Paul Thompson, a pastor at Eastside Baptist Church, experienced the power of the Gospel through the family God gave him. Here is a story of the salvation of a boy in a godly Christian family. A boy whose favorite and the most influential preacher in his life was his father. A boy whose faith was stirred by his father’s conversations during car rides, "when they sat in the house and walked by the way."

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, and one of the ways we do that is that we provide conferences where preachers come and preach from the Scriptures to equip the saints to understand what it means that Scripture is sufficient. And Paul Thompson, who we're going to interview in just a minute, is one of those preachers. We have collected life stories from the preachers that come, and we hope you're able to listen to them because they're always so encouraging. But so today we have Paul Thompson with us to share his life story.

Hey, Paul. Hey, guys. It's great to see you. Great to be on this program with you. Thanks.

So Paul is the pastor at Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. So anyway, it's just so good to have you come and preach for us. A number of your messages are on our website. You're going to come to our national conference on the chief end of man next year. So we're really looking forward to that.

And so Jason, here we go. We're, we're going to hear another story of the grace of God. I love it. Paul, tell us the story of your life. Yeah.

Tell us the story of your life. Yeah, well, I'll give you the short version. We thank you. You're welcome. So I'm actually a Texan native, and I only bring that up because if the condition of the nation continues to go as it is, I at least have a birth certificate in a state that can secede from the Union if need be.

I'll have an entrance back to the promised land, I guess. But actually, I've spent very little time in Texas. My dad at the time was in seminary at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. And shortly after I was born and my younger brother was born, we moved to New Castle, Colorado. And there my dad pastored churches in Colorado for the rest of my growing up years.

And in New Castle, Colorado at the time was a community less than 300 people. And there was a people that wanted a Bible preaching pastor to come and shepherd them. And my dad was fresh out of seminary and pleased to go wherever God would call him. So he went to New Castle, Colorado. Within a couple of years, my dad began, this is me in the early 70s.

So Baptist churches in the western part of Colorado was not very prominent. They weren't in very many communities. And so a community about 14 miles down the road from Newcastle, a community called Rifle, Colorado, is a place that began looking for a church planter, someone who could come and teach them the Bible. And so for about two and a half years, my dad pastored the church in New Castle, Colorado on Sunday mornings, and then would travel to Rifle, Colorado and preach and teach there on Sunday evenings this was before multi-campus churches were popular he was the original so there was a lot of conversations that would take place in that vehicle between the two. And sometimes one of my brothers would go with my dad to Rifle and sometimes we would all go as a family.

But I distinctly remember a time, and I may have the location of where we were not correct in my mind. My older brother can help me understand this. But I remember traveling home from one of those rifle chapel meetings on a Sunday night and the conversation about the gospel was going on. I have two brothers who are in the back seat of the car and there's just a lot of gospel conversation going on. And the next thing I know, my dad's pulling the vehicle over and I think in my adult mind of how I remember that, if I'm thinking it's never a good idea when dad pulls the vehicle over to you.

But this was actually a good moment. I think my dad had the conversation had moved with my older brother that my older brother wanted to pray and ask God to forgive him of his sins. So as my dad pulled that car over and my older brother got out of the vehicle with my dad and they went to the front of the vehicle, I can just remember seeing this very vividly as though it were still happening, that my dad and my older brother are in a spiritual conversation. At this point, we don't really know what they're talking about, but it becomes really clear that my older brother is repenting of his sins and asking God to forgive him. And Within a few moments, they get back in the car and my dad continues the gospel conversation the rest of the way home.

I'm sure it had an impact on me. I know it did because I still remember that conversation. But it would be a couple of years later before I would come to the understanding that I was standing in that place of offense of the righteousness of God myself. It was at this point, we had moved from Newcastle to Rifle. Both churches had grown sufficiently enough that my dad could really only pastor one location.

And so, we ended up in Rifle, Colorado. And we're living in the basement of this house, and We converted the upstairs to the church building. One afternoon, I remember after that service of hearing my dad faithfully preaching the Word of God, day in and day out, without fail, very faithful preacher of the Word of God. That acknowledgement is beginning to stir inside of me that I know who he's talking about. I know what this is pointing to me.

