Jeff Chamblee: Welcome to Real Truth for Today with Pastor Jeff Schrieve, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Texarkana, Texas. Now, here's Pastor Jeff.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, good morning and welcome to Real Truth for Today. Pastor Jeff Schrieve here wanted to read to you from First Timothy, chapter four. Paul tells young Timothy, who is pastor in Ephesus. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. Show yourself an example of those who believe. Until I come, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed, on you through prophetic utterance, with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things, be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. persevere in these things, for as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. We want to talk today about the state of the church, the state of the pastorate, the shallowing of the church, if you will, and how, the church today in so many, cities has watered things down to the point where people are not learning the Bible, not really growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is a big, big problem. Now, to help me with this important discussion is my friend, Dr. Robert Morgan. Dr. Robert Morgan is a seasoned pastor, prolific authority, hymns expert, and then also the host of the Robert Morgan Podcast. Robert, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: I'm so happy to be with you. Thank you for letting me be with you.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I appreciate the fact that, you're recovering from surgery and you're still, you're still going and, not letting that stop you. as somebody who's had a number of surgeries from athletic injuries and things, recovering, from surgery is not a lot of fun.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: No. Well, this is on my hand. And, I have Dupuytren's contract, so I'm going to have to have the same thing done over here. But I've just finished a big writing project. I had to get that done before I had the surgery. And then I had the surgery and that has all worn me out. And my wife who's in heaven, her sister passed away. And so I've come up here to Maine to do that funeral with all of the fatigue, of travel. So so I'm not in the best of state. But then, you know Jeff, as I've gone through ministry, I found that I often have to minister when I'm not in top form. Yes, you, if you only work when you feel like it, or you only minister when you're in great shape, then you're not going to work or minister very much. Right. So one of the things that I've learned through the years as you, you applaud, you go forward, you do the best you can and you leave the rest of it with the Lord. But all of that said, I'm so happy to be with you.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I appreciate that. And as the scripture says, his grace is sufficient for us in our weakness. And so I trust that God's going to use you greatly in that in that service. Okay. So Robert, we had talked ahead of time about something that has been on your heart. And it is a big problem in in America today for sure. And that is the shallowing of the church, the shallowing of the pulpit and the, the ministry. We are called to go and make disciples. I don't know how well we're doing that. And I have a heart for pastors as I know you do. And being a pastor for so many years, we know it's a hard, it's a hard calling, it's a worthy calling, it's a fulfilling calling, but it's difficult. Lots of guys get discouraged and want to throw in the towel. Robert, I ran across a quote from Barna that said in this was from 2022, 42% of pastors seriously consider leaving full time ministry just because of loneliness, stress, burnout and discouragement over not seeing the fruit that they'd like to see.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I know what that's like. I've been a pastor for a half century and I'm still associate pastor at the church that I'm at now. and I've gone through many periods of discouragement. I remember once I was so discouraged that I happened to be in Dallas, Texas and went to the First Baptist church where W.A. criswell was the pastor. And it's the only time I ever met him. But after the service I went up to him And I said, Dr. Criswell, I'm a pastor in Tennessee and I'm discouraged. In your ministry, have you ever been discouraged? And he leaned back, you know, he was so theatrical. He said, he said, world without end. and I said, well, what do you do about it? He said, I just wait. He said, I usually find out that discouragement is more in my heart than in the circumstances. And, and when I get myself in good shape, I can go on again. And that was pretty good advice.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: That is really good.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: So I know what it's like. I have come to memorize the anti discouragement verses in the Bible, like First Corinthians, 1558. