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0:44My name is Nathan Giesenschlog. I know some of you in this room. I was in the drama back at Christmastime, and I've also been in the VBS drama, so I guess I'm a bit of a thespian. Am I saying that right? A little bit of an actor. I've got that going. I'm also a professor over at Blenn College. I teach with Pat Johnson and Danny England, and maybe a few others in this room as well. But my call to the ministry came through First Baptist Church in Caldwell, Texas, and that was where I was ordained. And I think a few people in this room are also Caldwellers or Caldwellians, however you say that. But that's that. But I'm a historian by trade. I'm a preacher by vocation. As we do it in the Baptist movement, the Baptist Church, bivocational preaching is kind of my thing. I preach at small churches, not any big churches, and so this is a big crowd for me, so I apologize if I'm a little nervous. But my historical background is varied because I teach in a survey section. So you'll see me reading on Puritanism, or you'll see me reading on the 1920s or something in between. But my real love is honestly the Civil War era, the antebellum period and the Reconstruction period. And so occasionally you'll see my daughter with me, and she is going to be done like I was done, which is getting drugged to Civil War battlefields. But as a historian, we have to read. And we read a lot and we read widely. But for me, I read a lot on the Civil War. And lately, my eyes have been bringing me to the story of a couple of men. And they're going to be the part of my sermon, my lecture, my sermon tonight. And those two men are Crawford Toy and James Pettigrew Boyce. And those two men are going to be very important to the early years of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The Civil War era, just very briefly stated, was a very tumultuous era, not just for the nation, which of course it was. You had the great tumult of the war itself. But it was also tumultuous and birthing for the Southern Baptist Convention. In about 1846, the Southern Baptist Convention was formed, and so was actually the Southern Methodist movement as well, and there was a lot of cleaving and a lot of breaking in that time period. But as I read up and have read on First Boyce, who is the protagonist and the godly man in this story, and Toy, who is not, what I kept coming across was the word providence. Providence, providence, providence. Now, providence is something we use a lot in churches. We use it in our daily walk. I assume many of you in this room use the word providence, perhaps even daily. You see something happening in your life, you're like, oh, there's the hand of God. Or you might say it's the providence of God. And occasionally, we might even use, kind of coming out of the old Enlightenment period, we might even use the word providence in exchange for just the generic term God. But for us, providence is extraordinarily important. And I'm going to lay my priors out before you today. Theologically, I come from a five-pointed Calvinist background. So if you're wondering how I'm going to come at things, I said it right there. If you know what I mean by the five points, well, you have a pretty strong understanding that I've got a strong belief in and feeling for the sovereignty of God. And so, that all said, when we talk about providence, providence is going to be completely dependent upon God being sovereign. And one of the terms that is I've gone to church here in Emmanuels for the last nine months or so, I like to take notes, and I know most of you do as well. And one of the things that I hope to say a few things tonight, and I'll throw these little nuggets out, I'm a professor. So, I say things like write this down. So, if I lapse into my Blenn College talk, I apologize. I'll do my best to stay as a preacher. But I would say this: one of the things that we throw out and say, Almighty God, we use that term alliant, and we use it reverently, we use that lovingly, and we often mean it in a modern sense that God can do all things, God can do anything, which is mostly true in the sense that God can't go against His will, God cannot do evil, God can't, well, God can only be God. But when we talk about God Almighty or Almighty God, in the old sense, the providential sense, God's act of power is working in all things. So, the next time you use that term Almighty God, think of God working His power through all things. It's not just He can do all, but He's working through all things. But of course, God is, His providence is dependent upon His sovereignty. God creates heaven and earth out of ex nilo, out of nothing, and then He sets it into motion, and He is active in creation. Our God that we worship and our God that we love and adore is not a God of deism. He is not a clockmaker God who stood back, snapped time into motion, and is watching it unfold. Nor is He a pantheistic God who is anywhere, everywhere. He is here, He is in all places, but He is outside of creation in a sense, too. So, our God is. Very much sovereign. He is our creator, of course. But also, as we work and think about providence, and really this is the introduction. I'll get to Boyce and to Toy in a minute. We also need to think about God as omniscient. If God is going to be providential, God's going to work all things to His glory, as He will. He needs to be omniscient. He needs to know all things. He is all-knowing, and He's all-wise. But not just that, God is also, of course, omnipotent, He's all-powerful. God, in order to arrange the affairs of the world and fit it together with such exact niceties that we can't help but see that it was the hand of God, He must be omnipotent. And last but not least, in order to bring men into places that they would never have thought they would have been, or to meet a person at that providential moment, He must be omnipresent in order to bring it all together. So, all those big, big words are extraordinarily important to this idea of the doctrine of providence, the providence of God. And frankly, when we talk about providence, the word providence is going to come from the old Latin. And some of you in this room perhaps have come out of a classical school. So, if I butchered Latin, I came out of the classical school at Snook for a while. So, and I was talking to Ms. Baber over here coming from the classical school of Somerville. They don't teach Latin last I checked at Snook and Somerville and Burlington. County, but I'll do my best. Providentia is the Latin word, and it means to see beforehand. To see beforehand. And so as we think about providence, we see quite clearly God is seeing beforehand.

