How to Deal with Joshua Harris with Justin Peters and Jim Osman

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ChumbaCasino .com. No purchase necessary, void, or prohibited by law. 18 -plus terms and conditions apply. See website for details. Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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01:26

All right. Well, welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report.

01:32

Today we're going to deal with a more sad topic, in a sense, for those of us who are genuine believers in Jesus Christ.

01:41

And it is the topic of apostasy. If you have been paying attention, you've heard the news about an apostate, someone who has basically revealed himself as an apostate.

01:56

And that would be Joshua Harris. He's come out recently, and many people have talked about this, that he has come out and said that he is no longer a

02:08

Christian and that he is apologizing to many people about this.

02:15

Now, we have some special guests to discuss this, but before we bring them on, I actually want to play a clip from Sunday's sermon from one of them.

02:25

And so this is Pastor Jim Osmond. It just so happened, just by God's providence, that he was in Hebrews 6 at the time of Joshua Harris putting out his statement.

02:44

So this is great to listen to, just a short little clip. I will link the full sermon in the show notes.

02:51

But listen to this before we bring in both Pastor Jim Osmond and Justin Peters.

02:58

Media, where you've been asleep for the last month, you probably read that Joshua Harris formally abandoned his faith in Christ, or that's how he would phrase it, at least.

03:07

Joshua Harris, for those of you who might not know, and this sermon is not about Joshua Harris, but in the providence of God, we are given a very real, very public example of the very thing we've been looking at in Hebrews 6.

03:18

And so I'm going to simply use him as an example here just briefly. Joshua Harris, back in the 1990s, wrote the book,

03:23

I Kissed Dating Goodbye. And it was kind of the launch of what has been officially called the purity movement or the courtship movement.

03:30

And Joshua Harris comes from a prominent Christian homeschooling family, and they have been prominent in the sight of evangelicals for probably almost three decades.

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That book sold between 1 .2 and 2 million copies, depending on which publisher's trying to promote it.

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But it sold a lot, and it has made its mark on a whole generation of Christians, and it's been highly influential. And he is the oldest son of among a group of children in the

03:54

Harris family, many of whom have been authors. Brett Harris and Alex Harris wrote Do Hard Things. Joshua Harris wrote a number of books talking about purity and marriage and all of the things related to being a

04:05

Christian in today's culture. He was also the pastor, and I bring this up because this is significant, he was the pastor of Covenant Life Church until 2014.

04:14

Now Covenant Life Church is not a leftward -leaning denomination. That church was founded by C .J.

04:19

Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries. We sing a lot of their Sovereign Grace songs. So all of that just simply to say that that church that he pastored for a number of years is well within the pale of orthodoxy.

04:29

It is within our theological camp, broadly speaking, that we wouldn't agree on everything. We'd certainly agree with the basic doctrines of soteriology and salvation.

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And that is to say that he would not believe that you can lose your salvation, at least that's what he would have preached, being consistent with their theology.

04:43

So we would have agreement with that church. So he kissed the Covenant Life Church goodbye in 2014.

04:49

He also kissed the Gospel Coalition goodbye in 2014 as he resigned from that.

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And then in 2018, he began to kiss I Kiss Dating Goodbye goodbye as he began to renege on some of his principles in his book and actually backed away from it and participated in a documentary that was intended to criticize what he taught in that book regarding purity and dating and sexual culture within the church, et cetera.

05:15

And then a few weeks ago, he announced that he and his wife were separating and a couple days after that, he announced that they were getting a divorce.

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So now he's kissed his wife goodbye. And a couple of days after he kissed his wife goodbye, he kissed Christianity goodbye in a very public statement on Instagram accompanied by a picture of him looking pensively and thoughtfully out over a mountain lake and the mountains and everything posted on social media.

05:34

And nothing will gain you interviews in almost every venue in the country faster than publicly renouncing the faith that you say you once held to profess.

05:43

All right, so that was Pastor Jim Osmond in his sermon, Things That Accompany Salvation on Hebrews chapter six, verses 11 and 12, which come to think of it,

05:56

I think when I was first out at the church, Pastor Osmond's church, he was still in Hebrews back then.

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So you're planning on being in Hebrews for like an entire generation, I think, at this rate.

06:12

Yeah, we go as slowly as we need to go, Andrew. That message is just one of a number in chapter six.

06:20

How many, I'll let you guess, how many messages do you think that I preached on the Hebrews warning passage, starting at five verse 11 and going through six verse 12?

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Oh, I would say with you, a dozen. It was 18, actually, which I was kind of shocked at that as well.

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I know, I thought it might be a dozen, but I went back and counted before we started the program. But that was just the end of it.

06:40

That message that you cited there was the very last message in the warning passage. And I was grateful, at least, that we had such a great example of the apostasy that Hebrews six describes.

06:53

Well, let's talk about this. For folks who don't know, you gave, actually, in there, a pretty good description.

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Joshua Harris was someone, I believe, and you guys could correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that Joshua Harris was someone who, as a young man, was rushed into ministry, given a very big platform because of his father, then seen by C .J.

07:18

Mahaney as having some talent and a platform and rushed into a pastorate, never having any education for ministry.

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And with that platform, was just rushed in as a leader without ever learning what it means to be a church attender.

07:38

Or as a Christian. And so I think that, for years, my guess, I mean, now that he's come out, my guess is that he's always been struggling with this whole thing of, you know, how do you quit when you have this platform?

07:53

First off, I think the verse that all of us are familiar with when we think of this situation is 1

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John 2, 19, which says, they went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

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But they went out, that it might be plain that they were not of us.

08:17

And I think in your sermon, you made it clear. It's not, you know, and if I had this clip queued up,

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I should have played it, but you made it clear. It's not that the headlines say that Joshua Harris left the faith.

08:34

You had said in your sermon, he didn't leave the faith. The headlines should have said, he stopped pretending. I mean, he exposed he was always a hypocrite.

08:41

Yeah, yeah, Joshua Harris came out and showed us what he's been all along. That would be biblical theology, that a true believer, truly one who was saved, chosen by God, saved, atoned for, in the eyes of God glorified, is not going to fall away and slip away and be lost for all of eternity, because that would violate what the

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Bible says about Christ's ability to save, sanctify, and secure his own everlastingly. And I think you just nailed what the real issue is, okay?

09:10

It's, and Justin and I just recorded Apologetics Live just before we started recording this, and we were dealing with a

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Roman Catholic with the same thing. Who's the source of salvation? And the Catholic had to say the church.

09:23

And we would say, no, it's God. God saves us. And so in your response, you really nailed the core issue that people need to always do, they got to take a step back and think about things and the foundation of these arguments.

09:40

Salvation's based on God. If God saves a person, then a person can't lose something

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God does for them. God changes their nature, takes them from being a sinner who's an enmity with God, and takes that sinner and adopts them into the family of God.

