TNG with Paul Blair

Bestselling author, speaker, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland.

Bestselling author and apologist, Dylan Burroughs. Together bringing you truth. For a new generation, this is TNG Radio. In Proverbs 1434, the Word of God says, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

A reproach, a debasement, a devaluing. But righteousness elevates a people. Welcome to TNG Radio, Truth for a New Generation.

This is Alex McFarland. And when I think about that verse about righteousness exalting a nation, I think about the importance of voices of truth, voices of the gospel, voices of righteousness. And God has given cultures, the church. God has raised up for the church pastors.

And it's vitally important that we have shepherds of flocks, pastors, preachers of the Word of God that do believe in the truth of scripture and the importance of righteousness. And with that introduction, I want to tell you I am so excited about the person you're about to meet, because if ever this nation had in the pulpit a champion of righteousness, a preacher of God's truth, and just someone who exemplifies what it means to be a Christian leader in the 21st century, it's the person you're about to meet. His name is Pastor Paul Blair.

He's in Oklahoma. For many years he's pastored Fairview Baptist Church. And he has rubbed shoulders with people like Tony Perkins of FRC and D. James Kennedy of Reclaim America, Del Tackett of The Truth Project, Josh McDowell, Frank Turrick, Ken Ham, the heroes that have shaped my life as well. It's been my privilege a time or two to come to Oklahoma City and Edmond, Oklahoma to minister alongside him. And I wanted to get him on the program. And folks, you don't want to miss hearing from Paul Blair, because he truly is one of the preeminent Christian leaders of our day.

And I wanted to have him on TNG radio, and it's great to bring him to the mic just now. Brother Paul, thank you for your time today on the program, but thank you most of all for what you do for Christ in our country. Well, Alex, I appreciate your friendship, and we always enjoy having you in the Oklahoma City area, and you have been a good friend. And I am always happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and serve the Lord together, my brother.

Well, indeed. I want to talk about what you preach and what you are doing to touch the state of Oklahoma and beyond. But I want to get a little bit of backstory, because you really do have a fascinating story. And I'm going to let you tell it, but there's a booklet called From the Gridiron to the Gospel.

And in a short booklet form, that's kind of the Paul Blair story. But give us the journey here of how God brought you to where you are. Well, I am in the town that I was born and raised in. And I actually was somewhat of a late bloomer in high school, but I grew to be a pretty good-sized young man. I worked hard and had an opportunity to go on and play college football. I was recruited to play by Jimmy Johnson at Oklahoma State University, long before Jimmy was coaching the Dallas Cowboys to Super Bowl championships, or even the Miami Dolphins.

He was with the Miami Hurricane, and before he was with the Miami Hurricane, he was at Oklahoma State. So I played college football for five years at Oklahoma State under Jimmy Johnson and Pat Jones, played alongside such greats like Leslie O'Neil, who's up for the Hall of Fame, I believe, this year, and Thurman Thomas, who's already in the Hall of Fame. And then in 1986, I was drafted by Mike Ditka and played with the Chicago Bears and was there in the heyday of Chicago's greatness, alongside guys like Jim McMahon and Walter Payton and Mike Singletary and Dan Hampton and those guys, just literally a who's who of professional football. And was privileged to play on that team, played for five seasons.

Of course, football is taxing. As you have discussed and discovered with me, everything that I have that bends is broken, either has been surgically repaired or needs to be surgically repaired. But after five years, I was forced physically to hang it up. Came back home and happily married now for almost 30 years, sitting down as a celebrated 29th a couple of months ago. And interesting, I grew up in a pastor's home. Actually, my father was a bivocational pastor. He made his living as an architect, but pastored small churches that really couldn't afford to pay a pastor. So I grew up in a very godly home and actually was called into ministry later in life.

I had been out of football for about a decade and was in private business and doing quite well. And as I shared with you earlier, I've always respected pastors, but knowing having lived with one, I didn't want to be one. And then at the age of 37, God called me into ministry. And it was a situation where, you know, it was like, Lord, I am not qualified. And the thing that was most encouraging is the men that God has called scripturally always said, not us, we're not qualified, whether it be Jeremiah or maybe Ezekiel or whether it be Moses. Darrell Bock God, you've got the wrong guy.

Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, exactly. God, you picked the wrong one this time. But I said, if I want to be in your will, and if this is your will, then I will be on my knees in prayer seeking your direction.

