What is the Verdict?

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Call 866-WINASIA or to see chickens and other animals to donate, go to CritterCampaign.org. This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

Because I saw flags from all different countries. And then I talked to the pastor and I heard his heart. And you get to hear from him right now. Now be careful. Watch out. Warning sign here. This pastor used to be a lawyer.

How is that possible? And he's got a Scottish accent, maybe because he's from Scotland. Dr. John Munro, it is good to have you back, sir, on Truth Talk with Stu Epperson. Great to be with you, Stu.

Thank you so much. And unlike most lawyers, I'm not going to charge for this interview. This is free. It's like the gospel.

That's the old joke. The reason Scott's been like the gospel is it's free. Is it true that it's the 99% of lawyers that give the 1% a bad name?

Is that true? That's true. There are good lawyers as well. So he's going to hit us with a couple of lawyer jokes, so buyer beware.

But he comes by it honestly. Tell everyone, I want to get into missions. I want to get into pastoring during COVID. I want to get into the importance of expositional preaching. God's using you in a mighty way on the radio. We're honored to have you on our Truth Network stations.

You're on stations all over the place. Pastor Munro, will you talk a little bit about your testimony? How does one cross over from the law of the land to the law of the Lord? Well, I was raised in Scotland in a Christian home and pursued law. No one in my family had gone into law, but I felt that was God's calling. And my father very reluctantly, because he had your view of lawyers too, he thought they were a little sleazy. But I went into law, enjoyed it very much, and served the Lord there in Scotland for 11 years.

And then God did a remarkable thing. One day I was challenged by a fellow attorney as to what I was going to do for the rest of my life. And I said, well, I love being a lawyer. And as I walked away, the Spirit convicted me and said, shouldn't you have referred that to the Lord? After all, you're a follower of Christ. And that was the beginnings of a radical change in orientation from a life of law to being called to be preached. And that brought me to the U.S. to go to Dallas Theological Seminary, where I studied, and I've been serving as a pastor ever since. And my passion in life is to glorify God through the exposition of his word. I'm called to preach, I'm called to shepherd people, so I combine the preaching and the shepherding together. Yeah, and you've got an open Bible on your desk, and we just talked about just the power of expositional preaching, just preaching through the books of the Bible, just line upon line. Will you talk about the importance of that and how that has really been formative in your faith and in what you do right now?

If I turn on the radio, I hear you teaching. You were teaching through Psalm 95 this morning I listened to you. Yes, I believe, I'm called to preach, and one of the reasons I went to Dallas Seminary was that their motto is preach the word from 2 Timothy 4 verse 2. And Paul says that he declared the whole counsel of God. And the only way I think we can do that adequately is to go consecutively through books of the Bible. So here at Calvary, at the moment I'm going through the book of Matthew, verse upon verse, dealing with its context. And that gives people a love for all of scripture rather than my own little favorite topics. And all scripture points to Christ.

All scripture points to the cross. So in giving the exposition of scripture, I'm uplifting Christ as the only savior. So people say to me, do you preach the gospel? Do you edify people?

I think it's both. We open the scriptures, and whatever we open scripture, Christ is there as the savior of sinners. And it's my joy then to point people to Christ, but also to disciple them. We're told to make disciples of all of the nations. And here at Charlotte, we do that through people from all over the world. Come here, and then in turn we can send people out. And you saw some of the flags as you came in today, Stu.

And tell people about that. You know, you're in a church where, you know, I heard a statistic, as many as 11,000 churches are closing, you know, like per month, or across America. Like big numbers. I can't remember if that's per month, per year.

Hopefully it's not per day. But I just know that churches are closing their doors, and the COVID thing has made things even more chaotic and all that. How is this church growing? You know, I'm here in a vibrant church. You've got vibrant people. You're making disciples. You're doing all this mission stuff, you know. And if anything, we should just kind of tuck in our wings and just maybe survive.

But there's something happening here. Why the death of so many churches, and how has God kept you guys alive here? Well, it's all of His grace. We serve a living Christ, one who is alive. And we preach the scriptures, which is the living word of God.

It's sharper than any two-edged sword. So God's word is alive. We serve a living Savior.

We do have, of course, a very devious enemy who seeks to distract us, to attack us, to divide us. So we keep our eyes on the Lord. And COVID has been difficult, but in God's grace, we've opened our doors, as from the first Sunday in July, we opened. And we've had services. We have two morning services each Sunday.