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, and the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And those verses, there are several of them, you know, in Galatians it says we'll reap a harvest if we don't give up. Psalm 126 I think, talks about bringing in the sheaves. so there are some of these verses in which God promises he will use us, that our work is not futile, it's not in vain. So I memorized those verses early on, Jeff, and I've gone back to them again and again and they tend to pull me up when I get down and when I become discouraged.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Amen to that. I had, ah, a seminary professor, he said, he said, you know, you're really called. When you throw in the towel and God throws it back, he says, you're not going to quit. Adrian Rogers said one time, Robert, he said, you know, the ministry is a horrible profession. It's a wonderful calling. And I think sometimes we do see guys get in the ministry that weren't called to do this. If you're not called to do it, I think it would just be overwhelming emotionally. It, would just wear you out because it is, it is a grind much, of the time.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, and as I've read the history of preaching and of great preachers, many of them, many of us, at least I'm speaking from my own experience as well as my reading. We tend to be a little bit introverted and sometimes a little melancholic. And that gives us tremendous empathy and it allows us to sort of internalize what we're doing. but it also presents, you know, Charles Spurgeon would become very discouraged. he would get Very depressed. And he wrote in lectures to my students a chapter called the Minister's Fainting Fits. And it's one of the best chapters I've ever read. And it's about when pastors become discouraged. and, He calls those periods of discouragement. He calls them the pastors fainting fits. But,

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Okay, Robert. Now, did you ever see the, There was an interview done with Jon MacArthur and Jon Piper. And, Piper was talking about how he would get discouraged and have, you know, those fainting fits, as Spurgeon would call them. And MacArthur was just like, I. I don't understand that. He said, what do I have to be discouraged about? I'm saved. My sins are forgiven. my name's written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I mean, he was just looking at it very, You know, matter of factly that, well, in the big scheme of things, I really don't have anything to be discouraged about. But we, you know, we, you know, in the sweet by and by, but we deal with the nasty now and now. And it can be discouraging. And people can. Church people can be mean. you know, godly people are. They can, you know, say things that can be hurtful, but they're not doing it to hurt you. But. But church people, especially when you get into the religious Pharisees and things like that, they can be very cruel. And, that can really, derail somebody's train, especially if you're a younger guy.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, we all have different personalities. And, Jon MacArthur, You know, he was Bullant. Martyn Lloyd Jones was like that. Nothing would discourage Martin Lloyd Jones. He just, you know, he. He was always positive and enthusiastic. Cliff Barrows was like that. Who was the music director for the Billy Graham Crusades. I once asked Cliff. He and I became friends. And I asked him, in all of your years of ministry, did you ever go through a period of discouragement? And he said. And this astounded me. I still remember him saying it. He said, robert, and all of my years of ministry, I have never known a despondent day.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Wow.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: And I said, cliff, how can that be? I've had many despondent days. And he just smiled and said, because the joy of the Lord is the strength of my life. So God just gives some people that kind of personality. But. But there are other ministers who, We have to work hard, and I'm one of them, to keep ourselves in a positive frame of mind.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, Robert, if you think about the Apostle Paul, he had some pretty low times in his life, I think.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: So he was, high strung. the most extraordinary thing was when he wrote to the Corinthians, and he said, I went to the city of Troas, and God opened a great door for me there. I mean, it was. Paul just had the circumstances fall into his lap for the planning of a church. And. But he said, I was just paralyzed. I couldn't do anything because I was overwhelmingly anxious about what was happening with my church in Corinth. And so he said, I just had to leave. And I went on to wait till Timothy could bring me, or Titus, I forget, could bring me a report. Now, this is the man who said, be anxious for nothing. But here in the, Corinthian epistles, he said, I didn't have any peace of mind. I couldn't take advantage of the. Of the open door that God had given me. So, And Second Corinthians is his most autobiographical letter. And I remember once I was going through a period of discouragement in ministry, and Katrina and I took two or three days off and went somewhere. We went to Chicago, actually, and I just read Second Corinthians over and over and over again. And I noticed that Paul talks about his troubles more in Second Corinthians than anywhere else. But the more you read the letter, the more positive you feel. And it was such a. I had trouble putting that together in my mind for a while. It is full more than any other letter of Paul's troubles. And yet all the way through, you come away with this spirit of enthusiasm and triumph and victory. So, So if we're talking to a pastor out there who's battling discouragement, I would really recommend just spending some time in Second Corinthians. It really helped me a lot.