7:46But providence isn't just an exercise in the dictionary. It's not. It's also, more importantly, it is a Trinitarian example. It's a Trinitarian thing. This is not just the purview of one aspect of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But Providence is very much Trinitarian. So I'd invite you to turn for just a moment in your Bibles to the letter of, well, frankly, we don't know who, who wrote it, but the letter to the Hebrews. Some say Paul, some say this, only God knows. But God in His Providence inspired the writer of Hebrews to give us this great rich theology where Christology is raised up very high. And when you study, and many of you have studied the letter to the Hebrews, and here you know exactly there is the unplumbable depth that we find, the unfathomable depths of Christology, Christ exalted in Hebrews. But in the very first chapter, in the very first verses of Hebrews, we see the Trinitarian aspect, particularly with the Father and the Son working to build all things, create all things, and put it into motion and to order it. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in the many portions and in many ways, in these last days, he is. Spoken to us in his Son, whom he has appointed, or heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. And he is the radiance of his glory in the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power. And there, in those few sentences, and we can go all through the Bible looking for examples of Providence with the Father and the Son working, but right there you see it quite clearly. And for those of you thinking, but what about the Holy Ghost?

9:31Well, many of you come from a Bible practicing and reading background, and I would imagine a few of you, many more than a few, frankly, on a Sunday night, know the Bible by heart in some instances. Genesis 1:1. And God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And there's the Spirit. So it is extremely Trinitarian. We love that aspect. God is at work. And this is the first part. When we think about the providence of God, we think about his governance of the world. But it's intensely scriptural, this idea of providence, though it is providence itself is the word never really used in an English dictionary. We don't really see it said, but we see it everywhere. Example for your notes, as you take them, of course, many of you know the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.

10:30Genesis 22. And you know the story how Abraham is called forth and he said, take your son, your only son, whom you love, and prepare a sacrifice and sacrifice him on a mount, I will tell you. And that's God speaking, of course, to Abraham. And then when Isaac asked, where is the lamb of the sacrifice? And what was God's answer? God will provide. He will provide. And then if you think about it, and many of you know the story all so well because you've learned it since you were five years old or younger, Abraham did not spare his son, but the Lord did. And what was in the bushes? A ram. And that's the providence of God working right there, ordering all things. And if you think further still, what did Abraham call that mount? Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide.

11:30Then later we look into Genesis around 45 to 50, we see the story of Joseph. And of course, Joseph is going to be done evil by his brothers. We know that story well. And then, of course, as Joseph comes into contact with his brothers, he exposes himself. He lets them know who he is. But yet, then when Israel dies, the brothers are rightly afraid because they are men of the world. And they were afraid that Joseph was about to exact revenge. And you know the story well, too. Joseph says this to his brothers: he says, You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about the present result to preserve many people alive.