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And people want to argue that somehow they can revert their nature back after God changes it.

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That's just not possible. Now think of what would have to be undone in the event of somebody losing their salvation.

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They would have to become unelected or unchosen. They would have to become unsanctified, unset apart before their mother's womb.

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They would have to be unatoned for. All of their sins would have to be taken off of Christ and imputed back to them, and all of the righteousness that's theirs by Christ taken away from them and given back to Christ.

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They would have to lose their standing with being adopted, their standing of being forgiven, their standing of being redeemed, and the past tense of Romans 8, being glorified with God.

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And Jesus Christ would have to be proven to be a liar because he said in John 6 that he would not lose any of those who come to him for salvation.

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So if he loses even one of his sheep, then he is a liar. He has failed to do what the Father sent him to do because in John 6, he spells that out.

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All that the Father gives me will come to me and those who come to me, I will not cast out. And the one who comes to me will believe,

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I will give them eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, and I will lose not one. For this reason, I came down from heaven to do the will of the

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Father, which is that of all that the Father's given to me, I lose not one. That's Jesus' promise. As you work your way through John 6, and of course,

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John 10 and 17, all affirm the security of the believer. And if one person, Joshua Harris, if he was a

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Christian and now he is not and he is perishing, then that proves Jesus Christ is a liar and he failed to do what the

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Father gave him to do, which was to come and to save Joshua Harris and how he's failed in his mission, which the

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Father gave him to do. And I just, I don't think that there's any room in biblical theology to believe that. Well, yeah, and here's the thing.

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When were the sins paid for? Back at the cross. Therefore, every sin that Joshua Harris does, that you do, that I do, every sin that we've ever done in our entire life, even the ones we haven't done yet, are all future to the payment.

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So how could it be that somehow God pays the fine,

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Christ pays the fine on the cross 2 ,000 years ago. I sinned three years ago, it's paid for, but somehow if I sin tomorrow, it's undone.

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Right. I mean, they were all future to the payment. Did God not know back at the cross?

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I only knew - Perhaps the payment is sufficient or it's not. Yeah, I only knew the sins you were gonna commit up until this date.

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After that, I had a blind spot. So, Justin, and this is

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Justin Peters from justinpeters .org. When you first heard the news with Joshua Harris, what were your thoughts?

12:43

What, you know, where did you go with this? Well, I guess

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I should say I didn't, I've never read his books. I've read excerpts of a couple of them, but when

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I saw that he kissed his marriage goodbye, honestly, the subsequent announcement that he has kissed his faith goodbye did not surprise me in a way.

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In fact, I kind of expected it. But I agree with Jim 100 % in what

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Jim just said. All of the headlines have been wrong. He has not renounced his faith.

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He has proved himself to be who he has always been. He's never been a believer. And everything that Jim just said,

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I think that is an ironclad, airtight case for the eternal security of the believer.

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If Josh Harris was a genuine Christian, and now he is not, then you have undone the atonement, you've made

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Jesus out to be a liar, and therefore you have undone his deity, and there's no such thing as biblical

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Christianity. So he is just, he's exactly what 1

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John 2, 19 says. He has proven that he never was of us to begin with.

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That's not an arrogant thing to say. That is simply what scripture teaches. When we think about people that claim they used to be a

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Christian, and now they make a claim that they don't believe in Christ, they've apostatized.

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Jim explained some of the theology of this. Why do you think it is that people end up thinking they were once Christian, and then they change their mind?

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We have people who say, well, I used to be a Christian, and Josh Harris would now say that, even though everything in Josh Harris's theology would tell him he was never a believer.

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He's saying he lost his faith. We would say, no, you never had it. Prior, he would have said the same.

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Why is it that people end up saying, I used to be a Christian, and now I lost my faith?

14:53

Yeah, because there's so many people that have had some kind of an emotional response to the gospel.

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They heard the gospel, it resonated with them at some level, whether it was simply because that was the environment in which they were raised, that was their worldview in which they were raised, they've known nothing else.

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And so usually as a child, a young child, they pray a sinner's prayer, quote -unquote, walk the aisle, get baptized, make intellectual assent to the basics of the gospel, claim to be a

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Christian because that's all they've ever known, that's their worldview in which they're raised. But, and so they think they're a

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Christian, but then once they grow up and the trials of life come and their faith is tested, then they walk away.

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They renounce it because they were never truly regenerate in the first place.

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They have had some experiences with it, they've warmed their hands by the fire, and I think this is what

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Hebrews six is describing, but they were never truly regenerate.

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Their faith had never really been tested. In fact, I came across a quote from Charles Spurgeon just today, and Charles Spurgeon said, he said, don't number your fish before they are broiled, nor count your converts before you have tested and tried them.

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And Josh Harris was tested and tried by postmodern culture, by religious pluralism, by societal changes, and he failed the test.

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He failed the test. So I think that that's exactly what's going on with Josh Harris and all these, then the

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Marty Sampson guy from the writer of Music and Hillsong, he as well. So yeah, they made some intellectual assent to basic gospel facts, warmed their hands by the fires.

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They partook of some activities of the church and they look like the real thing, but they're false converts.

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And you have this, you have these kinds of people in every church, and unfortunately, some of them are just a lot more visible than others.

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Some of them, unfortunately, are given a platform and they're in the spotlight before they've been tested, and that's what we see with Josh Harris.

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And I - Hey, Andrew, I'm gonna chime in there. I would be interested to know if Joshua Harris would describe himself as,

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I once was a Christian, but now I'm not, because in his public statement that he made, and I'm giving a rough paraphrase here, he basically said, by every measure or mark that I have to measure what a

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Christian is, I am not one. He didn't say I was one and now I'm not, he just said, I am not one. And given what he would preach and what he would know the scripture says and what he has preached in the past,

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I would think that he would know that if he is not one now, he never has been one, and what his assessment of his own spiritual journey would be,

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I hope that that comes out at some point. Does, would he say now that he thinks he was a believer at some point and now he's not, or would he be honest enough to say, look,

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I never was a believer, the whole thing was a charade, I've known all this time, I've just been pretending because of societal and cultural expectations upon me as a

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Christian, thrust into leadership and my parents. I don't know what his own assessment of that would be. We have plenty of people who would say,

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I was a Christian, now I'm not one, but I'm not sure that Joshua Harris would fall into that camp. I don't, unless you guys know of something he has said publicly since his apostasy,

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I don't know of anything that would indicate that he believes now that he ever was a Christian. Well, I think he said he lost his faith.

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I agree with you, he should know better when he does give the explanation.

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He should say, I was a hypocrite that stopped pretending. I mean, that's what scripture would say.

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And he knows that, that would be the theological position he would have held to, and I hope he would come out and say that.