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, that's great. You know, I think about that verse in Second Corinthians, chapter one. I, heard Darlene Dibler, who is a missionary to Indonesia, she talked about that, where it says, indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God, who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death and will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope, and he will yet deliver us. That's encouragement right there. That God is a deliverer. He knows what you're going through. He will see you through as you trust him.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: And no one went through more ever than. Than Darlene Dibler. I didn't know her, but I've read her book and everybody ought to read the book. I mean, she was placed on death row. I don't remember the details now, but the way the Lord sustained her through her missionary trauma, of being captured and everything, it was amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yeah, that's a good book for pastors to find good illustrations from. Is her. Her memoir.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Oh, it really is. And, you know, they have it on YouTube. You can listen to her share all that.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Oh, no.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, she pretty much shares the whole book.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: yeah, I think she called. The very first time I heard her was on Focus on the Family, and she called her testimony, I will never leave you. And it was just about God's sustaining power. Well, I'm talking to pastor, prolific author, hymns expert. We're going to get into that after the break, Robert, But Robert Morgan. And Robert has been around the block time or two with, ups and downs of ministry, with the struggles and the joys and then the, disappointments and discouragements of ministry. And he's been, really contemplating what is going on, in the church today and this shallowing of the church, the shallowing of the pulpit. Listen, we are called to preach the word and to speak the truth in love and to, preach God's word as it's written, not just feel good sermons. As the little phrase said, we don't preach sermonettes for Christianettes who smoke cigarettes. We need to give people the full counsel of God. So you're listening to Real Truth for Today. Pastor Jeff Schrieve here. We'll be right back after the break.

Jeff Chamblee: This is Real Truth for Today. Podcasts of the program are available on the podcast page at afr. Now back to Pastor Jeff Schrieve.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Welcome back to Real Truth for Today. Pastor Jeff Schrieve here, talking to Dr. Robert Morgan. And Robert Morgan, you may have read his books. He's written many, many books. And prolific author, wonderful, things that he puts in print. And, Robert, we were talking about hymns. You've written extensively on the hymns. And, you know, we, in our world today, we have lots of churches that have gotten away from hymns because they seem old or stayed or whatever, and they want the newer music. What, would you say to pastors, to churches that are saying, yeah, out with the old, in with the new? Why is that not a good plan when it comes to the hymns?

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Oh, I could talk to you for hours about this. I have a deep, deep set of convictions about it. First of all, I love new Christian music. We need to have room for that. We need to make room for that. We need to enjoy it. I was, I came of age during the Jesus movement, and it was my generation that really basically invented contemporary Christian music. And, and. And I, you know, all through my pastorate, we would combine, the great hymns with the newer music and have a blended, or interwoven style. And, And so I believe that some of the good music is very, very good. There are two or three real problems we're facing. One is that with churches that have done away totally with the singing of hymns, or almost totally, and they are on a diet of contemporary Christian music. They are robbing their parishioners of, the vital, lifelong memorization and internalization of musical, truth. the songs that we sing today don't last very long. I mean, it wasn't that long ago we were singing, Death is Arrested. You know, now we, you know, the songs come and go so quickly. They are being mass produced by an industry now that's dominated by three or four labels. And, And so we sing a song a lot for about, you know, a few months maybe at most, and then it's gone and it's pushed out by new songs. you know, I love that. You know, in the early, part of the millennium, we sang, Shout to the Lord.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Right?

