Founders Ministries Closed – Hurricane Ian
On behalf of Dr. Tom Ascol regarding the situation in SWFL and the impact of Hurricane Ian:
The Founders team is so thankful for everyone who has been praying for us and our community in Southwest Florida during Hurricane Ian. By the grace of God, all of our team made it through the storm safely and we are praising Him for His goodness. But the damage and devastation in our area is immense. For that reason, all operations of Founders Ministries are fully suspended until further notice.
We are not yet able to fully assess the damages at our offices and property. Thank you to all those who support and pray for us at Founders. Please continue to pray for us in the days and months ahead. We are going to be a part of a massive long term relief project in Southwest Florida. We will get back online and operating as soon as we are able, but at this time, there is no indication of when that may be.
Many of you have asked how you can send donations to assist in relief. We are not in a position to set up a specific way to give right now. We are directing people to give through Grace Baptist Church online. Under the oversight of the Grace elders & deacons, they will steward those donations and insure that they are used in the best way to serve the needs of SWFL. If you do decide to make a donation through Founders specifically for Hurricane relief, please make sure to note that appropriately in the donation. Anything that you can do to help us spread this information would be wonderful.
As far as supplies, they can be sent to Grace Baptist Church (1303 Ceitus Terrace, Cape Coral, FL 33991). Immediate needs would be roofing supplies (tarps), canned / non perishable food, water, fuel, baby supplies (diapers, wipes, formula) and monetary donations. Each day it becomes more clear that this recovery will be massive and the rebuilding will take years.
Thanks be to God for His goodness and the way He has blessed us, even in these hard and dark days. Please pray that He would continue to sustain us in the long road of ahead and that He would use this tragic event to display His glory in SWFL.
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The Amazing Grace of God’s Providence
The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures;He will my shield and portion be As long as life endures.
When John Newton penned his classic hymn in 1772, first sung in January 1773, the autobiographical reflections of his life to that point were clearly at the forefront of his mind. He had experienced more misadventures in his first few decades than most men, and the grace of the Lord had marvelously saved him from spiritual death as well as severe earthly danger.
In his fourth stanza Newton shifts his focus to the future, and he declares that the goodness of God which had thus far followed him through 46 years was his certain expectation for the remainder of his days. Indeed, believers should commemorate God’s previous acts of kindness and deliverance, and Newton reminds us we should also entrust ourselves to the goodness of God for all our future days. Christians should expect God’s perpetual goodness towards us. We should hold a posture of what one might call “Christian optimism,” rooted in the character and the sure promise of God.
The Truth of God’s Promise
God has promised good to his children. The reality of this statement is enough to make one marvel forever. The supreme Lord over all, who created the heavens and earth and is Himself majestic beyond comprehension, has condescended not merely to notice man, but to care for man and to devote himself to the good of man (Psalm 8). In God’s act of creation, he makes for man a good world full of blessing and wonder. When he calls Abraham, he states that his purpose is for Abraham to be blessed and to be a blessing to humanity (Genesis 12:2). Indeed, throughout redemptive history we see God dealing with his people with the design of goodness and blessing in view (Exodus 19:6, 34:10; Deuteronomy 26:18-19; 2 Samuel 7; Jeremiah 29:10-14, 31:31-34). Paul declares to us who believe in Christ that God is actively at work in our lives to bring about our good and his glory (Romans 8:28-39). We shall say more about the substance of the good that God has promised, but may we first believe this promise, embrace it, and wonder at it.
There is a danger for us who want to resist popular and pervasive caricatures of God found in modern Christian teaching, music, and subculture, which emphasize the goodness of God and his “friendliness” to the neglect of presenting his holiness, sovereignty, and righteousness. That danger is that in our efforts to champion these latter traits we can become myopic and fail to cherish and celebrate the kindness and genuine goodness of God and his delight in his people, “For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation,” (Psalm 149:9; cf. Zephaniah 3:17).