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However, I think that a big reason why people like this won't do that is simply because they want the authority to say,

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I used to be a Christian, and it gives them an appeal to authority. So here's what we're gonna see, and you mentioned this in your sermon.

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He is now speaking everywhere. He has a bigger platform than he had before.

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He had a big platform within a small sect of Christian circles. He had, as you mentioned, books that sold overwhelmingly, and now, however, he is within one week of announcing that he left the faith and apologizing to the

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LGTB community, he's now at their events. I predict,

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I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet, I may be a Levite, but I'm not a prophet.

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I predict that what you're gonna see is he's gonna start coming out with books, he's gonna be on the speaking circuit, you're gonna see him at the

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Reason Rally and all these LGBT rallies. They are gonna put him on stage, and he's gonna make a ton more money than he did before because he is now gonna have a bigger platform with people that are willing to pay.

20:08

Yeah, Bart Ehrman has proved that there's money to be made in apostasy. Correct, and this is something that I wanna get to later, but I'm gonna mention it now, and we'll get to this later on in the show because you mentioned something that I wanna dig into because if people listen to your sermon,

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I don't know if this is what you had in mind, but you mentioned a tsunami of apostasy.

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And I actually, I think, and we'll talk about this later because I think there will be an apostasy, a tsunami of apostasy.

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I think there's gonna be many people to follow, and I think Marty Sampson is only one of many to follow. But let's stick with something that Justin said first.

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Justin, you brought out, and really, you have a book about children and what conversion is about children, conversion, should children get baptized.

20:58

It's called Do Not Hinder Them and available at justinpeters .org. But you were talking about the fact that here you have a guy,

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Joshua Harris. He grew up in a Christian home. Let's be specific. He grew up in a homeschooling home, homeschool home, where his parents were really the forerunners of homeschooling.

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So I kind of see a lot of pressure put on all of the children to perform, to be seen as here we've proven that homeschooling is good.

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Look at my boys. They're all have national platforms. They're all best -selling authors.

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They're all godly Christians, pastor of a church. Look at them.

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And now I think it's falling apart. I think they're pushed into it because of the upbringing.

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There would have been a lot of pressure for performance. So Justin, I want to start there because you have written on this.

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Why children that get baptized at a young age, they're raised to believe that they're believers just because they're in a

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Christian home. How dangerous is that? Enormously danger, Andrew. And it is exactly why

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I wrote that book because what we see over and over and over is that children who are raised in evangelical homes, and Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis has written a book on this, and there's a couple of different studies out there, but it's basically the majority, somewhere between 60, 70 % of children who are raised in evangelical homes, and they make professions of faith at very early ages.

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Once they grow up, they leave home, they start their own life. Once they have independence, roughly about two thirds of them leave the church, and there's no genuine evidence of conversion, real evidence of conversion ever having taken place in their lives.

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And the reason for this is that children, by their nature, as Paul says in Ephesians 4 .14,

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are easily tossed to and fro. A child will believe whatever you tell him, and a child will adopt the worldview in which he is raised until he is older and that worldview is tested by trials, by temptations.

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You're not gonna know if that profession of faith is real until he's been tested.

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You take a typical child, five, six, seven, eight years old, raised in a

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Southern Baptist church, prays the sinner's prayer, oftentimes at vacation Bible school, makes a profession of faith, gets baptized.

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If you were to take that same child and raise that child in India, he would be a

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Hindu. Take that same child, raise that child in Japan, he'd be a Buddhist. Take that same child, raise that child in Syria, he'd be a

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Muslim. Children just adopt the worldview in which they're raised. They know nothing else. And so this is why it is very unwise to baptize children at early ages.

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Their faith, they haven't owned it. It's not been tested. They're just adopting the worldview in which they're raised and in all likelihood, nothing more.

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So it's striking to me, the earliest conversion that we know of in the

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New Testament is that of Timothy, aside from John the Baptist, and that's a special case, but the earliest conversion we know of, definitively, would be that of Timothy.

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And he was probably about 17 years old when he was converted after he heard the gospel presented from Paul.

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And it's kind of striking when Paul writes to Timothy, he says, let no one despise you for your youth.

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We think of Timothy being a teenager when Paul wrote that to him. No, Timothy was probably 32, 33, 34 years old when

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Paul wrote that to him. So, and sadly, that's what we see with Joshua Harris.

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That's the worldview in which he was raised. That's what he adopted. He was given a platform. This is why 21 -year -olds should not be writing books.

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And when it was tested, his faith was tested, it was found wanting.

25:23

So. Okay, so after this break, what I want to do is

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I want to get into now Morty Samson, who supposedly left the faith.

25:35

And then I want to discuss this thing that really came up in Jim's sermon about a tsunami of apostasy.

25:44

Let's discuss that right after this break. Ding dong, Jehovah's Witnesses.

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26:45

Grace and peace. Okay, so you mentioned a tsunami of apostasy.

26:54

I see this already starting. You have, I think, Joshua Harris, who's gonna suddenly be seen as making a lot of money.

27:01

He's gonna be seen as having this platform. And I just,

27:07

I can anticipate us looking at this and we're gonna see that we're gonna have a number of people.

27:15

We already see Morty Sampson from, I believe it's Hillsong. Justin, is that where he's at?

27:22

Yes. Right? Yes. Yeah, he was a music writer for Hillsong. So we already see that he's already apostasizing as well.

27:31

I'm sure he's gonna suddenly get a platform. I think, as Jim mentioned, I mean, if you really wanna make money, have some credibility of saying that you used to be a pastor and then deny

27:44

Christianity, and even more so what Joshua Harris is doing, embrace

27:51

LGTBQRST, you're gonna get a huge platform, you're gonna get lots of money. Part of me, and when we speak about this, part of me was actually thinking,

28:03

I almost don't wanna mention these guys' names because it only increases their platform as more and more people are talking about them.

28:14

And they are now blaspheming the name of Christ. And it's almost like we warn people, but as we warn people, we're helping them build their platform against Christ, which is frustrating, but yet people have to be warned.

28:31

So there's two questions that I have for you guys I wanna discuss. One is, Jim, why do you think there's gonna be a tsunami of apostasy?

28:38

Do you expect others to be following? And then a follow -up is, how do we go about exposing people without increasing their platform, their anti -Christian platform?

28:51

Yeah, to be clear about the tsunami of apostasy, I did say that in the message, and I need to credit that language to James White, who

28:58

I heard you said on the dividing line, that's not my language. I thought that the imagery of a tsunami was perfectly captured as what

29:04

I think we can expect to have happen to us. And that is, we're gonna be hit by something that's gonna sweep along a lot of people in its wake and cause a lot of destruction.

29:13

And I think that that is coming simply because as I said in the sermon on this last Sunday, the spirit of our age is capitulation.

