Strong and Courageous An Interview with Dr. Thomas White

December 5, 2025

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Guest: Dr. Thomas White

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 12/05/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, thank you so much for tuning in. This is Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m excited to introduce a first time guest to our program Stand in the Gap. Today at this Friday edition, we’ll be talking to somebody who has worn a lot of different hats and different ministries, pastor, educator, theologian, author, Christian University, president, husband, and father, among many roles, I think even I read Karate Instructor amongst things. So I’d like to introduce Dr. Thomas White of Cedarville University, Dr. White, thank you so much for joining us on Stand In the Gap Today.

Thomas White:

Thank you for having me on. It’s a joy to be with you.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, I want to introduce you to Dr. White and we really want to dig into his latest book. It was just released just feels like a few weeks ago, but at the end of the summer, beginning of fall, and it’s a practical 52 week devotional book and it’s titled Strong and Courageous: Timeless Truths to Conquer Fear, Crush Anxiety and Defeat Despair in An Uncertain World. And when I saw that, I thought, yes, this is needed right now. We need this in 2025. And so right now as we’re getting ready to talk to Thomas, I would just encourage you, if you’re tuned in right now, maybe text a friend and make sure they’re also tuned in, or if you’re streaming it on our app or on our website, just let somebody else know or maybe go to our app and get the archive of this and text it to somebody. Or if you’re listening via podcast, share it with somebody because I think this is one of those important programs that is going to bring a lot of biblical encouragement for something that we are all facing and we know people who are facing this. So let’s talk about this, but Dr. White, before we dive into the topic of biblical courage and look at your book, let’s just hear a little bit about you. Do you mind telling us, just introducing yourself and what the Lord has called you to do as president there at Cedarville University?

Thomas White:

Sure, absolutely. So my grandfather was a pastor. My dad has been a pastor for over 50 plus years now in local churches. I grew up in South Carolina and the Lord called me into the ministry after he saved me and I surrendered thinking I was going to be a local church pastor and he just led me in different paths. I was a karate instructor, owned and operated four schools, but then in the higher education realm, I just stayed there. The Lord kept moving me from one place to another and I landed at Cedarville where I serve as President. And it is a joy just to be able to serve at a Christian university that believes the Bible, that believes in seven day literal creation. We believe God’s word is authoritative and errant and fallible, and we want a biblical worldview in every classroom and we want to disciple every single one of our students to stand for the Lord. And so I think that’s the solution to what ails our country and our nation and our problems is to train this next generation, to trust the Lord, believe the Bible. And I have the great joy of being able to do that here in Cedarville, Ohio.

Isaac Crockett:

That is amazing. I just say amen to that. I love the pastoral heart as a pastor myself and my dad was a pastor, my mom’s dad was a missionary pastor. I love that. But I love this worldview that you’re talking about and not afraid to talk about these things. We have Ken Ham and a lot of different folks from Answers in Genesis on our program. In fact, we have several of their speakers on a regular basis. And it’s so important. College is such an amazing opportunity. It had such a huge impact on my life and in so many people I know when it’s done right with a biblical worldview, with Christian godly atmosphere, and yet so many kids go off to college and they deconstruct or they hit a wall or something. And so we are so excited about what God has been doing for a long time at Cedarville University, but especially even under your ministry there, you get to shepherd over 7,000 students who are trying to figure things out and get started and go out into this world, which is at times a very uncertain world. For those who maybe aren’t familiar with Cedarville, Ohio and Cedarville University, the Christian university you’re at, what would you like them to know about the mission and heartbeat of Cedarville University?

Thomas White:

So our vision is for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and we want to do that at every level. So we have over 7,000 students. We have over 150 different majors. Whatever you can think about all the way from a pharm D program to a Bible program, we have them. So we have students studying in all these areas. We have chapel for our undergraduate students five days a week. We have a Bible minor for every undergraduate major. We have faculty members who sign our doctrinal statement every single year. So you know what you’re getting in the classroom and we believe the Bible and teach the Bible in every single discipline. We get our students for about a thousand days and during that thousand days, we want to stand firm for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. So we want our students to graduate with a degree and the placement rate’s high, but if they don’t love Jesus more when they walk across the stage than they did when they arrived on campus, then we failed. If they don’t love the local church more than we have failed. And so we want to invest in their lives in the right way and discipleship and the whole person education that glorifies God. So we launch them out all across the world to do what God’s called them to do.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen to that too. I have a number of good friends that have gone to Cedarville and family members. How old is Cedarville University? When was it founded as an institution?