Instead, we must not lose sight of the consistent theme of scripture that God intends to bless his people and do good to them. True, God is not a cosmic Santa Claus, but neither is he a cold and indifferent potentate; he loves his children. Calling upon God as our Father is an act of faith in his benevolent disposition toward us. Hence, Jesus compares our love for our children with that of the Father for us: “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him,” (Matthew 7:9-11). Christians ought to be the most hopeful, the most optimistic people because we know that the God who superintends the universe has a loving heart. Furthermore, the goodness of God is not a generalized intention but a personal promise; each believer can rightly say, “The Lord has promised good to me.” Believing that God is good and intends to do good to us is a matter of believing his Word.
The Surety of God’s Promise
As Newton asserts, our hope in God’s promise is a certainty because it is grounded in his Word and his character. The author of Hebrews makes this same connection in reference to Abraham’s hope and our own as heirs of the promise:
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus as gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. [1]
Our hope is for that which is certain and yet presently unseen, namely God’s future goodness towards us in this life and ultimately in the final resurrection (Romans 8:20-25; 1 Corinthians 15:19). The Word of God is the basis for our hope; we believe the promises God has communicated to us. God’s Word is also the means by which this hope is secured or brought to pass in our lives and in human history. When the Lord speaks, he is acting; unlike the mere words of a man, God’s Word accomplishes purposes and has tangible effects on his creation. God’s Word secures our hope because it is his Word that produces saving faith and repentance, and his Word is the very power of God to direct the course of human events (Romans 10:17; James 1:21; Isaiah 55:10-11; 1 Corinthians 1:18). Though Peter was an eyewitness of Christ’s glory, he asserts that the prophetic word of the Scriptures was more certain than his own firsthand experience (2 Peter 1:16-20). Hence, when we do not see firsthand that God is being good to us, we can nevertheless believe it.
The Substance of God’s Promise
God has promised good to us, but what is meant by “good?” Is it the “good” that is peddled by prosperity gospel hucksters, Word of Faith teachers, and even misguided evangelicals – namely physical health, material prosperity, and an abundance of self-esteem and self-affirmation? Does God’s word promise a life of comfort and ease to believers? Or is there a higher good which we should expect from God, one that transcends our own experience, emotions, and even existence? Newton answers this by directing our attention heavenward and insisting that essence of God’s promise for good is the promise that God would give himself to us – “He will my shield and portion be.”
Scripture declares that God himself is both the source and the substance of our good. As John Piper helpfully summarizes, “The best and final gift of the gospel is that we gain Christ… the highest, best, final, decisive good of the gospel, without which no other gifts would be good, is the glory of God in the face of Christ revealed for our everlasting enjoyment.”[2] So, what is this good that God has promised to us? It is nothing less than God himself. God calls, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies us for our good because these are the means by which we will know him, the ultimate treasure.
The world and the enemies of the gospel define “good” based upon human sensory experience: an attractive spouse, an expensive car, an adventurous vacation, a clean bill of health, successful children, worry-free existence, political power, and the list goes on. The good which God will bring about in our lives certainly permeates our human experience and is delightful to us, but it is not centered on us; it is anchored in and defined by him. This is the sense in which God is our portion. The reward of believing the gospel is that we gain Christ, and there is no possible higher reward.
We ought not expect the world to understand that supreme gladness is found only in knowing the Lord, and yet do we believers not also sometimes seek to find our chief happiness in those things which cannot ultimately satisfy us? Even good and commendable things can usurp God’s rightful place on the thrones of our hearts, individually and corporately. In Jeremiah 2:13 the Lord upbraids his people for such an exchange:
For my people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken me,
The fountain of living waters,
And hewed out cisterns for themselves,
Broken cisterns that can hold no water.
The Lord declared himself to be the shield of Abraham (Gen 15:1), Israel (Deuteronomy 33:29), and David (Psalm 3:3; 5:12, 18:2), depicting himself as the one who protected them from trouble and calamity. Each of us could undoubtedly recount myriad ways in which the Lord had delivered us from hardships, and yet the Lord has most certainly protected us from unknown and unexperienced trials about which we know nothing simply because he spared us and shielded us from them. We can be sure that God will not permit anything to penetrate his shielding except that which he designs to afflict us for our good. This is why in the face of profound loss and unfathomable suffering, those who know God can say that such afflictions are themselves good (Job 1:20-22; Philippians 3:7-11).