29:21

And we are under pressure as Christians to conform to the culture and to the world in our thinking and our behavior and our ethical and moral standards, our view of gender, our view of God's institution of marriage, our view of human sexuality and what is moral and immoral.

29:38

And the heat is being turned up on Christians. And I think that we're gonna see more and more people who are just willing to say, you know what, it costs me a lot more to be a

29:48

Christian and have to deal with all this hatred. And it would be a lot better if I could just go along with the flow. And I think that this will be the dividing line.

29:56

This, I think, will be the thing that takes a lot of wolves' sheep's clothing off. So I do think we have a lot more to come.

30:03

I mean, in the social justice movement, which you've talked about, and of course Justin has written about as well, that influence in the

30:10

Southern Baptist Convention and among a lot of notable evangelicals, I don't think they even understand the damage that that movement and that ideology is going to do to the

30:17

Christian church. But that's gonna sweep along a lot of people and that's gonna reveal a lot of people for what they really are as well.

30:26

Yeah, and I agree with that. As I said in our apologetics live a little bit ago,

30:32

Andrew, the Bible does not paint a pretty picture of the spiritual climate as time goes forward.

30:38

And all apologies to our post -millennial friends out there, things aren't gonna get better. They're gonna get worse.

30:44

Evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, Paul says in 2 Timothy 3. So things aren't gonna get better.

30:50

And I think there is gonna be a tsunami of apostasy and we're gonna see some big names fall and apostatize.

31:01

So now with this Marty Sampson guy, I mean, in all fairness, let's realize he comes out of Hillsong.

31:10

So I don't know if that guy even had enough knowledge to apostatize.

31:15

I mean, Hillsong is a false church and they preach a false gospel, watered down gospel. I'm not sure this guy,

31:22

I mean, even when you read his statement about leaving the faith is, he says, in fact,

31:28

I'm gonna quote it here. He says, how many preachers fall? Many, but no one talks about it.

31:34

How many miracles happen? Not many, no one talks about it. Oh, I talk about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions?

31:41

No one talks about it. How can, get this, how can God be loved yet send 4 billion people to a place all cause they don't believe?

31:50

No one talks about it. Well, no one talks about it at Hillsong maybe, but all of us talk about it.

31:58

You know, so, I mean, this guy comes from such a shallow theological pool that I don't even know if the fella had enough knowledge to officially apostatize or not, so.

32:10

And Justin, that's what makes his apostasies markedly different than Joshua Harris's. Exactly.

32:16

Coming out of Hillsong, you couldn't find a gospel at Hillsong if you had an

32:21

Indiana Jones helping you look for it. And you compare that to Joshua Harris, who is immersed in sovereign grace theology and notable lights in that movement who are very doctrinally rich.

32:34

C .J. Mahaney and Bob Coughlin, and those guys are very doctrinally rich compared to Hillsong.

32:39

And so Joshua Harris's apostasy, it stings in a way that this other

32:45

Marty Samson guy does not simply because he's so close to us theologically, or at least professed to be.

32:51

Yep. And I think the thing that we're gonna see is there are gonna be people who are hypocrites, who are pastors in churches that are gonna see there's money to be made in coming out of the closet, shall we say.

33:08

But they're gonna see money to be made, they're gonna see a bigger platform. And I predict that we're gonna see a lot of people that are gonna follow suit on this because they're gonna see not only ways to make money, not only ways to build a platform, but they now have the excuse to say, well, we're following Joshua Harris, to be able to kind of have the way of coming out and not having to deal with some of the shame.

33:41

Like he's kind of taking that, and because he's making a path I think others are gonna follow.

33:48

Because they're fed up of the hypocrisy of what they're doing. And I think though, part of this struggle

33:56

I have is the more we talk about these guys, it is important to call them out, to warn people.

34:03

But doesn't that help give them a platform and builds their platform that is an anti -Christian platform now?

34:11

It does and I understand that and I agree with that to an extent.

34:17

But I would say what we're doing here and others that are talking about it in our theological circles, let's face it, we're small potatoes compared to the other media venues that will give them a much, much larger platform than any of us ever could in our wildest dreams.

34:34

But I will say as tragic as this is, if there is a silver lining to this, the upside, and not to make light of the danger this eternal danger

34:50

Josh Harris is in, but the upside to this is that as time goes on and as we do see a tsunami of apostasy and as persecution does come to the

35:03

West and it is and it will increase, you know what, it's gonna get easier and easier to tell the real

35:12

Christians. It's not been easy up until now, especially from the South, where I come from, everybody claims to be a

35:19

Christian, but I tell you what, as it becomes, as the cost increases for following Christ, it's gonna be easier to tell the true sheep from the goats.

35:33

Now see, that's an advantage that New Jersey has. We gotta look for some advantage New Jersey has over you guys.

35:39

We don't have a problem telling the believers because nobody wants to admit to being a believer in New Jersey unless they really are.

35:51

So I guess - California's the same way, the Pacific Northwest is much the same way, and it's just gonna get clearer and clearer.

35:57

I mean, you guys can carry guns, but we know who the Christians are. Andrew, your statement, you mentioned a couple times about giving him a platform.

36:07

I don't think that what you're doing is giving him a platform in the same sense that USA Today or Good Morning America or any of these other outlets who might have him on is going to be giving him.

36:16

What we're really doing here is not so much building a platform from which he can blaspheme Christ, we're really shining a light on the deeds of darkness by doing this, and you can't do that without naming names oftentimes and dealing with cultural events.

36:28

So we're really warning and using it as a cautionary tale, not as a proof that Christianity is untrue or that Christians really are bigoted.

36:38

Really, we're doing the opposite of that. We're taking away his platform in the sense that we are trying to undo some of the damage that he and others like him are gonna be doing.

36:46

Well, okay, so after this break, the question that most people ask at this point is, all right,

36:53

I have Joshua Harris's book, I've listened to Marty's music, do

36:59

I continue, do I promote these books? Do I read these books? What do I do? Do I burn the books? So after this break, let's talk about that.

37:07

The Five Solas Podcast, a weekly podcast hosted by James Watkins that is dedicated to the

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Each week, from the rich insight of Reformation Christianity, we will be showing all the manifold ways in which this material helps challenge and direct the current church in its life of worship and witness and confront the idols of our age with biblical discernment and a sound apologetic in a manner that is as open and transparent as possible.

38:09

Well, challenging you to seek the glory of God in all that you do. Solemnly, Dale Gloria.

38:17

Ephesians chapter four, verse 25. Therefore laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor for we are members of one another for his name's sake.

38:31

What's up everybody? I'm Jamal Bandy, the host of the Prescribed Truth Podcast where I seek to distribute the truth that the doctor prescribes to the church and the world today.