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah. Who sings that now? I mean, I love it. I have it on my playlist. But. But when I was. Every other generation, until now, have added new songs without losing the old. And so there were certain songs that you would sing as a congregation for decades. You know, they would be part of the cycle of hymns that would be sung over a period of decades. So that. So that when you were old and you were in the nursing home and you were battling some level of memory loss, the one thing you could remember would be how firm a foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord, or Oprah, a thousand Tongues to sing my Great Redeemer's praise or Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me or, you know, any of the holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty early in the morning. Because we sang those songs all of our lives. We sang them from infancy all the way up to old age. So it was truth that was internalized in our minds musically. and when my wife was passing away, I lifted her into bed one day and I heard her whispering something. She was pretty confused, but I listened carefully, and she's saying, my gracious master and my God assist me to proclaim to spread through all the earth abroad the Glories of thy name. It was, a stanza from Wesley's oh, for a thousand Tongues. She had sung that song all her life. So she had embedded deep in her memory words of songs that had been sung, over decades. We have taken all of that away from our worshipers and we've given them disposable music that is here today and gone tomorrow. And we aren't singing songs over a period of decades anymore. We sing them over a period of weeks. And if worship leaders don't understand that there have got to be some songs, both ancient and modern, that are repeated in the rotation of our hymns over a long term basis, then we are robbing people of an internalized canon of music that they need in order to be healthy. And I can prove this biblically. I mean, the people in Bible times, they memorized those 150 Psalms of the Psalter. They knew it. They sang those songs when they were children. They sang them when they were young adults. They sang them when they were older. They knew those songs by heart because they sang them over a lifetime. So that's one of the things bothering me is that our, music now is so disposable that it doesn't ever enter into the deep places of our hearts or of our memories.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, and Robert also, you know this much better than I, because you've really studied it. But those older hymns, they had lots of stanzas. There was, it was rich in theology. you know, he hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock and covers me there with his hand. I mean, things like that where it would bring the scripture into, into song. you know, I guess we have the Gettys do a pretty good job with that, but, but not a lot others.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: There, there are, when we talk about today's Christian music, there's two categories. There are the modern hymnists like the Gettys and Matt Boswell and Matt Papa and City Alight. And they are producing tremendous music, that rivals the ancient hymns and the quality of the lyrics and in the quality of the music. And I love what they're doing. We have the CCM market, the music that's on the radio, and, you know, country music. I live in Nashville, so I'm all I know. Country music. Country music is all about losing your dog, your truck, your gun, your wife. Yes. today's contemporary Christian music is like that. There are about five themes that every song. It's my shame, my guilt, my grave, my chains. I am so tired of singing about My chains being broken. It's about walls falling down. So many of the Christian songs right now on the radio, they. They get on a theme. So it's walls falling down. These walls are going to fall down. What does that even mean? M. You know, they are songs of exuberance that take some phrases, and there's not a lot of depth about them. And, even when we do find a good song, it doesn't. Again, it doesn't last very long. And very often it is all centered on Jesus, which is good, except that there's also the Father and the Holy Spirit. And, the other day I was lecturing at Trivecca University in Nashville, and we sang Holy Forever by Krish Tomlins. And I love that song. I don't have one bit of criticism. It is full of praise. But it dawned on me with a shock that that song only addresses Jesus. There is nothing in that song about God the Father being holy. Nothing about the Holy Spirit being holy. It is not trinitarian. It is exclusively about Jesus. And I began to notice how many of our songs are all about Jesus. But there is nothing there that is trinitarian in nature. Whereas the great hymns tended to be that the Doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy ghost St. Francis with, all creatures of our God and King. Praise, praise the Father, Praise the Son and praise the Spirit. Three in one. when Paul praised the Lord, it was typically to the Father, three of his, three of the Epistles. Two of them were Paul's and one was Peter's. But out of the 27 books of the NewSong Testament, three of them began with the words, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, so now I've been really convicted that in our music, not only are we singing fairly shallow lyrics that don't last very long, but it is so about Jesus, which is fine. That it is neglecting the Father and the Spirit, which is not fine. So I think we, you know, for worship leaders and pastors, these are not difficult issues to correct. It's not hard to find good lyrics that you can weave into your order of service every Sunday. It's not like that. We are facing some staggering problem we can't solve.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Right.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: It's just being aware that if we're going to produce a generation of deep worshipers, we have got to give them some good theology. In the music, there's got to be some trinitarian emphasis there. And we have got to have certain songs that we include in our rotation over a period of. Well, over a long term of time.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yes.