The Duration of God’s Promise
If the Lord were to promise us good only in this lifetime, we should be thankful for his mercy even in that short span of time. Yet God’s promise extends through the end of our days on earth and beyond, “as long as life endures.” As Jesus declared to Martha, so he promises to us, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). To believe this promise is to echo the praise of David, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” (Psalm 23:6).
The comfort that is ours in knowing the promise of God to do good to us, for us, and in us is a cause for great rejoicing when we see and experience this in our times of blessing. The birth of a child, a plentiful harvest, and seasons of spiritual growth and refreshment are tangible proofs of God’s promises and his faithfulness. But it is in the valley of the shadow of death, the periods of drought and famine, and the times of spiritual despondency when we most need to be reminded of God’s promises of goodness that will ultimately prevail over the trials we experience. When our temporal vista gives way to the perspective of eternity, we shall see that all along the Lord was doing everything for our good, just as he promised. As Newton’s friend William Cowper[3] penned,
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour:
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower. [4]
In his summary of Newton’s life and theology, biographer Josiah Bull places a special emphasis on Newton’s optimism towards God’s providence, “But here we would especially speak of Mr Newton’s faith in the overruling providence of God. In all circumstances his soul stayed itself upon the Lord. Thus in the perils of the deep he possessed his soul in peace.”[5]
Newton saw that even the sufferings of life are part of God’s plan to bring about good, both in his own life and in the lives of others. In his deepest sorrow following the death of his wife, he remarked in his journal, “I acknowledge that it was well worth standing awhile in the fire for such an opportunity of experiencing and exhibiting the power and faithfulness of His promises.”[6] Newton looked externally to God for his support, and he was sustained through his trial by considering that others who saw both his afflictions and his steadfast trust would have reason to look to God and be comforted when their own trials came. Newton preached the funeral service for his wife, and he remarked in his journal that he expected this to bear fruit, stating, “I have reason to hope that many of my hearers were comforted and animated under their afflictions by what they saw of the Lord’s goodness to me in my time of need.” Thus, our trust in God amidst the darkness may be used to be a blessing to others if we will but have eyes to see beyond ourselves in our travails. The good purposes God has for him who is suffering extend beyond the sufferer himself (Philippians 1:14, Colossians 1:24-25).
The Christian is not called to be a Pollyanna, willfully oblivious of the troubles that beset us and blindly optimistic about happiness lying just around the corner. Neither should Christians be like Eeyore, the old perpetually pessimistic donkey, incapable of finding contentment due to an expectation of inevitable hardship. Instead, we ought to trust the promise of God, that he intends good for us and that “He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it,” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).
[1]Hebrews 6:17-20
[2]John Piper, God is the Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 13.
[3]For a concise account of their friendship, see George Ella, “John Newton’s Friendship with William Cowper, https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/article/john-newtons-friendship-william-cowper.
[4]William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.”
[5]Josiah Bull, The Life of John Newton (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2007; reprinted 2020), 317.
[6]Bull, 262.
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Biblical Sexuality Sunday 2023
Biblical Sexuality Sunday 2023
A call to faithfully preach God’s good design for marriage and sexualityA Brave, New, 1984 World
On December 8th, 2021, the Canadian Government gave Royal Assent to Bill C-4, “And Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy).” One months later, on January 8th, 2022, the Bill became law in Canada. The Bill defines “conversion therapy” as: a practice, treatment or service designed to(a) change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual;
(b) change a person’s gender identity to cisgender;
(c) change a person’s gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth;
(d) repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour;
(e) repress a person’s non-cisgender gender identity; or
(f) repress or reduce a person’s gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth.The Preamble of the bill states that the belief that, “heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions” is based on “myths and stereotypes.” This means that the historic, Biblical belief that God has created humans as male and female, existing in a sexual binary, and that the only good and right sexual expression is to be heterosexual and monogamous marriage, is now categorized as myth and stereotype in Canadian law.
What are the legal consequences of breaking this law? “Everyone who knowingly causes another person to undergo conversion therapy — including by providing conversion therapy to that other person — is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years… Everyone who knowingly promotes or advertises conversion therapy is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years.”
