Cisco Victa Interview

A little role reversal. Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. I know what you're saying. You're saying, what in the world is going on with this music? You're saying, play that funky music, white boy.

Well, this is my friend's RODECaster Pro 2. This is not the music, but this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can write us, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. Well, I am sitting in my home today. I've not done too many shows out of the last 4 ,500 shows.

Not done any at home, I don't think, but today's different. And so I've got Sisko Vikta today in the studio, in my home. Sisko, welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having me. So we've got all this set up here because you've got me on the show.

We've done two shows so far. Right. Catechizing, what was it? Conversations, catechizing conversations. Okay, why am I, I'm not remembering that. The sweat is just, I'm starting to form here. I can't even say your last name, Vikta.

Oh, my son was playing football today. He made a tackle, tackle by Malachi Victor.

Well, that's kind of good. I mean, you're not going to like it, be it when I think of Sisko, though. This is what we need. This is a new, welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Let's see what. Sisko Vikta.

That's what we need right here. Come on. I've heard this so many times.

Thanks for making that real to me of like what people have been saying all these years. I got that so much when I was a kid and in my 20s and not so much since. That really reveals to me I'm getting old because that means people forget that song.

Well, that's true. It's by War and your real name is Francisco. Yeah, that's right. So were you born in the Philippines?

I was not. No, my grandfather came from the Philippines, Cavite, Philippines. And Francisco Vikta Jr. is my father. So he's actually never been to the Philippines. I've been back twice. I went to visit twice.

Okay. And beautiful, beautiful country. So when I think of the Philippines,.

I've got some Filipino friends. And like in Los Angeles, especially the area of Los Angeles where there's a lot of Filipinos, some of the desserts you have, like the fast food kind of crazy things that don't go together.

I'm making this part up, but like fish and ice cream. Like what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?

Oh man, well, I can't say weirdest. I mean, just lumpia is the best though. What is it? Lumpia with duck sauce. I mean, that is the best. It is great.

I'm looking at the picture here, LebanonValleyPCA .com. You're the pastor there at the church in Lebanon. And it says here And you have to say that a certain way, just like we're in West Boylston.

How do you say it? It's Lebanon. Oh, Lebanon. Lebanon. Lebanon. You say Lebanon, we're going to the Middle East.

And boy, look at your picture there.

Yes, on the fancy website.

Covenant Theology and Never Withholding the Mediator

I know, look at that. It either looks like you're, I don't know, ultra hip, AI, or I don't know, like a fashion designer or something. Look at you. So we met at the Pactum Conference. You attended your first one, you're a PCA pastor, and we've got Harrison Perkins, well, OPC, Dennis Johnson, PCA, Fesco, OPC.

That's right. And then Pat and myself. And so you're thinking, I'd like to learn more about covenant theology, law, gospel. You see Fesco and these heavy hitters, I don't mean Pat and I, and so you signed up.

That's right. Yeah, I signed up, and really last minute, which typically is not how Presbyterians do things.

Three years in a row. Well, because Session probably had to okay the funding.

Okay the trip, and they did, and I was grateful, and I was able to bring my wife. And got there, and it was a blast. I mean, it was so good for both my wife and for myself. We came back just encouraged and stoked and thrilled, and I got what I wanted out of it.

I wanted to learn more about covenant theology, and I know that may sound strange, being a Presbyterian, someone's out there saying, you should've already known that. You should've passed your exams, and how did you pass your exams and not know what covenant theology is?

No, I know what covenant theology is, but there were a lot of the pieces of the puzzle that I just wasn't putting together. And we have these 1 ,000 page books on covenant theology, and we dive into them, but it can get really complex.

And coming and hearing you and hearing Pat and Fesco and Johnson and Perkins, it was like the light clicked on.

Great, and you're sitting here with the Isn't the Reformed Faith Grand Pactum Machen sweatshirt. Did you have to pay for that? I did. I could've got you one for free.

See, I should've known you, but I didn't. I had to pay for mine and my wife. We wanted like a matching picture when we were out there, which we got. Okay, cool, nice.

And you needed a ride because you had Uber rides. At least you thought you should in Omaha. And so we gave you the special insider Gnostic privilege to ride in the car with the big shot speakers. Yeah.

Did you talk when you were in the car or no? No, I was just listening. I mean, I think it was with Dennis Johnson was up front. Yes. And your son was in the back with me and we were talking to your son and then Dennis Johnson was up front and he was talking and your son said, hey, just be quiet for a second.

