March 28, 2025 Show with Steve Matthews on “The Cults Most Dominant on Today’s College Campuses: ICOC, ICC, and RCW” (Part 2)

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 28th day of March 2025, and today we are conducting part two of a two -day interview that we began yesterday with Steve Matthews.

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Steve Matthews is a Christian apologist, and he is the content director of exposingthecults .com.

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Today, we are delving into part two of the cults most dominant on today's college campuses, the

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ICOC, which stands for the International Churches of Christ, the

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ICC, which stands for the International Christian Church, and the

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RCW, which stands for the Restored Church Worldwide. All of those had the same origins in the

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Restoration Movement, beginning with the International Churches of Christ, which was a breakaway group from the more mainstream

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Church of Christ known as the Stone -Campbell

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Movement from the 19th century, and those groups continued to splinter and morph, and we have

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Steve Matthews returning today, and we are going to be focusing today on how we, who are

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Bible -believing evangelical Christians, are to respond to the false teachings of these groups.

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One of the pillar false teachings that they all share in common is a belief that you must be immersed in water in order to be saved, and if I'm not mistaken, you must be immersed in water by one of them to be saved with the exact understanding that they have of baptism in order for it to be effectual.

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But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for part two of this discussion,

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Steve Matthews. Great to be with you again. It was a great show yesterday.

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It was nice to be able to cover some of this stuff on this group. I have a huge burden because a lot of parents are having their children go off to college and university and then getting pulled into this group, which really divides the family, and it ends up turning these disciples, they call them, of these movements against their home church, where they now believe that their home church is off.

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They don't have the proper way of salvation because they're not baptized properly, and they're a very divisive group.

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So may the Lord use what we do today to His glory. And why don't we do a summary of what you spoke on yesterday.

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Sure thing. So yesterday we were able to cover a bit about these groups. So these are the movements that came from Kip McKean.

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Kip is kind of like the father of these series of groups. The movements originally came out of—kind of have a lineage back to the

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Restoration Movement. So a lot of people would know about the Church of Christ, the Christian Church, the

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Disciples of Christ. Those are all part of the American Restoration Movement that was, you know, getting birth in the 1820s and 1830s in the

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U .S. and Eastern Canada—or Canada, the U .S .—Eastern U .S. I'm from Eastern Canada. That's a little slip right there, guys.

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But so the Restoration Movements came as a movement. They originally were a unity movement, but then they ended up becoming a very divisive movement.

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And they, as you pointed out yesterday, they basically split over anything and everything. So they ended up as their big doctoral distinctive teaching that you got to be baptized by immersion for the remission of sins.

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I pointed out yesterday that a lot of things—one major factor that a lot of people never talk about is the role of Austin McGarry.

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He was a very important figure in the history of the mainline Church of Christ because he was the editor of their publication,

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Firm Foundation, and he introduced a belief that unless you're baptized with the conscious knowledge, the understanding that you're being saved through your baptism, then the baptism doesn't count.

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It's an invalid baptism. So that created a whole new stream within the mainline

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Church of Christ. Now you have two streams. You have the regular Church of Christ people who do push baptism, but they will take an immersed believer—say a

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Baptist, for example—and they'll often say, hey, you're my brother in Christ, you're saved because you had a baptism by immersion in water.

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And they would obviously reject the baptisms of Presbyterians and Lutherans, which are not by immersion, but they would say someone had a believer's baptism saved.

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And this created another stream within the mainline Church of Christ. So now you have the two streams.

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You have the mainline Church of Christ guy who will say, hey, you're my brother because you've been baptized, but then you'll have the other person who's in the

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Church of Christ say, well, you know, unless you're baptized, you know, knowing you're saved through baptism doesn't count.

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Well, that was the stream that affected Kip McKean. And he was studied under a fellow called

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Chuck Lucas of the Crossroads Movement in Florida. In 1972, Kip was baptized by him.

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In 1979, he went on to start the Boston Church of Christ. Now the Boston Movement was a very, very controversial group because they had a lot of accusations, a heavy -handed discipleship where they would micromanage all of your, not only spiritual decisions, but like who you're supposed to date, who you're supposed to marry, what job you're supposed to have, the car you buy.

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All that became micromanaged in the life of the disciple, which was very unhealthy. And it created a real psychological break in a lot of people, the whole encouragement to be like Kip.

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The movement, nonetheless, was very zealous. It grew like crazy. They called it the Multiplying Ministries Movement because it would just go to a church consistently with like, say, 30 people.

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And then, you know, a few minutes later, they'd go up to 900 people. So they had an incredible, explosive growth pattern, one of the fastest growing movements.

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But the other problem is that there was more people in the 90s seeing psychologists and therapists for psychological trauma from this group than all other cults stuck together.

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So they definitely did a real number of people's heads. And out of the Boston Movement, they eventually, in 1993, became, their headquarters became in Los Angeles instead of Boston in 1990, but they changed their name to the

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International Churches of Christ. They're still around. They're not affiliated with any of these movements.

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And as we covered yesterday, they definitely had a big change when they kept kicking

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Kino out of the movement. Originally, we were told that Kip was let go because of his discipling styles and his high pressure, as well as his daughter leaving the movement, becoming an agnostic.

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And that made the movement do a lot of self -reflection, where they changed their discipling patterns and the central leadership.

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And Kip had to, you know, not leave well enough alone. He started in 2006, the

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International Christian Church, which kind of goes back to the glory days of the Boston Movement. And that is the movement that we're concerned about now.

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They're on our campuses teaching that, you know, they're the only true church. You got to be baptized for salvation.

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The true church fell away in the early centuries and had to be restored again by Kip McKean in 1979 in Boston, because the true church was gone for 1 ,500 years.

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And recently, since October, there's been a big split off the ICC, the

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International Christian Church, with the restored churches worldwide. And they're starting to grow quickly.

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A lot of the leadership, a lot of the disciples from the International Christian Church have now joined the

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RCW. And this is going to, I think, in the long run, be a bigger threat on campuses for the kids, because they're still teaching baptism for salvation and a lot of the other false doctrines of the

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ICC. And this is something we need to contend with as Christians, provide answers why these movements are false, just like we do with any of the other groups.

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The only consolation here is that a lot of the people in the

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ICC and the RCW are true believers, because they do believe mainstream Christian doctrines.

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They do believe the Trinity. They can say the Apostles' Creed like we can, but they do have the heavy -handed discipleship.

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They do teach baptism is essential for salvation, as well as a number of other doctrines we covered yesterday.

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And was I correct in saying that it's not only that baptism is essential for salvation, but baptism by one of them?

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You know, that's kind of a good question, Chris, because what they'll often say is, there's a

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Kip McKean line, and it gets replicated throughout the movement. Well, there are other true believers and disciples out there, but I just haven't met any.

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So Kip originally came up with that, and then it gets mimicked through the ranks. So they might say that some people in the mainline

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Church of Christ, maybe the McGarryites, who believe baptism, you know, if you believe in the saving power of baptism, they would probably say they're saved.

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But for the most part, they do tend to say that. The term, as we said yesterday, they always say, we are

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God's modern -day movement. God is specifically working through us, and Kip has been leading the charge to evangelize the world.

