Cultish - Examining The Church Of Christ

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All right. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts.

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I am one of the co -hosts here. I'm here as always. And I'm actually face to face with you.

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I'm between our guests and the Super Sleuth of the show. What's up? We are here right outside Nashville, Tennessee in Lebanon, Tennessee.

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We're talking earlier. It's funny. There's a couple of little cities here that are named after, you know, even like Middle Eastern countries.

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There's a place in Arizona called Baghdad, for example. Yeah. And we're here in Lebanon, Tennessee. But I am super excited because we are currently at the

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Fight Laugh Feast event here in Nashville, Tennessee. It's been a great day. A lot of great content. There's been a lot of people coming up to us, people that a lot of you, you know, listen in.

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It's always a really cool to see really the face behind the people who listen to our podcasts and how it's blessed them, how it's affected them.

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So this is our first on the road live podcast. But we are talking about today the

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Church of Christ. We've got a lot of we've gotten a lot of requests before to do that. And, you know, we've always want we always want to find the right conversation, the right guest.

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And we are here with Trey. And how are you doing, man? I'm doing good. Glad to be here. Awesome, man.

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And so just so you know, too, I first met you at you were actually at Apologia Studios.

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And you were you're from Louisiana. And you were interested in you were interested in getting involved in abortion now, helping your church to be involved to stop the murder of babies.

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Very amiable. And you I just happened to be in the studio and you talked to me a little bit about your experience, your involvement in the

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Church of Christ. So just tell everyone just real quickly so they can hear you. Just tell them about your what makes you someone to be an expert on the subject of what we're going to talk about today.

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Now, the Church of Christ. Okay. Well, first of all, thanks for letting me be here. Okay. And, you know, when when you're going to do a podcast on the

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Church of Christ, I really I'm glad that I get to do it. I really I want to do it because I want to give a fair assessment of the

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Church of Christ, not just someone who's mad and angry and hurt. Right. You know, I want to give some of what they believe, why they believe what they believe.

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But I was I got into the Church of Christ in January 20th of 1998 and I was in it for 18 years.

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So Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty is was my mentor for those 18 years in the

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Church of Christ. Went to his church. Love him to death. Still do. Learned a ton from him.

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And one of the things that I learned the most from him is to be bold, you know. Right. And so I feel like I am that.

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But love him to death. And we can go into more details of things later on in the road, down the road.

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But yeah, I would I would say that's my qualification being discipled by one of the top guys in the

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Church of Christ, you know, but for 18 years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's very interesting.

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And this is the point, too, we talk about theology matters just because we're going to delve really focusing on the theology.

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So if you're listening in to if you're someone who's listening in, you're a member of the Church of Christ and say you're maybe you're in close proximity to the

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Robertson family, is that, you know, this is not about anyone's character or anything of that nature.

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We are talking specifically in regards to what are the theological beliefs, because one of the things we always talk about in regards to cultish and it's in my my shirt, my shirt here.

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Bad theology hurts people. And there is an aspect to it we're going to unravel is that a distortion of biblical good theology in regards to especially a soteriology salvation.

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How are you made right with God and that distortion of that ends up creating a burden on people are really a bad yoke.

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And that's we're going to go ahead and unravel that. So maybe start from the beginning, just in regards to just the first topic we're going to focus in on just historically, what do you know about the

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Church of Christ? I mean, you were involved for a long time. You just give a brief summary of where they came from and how they started.

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Yeah, so they started in the early 1800s, 1830s in Kentucky. Thomas and Alexander Campbell, they were, you know,

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Church of Christ people were called Campbellites. Yeah, maybe not so much today, but that's what they were known as Campbellites.

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They're part of the Restoration Movement, okay? So when you think about the Restoration Movement is you have

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Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh -day Adventist, Church of Christ, right? You can say

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Pentecostal 1901, right? But these are the Restoration Movements. And so when you think about what the

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Restoration Movement was about, I mean, it was to restore the one true church. And this is why all of those groups have always had this stigma that they think they're the only ones going to heaven, right?

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And it's because they did believe that, that they have restored the one true church. All the other churches, all of the

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Christians went apostate, and they have the they are the ones that restored it, right? To what it's supposed to be.

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And so that's the original roots of it. Any, what was the other question?

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Yeah, I think, well, that just gives you kind of get an idea of where it came from. And that's just one of the commonalities of the different groups we cover here at Cultish are groups that they talk about.

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There was knowledge that was hidden from a long time ago, and that was gone. It was, the gospel was lost.

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And now all of a sudden, we've now restored it. There's been a restoration. You see that Mormonism, or even just in general, when you talk about, even when you talk about like Gnosticism, or a lot of the

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Gnostic cults, or even when we deal with aspects of New Age, it's this, now this hidden knowledge has been recovered.

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This idea of their perception of what the gospel is has been hidden for a long time. And now they've recovered it.

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And this is, it's exclusive to the Church of Christ. So that's just something to bear in mind. What would you have in mind? Well, I was just thinking, one neat little fact is that the

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Campbells wouldn't even be allowed to be members of the Church of Christ today, because they came from the Presbyterian background, and they were baptized as infants, and they never were re -baptized into the

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Church of Christ. And so to have a belief that you have to be baptized in order to be saved, and absolutely not infant baptism, then

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Thomas and Alexander Campbell wouldn't even be Church of Christ members today. So did that, did that doctrine develop later on in time?

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Yeah. Okay. I, I guess, I mean, I mean, I think that, you know, they started preaching that from the beginning. And just like, look, I really believe when you study the history of it, and they got a lot of their philosophy from Francis Bacon, okay?

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And so we'll talk about that maybe in a second. But if you really look at, I think that the heart behind the

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Campbells and Barton Stone, who started it, I think they had really good intentions, because they're looking around, and they're seeing all these different divisions, and they're like, man, let's not have divisions.

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You know, let's all come together. But then when you had Francis Bacon and his philosophy that, that you can come to something with a clean slate and not be bent one way or the other.

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Yeah. So that's, they took that philosophy with them, and they said, hey, let's just go by the Bible, and let's get rid of all the creeds and all the confessions, and let's just go strictly by the

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Bible, right? So they got rid of all these creeds and confessions. And so they say, we have no creed but the

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Bible. But the funny thing is, that's a creed, right? Yeah. And we speak where the Bible speaks, we're silent, we're silent.

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Well, that's a creed, you know? And so by doing that and saying, we're going to start all over and get rid of all the creeds, all the confessions, the historical church, and what the people said before us, the church has always said before us about things, what you did is you just got rid of over 1800 years of church history, that God, Jesus Christ has protected the flock and shepherded his sheep through history.

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You got rid of that, and you just started heresies back over. You pretty much said that all of it is incorrect. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know,

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Jesus says, yeah, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. The gates of hell we know are on defense. And then Jude says, earnestly contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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However, they have to, in order to create their own doctrine that's antithetical to the

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Bible, they have to say, well, we got to throw all the creeds, the confessions out of the window so we can start new, start with a clean slate.

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And starting your own creeds and confessions, you know? And that's another thing, you know,

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Jude verse three, contend for the faith, fight, contend, right?

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These are boxers or contenders, they fight. And so we're called to do that. We're called to fight and to contend for the true gospel, the historical

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Christian faith that was delivered to us, you know, once for all. And so, I mean, a lot of people see that as bad and not good, not nice, you know?

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Right. But I see it as our calling is to defend the faith, you know, in love. So. Yeah.

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And that's a big thing too. And just jumping back to when you talk about the Robertson clan, the Robertson family is that I don't,

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I've actually have never watched a show. I know not, I haven't watched a full episode. I've seen when I'm flipping channels and I think everyone sort of knows who they are, that, you know, they're the long haired, bearded guys.

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Some beards are longer than others. Some ones are a little more gray than others. And I think, I remember like their big, you know, we're talking about right now we're in 2021, which has been, and it's been another wild and crazy year.

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There's a lot going on right now in the news. But, you know, I think when we're talking specifically about cancel culture, they were one of the first people to kind of experience that when one of the older, it was

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Phil. Yeah. He made some, I forget the specific comments that he made, but there was media backlash. His show,

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I guess he got suspended and it was, you know, everyone was doing the, I stand with Phil. And it was the first time that sort of cancel culture thing happened.

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I remember that's where I first found out about that. Yeah. I've never thought about that, but I think he might've been the first canceled person.

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Really? I mean, I can't remember anybody before that. I mean, he really did stand up for God's word and you know, against.

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He rolled with it. I remember that. And listen, that's what I love about Phil, you know, for what he believes he will not back down.

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He is bold. And I love that about Phil. I learned that from him. I love him to death.

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You know, I just disagree with him on some scriptural, some serious doctrinal things. And I think it's true. It's true too.

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I mean, we're here at, we're here in Tennessee and you know, we're at, we're at the fight left peace conference.

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And you think about some of the content that they're talking about. It's very, in many ways, very politically focused because we believe that the

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Lordship of Christ entails all areas of life, including the political realm. But what's interesting about,

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I think just the allure and the appeal of the Robinson family, just to the conservative movement in general.

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He said, Robins needed it. We're talking about Louisiana, redneck

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Robertson. Okay. It's not Swiss family Robinson. Oh, I still love that. I love that movie by the way. I don't want to get distracted, but, you know, talking about really the, a lot of the conservative movement today is almost a secular conservatism where they are appealing.

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It's really based around like vague, general family values, belief in God, you know, without really defining who

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God is or believing in the cons, you know, the constitution's the final authority without really giving an ultimate accounting to why that is the ultimate authority, where that derives from in relation, in regards to the law of God.

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But my point of being is that I think when you look at the appeal that the Robinson clan has,

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Robertson, oh my gosh, Robertson clan has, I'm going to get butcher live here, but just the appeal that they have in that movement, because when you look at what they believe, there's not really an examination, intricate detail of when they talk about God, the gospel, salvation, what does that entail?

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We always want to do a cult is that we want to be fair. We want to make sure we define our terms.

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And there, when you look at some of the things that the Robertsons will talk about, there we go.

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And they'll, they'll talk about these things, you know, vaguely about following God and give an example, just give an example of some of their sermons that the average person would hear.

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And then, then we can maybe go get into defining terms. You mentioned the one sermon that is very popular.

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I think you said to me a while back, talk about that. Well, I mean, you know, it's biblical, right?

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It's in the Bible, right? It's in the Bible, but it's, it's a, it's a, it's a gospel where this is why

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I tell people like, when you didn't know the good news, the real good news, the fullness of the good news of Jesus Christ, if you don't know that, then it's pretty good news.

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It's the best news you've heard so far, because this news is like, okay, you, you grew up and you eventually sinned, right?

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And God exists and he sent his son to live on this earth perfectly. And he died and he was buried and he rose again.

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And if you want to live forever, right? If you want to live forever, then you need to repent of your sins and get baptized, right?

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And be baptized into the death, burial and resurrection of him, you know, and through water baptism. And once you do that, then you are saved and you receive the forgiveness of sins and that's when you receive the

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Holy Spirit. And so, but you can also lose your salvation. And so you got to watch how you live after that.

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So then it's just, it's a workspace. It's this, this yoke of works on you that just, you never know, am

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I in, am I out? I think I'm in now. I'm not now. Give me a couple of weeks. Let me work that off.

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And then I'm back in. It's just, it's just works. It's a workspace salvation. But so,

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I mean, that would be, yeah. You said, you said something that really pricked my ears. So it said you're, you're born and then you eventually sin.

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Can you, can you explain that in terms of like their doctrines of the church of Christ? So, you know, when I'm talking to someone in the church of Christ, you know,

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I think when you don't understand, if you've never been in the church of Christ, you want to talk, you know, most people want to attack baptism, right?

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Because they know that they're big and bad, but you have to be baptized to be saved. So when I'm talking to a church of Christ, the first thing

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I ask them a lot of times is, are you a Protestant evangelical? Right.

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And so if any church of Christ person's listening to this, ask yourself, are you a Protestant evangelical Christian?

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And they'll say, yes, right. They'll say, yes, that they are. And so I asked him, what is that?

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Well, they'll say, well, maybe I'm not a Catholic, you know, and I evangelize people. So therefore I'm a, I'm an evangelical.

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And so if you just Google Protestant evangelicalism, not going into a big, you know, theological book,

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Wikipedia's definition will come up and say, it's a global trans -denominational religion that believes that you're saved by grace solely through faith alone.

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And that's what Protestant evangelicals believe. And you ask them, do you believe that? And they don't, right?

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They don't believe that you're saved by grace through faith alone. They believe it's grace through faith plus baptism, right?

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So right there, you're not a Protestant evangelical, right? And so, you know, the main thing that you really have to, you've got to get straight is that you're born a sinner and they don't believe that.

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They believe you're Pelagian. It's kind of shocking to people when they hear that. Full on Pelagian. Right. You're born perfect.

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No sinner. Like you were born absolutely perfect. Yeah. Just real quick. I know we're, I know we're live here and we can the initial podcast and post, but just, you know, to, if you want to just on the microphone, just, just have your mouth like closer.

15:12

Oh, my bad. There you go. I know it's, I, I understand the first couple of hours. This is a live sort of like, if you want to listen, if by the way, anybody listening and if you ever do podcasting, it's one of those things you always want to make sure it's almost like you're just like kissing the mic.