Thomas White:

Originated in 1887.

Isaac Crockett:

1887. Wow. And right there in Ohio, in that part of Ohio this whole time

Thomas White:

It was, yeah, it was started here in southwest Ohio. It transitioned from a Presbyterian institution to a Baptist institution in 1953. And the president of the institution when it became Baptist was James t Jeremiah. And that name may ring a bell because his son, David Jeremiah is a pretty well-known pastor himself and author. And so we just had a long faithful legacy of good solid pastors who have served as president who keep the focus where it needs to be on God’s work.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, that is exciting. We’re about to get into our break here. We have just over a minute. But you mentioned the strong biblical worldview. Why is that so important to you? You have high academic standards, but why is that focus on developing that strong biblical worldview? Even a higher calling to you than the academic standards?

Thomas White:

So every discipline has something that doesn’t fit with the word of God. It has something that we need to reject. So I want our faculty members to talk to our students about what you have to reject, what you can affirm and what you might be able to redeem so that when they go out into the secular workforce, they can give a reason for the faith that lies within them. We should be able to give a defense, we should have compassionate conviction. And if they don’t understand what the Bible says, they can lose their way. And we see it happening all the time in secular universities and in our culture, but we want to train a generation who know what they believe and they know why they believe it, and they can clearly articulate it to those who are wondering.

Isaac Crockett:

And that’s really where we’re going with this book that you wrote is helping us know why we believe in what we believe. We have about 30 seconds here to our break, but could you maybe just introduce your book, just the title in maybe one sentence about that book?

Thomas White:

So last year in our chapel, I preached through the book of Joshua. Every time I think about Joshua, I think about strong and courageous. What I learned as I went through that book, Joshua probably had times where he experienced fear, anxiety, and despair, but he overcame them and that’s what the word of God ultimately can help us do too as we study through the book of Joshua.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, if you’re listening right now, I think hopefully you are contacting others and having them tune into this too because as Thomas is talking about here, these are important things. This is the biblical worldview that we’re talking about and having a true understanding of the Bible and having Christ in our hearts when we have accepted Christ, when he is our Lord and we’ve repented of our sins, he gives us courage even in the face of difficult things, and we see that all around us. He’s dealing with generation Z with these young students at this university, and yet what the Lord has put on his heart is practical for all of us as if you’re thinking right now, you know what? I need more courage. My family needs to hear this. You don’t want to go away. We’re about to take a quick break and hear from some of our partners, but when we come back, we’re going to talk about strong and courageous looking to scripture and seeing biblical answers for everything in our society.

We’re going to get back with more. Please don’t go away. We’ll be right back. Well, welcome back to today’s program. This is Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m with Dr. Thomas White, the president of Cedarville University. And his new book, brand new book just came out at the end of this year titled Strong and Courageous Timeless Truths to Conquer Fear, crush Anxiety and Defeat, despair in an Uncertain World. Going to the book of Joshua about biblical courage and our culture, if you watch the news or even just scrolling through your social media, there are a lot of things that bring about anxiety or fear or pressure, and we need this. I think Thomas, you’ve written a number of books. I think the first book I remember reading of yours was comparing the consumerism within the churches to the McDonald’s and supersizing things. So this book is a lot different than some of the books you’ve written and you could have written on just about anything, leadership, higher education, dozens of topics you’re an expert in. Why and maybe how did the Lord lead you putting fear, anxiety, and despair as the subject matter to write about from a biblical worldview?

Thomas White:

The ministry that I have to Gen Z and to college students, it’s just anxiety is everywhere. The social media craze that we have where we’re on our phones too often, we’re comparing all of our life moments to somebody else’s picture or their best moments. The fear of failure that we are seeing around our country, the uncertainty about the future that all ages are facing, all of these things are the things that are there in the book of Joshua, how to overcome those, how we try to deal with those. And I just thought this would be a good way for me to invest in the kingdom of God, to invest in not just the next generation, but even my own generation. All of us. We need these truths that the word of God has. And so I wanted to invest in the kingdom. So this is just an effort to try to help us to stand in our culture and in our time in a way that is faithful for God’s word.