Okay. Well. That was great. No, I was with him because like, yeah, let's listen to him.

I have to say every morning, I picked up Dennis and the other speakers and Pat had told me, get a bigger car, rented on behalf of the Pactum and take the speakers were all at the same hotel. And I talk a lot, but I try to be as quiet as possible.

I'd ask Dr. Johnson questions. He'd sit in the front because he was older. I think he's 78 maybe by now. And just listening to him, I wanted wisdom. I wanted encouragement. I wanted to understand long haul ministry in the midst of suffering as we suffer as Christians.

And when he said that first day at the pre-conference, I mean, out of everything that was said that weekend, here's the thing that I remember the most. I mean, of course, I love the people and Pat does such a great job.

I'm so proud of my younger brother. I never even think of him that way per se because he exceeds me and excels me in so many different areas. But Dennis Johnson said, men preaching conference, pre-seminar, elders, pastors, deacons want to be leaders.

Don't you ever withhold the mediator. Don't you dare withhold the mediator from God's people. That was so good. It was. If you're going to talk about the law to Christians, don't withhold the mediator.

Talk about Jesus who gives the law, Merrill controversy from the hands of Christ. You remember that? That was really, really good. That was good. So I just tried to be quiet in the car and talk to Dennis.

That's wise. That's wise. So you are from New, or you lived in New Hampshire. Lived in New Hampshire 10 years. And your wife is from Maine. That's right. And you met at an Assemblies of God Bible school?

From Pentecostalism to Reformed Theology

So it was an independent Pentecostal Bible school called Faith School of Theology in Charleston, Maine. The majority of students that graduated went on to the Assemblies of God. Some went on to Church of God, Tennessee.

Others stayed independent Pentecostal. So, you know, three streams. Back then, that's typically how things were played out.

So Foursquare, you would know of, hang out, but you weren't.

They were great church planters. Yeah, they were, back then, they were the ones really making inroads in church planting. So I was aware of them as well. So would Amy Simple McPherson,.

Would she be Foursquare? She was the originator. That's my understanding. Okay, right. I keep thinking of Godfrey as he talks about her. I picked up the new biography of her. I think he's making some criticisms of it, but I want to learn more about her.

She, to me, was a precursor of Benny Hinn. The white dress and everything else, and, you know, grave sucking. It's not good.

Yeah, it's not good. And I think, I don't know Foursquare. Even when I was back then in the Assemblies of God, I didn't know much about Foursquare. I think they probably moved on from that. Some of the radical extremism.

But yeah, didn't Clark, Randy Scott Clark, R. Scott Clark also write on McPherson? I think she did. He might've.

I just think of Godfrey. I can't remember the lady who wrote the new biography, but I picked up the Joseph Smith biography and this. So they're converging. So you asked me on your podcast in this same room with the same equipment, kind of my journey from Lordship to Law Gospel and other things.

God's Sovereignty in Salvation

So now I want to know AOG, PCA. How does that acronym soup, alphabet soup work?

Yeah, yeah, it really is a long marathon how that worked. But it starts by me reading a book by A .W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God. I think you're gonna say, I was thinking he's gonna say that. Yeah, it starts that way and I'm reading it and my worldview is just getting blown to smithereens.

Who gave you the book? How'd you find it? I don't recall. I don't remember. You have to understand my bookshelf was mostly filled with leadership books and self-help books. And there was this kind of quasi mixture of Christianity and that kind of genre in my ministry.

My ministry was very much man-centered. And I think that's what I began to see, particularly when I started to read The Sovereignty of God by A .W. Pink. I heard preaching, Christ-centered preaching from some Presbyterian pastors that I had never heard this kind of preaching before, like preaching on giving to the poor and by the end of the sermon, it's all about Christ.

Like it's Christ-centered. So I love, I'm appreciative of my roots. I'm appreciative of the pastor that raised me and said, we've got church. But looking back, I could see much of the preaching, much of the ministry was, it was moralistic.

It was therapeutic. And later in my early life as a pastor, it was self-help oriented. So we could take the Bible, mix it with like Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar and that kind of stuff. And man, not bad an eye.

And so when I was confronted by the Bible, yeah, my worldview blew apart. I remember reading that book,.

The Sovereignty of God by A .W. Pink, and I think I had the truncated version edited, but I got to the part about weather, God's sovereign over the weather. And I thought, I can't believe I complained about the weather.