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You may kiss the mic. I may kiss the mic. Yes. But anyways, no, that's a really good point. And so I think what we want to do is again, define terms.

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And again, I want to make sure that we lay a foundation because when we talk about words, you know, when we talk about,

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Oh, a cult, cultish, or even heresy, that's something, it's a loaded word. And especially for someone that, you know, you think about too with cultish, we are every single week, you know, as often we drop a podcast, we are really talking about a certain group where of calling a certain groups that represents a lot of people's spirituality and really a core part of their identity.

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We're, we're calling it false. We're calling it a counterfeit. And so, you know, we want to make sure that we do it in a way that's fair, that's level -headed and is, it defines terms.

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So I want you, when we say these words, I want you to think through, you know, listen to what we have to say when we define these terms.

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So the first thing I want to talk about, and you mentioned just a little bit, theologically, just a couple of basic points of the church of Christ and really the foundation of what puts them into this category of why we're talking about them today would be something known as Pelagianism.

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And in other words, that this would be, this is an ancient Christian heresy that was reputed and refuted by the church.

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Many a times what you'll see when people think they have a new esoteric secret knowledge, or now that the gospel is lost, now

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I've recovered it, there are a lot of times they're just regurgitating something that has just been,

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Christians throughout history have dealt with and repudiated. So really when we talk about Pelagianism, it's, some people might call it sinless perfectionism, but in very simplistic blue collar terms, which probably,

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I think the, I think the Robertson clan would definitely be representative of the average blue collar person.

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You know, and I think that's one of the reasons why they related. Yeah. And by the way, speaking of blue collar, Matt, you have the most like Louisiana blue collar truck.

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We hung out in there last night. And the fact that inside of your truck, you've got a gasoline can, some shotgun shells, and just saying, you know, all the paraphernalia that would represent the middle -class paraphernalia, quotation terms.

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So back to what, you know, clarifying terms. I want to clarify when you talk about cultish,

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I mean, this is kind of a shocker, like, oh my goodness, you're on cultish podcast talking about the church of Christ. I want to say this and be very clear.

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There are many great people in the church of Christ. I still love, I mean, just deeply,

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I have family in the church of Christ. You know, when you leave the church of Christ, sometimes you are cut off.

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I mean, a lot of friends, I mean, I've lost a lot of friends, you know, people lose family. I mean, I can tell you stories. It's so sad.

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And we've tried to work towards reconciliation on those things, but it doesn't happen. But, you know, that's not everybody, you know, that's not everybody in the church of Christ.

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You're not cut off by everybody. Thank the Lord. I'm asked to have great relationships with my in -laws are great, awesome people.

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My wife, one of her great friends is still in the church of Christ. And she saw some of the things that we went through and she told her, look, we might believe differently, but we'll never separate our friendship because of this, you know?

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So, you know, we're talking about beliefs in the church of Christ, but I don't want it to be individuals, right?

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And so to define those terms, you know, Pelagianism is this belief that you're born perfect and that one day you will sin possibly, possibly, and most likely you will, but you're born perfect as a baby.

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Yeah. So this is something that will lay a foundation for their view on baptism and ultimately a works -based salvation.

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So, yeah. So I think if you could go ahead and just define for us, so specifically, I mean, you're born sinless, maybe just, maybe kind of go more in depth, explain what that looks like for someone, someone who's in the mindset of the church of Christ, what does it look like for them?

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For someone who's raising a family, you know, it's kind of interesting. You talk about being born sinless. I spent the last couple of days hanging out with you and your lovely wife,

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Casey, and you know, and you've got two lovely, two little sinners with one little sinner on the way in about a month.

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And so I'm like, well, that's a, I think that's a repudiation of children being born sinless.

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But when it comes to specifically for the church of Christ, what does it look like for them culturally?

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And then what are some proof texts of where they go to? Let's, let's start to unravel that. Yeah. I just,

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I just turned to the, to the text that they would go to. Well, it doesn't look like anything.

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I just believe it. I mean, so it's, it's one of those things you just don't think about, you know, you're told that you're born perfect.

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And if you tell one of them, like, you know, I ran into one the other day at a restaurant and we were talking and I mentioned this and he was just like, no, no, babies have not done anything.

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What has a baby done? Like they're, they're, they're perfect. You know, they're sinless, you know? And so just what you're taught, you don't, you don't think through it.

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Cause if you thought through it, you would think, okay, why do we teach Sunday school to babies and to kids?

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Why don't they teach us? Right. They're the simplest ones. Right. You would think to yourself, why do I have to teach my kids how to be good?

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Like, why should I need, I have to teach my kids to be good? Why? Because they're inherently bad.

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Right. They're born sinful. Right. So it's not, it's just, it's one of those things where, and I'm telling you this from me and I mean, you just don't think about it.

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You just believe it. You're told it, you believe it. And it makes sense because you're basing it on logic and reason. You're not basing it on the word of God, but because it is a religion and it, it has its own doctrines.

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You have to have something to base it on in the word of God. And so that's where we get to the proof texts. Right. And so it'd be

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Romans 7 verses 7, 8 and 9. I'll read it to you. And so say apart from the law.

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So this is how it would be explained. This is how it'd be explained to you from a church of Christ, how you're born perfect. It says right here in Romans chapter 7 verses 8 and 9 for apart from the law, sin lies dead.

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So do you see, so if there's no law, there's no sin. That's how it would be explained. I once was alive apart from the law.

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So do you see there's a point in your life when if there's no law, there's no sin. So once I was alive apart from the law, which means there was a time in my life where I had no sin.

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And then it says, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. Yeah. So there, and he didn't die physically because he keeps writing.

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He died spiritually. And so this is the proof text, Romans 7, 7, 8 and 9. And the point is, if there's no law, there's no sin.

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And they say, do you see that? If there's no law, there's no sin. And then Paul says, I once was alive apart from the law.

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There was a time in my life where I didn't have any sin. Now the Bible doesn't say that you add that in there and it makes logical sense.

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Right. And then you say, think about it. A baby comes out of the womb. What has it done? Nothing. Yeah. It's done nothing.

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So therefore how, how is it a sinner? Right. So this would be their proof text. Well, it's not, it's not, so it's not just the proof text, but I think this is the case too.

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And, and Mike Winger talked about this when we analyzed, uh, the, uh, world mission society, church of God.

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Um, we've done a couple of different, I get that in one of the other episodes mixed up, but, um, but it's an argument won by analogy, right?

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And so you're not, you're not just unraveling the text, but you're giving an analogy to try and argue from that.

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But you're also making an emotional appeal. Just look at that cute baby. That's just a beautiful reflection of like, how, how has he done?

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Yeah. So, and again, it's, it's an, it's an emotional appeal. And then, so yeah. So that's one example of a proof text that they would go to.

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What are, what are some other examples that they would appeal to? That's it. I mean, that's the only proof text.

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Now, when you get into Psalm 51, where it says, no, my mother conceived me in sin, my mother conceived me, you know, that would be argued.

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Well, that was just David in such a heart was just saying, surely

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I was just born this way. He didn't really mean that. He was just saying, man, I'm so repentant. I feel so bad that I've done this.

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Like surely I was, I was just born in sin. You see what I'm saying? So it's not a theological statement. So at what point is there, is there an age of accountability?

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Is there a certain point where, you know, you're raising children in a household and you know, your, your beautiful daughter,

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Marley, you know, she is a very sweet girl and she loves Jesus, but there's times where she's back, she's not listening to you and she'll back talk you and you have to be a dad and correct her, um, you know, very gracious and loving way.

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But, you know, there's a point where I think as like, what's the process of someone in the church of Christ when they see other people, you know, you're in, you're in, you're in a community together and eventually you just see it.

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They're no different than any of us. Like kids, you know, they, they grew up, they lie there, you know, we lied to my parents.

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I've, I've gotten in fights with my siblings. Uh, you know, there's many things that I did that categorically put me in as a sinner.

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How do they process that? And what does it look, what does sin look like from what, what point do they become a sinner?

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So, you know, and, and, you know, Phil has a podcast, like millions of followers and he did one not too long ago about this and talking about how, you know, you don't sin until you're about 15, 16 or 17.

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That's when you sin. And so here's the problem. So here's the problem. This is why it's a heresy. It's not a heresy because the church didn't like this teaching.

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You know, it's a heresy because it gets you away from the gospel of Christ because you can't see the gospel.

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You can't understand the gospel. You can't accept the gospel, the good news of Christ, if you believe this. And this is why it's, it's worth fighting for.

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It's worth contending for it because if you truly love them, right, if you truly love these people, which

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I do, you know, then I have to be willing to fight for this. And I know that they might not like to hear it, but I have to tell them

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I'm compelled to tell them. Does that make sense? Because if this is true that they can't understand the gospel or see it, then man,

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I've got to tell them if nobody else will. And so this is why I'm here. Like, I want people to in the church of Christ to see this and to start teaching this in the church of Christ.

25:22

Fine. Just teach this, you know, because what happens is you have this understanding, this is how it plays out.

25:29

And then we'll talk about why you can't understand the gospel. Okay. So how it plays out like this plagianism born perfect, then you know why you're a sinner,

25:38

Jerry, Jeremiah, and you do, Andrew, do you know why you're a sinner is because see, you're born perfect.

25:44

The reason you are a sinner is because all these other people outside of you has influenced you to sin. And that, that might've took, you know, 12 years, 13, 14, 15, 16 years, but eventually they finally wore you down and they caused you to sin.

25:58

They influenced you because sin was outside of you. It wasn't in you. Does that make sense? And so then here's how that affects relationships.

26:05

Okay. It affects relationships because when you have a problem with someone, it's never you, it's always them because they have influenced them.

26:14

It's never me. I never look in my heart. Right. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. And so then you have another bad teaching that, that you can lose your salvation.

26:24

Just, I mean, you can lose your salvation. Right. And so if you can lose your salvation, this is how all this affects into relationships.

26:34

And if Psalm 115 is true, that you become what you worship, right?

26:40

You become the God that you worship, whatever, whatever idol you make up, that's not the one true God. You become like him.

26:46

Well, if your God that you worship is one that says, if you keep messing up, this relationship's over.

26:53

Then all these people outside of you keep messing up. They don't do what you tell them to do. And then you get to the point where you say, you know what?

26:59

This relationship is over. And you walk around with your chest out, like you're the righteous one. You're the good one because you're doing what

27:05

God would do and what God does. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. So this is how it affects so many relationships, you know?

27:13

But we can talk about why it gets you away from the gospel in a minute, but you have something you want to say?

27:19

No, it's just very interesting. It almost seems like a very subjective standard because it's all talking about, you know, undue influence, how you are affected by an external circumstance.

27:31

It's almost very Freudian in nature where they talk about how you are just a creature placed in a neutral environment.

27:36

It's always your external circumstances that kind of mold and shape who you are. And there's, I think there's definitely a level in which that's true, but ultimately there's not a real accounting if you're going to talk for like the nature of view of why people do what they do outside of a biblical worldview.

27:51

But yeah, it just seems like to be a very, like a very vague and arbitrary point at which you actually do become a sinner, which

27:59

I think does play maybe a questionable role with their view on baptismal regeneration.

28:06

When exactly do you get baptized? Because your contingency for being baptized to have your sins washed away, it's almost that you're not doing it internally, saving you internally as someone who's born as sinner, like wretched man that I am.

28:23

I'm here to wash away really the sins of someone else. It's like, it's not me, my responsibility.

28:31

I'm here to, it's like, I'm here to deal with the consequences. Like I was with my brother. I don't know, this is not the best analogy.

28:37

Here I am arguing for analogy, but let's just say I'm with my brother and he, we like to side together.

28:44

He convinces me to go, let's go to the store and steal some candy.

28:52

And then we go out and we get caught, right? And all of a sudden then I get in trouble, right?

28:58

And then my parents punished me and say, that's when I become a sinner. So I'm just thinking, I'm just trying to process this.

29:05

Eventually I come to the point where I'm a sinner and say, I'm in the church of Christ and I want to get baptized. Is that because, am

29:12

I really washing away my own sin or am I really kind of washing away the influence of my brother's sin?

29:20

Which makes you subject. Then what do you do? I don't know. It seems to be almost a conflict of interest with the whole salvation process.

29:31

Thinking about this Jeremiah, and this is what I've said is if we're born perfect and you want people to go to heaven, right?

29:38

That's what you want. And you think that you have something to do with that. Like you're getting people to heaven by baptizing them.

29:45

If that's what you want and that's what you believe that you're born perfect, then you should never be against abortion.

29:52

I mean, you're sending, you're pumping a million babies to heaven a day, right? You're pumping them out.

29:58

And that sounds crazy. And they don't like to hear that because they know logically, it makes perfect sense.

30:04

But it's like, that's ridiculous. No, it's not. If you believe you're born perfect and you want people to go to heaven.

30:10

Yeah. That would be the best form of evangelism. I mean, you're sending millions, right? Wow. That's heavy, man. But it's just one of those things you don't think about.

30:18

And literally, bless her heart. Here's what I love is when I'm sharing with them and showing like when we get deeper into why you are born a sinner and you can't see the gospel without it and see in there, them go, oh my goodness, you know, and then when they see that they're truly saved by grace, and because I'll tell you, every person will say, and I don't care if you go to church of Christ or what you go to everybody who claims to be a

30:41

Christian says, no, you're saved by grace. No, you're saved by faith. They say they believe that. Right.