And I can't do it my own power, but in your power I can. And that's where we got started. One of the first things I did with our congregation, bought everybody through the year Bibles because I discovered that most Christians have never read the Bible. So we started from there and quite frankly in the early days didn't have big sermon plans and all that. So we just started on Sunday evenings we would teach and preach verse by verse through books of the New Testament. On Wednesday nights we'd go through books of the Old Testament. On Sunday morning I've often said our Sunday morning service is somewhere between a Billy Graham revival and a charismatic hootenanny. You just never know where we're going to be. But that's kind of how we got started and been here now for 17 years. Darrell Bock Wow. Well, tell me about the culture of Fairview Baptist.

Dr. Darrell Bock Well, one of the things that I've been very involved in is, as you said, the culture in general. You know, Christianity has lost its luster to a lot of the younger generation because they don't think it's relevant. It's just a book of fables or old stories. But the reality is that the Bible is just as relevant for our lives today as it was 2,000 years ago. So we don't just preach and teach how to get to Heaven, which of course is the most important thing. You know, Jesus said, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul? But we also teach how now shall we live. As a Christian, you know, the Bible has given us ample instruction for every facet of our lives. We call it world view. And unfortunately, most churches don't teach a comprehensive biblical world view. So as a consequence, most Christian's lives look just like the lost world. I mean we are just as dishonest in business as the guy down in the street. Our children and homes are just as broken as those of unsaved homes.

Well, it shouldn't be that way. You know, if we are truly to live by faith, the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Well, living by faith means to put into practice God's instruction, God's direction. It's not faith comes by living, living by the Word of God. Lord, what would you have me to do?

How should I operate my business? Well, you know, the Bible says don't be enslaved to debt. You know, the Bible talks about just weights and measures. The Bible talks about working six days. And our work is an offering unto the Lord.

So there are things that are relevant about every facet of our lives. However, the typical Christian has defined living by faith this way. They say I'm going to do whatever I want to do. I'm going to live life how I want to do it.

And then when I've made a mess out of things, I'm going to get on my knees and pray for God to rescue me. That's not living by faith. That's testing God. That's not living by faith. Hold that thought. We've got to pull away for a break. This is Truth for a New Generation Radio with Alex McFarland and our very special guest today, Pastor Paul Blair.

We'll be right back. For centuries, the Bible has inspired humanity and shaped the very world we live in. But how do we know this book is the Word of God and not merely the words of men? What we believe about the Bible is based on what we believe about its source. The God Who Speaks explores the evidence of the Bible's inspiration and authority through some of the world's most respected biblical scholars. We have essentially a dual authorship. So it's true to say that Paul wrote Romans. It's equally true to say that God wrote Romans. He says we saw this, and that sets the Bible apart from almost everything else in the ancient world and its religious pantheon of gods and goddesses. The God Who Speaks is a feature-length documentary from the American Family Association. Available now at thegodwhospeaks.org. Hey, if you are anywhere near Cary, North Carolina, you need to join bestselling author and apologist, Dr. Alex McFarland, Christian apologist and talk show host and founder of Stand to Reason, Greg Kochel, and the president of Heroes of the Cross and pastor of Colonial Baptist Church, Ben Lecourt, at Colonial Baptist Church on Sunday, July 22, for the Reasons to Believe apologetics conference.

Because apologetics isn't a conversation of one. Your teens and millennials will learn how to protect and defend the great truths of Christianity, how to navigate through hostile learning environments, in college and high school, doing more than just surviving. It's the Reasons to Believe apologetics conference at Colonial Baptist Church in Cary, North Carolina, Sunday afternoon, July 22. Doors open at 2.

Conference begins at 2.30 and wraps up by 6. Learn more at truthforanewgeneration.com. But the voice of truth tells me a different story. The voice of truth says do not be afraid. Out of all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth.

Welcome back to the program. Before we resume our conversation with Pastor Paul Blair, I do want to remind everybody about the website truthforanewgeneration.com. We've got a lot of exciting things that we're posting there. And of course, please be in prayer and please come if you can. September we're going to be in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the greater Nashville area, just about 30 minutes from the Nashville airport. We've got an amazing event with Josh McDowell, J. Warner Wallace, Dr. Michael Brown, and many speakers.