12:19The second part of providence that we look at today isn't just the ordering of the world as we understand it, but also make this comment to you for you to put in your notes if you're taking them. It's the word concurrence. Providence is a concurring thing, a concurrence, that you have human actors who think they are doing this or that, and yet it is the will of God working and directing it to his ultimate design. Similarly to the story of Joseph, in the sense that evil men doing bad things, working out to the good and to the grand design and plan of the Almighty, we look at Isaiah 10 and the Assyrians and how they are used as the rod of chastisement upon the wicked children of Israel. And yet God does not commit evil, but he uses the Assyrians to punish Israel. And then, if you've read Isaiah 10, you know Isaiah 10. What does God say about the Assyrians? I will punish you. Your heart was already corrupt, and so on. So, as we talk about prophets, Providence in this concurrence. In the Latin, again, here we go again, it means run with each other. So, when you think about the concurrence of providence, it's running with each other.

13:42And then, of course, dramatically, when we talk about bad men doing the will of God, there is no greater example for a Christian than that of Judas. Judas. But more mundane, I want you to think about how God's providence, and sometimes we see clearly, as the writer William Cooper in that last song that I requested, thank you, John. Where are you at? You're over here. Thank you, John. God works in mysterious ways. And how God will make He's His own interpreter, and He will make it plain. And that is often true.

14:19But in a more mundane way, and some of you may kind of think about this for a second, and we'll come back to it as we go. But you remember the story of Ruth and Boaz? What was Ruth doing when she met Boaz? Ruth was a Moabitis, right? And she was gleaning in the field. She was picking up the leavings. And there was Boaz who saw her and said, Leave her alone. Don't insult her. Don't hurt her. And they have this wonderful moment. And it's obvious that there's something there. And yet, as we know, the story of Ruth, Ruth and Boaz become a couple. They become married. He redeems her. As the kinsman redeemer.

15:03And they have a child, Obed, who is the grandfather of David, and Boaz is in the line of Jesus, the great king. Who would think that gleaning in the field would lead to the line of David and, of course, to Jesus? But God does. That's the providence of God. But even more mundane, certainly, than Ruth and Boaz, which is frankly not mundane, this one is, certainly. It's a settlement of Texas. I had to be a historian. I had to throw in a little history for you. But I'll be brief. Some of you know it, maybe not. But we all know that the father of Texas is a fellow named Stephen Austin, Stephen F. Austin State University, Austin County, Austin, Texas, the People's Republic of Austin. Sorry, I had to say that.

15:51But I will say this: it wasn't Stephen Austin who got the ball rolling on the story of Texas with the settlement of Texas by the Anglos. It was his father, Moses. And here's the providence. Moses Austin was in his mid-50s in 1820, and he came to San Antonio to Behar to try to bring settlement, to get it going, and he got kicked out of the governor's office there in Spanish San Antonio. Spain-controlled Texas at that point. And he, Moses Austin, is crushed. He's a 50-something-year-old man, and he's in trouble. He's got nothing left. And he's walking down the streets of Behar, and he comes into a Contact with a guy he hadn't seen for 20 years, had never written him or anything, and they had just met one evening while selling lead in New Orleans in about 1800. And that man's name is Philip Henry Nering Bagel. You don't know him by that name. You know him by the town's name of Bastrop, the Baron de Bastrop. And the Bastrop was the great friend of the governor, Martinez. And the Baron said, Hey, let me introduce you to the governor. And that did it. The hinge of history, the providence of God, how two men meet. But let's make this more personal when we talk about the providence of God. Make this more personal. For some of you in this room, your story is kind of like maybe Ruth and Boaz. By accident, you met your wife. Perhaps at a Sunday school lunch event, maybe at VBS if you go back far enough. Perhaps it was at Texas AM University. Maybe some of you in this room, in time, you'll look back and say, I met my wife at Texas AM in an engineering class when I was a freshman and I didn't know anything. And that was the love story right there. For my family, nothing that for my wife and I, it's nothing that dramatic, though. Anyways, I won't tell those stories.

17:49But I will say this: there was one dramatic story that I will share with you, and it is nothing but the providence of God, God protecting his children. One of my cousins, she was. In her 20s, and this is in San Antonio, Texas. And looking forward into life, she was going to have a lot of medical issues. She was in a bar. She was, it was, she was doing what 20-year-olds sometimes do without getting too detailed. And then walks into this bar a man who is a second lieutenant in the Air Force in San Antonio, Texas.