30:46

But the question is, do you really believe that? Right. You know, and when you go deeper into those things and when people actually sit down and look at God's word and not scared to it, and a lot of people refuse to, they refuse to study with anybody who disagrees with them or who will contend with them.

31:06

They want to talk to people who agree with them or who don't know anything. Wow. So what I'm hearing too right now is like the dangerous thing about the church of Christ is that number one, they speak

31:16

Christianese, just like the LDS speaks Christianese. They may say grace and faith, but they have redefined terms.

31:22

But what's so dangerous about this movement is that they don't have another standard, like the book of Mormon, right?

31:28

For example, everything is coming from, from this. And that's, that's a scary thing. So I want to go back into that text in Romans seven and just for everyone to Trey isn't, is a pastor.

31:37

So can you, can you dive into what Romans seven that you read earlier is, is actually saying what Paul is trying to communicate?

31:43

Is he saying there's one time where he wasn't under the law? What's going on there? Well, here's what, when he's saying this right here in Romans seven, he's not saying that there was a time in his life that he never sinned.

31:54

I mean, if he says that, cause if I ask somebody, does the Bible contradict, right? What do you think they say?

32:01

Anybody, if I ask anybody, do you think that a Christian, right? I would say the Bible does not contradict. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Now, if Paul is saying that right here, that there was a time in his life where he'd never sinned, then he just contradicted himself in chapter three and chapter five.

32:16

Right. Yeah. Completely contradicted himself. And so you have to show them, this is not what he's talking about. Now he might be talking, he's talking about, he might have not known there was a time where he didn't understand what coventing was, but when he understood covening, he realized he's actually so covetous, right?

32:32

So just because you don't know that you're a sinner does not mean you're not a sinner. Right. Right. So, and this is what makes you a sinner is not your knowledge of it.

32:41

No, you're a sinner because you sinned, right? This is what Romans three and four and five is leading up to. And so you have to explain that to them.

32:50

You have to take them to context and show them Romans. You know, it's really good to start with Romans one and go to two, three, four, five, six, seven.

32:57

Right. Don't just jump into Romans seven because you'd be surprised that most people, and this is not,

33:03

I mean, I don't want to pick on the church of Christ. I mean, pick on people in every church and we have to be creatures of the word.

33:10

We have to, we have to abide in his word if we want to truly be his disciples. That's what

33:15

Jesus says in John eight. And so we need to know this book and not just know bits and pieces of it.

33:20

Like, what is this whole thing telling me? And so we have to have the context. And I think a lot of people, not just the church of Christ, but a lot of people, they know this verse or that verse, but they don't understand the context and what's going on.

33:31

They don't know the whole book. Right. And I look, I'll be the first one to tell you, I don't know the whole Bible. I don't know every story, every person.

33:37

Right. You know, no. But when it comes to soteriology, to salvation, to grace, I'm willing to sit down with anybody who agrees, disagrees, whatever.

33:46

Maybe you can teach me, maybe we can disagree, but all scripture is God breathed, used for teaching, rebuking and correcting.

33:52

Yep. So the man of God can be thoroughly equipped. So we need to, if we claim to be a Christian, if you, if anybody out here is listening, if you claim to be a

34:00

Christian and I claim to be a Christian, then you should be willing to sit down and let's talk about these things because these things matter.

34:07

Because if I ask anyone, does it, does it matter what you believe? Everyone says, yes. Well, then if it really matters, and if you really love me, can we please sit down and look at God's word?

34:15

Cause I, this is big deal. You know, this is the history of the church says you cannot believe you're born perfect and go to heaven.

34:24

And here's why. Let me show you you can't understand the gospel if you believe this.

34:29

Yeah. So, so what, so what does the Bible say then about people being born sinful? Can you give us some examples of original sin?

34:37

So you would look at Romans, I mean, Psalm 51, right? You want to look there and look, okay.

34:44

Well, this is probably one of those times too. I mean, you can want to talk about it, but I think too, I'm sure when you, you've had conversations too, with your friends in the church of Christ, when they want to do a

34:54

Bible study in this regard. So talk about the context of it, but let's also talk about what entails what they would respond, how they would respond to Psalm 51.

35:05

And then what would be a response to their response? I would love to unpack that. Yeah. Well, okay. I'm sorry. Totally confused there.

35:12

Oh yeah. Sorry. The yeah. So Psalm 51, David's confessional

35:18

Psalm that is used one to repudiate the idea that you're born sinless, but I'm sure they probably have a certain way, how they process it, how they view that, how they view

35:28

Psalm 51. So what's the correct context? And also give an example of how, what would be the, how would they view it?

35:36

And then maybe we can also impact, like, how would we respond to them? So they would also, okay.

35:44

We say it a while ago, they would say that this is not saying that he truly was born a sinner.

35:51

He was just so repentant. He's just like, surely I was just born this way. Right. I would say, well, the context is that he is repentant, but he does mean this because this goes along with everything else in the

36:02

Bible. Right. So therefore, yes, he's repentant of his sin. And he's like, gosh, you know for,

36:09

I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you. And you only have I sinned and done what's evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

36:19

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and sin. Did my mother conceive me? Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being.

36:25

So it's not that he's not repentant. Yes, he's repentant, but he's speaking truth. This is God's word, right?

36:30

It goes along with everything else. You just turn the page here in chapter 53, it says,

36:37

God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

36:42

They have all fallen away. Together they have become corrupt. There is none who does good, not even one.

36:50

So does that mean, well, really what he's talking about, there's not one who's done good, not even one means from 15 on up.

36:58

Yeah. Or from 12 on up. And Paul reiterates this in Romans chapter 3 before he goes into the fall and our generational curse from Adam.

37:08

Right. Right. And so, yeah. And then he goes into, you know, there's no one good. No, not one. There's no one righteous.

37:13

No one understands. So does that mean no one above the age of 15? I mean, which, or is it, does it mean no one?

37:19

Yeah. Yeah. No one. And so check this out. Here's one good thing to think about. And this is, this is a good thing about the

37:25

Bible. It's the Bible will defend itself. Right. You know, it's like a lion. You don't have to, you know, you just let it loose.

37:33

It'll defend itself. Right. Yeah. And so you think about, okay, let's think about Sodom. Right.

37:39

Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah. Bad place. Right. This is a town of about probably, well, I'd say 400 ,000 people.

37:45

Let's just, let's just say a hundred thousand. I mean, the town I live in is about a hundred thousand and there's babies there.

37:52

I mean, good luck finding a place that has a hundred thousand people with no babies to 15 year olds.

37:58

Right. They're going to have them. Right. So if you go back to Genesis 18 and you read this,

38:05

Sodom, God says, look, I'm about to destroy this place. And Abraham says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

38:12

I tell you what, surely you wouldn't do it. If there was 50 righteous, because listen, if you're not a sinner, what would you be righteous?

38:19

Right. If you're sinless, you're righteous. Right. Is that correct? Yeah. Is that why Jesus is righteous?

38:24

Because he's sinless and he did everything perfectly. Right. Yeah. I would agree. Okay. So Abraham says, look, if there's 50 righteous people, would you not destroy it?

38:34

And God's like, and what's crazy is a lot of people think that Abraham's changing God's mind right here.

38:40

He's not changing his mind. He's not, but God's like, sure. 50 won't do it.

38:46

He said, how about 45? Yeah. 45. Okay. 40, 30, 20, 10, all the way down to 10.

38:52

And Abraham's thinking, okay, odds are good. We can find 10 righteous. I'll just stop there.

38:58

And God's like, dude, look, whatever. I mean, no, for 10, I won't do it. But guess what he does to Sodom?

39:05

Destroys it. Why? Because there's no one righteous, no, not one. He will not kill the righteous with the wicked, he says.

39:13

And so are we thinking that in a town of 400 ,000, like I said, let's just dumb it down to a hundred thousand.

39:20

Do you really think that there's not a child there in a hundred thousand? Come on now. So it falls apart there, but we'll show you in Romans five, where it really falls apart.

39:31

So do you want to see that? Yeah. I would love to see that. Yeah. And I just want to make a point too, because this is a very theologically focused episode.

39:38

And again, we have a lot of people who listen in from various different backgrounds, even worldviews outside of being

39:45

Christian. I want to make a point too, that while we are a focus in on cults and cultish groups, that some people are like, well, why are you just talking, all you're talking about Bible verses, you're just a cult talking about cults.

39:57

Well, I just want to make a point too, that really we want to argue and articulate that. And we did this in our episode is

40:02

Christianity a cult, where we're talking about, this is really the only framework where you can give an ultimate accounting why this, like, why are people, why these, what a cult is.

40:15

So when you talk about, you know, one of the, the logo I have here in my shirt is one of our logos, bad theology hurts people.

40:21

So we're going to unravel to the sociological aspects of the church of Christ, the struggles that people have, and, and even like the mental health toll they would have are trying to always put around a perfect, perfect image and all the issues that come with that.

40:35

But even any sort of the sociological or psychological manipulation always comes from a theological distortion.

40:41

And the secularist worldview, when you have people like Sam Harris or other people who, or, you know,

40:47

Steve Hassan, or Rick, Rick Allen Ross, or any of those cult experts, that while they may be able to articulate different sociological and psychological manipulation, or that sort of hurt, they can't give an ultimate accounting for it.

41:03

And so what we're doing, we're unraveling this theology, because at the core, theology does matter, because we're not just having a

41:09

Bible study, we're looking at something, this was your life. This was something that you held near and dear. And you've also seen people that I could see, man, you have a love for the last day and a half hanging out with you.

41:20

We've talked on the phone a couple times, you have a love for these people, you have a burden for these people. And we want to show them that in this process, there is a reality where there's people who have a yoke that they can't bear, but then a real reality too, where it says where the spirit of the

41:33

Lord is, there is freedom. So we are focusing in on this episode. This isn't just a

41:40

Bible study, I mean, it is, but we're focusing in theologically, because theology matters, specifically with this and also any other cult that we're dealing with.

41:47

So I just want to make that point real quickly, but go ahead with where you were at in regards to what you're talking about.

41:55

Look at Romans 5, but I want to add to what you're saying. What it does, when you believe, and you're told that you're born perfect, right?

42:03

You're born perfect. And you grow up, then you start sinning. And again, it's not on a conscious level.

42:12

No one's thinking, I have no problems, it's always you, right? But when you're told you're born perfect, that stuff is dripped in your head over and over again, it's what you believe, right?

42:23

And so what goes in your head goes down to your heart and it comes out your hands. This is why theology matters with what you're saying.

42:29

And so when you are being told this, and then one day when you're 15 or 16, then you finally sin, you did a big sin, and now you know you're really a sinner.

42:41

Let's say you got drunk, right? And now you get baptized, but you're getting baptized.

42:47

Why are you getting baptized? Well, because you messed up and you want to go to heaven one day, right?

42:52

And so you need to get that washed off of you. You don't realize how deep of a depraved sinner you really are, right?

42:57

And you'll never know how good God really is until you see how bad you really are, right?

43:03

And you never see that, you never see that, and that's what, it just kills you, you know?

43:08

It's not a good thing. So let's look at Romans 5, how you are a sinner.

43:14

Let's go back to chapter three. Why did the law come, right? Can y 'all tell me while I'm looking this up?

43:21

Why the law come? To give us knowledge of sin, so, you know, you read Romans 1, and Paul's saying, look, the

43:29

Gentiles are really bad. It's our tutor. Biblically, it's our tutor to bring us to Christ, and you would see,

43:37

I always give the example when I'm on the street doing a family talk with our Mormon friends and neighbors that, you know, you wake up this morning, you know,

43:43

I woke up this morning and I kind of looked at the damage that had been done for all the long traveling and kind of looked at the mess that I was in the mirror, and did

43:50

I try and go to the mirror to clean myself? No, that led me to the shower.

43:55

And so in the same way, that is, in very simplistic terms, that is the role of the law is to point out our sin and then ultimately our needs for a savior.

44:05

Yeah, and when we understand that, it's Romans 1, right? Romans 1, Paul says, look,

44:11

Gentiles, horrible people, bad. And then you get into chapter two, hey, Jews, you're actually worse because you have the law and you still broke it, right?

44:20

So don't look down on them like you have the law. And then he gets into chapter three here and he says, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

44:32

So what the law does is give you knowledge of sin, right? So that's why the law came.

44:38

So if you think back to Romans 7, right? If there is no law, there is no sin, right?

44:44

So let's look at Romans 7 again, just to kind of have a good understanding of what we're saying. So here's what they would say,

44:50

Romans 7, verse eight, for apart from the law, sin lies dead.

44:56

Okay, so they're saying, so they would explain if there is no law, there is no sin. If there is no law, there is no sin.

45:03

Well, sin, the law came to give you knowledge of the sin, okay?

45:09

So we turn the page, we get to chapter five, right? I'm going to start with verse 12. It says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, that would be

45:18

Adam, right? That's right. And death through sin. So death spread to all men because all sin.

45:26

Here we go. Ready? Verse 13, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given.