Tina Marie Griffin is going to talk about her time as an actress in Hollywood and some other very special things. Special music will be at Middle Tennessee State University doing a presentation on Thursday night, September 13. Please pray, promote, plan to attend. October 26, 27, we'll be in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a Truth for a New Generation there, and we'll have Frank Turek and Michael Brown and Josh McDowell. Please pray, promote, plan to attend. And if you're interested, friend, if you're interested, we are looking at 2020 and beyond and the next five years, and we believe God has called us to take this apologetics Christian worldview evangelistic campaign.

The theme is Save a Nation, the Save a Nation tour. We believe God wants us to go throughout this country, and if you have an interest in us bringing one of our national conferences to your city, let's talk. Reach out to us. You can reach us through the website, truthforanewgeneration.com. Well, a dear friend that has a vision for America is Paul Blair, and I wanted to bring him on.

I want to let him continue his story and saga. And let me say, dear friend, what God is doing through Fairview Baptist is what God can be doing through your church, and what God is doing through the life of Paul Blair is the very same fire God wants to ignite in your heart and your life, your walk, your witness. And Pastor Paul, I'm not trying to lift you up, and I'm not trying to, you know, just stroke your ego, but I do admire you, and I want to say thank you for what you do. You're courageous in for Christ, you're consistent voice of the Gospel in Oklahoma and in the nation, and I'm just going to say I wish there were about a million more like you.

Well, Alex, thank you for that, and we are trying. You know, quite frankly, I think seminaries do a lot of good, but I also think seminaries do a lot of damage, as they train pastors to be CEOs of competing corporations out there. That's not what churches are supposed to be. The modern day pastor is supposed to be a modern day prophet proclaiming the truth unto the people and unto the culture. We're supposed to be pointing people to the truth of Jesus Christ, and we're also supposed to be standing against wickedness. Unfortunately, the modern church wants to avoid controversy at all costs for fear it's going to hurt their attendance, and I often chuckle, and I say, where?

First of all, who is the most controversial person in human history? And of course, that is Jesus. And the church was always controversial. You know, from the very first act of ministry when Peter and John went to the temple complex and healed the paralytic man, that was major controversy because the high priest at the time was a Sadducee, and the Sadducees did not believe in the supernatural. The official position of the Sanhedrin was that Jesus was not the Messiah, and He hadn't risen from the dead. And here comes Peter and John, heals a man. It was an irrefutable miracle, so that kind of blew the Sadducee's position out of the water. And then he said that we did this in the power of Jesus Christ who has risen from the dead.

So that kind of blew the entire Sanhedrin's position out of the water. Then you couldn't have been any more controversial. And then you follow the church throughout the book of Acts. Everywhere Paul went, usually he either wound up in jail, got chased out of town, or a riot broke out.

But everywhere there was revival as well. So the church is going to be controversial. When you stand for truth unapologetically, you can't help but have opposition.

But that's what we're called to do. You know, over the last couple of days, you and I and several pastors, we were talking about things that the Bible says that are not politically correct. Morals, marriage, human sexuality, the role of faith and Christianity in government, even things like the age of the earth. And you know, my position in the book of Genesis is clear, God created. In the Word of God, there is no place whatsoever for evolution. And let me say, I don't believe that the earth is millions of years old.

The Bible says God created in six days, and I know if he's God, he could do that. So here's my question, Pastor. Why have we in the American church become kind of reluctant to take a bold stand for where the Bible speaks? Well, I think the biggest fallacy among pastors today is they want to be popular, and they want to be liked. And we have seen George Barna in his research.

We've seen Barton in some of the books that he's written with Barna. We've seen that I know that George a couple of years ago did a survey of a thousand, no I'll take that back, some 450 I believe is the number of pastors, and they're from conservative churches, conservative denominations. And he asked them, he said, does the Bible address the issues that we face today? And over 90 percent of these pastors from conservative denominations said yes, the Bible does speak about every issue of our day, abortion, homosexuality, you name it. And then the next question was, are you willing to preach about these things from your pulpit? And over 90 percent said no, we're not willing to preach about these things because we think it will hurt the success of our church. And they defined success as square footage, the number of programs, the number of staff, the amount of the offering, and the number of those attending. And as Barna said, Jesus didn't die for any of those things.

Run through that again. They defined success as what now? Square footage of their church, the number of programs they have to offer, the number of staff members they have, the amount of the offering, so it's about money, and the number of attendance, so it's seats, so it's attendance and money as primary issue. That's how they defined success. But biblically, what really would be success for the church, though? Seeing radical transformation of individuals and a culture. As a matter of fact, you think about it, whenever the crowd was too big following Jesus, he always winnowed him a little bit. He said, you know what?