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But now that Kip has been kicked out of the ICC, he's now joined the

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RCW for immorality. He was basically booted out of the ICC. And he's just a regular...

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A rank -and -file disciple. They apparently are not going to let him be a leader.

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Ron Harding was the IT director for the ICC for 20 years.

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He has two and a half million emails, and he has some really deviant pornographic stuff come up from Kip.

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He's had some really bad patterns of things. And as well as that, there's a lot of financial corruption that went on behind the scenes.

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They had a thing called the discretionary fund in the ICC. And this is really sad,

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Chris, because half a million dollars a year was taken out of the general fund to put into this discretionary fund.

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And Kip would allocate that money to things like, oh, you need a home remodel to one of the leaders?

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Here's $10 ,000. Oh, you've eaten out too much and your credit cards are too high? Here's $30 ,000 to pay off your credit cards.

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You need $20 ,000 for a down payment on your house. Here that is. But it got worse because they started doing things like, here's $132 ,000 as a severance, but you have to sign non -disclosures not to talk disparagingly about Kip anymore, about the movement, all about the dirt that you have.

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So a lot of the leaders were kind of paid off, as well as there's been a lot of accusations of sexual things, just like the

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Catholic Church, where they'd move people around when they sinned and did horrible acts to minors. A lot of that was going on in the

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ICC. So they ended up moving the evangelists throughout the country, and then they would pay people out of this discretionary fund to be quiet.

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It's basically a hush money fund. And the sad part is, where is this money coming from? These are kids in college, 18 to 22 years old, who have no money at all.

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They're at their lowest financial point in their lives, and this money has been going unknowingly to them without their approval to this discretionary fund, where their leaders have been making all these payments behind their backs, and they have no knowledge of this.

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It's just terrible. There's such an intensity in this movement. It's one of the most intense cults or new religious movements you've ever seen, where they really don't give from a cheerful heart, but there's an incredible pressure to give, where disciples will often—it's very common—they'll be selling their plasma to raise money to meet their mission goals, or some disciples are even doing things like selling their bone marrow.

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So the pressure for time, evangelism, money is super, super intense in this group, and it causes a lot of people, like we covered yesterday, to eventually leave the group and become bitter agnostics.

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It's very sad. Well, as I know, you've given me some fundraising ideas for Iron Trump and Zion, right?

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Sell your plasma! It'll be eventually known as the marrow controversy.

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Well, maybe you can introduce different levels of donations. Instead of being a vanguard giver or something, you could have the bone marrow giver or the plasma givers.

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It's pretty awful. This is not healthy Christianity. You don't see this in regular mainstream churches.

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The things we covered yesterday—the information control, everything is spiritual pornography, like this show, because it doesn't agree with them.

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I mean, this is just not a healthy life. This is not a healthy church to be in. I mean, even though they're

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Christians, it's a messed -up movement, and they do have a lot of false doctrines. I'll tell you this.

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Some of the discipling partners are pretty okay, but the problem is the bad apples. It creates a bad environment, the zeal to try to encourage each other to live a godly life.

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Some of the discipleship partners are bad apples, and they're the ones who are going to really push you really hard to micromanage your life.

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But some of them are just healthy, but it does create that bad environment. Well, now we'd like you to go through seven claims of these groups that they all have in common that they use as their primary—

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Proof texts. Yeah, and how we are to, as Bible -believing evangelicals, respond to these.

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Yeah, we covered a bit about this yesterday, and this is kind of exciting because there's not that many

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Christian platforms out there or sources online on how to answer the arguments on baptism for salvation.

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They just don't exist, and hopefully this could be a resource for the right people who come across it. Some people will say when you're trying to share the

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Lord with someone—you say you have a daughter or a son who's gotten involved in one of these movements, the

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RCW, the ICC, and they've gone away, and now you're hearing this program or it's popped up, you found it in a

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Google search. This is hopefully valuable information. Now, a lot of people will say, well, stay off the baptism issue, giving people an apology.

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Don't deal with that one aspect. And I say, absolutely not. This is their defining doctrine that's shutting everybody out from the

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King of Heaven. So why would you not go after this doctrine? As Christians, we do have the truth.

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They're in biblical error, so let's give a healthy response to this. I also have a principle in apologetics, and we do it exposing the cults—different strokes for different folks.

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That means some people in a group might come out over scripture. Some people might come out over behavioral abuse.

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If a cult has done false prophecies or plagiarism or, you know, sourcing off cultic resources, like the

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Job as Witnesses have with Johannes Riebert, some of those things might be powerful things to get someone out. Not everybody comes out of a cult for the same reason.

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So this is something in the arsenal to use the scriptural verses on baptism that we're going to cover right now.

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So whether it's the Mainline Church of Christ or these Kip's Restoration movements, they do have their seven pet verses that they like to use to prove that baptism is essential for salvation.

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And I would respond by saying, first off, there's literally hundreds of verses that say salvation comes by faith through Christ.

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It's super clear. Acts 16 31, What shall we do that we may be saved?

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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. No mention of baptism over there, right? You know, whether it's

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John 3 16 or Romans 10, on and on and on. It's very clear that salvation, like the

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Reformers said, is solipidated by faith. It's, you know, baptism is something we are commanded.

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Some Christians call it the first commandment in the Christian life is to be baptized. I like that.

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It is an ordinance, as is the Lord's Supper, but it's not a requirement for salvation.

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The Kabbalists would talk often back in the early days of the Restoration movement, you contact the blood of Christ through baptism.

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So the atonement basically is applied to you through immersion water baptism.

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Kip McKean does use that terminology as well about contacting the blood. And as I covered yesterday,

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Kip is no longer the world mission evangelist for the ICC or the

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RCW. Raul Marino has replaced Kip. He's the leader of the ICC.

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And Jason Dimitri is the world missions evangelist for the RCW, the leader, top of the pyramid.

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But I guess, Chris, we can cover baptism now, and then we can give a bit of a refutation of some of the other doctrines, their false teaching of how their church is the kingdom of God, how their view of discipleship is unbiblical.

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They like to point out, as we covered yesterday, that the Prophetic New Testament term for a Christian is disciple, but it's used 270 times, while the term

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Christian is only used three times. So we can cover a bit of that as well a little later on. One thing that I might want to throw out there, just to clarify something.

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Obviously, there's nothing extremely unique about a belief that baptism with water is required for salvation, because you have the

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Roman Catholic Church teaching that, the Eastern Orthodox, and you have even the

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Lutheran Church teaching that, and some others. They would differentiate from them by saying that they are not performing baptisms because they are sprinkling or pouring, and in most cases, actually doing that to infants, which none of these restoration groups believes in.

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They believe in the immersion of a believer. And that is a requirement.

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How would they respond to someone in a cult that believes that the immersion of a believer in water is required for salvation?

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Like the Oneness Pentecostal groups, they believe that baptism by immersion in water is absolutely necessary for salvation.

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So how would they— They're Mormons. It's one of the first principles of Mormonism that you're saying to baptism as well.

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Well, at least there is—even though they're both cults and have a false understanding of the

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Godhead, Mormonism would be, I'm assuming— Tri -theist.