18:27Cupid's arrows, if you want to say it like that, met. In a bar, which I would not suggest you go trying to find spouses. God, in his providence, met a, these two, brought these two together. Lindy, that's her name. Lindy, who needed care, watch care of a good and faithful husband. Doug, who is a good and godly man of the finest of the Lutheran denomination. And Doug is taking care of her over these 40 years, coming out of a meeting in a place you would not expect. For some of us, though, the providence of God is very prosperous, the situation in life, prosperity, family, material blessings, and a providential job. But providence is also not just the good. And I was alluded to, Brother Jones, this morning, and I was sitting there listening, and he's right. Providence is sometimes not as good. And some of you know exactly how the providence of God has worked in your life. It has not always been sunlit uplands. And for some, It will be hardship and toil. Because God in His providence placed you not in the best of families, but perhaps in a hard family. Not in the best of prosperity, not in the best time period, whatever, but He put you in a hard lot. He didn't give you the best of health, but He gave you bad health. God in His providence did that. So when we take the good, we must also receive the less. And so it begs the question, and this is what I want to ask you before too long, though, is: I want to ask you this. What should we do as Christians? How should we deal as Christians who are blessed with those who are providentially not blessed? God put them in a difficult set of circumstances. What shall we do?

20:20The answer must be charity. We must love our fellow man. We must act and must do. But as we go to the last here, we think about providence as it works its way through our lives. Sometimes we don't always know what the providence of God is up to, what the will of God is. Sometimes he will tell us plainly, as a songwriter says, old Cooper says, but sometimes he doesn't. And of course, we think of Job.

20:51And some of you have studied that book well because Job spoke to you. Job was your lifeline when life was as hard. Hard as it was. It seemed like the waves were buffeting your boat. Your life was perhaps about to be a shipwreck, and the shoals were going to shatter it. Yet there was Job, and he persevered. He kept going. And if you know Job and you know the story well, you know all that befell him. His prosperity was taken away. His family was taken away, excepting his wife. Even his health was shattered. And yet it is important to note here as we look at this: he never sinned. In two separate instances in Job 2:10b and also in chapter 1 and verse 22, the writer of the book of Job says, he did not sin with his lips. He did not blame God in sin.

21:48But he also did what we should do when Providence is seemingly against us. Those frowning faces, the dark cloud is upon us. He worshiped, chapter 1, verse 20. And then, as we also know, too, best I can tell, Job never found out what was going on until after he passed into eternity, after he came before the throne, and we assume. And for some of you here tonight, that is where you are. It is a dark time in your life. And sometimes you're wondering, why has God dealt with me as such? Sometimes we can answer, and friends, sometimes we cannot. As we were singing those old songs tonight, Night, the old rugged cross. I was having flashbacks to growing up at Lone Oak Baptist Church in Snook, Texas. I was having flashbacks to my Southern Baptist roots back across the river. But there's one that's not in this hymn book here, but I do want to say it just for a second. I might even sing it to you, and if that ends the service, we'll be okay. But how many of you know the song farther along?

22:54Tempted and tried, we're oft made to wonder why it should be thus all the day long, while there are others living about us, never molested, though in the wrong. And on you can go. I apologize how bad a singer I am. But there's a lot of melancholy in that song. And because as we walk through this life, sometimes it is a veil of tears. And we don't understand why things happen as they do. But it is in the providence and the all-wise providence of God that it happens. Last but not least, we talk about the providence of salvation. How God called you and called me to everlasting salvation. And for some of you, it was quite dramatic. I think of the, it may be like Paul on a road to Damascus moment, perhaps.

24:01Perhaps it was like the Ethiopian eunuch who was just this preacher who comes out of nowhere, seemingly. He preaches Christ to you, and you believe. Perhaps it was like Augustine, the great doctor of the early church, Augustine, who is struggling with sexual sin, who is struggling, and he can't get it through, and then he's near the breakthrough point. And then he hears these little kids that are chanting, pick it up and read. Pick it up and read it.