45:33

So stop, remember Romans 7, 7, if there is no law, there is no sin. And they explain, they explain it means, well, see there, he didn't sin.

45:41

No, no, he didn't have the understanding of it. He still sinned because he would be contradicting himself right here. It says, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given.

45:50

But sin is not counted where there's no law. He's not saying that you're not a sinner.

45:56

He's just saying, you can't count it. You can't check the box because remember chapter three, the law was given so that you can have knowledge of it.

46:01

So it's not counted. I can't be like, you know what? Dang it, I lied. I slandered someone.

46:07

I know I did because the law says it and I did it. I can't count that because I didn't know the law, right? So let's read it again.

46:14

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, death through sin. So death spread to all men because all sin for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin's not counted where there's no law.

46:25

Yet death reigned as a King reigned, not water, but reigned as a King from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one to come.

46:39

So he says, look, these people died from Adam, from Adam to Moses. All these people died, even who they didn't sin like Adam or Moses.

46:48

What, what did Adam and Moses had? They have the law. Adam said, don't eat this. That's the law. Moses had the 10 commandments, but these people in between, right?

46:57

They didn't have a law, even the Gentiles, but that's what they did. They still sin and death reigned. Why? Because the wages of sin is death.

47:04

And so even though they didn't have the law, sin indeed was in the world. They just didn't know they were sinning, but they were sinning.

47:11

And so I explained this, like when I, just cause you don't have the knowledge of it, doesn't mean you're guilt, doesn't mean you're not guilty of it.

47:17

And so I say like, what if someone who doesn't speak English, can't read English comes to America, he rents a car, he's going down the interstate and we live off I -20, okay.

47:27

Interstate 20. And what if he's going 120 miles an hour down the interstate and the cop pulls him over?

47:34

Do you think he's going to get a ticket or not? Just because he didn't know I -20 meant interstate 20, he was going 120.

47:41

No, he's going to get a ticket. It's regardless of what you understand or know, you broke the law, buddy.

47:47

You see, and that's the way they say in Romans 5. And so that would be it. And so the problem with this is, here's where you can't understand the gospel.

47:56

Can I go into that? Yeah, go for it. You want to say something? No, no, I'm listening, bro. I'm loving it.

48:01

You're all in? Yeah, we're all in. Okay. So you have the first Adam right here.

48:07

It says that this Adam, he was a type of the one to come. He was a type of the one to come.

48:13

So if there's a type of something, that means there's already something that exists, right? Like if I build something like a little building of blocks and I make it look like a building, it's a type of a building.

48:24

How can I make that? Because I know the real thing is out there and I've seen it. And this Adam in the garden is a type of who?

48:31

The second Adam to come, Jesus Christ. He already exists. He was already known.

48:38

And so these two Adams are going to represent people. And so here's the logic behind being born perfect.

48:44

It's this right here. People say, that's not fair that I'm held responsible for a sin

48:50

I didn't do. I wasn't even there. How can I, or this baby here, be held responsible for something that happened that he didn't even do, right?

49:01

He didn't do it. Therefore he's not responsible for it. He shouldn't be held responsible for it. And so the question is this right here, but see the second

49:07

Adam over here? If you don't want to accept what you inherited from the first Adam, the imputation, it's the doctrine of imputation.

49:15

If you don't want to accept the imputation of Adam, then what makes you think you can accept the imputation of Christ's righteousness?

49:22

Because you didn't do that either. Wow. See how it becomes a works -based deal? Yeah. You weren't there then. Yeah. I didn't do this.

49:27

I shouldn't be held responsible. But you know what? You didn't do that either. But you think you are by your good works, by your baptism, by all your striving and striving and striving.

49:36

And you can't accept one Adam if you don't accept both. You have to accept both representatives.

49:41

Yeah, man. I got a question because I'm trying to put myself inside the mindset of someone in the church of Christ. And you're thinking about we're all made in the image of God.

49:51

We all have this sort of haunting spectra of guilt of the sins that we do.

49:57

And I think one of the most healing aspects of true confession and repentance is when you repent and you have to take full responsibility and ownership of your sin, even though it completely sucks to do so sometimes.

50:14

And you think about we're talking about Psalm 51 in regards to being born in sin, but also what you see is a direct point of reference for that repentance when

50:26

David says, against you and you only have I sinned. I mean, is there a burden? It seems to me there would be a burden for people in the church of Christ where they do have that level of guilt and sin.

50:39

And what do I do to atone for my wrongdoings? But how can

50:44

I ultimately take this to the Lord, take this to God, if it's ultimately not necessarily mine to begin with?

50:51

It's an indirect sin, not necessarily mine to begin with. So how do you alleviate that burden of guilt?

50:58

It seems that it would be a conflict of interest in many ways for many different people, especially people that you love and care for.

51:03

Yeah. So I would say this, and I want to be very clear on this, because I have, again, many people

51:09

I love and care for in the church of Christ. There are

51:17

Christians in the church of Christ who truly have their faith in Christ. Now, they got some jacked up theology and understandings, and they don't have some good understandings.

51:26

But thank God that correct understanding doesn't save you. Only faith alone and Christ alone saves you.

51:32

And so doctrine doesn't save you. Theology doesn't save you. Faith in Christ saves you. Now, there are people in the church of Christ whose their faith really isn't in their works.

51:42

I mean, there's a lot of them who are, and this is what makes them mad when you teach them the doctrines of grace. They get really upset because what you're doing is you're stripping away all their good works.

51:49

You're stripping away all the good things they've done and all the things, all their bragging rights that they have before God one day.

51:55

Now, they would never admit that, but that's what makes them angry about it, the doctrines of grace. But there are some who truly have their faith in God and they're in Christ alone, but they have some messed up theology, messed up understandings.

52:08

They don't quite get this. And so to answer your question, they have that tugging at their heart, and they know that they're a sinner.

52:14

They know, and man, they plead, and they're hoping God will forgive them. They're hoping and they're praying, and they want to believe it with everything they can, but they still struggle.

52:23

And this is where you have the bad doctrine of losing your salvation, right? That you can lose your salvation.

52:28

Well, then that starts playing on their mind. And so they live in this torment. Am I good enough? Have I done enough?

52:34

And this is why the doctrines of grace and the true gospel just releases people to see, oh my goodness, how good it really is.

52:40

It's better than I ever dreamed it was, because they truly are struggling through that. They are looking to Christ. It's just they don't have the confidence because they don't understand this word and the promises that he's made to them.

52:50

And this is what I want for them. I just want them to see how good it really is. Yeah, that's heavy.

52:56

This makes me think of, in this, number one, it's like a lot of error, I think, happens in the church or breeds.

53:04

And what happens eventually is people want to be Jesus. There's something wanting to be like Jesus is great, but wanting to be

53:11

Jesus is something that's dangerous, right? So what I mean by that is Jesus was born sinless.

53:17

We weren't. But I think a lot of heretical teaching tries to ascribe to men what can only be ascribed to God.

53:24

And the second thing would be this, is that my salvation is not dependent on myself, right?

53:30

It's not dependent on me being baptized after I sin or something of that nature.

53:36

It's actually dependent solely on the work of Christ alone. But how much of a burden must that be when your salvation is dependent upon your actions, right?

53:47

To an extent. It's a miserable burden. And look, watch this. I know a lot of people who've come out of the church of Christ and see the doctrines of grace, and they're just like dying to tell their family.

53:58

I mean, I have, we have a young couple who, great, unbelievable. I could tell you hours of stories how this all started, but they came to my house one night and I told him,

54:09

I said, look, come at night. Don't come in the day. Don't tell anybody you're coming. If you want to come. I didn't even know the guy. Okay.

54:14

I was calling somebody else. He was in the truck with them. We got to talk and he started asking questions. And so then he wants to come over and he wants to bring his family.

54:21

I'm like, I didn't even know, I knew he was married. I didn't know he had a kid, but they come over and his wife is just like terrified, like scared that she's coming over my house.

54:30

I'm like, why are you upset? And she's like, well, I just hear that you're, you're so divisive, you know? And I'm like, and I didn't ask him, they wanted to come over.

54:37

Right. I said, well, I am divisive, but your question should be over what? Like over truth.

54:43

Right. You know, I will divide over truth, you know? And so we sat down and they asked questions.

54:48

Um, I'd try my best to answer their questions scripturally. And they went back and try to ask elders like questions.

54:56

They had questions, but they told them, no, we're not going to talk to you. We told you not to talk to this guy. And since you did, and you didn't obey the elders, do not, we're done, right?

55:05

We're not talking to you. Right. And her family, and they hadn't even seen, like they've had another kid since this point, they hadn't even come to see them, like just completely cut them off, cut them off.

55:16

And, and, but, but again, again, someone 15, you become what you worship. Right. And so if you think

55:21

God is a God who will write you off and cut this relationship off, if you keep messing up, then that's what

55:27

I do. And I walk around with my chest out proud. Yeah. And we've reached out to their leaders and said, listen, we need to help reconcile this family.

55:35

Cause God is a God of reconciliation and just know. And so all this stuff leads to such bad things.

55:42

It really does. I could see that, especially if like the sin that the person commits in their life, if they're born sinless is done through the influence of those who are sinners now, because they're older.

55:52

I could see how, when you're in that situation, you want to cut yourself off of all ties from those people, because that's what causes the issue in the first place.

56:02

Is there like, is there a form of like disfellowship or excommunication inside the church of Christ? How does that work?

56:08

It's just, they just shun, it's like a shunning type. Yeah. I mean, so there's not like official.

56:15

I mean, we've had actually, I'll just stay up one day and say like, have nothing to do with, you know, my son, you know, like, because he,

56:23

I don't know, did something stupid, you know? And so it's like, have nothing to do with him. It's like, man, you know, there should be church discipline.

56:32

A church with no discipline is no church at all. There's ways that go about this. It's restoration.

56:38

And so what we're looking at too, when you talk about, you know, sort of not, don't talk to them and whatnot.

56:43

I mean, there's an aspect of that, but what we're talking about, one of the things that cults or cultist groups will do is that they will formulate, they're not taught to go chapter by chapter, verse by verse, really draw out the text of what the

56:57

Bible originally meant. They'll proof text. They'll take one little verse here, one little verse there to back up their own predisposition.

57:05

So as a whole, is that how the church of Christ views the Bible or how they kind of read through the

57:11

Bible to formulate their doctrines that we're talking about? Yeah. I mean, it's a complete proof texting, atomizing proof texting throughout the scriptures, you know, like, so the gospel, right?

57:22

So here's one in second Thessalonians chapter one, verse eight and nine. I could turn to it, but I'll just quote it to you.

57:28

It says that, you know, how it starts off, how you, if you're going to share with somebody, you know, you obviously tell them, look, you know, you sinned eventually, you know, you're older, you're older than 16.

57:36

So you're a sinner, right? Yeah. And this is God and Jesus died, buried and rose again. Right. And so then you, you tell them that, you know, look, here's what it says in second

57:45

Thessalonians chapter one, verse eight, nine, it says, he will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our

57:50

Lord Jesus Christ. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from his presence. Okay. And so you tell them that, and you look at them, you say, see, you're going to go to hell, who goes to hell and you make them read it.

58:01

And they say, well, uh, people who don't know God and who don't obey the gospel. And so you say, well, what's the gospel.

58:09

So then you lead them through this trail. But what I would say right there, like now I say, stop, stop, stop.

58:17

That doesn't mean what you think it means. So you think it means do something, but that word literally in the Greek means, are you in agreement with the gospel you accepted?

58:25

Are you in agreement with? And so what I tell people, I'm like, like, tell me what a ball is like, explain to me a ball, you know?

58:32

And they'll say, well, it's round. It bounces, it has seams on it. You know, it can be oblong. And I'm like, no, absolutely not.

58:39

That's horrible. That's not a ball. A ball is a place where you go and you're in your Sunday clothes and a tuxedo and a dress and you eat caviar and you dance.

58:46

Okay. See, like words matter, like context matters. And when you don't know the context of what that's saying to, are you in agreement with, do you believe this, right?

58:54

The gospel, it doesn't mean obey, like do something, but this is where they take you. Yeah. That's good.

59:01

That's good. So why don't we do this? So we've talked a little bit, the foundation of sinless perfectionism or Pelagianism, how this plays into really the burden that they have.

59:09

So let's just jump into their view of baptism. And so it's interesting too, because we're here at Five Laugh Feast and we've got, we've got

59:17

Baptists here, we've got some Presbyterians here, and there's always the bantering back and forth, baptize your babies. We always have the interesting back and forth going on, but we're, you know, we have different people, different views of baptism.

59:29

What differs with the church of Christ is the exclusivity that happens.

59:35

So it's not just baptism that's essential for your specific salvation. You know, it's about specifically being baptized into the church of Christ, into their version of it, because they're the ones that have the exclusive knowledge of it versus, you know, when we're here with Baptists and Presbyterians, we're talking about the different, we're talking about the same salvation, the same atonement of Christ, we're brothers and sisters in Christ.

01:00:01

So this is different. So maybe explain the point of baptism from the church of Christ view, from your perspective of growing up in that, and then let's talk just then about some of the proof texts they go to.

