismiss false teachers and to think that we cannot be tricked by them. But in doing research for this episode, Charles went back and listened to some of Swaggart’s old sermons and was surprised to realize how much he sounded like an old-fashioned fire-and-brimstone preacher that would have preached in many churches he grew up in. Swaggart consistently refined his preaching techniques to the point that when he began his ministry, he sounded much like Billy Graham, and toward the end, he sounded much like Joel Osteen.

False prophets will always be a threat to the flock, but we can protect ourselves and others by being aware of how they lead men astray and by keeping our eyes fixed upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. 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

In the wake of John MacArthur’s death, how do we avoid falling into the trap of hero worship or idolatry? How can we examine his life so we keep the good things he taught and avoid carrying forward his mistakes?

Few American pastors have had a longer or more impactful ministry than John MacArthur. From his focus on sequential expository preaching to his emphasis of Lordship salvation, to his late-in-life transition from Arminian to Reformed soteriology, John MacArthur helped reform the American church in significant ways. But like any man, Pastor MacArthur was not perfect and made decisions and had practices that we should not emulate.

In this episode, we discuss John MacArthur’s life and attempt to unpack the aspects that should be emulated and those that should be discarded. We believe that this is a God-honoring practice that helps keep us from idolatry and worship of man. 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

What does it mean to edify one another? We know that the word means to “build up”, but how should we think about that task as brothers and sisters in Christ? In this episode, as we continue to look at the duties of Christians, we come to edifying one another and supporting the ministry of the church, both of which are central to being Christians, both of which are often greatly misunderstood. Please join us as we discuss this oft-neglected topic.

Link to first video in series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u5lvDuSDlI

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