24:33Augustine, who will become the great doctor of the medieval church, or excuse me, the third century, fourth century church, who, if you are reformed, you take your legacy not so much from Calvin, but actually Augustine. Augustine, the city of God, Augustine, his confessions, readings that we should do. But there, when he ran, when he heard those words, pick it up and read it, he ran to his Bible, which was a parchment where the book of Romans was, chapter 13, verses 13 and 14, as I'm remembering correctly, and it was put on the Christ, put on Christ, and lay aside wickedness. And he became Augustine of Hippo. John Wesley was strangely warmed at a sermon listening to the introduction of the book of Romans by Luther, and he seemingly would already have been saved. But for some of you in this room, it was that sort of moment. And for some of you, you grew up in the church, and you've always been here, and you always will be. And God bless you. To sum up what Providence is as a definition, this is where the Heidelberg Catechism comes in. And it's said, well, Providence is the almighty and ever-present power of God by which God upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things, in fact, come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. And that's right.

26:10Lord's Day 10, number 27, if you're looking at the Heidelberg Confession. So that brings me to James Pettigrew Boyce of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. James Pettigrew Boyce. In this Southern Seminary, which perhaps one of you or two of you in this room might go to, and his last night checked, Tom got his Ph.D. or demon, I think it was actually, at Southern up in Louisville. Am I saying that right? Looking over at the family? Long story short, because I'm looking at the clock on the wall, and you're like, yeah, come on, preacher, hurry it up.

26:44But James Pettigrew Boyce is uniquely fitted to be the father of the Southern Seminary. James Pettigrew Boyce comes from South Carolina's wealthiest families. He's born in 1827. He comes from great money. He comes from great wealth. He comes from great privilege. His father was a merchant. His father had a little bit of a lawyer. He had some banking interest as well. In fact, actually, this family is one of the wealthiest families in all of South Carolina, if not the entire Antebellum South. But in addition to that, God, in his providential wisdom and his providential ordering of Boyce's life, he sets him up in such a way that he learns how to maneuver within the upper echelons of southern society, which is going to help preserve or protect or at least fund the seminary because they're going to have to give money. But in addition to that, Boyce is also going to go off and he's going to go get a college degree, not from the College of Charleston where he starts, but worth noting, he goes to one of the early Baptist universities. That would be Brown University in Rhode Island. And Brown University was home of Francis Whaland.

27:53And Boyce grew up in a Baptist church, though his parents were Presbyterian initially. And it was with Whelan, the great Baptist minister Francis Whelan, that it was where Boyce was converted. He heard preaching during the Second Great Awakening, and he laid aside his prankster ways. He was never a wild man, but he became converted. He became convicted that he was a sinner and he needed salvation. Just like some of you know that story because that's your story. You heard that preacher and you were converted here at Texas A ⁇ M University at perhaps, what's that, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, breakthrough, breakaway, excuse me, breakaway.

28:31Perhaps it was here at Emmanuel Baptist Church. But after going there, God in his providential wisdom is going to fit Boyce not just with conversion and salvation, but he's also going to put within him the call. And God, in his providential wisdom, is going to call Boyce out of the crowd, as it were, and put him into the ministry. And some of you in this room here, particularly some of you young men in the room, probably are also struggling with a call to the ministry. Should I go? Should I come? If there is a call to ministry, you need to pray through it and you need to pray hard. But if there is a call, answer it. Because as Mordecai said to Esther, you may be for such a time as this. Good men need to be in the pulpit.

29:24So Boyce goes forward and then he goes not to a Baptist seminary because there really wasn't one. Not a southern seminary, anyways. And he went to Princeton Seminary. He went to Princeton Seminary, which was a strong, tough Reformed seminary up in, well, in New Jersey. And it was taught by or led by a fellow named Charles Hodge, who was the father of the strongest of those theologians in that time period. Here's my point. In the life of Boyce, he becomes a stronger and stronger, and he knows what he believes, and he believes it. In addition to that, God and His providence doesn't just give him a strong doctrinal background, a strong family background, he also teaches him how to be, God in His providence teaches him how to be a good Baptist. Now, some of you in this room grew up a Baptist like I did. And when you talk about growing up Baptist, there's an expression my father, who's an old Baptist deacon, once said about Baptists: we divide and multiply. Divide and multiply. We are independent-minded. We are democratic-minded, small D.