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Yeah, and they would be viewed as being far more outside of the pale of orthodoxy than the

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Oneness Pentecostals would. I'm not saying that that cult of Oneness Pentecostalism is orthodox.

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I'm just saying that there may be more arguments, because they believe in the deity of Christ.

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Now, they don't believe that he was eternally God, that he came into existence in the womb of Mary.

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But so how would they respond to that, though? Because it seems that they have, in my experience with folks connected to any of these groups, they're far more concerned about what you believe about baptism than what you believe about Jesus Christ and the

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Godhead. Yeah, I mean, they definitely want you to be a Trinitarian, you know, because that's who

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God is to them. But as far as the gate, the way of salvation, it's definitely baptism.

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I think they would have, obviously, massive problems, because the theology proper, the doctrine of God, whether it be

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Mormon or Baudelist, like the Oneness, but they would basically say baptism for remission of sins, but you have to have the right

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God to do it. But they're definitely all about baptism. And I like to draw a distinction between Lutherans, for example, and churches of Christ.

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So a lot of this discussion today, the response to the verses I'm going to provide from a mainline

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Christian perspective, they apply to mainline church of Christ, as well as they would apply to these restoration movements, of the newer restoration movements.

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We'll call it the restoration of the restoration. And, you know, I kind of joke about that, because, you know,

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Jesus said, we covered yesterday, like, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,

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Matthew 16, 18. Well, according to this movement, the gates of hell prevailed against it really well for 1500 years, that the way of salvation was gone.

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We quoted the verse yesterday, or the passage. But Jude chapter 3, Jude verse 3 says, we should contend for the faith delivered once to the saints.

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Well, according to these movements, the faith has been delivered to saints many, many times. It was delivered by the ministry of Christ and his incarnation.

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It was delivered again through the Campbells, somewhat with the restoration of the ancient gospel, the ancient order of things.

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It was restored again in June 1st, 1979 in Boston to Kip. It was restored again in 2006 with the

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ICC. And now if you're RCW, there's another restoration. It's like, how many times are we going to keep on restoring, you know, the faith delivered once to the saints, when

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Scripture says it was delivered once to saints and the gates of hell would prevail, right? It's kind of ironic how these guys miss this.

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Well, let's go to a first commercial break, so I don't have to interrupt you mid -sentence, and then we'll have you proceed with giving the proof texts that these groups offer and how we are to respond to them.

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And if you have questions of your own, send them to chrisarensen at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

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Please only remain anonymous if your question is personal and private, such as you are in one of these groups or you have a loved one in one of these groups, that kind of thing that would obviously lend itself to a private personal question.

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We're now back with Steve Matthews, and we are addressing part two of a two -day interview we began yesterday on the

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International Churches of Christ, the International Christian Church, and the

35:32

Restored Church Worldwide, which are three cults with the same roots that are dominating the college campuses, especially the latter two in this day and age.

35:48

And we are going to be delving into the primary proof texts that these groups use and how we are to respond to them.

35:59

And if you have a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

36:08

And Steve wants you to know that there will be a PDF with a lot of this information available,

36:17

God willing, when my webmaster will offer an attachment on the archived recordings of these two interviews that will include the

36:31

PDF. So, keep your eye open for that. Well, if you could,

36:37

Steve, begin with your first of the seven primary proof texts that these groups use to trip up everybody that they're proselytizing.

36:48

Very well put. And as I share with people, just like the

36:53

Jehovah's Witnesses have their proof texts they use to disprove the Trinity, these people and the

37:00

Mainline Church of Christ will use these seven pet verses, the cherry pick, to try to prove that salvation isn't by faith in Christ, but it's by faith and baptism.

37:09

So, the go -to verse you're going to hear in any discussion when you run into a Mainline Church of Christ person or someone in one of these new

37:17

McKee movements is going to be Acts 2 .38. And this is a favorite verse, like I said, the

37:23

Mainline Church of Christ just loves this verse. And that's the verse at Pentecost where Peter stood up and preached and he said, repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.

37:35

So, they say, you see, it's right in the verse. You're not saved by faith, you're baptized for the remission of sins.

37:41

Peter said so right here. Well, you know, there's been a couple of different ways Christians have explained it.

37:47

One of the common ways Christians explain it is on the Greek preposition, ace, used in this passage.

37:54

And that is the word used for. A lot of Christians will bring that up to Mainline Church of Christ or Kid McKee's disciples and say, hey, ace, sometimes it's a directional preposition.

38:07

So, prepositions are words like into, out of, towards, any of those prepositions that we have in English.

38:14

This is a preposition, but in Greek it's a bit more complex because it's defined, it can have up to like 20 meanings.

38:22

It's often defined by context. It's a much more kind of flexible word than we have in English like that.

38:31

But nonetheless, a lot of Christians will point out and say, well, sometimes the word ace doesn't mean in order to.

38:39

Sometimes it means because of. And the Church of Christ person will push back and say, no, it's never used that way.

38:46

It's always used for. Well, I'll often like to say, what about Matthew 12, 41, where it says the people repented at ace, they're preaching at Jonah.

38:56

They didn't repent in order to get the preaching of Jonah. They repented because of the preaching of Jonah.

39:03

The same way we'd say you take an aspirin for a headache. You don't take an aspirin in order to get a headache.

39:09

You take an aspirin because you already have a headache or a ticket for speeding. You get a ticket because you already did the speeding.

39:17

The same thing in Acts 2, 38, the construction. So when they say it's never used that way in the

39:22

New Testament, they're wrong. It absolutely is. I just gave an example. But I think the stronger exegetical way to approach this would be on the

39:33

Greek construction of the verbs. In English or other translations, things do get lost in translation.

39:40

But if you go back to the original language, you can notice the way that the words were chosen by Luke or by Peter, that it could have been a different way, but they did it very precisely to show the relationship, the role of baptism here.

39:55

So you have in language, a principle is commonly called agreement. If you're talking about this person or this group of persons, the singulars and the plurals have got to line up so you'll identify who's been spoken of.

40:10

In this passage, Peter's basically saying, second person plural, y 'all repent, not just like one of you, and let each one of you be baptized, singular, let each one of you baptize for the forgiveness of y 'all sins, the sins of you guys.

40:28

So there's definitely a linguistic construction here that if you all repent, you'll all have your sins forgiven, but let each one of you get baptized.

40:40

I think that's stronger, Chris, than I would argue based on Ace. I think, you know, in English, sometimes certain things you don't really get the full gist, just like in the old days of the

40:50

King James Bible, the nuance between Gehenna and Hades, well, they're both translated as hell.

40:56

So people often get a bit of a distorted view on Gehenna being specifically the realm of the damned dead, where Hades is the realm of the blessed dead and the damned dead, just a grave, like Sheol.

41:10

So sometimes that's just like an aside, as an analogy, but just as certain things get lost if you don't have the original language.

41:17

In this case, to get a proper understanding, it's definitely based on the agreement.

41:23

If you all repent, you all get your sins forgiven, and let each one of you get baptized.

41:29

If you go to the very next chapter in Acts 3 .19, it says you have faith for the remission of sins.