Isaac Crockett:

It’s easy, I think sometimes each generation to kind of think, oh yeah, we have all these problems that nobody had before. I consider myself one of the older or original millennials, and I’ve written some and talked a lot with Dr. Barna who’s on our program a lot. He studied the millennial generation, especially about the nine 11 effect and all these different anxieties and fears we had, but each generation had it before me and after me. I love how you’ve done this. You’ve pastored, you’ve taught, you lead a university where you’re really in a lot of ways a shepherd of all these students, and yet you talk in your book about that at some point we all come face to face with fear that feels bigger than we are, and even godly people, we have these stresses that come up. When did you or have you personally gone through times where you had to lean into the book of Joshua and these truths that you learned? Are these things that impacted you personally? And how has your own personal journey maybe impacted how you’re teaching and shepherding Generation Z, the college students that you’re dealing with on a daily basis?

Thomas White:

Yeah, I wish I could say there’s one moment where I learned this lesson and I mastered it, but in my life what I tend to see is that over and over fear, forgetfulness, anxiety, can this really happen? God, are you really going to make this happen? Keeps coming back up. And so I know God has provided for me in so many different ways when I was a younger person, when I was newly married, when I was moving from one position to another, coming to Cedarville, we launched a fundraising campaign. The Lord provided in so many different clear ways, but we have a forgetful faith. Our sinful nature is such that we forget about when God is provided and we take it for granted. So then when the next challenge comes, we look at the challenge and we think there’s no way I can do this and that’s true, but we serve a God who can do this.

And so many times we need to look back at the memorials of what God has done for us in the past. And remember all the times he’s been faithful. And that’s really the reason I think the whole book of Joshua exists is because God made a promise to Abraham that he was going to give his descendants a land. And the book of Joshua records exactly how God gave that land. God kept every single promise, every single word, not one failed. We have a God that we can trust. God is faithful, we can trust him. And for us to remember that in those times when we encounter another hard season or another challenge or another obstacle, that’s the challenge of life is for us not to have a forgetful faith, but to remember God’s been faithful in the past. He will again be faithful in the future.

Isaac Crockett:

That is so helpful. And what a good remembrance to count our many blessings, name them one by one to remember how God has worked in our lives and what he is doing. And all we need to do is just even look at scripture to see that you kind of alluded to this when talking about the college students that you minister to, but especially the young people right now, and we all face this, but high schoolers and college students, and maybe if you’re listening right now and you are one of those younger age groups like that, it’s often easy to feel almost paralyzed. Like I’m afraid of making any decision because I might make the wrong decision. Maybe it’s not the right major or maybe it’s not the right person I should be dating or just afraid that your future is so broken and I don’t know what to do. Is there one section of your book strong and courageous that you would say, you know what? Take this verse, put this in your hands, start here. And this will help you kind of have a steady biblical backing to make the right decisions.

Thomas White:

Yeah, a couple of things on that. First the problem is we’re finding our identity and stuff. People are finding their identity and a talent they may have or in playing sports or culture is telling us to find your identity and your sexuality. And none of that’s right. None of that’s biblical. We find our identity in Christ and in Christ alone. If you are not a believer and you’ve never repented of your sins and put your faith in Christ, your identity is in Adam, you are a rebel against the king and your eternal destiny is not good. If you have put your faith in trust in Christ, then you are a child of the king. That is your identity. And when we find our identity in that, it’s okay if we fail, it’s okay if we mess up, it’s okay because we are just a fateful servant of the king.

And the thing I think we all need to remember is think to the book of Joshua and the end of Deuteronomy even. It says in the book of Joshua chapter one, four times be strong and courageous in verse six, in verse seven, only be strong and courageous. Verse nine, again, be strong and courageous. And then again in verse 18, and if you were to back up to Deuteronomy, you would see it over and over again in Deuteronomy. Well, in Deuteronomy 31, 7, Moses summons him and he says to him that the Lord will be with you. He will not forsake you. Be strong and courageous. Deuteronomy 31, the Lord calls him out and the Lord says to him that he’ll be with him. So be strong and courageous. So here are the two principles I see right out of the gate in the book of Joshua.