Jeff Chamblee: Okay.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: What's so hard about that, Jeff? I don't understand it.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Right, Yeah, I agree with you. let me ask you that piggybacking on the, Trinity, in heaven, do you God is spirit, so he can't. He doesn't have. Jesus has a body because the second person in the Trinity became a man. The Holy Spirit is obviously Spirit in heaven. what do we see as far as the Trinity goes?

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, the best place to see this is in Revelation 4 and 5, because this is the, And I'll give you my theology on it. I don't have to be dogmatic or correct here, but I believe that the, chapters in Revelation. I've written a book called the 50 Final Events in World History based on Revelation. And I think that chapters four through 18 is a clear description of the tribulation period that is coming upon the world. And chapters four and five introduce that with a heavenly worship service. So in heaven, the most vivid chapters we have about worship in all of the Bible are Revelation 4 and 5. As all of heaven is worshiping and rejoicing that now, at last, the time has come for evil to be dealt with and for the way to be paved for Christ to come again. So in chapter four, God the Father is worshiped with great exuberance. And it's all about God the Father. The Holy Spirit is there as well. He's called the seven spirits that are before the throne. But I think the seven, spirits refer to the fact that this is addressed to seven churches, each of which was indwelt by the Holy Spirit. So we have the Holy Spirit and God the Father in chapter four. And then they want to get on with the program. And the program is wrapped up in that scroll that I think is the battle plan for the final seven years of world history. But who can open that scroll? And so in chapter five, the Lamb shows up, who is also a lion. So this represents Jesus. He came the first time as a lamb to be sacrificed. He will come the second time as a lion to take control as King of kings. And he can open the scroll. And so the worship then moves to Jesus Christ. So I think in heaven, I think we will see the presence of the Father enveloped with light. Because God dwells in inexpressible light. I think we will sense the presence of the Holy Spirit. I think we will See the face of Jesus, but the worship there will be trinitarian. and so based upon Revelation 4 and 5 and really all of Revelation, I think that we should be practicing now by, you know, by making sure that our worship, not every song has to have a reference to the Trinity in it, but overall in our worship, we shouldn't neglect the Father and the Spirit and direct all of our worship towards the Son. That is not the NewSong Testament pattern.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Robert, do you, how do you view, oneness, Pentecostalism? Do you see? I mean, obviously the Bible doesn't teach that, but do you see somebody that believes in that as not being a true believer, as having saving faith in the Lord Jesus? How do you, how do you delineate that?

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, it depends on where they are in life. I believe that we can be saved and receive Christ as Savior by simply trusting him without necessarily knowing a lot of theology. but then if we have genuinely acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior, then I think God will lead us theologically to understand more and more from a biblical perspective. And it's clear that the Bible teaches the Trinity. You know, the two great mysteries of the Christian faith that sets us apart from every other thought system in the world is the Trinity and the duality. how can there be one God who eternally exists in three persons? And how can there be one Person who exists with two natures being Jesus Christ? And it's clear in the Bible that God the Father is God, but he is distinct from the Son and the Spirit, and that God the Son is God, but he is distinct from the Father and the Spirit and God. The Spirit is God, but he is distinct from the Father and the Son. The fact that we cannot understand it, it's mind boggling to us is a good sign because a God who is small enough to be understood is not big enough to be worshiped. You know, we should have things that are in the realm of mystery, with a God that is infinite in every way. but to come to understand this and to reject it is to me a more serious matter. Yeah. so I do think that someone can be saved without fully understanding a, great deal of theological material. But if they are genuinely saved and they come to understand theological material, then I think they will embrace the major essential doctrines that have characterized Christianity through all of these, millennia.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Amen to that. We're talking to Dr. Robert Morgan, seasoned pastor, prolific author. Fifteen million books, Robert.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Not that many, but we're working on it.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: A lot is a lot of books. hymns expert and, the host of the Robert Morgan podcast. And he's become a wonderful friend. And so we're talking about the state of the church, the state, state of the pastorate. When we come back from the break, we're going to really, dive into the shallowing of the church, which is a big, big concern. What are we teaching, the people that come week after week after week? Are we giving them, the full counsel of God? You're listening to Real Truth for today. Pastor Jeff Schrieve here. We'll be right back after the break.