41:36

There's no mention of it's faith for my repentance. There's no mention of baptism there. It says have repentance for the remission of sins.

41:44

Again, the jailer, we mentioned earlier in Acts 16 .31, he says, how shall we save?

41:52

He didn't put the word faith and baptism in there. It was clearly salvation by trusting, believing in the name of the

41:58

Lord Jesus. So I also do want to point out, as mainstream

42:04

Christians, we kind of see faith and repentance as two sides of the same coin.

42:12

And they like to split it up in the Campbellite world. They do a five -finger exercise. They separate faith and repentance and baptism, but as believers, they kind of go together as sides of the same coin.

42:23

So that's how that works. Do you have any comments on that? Yeah. Well, one of the things that you brought up yesterday,

42:30

I wanted you to clarify this. In the mainline churches of Christ, every experience that I have had,

42:41

I can even remember vividly when I was a teenager before I was a believer myself.

42:48

I was a lapsed Roman Catholic at that point, and my brother Bob was a member of a mainline church of Christ.

42:55

But I can remember the aggressiveness with which they wanted to get me dunked in water.

43:03

And they would be more than happy to do that. They were not ministers or evangelists.

43:10

They were just common members in the congregation.

43:17

But they wanted me—that night that they were having the conversation with me—to be immersed.

43:28

But it seemed that you were saying that Kip McKean's splinter groups, they seem to put a—unless

43:38

I misunderstood you—a greater distance between someone who is a disciple and then having that disciple be baptized.

43:54

Please clarify that, because they say that the proper name is disciples.

44:01

We just covered. So any church where baptized is a disciple, you become a disciple to get baptized.

44:07

You know, they have a chart that says same equal disciple equals Christian in their

44:12

First Principles book. But when you're saying disciple, I just want to understand the language here, because they use it a different way.

44:19

Well, for instance, most Christians, it seems, believe that the baptism of a repentant sinner is the initial step into being discipled, where it seemed to me—unless

44:35

I misunderstood you—someone has to reach some kind of level of being a disciple before they're even baptized.

44:44

They would actually say that, yeah. So they would not be rushing you like the mainline churches would?

44:51

Probably not. That's one of the distinctives of Kip's movements, is that you only baptize disciples.

44:57

So to me, when I look at Matthew 28, where it says, going to all nations, teaching, and making disciples, baptizing them—well, who's the them in that passage?

45:10

It's a disciple. You're baptizing a disciple. I don't think the New Testament knows anything about an unsaved disciple.

45:17

I think that's believer's baptism in Matthew 28, because you're baptizing someone who already is a disciple, and to be a disciple is a believer.

45:25

This puts them in a very strange predicament, where they have to somehow say that if you were hit by a car by the time you became a disciple before baptism, you might miss your salvation.

45:36

Well, that would imply that there's disciples who are unsaved. Now, the word disciple is used that way certain times.

45:44

It talks about that we're disciples of Moses, and the Pharisees said it, and disciples of John the

45:49

Baptist. It is a sense of a generic follower, a student of someone,

45:56

Matthētes, but it does have a technical meaning, I think, as believers, that the true redeemed believer would be a disciple in that context of Matthew 28.

46:05

Now, one additional thing before we move on, and I don't know if I'm jumping too far ahead for you, because perhaps you were going to bring this up later, but one of the clearest evidences to me from the

46:23

Scriptures that people are born again, regenerate, filled with the

46:30

Holy Spirit prior to their baptism is in Acts 10 -47.

46:38

You have the Jewish Christians wrongly forbidding water baptism to Gentile believers, and we read in 10 -47 of Acts, surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received, past tense, the

47:06

Holy Spirit, just as we did. Can he? So, how do they respond to that when you have these

47:13

Gentiles who have the same gift of the Holy Spirit, and they haven't been baptized?

47:20

Are they trying to make the insinuation that these were lost or unregenerate people that still had the gift of the

47:29

Holy Spirit? You know, they try to dance around that in any of the

47:35

Church of Christ movements. I think this verse—I'm really glad you shared it—that's an extremely powerful, offensive verse to use with these people, the disciples of the

47:45

New or Mainline Church of Christ. You know, we're kind of doing a bit of a defensive on the seven verses that are used in these movements, but when you want to go on the offense, that's a fantastic verse to be using back in Acts 10.

47:59

And if you actually go to the next chapter, when Peter's talking about it again, he talks about the way they received the

48:08

Spirit in the same time as it was at the beginning, which would be Acts chapter 2. So, the same way the

48:15

Spirit fell on the disciples at Pentecost is exactly what we see in Acts chapter 10. So, Peter even drives it on me further and harder to make the point, yeah, these people really had the

48:25

Spirit. Go to Romans 8, you know, that's the sign of being a Christian, the Spirit dwelling in us. So, if the apostles don't have the

48:30

Spirit, we're all in a world of trouble, right? So, you have a good point. It's like, how, you know, what is preventing us to be baptized?

48:38

Well, they had the gifts, they spoke in tongues, they manifested, they had the Holy Spirit as it was at the time of the beginning.

48:45

Obviously, you're baptizing a believer who is already, you know, confessed to Christ at that point as being redeemed.

48:53

And I think that's a good response for Acts chapter 2. I brought up the 319, 1631 in the book of Acts, and you don't find that pattern elsewhere except for these cherry -picked handful of verses that can be explained alternately.

49:07

Mark, why don't you squeeze in another one of the proof texts before we go to the first break?

49:13

Well, another common one you're going to see is John 3, 5. And John 3, 5 is used by Mormons, a lot of groups, and that one is where Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, and he says, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven unless they're born of water, born of Spirit.

49:31

They automatically see the word, born of water, like a lot of cults with that exegesis, they use a proof text, they go, ah, baptism, water is mentioned here, therefore it's got to mean baptism, so here's the proof text.

49:42

Well, this is a pretty easy verse to answer because what I would say to someone in the Church of Christ or in these new restoration movements with King of Kings, when

49:52

Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, what was the only baptism around at the time of this conversation?

50:00

John the Baptist's baptism. There was no Christian baptism yet. Christian baptism wasn't given until the

50:06

Great Commission after Jesus was resurrected at Matthew 28, 1920, right?

50:12

He says, go into all nations, we just quoted that verse. Nicodemus would have had no clue.

50:17

This is called an anachronism, like trying to read back from a future time. Catholics do it with the Mass, they go to John chapter 6, and they say, if you don't eat of this bread, you have no life in you.

50:29

Well, the Jews wouldn't have understood anything about that in John 6 because the Lord's Supper wasn't given until the

50:36

Last Supper, and it's just an anachronism, it's very sloppy exegesis, right? So with Nicodemus, the baptism of John was not

50:47

Christian baptism. It wasn't in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, as we learned in Matthew 28. Romans 6, 3, and 4 says baptism, we're buried with Christ in baptism in relation to his death, burial, and resurrection, right?

51:00

Well, Christ wasn't dead, buried, and resurrected in John chapter 3. The baptism there has nothing to do with the baptism in relation to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ of John the

51:14

Baptist. It wasn't named the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost. It was a baptism of repentance. It wasn't any way

51:20

Christian baptism. They're just trying to force it. They see the water there, and he's trying to assume it.