God sent rain versus it is raining passively. And then I got to the section on the sovereignty of God and salvation. And I thought, what in the world? I mean, AOG, Arminian, Methodist, Lutherans, God's sovereign over your parents and when you were born, when you're gonna die, world events, world leaders, Daniel four, but who goes to heaven and who doesn't?

That's up to you. Uh-oh.

Yeah, you know, that's exactly right. Like I didn't decide to have brown eyes. I didn't decide to be born to the parents I was born to. I didn't decide my parents would divorce early as a child. I didn't, you know,.

Hey, I always, like most kids late in bed, envisioning myself hitting a home run in the ninth inning or, you know, hitting the three point shot in the NBA finals, but I wasn't born seven feet tall and have the athleticism of Michael Jordan or, you know, a Bryce Harper and have the strength in a home run.

See, yeah, no, that's, I didn't determine any of that stuff like God determined and yet we think, oh, I determined my salvation. You can be whatever you wanna be,.

But you can't be a jockey unless you're four or five. Yes, that's right. Or an astronaut. That's right. So we were talking before Cisco and I was very interested in, and so I want you to tell it to our audience today.

Race, CRT, and a Dissertation on PCA Diversity

You get to the PCA, I know we're fast forwarding, maybe we'll have enough time to go backward. You get to the PCA and you need to do a dissertation and I didn't ask, but your wife seems white. Maybe she's albino, I don't know.

You're not white. And so you study what topic and tell me the machinations as you study this topic, as you're getting ready for your doctorate. Yes, so we are fast forwarding.

So I did become reformed, I did become Calvinistic, I did become Presbyterian, I did come into the PCA. So there's a long time.

And we'll get back to that, but you know, your podcast is 45 minutes. Mine's only 30.

Okay, all right. So yeah, I'm doing my dissertation with Knox Theological Seminary. I think it's 2019, maybe the end of 2018 and we're supposed to choose our topic. I got all my coursework done, so this is it.

This is the one. And I serve as a chaplain and I have now for 10 years at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. So my first thought was, I'm gonna do a paper on chaplaincy and suffering. Then I had this grand idea that, you know what?

Well, we're gonna be planning a church in the next year or so. So I'm gonna do something that's in line with that. So I do my dissertation on racial diversity in the Presbyterian Church in America. And then 2020 comes.

And George Floyd happens and all the racial unrest that 2020, 2021, 2022 brings. And so it really was a very difficult, emotionally draining paper to write. I mean, I think anyone who's done a demon knows a dissertation is draining, but this was emotionally, spiritually draining.

So I went into it and I'll admit that I leaned on the progressive side where this topic is concerned.

Were you progressive in any other theological realm?

No, I'd consider myself as theologically conservative as you can get. But socially and as a minority, and maybe desire to get in touch with my roots and my biological father being a labor man, union man, a minority himself.

So I leaned that way. So I went into this paper with that kind of thought and I wanted to interview, let's say, 20 elders within the PCA and get their view on where they stood concerning racial diversity in Presbyterian Church in America.

And so again, in the process of writing that paper, all this unrest happens. And so I'm trying to filter all of this. And this becomes the base of a lot of my questions. How are you dealing with racial unrest in your city or reactions to the George Floyd situation, or et cetera, et cetera.

I'm asking that of elders and I'm trying to be unbiased, but I know my bias. Like every researcher is trying to lay down their bias, but that's almost completely impossible. That's not entirely possible.

So long story short, doing the paper over three years, my position changed radically. If I was leaning anywhere towards the progressive side on that, I swung the pendulum as far to the right as you can go.

And that came about by me listening to a divergent views of how PCA ministers were processing and interpreting race and racism, et cetera, in the denomination and in their churches. That is amazing.

Tell me about that class, or tell our listeners about the class that you sat in on. Yeah. All day class and just like,.

What in the world are we doing here? Okay, so I'm, you know You can name names. Yeah, doing this paper, I have to study intersectionality. I have to study CRT. I have to study, I have to know something of this.

You know, I have to understand critical race theory, blah, blah, blah. So I have this, another grand idea. I'm going to take a class on critical race theory and faith integration, a one week class. And I do that.

And there are quote, unquote, Christians ministers in that session with me, in those sessions. So I took that class for one week so I can understand better for the sake of the research paper. And do you want to know my reaction to that?

I know what it was and I want to hear it. Yeah. I mean, so after going through that class, hours and hours and hours of critical race theory, some intersectionality, I was depressed. I was despondent.

I was angry.