The Church’s Response
Several pastors in Canada, working together with Liberty Coalition Canada, determined that the best way to respond to this godless and harmful legislation was through the ministry of preaching and teaching. On the following Sunday after Bill C-4 became law, January 16th, pastors across Canada preached on God’s good design for marriage and sexuality, and were in essence breaking the law. These faithful men had settled in their hearts that after over one year of COVID tyranny, it was time to break Canadian law publicly and intentionally, and tell Caesar that Christ alone is Lord over the church, and that He alone defines marriage, sexuality, and creational norms.
We were joined by many pastors in the United States as well, in unity and solidarity with their Canadian brothers in Christ. This included Pastor Tom Ascol, Pastor Josh Boice, Pastor Tom Buck, Pastor John MacArthur, Pastor James White, Pastor Doug Wilson, and many others. The reality is that the “beastly” State in Canada more-than-rearing its ugly head in the United States and other parts of the world.
Part of our commitment included preaching on Biblical sexuality every year on the anniversary of Bill C-4 becoming law, partly in open protest of an evil law, and partly in the hopes that God mercifully leads men to repeal this harmful legislation. Our desire is to see pastors commit to joining this initiative each year on the anniversary of the passing of Bill C-4, making it a part of their annual preaching schedule.
A Call to Action
That brings us to January 15th, 2023, which is the date for our next Biblical Sexuality Sunday. The theme of this year is centered around Matthew 19:4, that God has created humans as male and female from the very beginning. Pastors in Canada are already committed to joining this and every year, and we are ready to proclaim the authority of Christ and His Word, and the power of God to transform lives. By God’s grace, there are men in Germany, England, and France who will be joining the campaign this year.
One might ask, “Why should I join in this initiative? What is the point?” I want to share a brief story with you. A pastor in British Columbia (West-coast Canada) preached on Biblical sexuality on January 16th 2022. In his church, unbeknownst to him, was a young girl who had been undergoing hormone treatments and various surgeries in an effort to live as a man, which she believed herself to be. Upon hearing the sermon, she was convicted and broken, wept with her parents, repented of her lifestyle, and turned to obedience in Christ. The Lord restored her and her family, and we marvel at the grace of God. You can see an interview we did with the pastor and the family here. We believe God can and will do similar works this year.
If you are a pastor/elder in your church, please consider joining us this year on January 15th, 2023 for Biblical Sexuality Sunday. If you attend a church and would like to encourage your pastor to join, I would encourage you to do so. In any event, please consider sharing this initiative with as may people as you can, including sharing the interview with the BC pastor and the family from his church. You can find more about the initiative at libertycoalitioncanada.com/biblical-sexuality-sunday. If you have any questions, please email me at adebartolo@libertycoalitioncanada.com. By God’s grace, we hope to see more lives transformed by the Word of God, we hope to see more faithful brothers preach the truth of God’s design for marriage and sexuality, and we hope to see our nation repent of this great evil and repeal this godless law. -
Fortieth Anniversary of a Prayer Meeting
I once heard the late James Boice say, “We tend to overestimate what God will do in one year and greatly underestimate what he will do in twenty.” The truth of this statement was immediately apparent to me as I pondered some of the great works of God in history, like the Protestant Reformation and the modern Baptist missionary movement. But I have continued to grow in my appreciation of its profundity over the last few decades.
Today, November 13, 2022, marks the fortieth anniversary of the day that was the catalyst for the origin of what later became Founders Ministries. I remember that day well. A few weeks before, I received a letter from Ernie Reisinger, who was then serving as pastor of a church on the Southeast coast of Florida. Over the previous four years Ernie had been traveling to the six Southern Baptist seminaries to give away copies of James Pettigru Boyce’s Abstract of Systematic Theology to graduating students.
I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1979. That next Spring, Ernie was on campus giving away Boyce’s book and I talked him into giving me one despite my first-year status. It was not difficult. Ernie loved to give away good books, especially whenever he sensed an eagerness to read them. Shortly after that, the seminary presidents disinvited him from coming back on their campuses to give away the Boyce book. The stated excuses were lame (“our students are busy preparing for final exams and do not have time to read your book”). A more plausible reason is that more and more students and graduates were actually reading Boyce’s Abstract and were being persuaded that the Bible does in fact teach that God is sovereign in salvation.