51:27

So even according to Kabbalites in the mainline Church of Christ or in these movements, the gospel was even apparently given until Acts chapter 2 because one of their beliefs is debated in Christianity even.

51:41

Did the church start at Pentecost, or did the church start earlier? They're very hard -lined about the church started at Pentecost, and the gospel was first preached in Acts chapter 2.

51:50

Well, the gospel was first preached then, then what does that do to everything we see in the New Testament? You know, remember

51:56

Jesus talked about the righteous man who went, the two men, and he said he went home justified because he had faith in Christ, faith in the

52:07

Lord. It wasn't an act of baptism. It's by faith. So clearly when you look at John 3, 5, that's an easy verse to shoot down.

52:15

It has nothing whatsoever to do with Christian baptism. They try to force it to be that way. In John 3, 16, in the same context a few verses later,

52:24

Jesus, again without baptism there, says by trusting, you know, the word faith is actually trust for us as New Testament Christians, right?

52:34

It's like you're trusting Christ for salvation. And furthermore, what's really funny is that Jesus ends up rebuking

52:43

Nicodemus, saying, hey Nicodemus, I tell you about earthly things you don't understand.

52:49

What if I were to tell you about heavenly things? Is he really rebuking Nicodemus for something that hasn't even been given yet?

52:56

That's basically the gist of what they're saying in the church of Christ. You know, John 3, 5 is just a desperate attempt to try to force a proof text, which is clearly has nothing to do with water baptism.

53:09

So now you have seven verses, two of them are easily explained away, five more to go. Great. Well, we're going to go to our first, or should

53:18

I say, our midway break right now. And once again, if you have questions of your own, send them to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:26

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Before we go to any listener questions, why don't you continue with the next proof text offered by these groups?

01:08:41

There you go. So John 3, 5, we just looked at, Acts 2, 38. The next one they like to use is 1

01:08:48

Peter 3, 21, and that's the infamous passage. Peter says, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves us.

01:08:57

They seize on that right away, completely ignoring the context of the passage.

01:09:03

Peter himself actually gives the explanation there, where he says, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the clear conscience towards God.

01:09:14

Peter is explaining, so you don't get the wrong idea of what he's saying with this kind of language.

01:09:20

It's not the outwardly ritual that saves, getting wet, putting away the filth of the flesh, but it's the inward man that leads to salvation, the clear conscience towards God.

01:09:32

That's after you've turned towards the Lord, he's forgiven your sins, and now you have the clear conscience.

01:09:38

Baptism is because you've already been a believer in this passage, he's kind of implying.

01:09:43

You already have that clear conscience. It couldn't be more clear. Peter drives it home. So they like, like a lot of these groups do, to read part of the verse, but they don't look at the entire verse, because if you look at the entire verse, it contradicts what they said.

01:09:58

And it's amazing, Chris, because like I said earlier, there's hundreds of verses that talk about salvation by faith, and they have to be very desperate to go to just a handful of verses to prove the text their way.

01:10:10

I think a very powerful argument for the old people in the Church of Christ and these restoration movements is this.

01:10:16

They use seven verses to prove baptism is necessary for salvation.

01:10:22

Two of the verses, we looked at Acts 2 .38, we're going to look at Acts 22 .16 in a second, two of the verses are from the same book.

01:10:29

That means six of the verses are from six of the 27 different New Testament books, right?

01:10:35

That means there's 27 books in the New Testament, but only six of them have the way of salvation according to someone who's a

01:10:43

Campbellite in the mainline Church of Christ, or in these Kit McKean movements. You don't think God would put his way of salvation in many of the books of the

01:10:50

New Testament. So now less than a quarter of the books of the New Testament have the way of salvation through baptism in them.

01:10:58

So that means if you were living in the early church before the canon was put together, and you got, say, the

01:11:04

Gospel of Luke, oh, I'm in trouble now because the way of salvation is not here. There's no proof text for baptism in the book of Luke.

01:11:11

First Thessalonians, I guess I'm lost forever because there's no message of, you know, salvation by baptism in that book.

01:11:19

Or 2 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, it's just not even in there. So how could

01:11:24

Luke even be the good news? What does the Gospel mean, good news, right? There's no good news in Luke because there's no proof text for the salvation because it's not there.

01:11:34

Or again and again, Christ taught that. So I think salvation by faith, and it's taught throughout the

01:11:40

New Testament, I think this is a really powerful argument. How come, you know, if this is the clear way of salvation, not as this new pop -up movement, you know, came and said everybody else has been wrong for 1 ,800 years, or Kip's movement since 1979, how come

01:11:55

God couldn't even get the way of salvation right and put it clearly in the bulk of the New Testament books instead of just a few books?

01:12:02

Does that make sense, Chris? I think it's a powerful argument. Well, let me go to a listener question.

01:12:12

We have Jeannie in Akron, Ohio, who says, how do these groups believe that people were saved in the

01:12:22

Old Testament? I'm sure they would have to say it was faith.

01:12:31

That's a really good question. Would they say it's faith and the works of keeping the law? For us, we look, for example, early in the

01:12:38

Bible, in Genesis 15, 6, with Abraham, where God alone could see his heart well before he did any works but putting

01:12:47

Isaac upon the altar, and God saw his heart and said, this quote in the New Testament several times,

01:12:53

Abraham believed God who has counted him for righteousness. Salvation is before any circumcision, before any good works, like trying to offer up Isaac.

01:13:02

It's definitely when God looks upon the heart that it's saved. That's a very good question for you,

01:13:10

Jeannie. I think that they would have to say it's by faith then, but Peter instituted baptism in the book of Acts of Pentecost, and then apparently it was repeated a few times.

01:13:23

Of course, we're going to see the verses are all in the context, and there's alternate explanations to these few verses that appear in less than a quarter of the

01:13:31

New Testament books, but I don't think that part of the pundit holds any water. They would not believe that circumcision was required for salvation.

01:13:44

It is interesting that the Apostle Paul is basically revealing that there were

01:13:59

Jews that seemed to believe that, and he says that he is not a

01:14:09

Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a

01:14:15

Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart by the

01:14:21

Spirit, not by the love of God. Even if they didn't believe that circumcision saved, meaning the

01:14:30

Church of Christ, folks, Paul is not saying here it's not circumcision, it's baptism.

01:14:40

No, he's saying that this is an inward act of the Holy Spirit, that circumcision of the heart is what makes a person a true

01:14:49

Jew, not circumcision of the flesh. It even goes along with the the

01:14:58

Holy Spirit -enacted miracle in the heart, rather than an outward ceremony.

01:15:06

Correct. Yeah, and also in Colossians chapter 2, we have something about that too, about the uncircumcised, and people will say it's kind of like the

01:15:16

New Testament version of baptism, where that was the outside sign of the covenant, as baptism is for the

01:15:23

New Testament person. But again, like following up on what you said there, circumcision in the Old Testament never saved anybody either.

01:15:30

It was by faith. Before that, that was an outward sign of the covenant, as baptism is today.

01:15:36

It's an outward sign of the covenant. The Lord suffers the other ordinance. As often as you do this, you show forth the

01:15:41

Lord's death until he comes again, and it's a identification with Christ in a public sense, very much like baptism.