38:41

The Lord graciously brought me out of a coat in 2010, saved me in 2013, and in 2017,

38:48

Prescribed Truth began. My mission has been to spread the truth of God's word while refuting dangerous lies affecting most churches and the culture at large from a biblical and reformed perspective.

38:59

Join me on Sundays at 6 p .m. Eastern time for the live recording of the podcast on YouTube and download the audio version wherever podcasts can be found, including the

39:10

Christian Podcast Community. If you would like to know more about Prescribed Truth, please visit my website at prescribetruth .com.

39:17

And remember, this world is full of errors, but the only thing that the doctor prescribes is truth.

39:25

Blessings. And Justin, I don't know if you have listened to Jamal's podcast,

39:32

Prescribed Truth, but you got to. You gotta actually go out to his YouTube channel.

39:38

He's got now, I think, three videos called The Woke Brother where he does a complete mock on what woke means and all, so much so that people actually think he's being legit.

39:54

Like, he's talking about white privilege because it takes 30 seconds longer for a black man to walk across the street and people wanna drive their cars.

40:03

And not wait the extra 30 seconds for a black man. And he has all these articles where they're saying, you know, blacks are heavier because of white privilege.

40:18

And he's like, you see this fat? It's not because I love stuff in my face. It's because of your white privilege.

40:26

I'd like to see that. Oh, dude, they are hilarious. And so he's gotta buy.

40:32

He just did one on critical race theory that went into some of the history of it that was outstanding.

40:38

So Prescribed Truth is one of the podcasts on Christian Podcast Community. Excellent, excellent stuff.

40:44

Good deal. Yeah, yeah, he is funny. So let's deal with this. I mean, there's a lot of people who they have

40:52

Joshua Harris's book. They found some good value in it. I think,

40:57

Justin, you and I on Apologetics Live were talking about Marty's music and we said, well, there's a different reason not to listen to that music.

41:05

It has nothing to do with his apostasy. It has to do with Hillsong. So you shouldn't listen for that reason.

41:10

But Josh has written several books and there's some people who have gotten some value out of those books.

41:18

Do we toss those books? Do we burn those books? Do we recommend those books? Do we use those books?

41:23

Do we keep on our shelf? What do we do when we have someone who apostatizes but yet we found some good value out of the stuff that they produced?

41:34

No, toss the books, burn the books. Don't give them away to anybody. Because Josh Harris has brought reproach on the name of Christ by his apostasy.

41:44

And yes, most of the content in his books would be good.

41:51

But here's the deal, Andrew. I can point to a number of Benny Hinn resources and I can show you a lot of truth in what

42:00

Benny Hinn preaches. He's still a false teacher. Now, God in his providence does still honor the truth that is contained even in the message of either a false teacher in the case of Benny Hinn or in the case of Joshua Harris, an apostate.

42:18

But that does not give legitimacy either to Benny Hinn or Josh Harris. And their false doctrine, their apostasy, respectively, brings reproach on the name of Christ.

42:30

And so you don't wanna pass that on to someone else who may not know Josh Harris' story. I mean, they read his books and they're quote -unquote encouraged or edified by it.

42:39

And then they hear what happened to him. And in everything they read, just everything that they've read has this hollow ring to it.

42:50

And rightly so, because what he was teaching didn't have an impact on his own life.

42:56

So yeah, you can get good truth from other sources, from men who are tried and true and tested.

43:05

Most of these guys are dead. But you can get the same truth in other venues, other sources.

43:13

So yeah, if you have a Josh Harris book on yourself, get rid of it.

43:18

Don't put it in the used book store. Don't give it to anybody. Just trash it. Do the same thing with it as you do, as I tell people to do with the message by Eugene Peterson.

43:28

Use it for target practice. Use it for kindling. Don't pass on that error to anyone else.

43:36

Jesus takes the calling of an elder. And obviously Josh Harris was never qualified to be in the position that he was in.

43:43

And he takes this very seriously. And teachers are held to a higher standard, James chapter three.

43:48

So yeah, all that to say, get rid of it. Don't pass it on.

43:55

Jim, what say you? I would agree with that, except that both Justin and I have horrible books on our shelves for the sake of research, et cetera.

44:06

But the problem with, even though there's good stuff in it, the problem with recommending it is that you would always have to give this caveat.

44:13

Yeah, there's some good stuff in here, but you know, spit out the bones and chew on the meat and, oh, by the way, he's an apostate marching in a gay pride parade in Vancouver.

44:23

And that would instantly color the recommendation. It would instantly jaundice people's opinion of him, rightfully so.

44:32

So now you've come to a point where, because he has called into question his own works.

44:39

I mean, he backpedaled on the I kiss dating goodbye when he kissed I kiss dating goodbye goodbye. So he himself has backpedaled on that.

44:47

You'd have to give somebody his book and say, well, this is a good book, but the author doesn't even believe this stuff anymore. And so then in what sense are you really giving it out?

44:54

Why would you recommend it? There's just other resources that you could use for the same thing. You know, we think about James White, you referred to James White saying, and I don't remember

45:06

James White saying the tsunami of apostasy, maybe I heard it and didn't realize, but he did refer to Demas.

45:14

And he was, at least I think this was James White. And I think he was saying that, you know, look at Demas, Demas was walking with Paul and he had, you know, he did have ministry and now he left.

45:28

We don't abandon everything. Do you think that that's wise? I mean, I agree with you that I have plenty of books on my shelf that are not good.

45:38

I mean, Justin gave me a copy when we were at a hotel of a book of Mormon that he got from the hotel room.

45:44

He told me to use it for target practice. I used it for kindling and it gave me a burning in my bosom, but of a different kind.

45:55

Kidding, I'm kidding. I'm gonna have a whole bunch of Mormons upset. Oh, wait, I can't call Mormons. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

46:03

Saints because a prophet has decided that that's the full name. Anyway, but we have people that would say, look, it's okay to, we can keep it on our shelves, we can learn from it, but maybe you just don't recommend it anymore.

46:20

Is that wise counsel? No, I don't think so. I wouldn't, look, there's some things that Joshua Harris said that are true and they don't become untrue just because he doesn't believe them anymore.

46:34

So therefore his books are gonna contain true statements and true facts and true representations about God and God's ethics and morality, et cetera.

46:42

They're gonna be true things in the books, but you don't need to recommend them because the minute you recommend them, you are implicitly recommending that author.

46:51

And the act of recommending them says something about your endorsement of that person who wrote that at that time.

46:58

And now he has made his books unrecommendable, I believe. Yeah, I agree.

47:03

And it's one thing to have, yeah, I can point to any number of heretical books I have on my shelf, but I use them for research.

47:10

I use them to equip others to how to recognize these things. I don't ever recommend them to anyone.

47:18

And so I would no more, at this point, no more recommend a Josh Harris book to anyone than I would a

47:24

Benny Hinn book, even though there's more truth in Josh Harris's, but his apostasy has brought reproach on Christ.