01:00:13

Okay, and to add on to what you're saying, that we have Presbyterians, we have Baptists here, we might disagree on baptism, but we're still all

01:00:18

Christian brothers, right? So I was at a pastor's deal with Stephen Lawson, and somebody asked him a question about baptism or something, and he said, listen, we might disagree on baptism, but, you know, we're all brothers.

01:00:34

And I'm sitting there, I'm like, hold up. And then he was doing question and answer time, right? And I'm not the dude who gets up and asks questions, you know,

01:00:42

I'm not that guy, but I'm just sitting there, I'm boiling, because I'm thinking, because look, this is like, baptism is a big deal for me, right?

01:00:47

And this is like, I cried tears over preaching to people and telling people they had to be baptized, be saved, and trying to convince them and looking at them and saying, let me tell you, you know, what are you going to do?

01:00:58

And you just stare at them, and you emotionally get in their mind where you try to get them in the water, you know, you manipulate them, you know?

01:01:07

And I did that for years, and I literally cried tears and called people and apologized for that, you know? And I got counseling from some pastors over that to say, look, even

01:01:15

God was sovereign over that, just like he was sovereign over Paul and what Paul did to the believers, you know, you got to get over it.

01:01:21

So, but at this conference with Stephen Lawson, when he said, look, you know, we might disagree on baptism, but we're all brothers,

01:01:27

I sat there for a little bit, and everybody was done, he's about to shut it down, and I'm like, hold up, hold up, and I raised my hand,

01:01:33

I walked up to the microphone, and I said, look, Brother Lawson, I said, I just want to ask you, look, I know everybody's ready to go to lunch, but I have to clear this up.

01:01:39

When you say that we're all good here, even though we disagree on baptism, you are talking about infant baptism and believer baptism, right?

01:01:46

He goes, yeah, and he looked at me like I was crazy, and I said, well, I come from the church of Christ, and I just want to make sure that no one here believed that you were talking about baptismal regeneration, like you're saved, he goes, oh, no, no, no, no, he said, they're not our brothers, you know, and which hurt me,

01:02:03

I mean, Stephen Lawson, right? This is like, and so then me and him got to talk, and I just told him,

01:02:09

I said, look, you know, my heart, and look, it's my Nineveh, it really is, like, I don't like it,

01:02:15

I know it makes him mad when I talk to him, but I have to, because I've been there, so like Paul loved going to the synagogues when he went to new towns, right?

01:02:23

Because he knew what they believed and why they believed it, he knew what they were taught and why they were taught it, and he would go in there and say, guys, listen, this isn't right, look at the true gospel, right, listen to the gospel, and they would kick him out and say, you're an idiot, you're just trying to cause trouble, and so he would go out to the

01:02:38

Gentiles, and I mean, I feel like that's me, like, I don't want to do it, I don't like making people upset, I know they're going to get upset, but you know what, people got upset with Jesus, too, for preaching the truth, so on baptism, where would they go to prove text,

01:02:49

I mean, I would say, obviously, the first big one, I'll give you a chance, I'll give y 'all a guess, what do you think the first big one would be?

01:02:57

John 3, 5. John 3, 5, I thought you were going to say Acts 2, 38, so let's go to John 3, 5.

01:03:04

I had a friend who was Church of Christ growing up, it was interesting, it's a funny story, so a lot of you know that the high school

01:03:10

I went to and how I kind of got involved in this, what I do here with Coltish was back in the late 90s, and I was a little high school kid, and all my, majority of my classmates were

01:03:21

Mormon, and I had a friend named Andre, who was Church of Christ, and I was like, oh, this is fun,

01:03:27

I got someone on my team, you know, he's not Mormon, and so I think he's a Christian, so that they were bringing up their proof texts, and they, the

01:03:35

Mormons brought up John 3, 5, I'm like, no, that baptism doesn't save you, and he's like, yes, it does, no, it doesn't,

01:03:40

I kind of looked up my friend Andre, he's like, yeah, it does, wait a second, I thought you were on my team, you know, threw me out, like, what's going on here, so, yeah,

01:03:48

I know, but, so there's a point, so the context of John 3, 5, if you go there, it is the context of Jesus, and he is talking to Nicodemus, and by the way, one of the things

01:04:00

I always love is that Jesus was always someone who just cut to the chase, get rid of the small talk, let's get down to business, and he says, unless you're born again, you kind of enter the kingdom of God, and then, you know, you can analyze it, but what ends up, what they do is that they'll take, what

01:04:16

Jesus says is that unless you are born of spirit and of water, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, so that, and Church of Christ is not the only one to do this, they'll take the word water and equate that, oh, it means water, therefore that means baptism, so let's jump into that.

01:04:32

So, let me just mark this, this is where I'm going to go with it, so yeah, so, you know, some people will say to a

01:04:41

Church of Christ person, you know, when I used to be Church Christ, and they still do it today, like, what about the thief on the cross, you know, yeah, and so people say, you know, if, depends on what level of Church of Christ person you're talking to, someone might say, well, you know, he doesn't have to be because he's right beside Jesus, you know, well, that's really not a good answer, not at all, yeah, but you know, but they're, you know, they'll just stop there, but if you're really talking to a really good studied

01:05:06

Church of Christ, or he would, he would say, well, why would the thief on the cross need to be baptized, right, why would

01:05:12

Jesus need to tell him to be baptized into the death of himself when he's not dead yet, or be buried into Christ when

01:05:18

Christ isn't buried yet, or why would he tell the thief on the cross to be raised in baptism when Christ hasn't raised yet?

01:05:24

It's pointless, because you see, Hebrews 9 says, the will of a man isn't enforced until the one who made has been proven dead, right, and so if his will is for us to be baptized, he wouldn't have, there's no point of him telling the thief on the cross about baptism, and then that person's really confused and goes, like, man, that's a good answer, right, but yeah, if that person who asked the

01:05:43

Church of Christ for that just thought for a second, and if he just explained to me that the thief on the cross, it would be pointless for him to talk about water baptism, because he's not dead yet, then why is he telling

01:05:56

Nicodemus, when he walks out the front door of his ministry, tell him about being baptized, right, huh, yeah, yeah, a lot about that, like, why, like, so you're telling me that Jesus didn't tell the guy on the thief on the cross about water baptism, because he's not dead yet, yeah, then why is he telling

01:06:12

Nicodemus, yeah, he ain't dead yet there either, right, so, because that ain't what, that's not, ain't my wife, when

01:06:18

I'm preaching, my wife gets on to me all the time for saying ain't, like, she's like, you sound like the biggest redneck, like, stop it, yeah, so, sorry, uh, so this is not what

01:06:28

Nicodemus is talking about, I mean, what Jesus is talking about with Nicodemus either, he's not talking about being baptized, you know, he's talking about what

01:06:36

Nicodemus should know, when he says, look, look, Nicodemus, you have to be born again, before you can even see the kingdom of God, you can't even see it unless you're first born again, and so Nicodemus is like, what does that even mean, be born from above, right, that's the actual meaning, so what does it mean to be born from above, and Jesus says, look, you got to be born of water and spirit, now there's, you know,

01:06:58

I love what John MacArthur says, he says there's only one doctrine of different things, right, that you have all these different doctrines, there's only one doctrine, there might be different levels of understanding, there might be a milk understanding, but there's also a meat understanding, but there's only one, there's only one doctrine here, right, and so I would say, like, a milk, a milk understanding of being born of water and spirit, uh, it's, it's, it's flesh gives birth to flesh, spirit gives birth to spirit, you could say, well, that's the waters, you're becoming a human being, you know, and then there's the spirit, so it's for humans, but here's what the deep understanding is, and I think the clue that if we read the text slowly, when you get down here to, uh, verse nine, okay, so after he tells him that the spirit, being born of the spirit is like the wind blows, you don't know where it comes from, you don't know where it goes, it just, boom, and when it comes, there it is, and that's being born again, right, and so he says

01:07:55

Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be, and Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things, he said, like,

01:08:04

Nicodemus, you got to be born of water and spirit, like, you have to be born of water and spirit before you can even see the kingdom, and Nicodemus is like, what does this mean, what are you talking about, the wind and the spirit moving like that, what is it that the teacher of Israel should know, the

01:08:21

Old Testament, right, yeah, the teacher of Israel should know the Old Testament, and so this is it right here, this is in Ezekiel 36, because he,

01:08:30

Nicodemus says, well, how can these things be, he says, Nicodemus, you're the teacher of Israel, how do you not know this, here's what he should have known,

01:08:37

God says this in Ezekiel 36, verse 25 through, I, God, will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols,

01:08:48

I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you,

01:08:54

I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you, look at this verse,

01:09:02

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules, this is what

01:09:08

God does, salvation is a work of God, he does it, Nicodemus, and that's why you really came here, you didn't come here to ask me and to tell me that, oh, we know you're a teacher, no, no, you want to know, have you done enough, no, you haven't, and there's nothing you can do.

01:09:20

You know what, this is beautiful, because even in John 3, when you even go a little bit further, Jesus, if it had anything to do with baptism, you think when

01:09:28

Jesus is explaining what Moses did by lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, so all could look upon the cross of the serpent to be healed, when he's referring that, he says, so shall the son of man be lifted up on a cross, he would then say, you must believe and be baptized.

01:09:44

But wait a second, so now you're getting, Andrew, you're getting into another doctrine of the Church Christ, but the Church Christ doesn't really have doctrines written down that you study, there's no confessions, you know, none of that, but there's the teachings, right, and the teaching is the

01:09:57

Old Testament doesn't apply to you, that's a big deal, you just got rid of 90 % of God's revelation to you, okay?

01:10:04

Show them what the Bible looks like when you take out the Old Testament and the Gospels. Here's what you're doing here, is you're saying, this right here, let me get right, it's the

01:10:19

New Testament. Well, real quick, while you're pulling that up, go ahead, just while you're pulling that up, I just want to jump in too, and by the way, we are live right now, so if you are watching us on, we're streaming here on Facebook, so if you have any questions too, and maybe we'll do a

01:10:33

Q &A interaction tomorrow, but you know, just definitely give any commentary or thoughts that you have on this episode as we're streaming it live here, and we've actually got some, so while we're talking about baptism, we're talking about the context of that theology hurts people, and one of these,

01:10:47

Kieran Richter -Hill left this comment here, and said, I had a Church of Christ friend tell me that if you found someone dying in the street, you cannot give them the

01:10:56

Gospel to go to heaven, you have to take them to the Church of Christ and have them baptized to go to heaven.

01:11:02

So again, that shows, one, a lack of disregard for those who are in that position on the street, but then there's this unweighted burden that, oh no,

01:11:13

I want this person to hear the Gospel, but I can't do anything because I don't have the ability to pull him off the streets and do that, so yeah.

01:11:24

And so back to what you're saying is, in John 3, you're quoting verse 15, right, that when he's lifted up and whoever believes in him, he doesn't say be baptized, but their explanation is that, well, the

01:11:35

Old Testament doesn't apply to you, right? So this right here of revelation of God, this much doesn't apply, only this much, right?

01:11:42

That's ridiculous, right? And so you might be thinking,

01:11:48

Andrew, you're like, Trey, but John is New Testament, but no, see what you don't understand is the

01:11:54

New Testament doesn't actually start until Acts. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are actually

01:11:59

Old Testament books because that's when Jesus came to fulfill the... He was still alive. Right. It's a

01:12:04

Gospel. And when I, you know, I'm talking to some people, I mean, I talked to an elder who I love to death not too long ago,

01:12:12

I said, look, do you think you could be a Christian and say that the words of Christ don't apply to me?

01:12:18

Yeah. Can you be a Christian and say that? And he's like, no, no, you can't. I'm like, okay, do you believe

01:12:23

John 3, 16? He's like, well, yeah. I'm like, okay, let's read it slowly. For God so loved the world that, what does he say?

01:12:30

He gave his only begotten son that whoever believe on him. Do you believe that? Do you really believe that whoever believes in Christ will have eternal life?

01:12:39

He looked at me, he's like, huh? So you don't believe that? You don't believe the words of Christ.

01:12:45

Like that's, that should be a what? Like what kind of word judo

01:12:52

Bible junk has been happening to me where I don't believe the words of Christ apply to me. Right? Right.

01:12:58

Because that's in John, not necessarily... Yeah, because that's Old Testament. Right. Okay. And so, but, it's so sad.

01:13:06

Yeah. It's just, it's heartbreaking. And it really, it's just heartbreaking. That's all I can tell you, man.

01:13:11

It kills me. Yeah. And just, I'll give another example. One of my thoughts when it comes to dealing with it, just context -wise and, you know, and especially when you're taught to read a passage out of isolation, you know, you look at John 3 and John 4, just in comparison to each other.

01:13:25

And you could use the example of them in the covenant is that you like John's using the gospel to show that it's for everyone.

01:13:32

You give the example of being Nicodemus, this Pharisee of Pharisees, who was supposed to be very knowledgeable of the

01:13:37

Old Testament and Christ meets him where he is at. And Nicodemus, another thing too, is that Nicodemus is meeting with him at night.

01:13:44

So, and that's because he didn't want to be seen talking to Jesus. So there's a fear of man aspect there.

01:13:50

And later on, you see Nicodemus, he makes a cameo later on in the gospels. And those of you know it, you know it, and if not, read it.