01:15:48

By the way, folks, if you were wondering what text I was citing, it was from Romans chapter 2, 25 through 29.

01:15:59

Well, you can move on to the next proof text. Yeah, so that's exactly what they are.

01:16:04

They're proof texts. They're not good at doing theology, but they're good at proof texting certain things instead of the big picture theological message of the

01:16:12

New Testament of salvation and justification by faith alone in Christ. So in Mark 16, 16, a very questionable text on a couple levels we'll talk about.

01:16:23

They love the verse where it says, whosoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

01:16:30

Again, they read part of the verse. They don't look at the rest of the verse, but he who believeth not shall not be saved.

01:16:36

They like to grab that verse on baptism again, and they say, ah, baptism and belief for salvation there.

01:16:43

A lot of theologians and textual critics have pointed out that the ending of Mark is in question as far as its authenticity.

01:16:51

Mark 16, 9 to 20, he's in a lot of the older manuscripts, that passage simply does not appear.

01:16:59

You know, that is the job not of higher criticism, but of lower criticism to identify, you know, which, you know, the recensions in the biblical text family are spurious, which ones seem to be added by overzealous scribes.

01:17:12

They see there appears to be three doctrinal mistakes at the end of Mark. One is the handling of snakes.

01:17:18

We don't encourage that. You know, obviously somebody looked at the book of Acts, a scribe, and they got inspired to put that in there.

01:17:26

Also, when it says they saw Jesus and he was in another form, that's a false doctrine because Jesus was in the same body that he was crucified in when he was raised from the dead.

01:17:35

It wasn't another form of another kind at all. And this also, this passage on baptism.

01:17:40

So, the ending of Mark, I've had people in these movements tell me, yeah, we know that Mark probably—this is a late addition to Mark because they didn't want to end briefly just, you know, after the crucifixion.

01:17:53

They wanted to kind of give some hope there. But again, the passage itself, if you just read the verse itself, whosoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but it also makes it clear he who does not believe is not saved.

01:18:10

So, I think, again, just like the first Peter, they like to read part of the verse and not the rest of the verse because it suits them.

01:18:16

That's what cults do. They read things out of context. They don't do proper exegesis and read the whole verse.

01:18:24

Chris, if you don't want to comment on that, I would like to bring up a very common objection. They'll often—Christians will mention the thief on the cross.

01:18:33

And they'll say to someone in the Campbellite, Church of Christ, or these movements, well, what about the thief on the cross? Well, they have an answer ready to go on that one.

01:18:41

And what they'll do is they'll—sometimes they'll say, well, the Son of Man had power to forgive sins on earth. So, if this is prerogative, if he wanted to say,

01:18:49

I forgive you, they're forgiven. But the big verse they like to go to in the Church of Christ is in Hebrews chapter 9, where it says, covenant is not fulfilled until the death of a testator.

01:18:59

So, they say Jesus wasn't dead yet, so therefore, boom, that verse doesn't count. So, so much for the thief on the cross.

01:19:06

I love to respond to them by saying, well, you ever read what happened in the Gospels when they went out there and they went—the

01:19:12

Roman soldiers went to break the legs of the three people? And when they went to Jesus, he was already dead.

01:19:20

Therefore, what does that mean? It means the thief died under the new covenant, guys. He didn't die under that old covenant.

01:19:26

So, the death of the testator, he died in the new covenant. And how does he say it? By faith in Christ. You know, he's like, believe me, you have believed, so this day shall be with me in paradise.

01:19:37

So, that's a little objection that you get to hear. And I think there's more powerful verses that we can use.

01:19:43

I think the one you brought up in Acts 10 with Coriolis is an incredible verse to bring up with these people.

01:19:49

I would go there all day long before I would go to the thief on the cross, but it's just something else in the arsenal, right?

01:19:56

So, yeah. So, we got a couple more verses to look at, right?

01:20:02

We did Acts 238, John 3, 5, 1 Peter 3, 21 and Mark 16, 16.

01:20:09

The other passage I'm really fond of is Acts 22, 16. And this is with the apostle

01:20:15

Paul. And then, you know, he's told, be baptized, arise, and wash away your sins.

01:20:22

So, they love that passage. Be baptized and wash away your sins. You see, guys, salvation comes through baptism, and you have your sins washed away through baptism.

01:20:34

Be baptized and wash away your sins. But what does the rest of the verse say? It says, wash away your sins, calling upon the name of the

01:20:42

Lord. So, I would strongly argue here that the washing away of sins is tied in, not to the baptism, but it's from calling upon the name of the

01:20:54

Lord. And you see that pattern in the rest of the New Testament about those who call upon the

01:21:01

Lord shall be saved. It talks in 1 Corinthians about those who call upon the name of the

01:21:07

Lord regularly. Romans chapter 10, if you call on the Lord, you know, and confess, you shall be saved.

01:21:14

There's no mention of baptism there. So, again, it's another desperate move to say, washing away your sins, they take this metaphor, without looking at the calling upon the

01:21:24

Lord, that's how you get your sins forgiven. It's not the big picture in the New Testament, Acts chapter 10 and elsewhere.

01:21:31

We have June in Pella, Iowa, who says, in my experience with the

01:21:38

Church of Christ, they seem to not be overly concerned in the formula of baptism.

01:21:46

They will accept someone baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or even just in the name of Jesus alone.

01:21:55

So, which is it with these splinter groups that were started by Kit McKean?

01:22:03

R .M. Well, as we pointed out yesterday and earlier today, the Megariites have definitely thrown a wrench into the mix.

01:22:09

A mainstream Church of Christ, a lot of the big universities and mainstream movement publications will say that you're saved by being baptized, but you and me, who might be water -baptized by immersion and believe it's baptism, they'll accept that.

01:22:26

The problem is the Megariites, that's the wrench. Kit McKean is a

01:22:31

Campbellite, but he's also Megariite. All these movements are Megariite Church of Christ, where they say that unless you believe that you're saved by knowing your baptism, that's the formula they're more hung upon.

01:22:43

R .M. But they're not concerned with the Trinitarian formula. R .M. They always do it in the name of the

01:22:50

Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, because the mainline Churches of Christ don't always do it that way.

01:22:56

R .M. Yeah, I haven't been enough of those. They're more in the South. They're not where I'm in this part of the country too much, but they will do it in these splinter groups.

01:23:04

They'll say, what is your good confession? And they'll do it in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. But yeah, it's definitely the hang -up on the purpose of a valid baptism.

01:23:13

They're going around shutting down the Kingdom of Heaven for almost Christianity for the last 1 ,500 years, as they say.

01:23:21

It's nonsense. They have no biblical basis for it. R .M. Okay, why don't you move on to the next proof text?

01:23:28

R .M. A couple of verses left, and they're very related. Romans 6 .3

01:23:33

.4, they love that verse. And often when you're at a baptism, like, you know, she just mentioned, they will actually talk about, we're going to take

01:23:41

Sister Jeannie today, and we're going to baptize her into Christ. They talk about you're going to be baptized into Christ.