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Jeff Chamblee: If you'd like to contact Pastor Jeff, email pastorjeffromhishheart.org now back to Real Truth for today with Pastor Jeff Schrieve.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Welcome back to Real Truth for today. Pastor Jeff Schrieve here, talking to Dr. Robert Morgan. We're talking about the, state of the church, the state of the pastorate, and, Robert, the shallowing of the church. This is something that's on your heart. And, when you talk about the shallowing of the church, I know you're planning to write a book on this subject. What do you mean by that?

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, we've already talked about what's happening with music. the fact that we've replaced solid theological lyrics and songs that we sing over a lifetime with disposable lyrics that don't last very long. And at least when it comes to the, the music that we import from our radios, it tends to be pretty subjective and shallow and not trinitarian in nature. So I think the worship that we, that we're experiencing in a lot of our churches could be deepened with a few tweaks. But, you know, we love the radio. We love the exuberance. We, we love the, the feeling of getting a praise team up there and getting a good beat and singing about our walls falling down and our chains being broken. so I think that contributes a lot towards the shallowing of the church. I think the loss of liturgy is huge. Now, when I say liturgy, I don't necessarily. I'm not advocating that we become high liturgical churches, although a lot of young people are gravitating right now towards more liturgy. But I'm in so many churches. And here's the way the service goes. Someone gets up and says, good morning, everyone. Let's stand to our feet and sing. And so we'll sing a series of songs, and then there'll be an announcement. and then the pastor will preach, and then there'll be a closing song, and then they'll say, thanks for being here. You're dismissed. And it's basically song sermon, is what's in. But there are so many biblical elements of worship in the Bible that we can incorporate on any given Sunday. We don't have to do them all at once. But, you know, the Bible is full of calls to worship. And when I was a pastor, I, would love to, stand up at the beginning of the hour or to have my worship leader stand up at the beginning of the hour and say something more than, good morning, everyone. I mean to say, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice. And to have a Bible verse or, you know, a call to worship is a moment when you actually bring people into the awareness that they are coming into the presence of God. And, and so being able to do that scripture reading. You read earlier what Paul said to Timothy. He said, until I return, give yourself to the public reading of scripture. Yes, I'm in very few churches now that have any scripture reading. now in the sermon, the pastor may say, today will, you know, he may have scriptures in his sermon. Hopefully he does. Yes, but there is. The orality of scripture has been lost. you know, up until this point in human history, people went to church expecting to hear a portion of scripture being read. And the reading of scripture is an art. You know, when I read scripture and church, I will always practice it. I try to, to make sure that I'm going to read it clearly and well. and we've lost that, the offering, has always been a part of the liturgy of the church. But now we've taken away since Cove We all give by credit card automatically. we're not even aware we're doing it. And we've lost the sense of offering, having a designated pastoral prayer is lost. How many churches do you know in which the pastor stands up and he, you know, Paul included pastoral prayers and his epistles. and I just think there needs to be a time when. When the pastor of the church will stand up and there is a designated time for prayer. the, the benediction every. I mean, the benediction is God's way of closing worship events. And the Bible is full of benedictions. The two most famous are the Aaronic benediction and