01:13:58

But what's interesting too, is that the very next chapter, you have John chapter 4 talking about how

01:14:03

John 3 is saying that the gospel's for the Jews and that John 4, the gospel's for the

01:14:09

Gentiles. So you look at the woman at the well. So back during the historical times, the

01:14:14

Samaritans were almost viewed as non -human, that they were just deal, they're dealt with, yeah, half -breeds, the lesser of the less people.

01:14:22

So it's not just a Samaritan. Jesus talks to a Samaritan prostitute and basically calls her out on her sin and meets her where she's at.

01:14:31

It's a beautiful passage, but what I'm talking about in regards to baptism is that Jesus is talking about a metaphor here in John 3.

01:14:39

And the church of Christ would agree with that, right? That he's talking about water, but he's actually talking about baptism. Ah yeah, they say it's baptism.

01:14:46

Okay, so I'm, and I've talked about this with someone who's UPC, and he could not answer me for the life of me.

01:14:52

Well, here's a situation, and I would say, and here's what I would talk to you as a church of Christ person, because you have the same view.

01:14:58

I would say, well, John 4, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well.

01:15:04

There's physical water involved. And she asks, how can I have this living water?

01:15:11

Why is it when she asked that question, not once did Jesus ever mention anything remotely regarding to baptism.

01:15:18

The only thing that came up in the conversation was he called her out on her sin, and then they had a conversation about the temple, and he pointed it to himself.

01:15:29

And so that's something where I would just, I would have, in Baltimore I would do this, where you'd have someone, a cultist, read that text in context and ask the question.

01:15:39

So if I asked that question to someone at the church of Christ, what would be your process as someone in the church of Christ if I brought that up to you?

01:15:45

So I'm now, I got the church of Christ hat on, and I'm looking at you, and I'm like, dude, you think you got me on something?

01:15:53

I'm about to wear you out. I'd be like, Jeremiah, dude, you don't understand something.

01:16:00

Listen to me. Why is someone baptized? Where do they get baptized in? What does Romans 6 say?

01:16:07

You're baptized into the death. It says, look, shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means. We died to sin. How can we live any longer?

01:16:13

Don't you know that all of us who were baptized were baptized into the death of Christ, right? Into his burial, into his resurrection, right?

01:16:20

In order that we might be saved. So in other words, you wouldn't answer the text, you would divert to another one? No, no, no. I wouldn't even divert.

01:16:25

I'm just, I'm explaining to you why this woman wouldn't get baptized. Why would she be baptized into the death of Jesus when he's not dead yet?

01:16:32

Oh, okay. If baptism is being baptized into the death of Christ, into the burial of Christ, into the resurrection of Christ, why would this woman?

01:16:39

But wouldn't that also be contradicting John 3 because he's mentioning water baptism before his death saying, this is how you must be born again.

01:16:46

And that's, it seems it's the present tense. But you know, yeah, see like that's what they would, they would, ah, that's what my point is.

01:16:54

Why are they, why are you telling me that Jesus doesn't mention baptism to the thief on the cross at the end of his life, but he does on the beginning when he's not dead here either in chapter three?

01:17:04

Yeah. Because that's not what it's about. I mean, yeah. And again, here's, here's what I would say. It's not so much when you talk to someone in church of Christ, getting into a deep

01:17:13

Baptist baptism debate with them, you know, you got to hit, dude, you were a wretched center.

01:17:21

You have, you were born in sin and, and you know it, you know what I'm saying? Like, and you get them to say like, kids are bad.

01:17:29

Yeah. You, you're a person. God is a holy God, eternal God, and you're righteous deeds. So think about is baptism a righteous deed or not?

01:17:37

Is baptism a righteous deed? Yeah. Yeah. It's a righteous deed, but guess what it is. It's a filthy rag to God. There is nothing.

01:17:43

And when you say they would agree with you, there's nothing you can do for your salvation, but you ask them, do you really believe that?

01:17:49

Do you believe that there's nothing you can do? So that means even your baptism, no, there's nothing. It's faith alone in Christ alone.

01:17:55

And then you can show them all through acts that it's not baptism in acts. And you know, I like to stay in acts because in fundamentalist groups, which the church of Christ is a fundamentalist group.

01:18:05

They like to stay in acts because there's a lot of baptism. Like Pentecostals love to stay in acts because they're like a lot of tongue stuff, you know?

01:18:11

Yeah. So that's where they want to stay and camp out there. And so I was like, let's just stay in acts. Let's stay in acts.

01:18:17

We ain't got to go like, cause if we go anywhere else, you're going to drown in scripture, right? So let's just stay in acts, see what it says.

01:18:24

But you've got to understand where they're coming from. They're coming from, you look at chapter four from an

01:18:30

Orthodox Christian view. You have to look at it from an unorthodox that that's not even

01:18:36

New Testament. So you think that's not even New Testament. That's why it doesn't apply.

01:18:41

So let's get to Acts 2 .38 then specifically, since that is New Testament, right? And it's going to apply to us.

01:18:47

Can you read it and then kind of give the idea behind it? Cause I got a question with regards to Acts 2 .38.

01:18:54

Maybe I'm thinking incorrectly. But I would love to hear you just go through it real quick. Acts 2 .38.

01:19:02

Peter said, I can quote it to you, but Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

01:19:11

And you will receive the gift of the Holy spirit for this promise is for you and for your children, for all who are far off, everyone whom the

01:19:20

Lord God calls to himself. And I want to say this real quick. Cause we started off by saying, I was mentored and discipled by Phil Robertson.

01:19:27

You know, when I came, became reformed and studying historical Christianity and seeing this stuff.

01:19:33

And then, you know, before I even went to seminary or any of that, um, you know,

01:19:38

I got, you know, none of my leaders would talk to me about this and like, study with me, you know?

01:19:43

Cause I'd be like, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just like, look, what does this mean? What does this mean? What does this mean?

01:19:48

What does this mean? What does this mean? And they were just like, it doesn't mean that whatever it means, it doesn't mean that, you know?

01:19:54

And so I was just not satisfied with the answer of, it doesn't mean that, but I want to say that like of all of my leaders and where I came from, the only one who literally sat down and study with me was

01:20:05

Phil. And that's what I really love and appreciate and respect about him. And, and this verse reminds me when we were studying, you know, one of the other guys who was there asked me, what is acts 238 say?

01:20:16

And I said, well, it says, repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy spirit.

01:20:22

What does verse 39 say? And he's like, you know, I'm like, well, let's read it.

01:20:27

And so Phil reads it and he says, it's, he gets his Bible out and he reads it.

01:20:33

It's, it's this promises for you, your children, all who are far off, all whom the Lord God calls to himself.

01:20:39

And then when he read that part, it's for all whom the Lord God calls. He's like, all right, I'm listening now. And so we had a really good

01:20:45

Bible study. I appreciate the time that he gave me to, to listen, you know, he's the only one. And so, I mean, I just want to say that that meant a lot to me.

01:20:52

Yeah. Well, even the, even too, when you look at it, we, we gave an example too, we're kind of, we're going into, uh, you know, kind of like playing devil's advocate, going back and forth, talking, putting the church of Christ hat on and, um, you know, talking about that.

01:21:05

So we, we use the example between John three and John four. And, uh, and obviously that was the example to show that it's important as Christians to read the entirety of the

01:21:14

Bible in context. And the more you become familiar with the original, you'll be able to give answers to people, not to just say, ha,

01:21:21

I'm right. You're wrong. But to ask constructive questions to get them to think, because one of them,

01:21:26

I think the real sweet spot is as two things is one you want when you can get them in a place where you can just say something that's outside the realm of what their proof texts are.

01:21:36

And all of a sudden you get them to think that that's really where the, where the, where the real juice is in regards to, uh, evangelism to a cultist and getting them to think.

01:21:46

But also I think that, um, you know, presuppositionally, we don't have to necessarily convince them that they are sinners under the burden of sin.

01:21:57

They know that they are according to what scripture already says about them. So there's that, but jumping into acts two 38 and you're familiar with this passage too,

01:22:06

I believe it's an X chapter 10 where it, this is a counterpoint where it said where there's a, the gospel is being preached.

01:22:14

And just for the sake of paraphrase that there's a, there's a group that experiences conversion and it says, shall we not bring these people to the baptism of water to, to be baptized as they have received the

01:22:27

Holy Spirit just as we have. So in that context, what you see is that these people have already received the

01:22:34

Holy Spirit prior to the waters of baptism. So if, if we're going to, you know, put on your church of Christ hat on that one, well, it's saying, well, hold on a second while you're saying you're giving this as a, this is the method.

01:22:47

A method is being taught for baptism in the acts two 38, but we're seeing here, these people are being told have already received the

01:22:54

Holy Spirit and they haven't been baptized. How do you account for the two? Yeah. Um, so here's what the, a good church of Christ would say, but before I even put my church of Christ hat on, this is an, uh, acts 10.

01:23:09

And if you look at verse 43, it says to him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name.

01:23:18

And I had one of my old friends tell me that that's just shorthand for baptism.

01:23:24

I'm like, man, it literally says that whoever believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins.

01:23:29

And just, you can just say that's shorthand for what you believe it. Like that's crazy, you know, but it, that's what, that's what happens.

01:23:38

So what I would say as a church, if I put my church of Christ hat on right here with, with chapter 10, and you mentioned that the key verse that should be read as a church of Christ person, but here would be the explanation.

01:23:50

If you were a church of Christ person explaining this, I'll read the text and then explain it to you in a church of Christ way.

01:23:56

While Peter was still staying, these things, the Holy spirit fell on all who heard the word and the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the

01:24:05

Holy spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles where they were hearing them speaking in tongues and distorting

01:24:11

God. And Peter declared, can, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the

01:24:16

Holy spirit? They stopped there. I would stop there as a church of Christ or right. And I wouldn't do it on a conscious level.

01:24:22

It's just the way I was trained. So I would just stop there. Yeah. Right. Cause my focus is what baptism that's my focus.

01:24:29

And so I would say, okay, here's what you need to understand. These are the first Gentiles converted, correct? Yeah. Okay.

01:24:35

Correct. These are the first Gentiles converted. Okay. So let me ask you a question. It says the

01:24:41

Holy spirit fell on them. Okay. So Andrew, what's better for a baby milk on them or in them, you know, in them, what would you say it would milk be better poured on a baby or in a baby?

01:24:53

I would be very concerned to see, I mean, we're here at fight left feast and there's a lot of people just pouring milk on their babies.

01:24:59

Yeah. There's a lot of people, a lot of kids, some people carry around babies. I have not seen anyone pour milk on their baby yet.

01:25:07

I'll be concerned like, is everything okay? So as you can see here, Jeremiah, the spirit is not in them.

01:25:15

It's on them. It just fell on them to show Peter and the other apostles that they can be baptized and actually receive the

01:25:23

Holy spirit. And now look, now you're someone that doesn't know the Bible, right? You are, you don't know anything about the

01:25:29

Bible. And so you're like hearing this, you're like, Oh my gosh, that makes sense. Milk in a baby on a baby.

01:25:35

Yeah. Holy spirit was on them, not in them. It was just to show them that the Gentiles could be saved. Oh yeah,

01:25:41

I get it. And you flip to something else, right? But let's just pause, read that verse again, verse 47 of chapter 10.

01:25:47

Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy spirit just as we have?

01:25:54

So see, they talked to me and I would have to say, well, listen, are you saying that the apostles and Peter did not have the spirit in them?

01:26:01

It was just on them because they received the Holy spirit just as they did. And so then

01:26:06

I want to turn real quick to 15 chapter 15. He retells the story. Luke records it again.

01:26:13

He says, look, after there had been much debate, pause right there after there had been much debate.

01:26:21

So that's not wrong, right? Somebody has got to stand up for the truth, contend for the faith. Yeah. Peter stood up and said to them, brothers, you know, that in the early days,

01:26:30

God made a choice among you that by my mouth, the Gentile should hear the word of God of the gospel and believe not be baptized, but in belief and God who knows the heart bore witness to them by giving them the

01:26:42

Holy spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them having cleansed their hearts by faith.

01:26:52

So he retells the story and again, says they received the Holy spirit just like we did when we had faith.

01:27:00

And this would go back to, you know, like when you're talking about baptism with the church of Christ, they love

01:27:05

Roman six rhyme because it's about, it's talking about baptism. But if you just stop and go to remember,

01:27:10

I told you earlier, it's really important to go Romans one, two, three, four, five, six, because there's something that comes before all that.

01:27:17

Right. Very important. And so Romans five says that we're justified by faith. And since we've been justified by faith, we're at peace with God.

01:27:24

So that's chapter five verse one. So if we just stop and say, listen, do you really believe the word of God?

01:27:31

Because this is what makes a disciple. This is what is what salvation is. The faith of Abraham, right?

01:27:36

Abraham believed the word of God. When God spoke, he believed the word period.

01:27:43

That's what made him righteous. That's what in the eyes of God, he was viewed righteous because he believed the word. And here the word says you're justified by faith.

01:27:51

And now, because of that, you have peace with God. Do you believe that you don't, you don't believe the word you believe it's faith plus baptism.

01:28:00

And this is called Roman Catholicism. Faith plus baptism unto good works equals salvation.

01:28:07

That's Roman Catholic. Church of Christ is faith plus baptism unto good works, because you don't know you might lose your salvation, right?