47:33

And that is a very serious thing. The Bible takes it very seriously. James 3 .1

47:39

is in there for a reason. And so, yeah, you don't want to, at this, you don't want to commend on any level anything that Josh Harris has ever written or ever preached, even though some of it's true, but his apostasy has discredited and brought reproach on Christ, and we're to have nothing to do with that.

47:59

Well, see, and Justin, this is, I mean, this is one of the things that I so appreciate about you because so many people will miss this point.

48:06

And that is the fact that people want to just get along. People want to say, oh, but I got a lot of value out of his teaching, his books, whatever.

48:15

And they want to try to find a way to just appease. But the issue is really not

48:22

Joshua Harris. The issue is Jesus Christ. And what he's done is come out as an enemy of Christ.

48:31

He's no longer someone who's promoting Christ. He is actually seeking to undermine the work of our

48:38

Lord and Savior. And so in my mind, anybody who is going to promote him or try to say, yeah, but I like him or whatever, because we're going to hear it, and we've already heard it somewhat.

48:51

But when they're doing that, they're setting themselves against Christ. If they're doing that as someone that claims to be a believer, they're saying, okay, let me let the devil into my home and promote heresy while I try to get along with him.

49:07

This is the problem I think that so many people have is because they have such a superficial view of Christianity that their view of Christianity is about the church and their friends and their celebrity speakers, because I don't want to say pastor, because he wasn't a shepherd clearly, but this is the issue that I have is people want to focus on their celebrity and the idol they make of someone, and the issue is

49:35

Jesus Christ. That's where our focus needs to be. It's on exalting God, glorifying

49:40

God, honoring God, not Joshua Harris. And there's so many people I think that are going to be looking to say, well, can't we just get along with someone like this?

49:50

No, no, we can't. He's an enemy to the faith. Yeah, that's right.

49:55

He's an enemy of the cross, and he's to be treated as such.

50:00

Obviously, we're not talking about violently, but we're not to consider him to be one of us.

50:07

He's clearly not one of us, 1 John 2, 19. And yes, Andrew, the bottom line is the reproach that he has brought on the gospel.

50:20

That is what is so serious, and that is what we do not in any shape, form, or fashion want to condone in any way by saying, oh yeah, you can still read his books.

50:32

No, this is serious stuff. He's brought reproach on the gospel. He's brought reproach on Christ.

50:39

And so this is what must be repudiated, and we have got to be very clear about where we stand on this.

50:45

We're to have nothing to do with that. And pray for his repentance, but I think it's, you know,

50:56

I mean, this is textbook apostasy, Hebrew six, textbook Hebrew six. So he's in an extraordinarily dangerous place.

51:05

I don't see any possibility of repentance.

51:13

He was not a pew warmer. You know, this is not someone who showed up to church on Sunday mornings, you know, three

51:20

Sundays out of a month. He was not a pew warmer. He was, as Jim has said, he was pretty much at the pinnacle of biblical knowledge, and he has deliberately repudiated, and even called himself an apostate, so.

51:36

Yeah, the truth and the word of God will always do one or two things, harden the heart or soften the heart, and it has systematically hardened

51:44

Joshua Harris' heart over the course of the last three decades, so much to the point where he is willing to walk away and reproach

51:51

Christ and march with those who would call for his blood even today in a pride parade. That takes, that is such a hardening of heart that one,

51:59

I don't think that repentance is even possible. I would love to see it happen, but how do you gonna renew that one again to repentance?

52:06

He has been hardened to the point where his hardening is the judicial act of God and that's what I wanna do. I agree,

52:12

Jim. I don't know how, you know, Kathy and I, my wife and I were talking the other day about this, and if Hebrews 6 is not talking about someone like Josh Harris, then

52:21

I really don't know who it's talking about, because, I mean, it's, tragically, it's textbook Hebrews 6.

52:28

Yeah. So can we trust our pastor? I mean, we think about it.

52:33

This guy was a pastor of a church. He was given a huge platform. He was seen to, you know, was preparing to take over for C .J.

52:40

Mahaney. So if someone like that could fall away, I mean, this is the question

52:46

I think people would be asking. Can I trust my own pastor? I'll address that as a pastor.

52:54

I think that we can trust our own pastor as long as he is demonstrating the fruits of genuine repentance and salvation and doing what he is called to do and biblically preaching and teaching the word.

53:05

But you're gonna have somebody like Joshua Harris, who's in that position, who does all of those things, and he's going to be trusted for years.

53:12

And that's what makes his apostasy so gut -wrenching and so horrible is because he looked like he was one of us for so long.

53:21

And people were blessed by that. And I think that there's, we have to make room in our theology for the fact that God can bless people through the word in spite of the instrument.

53:31

And though Joshua Harris was an instrument of God bringing blessing through his word to people for many years, God blessed his word, not

53:39

Joshua Harris. So it is the word of God that was benefiting and blessing those people. Joshua Harris happened to be

53:45

Balaam's donkey. He happened to be the mouthpiece for it, but he was not a redeemed mouthpiece for it.

53:51

And so people were blessed because the word of God was attended with power. And if your pastor is doing that and he then turned around and suddenly drops his profession of faith and becomes a

54:02

Joshua Harris apostate, then you need to look to God and say, well, thank you for blessing your word as it came to me all those years in spite of the channel through which it came.

54:11

And it shouldn't surprise us and shock us that this has happened because this is exactly what scripture says would happen.

54:17

And it's informative for us to look at apostates like Joshua Harris so that we would know that, look, this is gonna become more and more common.

54:24

And this is not something that God did not foresee. This is something that has plagued the church for 2000 years and will plague the church till Christ comes back.

54:31

And we ought to expect this and be prepared for it. And so when a pastor apostatizes like that, it might grieve us, but it shouldn't shock us in the sense that we are caught off guard by the reality of what has just transpired.

54:43

We ought to know, okay, well, I'm thankful. There's a blessing here that the sheep's clothing has come off and this person has been exposed for what he is.

54:50

That is itself a blessing to Christ's church. The fact that Joshua Harris is no longer filling up a pulpit as an unbelieving man is a blessing to the church of God.

54:59

So his apostasy is a blessing to the church. That's actually a good point. You know, I mean, I think that I just got done preaching through in Genesis and you have the end of Genesis chapter 50.

55:10

And, you know, when we talk about theologically the doctrine of concurrence, where Joseph can recognize that what his brothers meant for evil,

55:20

God used for good. Joshua Harris was an unbeliever, but God can use what he did for good.

55:29

It doesn't justify Joshua Harris. It doesn't justify what

55:34

Joseph's brothers did. They did it for evil. It was evil, but God can use that for good.

55:41

So we have to recognize that God is in control. He can do that. It doesn't mean we go and do evil and say, well, we'll leave it in God's hands.