So a Sunday afternoon, we typically would go downstairs and eat our lunch and take a nap or rest for the rest of the day. My dad had sent me to my bed with a gospel tract that, again, was just reiterating what I had faithfully been hearing every Sunday when my dad would step into the pulpit. I know without a doubt—I don't know the day, I don't know the day of the calendar day. I know I was nine years old and I know it was a Sunday afternoon, that it was very clear that the reality was on me, that if I had died without repenting of my sins, without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, that I would face the judgment of God. So to a nine-year-old boy's understanding, that was very, very clear to me.

And I just remember after reading that and and and and I'm sure even praying at that moment I went and found my dad who was up in the upstairs in his office and he was studying for the evening service. And I just went in and explained to my dad that I understand what this track you gave me means and I repent of my sins. And so, you know, that's the kind of the experience around my salvation. There's definitely a lot of sanctification that is really the story of the rest of my life. I don't have any of these stories where I drift away from the faith.

I'm captivated, really, even before I'm saved, I'm captivated by the Lord's Church, by the Bible, the reality of who God is. And by the grace of God is really how I would describe it. I don't have any moments where I wildly drift away and chase after the world, but what I do have is an increasing desire to know more and more about God. And it's followed me through all of my adult life in the selection of who I would marry, the raising of my children, and now as a grandfather and a pastor in Idaho myself, that growing desire to just want to know my God and to honor Him and to love Him. And so that's the short version of a really beautiful journey with the Lord in my life.

Love it. So when did you find a wife? Yeah, so there's after I graduated from high school in Trinidad, Colorado, I knew that there would be something, because there was still this great desire to follow God in everything that I wanted to do in my life, not really knowing that that meant to be a pastor. But I did take the next step out of high school and went to a Baptist Bible college in the Panhandle of Texas. And my wife is from New Mexico, And she too went to this Bible college in the Panhandle of Texas to just pursue what God had next in her life, kind of leading towards—she has an art degree and a teaching degree.

But we met on campus at the Baptist Campus Ministry, and we were assigned to be prayer partners. Oh my. So, it wasn't long after, it was like, well, I could be a prayer partner with her for the rest of my life. How old were you at that time? We were both pretty young.

I was 19 at the time we met and my wife was 17 at that time and it was a pretty fast turnaround. She was 18 when we got married and I was 20 when we got married. So about a year and a half into our first year and a half of college that we were married. Oh, that's neat. That's really neat.

Marry your prayer partner. How about that? That's kind of what Jason did actually Long story. Yeah and Renee she grew up in a God fearing home as well in New Mexico and and so both of us were raised to chase hard after God and the desire to worship Him with all of our ways. So what happened after that?

So you got married and then you entered the ministry at some point. What's the story on that? Yeah, within about six months of us getting married, we end up with a phone call from a church in Amarillo, Texas that was looking for, at that time they were just looking for a youth director. And I didn't have a finished degree from the school, but they were willing to, they wanted to have a conversation with us. This was actually the church that both of my parents grew up in.

They're from the Amarillo area. And so there was, even though my mom and dad hadn't been in this church for 20 plus years, there was at least enough of a knowledge of where my dad had been and where we had been and who I was. So there was beginning interest from them and on my behalf. So I spent about six years at Second Baptist Church in Amarillo, Texas. And then out of the blue, to this day, I don't know that my wife or I, either one know how or who a member of a church in Mountain Home, Idaho gave my name to the church who was looking for what they knew would have to be a bivocational minister to come alongside of their growing church.

And so there were a lot of ideas in my mind that I wanted to raise my boys in Colorado. And so if I couldn't get to Colorado, Idaho would be the next best thing. And I gotta say, Idaho was the best thing. Oh my, that's great. So Who were some of the authors, preachers that have affected you most over the years?

Yeah, this is really kind of one of my favorite parts about my story is after moving to Mountain Home, Idaho, within about a year and a half, this was an Air Force based town. And so the community grew fast and it became a ghost town fast regularly. And so it eventually became needed for me to have a full-time job outside of the church. And so by the grace of God, a church in Fairfield, Idaho, which is a popular, very similar to the town I first grew up in in Colorado. And this church was about a year and a half old, and their pastor was leaving.

So they invited me and my family to come, and eventually I became the pastor of Foothills Baptist Church in Fairfield, Idaho. It's a very isolated place. Winters are long, winters are cold. So I have a lot of time. This is before the internet.