People wear masks. They're socially distanced, but people are free to come. And we live stream as well, of course. And we continue so far as we can our impetus and missions.

And one of the new ways, increasing ways, is in live stream. So we can have about, on any Sunday, 15 to 20 different countries listening to what we're doing here in Charlotte, Stu. But in addition, we send out about 85 to 90 different missionary units, either singles or couples, throughout the world with the gospel.

85 or 90 go out throughout the world. Why is mission so important, sir? Especially in these last days. I think about Matthew 24, 14. You know, this gospel will be preached to the ends of the earth, to all people, and then the end will come. Why is it that—I heard the other day that only 11 percent of North American churches have a missions budget, an international missions budget. What's going on there, Pastor? Why is it so important?

Why isn't it happening? Yeah, it's tragic. And I think some churches look on their missions purely around themselves, or they want to set up little mini replicas of themselves. I'm all for church plantings, Stu. But our philosophy is to get the message beyond Calvary Church, beyond us. Why is it important? It's a command of Christ.

We don't have any option. In Matthew 28, Christ commands us to go and make disciples of all the nations. No one is excluded. God's love embraces the whole world, and we should as well. We can't reach every one church, but together we seek to do, through live streaming, through radio, through the witness of the people. We've got people who come here, and they go home all over the world as evangelists, as well as, you might say, our missions program. In all of this way, we're keeping a focus on the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ on the gospel, the only message which can save souls. Amen.

Now, tell everyone where we're here as we keep referring. This is Dr. John Monroe, who's pastor of Calvary Church right here in Charlotte, North Carolina. South Charlotte, I guess Matthew's technically. And then you are a lawyer turned pastor.

What a great testimony. Pastor, tell us a little bit about this church, Calvary Church, and how folks can find it. Maybe there's a website, too, connected to it. Yeah, we're on www.calvarychurch.com. We're in South Charlotte, as Stu has said. The church began about 80 years ago. In fact, Billy Graham's father was one of the founding elders of this church, so we've got this wonderful heritage that God has used. And we have this magnificent building in South Charlotte.

We have 100 acres here. We're right on Ray Road and Pineville-Matthews Road for people who know Charlotte. So you can check us out on our web, calvarychurch.com, and if you're in the area, we'd love to see you.

Yeah, you're going to get good expositional preaching, discipleship programs. I think there's a school connected here, too. Child Development Center. Wonderful.

Child Development Center. And you have a radio program that I want everyone to know about. It's appropriate, the name, from a lawyer turned pastor, The Verdict. Can you tell everyone what they're going to hear on The Verdict? I listened to you twice today on two different Truth Network stations at different times, but tell everyone about The Verdict, your passion there as we wrap up. Well, The Verdict is our radio program, and we're very grateful to Stu for you putting us on The Truth Network.

And I called it The Verdict because I give the word of God, and then I say The Verdict's yours. What is your response to the truth that you have heard? We are committed to the truth.

Proverbs 23 says, Buy the truth and sell it not. We are committed to the truth. We live in an age of distortion, of spin, of lies, of distortion, and we as followers of Christ are committed to the truth. That truth sets us free. And so how important it is in a crazy world that we who follow Jesus stand and proclaim that there is salvation in no one else. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. That's the message. That's the true message coming from the living God who is truth. And Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father apart from me. Amen.

So you can learn more about The Verdict and all these things online and hear Dr. Monroe. Your final challenge to pastors, speak to pastors about staying vigilant, staying deep in the word during this crazy time in our country. Will you please? Yeah, I would say to my fellow pastors, preach the word.

Don't be caught up in the latest gimmicks of the day. Preach the word and shepherd souls. Make sure you love your people. Preach the word.

Give them truth and love them. And that is the way that Christ commanded us. And that is the way to experience true spiritual and church growth. God bless you, Pastor John Monroe. What a blessing. What an encouragement from the lawyer, the law of the land, to the law of the Lord. And he's preaching faithfully. And what an encouragement to all of us. Thank you for being on and thank you for proclaiming the gospel and for taking it not just here in Charlotte but across the world where it's desperately needed. 2.5 billion people have still not heard this good, glorious news. Yeah, well thanks, Stuart. Thanks for all that you and the network are doing to get the message of the gospel out throughout the world. Thanks so much.