55:50

No, but the reality is, is that God can use this. And that's what we see.

55:56

And he has used it. Yeah. And he's continuing to use it. You know, this may be the tip of the spear of a lot of apostasies to come.

56:05

And it may be something that a lot of unbelievers use to blaspheme the church of Christ, but they're gonna do that anyway. And the church now is blessed because Joshua Harris is no longer filling a pulpit.

56:14

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's absolutely true. Okay, so before we wrap up,

56:21

I wanna just, I'm gonna give some announcements for folks from Striving Fraternity, and some people who may have listened to my two -minute daily podcast.

56:32

If you listen to the Wrap Report daily podcast, that's the Monday through Friday two -minute, going through a series on answering some kind of street -level apologetics questions that we often get, and doing that.

56:45

But if you listened on Monday, I made an appeal, and I wanna make the same appeal here to the listeners who listen here.

56:51

Striving Fraternity has been a ministry that hasn't had speaker fees, hasn't charged people to be speaking anywhere.

56:59

We don't care the size of the audience. We've been able to do that because we have some donors, monthly donors.

57:05

And we have a monthly donor that is retiring. Now, he is our largest donor, and he donates a lot of money.

57:13

It's actually a third of our budget that at the end of the year is not gonna be there anymore. And so we're putting out an appeal.

57:20

If we could get 100 people to donate $25 a month, we will be able to continue doing the ministry that we do.

57:29

Now, there's a lot of ministries that most of the ministry is salary. That's not the case with Striving Fraternity.

57:35

Only about 20 % or less of our budget is salary. The majority of our ministry goes toward just that, ministry.

57:44

It goes to traveling to churches that can't afford to bring in a conference, to bring in a seminar, to bring in speakers.

57:52

And yet that's what these smaller churches often need to get them fired up to actually start going out sharing the gospel, going out and taking the word of God more serious.

58:03

That's what donors allow us to do. It allows us to continue the Christian Podcast community. It allows us to do some of the trainings that we do.

58:11

And so we're going to be, at the start of next year, we're gonna be hampered unless you guys can help us out.

58:17

So if you have found any value in the Ministry of Striving Fraternity, in the

58:22

Christian Podcast community, if you have found value there, would you consider donating any amount?

58:29

If you donate just $2 a month, after a few months we end up shipping a copy of What Do We Believe?

58:36

If you donate $5 a month, you get that plus What Do They Believe? If you do $10 a month, you get those two plus on The Origin of Kinds.

58:45

If you donate $20 a month, you will get those three books plus Sharing the

58:52

Good News with Mormons. So we will reward you for donating to us.

58:58

It's our way of saying thank you for helping us out. And we're looking for folks that would come and partner with us to allow us to continue doing podcasts like this and Apologetics Live and all the others that you hear on the

59:13

Christian Podcast community. So if you can afford to give up your Starbucks coffee for a week and give that to Striving Fraternity, we'd be greatly appreciative of that.

59:24

But you shouldn't be at Starbucks anyway, Justin. So he doesn't get coffee there anyway, folks.

59:31

I don't drink coffee. I'm not old enough to drink coffee. He drinks girly drinks. Yes, he does.

59:39

First, you're knocking on my dog, now you're knocking - If you saw his dog, you'd understand why he drinks what he does.

59:46

It takes any man can be secure with a lab or a German Shepherd. It takes a real man secure in his manhood to have a dog like mine.

59:54

Thank you very much. This week, you're saying that. Next week, you're marching with Joshua Harris in the Pride Parade. Your dog can barely bite at my ankles.

01:00:03

It's not tall enough. I mean, your dog needs a step ladder to get up to bite on my ankle.

01:00:12

I'll tell you what, if y 'all ever do see me marching in a gay pride parade, the end has arrived.

01:00:21

To the east. Oh, I could picture you marching in a gay pride parade with a sign saying, turn or burn.

01:00:32

So, Justin, I recently saw that you shared one of our bloggers,

01:00:38

Bud Alheim. He's been starting a Sunday, every Sunday he's putting out just a different blog that's just to encourage us to worship and exalt

01:00:49

Christ. And I saw that you shared his one that was on Let Us Worship and Christ Exalted Worship.

01:00:58

And we've really been blessed with, I've really enjoyed those Sunday. He's trying to do it

01:01:06

Saturday night, Sunday morning so that before you get to church, go out and read those.

01:01:11

It helps me prepare for Sunday morning. I don't know about you. Yeah, I tell you,

01:01:17

Bud is a great guy. I just think the world of Bud Alheim. I hope I'm saying that right, Alheim.

01:01:22

But yeah, Bud is a great guy. He's been a real encouragement to me. And yeah, I would command anything that he puts out there.

01:01:29

He's got some good stuff, he really does. Good guy. Yeah, and he is the editor for all the bloggers at Striving Fraternity.

01:01:38

And so we're really glad for that. So guys, as we wrap up this discussion with these men who are apostatizing,

01:01:47

Jim, I wanna ask you first as a shepherd, what are the things that we should be concerned about as we hear these men who are apostatizing?

01:01:58

And then Justin, the question I have for you is how do we recognize signs to be able to identify someone that may be apostatizing?

01:02:09

And then what I'd like both of you to do is to wrap up with this. Say there's someone listening, they are a false convert, what kind of encouragement can we give them to consider their state before a holy

01:02:22

God? So Jim, start us off. Yeah, I think that in my own congregation,

01:02:29

Hebrews 6 has afforded me the opportunity to press and preach hard the gospel.

01:02:34

And I've mentioned, I think it's important for pastors more and more to mention, especially with children who have grown up in Christian homes inside of our churches, to make sure that we are catechizing kids and making sure that they are hearing the gospel preached from the pulpit.

01:02:47

And the stronger, the better. And we need to be clear and forceful and straightforward and not pull any punches about the gospel.

01:02:55

And it has afforded, Hebrews 6 has afforded me the opportunity in our own church to really nail this home and to remind people, just because you have walked an aisle and checked a box or prayed a prayer, raised your hand in a service does not make you a

01:03:08

Christian. I have been honest with our folks and said explicitly, there are probably people sitting in this congregation who think you are

01:03:17

Christians and you're not because you did one of those things. And there are people who are sitting in this congregation who are pretending to be

01:03:22

Christians and you know that you're not. And then there are genuine Christians within our congregation. And I think that there's application in all three of those groups to people within congregations.

01:03:32

So I would just encourage pastors, do not hold back on warning your people about the danger of being a false convert and use

01:03:38

Joshua Harris as an example if necessary. We need to make sure our people are saved and that they're well grounded in truth.

01:03:45

And I think it's time for churches to go doctrinally deep and doctrinally sound, stop playing games and go as deep and rich as you can in your expository preaching each and every

01:03:54

Sunday for the sake of your people. So Justin, what are some warning signs that we could spot with someone that could be an apostate?