01:23:47

That's the language they use at the baptism ceremony. Where does that language come from? It comes from Romans 6 .3

01:23:53

.4. So quoting those verses,

01:24:00

Paul says, all of us who are baptized into Christ, were baptized into his death, therefore buried with him through baptism.

01:24:09

Pardon me, Chris. So they will point out, those of us who were baptized into Christ, they'll say, you see, you see, you've got to be baptized into Christ, yet into Christ through the act of baptism.

01:24:22

You don't get into Christ through faith, you get baptized into Christ. Again, this is a very poor exegesis, like the rest of the verses.

01:24:32

They need to study a little bit more. The word ace is used here again, the same

01:24:39

Greek preposition used in Acts 2 .38, the word into has a wide range of meanings, but they teach we're united into Christ through the baptismal ceremony.

01:24:51

You find this same language used in 1 Corinthians 10 .2, where Paul says that the

01:25:00

Jews at the Red Sea were baptized into Moses. Now they weren't baptized to get into the person of Moses, were they at all?

01:25:09

They were baptized in relation to Moses, in identification with Moses. Paul himself explains, they all ate the same spiritual food, they all drank of the same spiritual drink, they all drank from the spiritual rock.

01:25:25

So that passage in 1 Corinthians 10 is clear about identification, the same, the same, the same.

01:25:31

They were baptized into Moses, they were baptized in relation to Moses. This is clearly the language of Romans chapter 6.

01:25:40

They were baptized into Christ, they weren't baptized to get into Christ, they were baptized in relation. And isn't that what the passage says in Romans 6?

01:25:47

We're identifying with the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, right? This is the life of the new believer as you go down and enter into the newness of life.

01:25:56

So they're missing the entire thrust. They're looking at the idea of being baptized into Christ.

01:26:02

Aha, you get into Christ. It's not what the verse says. We're not baptized into Christ any more than the Jews were baptized into Moses.

01:26:09

They were baptized as a simple act of identification of Moses, and that's pretty much what that verse says.

01:26:15

Any comments on that? No, just a hearty amen to your response to that.

01:26:23

Yeah, and it's very similar to the last proof, Chris, which is Galatians 3 .27, the same ace prepositions used here again.

01:26:32

And it says, all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Same concept.

01:26:38

They're saying, into Christ, aha. So they're taking that we've already explained into is in relation to Christ.

01:26:45

It's identification with Christ. These are the seven main proof texts. They're easily explainable in a different way.

01:26:52

They don't—again, they're only in less than a quarter of the New Testament books, the way of salvation, and they're all easily answered.

01:27:02

Acts 2 .38, Mark 16 .16, Acts 22 .16, Romans 6 .3

01:27:07

and 4, Galatians 3 .27. All these verses are desperate attempts that are handpicked in less than a quarter of the books to try to shut everyone else from the kingdom of heaven.

01:27:20

Now, I think we should give a few verses at a time. I'd like to spend a few minutes going over a few of the other doctrines about the kingdom of God, getting a healthy correction on that one.

01:27:31

But what is the proper response on an offense to the church of Christ?

01:27:38

Well, Acts 10 is probably one of my favorites you brought up right away. You baptized

01:27:44

Cornelius after he was already a believer. He didn't become a believer through the act of baptism.

01:27:50

He received the Holy Spirit as the seal. They spoke in tongues.

01:27:58

You were clearly baptizing someone who was a believer at that point. Another powerful passage in Corinthians is in 1

01:28:06

Corinthians 1 .17, where Paul says, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.

01:28:15

So therefore, not to do this, but to do this instead. To me, that would clearly show that baptism is not part of the gospel.

01:28:23

He sent me not to baptize, but instead of that, to preach the gospel.

01:28:30

Now, you push that a little further in 1 Corinthians. If you go to chapter 4, it's very interesting.

01:28:38

Paul does say that he, in verse 15, that for the

01:28:44

Corinthians, he had begotten them through the gospel. So he goes, you

01:28:50

Corinthians, I had begotten you through the gospel. Again, I said in the Greek, they were begotten in the gospel.

01:28:58

Yet Paul himself says that he did not baptize hardly any of the Corinthians at all.

01:29:04

So he is their father in their faith. They were begotten through the gospel, but that gospel was not obviously including baptism.

01:29:13

He said, oh, I baptize you and you and you. Oh yeah, I forgot. I baptize you too. But not many of you, but he was still, they were begotten through what?

01:29:22

Through the gospel. Not by baptism, but through the gospel right there. And it's just amazing how

01:29:29

Kip McKean, the originator of these movements, has managed to twist these verses. Kip has recorded a series of lessons on how to teach the first principles.

01:29:39

And in his explanation of this, he has this terrible twisting of Scripture where he says, this is incredible.

01:29:47

Paul is baptizing so many people. He didn't even remember if he baptized them. This is literally the opposite of what happened.

01:29:55

This is what Kip has to say to try to explain it away. Paul is literally saying, I hardly baptize anybody.

01:30:03

And then Kip is saying, oh, he's baptizing so many people, he can't even keep track of who he baptized. Kip, exact opposite of what the passage says.

01:30:11

It's super, super clear. You're saved clearly by faith and not because of any works we do, not by baptism.

01:30:19

Just as in the Old Testament, you weren't saved by circumcision. Any comments, Chris? No, but I'll just go to quickly another listener question.

01:30:31

Let's see. We have Sherry in Center Reach, Long Island, who says, how did these folks respond to the warnings of Paul to the church at Galatia?

01:30:48

It seems very palpably obvious that any addition to faith was considered a damnable heresy, which nullified their gospel as being no gospel at all.

01:31:03

Speaking of the Judaizers who are adding circumcision to faith.

01:31:11

The way they would respond is by saying, well, we're not adding to it, that baptism is actually being applied to us through the act of baptism.

01:31:22

For you Christian, see, they're very, very, very critical, and they make fun of us by saying, oh, you

01:31:27

Christians, they call us often the denomination of traditions or denominational

01:31:33

Christianity in a kind of really negative way. And they'll say, you guys are all about, you're going to love this,

01:31:39

Chris, being a staunch Calvinist. You're all into praying Jesus into your heart. You're into the altar call, and you're misusing, you know,

01:31:47

Revelation 320. So they'll say salvation doesn't come by praying

01:31:53

Jesus into your heart. They love to say that in these movements. And again, like the passage

01:31:58

I said earlier where Christ said, and he went home justified, yeah, he did confess his sins.

01:32:04

He did believe slash trust in his Savior, the Messiah, and he did go home justified.

01:32:10

It's very clear in that passage. You're talking about the tax collector in the temple. Correct. Right, right.

01:32:18

And he went home justified by faith, 100 percent by faith, right? It wasn't by faith in words.

01:32:24

But as I said earlier, the Campbellite or in the mainline Church of Christ or the

01:32:29

McKeen disciples, they'll say that you contact the blood through baptism, and that is the moment that salvation is applied to you, forgiveness is applied to you, the

01:32:40

Holy Spirit comes into your life through baptism. So they wouldn't add it like faith and baptism. A lot of, some

01:32:47

Christians will try to argue, well, baptism's a work because in John chapter 6 it says, what are we going to do to work the works?