number six. the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. And then the, apostolic benediction from, from Second Corinthians 13. may the love of God and the, fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And you know that that passage, didn't, quote it right. But. But there are so many other benedictions. And my favorite benediction, and I ended most of my worship services with this one, is in Hebrews 13. may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in you what is pleasing to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So there are the, choirs. You know, choirs are very popular right now in the American culture, but what has happened to choirs and churches? And choirs are God's idea. They are biblical all the way through from the creation when the morning stars sang and God created the world till the book of Revelation. And all through the Old Testament, choirs were a way of allowing people who had a gift of singing and. And gifts of music to come together to minister to the larger group with the lyrics that were, worshipful and edifying. So what I'm saying is that in our orders of service, we have lost so many of the biblical elements of worship. And so I get so tired, and, I'm sorry, but I miss. I miss some liturgical elements to give majesty and reverence and form and structure to worship services today.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Robert, when you first started, you said you kind of came out of that Jesus movement in that era. So that's the. That's like the Keith. That's Keith Greene time.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Is that about right? how different was it like at your first pastorate? Those elements, a lot of those elements were still embedded in the church. Even in the. The newer churches.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Well, I've always had those elements embedded. To me, the passion of the Jesus movement and the new music that has come from it is not antithetical to reverence and worship and structure in our church services. So. So we would, I would always begin with the call to worship. I, would think through that very carefully. What were the first words I wanted to say when I began pastoring? I was in a little church out in the country, and the first thing that I did was I stepped out on the stoop beside the pulpit and pull the rope that rang the bell. And that bell was basically calling the whole community to worship. And then I would step back to the pulpit, and I would say, now unto the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honoring glory forever and ever. Amen. Shall we stand and sing? or I might quote the words of an opening hymn. I, might say, come, Christians, join to sing alleluia to our King, you know, and then we would sing both hymns and newer music. Now, that takes a little bit of persuasion on my part to get some of the Jesus music in there. but there's no reason why the exuberance of our revival times and the freshness of our new music cannot also be incorporated with the elements that are biblical in nature and liturgical, not in the sense of necessarily having a high church experience, but in the aspect of bringing biblical worship elements into the common experience of weekly Christian gatherings.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: M. Okay, let's talk about, Robert. Let's talk about the, preacher and the content of his message. We have, We have a divide in, in many churches where pastors. I don't want to talk about controversial subjects. that's too political. I'm of the opinion that politics, has gotten into morality and the Bible has much to say about LGBTQ issues, about, abortion, about all these things that we deal with. my friend Ken Ham likes to say, hey, it all goes back to Genesis. How did God create and you learn? Genesis 1:11 gives you the foundation for everything. what would you say to those guys and to these churches that they want to be so relevant? And, we're just here to reach people. We don't want to say anything that might turn them off. how do you preach the whole counsel of God without hitting those subjects?