The first thing we’ve got to remember is number one, the Lord will be with us. And then the second thing we have to remember is that the Lord keeps his promises. Now, if those two things are true and they are then when God has called me to do something, if he’s going to be with me and if he’s going to keep all of the promises that he’s made to us, we can respond with a strong and courageous faith. And that’s what we should do in every situation. And the reason it’s in there four times is repetition tells us about the importance. And so the first thing that we all need to remember is the Lord is with us. And you may say, well, I’m not Joshua, but the New Testament tells us in the Great Commission, go and make disciples and Lo I’ll be with you always.

And it’s not just even in the Great Commission. When we look out at the book of Hebrews, the Lord tells us there in the book of Hebrews that he will be with us. Hebrews 13, five, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me? It’s in scripture so often that we should not be afraid, that we know we struggle with it and God knows we struggle with it. And so the answer to it is God’s with us. We lean into that. The spirit lives within those who are believers and God’s going to keep every promise he’s made to us. And there are a lot of good promises in the Bible

Isaac Crockett:

That is so good. When you’re talking, I can definitely hear the pastoral, the preacher in you, but right now I’m hearing the professor, the teacher in you, and as a professor, if you mentioned something in a lecture four times, it’s got to be important. Why do you think this repetition is in the book of Joshua? And then like you said, repeated throughout, even in the New Testament,

Thomas White:

The end of Deuteronomy, it’s in there twice. It’s with Moses Dennis, with the Lord, then in the first chapters four times, think about Joshua. He was the servant of Moses. He may have done somebody on the battlefield, but he only won when Moses’ hands were raised. And so Joshua is now taking the people and the Lord’s going to tell him to take them across the flooded Jordan River, Joshua, when he heard that river raging outside of its banks leading a nomadic people into the promised land, he had been one of the spies. He knew there were giants, he knew there were walls. How are we going to do this? Lord? He had to wonder, and that night before he was going to cross the river, when he encountered a father with a young child or a mother who’s wondering, how am I going to do this?

He had to have fear, anxiety. He had to wonder, Lord, are you going to really do this? If you don’t, I’m done. And in the middle of that, the Lord keeps telling him, be strong and courageous. And then when he actually obeys and he does what God’s called him to do, the first foot hits the water of the Jordan Rivers and the waters begin to stand up and they begin to see God’s mighty miracle. My contention is too many times we are afraid to take the first step. We are afraid to follow God in obedience, and we never see God act because we’re like the spies. We come back with the negative report and we just wonder in the wilderness until our days are done, I want to raise up a generation that believes in the Lord and follows the Lord with such godly passion that when God says go, they’re stepping into the water and they’re seeing the miracles of the Lord as he clears the way for his glory, not ours, but he uses us to make a difference in this time in our country for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Isaac Crockett:

And that’s what we want. We want the glory of Jesus Christ. We want to seek first the kingdom of God. And when we are in Christ, there’s a courage there that we have. And you’re dealing with college students. I mean most of your adult life, you’ve been helping college students as a president of Cedarville or as a professor. And so what you’re talking about here, we’re going to get into this more. We’re going to take another time out, but we’re going to get into more of this book, how it not only helps younger generations, but how it helps every generation, every Christian, every believer. And if you’re listening and you’ve never accepted Christ, you’ve never confessed your sins, repented and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as savior, you’ll get courage from Jesus from having a relationship with him. If you have a relationship with him.

It doesn’t mean it’s always easy here in this world. And so we want to talk about that and much, much more when we come back. We’re going to be seeing how strong and courageous this book based on Joshua, it’s a devotional book, how it equips the entire body of Christ that we can stand firm in 2025 and 2026 and beyond. We’ll be right back. We’ll welcome back to Staying in the Gap today. And if you’re just joining us, I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, and my first time guest today is Dr. Thomas White, president of Cedarville University. And Thomas is the author of many books, including the one we’re talking about right now that came from him dealing with college students and speaking regularly to college students about being strong and courageous and using the book of Joshua to develop a very practical hands-on devotional to help us be strong and courageous.