30:32This church here is autonomous, is it not? Now, we have associations, we are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, but the Southern Baptist Convention cannot pull the locks on the door and change them. That's the Baptist way. But it's also at times fractious. And Boyce was able to maneuver, and he was able to get the Southern Baptist Convention and those state conventions to, by 1856, decide we need a seminary. Why? Because we have too many ministers who don't know all that much. See, the thing about being a Baptist minister is that you don't have to have a degree to preach.

31:12You probably should. But at the end of the day, if God has ordained you to preach, I have a partial degree. I have a master's degree in history, but I don't have a master's of theology. I don't have a M. Div. But yet, in the Baptist movement, I. Can preach. I am worthy to come up here as long as I'm above reproach and I haven't violated my and thrown away my mantle. But learning and education is important because a bad minister who is ignorant in the pulpit can lead his people astray and he can teach them bad theology, he can teach them bad doctrine, and he can be taken advantage of because he is unaware. Some of you have sat under not-so-good preachers before, and it was because they didn't have good education.

32:07But Boyce was determined to change that, and Southern Seminary was born to do exactly that. But when you talk about creating a seminary that's going to produce good ministers who know the word of God, who know the theology, and who know the doctrine, who know it, you also have the potential because we are in a fallen world. You will have that bad man come forward. And that man's name is Crawford Toy. And that's the second man in the story tonight. So James Pettigrew Boyce, providentially set in motion, was set to start a seminary, and he does. 1859, the seminary gets going. Crawford Toy was one of the first graduates of Southern Seminary, and oh, by the way, he's one of the best. And this is the thing about Toy I would have. You remember, he's likable, he's brilliant, he's charismatic, not in a Pentecostal way, but he's got charisma. People can't help but love the guy.

33:10He's everything you would want. He is the golden child. If you've taught, and some of you, of course, are teachers in the room, you've had that student who just stands out head and shoulders, like, and you point to him and say, Can't you be like him? That was Toy. Toy knew languages like the back of his hand. He was great at Hebrew, and he was great at Syriac. He goes to the Civil War, comes out of the Civil War, but here is where the story turns. He comes out of the Civil War and he goes to the University of Berlin. And some of you know your history just a little bit, and some of you are shaking your heads. You know where I'm going already. It's called German higher criticism.

33:52And Toy goes down that awful road. Truthfully, his steps to where he becomes, and that's a heretic, Toy starts before the Civil War with geology. He drinks deeply into the geology and the old earth ideas of that time period. But it's at Berlin, and then later on is where Toy becomes a heretic. And he's teaching, by the way, so we're clear about this. In 1869, Toy is going to be hired at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, to teach the Old Testament, to teach Hebrew.

34:27He doesn't expose himself right away. He doesn't become a heretic overnight. It takes time. And that's oftentimes the way it is. And so I pray for some of you in this room. Don't go down the road like Toy does. Be like Boyce. And if you find yourself being seduced by heretical ideas, such as, well, Isaiah didn't write the book of Isaiah. Moses didn't write the Pentateuch. He certainly didn't write Deuteronomy. And on I can go. My prayer for you would be: seek out good men, seek out good women who can help turn the ship. Pray to God Almighty that through His providence, through His almighty power, that He will draw you back in and He will disperse these heretical notions. Because with Toy, it didn't turn out so well. Because when it's all said and done, what does Toy, well, what does Toy believe, or rather deny? He's going to deny the creation account. He denies the supernatural aspects of the Old Testament. Say, for example, King Uzziah getting the leprosy. He said that didn't happen. Toy, who is a teacher over at Southern in 1875 territory, he denies that the New Testament writers correctly use the Old Testament prophecies. So, like when we're at Christmastime, or if you're reading about Joel talking about those prophecies, just say it like that, he denied that. In fact, by the time you get to 1879, Toy basically says the Bible. Is wrong on the particulars, but it's right in the general. You can't have that, friends.