The rediscovery of the so-called “Doctrines of Grace” continued to spread and pastors were increasingly contacting Ernie asking for guidance and other resources. In response to this growing interest, he sent invitations to a few men asking us if we could meet with him in the Holiday Inn in Euless, Texas on Saturday, November 13, 1982. By that time I was in my third year as Assistant Pastor at Spring Valley Baptist Church in Dallas. Tom Nettles flew in from Memphis, where he had recently moved to teach at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Fred Malone and Ben Mitchell, who planted Heritage Baptist Church outside of Ft. Worth, Texas were there. Bill Ascol, Assistant Pastor at Broadmoor Baptist in Shreveport and R.F. Gates, a vocational evangelist in that church joined us after lunch.
The morning was spent in prayer, reading Scripture, and singing. The burden of those prayers was for heavenly wisdom as we considered how best to steward the growing interest in God-centered theology among Baptists. After lunch, the idea of a conference was suggested and we began to work out principles that would govern such a conference. I recently reread minutes of those deliberations and was struck again at the Lord’s kindness in directing our plans.
We agreed that the motive for such a conference was “to glorify God, honor His gospel, and strengthen His churches.” This was to be done by providing encouragement “in historical, biblical, theological, practical and ecumenical studies.” We also adopted statements on the purpose and theological foundation of the conference.
The purpose is to be a balanced conference in respect to doctrine and devotion expressed in the doctrines of grace and their experimental application to the local church, particularly in the areas of worship and witness. This is to be accomplished through engaging a variety of speakers to present formal papers, sermons, expositions, and devotions, and through the recommendation and distribution of literature consistent with the nature of the conference.
The theological foundation of the conference will be the doctrines of grace: election, depravity, atonement, effectual calling and perseverance and specifically related truths. These subjects will be presented doctrinally, expositionally, homiletically and historically. Each conference will concentrate on the experimental and pastoral application of the respective doctrines.
The name we adopted was “The Southern Baptist Conference on the Faith of Our Founders.” Within a few years it was mercifully shortened to the “Founders Conference.” Though our context was Southern Baptist and all of the original board members were in SBC churches, our concerns, vision, and fellowship have from the outset been much broader than the SBC. This became more evident as other ministries began to arise from the annual conference (such as a quarterly theological journal, website, publication of books, and an online Study Center) and our name officially changed to “Founders Ministries.”
The first twenty years witnessed the initiation of all those additional ministries and they were born in the face of what was sometimes steep opposition—not only from the liberals and progressives within the Baptist and evangelical world but also from fellow conservatives, including at times even those who claim to share our confessional theology. In and through it all the Lord has faithfully guided our steps and helped us to stay true to our convictions. That is not to say that there have been no missteps but, by His grace, I can say that He has kept us on the path that we charted from the beginning to work for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches.
Much has been accomplished over the last forty years—far more than we could have anticipated that Saturday in Euless. But there is yet much, much more to do. I am convinced that the brightest and most useful days of Founders Ministries lay before us. No small part of that is due to the recent establishment of the Institute of Public Theology (IOPT). With a faculty that is second to none, a vision that timely and aggressive, and a need that is becoming more evident by the semester, IOPT is poised to serve future generations of churches by training men to be church leaders who not only understand the gospel fluently but also are unashamed of it and unafraid to proclaim and defend it in the public square.
Zecharaiah 4:10 warns against despising the day of small things. Seven largely obscure men meeting in a nondescript hotel room forty years ago fits that category. Yet, He has done more than any of us could have ever imagined.
Thank you for all who have partnered with us in this ministry over those years. Please continue to pray for the Lord’s blessings as we continue to work for the recovery of the gospel and the reformation of local churches. If you would like to be a part of what Founders Ministries and the Institute of Public Theology are doing, click this link for more information on a special opportunity for the month of November.The 2023 Founders Conference will feature a special panel of Bill Ascol, Fred Malone, Tom Nettles, and Tom Ascol in recognition of God’s forty years of faithfulness to Founders.