It says timeless truths to conquer fear, crush anxiety, and defeat despair in an uncertain world. And if I don’t already have it on there, I’m going to try to make sure I have a link to this book on Facebook. If you want to go to our Facebook page and look for that because it’s such a helpful book. I have it on Kindle version and I have the actual paperback version of this. Thomas, is there anywhere in particular that people the best place to go to find this book? Or can people kind of find this wherever they would normally shop for books or what’s best?

Thomas White:

Yeah, you can find it anywhere. You normally shop for books.

Isaac Crockett:

And I think you may have mentioned this, but could you maybe speak a little bit about what led to this book? I think you had talked about chapel messages and how people could find those maybe as well or just kind of how Lord worked that in your own ministry to develop this into this book that’s so practical and easy to have in our hands.

Thomas White:

That’s right. At Cedarville, we have chapel five days a week and one of those days I usually speak to our students. And so last school year I preached through the book of Joshua, and as I did that, I was just struck by how practical it was, how it would apply to our lives, our culture, our situations with all the anxiety and the fears that we have and the despair. And so these devotions came out of that sermon series. You can find those sermons online@cedarville.edu and you can just look there for our sermons. You can also find our entire bible miner online for free there if you want to learn more about the Old Testament, the New Testament or theology. And so I would just encourage your listeners to go to Cedarville, C-E-D-A-R-V-I-L-L e.edu, and they can look for either those chapel messages or other content

Isaac Crockett:

That is, again, very helpful. We love resources like this networking. And here our ministry here at Standing Gap Media, we are a ministry of the American Pastors Network. And so I love this heart for biblical worldview, for biblical courage and all that you’re talking about. And as we talk about the despair and uncertain world we live in, it’s inescapable, it’s all around us. Last month on this program, I think it’s been exactly a month ago, I was talking with a good pastor friend of mine, pastor Bob Lapin, and I sometimes joke, I want to be like Bob when I grow up because he’s had an incredible radio ministry and he’s a church planting pastor, and I love doing some things on radio and I’m a church planting pastor myself. And so he and I, we always have so much fun when he comes on here and we were talking about first Thessalonians five and about the command to be joyful, prayerful and thankful.

And one of the things that Bob was pointing out is that that doesn’t mean that we’re always called to be happy, like some, oh, we’re just happy about everything, but we still experience grief. Jesus, he wept and he mourned, and you can go through loss or trials and yet rejoice and thank God. And similarly, we live in this fallen world and there are difficult changes that we’re going through. And for college students, there are a lot of difficulties for high schoolers, even middle schoolers, they go through a lot of difficult things. But maybe you went through that years ago. Maybe you’re a parent or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle, you’re going through difficult things. I was just talking to somebody who’s getting closer to 80 years old, a minister, and he’s part of a denomination that has gone away that has grieved him.

And he was talking about how many in his generation are living in grief and he has lost his wife and he’s lost one of his children and he feels like he’s also lost his church. And he said, that’s maybe even more grieving than losing a family member. And so when we go through these things the last number of decades, there have been changes in our culture, in our churches. And so Dr. White, this book, it’s not just for the dorm room, it’s not just for the college student, it’s for every living room, every hospital room when people need encouragement, every church pew really. Could you just kind of walk us through again this core promise of strong and courageous? What is God actually telling us? What does he actually guarantee his people? When we come into situations where we go through fear, anxiety, or despair,

Thomas White:

I tell my students all the time, God is faithful. We can trust him. And I really believe that’s the main point of the book of Joshua and Joshua at 2145. It writes not one word. Of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. All of them came to pass. And then Joshua in 2314, he tells them, I’m about to go the way of all the earth. He tells everybody there, I’m about to die. He knows it’s coming, but he looks at ’em and he says, in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed. Of all the good things that the Lord has promised concerning you all have come to pass. So when we’re reading Joshua in our quiet time, we get to all of these different land areas and they’re going to the different tribes and we tune out because we’re not really concerned with all the details.