01:28:16

Right. Then you have salvation. I have a question. So if we go to like thinking about Acts two 38 and what the text says for the remission of sins, right?

01:28:24

Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. What do they believe actually occurs in baptism?

01:28:30

Do they do they believe looking at the text in that way that literally their sins are removed from them in the baptism?

01:28:36

Yeah, it's, it's you receive. So take Galatians out of the Bible. Okay. Because it's very clear that you receive the

01:28:44

Holy Spirit by hearing with faith. Right. Right. I mean, as clear as a bell, Romans as clear as it Galatians is clear.

01:28:51

The Old Testament is clear, but that doesn't apply to us. So yeah, they would say that when you're baptized is when you receive the forgiveness of sins.

01:29:00

That's forgiveness of sins. Cause like your sins are not forgiven until you're baptized into Christ into the death of Christ.

01:29:06

Cause when you, when you're baptized, that's when you die to yourself. That's when you're dead and you're buried and you raise up new.

01:29:13

I mean, it's the same lingo. You see what I'm saying? It's, it's, it's a very good thing for people who don't understand the book where you can really twist some people up in this.

01:29:22

And then, you know, I got friends who are just good old Baptist that are getting influenced by this stuff and it starts creeping in.

01:29:31

You know what I'm saying? Then all of a sudden you start seeing them, they go to these retreats and now like, do you think any Baptist retreat would ever be baptizing people just like this?

01:29:37

No, no. But nowadays they're like dunk them. You know what I'm saying? Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's, I mean, it's, it's just not good.

01:29:48

So they don't, they don't even understand what they're getting into. Well, if anyone had any doubt that we were hanging around a bunch of Presbyterians, you can hear in the background, we have a bunch of folks very passionately singing psalms here at Five Life Feast.

01:30:01

So that's, if you were hearing that background, that's what, that's what's going on there. So yeah, it's very, yeah,

01:30:07

I appreciate the point of you bringing that all out. And so when it comes to the aspects of baptism too, and I appreciate you giving that context, how, how do they view the cross, what

01:30:20

Jesus actually accomplished, what he accomplished on the cross? Because I know when I was spending time actually interacting with some folks who were

01:30:29

UPC, United Pentecostal Church International, UPCI, we've done episodes on them.

01:30:35

They would have the same view of baptism and viewing those and just viewing those certain passages in that particular context as they see it.

01:30:46

But when it comes to the, when I was talking about what happened at the cross and what was

01:30:51

Jesus doing, what actually happened there, there seemed to be a real struggle and disconnect because the focus was in so much on baptism.

01:31:00

What did they, what's their view of the atonement or how do they view what happened at the cross or is there a disconnect there?

01:31:06

Yeah, there's, there's obviously disconnect there. I don't think they understand atonement, right? But I'll tell you this, like, just to be fair,

01:31:12

I mean, they, they, they would say the right things. Everybody says the right things. I mean, I don't ever talk to a professing

01:31:17

Christian. I don't care what they are. I don't care what they are. They say, yeah, we're saved by grace alone through faith alone. They say

01:31:22

God's in control of everything. He's sovereign, right? They say that there's nothing you can do for your salvation.

01:31:29

They say that Jesus, like, but, but do they really believe those things? I mean, you have to say those things.

01:31:34

And so really they don't believe that there really was an atonement at the cross. I mean, they would say that they would say that Jesus died for our sins and everybody sins.

01:31:41

But when you really get in the weeds of it, because they just don't, there's no depth, right?

01:31:47

They can't, they really at the end of the day, in reality, Jesus died for an opportunity for everyone.

01:31:53

Yeah. He didn't really pay for anything. Yeah. And let's do this. If anyone is, um, on here, we've got, uh,

01:31:59

I think around 30 or 40 people on here and we'll just take them as they go. If you have a specific question for Trey, since we are live, uh, go ahead and ask that and we'll take a look.

01:32:07

I'll keep an eye on the comments here. So, uh, feel free to kind of give, leave your questions, interact as we'll do. We can interact with them, but maybe can you give us now some practice?

01:32:16

Cause now we gave the example a moment ago, that theology hurts people, um, talk about then now this view of baptism, the sinless perfectionism, and it kind of really not having an ultimate point of reference for the sin that they're dealing with.

01:32:30

Cause it's sort of by a process of undue influence, not being born, that's not something that's solely yours and yours alone.

01:32:36

Uh, there's that aspect, but now I have to be baptized, but you know, there's times where now

01:32:43

I'm still there. And then rebaptized and rebaptized because the first one didn't take right.

01:32:50

I mean, I don't know, you know, and I'm sure everybody has their own different lingo, but ours back home was, if you know, if you, if you got baptized and then you all all of a sudden started going off a different path, going crazy and doing stupid stuff and you want to come back.

01:33:02

I mean, then it's a, man, you, you really need to get rebaptized. You need to get, you need to get rebaptized.

01:33:08

And you know, the first one didn't take, you know, or if someone wanted to get rebaptized, they would be like, Hey man,

01:33:13

I think I need to be rebaptized. And I'm like, Hey man. Okay. Because I mean, I'm not going to stay in the way of that. Right. And so,

01:33:19

I mean, if you think about when they say like, well, we don't believe that the water saves you, we don't believe that, you know, cause you can't say that, but when you say they got rebaptized or they need to, because the first one didn't take, what didn't take.

01:33:33

See that, that's what I'm wondering. Like, so I'm thinking back at there. Now look, I used to say that now, like that was me.

01:33:39

That was me. Like that was me. And I mean, many others, but yeah, that's what, that's what

01:33:46

I'm wondering. Like, so if we go back to the, what we were talking about in the beginning with a full on Pelagianism, that you're born sinless until you eventually sin at some arbitrary age.

01:33:56

So when you're baptized for the remission of sins, when I'm thinking about the text in Acts 2 38, it would logically follow.

01:34:02

That literally means baptism removes those sins from you. You're almost back at the same spot you were before you ever sinned.

01:34:11

It's a do over. So wouldn't logically that mean every time you sin that you need to be baptized again? I mean, well, so here's the deal.

01:34:17

I mean, if you take Acts 2 38 to its logical conclusion. Yeah. But now you have like Mormons, right?

01:34:24

Mormons say that there's just one Mormon church, right? But there, we know there's all these different sects, church of Christ.

01:34:31

There's all these different sects as well. I mean, you have one cuppers, you have people who say, okay, you have a church building, but you can't have the auditorium or like a kitchen area in it because that would be sinful.

01:34:41

If you have to have a walkway, like a breezeway to the other kitchen area, but there has to be a gap because it can't meet the church building.

01:34:48

Legalism gets very legal. So, I mean, there's totally different stages in the church of Christ. Like where I came from a very,

01:34:54

I mean, in the church of Christ world, a very liberal church of Christ, you know what I'm saying? Like now they have music, right?

01:35:00

And which, you know, that's a big no -no in the church of Christ to have musical instruments around me. So I came from a very liberal, it would be considered church of Christ.

01:35:11

I mean, they wouldn't, where I came from, nobody, and not many people I know, now maybe there's probably some, but most would not say that you have to get re -baptized every time you sin, right?

01:35:22

I mean, they're starting to get a little gracious, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, I got a ton of people

01:35:28

I love to death up in North Arkansas where, I mean, I love this church. It's a church of Christ church. Love these people to absolute death, the sweetest people in the world.

01:35:37

And I can't imagine one of them saying that you got to get re -baptized if you sin again. Like they do get a grasp of grace.

01:35:44

I think that's kind of a newish thing in the church of Christ. You know, I think, you know, 20, 30 years ago, not so much, but I think they have grown in that area.

01:35:51

They're trying to get some of those concepts. They get it a little bit. So, but there are some who would say that like, like if you see an 18 wheeler about to hit you and you say a cuss word, like you're out, dog.

01:36:02

Yeah. It's almost like trying to have your cake and eat it too. Cause it almost sounds like if you take Acts 2 38, that the baptism removes the sins, then you would kind of have to keep getting baptized every time you sin.

01:36:12

So it's like, we'll take a little bit of grace, but now we're going to be in contradiction to what we really want to do in the first place.

01:36:18

Seems really inconsistent. Yeah. Let's, let's do this real quickly. And again, if you guys are listening in where we, a couple of you've asked some good questions and it can be really about anything that we've talked about so far.

01:36:28

We've been on for about an hour and 30 minutes. So thank you guys for watching us live here. I think this is a really good question.

01:36:34

A Laura Renee asked that she said, so was baptism for nothing. And I think that that is a good question because if you have, and I don't know if a

01:36:42

Laura is Renee is church of Christ, I would assume that that's a possibility given the question, but I think that's a legitimate question to answer.

01:36:50

So what is, so if we're going to argue that baptism is not essential for salvation, I would say that the result of being saved is a changed heart with new desires to love the things of the

01:37:03

Lord and desire the things that he desires. And so one of the things that if you are, if you profess faith in Christ, but you have no desire to be baptized,

01:37:13

I think that is something you could bring into question because it's an aspect of obedience. And even though I would say, even if it's not, if baptism doesn't save you, it's not, it's, it's a faith in Christ alone and it's

01:37:27

Christ's work on the cross that saves you. You could still argue that baptism is inherently a spiritual practice and work in the same way where it says, you know, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you on the very basic level.

01:37:43

It is an act of obedience. Anytime you do an act of obedience, you choose to follow Christ. And you, for example, you're putting sin to death and you say,

01:37:50

I do not want to do this sin. I want to follow and be obedient to Christ. There's a level, it is a spiritual practice in and of itself.

01:37:58

And that's just my thought in it. But explain for someone who asked that, and they're from the church of Christ, how do you explain what baptism actually is in a way that they understand?

01:38:08

This is good. So I want to tell you about a very false, a false humility, right?

01:38:15

A false humility, piety, a emergent church type philosophy answer to some of this stuff would be a church of Christ who says,

01:38:23

I don't want to get in the debate. I mean, because even a Baptist says you still have to do it. If you truly are Christian, you're going to do it anyway.

01:38:29

So I don't want to even get in the debate. Right. So I'm like, I'm backing out. I'm the pious one. I'm the pious one.

01:38:35

Like, no, no, no, no. Like, so the question, her question is, is baptism for nothing?

01:38:41

Well, is feeding the hungry for nothing? Right. Is clothing the poor for nothing?

01:38:47

Like, no, it's, it's what Christ said to do. And so let me, here's the question that we believe we're all doctrines of grace reform guys here, right?

01:38:56

Yeah. Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

01:39:01

It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed and crucified. Let me ask you only this.

01:39:07

And so this is why I tell people, let me, let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit, the

01:39:12

Holy spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Like, let me just ask you, did you receive the Holy spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

01:39:20

And they say, well, I'm not talking about works of the law. I don't think I get it by works of the law. I'm like, I don't think you understand what the law is.

01:39:26

If God says to do anything, if he says, skip across the road three times and then do a belly roll, that's law.

01:39:33

You better do it. You better do whatever God says to do. Right. But by doing those things, if you think you receive the spirit by doing that, like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:39:42

You missed the point. Or did you receive it by hearing with faith? He says, are you so foolish having begun by the spirit?

01:39:48

Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you receive, did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies a spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

01:40:01

Again, hearing with faith. Abraham believed God and it was counting him as righteous. No, that is those of faith who are the sons of and the scripture for seeing that God would justify the

01:40:11

Gentiles by faith, by faith, preaching the gospel beforehand to Abraham. See, the old

01:40:17

Testament does matter. The gospel was preached to Abraham and that's old Testament saying in you shall all the nations be blessed.

01:40:24

So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. And then you go on to verse 14.

01:40:30

It says that we receive the promised Holy spirit through faith. And so this is a big deal. This is the

01:40:35

Galatian heresy. This is why chapter one says you will go to hell if you believe any other gospel, right? Right.

01:40:41

Because his gospel is that you're saved by faith alone in Christ alone. That's chapter two, chapter three. He says, listen, if you don't, you, you need to understand this guys.

01:40:49

And this is a big deal. And this is where my heart is because I love these people. And if this book right here is true,

01:40:55

Galatian, if the Galatian heresy is true, and if he was mad because they were taking the old law out of context, how mad would

01:41:02

Paul be if they're taking his own words out of context? Wow. Yeah. That's good. And so another question is, and I think you articulated this a little bit earlier.

01:41:11

Let me see if I can find it here real quickly, but, and maybe you can just rearticulate, I think you mentioned this earlier, but also

01:41:17

Laura mentions that it says, I've heard you, I've heard it said to believe in Christ, you are saved, but there was never a disciple who was not baptized.

01:41:27

What's the separation and importance slash significance of baptism apart from a part or attached to a salvation?

01:41:33

Just address that real quickly. Okay. Well, I don't know how to make the claim that there was, what'd she say again?

01:41:38

Can you go back just to, it says, yeah, it says no one who is a disciple was baptized. They were all baptized.

01:41:44

Yeah. It says, I've heard it said to believe in Christ, you are saved, but there was never a disciple who was not baptized.

01:41:51

Okay. I'm assuming that's church of Christ claim. Uh, what's the separation and important significance of baptism apart?

01:41:59

Was there a significance of baptism apart or attached to salvation? So look, look at the first part of it, that there's never a disciple who was not baptized, right?