36:06Boyce was a strong believer in the infallibility of Scripture. You see, in the abstract principles, he says, you must, to be a teacher, you must believe these things. And so it all came to a head in 1879. Toy got to writing too much, and he got to denying too much. And Boyce was forced. Boyce didn't want to do it, not because he didn't know that this was going on. Boyce loved Toy. They're friends. I'll come to that issue in a second, but Boyce forces Toy because of the issues that Toy has, the heresies that Toy has, he forces him to resign.

36:48And one of the questions I want to ask you, and I want you to think about, because some of you in this room here are elders already, but more particularly, some of you in this room here will be elders. Future tense. Some of you in this room will join a church where they're deacons. Some of you will join a church where you're a Sunday school teacher as time comes on. And some of you in this room will be members of a church, men or women alike, where a Crawford toy might ascend and teach at the pulpit, or he might go to a Sunday school classroom and teach. What do you do? How fast do you act? How fast do you exercise discipline? And I think here this is where. God in his providence is teaching us still to this day the story of Crawford Toy and James Pettigrew Boyce. Boyce and his sidekick, John Broadus, they are going to beg with Toy. They're going to plead with Toy. They're going to reason with Toy. They're going to entreat Toy, come back. Don't. Don't go down this road. Toy went.

37:53Perhaps Boyce should have acted faster. Because, by the way, a person like Toy is going to take away some very good men and lead them to a path to hell. And that's what happened. But when we wrap this up and we think about this, and we think about the providence of God at Southern Seminary and how this works with the creation of that seminary and the knitting together of such things, God and His providence will test us. We'll test the church. We'll test the seminary. And Boyce passed that test. But it wasn't because he was happily doing it. Some of you in this room know and have family members who perhaps are falling away. You see the seeds that are growing into starting to sprout into briars and thistles. Heresy. Sexual license.

38:52Pick an issue. But perhaps Boyce is the example you used. And entreat with them, beg with them, pray with them. But at Toy's last meeting with Boyce and John Broadus, who was Boyce's sidekick, his Timothy, if you like, they're standing on a platform at a train station in Louisville, Kentucky. And Boyce was overcome with emotion as Toy's saying goodbye because they're friends. And Boyce throws his arm around Toy, his left arm, and he sticks his right arm out and he says, Oh, Toy, if I could cut off this arm, I would do it right now if we could just go back five years to where you were five years ago. And the reason I say it with this kind of melancholy tone is this.

39:48When we have friends and family who are falling away and becoming heretics or trying to leave the faith, the sad and honest assessment is this, that when they die and they don't come and do not repent of their sin, they do not come back, as it were, they go to hell. And this church and I believe that hell is a real place just as heaven is a real place. And we don't want our friends and family to go to hell. If it is a real place, you don't want them there. And that is why it's so sad and so sad a parting, because Toy, he died. Is a Unitarian, a pragmatist, and without faith. So it is a melancholy tale here today as I end it up, but the providences of God sometimes come in the form of tests, sometimes come in the form of not always joy. And so that is why I asked John to pick or to play God moves in mysterious ways, because sometimes it isn't always happy. And that is the story of Crawford Toy and Boyce. But we have their example to persevere. I thank you for your time and your attention. If you would, please bow your head and we'll be dismissed. Gracious and Heavenly Father, we thank you for your watch care over us, giving us examples throughout the history of the church that we can use to bolster our faith and to gird ourselves and put up defenses against those who would try to harm us and to take us away and to snatch us away. Gracious Lord, we pray protection on this house and in this church against the assaults and the arrows of the devil. Gracious Lord, we also, as we break up and we go into our work week this week, we also pray for the protection upon those who are traveling here in the state of Texas into this what appears to be a winter storm that is approaching. Gracious Lord, protect them as they go. Be with our elders. Our elders here are always under assault from those who would be within and be without, but they are ravenous wolves trying to get them. Gracious Lord, we love. Our elders, and we love our leaders here at Emmanuel. And thank you for sending them to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.