But they’re there to show that God made a promise to Abraham 600 years before, and Abraham never saw that promise come to fruition, but God kept his word and God sent them down to Egypt. And at the end of the book of Joshua, it’s amazing to me that it mentions the bones of Joseph because Joseph was there in Egypt and the Lord used him in Egypt, but he had to be wondering, Lord, when are you going to bring our people out of Egypt? And he tells them, when God visits us and brings us out, take my bones out of this place. This is not my home. And so they mentioned the bones of Joseph being buried in this very place, shekel where 600 years prior God made a promise and God kept it. And I think that’s what we have to remember every time it comes up in our lives and it will over and over and over again, heartache, despair.

We live in a fallen world. We are fallen people, but we have to remember the promises of God. God says he’ll never leave us or forsake us. That’s Hebrews 13, five. He says He’s near to the broken hearted in Psalm 34 18. God will supply all of our needs in Philippians four 19. He provides rest for the weary. Matthew 1128 and 29, God graciously forgives all of those who repent. One John one, nine, and God’s going to provide eternal life for those who believe in John three 16. So who do you trust? Do you trust the world and the commercials? Do you trust the social media? Do you trust all of the things the politics are putting in front of us? No, we trust God. We trust the one who has never failed, the one who is always faithful, the one who keeps every single word and who makes these good promises to us, and we just keep following and trusting in the Lord. I think that’s our calling is for us to respond to God’s faithfulness and God’s presence with us, with a strong and courageous faith where even like David in the Psalms where he cries out, Lord, I don’t understand. I don’t know, but I’m still going to trust in you. I will rejoice in you. I think that’s what we have to do is to continue to speak truth to ourselves, to continue to trust God and not the world and to follow him with everything we have.

Isaac Crockett:

That’s what true belief looks like, is believing those promises. Well, we’ve talked about you leading Cedarville University, a thriving Christ-centered university. We can just sense it even hearing you today, but you’ve also pastored and you speak to pastors and in many churches and ministries all across the world, all across the country especially. And when you look at the entire church today, I’m thinking especially of the American Church, but other churches and other areas too young and old, is there maybe a certain lie that you see Satan is using most effectively right now to try to mess with us, try to maybe paralyze God’s people? And is there maybe a truth from Joshua and from your book that helps demolish that lie of Satan?

Thomas White:

I think Satan’s lies and tactics are the same as they were back in the Garden of Eden. Has God really said it’s sowing seeds of doubt to get us not to trust the word of God. And he does that in so many different ways. Let’s do evolution so we can get rid of a creator so we don’t have to stand before that creator and give an account for how we live our lives. Let’s find our identity and sexuality or in things of this world rather than finding our identity in Christ. It’s always the seeds of doubts about can we trust the Bible? Can we trust God? And we know the spies suffered from this. Can we trust God? Well, God had already granted them the victory. Just think about Joshua when they go through and the spies go in and they encounter Rahab, and Rahab tells these spies, she’s a prostitute.

She’s not a good woman. She hides them. But she tells these spies and she says to them, our hearts have melted. We know that God has already given you the land. And when they come back and report that to Joshua, the report is God has already conquered the enemy. All we have to do is be faithful and walk this enemy that is Satan, that speaks these lies to us, that seeks to deceive us, that wants to destroy us. And all of our land, God’s already defeated him. He has granted us the victory. It’s for us to trust God, to trust in His word and to keep pursuing that. And God’s so gracious that he takes that Rahab who is the harlot and who is mentioned as the harlot repeatedly and redeems her and makes her part of the people of God, part of the people of Israel, and then even puts her in the lineage of Jesus.

God can take and use anybody that has faith in trust in him and puts them in the lineage of King David and then the lineage of the ultimate king, king Jesus. And he does it not just with Rahab, but he does it with Ruth. The Moab says, well, our God is a redeemer God who is an all powerful God, and he does so many great miracles to bring this about, to give them the land. And I think we just need to remember that we need to learn from that. We need to create our own stones that remind us of how awesome God really is.

Isaac Crockett:

I love that. And again, the book that we’re talking about that Thomas has written is called Strong and Courageous, timeless Truths to Conquer Fear, crush Anxiety, and Defeat Despair In an Uncertain World. You can download it for a Kindle device. You can buy like a regular book at any of the booksellers, Amazon or any of those places. And Thomas, I don’t want to end this conversation without giving tools to our listeners to be able to keep this going all week long. I love talking about this. I love talking about Christ and putting the focus on him and on his promises. So we’re going to talk more about this, but we’re going to take another quick time out here from some of our partners again and then please keep the radio on this station. We’ll be right back with some practical solutions for finding biblical courage every day.