Unless you're willing to give up father and mother, you're not worthy of it. You better count the cost before you consider being my disciple. John 6, he gets in there as a big following, and he gets some solid doctrinal issues that were troubling for the Jewish people to try to digest. Every time there was a big group that was following for the wrong reason, by the way, then he would hit them with a significant truth claim, and you'd find that a lot drifted off.

We're talking with Pastor Paul Blair in Oklahoma. This is TNG Radio. We've got a break, but folks, stay tuned, because in the final segment, Paul's going to tell us some things that are really vitally important for the church to do and to be for the sake of the gospel in our nation. Stay tuned.

TNG Radio is back after this. First Peter 3.15 tells us to be ready always to give an answer for the hope we have. We're instructed to be prepared to defend our faith. This is Alex McFarland for the Life Answers Teams, students we train at North Greenville University, a leading Christian college in South Carolina. The Life Answers Teams are made up of students who will inspire and equip your congregation. These apologetics teams we train speak in churches to youth groups and train Christians of all ages to address key issues of our times from a biblical perspective. Like is there a God?

Is the Bible true? What about gender and moral issues? Call me at 864-977-2008, and we will arrange for the Life Answers Team to come to your church and give a presentation that will benefit your people for years to come. 864-977-2008, and always be ready. Hey, if you are anywhere near Cary, North Carolina, you need to join best-selling author and apologist, Dr. Alex McFarland, Christian apologist and talk show host and founder of Stand to Reason, Greg Kochel, and the president of Heroes of the Cross and pastor of Colonial Baptist Church, Ben LeCoultre, at Colonial Baptist Church on Sunday, July 22nd for the Reasons to Believe Apologetics Conference, because apologetics isn't a conversation of one. Your teens and millennials will learn how to protect and defend the great truths of Christianity, how to navigate through hostile learning environments in college and high school doing more than just surviving. It's the Reasons to Believe Apologetics Conference at Colonial Baptist Church in Cary, North Carolina, Sunday afternoon, July 22nd. Doors open at 2.

Conference begins at 2.30 and wraps up by 6. Learn more at TruthForAnewGeneration.com. Alex McFarland here, so honored to be in the offices of Fairview Baptist with Pastor Paul Blair. Hey, Pastor Paul, before we go any farther, how can people find you? Reclaiming America for Christ is one of our websites, ra4c.org, or you can go to FairviewBaptistEdmund.org. Both of those websites are part of our ministries. Find out some personal information about me as a former athlete and some of our other ministry efforts. You can go to PaulKBlair.com.

Those are some good websites where you can get in contact with me. Well, I've got to ask him, and we could do a whole show on this, but what's Coach Ditka like? I love Coach Ditka.

Coach Ditka was very straightforward, very simple. He was a tough guy, literally, and he came across as a tough guy. He had a three-headed motto, be on time, pay attention, and play like heck, only to do for heck.

That was it. And if you did that for him, you were going to do well. And one set of rules applied to everybody. There wasn't a set of rules that applied to Peyton and McMahon, and then other rules that played to the other guys.

One set of rules applied to everybody. So he had few rules, but he was very fair, they applied to everybody. He was just a tough guy. I loved him. That's good leadership, isn't it? Absolutely, absolutely.

I still love the man. Well, you know, you were talking about America's godly heritage. Tell me, what are your thoughts on the role of Christianity in American life? What did the founders envision? Well, just briefly, Alex, because I know we don't have a lot of time, but recognizing and teaching a comprehensive biblical worldview, which we don't do anymore.

Most pastors have never been taught this, but it's really very simple. When we think of government, we think of the capital. But the reality is, biblically, God created and established four realms of government. There's self-government. There's certain responsibilities that I'm in charge of. There's family government. There's certain responsibilities that have been entrusted to the family. There's church government.

There's certain responsibilities that have been entrusted to the local called-out assembly. And then there's civil government, which God created. But it's very limited. You read the Bible, whether it's Romans 13, whether it's Paul's letter to Timothy, whether it's Peter's letters to the dispersed, whether it's God talking through the Psalms about the purpose of government, whether it's the creation of government, Genesis 9-6, it's always to punish evildoers and protect the well-doers that we may live peaceably in all godliness.