01:04:03

Yes, Andrew, I'd say look for a few things. Look for a compromise of truth.

01:04:11

Maybe not, apostasy doesn't happen overnight. Josh Harris didn't fall out of bed one morning and just say, gosh,

01:04:17

I think I'm gonna apostatize. This is not an overnight thing. Watch for a slow but sure compromise of truth.

01:04:31

Softening the hard edges of biblical truth. I would say look for almost, what

01:04:37

I've seen in some of these people is almost like an apologetic tone. And when I say apologetic, I don't mean theological apologetics.

01:04:44

I mean, it's almost like they're embarrassed by what the

01:04:49

Bible has to say. They may not at first outright deny it and they may even affirm it, but they affirm it almost in an embarrassing kind of way.

01:04:57

Like, yeah, we have to recognize the Bible, it does teach this, but it's almost like they're embarrassed by what the

01:05:06

Bible says. That's a telltale sign that someone is fast on their way to possibly apostatizing.

01:05:14

So look for that. Look for someone. Okay, I gotta say this very carefully. I am not saying that J .D.

01:05:24

Greer is about to do what Josh Harris did. I'm not saying that, but recently he was preaching a sermon.

01:05:33

He was talking about homosexuality. And he said, I don't have the direct quote in front of me, but he basically said that we should not overemphasize sins that the

01:05:43

Bible whispers about. We shouldn't shout about sins that the Bible whispers about. And he was saying the

01:05:49

Bible whispers about things like homosexuality. No, the Bible does not whisper about these things.

01:05:56

So it's like sheepishly affirming, yeah, the Bible does say this, but it's like he's embarrassed that it does.

01:06:03

So that's a big warning sign. That's a big red flag. So look for these things, compromising of the truth, softening of the

01:06:12

Bible's hard edges, almost having an apologetic tone, apologetic posture for what the

01:06:19

Bible teaches, friendliness with the world, employing worldly tactics, worldly philosophy, social justice, adopting the lingo and the tactics of the social justice movement, some of that philosophy.

01:06:37

That's all of these things. So we have people out there that may be sitting in the pews like Jim said, who are false converts.

01:06:50

So I want you to speak directly to them, either one of you, whoever wants to go first or both. But what do we say to them?

01:06:58

I would give them, straight from the language of Hebrews 6, which we've been going through in our congregation, you may have been somebody who has been enlightened.

01:07:06

That is, you have understood biblical truth because you sit there, you hear it preached week after week. You may have become somebody who has tasted the goodness of God and the word of God or the powers of the age to come, even partaken of some of the blessings that the

01:07:21

Holy Spirit pours out upon His people as they sit in the pew Sunday after Sunday. And you may have been even somebody who has tasted the kindness of God in salvation and seen it yourself.

01:07:36

And yet, all of those things are just experiences. None of them, all of those things can be partaken of and enjoyed without true regeneration.

01:07:45

You need to look at the things in your life that would be evidence of salvation. Do I have a love for scripture?

01:07:52

Do I have a hunger for the truth? Do I have a desire to be with God's people and to worship and to fellowship?

01:07:58

Do I hate the things that I once loved and love the things that I once hate? Do I have an understanding of scripture?

01:08:06

Is church and the worship and the fellowship of the people of God the highlight of my week? Do I have a true hatred for sin and a love for righteousness?

01:08:13

All of those things are the things that we would look to as evidences of salvation. And if those things are not there and you're just putting on a show, if you're just playing charades, if you are apathetic in your

01:08:26

Christian life and you are not applying diligence to study scripture, to love scripture, to be with God's people, to grow and pursue holiness without which no one can see the

01:08:34

Lord, Hebrews says, if those things are not evidence in your life and you are marked by apathy and neglect of spiritual things, you have every reason to question whether or not you really are in the family of God.

01:08:45

You need to understand what the gospel is. You've already been enlightened. You've seen it. You've tasted it. You've partaken of it.

01:08:51

You have witnessed it. Now you need to do what scripture says. That is to turn from your sin, repent and believe the gospel. And if you will not do that, then leave the people of God and stop putting on airs.

01:09:01

Justin, you have anything you wanna add to that? Andrew, honestly, I don't know what I could add to that.

01:09:07

A hearty amen to everything Jim said. 2 Corinthians 13, five, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.

01:09:14

Jim just told you what to look for. Yeah, hearty amen.

01:09:19

All right, so folks, this is somewhat of a somber topic, but it is a necessary one.

01:09:27

We do need to call out the wolves that are among us. And especially when they say they're not believers.

01:09:35

I saw one person on Twitter trying to justify saying that maybe Joshua Harris didn't know what he was talking about.

01:09:42

Maybe he really is saved. No, when somebody denies Christ, they're not confused about that like Joshua Harris.

01:09:52

He understands exactly what he's saying. And the fact that he's given himself over to the

01:09:58

LGBT community so quickly, I will not be surprised if in the weeks to come, we hear that he is practicing homosexuality.

01:10:08

It won't surprise me in the least. And so I hope not to hear that, but it wouldn't surprise me to hear that.

01:10:16

I don't know if next week we're gonna have what we're gonna have for you. I will be recording with Pastor Jim Osmond sometime soon.

01:10:26

We're gonna deal with the topic of church discipline. Yes, we've dealt with it before, but this time

01:10:31

Pastor Jim and I wanna do it from a different angle. We wanna deal with the topic of church discipline and specifically the area of whether or not public ministries fit into that definition.

01:10:44

So many people bring that up. Justin and I did some podcasts about the whole thing with Beth Moore, and that's always the argument we hear.

01:10:54

You didn't come to us privately. Well, we wanna deal with that. Also coming up somewhat soon, when

01:11:01

Justin and I can actually get together and plan some time, we were asked lots of questions when

01:11:07

Justin and I were in the Philippines. We have not gotten to those questions yet. They finally sent them to us, all the questions.

01:11:14

We are planning to record and answer many of those, if not all of those questions.

01:11:20

That is the hope that we plan to do. Let me wrap up before we close out with something that we have here.

01:11:28

We do have a review from, I don't know if it's iTunes or wherever, but the review is from I'm Happy Guy.

01:11:36

So this is from someone that's a happy guy. And he says, all glory to God. This is his review of the

01:11:44

WRAP report. He says, this is a wonderful, quick show. This is very helpful and sparks great ideas to focus on when it comes to the word of God and application.

01:11:56

They're out. Thank you, Andrew. God bless you all. So we thank you for that.

01:12:03

And folks, if you, again, if you wanna help us out at Striving for Eternity, please consider going to strivingforeternity .org

01:12:10

slash donate and help us out with a monthly donation today. See you next time.

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And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. This podcast is part of the

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Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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