Maybe you’ve just gotten some bad news at work or bad news from the doctor, or maybe your children just called and dropped something on you that was completely unexpected. We face these difficult situations, but we don’t need to do it alone. When we are in Christ, we can find biblical courage from the promises of God and from God’s goodness and who he is. We’ll be right back on Stand in the Gap today. Welcome back to our Friday edition of Stand In the Gap Today. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m talking with the president of Cedarville University, Dr. Thomas White. And as a homeschool parent and a pastor, biblical worldview is of utmost importance to me and to my family and educating my children and educating my church. And it’s just been such a great time talking with you, Thomas, about what you do at Cedarville University about the resources.

And you mentioned@cedarville.edu, free resources beyond just listening to the chapel sermons, but actually the Bible classes and things, free Bible classes, but a university that takes a stand and has taken a stand for almost 140 years for the truth of the gospel and being in Christ and having this biblical worldview that makes us who we are supposed to be, kingdom workers ministering for the kingdom of God, and we will go through difficult times. And I know even as a parent and as a pastor, there are times that I almost feel ashamed of myself because I’m afraid of something. There’s something that brings fear or anxiety, and I know the others struggle with that too. In your book, strong and courageous, how do you address that and what frees us from that shame and from the fear and anxiety that come and calls us to be something greater through Christ and through the word of God?

Thomas White:

Yeah, it’s part of the human condition. We see it, we feel it, we know it, but we can also overcome it. And so you have it with Rahab and the grace that God gives her. You have it with Joshua when he messes up. I mean, you have the sin of Aiken, but then you also have the Gibeon deception where he was deceived because he didn’t pray. He didn’t go to God and ask for wisdom from above and was deceived by a group that was right there beside him. But the Lord took that mistake and he used that mistake to bring out five kings out of their fortified cities. And then he sent Joshua to march upon them and they aligned upon them. All of a sudden they just came up on them and they fought the battle. And if you remember that story in the book of Joshua, that’s where the hailstones came down and more died from the hailstones than by the sword.

And then Joshua cries out and says, Lord, would you extend the day? And God in his power extends the daylight so that they can continue to accomplish the mission that God has given them. So God takes a mistake like the Gibeon night deception, like the mistake of not praying like the lack of wisdom and turns it into a victory over five major kings to give them the land that he’s already promised them. And we know it’s going to happen again. Because when it comes to the end of the book in Joshua 22, 5, as he’s sending away those who are going back across the Jordan, he gives them a command and he tells them, listen, there’s five things you need to do. And he tells them what those are. But then at the end of the book, at the coffee mug thing, choose this day whom you will serve.

You would think that Joshua’s going to be all excited and he’s going to love the answer when they say, yeah, we’re going to serve the Lord. Joshua says for me and my house, we’ll do it. But then everybody else says, yeah, we’re going to serve the Lord. And then Joshua looks at them rather than being excited. He says, no, you’re not. You’re not going to do this. You’re not able to serve the Lord. He’s a holy and jealous God. And the people say, no, no, no, we’ll do it. And then he responds back and he says, your witnesses against yourself. Because without the power of the Spirit, without being in the word daily. So here at Cedarville, I say, no Bible, no breakfast. You wake up in the morning, you feel hungry. You get in the word first and then you can eat the food because we need to be people of the book.

And so without that constant help from the Holy Spirit without constantly being in the word, we’re just going to continue to fail. We can’t do this alone. And we see exactly what happens when you move to the book of Judges. Everybody did what was right in their own eyes. There was the constant cycle of where they would run away from God. Judgment would come arise, a judge, they would repent and turn back. And so we see it. It’s just who we are. So we have to constantly remind ourselves that we need to be people of the Word. We need to be in prayer. And Joshua 22, 5, he says to them, love the Lord your God. Walk in all his ways. You can’t walk in his ways if you don’t read his word. Keep his commandments clinging to him. What a good word. Picture there. That’s what we’re supposed to do is clinging to the Lord.