I Against who? Like your anger in general, like toward white people?

CRT is about inequality and on and on and on. No, I was angry about, you know, there's always going to be a school down the street that's poor and there's going to be the rich farm school that's got plenty of money for their football program.

There's always going to be, you know, those on welfare and there's going to be those crony capitalists. So, you know, just a despondency, not really falling on the right or wrong and who's right or wrong, but just, you know what?

It's a mess. And so internally I saw what that philosophy had done to me or was doing to me, even just in a one week window was anything but gospel oriented, anything but Christ-centered, anything but what we want the church to be.

And then I looked at my own church plant without integrating any of that stuff. No CRT, no intersectionality, no, you know, purposeful D, what are they called? DEI program. We were diverse. How are we diverse?

From preaching the gospel, from loving people, from preaching the word, from believing one church made up of Jew and Gentile, black, white, young, old, you know? So it really just, it was just another piece of the puzzle that, or I should say, you know, another hammer that just started to say, no.

So by the time I get to the end of the dissertation, I have a totally different viewpoint.

Mike Ebenroth, No Compromise Radio today. Pastor Francisco, not Victor.

Victor, V-I-C-T-A.

It sounds like it's Victor, but it's New England. It's Victor. So you're here this weekend with your wife and some of your children watching your son Malachi. He's a defensive tackle slash end at WPI, Worcester Polytech Institute.

That's right, Worcester. And so Kim and I, we're empty nesters. We have extra room here. It was funny, your little daughter, she said, your house is huge. She might wanna come live over here. Well, because all of our children are out and you have nine children.

And so that was cute of her to say. I did not know you went to Liberty. Were you reformed when you went?

Reformed Theology, Definite Atonement, and Family

I did. So part of that journey is I'm becoming reformed in my thinking, I'm listening to Sinclair Ferguson and anyone who's got reform attached to their name, Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian, really know what the difference was, just if you're a Reformed Calvinist.

But in my network, I had absolutely nobody that was of that world. So I wanted to get my master's. And when I had this worldview change, theological shift, my thought of going into the army as a chaplain, so that was all part of it.

But I was, yes, I was reformed. I was, in fact, one of my papers for Liberty was the defense of infant baptism. The professor grades it and says,.

I disagree with you, but good paper. Nice. Now, how did you bring your wife along? I don't mean into pedo-baptism, but you met her at the same school, AOG, and now you're bringing her along. Did you do well?

Did you make mistakes?

Did you push her? How did that work? Was she compliant? I think, yeah, it was a slow process. It was a slow process for me. It wasn't like a snap of the finger. It was a slow, hard process. There were things that I was struggling with, I was struggling with.

What was the hardest thing? Limited atonement, definite atonement, reading the death of Christ, John Owen. It wasn't so much John Owen as the scriptures that he was laying out in the Gospel of John. I was like, okay, I got it.

That took time. So with my wife, she was coming along with me slowly, but I think what helped her was the doctrinal health that we were getting in Reformed circles and a Reformed doctrine and teaching that we did not have before.

There were so many things that were unhealthy. And again, I'm not just stamping on my whole history in all Pentecostals, et cetera, but there were a lot of things that were unhealthy and bad doctrine that affect you viscerally and in your everyday life.

And so when we come into Reformed theology, there really was a change of quality of living, quality of thinking. And I think for her, even though she wasn't in the depths of the theology that I was, she was seeing the fruits of that.

So you met her at school though? Oh yeah, when we were both in college in Maine. Okay.

Tongues, Preaching Passion, and Law-Gospel Distinction

So how did you teach people to speak in tongues? How'd that all work? Oh, that's right. Okay, this is no compromise right here. This is not catechizing conversations. You go right for it.

I know. So how would you teach people? What would you say? No, I don't think there was any teaching people. We believed in the experience. We believed that that was the Wesleyan second blessing, but in the Pentecostal variation of that, there was a second blessing.

What do you miss from your AOG background? Anything? People?

I would say, well, I think I don't miss it. I had to learn that the exuberance and the zeal that comes out in my preaching is okay now, that I didn't have to try to be a Timothy Keller or Sinclair or a monotone.

You know, I always heard Jonathan Edwards was monotone when he started The Great Awakening. But okay, now I'm Presbyterian, I gotta be monotone and boring and cerebral. I had to learn that that passion I had in Pentecost, I should have it even more.