It's very limited and very specific. And when we get into trouble is when the civil government takes over the responsibilities of the family or charity, the church or the individual. That's when it quickly becomes tyranny and quite frankly can destroy the other three, which is what Karl Marx intended to do.

Pastors had such a heavy influence on the formation of our founding. And they recognized that just this primarily, government was not to oppress and tyrannize. Government was supposed to protect the good and punish the evil.

And that was the number one foundation. And they understood that all government comes from, obviously from God to the man, through the man to the government. Because if we are in a society where there is no divine right of kings – and by the way, the kings wasn't the first choice for Israel.

Israel, the first 400 years, was 12 sovereign tribes. They were to call out from among them capable men that feared God, loved truth, and hated covetousness. And they were to judge righteously, according to the Constitution, the Torah, the law for Israel.

But that's what God's original instruction was. But in our day and age, our founders recognized that we don't have a divine right of kings. So who has the authority to rule?

Well, no one. Therefore we, the people, must constitute a limited general civil government. We, the people, delegate few and defined powers to that civil government. And then we swear to be bound by the law, not by the king, not by the Supreme Court. We are bound by the rule of law.

So all government comes back as under God through the consent of the individual. We've lost that. We've completely lost that.

And that's why we're in the mess room today. What has been the result of the silence of many a pulpit on issues like this? Well, look at where we're at today. We've seen over 60 million babies murdered in their womb in the United States of America for the last 45 years. We've now seen the government redefine marriage, which it has no authority to do. And the Supreme Court has no constitutional authority to do what they've done.

And the pulpits have stayed silent. We've seen the breakdown of the family. And quite frankly, just as you mentioned with judges, look at the condition of the man. The Bible said twice, every man chose to do what was right in his own eyes. Well, that led to basically chaos. And then from that chaos as Samuel was about to die, they said, we want a king to rule over us.

Well, you know what? In order for us as Jefferson said, as Franklin said, as Hamilton said, all of our founding fathers, John Adams made a perfect statement as he was president. He said, our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. The only way you can have civil liberty and enjoy a lot of freedom is if you are self-governing.

If the heart is under control, then you don't need a lot of fences. But when the heart's not under control, you need a strong arm of a tyrannical government. And that's the path we're heading. As we have abandoned God and every man is doing what's right in his own eyes, as you can see with the school shootings, the riots, everything's going on, we are giving every reason for a stronger government to strangle us.

And there has never been a time in history where you can have civil liberty and still have religious liberty. Paul, what do you say to the pastor that wants to passionately proclaim truth, but he's a little bit afraid of how the chips will fall? We are accountable to God ultimately. And be accountable to God. Always do the right thing.

You will never regret doing the right thing. Go to our website, reach out to us. We will try to help you in any way that we can. And Alex, let me just share with these pastors. Overwhelming number of churches in America are less than 150 people.

And that's what we want to reach. Our church here runs about 400. That's capacity. We're pretty full. We run about 400 on a Sunday morning. Yet we have a statewide radio ministry.

We have a separate facility we bought and paid for on the college campus. We have a full-time college ministry. We travel and speak across the country, so we literally reach from coast to coast. Don't think that you have to be a mega church pastor of tens of thousands in order to make a difference.

You can't. You can make a huge difference pastoring a church of 75 or 100 or 150 or 500. So we, the individual brothers in arms, the pastors across America, we can join together and we can make a big difference in our communities and in our states. And then if we do that, we'll make a big difference in the country. Well, we're just about out of time right now.

We've got to pull away. But Paul, I know we'll speak again. You'll hear from Paul again. Folks, I think about 1 Corinthians 1558, and this is Paul.

This is in my own life. I am thrilled by these words, and I want to say this to everyone listening. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

The Word of God promises what we do in time can count for eternity. So know Christ and, folks, for the future of our country, help make Him known. I do want to remind everybody to please pray for Truth for a New Generation, our ongoing Save America tour. All that we're doing you can find out at my own website, AlexMcFarland.com, TruthForANewGeneration.com.

Thank you for listening. God bless you, and God bless America. Truth for a New Generation, in association with Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries, exists to equip Christians with a biblical worldview through conferences and camps. For information about upcoming events, visit TruthForAnewGeneration.com, or give us a call at 877-YES-GOD-1. That's 877-YES-GOD, and the number 1. TNG radio is made possible by the friends of Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries, PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. That's PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. Or give online at AlexMcFarland.com or TruthForAnewGeneration.com. Thanks for listening, and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.