We grab ahold of him, we don’t let go. And the last one was there was serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. And that should spark the great commandment and the second greatest commandment in our minds that we hear repeated in the New Testament that that’s what we’re to do. We are to be on a slow long walk in the same direction where we don’t give up, we fail forward, we stumble forward. We keep pursuing the Lord and we clinging to him with all of our might. And God’s forgiveness and grace will help us overcome those times when we fail and we will just keep growing in how we look like Christ until that day where he glorifies us and we’re with him forever in heaven, and we all long for that day to come.

Isaac Crockett:

That is so good. I see myself in these ones who keep failing and needing the Lord to bring them back. And whether it be Joshua, the Old Testament or the disciples in the new, in your book, you talk about rehearsing the truth until you believe it or until you believe it again, even practically for the everyday Christian, what does that look like when the whole world is trying to drown out the truth of God’s word and throw us into a tizzy, so to speak, bring about that anxiety and despair. What does that look like to rehearse the truth against that?

Thomas White:

We all have these temptations that appeal to us, and we all have these promises that we need to clinging to, that we need to grab a hold of. So however you do it, a sticky note on your mirror, right on your mirror, a note on your cell phone. You make sure that you keep these verses in front of you. It’s what the Bible tells us to be. The Psalm one Christian, we are to meditate on the word day and night. We want to be planted besides streams of living water that bear fruit and do season. And so we need to have these verses in front of us, whatever that means to you. You rehearse them regularly. You preach the gospel to yourself. You have these verses in your mind. You memorize these verses. You claim these verses, you write them down. And then when God answers a prayer in a special way, these are the monuments.

Why did they grab 12 stones out of the Jordan River? Because God knew they would forget. Why is it that when the people went back across, they built an altar of imposing size because they knew people would forget. And so we need to have our own stones of remembrance, whether that’s a jar of events or prayers, a file in a journal, whether that’s a note app on our phone, we’re writing down where God has answered these prayers for us. And then when we mess up or when we fail or when we have fear, we go back to it. Listen, God has done X, Y, and Z for me in the past. He’s going to supply again in the future. And we grab ahold of those verses. We need those verses we’ve memorized, that we’ve hidden in our heart, that we might not sin against God. And we let those verses be a light and to our path. We let those verses be what we clinging to in our life so that we can serve the Lord faithfully knowing over and over. He is told us, don’t fear, don’t be dismayed. Be strong and courageous. And that’s our calling.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. Well, we’re down to our last minute. Is there maybe final thoughts you have, or maybe you just want to give a final word of encouragement for someone who says, I need to take the Lord up on that promise. I need strength and courage. What is your final word of encouragement to us as we leave out today?

Thomas White:

Be people of the book. We have got to be in the word. We need the word constantly. No Bible, no breakfast, day and night. We’re going to meditate on the word. We’re going to memorize the word and God’s faithful. We can trust him. Listen, God will do it. He will accomplish all that he has said he’s going to do. One day, he’s going to make all things new. He’s going to wipe away every tear one day. We’re going to live with him forever, and we will understand what it’s like to truly be in the world the way it was created to be at that moment. So keep trusting in God. Keep the faith, keep clinging to him, and as you go, make disciples so others can do the same.

Isaac Crockett:

Amen. That is so good. Well, this is Dr. Thomas White of Cedarville University cedarville.edu. You could even just Google Cedarville University. Their website will come up. Dr. White, thank you so much for being on our program. I’m just going to close in prayer. Our gracious Father, we thank you that we can be strong and courageous in Christ and in your promises. I pray that your promises would be real in our lives and that we would be people of the word, people of the book, that we would go to your word morning, noon, and night, and that we would meditate on it and that we would be strong like a tree planted by the rivers of water, avoiding the things that distract us from your kingdom and growing to be fruitful for your glory, for your kingdom. We pray this through the power of your spirit, in the holy, precious name of Jesus Christ, our righteous savior. We pray. We thank you, father. We love you. Amen. Well, thank you for listening. Dr. White, thank you for being on with us. I’d love to talk about more of these things. Until next time, listen to this program again, share it with a friend, but most importantly, stand in the gap for truth wherever you are today.