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Yeah, well, I'm reading a book right now on the chaplains of the American Revolution. Most of them were pastors, and I'll tell you, they were not the Puritan pastors. In NewSong England and in the colonies were not afraid to address political, issues when it came to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, America has always been greatest when the pastors spoke to current issues. Our moments of shame have come when pastors didn't, for example, during the civil rights movement, when churches should have been at the forefront of, integration and speaking about the dangers of prejudice. Too many pulpits were silent, they didn't want to go there. So, we have got to address issues that are moral in nature and that advocate for a biblical worldview, even if there may be political implications to them. I don't think we have to get political. I don't think it's a matter of getting political. It's a matter of speaking clearly and giving the biblical worldview position on issues that are important to a person's life. And if those issues have political implications, then they do. But we're not trying to be political. We're just trying to advance a biblical worldview. And Jeff, the best way of doing that is with expositional preaching. I mean I don't have to preach a sermon, on homosexuality. It's not necessary for me to do that. As I go through the Bible, preaching through books of the Bible, that subject comes up. Sexual ethics is woven all the way through the Bible. you know, if I preach from Genesis, if I preach from Romans, if I preach from the Corinthian epistles, if I preach from almost anywhere, sexual ethics comes up somewhere and that subject, murder, comes up. The preciousness of pre born life comes up. I just did a, series of, sermons and podcasts and wrote a book from Luke, chapter one, the story of Zachariah and Elizabeth, and the baby leaped in Elizabeth's womb and Jon the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb. So as you preach expositionally through scripture, all of the issues come up, but we deal with them, within the context of exposition without necessarily having to preach topical sermons on issues. Now there may be a time when we need to do a topical sermon on an issue, but I think that when we are preaching God's word the way it was written, unfolding his logic, the way that it was embedded in Romans or in Mark or in Malachi, and going through books of the Bible, we come up with all of the issues that we need to address because they are interwoven into God's logic, into the flow of reasoning that he put into each one of the books and then we deal with it fearlessly from the text. And we don't have to avoid these issues, and we shouldn't avoid them. But as we preach expositionally through the Bible, we deal with them in a way that is very authentic to the scripture that we hold in our hand. And then if people are upset with us, we just say, hey, this is the Scripture. This is the biblical worldview that Christians have held for 2000 years and the Judean Christian worldview that goes back for 4,000 years. And I do not apologize for teaching the Bible.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Amen to that. Well, you know, I think about in Acts 17 how they said of Paul and Silas, these men who have upset the world have come here also. a Christian needs to be upsetting the status quo. I mean, the whole world lies in the power of the evil. 1:1 Jon 5:19. And we are coming against that. We're speaking the truth, in love to. To a world that's believing lies. I've said, Robert, you know, we're dealing with the Islamification of America right now. And it's. We're seeing that in Europe, and we're seeing that come into the United States. And if we don't stand up and say, hey, Islam is satanic. Now, we Muslims are the mission field, but they are believing a lie, and we have to speak against that lie. If we don't do that, and if we don't stand up for America. I know you just wrote the book about the, verses that shaped America. If we don't do that, we're going to lose America for our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren. And that would be a travesty of, unprecedented proportions.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: My pastor, Allen Jackson, says, and I agree with him, that antisemitism and the spirit of the Antichrist are two sides of the same coin. And those are coming at us fast and furious right now. So we have got to have a Bible in our hands and the fearlessness to preach it and teach it clearly and I think expositionally, because when you have topical sermons, contemporary worship and relational small groups, and no liturgy and no emphasis on the Trinity in your worship, then you have got a recipe there for a church in America that is 3,000 miles wide and one inch deep.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: that's profound, for sure. Well, Dr. Robert Morgan has been my guest, and, Robert, thank you so much for taking the time. I pray that you would heal quickly. I pray that you would heal completely and those hands would be working, to the glory of God.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.

Pastor Jeff Schreve: Thank you, brother. Well, thanks for listening to Real Truth for today. Go out today, shine for Christ and share what great things the Lord has done for you and God will use you as his witness. God bless you.

In this episode, Pastor Jeff Schreve welcomes pastor, author, and Bible teacher Dr. Robert Morgan for an insightful discussion about the growing shallowness of today's church and the urgent need to return to faithful, Bible-centered ministry. Drawing from 1 Timothy 4, they explore the challenges facing pastors, the importance of expository preaching, and why believers need sound doctrine to grow in their faith.

The conversation also addresses pastoral discouragement, the value of timeless hymns, the richness of biblical worship, and the danger of replacing deep theological truth with shallow, feel-good messages. Dr. Morgan shares practical encouragement for pastors and church leaders, reminding them that God's Word is sufficient to strengthen the church and transform lives.

This timely episode calls Christians to pursue spiritual maturity, embrace the full counsel of God's Word, and remain steadfast in a culture that often values entertainment over biblical truth.