01:42:08

Well, we have no evidence that Peter was baptized. We have no evidence that Matthew was baptized.

01:42:14

The only apostle we have evidence of being baptized was Paul, right? Right. You with me?

01:42:20

Yeah. Okay. So in John chapter 20, and if you say that you receive the Holy spirit through baptism, that's it like that, but that's it, right?

01:42:29

Well, let me read you John 20 when Jesus rose from the dead and he comes to him. He talked to him. He says, peace be with you as the father has sent me, even so I'm sending you.

01:42:38

And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy spirit. So they didn't receive the

01:42:45

Holy spirit through baptism. They received by Jesus Christ, breathing it into them and give them this download of information to write the rest of this book, you know?

01:42:53

And so I don't know if we can make the claim that there's never been a disciple who wasn't baptized. I believe that there's people in China today who don't, who they have one page of this book and they hear about Jesus Christ.

01:43:05

They put their faith in him, right? And they don't know anything about baptism and they're killed. And even if the, all the disciples were baptized, they weren't baptized thinking that it saved them by their work.

01:43:15

No, that's the assumption. That saved them. Right. That's the assumption too. And so like, let me clear that up again.

01:43:21

I want to be a fair assessment. Okay. Now there are some obviously who believe that like that's, that's it, you know, but everybody's got crazy uncles.

01:43:30

I mean, they could say, you know, they can say stuff about us. They're like, Oh, y 'all believe all babies go to hell. Like, no, no, we don't.

01:43:35

Like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Where are you getting that from? So everybody's got crazy people in their family. But to give a fair assessment,

01:43:42

I don't, I don't know any many people who would say that the water actually saves you.

01:43:48

They would say that, but that's when you're saved. Right. They won't say that, that the water saves you. But, but when you say that it didn't take, see, it gets confusing there.

01:43:56

Right. What didn't take, it was the water, right? This is why it's just such a confusing thing. Well, wouldn't that bring into question then their original proof texts to begin with at John 3, 5, that it's not the water that saves you, but that's the moment in which you are saved.

01:44:08

Well, Jesus mentioned water referring to baptism, but it is baptism, but it isn't really the baptism. It's just the time when you're baptized that is the case.

01:44:16

Yeah. I don't think that the water in John 3 is talking about baptism or water. I think it's talking about the water that God does in our heart when he sprinkles us with water and he puts his spirit in us to cause us to obey him.

01:44:26

Which is Titus 3, verse 5, talked about not by words, but righteousness, but according to his mercy, saved us by the washing, regeneration, renewal of the

01:44:33

Holy Spirit. Right. And that's what the apostles say here in Acts. They're talking about how they remembered, like when they were in Acts 15 here, they're like, man, we remember that Jesus said that, you know, that John baptized with water, but I'm, he's going to come and baptize them with the spirit.

01:44:46

Dude, we saw it happen with the Gentiles. It came on them just like it did us when we had faith, we saw it happen.

01:44:52

This is amazing. So that's, what's really going on. So her question, I would say that there have been many disciples who probably died, who weren't baptized.

01:45:01

You know what I'm saying? I believe that when we're saved by faith, right. And, and she, or not just to clarify, she's not church of Christ.

01:45:08

I think she just wanted to see what's our side in comparison to the church of Christ. And I was about to say, I don't know what she really believes, but she would,

01:45:15

I guarantee you whatever she is, because it doesn't matter who you are, people say you're saved by faith.

01:45:23

But the question is, do you really believe that? Right. And this is where the rub happens because here's, here's the scary thing. Okay. This is what happens with fundamentalist groups.

01:45:30

Fundamentalist groups are the best at community. Right. And so if you show them this and they're built on these things, right.

01:45:39

And they say, God's sovereign. He's in control of everything. You're saved by faith through grace. Right. You know, all these things,

01:45:44

Christ alone, they'll say all those things. But when you really press them on, do you really believe that? And they realize that they don't really believe that.

01:45:51

And that's kind of a scary situation. Now you're in a very scary spot. Cause you're like, oh my goodness, I'm seeing things

01:45:57

I've never seen before. It makes way more sense. But if I accept this, I'm going to lose the community.

01:46:03

I'm going to lose my position. I'm going to lose friends. Cause I've, I've seen it happen. Now I've seen people lose.

01:46:09

I don't want to lose friends. I don't want to lose, lose the spot. I have the name tag I carry. And so what you realize is the idol, this really worship is not the truth of God's word.

01:46:18

It's the community. Wow. And that's a sad thing, but that's not, I'm not just picking on any fundamentalist group.

01:46:25

I mean, you said, I mean, y 'all do this show. I mean, you see it. I mean, y 'all hear that all the time. Right. What's, what's the price to get out of a fundamentalist group?

01:46:31

You lose the community. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, y 'all, y 'all do some crazy, crazy stuff.

01:46:37

Yeah. And, and, and essentially when you lose the community, you're essentially also being damned by that community saying you've also lost salvation.

01:46:45

And you've seen this on your other, like other denominations, religions that you do.

01:46:53

And if, if you were the part of the one true church, right. If you're a part of the one true church and you find out, oh my goodness, well, there's nowhere else to go.

01:47:01

Why? Because everybody else is wrong. Yeah. So there's no like, so heck with it. I'm going to go live crazy and just,

01:47:06

I can't, you know, I'm done. Right. Because it's the brainwashing of like, you're part of the one true church.

01:47:13

Everybody else is wrong, you know, and we got it. I mean, we restored the church.

01:47:18

We're part of the restoration movement. We restored the one true church. Yeah. And so there's, where else do you go once that's been dripped in your head your whole life?

01:47:26

Yeah. And as well, I think it's one of those things too, now as we're covering up this, we've gone, I think we're around,

01:47:31

I think we're around the two hour mark. Like two hours and 10 minutes, I think. Yeah. Something like that. No one else listening.

01:47:39

And I want to eat some of that food, Isaac. I know. We're looking, our producer Isaac is over here. At one point, Isaac is a, by the way,

01:47:45

Isaac is a plethora of wisdom. At some point, we're going to get you to come on the podcast. You're shaking his head.

01:47:50

You are, you sit down there and you talk and you're like this wise sage. You're way beyond your years.

01:47:56

You're way beyond the few gray hairs in your beard. I think it's, yeah, we're admiring your food over there.

01:48:02

I think we're going to get kind of hungry too, but I just want to make a point too, that again, we talked about earlier that we can only really give an account for a cult or a cultish group through a biblical worldview and giving an absolute standard for the source of this theological hurt.

01:48:19

Because here, you might have someone who's involved in a group like the church of Christ and they leave and they are shunned and whatnot.

01:48:27

But again, that ultimately is the source of it comes from the theological distortion.

01:48:33

But if you're going to start at the hurt or the cult trauma, you are really falling short of giving an ultimate accounting of why that's an issue to begin with.

01:48:43

But also to understand that when we're doing this, we're not just having a Bible study with a cultist.

01:48:50

And this applies for any of the groups we've talked here on cultish. This is about people experiencing the spirit of the

01:48:56

Lord, where there is freedom, but also realize that for many people, we have to realize that this message comes with a weight salvificly, that these people would come to be in the real rest of Christ.

01:49:11

But also the fact that there is, for many people, even though we still for the time being have it well here in the

01:49:19

United States, for many people, you mentioned, when you talk about getting ostracized or shunned or not being able to be part of the community or a group, for many cultists, the count the cost that Jesus talks about becomes very real, very quickly.

01:49:35

So maybe just, what are your thoughts on that? Oh, there's so many thoughts on that. I mean, I think of John 12, it says the Pharisees knew it, they believed him, but for fear of the other

01:49:42

Pharisees, they didn't want to say anything because they didn't want to get kicked out of the synagogue because they love the praise of men more than the glory of the

01:49:48

Father, right? And so it's this whole, what I see, it's normal. That's happened all the way back here with the

01:49:54

Pharisees, right? And when somebody leaves a Baptist church and goes to a Methodist church, you don't see people splitting over that.

01:50:00

Presbyterian, nobody's cutting off families over that. But you see a Pentecostal, Mormon, Church of Christ, stuff like that.

01:50:08

I mean, it's cut ties, done, stay away from them, protect the community. It's all about the family.

01:50:14

We're all one family. Not just the mom and dad and kids, I mean, it's the church, it's the family.

01:50:20

You've got to protect them, stay away from them. But you don't see it when you're in it. You don't see that when you're in it.

01:50:26

When you get out of it, you start seeing it. That's not normal when someone leaves and goes to a different church and says, look,

01:50:31

I believe a little bit different. It's not like, cut them off. I don't want to see my grandkids anymore.

01:50:38

I mean, come on. And so what happens is, look, what was the question?

01:50:45

Because I was, I got off on that and then I was making a point here. On the lady? No, not on the lady.

01:50:52

Let me pull it back up. I lost my phone timed out here. Here's what I want to point out is when you, back to kind of what we talked about earlier, the

01:51:00

Old Testament doesn't really apply to us anymore. And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are actually Old Testament books.

01:51:08

John 5, Jesus says, how can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only

01:51:16

God? And then verse 46, he says, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me for he wrote of me.

01:51:22

But if you don't believe his writings, how will you believe my words? And so how do you believe

01:51:28

Jesus when he says, whoever believes in me will be saved? You don't even believe Moses.

01:51:34

This is what Jesus says right here. Luke 24. I love this. And verse 25 of 24,

01:51:42

Jesus says, you foolish ones, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Who's that?

01:51:47

That's Old Testament. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter to his glory? And he beginning with Moses, that's the first five books of the

01:51:56

Bible and all the prophets he interpreted to them and all the things concerning himself.

01:52:03

That's Old Testament. It matters. It matters, guys. When you're growing up, dude, come on, please listen.

01:52:12

I mean, it even has to matter, right? Like Acts 17, 11, when Paul is speaking to the Bereans, he commends them for saying they're more noble than those in Thessalonica, because when he came to them to preach to them, they searched the scriptures to see that whether what

01:52:25

Paul was saying was so. And what were the scriptures that Paul's referring to? The Old Testament.

01:52:32

Well, yeah, that's really good. And then go ahead and give your last thing, because we're kind of on the verge of wrapping up.

01:52:37

What was the last thing you wanted to go? I can do more of that. More of that. Okay. Well, we might do a follow -up. We'll see if we can maybe do a

01:52:43

Q &A and do some additional follow -up questions for sure, because I'm sure we're going to get a lot of interaction from this.

01:52:48

But just in general, as we're doing it, we want to get to the point that all the whole purpose behind this is that you have a real burden in heart, and this was your life for 18 years, and now you're seeing things from a very different vantage point.

01:53:05

But just maybe in summary of all the conversations you've had, and you've had people that you love and care for that are in close proximity for you, this is not in any way judging from afar.

01:53:14

This is people that you're reasoning with in very close proximity. If you could just summarize just maybe two to three minutes for someone who's listening in, who's in the

01:53:24

Church of Christ, and say they kind of have their arms crossed, or they're like, I've got to figure out a way to refute what

01:53:29

Trey's saying and whatnot. Just as we wrap up, maybe you just spend two or three minutes to tell them, if you're going to talk to anyone right now and say they've listened all the way through and some of the things you're talking about, just what would you say to them as we wrap up here?

01:53:43

I'd tell them what we tell our church every Sunday. Read the Bible, but read it slowly. And when you think you're reading it slow, read it slower.

01:53:52

Slow down, read, ask God, what is he saying here? Does this make sense? Do I really believe what this is saying?

01:53:59

Because I really believe that the power is in the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And now, again, they would say that, right?

01:54:07

They would say that, but guess what they really believe? The power is in the messenger. I was guilty of it.

01:54:13

I mean, I would say like, man, if I could just get this person to share the Gospel, oh, we would get him then. If I could just get this person to share it.

01:54:20

See, you believe the power is in the messenger, not the message. No, y 'all, read the word.

01:54:26

Read the word. Just read it. And when you read it slowly, slow down and read it slower. And just look at what

01:54:32

God's telling you. That's it. Oh, awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming on, man.

01:54:38

Me too. Yeah, thanks for having me. This was a blast. And this is one of the things too, this is, you know, you do prep for a podcast and you talk about it, you work it through and you don't really know what you're going to say until you say it.

01:54:49

But one thing too, it just always just flies right by. And I'm sure both on our end and on your end, if you've listened to us live, go ahead and I'm sure you would say the same as well too.

01:54:59

But if you enjoyed this episode, go ahead and feel free to go ahead and add in the comment section any thoughts that you have.

01:55:05

And obviously there are only a couple of people who are on asking us some really good questions, interacting with us as we are here in Tennessee.

01:55:12

This will be on our podcast officially in a couple of weeks and sometime in October. And at that time, definitely by the time you're hearing this, definitely comment on our social media, let us know what you thought.

01:55:24

And as always a program like this cannot continue without your support. So if you've enjoyed this discussion and many other continuing conversations we were having on Cultish, you can go to the cultistshow .com.

01:55:34

You can go to the donate tab, donate one time or monthly. And for all that being said, thank you all for hanging out.

01:55:41

Trey, thanks for coming on again, man. We appreciate it. And we'll have to do this again sometime. We will talk to you all next time on Cultist where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.