As a Pentecostal, I should have it more because I believe this is the truth. This is scripture. This is a change of denomination or doctrine for doctrine's sake. If I believe this is the truth, I'm gonna be even more passionate about it than I was about saying something that was not accurate.

Right.

So I had to learn that. Well, Baptist, Presbyterian, Reformed, Calvinistic, we have a lot of boring preachers in our circles. And as John MacArthur used to say, it's a sin to make the Bible boring. Yeah, I've heard that.

We were taught, that was pounded into us.

Yeah, get on fire for the Lord's virgin sin and people come and watch you burn. And so if we can be enthusiastic about our son playing football or baseball or crafts or archery, our children, our grandchildren, then how can we not be enthusiastic when we get up and preach?

So I have not listened to you preach, but I want to because I know you're gonna be fiery and it's gonna be that AOG background filtered through the six forms of unity. Yes, that's right.

Yeah, and I had to learn and I'm still learning what's a legal preacher or heavy law preaching, what's law gospel distinction like we've talked about before. And I believe I'm constantly wanting to work on that, particularly when you come out of a more legalistic background, which I would say, at least my old school Pentecostal, I love my pastor.

But I mean, he was like Moses coming down off the mountain when he came to the pulpit. Whack-a-mole. Oh yeah, you wanted to keep people out of hell. So you made him feel the fire, you know? And that's believers and unbelievers alike.

And if you're a believer, we want you to feel the hell so you get back down to this altar and repent.

PCA Ordination, Galatians, and Church Differences

How hard was it taking the classes to get ordained as a PCA pastor?

Oh man, it was excruciating. I could have never made it if it wasn't for Trinity Presbyterian Church, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Hershey, PCA, Hershey, Pennsylvania. They were advocates for me. They brought me in as an intern.

They paid me to study. You know, as a father of, at the time, seven children, there was no way I was going to do what it took to be, you know, be ordained in the PCA without that kind of advocacy. There's absolutely no way.

I just did not have the time or money. Take Greek one and two again. Take Hebrew one and two again. Your liberty wasn't good enough, you know. I didn't have the money for $3 ,000 a course, you know? So yeah, it's, a lot is due to them.

If I were to ever play with, oh, you know what? I should be a Presbyterian. I wouldn't do it because I don't want to take the classes and the exams.

You'd take, you'd get your MD, you'd get your DM in, and it's like, okay, do it again. Yeah, no way. No way. What are you preaching through these days? I'm preaching through Galatians after doing a long series in the Ten Commandments, and I feel like that's very appropriate.

So I'm enjoying it. I'm going slow.

Nice. Fesco's commentaries, excellent.

Fesco's commentary on Galatians is just beautiful.

It's short, but it's beautiful and powerful. Would you ever go to Lord's Day worship and worship at a Bible church?

Well, I did. I was at the Pact and we stayed over for Sunday morning worship with your brother, and it was great. It was awesome. And tomorrow? And Clark was there. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, I've read Clark, you know, I've read him on the blogs, I've read him on the Twitter and his books, and I'm like, well, if he can do it, I can do it.

Well, I know when Scott's in Omaha, he's usually at Omaha Bible Church. We talk about believers' baptism, papal baptism, et cetera, et cetera, of immersion baptism, and there are some things, obviously, that are more important, right?

And so do I want to go to a Baptist church that doesn't understand law gospel or a PCA church that does, right? Those are the kind of questions we have to work through. Absolutely, yeah.

We do have to get some of our bias on those things.

So tomorrow, you're worshiping at a Bible church. I'm gonna be at a Bible church. I probably would change the name, but it's been too long. I mean, typically Bible churches, Dallas Seminary, Elder Polity, Four Point Calvinist, but it's just a name.

Sure, sure. Cisco, thank you for being on No Compromise Radio. Thanks for having me. Thanks for the Thai food tonight. You're welcome.

It was delicious. Thanks for the suggestion that that's a good place to go, because we're in New England. Where's the good food, you know? If it's not seafood. No seafood, you don't like seafood? Oh, no, I love seafood.

I'm just saying, New England's known for seafood. Right, right.

I had the best white New England chowder in Plymouth, Massachusetts two weeks ago. I've been thinking about it for many days. Oh, think of this.

I was in Omaha. There's, I think it's called Arcadia Restaurant. They had catfish. It was a Louisiana-style restaurant. It was delicious. Seriously. You need to go.

Okay, I didn't know about that. Yeah, ask your brother about it. It was great. I was in search for the albino catfish when I was fishing. Thanks for being on the show, Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio.

You can write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.