If we had internet, it was a dial-up call from Fairfield. It would be a long distance call. So I have no other resources but books. And so I spent three and a half, what I call actually four winters. That's how I count the glorious days in Fairfield, four long, cold winters.

And that's really where God gave me a great love for reading. And there, that's where I met the Puritans, really. And I meet the Puritans through Charles Spurgeon Readings or writings of Charles Spurgeon and he would talk about a particular Historic Puritan and I'd go to the library and they'd find a book for me My wife actually worked at the library so I had an inside way to get books through the interlibrary loan process. At that moment, I began reading John Bunyan. John Bunyan became the first real era of the Puritans that I just got really hungry to read.

And so it just kind of went from there all over the place. Richard Baxter, probably of all of the Puritan pastors, Richard Baxter has probably had more influence on me. And I've come to learn that that's a pretty common experience. Richard Baxter really does have a glorious spot on the influence of pastors today. But I would say it began with Spurgeon, who introduced me to John Bunyan, and then eventually I came across Richard Baxter.

Oh my, that's great. Preachers, preachers who are either dead or alive, who has influenced you? You know, I have to put my dad first on that. Scott, my dad was a faithful expository teacher, maybe not in the classical sense of all of the great expositors that we have today, but I just remember listening and hearing my dad open up the Bible and walk through the verses that were in front of him. And so he's no longer living, so I now have to put him in the category of those who are no longer living.

But I have in my office a giant tote packed full of the handwritten notes that my dad used in his preaching. And I refer to that tote frequently. I go and visit those sermons and they have regular influence on me. So that's a real personal connection that I have to a past pastor. But I would have to then to move beyond my dad, I would have to put guys like A.W.

Tozer. For me, when I read A.W. Tozer, especially when I first began reading Tozer, I thought, there's no way this guy's dead. This guy's got to be living right now somewhere in America. But He was writing things in the 1950s and 1960s that clearly the Western Church wasn't paying attention to.

He was warning us of a lot of things that the Church embraced. So A.W. Tozer has had an enormous influence on me. And then I think from there, I would move into some of the modern, those guys who are still living. There's no doubt, I'm sure that someday the Lord's gonna bless the preaching ministry of Paul Washer.

I had never crossed paths with Paul Washer in my life until I had come to a couple of the NCFIC conferences, But the faithful, expository, bold, prophetic voice from Paul Washer has had a profound impact upon me. And I would have to put Vodi Bakken in that same category. We're really kind of more like peers, but they have had a blessed impact upon me. Great preachers. Really very, very helpful.

Very, very helpful brothers. Okay, so lastly, I'm gonna take you back to when you're nine years old. So you're sitting in that car and you've heard preaching your whole life, good preaching, and you're realizing you're not converted. So talk to a nine-year-old about that kind of situation. Yeah, so part of that experience is first me watching and out of the conversations that I know is going on between my older brother and my dad and the time that it takes for the Holy Spirit to really kind of awaken me to this is that today as a 56-year-old man, you know, I can articulate so much more to that 9-year-old little boy than he even knew what was going on.

But I would want that 9-year-old boy to hear the sound of the gospel. And this, I think, from my vantage point today to that nine-year-old boy is pay close attention to the book of Colossians especially. And there when the Apostle Paul talks about how Christ rescued us from the domain of darkness and that he that and then he rescued us out of that and he transplants us into the kingdom of the beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So to that nine-year-old boy, pay close attention. You are in grave danger and peril.

You're in such condition that you have to be rescued, and you can only be rescued by the Lord Jesus Christ. And he has nothing but good intentions for you. Look to him and look nowhere else. Don't let your eyes move to the left or to the right. Look into the Lord Jesus Christ who rescued you from the domain of darkness and give him everything you've got.

Oh boy, amen. I hope we have some nine-year-olds listening now to that. That's the key to life. And you never know what might happen when you're sitting in a car and somebody's talking to your brother. Right, right.

The seed of the gospel is taking root. Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, Paul, thank you so much. Can't wait to have you come to our conference, you know, coming up and really grateful for you and your church and how God rescued you and all the things that have happened since then. Praise the Lord.

Amen, thank you, Scott. Thank you, Jason. It's good to see you guys. Good to see you. Thank you.

And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. We hope to see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us.

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