01:32:54

And I would kind of say, well, is communion a work? I don't think we look at the Lord's Supper as a work, and I don't think,

01:33:00

I don't look at baptism as a work. Sure, it's our first act of obedience, but if you're going to use that rationale, you're going to have to say somehow that the

01:33:09

Lord's Supper is a work. And so they don't look at it as a work. It's a 10 -second act. They do one time that they supposedly contact the blood, they get saved.

01:33:16

The rest of the life, they don't look back. Daily, they wake up every day believing that salvation comes, you know, that they're saved, they're worshiping

01:33:23

Christ, they're following Christ, they're trying to be obedient to Christ, but they do preach to the next candidate that you're saved through baptism.

01:33:31

But it's a 10 -second act, and then they're on with it. Well, before we go to our final break, why don't you offer another one of your points that you want to make?

01:33:41

I think we can basically talk, well, and I would just say one thing quick,

01:33:47

Chris, and then we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit about a couple of their other doctrines, how they misinterpret the

01:33:52

Kingdom of God, discipleship. I would say that what if you accept

01:33:57

Christ in a prison camp? You know, you have no water. You know, does that mean you're automatically going to be lost, you're going to go to hell?

01:34:05

If you're in your deathbed and you have tubes coming out of you and you can't, you know, somehow have complete immersion, like you mentioned yesterday, after the foot came up, you know, you can't, you're not completely immersed.

01:34:18

If you've got those tubes and everything, you physically can't. Like the thief on the cross, I think in God's grace and forgiveness, you're absolutely saved by grace through faith.

01:34:29

I think it's repeated clearly. I think the verses that they show, they don't have a leg to stand on, and they're not throughout the corpus of the

01:34:36

New Testament. I've heard people from that background actually borrow

01:34:41

Roman Catholic language, and they'll say, well, they were saved because of the baptism of desire.

01:34:50

They wanted to be baptized, but they were prevented.

01:34:58

And it's interesting how they go so far as not even to be certain about it.

01:35:06

Like if somebody is killed in a car accident on their way to be baptized, they have some hope that the person was saved because that was their intent, but they're not certain about it.

01:35:17

It's really a terrifying man -centered, works -righteousness way of viewing what is supposed to be viewed as Christ's free gift of salvation.

01:35:36

They heap upon themselves so much of the credit and the merit for their salvation.

01:35:49

It is really an affront to Christ and His accomplishment on Calvary's cross.

01:35:57

And it's interesting, I remember years ago when my brother

01:36:04

Bob had joined a local church of Christ, my older brother

01:36:10

Andy, who just passed away a few weeks ago, he had some background in a

01:36:20

Baptist church for about a decade, and he said in a disparaging way about my brother's church, the

01:36:30

Church of Christ, they're Roman Catholics. I'm like, what are you talking about? They're so low church, they're so lacking in pomp and ceremony, but he was absolutely correct in the way that he was pointing out the man -centeredness of their religion, that they rob the gospel of grace.

01:37:02

Even if they give lip service to grace and say grace is necessary, we couldn't have received salvation without grace, but that's just really like a kickstart.

01:37:16

It has nothing to do with the substitutionary atonement provided by Christ in the place of sinners on the cross.

01:37:32

Yeah, they're definitely adding to the requirements of salvation. It's a man -made belief, and because Kip said it, they believe it.

01:37:42

And where did Kip get it from? He got it from the restoration candles, but he didn't only get it from them.

01:37:49

He got it from this whole Austin McGarry stream, and most people in the movement, they don't even know their own history.

01:37:55

They don't even know where all this nonsense came from. It's pretty sad.

01:38:01

The gospel is by grace. We're saved by grace, and we're kept by grace. You and I have talked about this before.

01:38:08

It's not that you're saved by grace and then you're kept by your good works, and that's often a tendency in some of these really hardcore

01:38:16

Pelagian groups. You've got to keep working to keep yourself saved. Now, they almost do that sometimes in these movements because they say, you've got to be a fisher of men.

01:38:25

You've got to be saved. Where are your disciples? That's the one line I'd love to say to you. Who's discipling you, and where are your disciples?

01:38:32

And if you're not making disciples, you froze.

01:38:39

Well, we're going to our final break. We're going to our final break, and if you want to ask a question, submit it now because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:38:51

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a

01:39:14

Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

01:39:22

Great Commission supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnson's Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family.

01:39:33

At Lindbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired

01:39:38

Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

01:39:50

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

01:40:07

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern to all who bear

01:40:15

God's image. If you live near Lindbrook, Long Island, or if you're just passing through on the

01:40:20

Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit lindbrookbaptist .org.

01:40:27

That's l -y -n -brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

01:40:39

It is the gift of God, not a result of words, so that no one may boast of the

01:40:45

Lord's blessing and the knowledge of himself. I'm Dr.

01:40:57

Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

01:41:08

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

01:41:15

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God, like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in his

01:41:30

Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim Christ Jesus the King and his doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island, and beyond.

01:41:40

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

01:41:49

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net,

01:41:55

that's hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711, that's 631 -696 -5711.

01:42:09

Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:42:24

Armored Republic exists to equip free men with tools of liberty to defend God -given rights against the twin threats of tyranny and chaos.

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If you own a rifle to resist tyrants and criminals, then you should own body armor and a med kit for the same reasons.

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A rifle stops evil, body armor and a med kit keep you in the fight and preserve your life.

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Armored Republic is a body of free craftsmen united to create tools of liberty. We are honored to be your armorsmith of choice.

01:42:52

Civilian ownership of body armor is about increasing decentralized power and by comparison, reducing the advantages of centralized power.

01:43:01

The danger of centralized power is often represented by the word king. As Americans, we hate the word king applied to any mere man.

01:43:10

We are Armored Republic, and in a republic, there is no king but Christ. Arm yourself with tools of liberty at ArmoredRepublic .com.

01:43:29

Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

01:43:38

Every Christian who's serious about the deformed faith and the Westminster standards should have and use the eight volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

01:43:48

Westminster larger catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Morecraft.

01:43:54

It is much more than an exposition of the larger catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

01:44:06

Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

01:44:17

For details on the eight volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

01:44:25

For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

01:44:33

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr.

01:44:42

Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sends you. When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the NASB.

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I'm Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rich Jensen of Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Sule Prince of Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

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and the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck Volo of New Life Community Church in Kingsville, Maryland, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Steve Herford of Eastport Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and the

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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Roy Owens Jr. of the

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Church in Friendship in Hockley, Texas, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.

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Here's a great way for your church to help keep Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew bibles tattered and falling apart?

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Consider restocking your pews with the NASB and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.

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This is

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Brian McLaughlin, President of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Program.

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SecureComm provides the highest level of security systems for residential buildings, municipalities, churches, commercial properties, and much more.

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We can be reached at securecommgroup .com. That's securecommgroup .com.

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securecommgroup .com. But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor,

01:47:21

Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

01:47:30

Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.

01:47:37

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

01:47:43

God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.

01:47:49

I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.

01:47:56

That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.

01:48:08

I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the

01:48:16

Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.

01:48:25

That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.

01:48:35

That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.

01:49:02

I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian church in Comac, Long Island.

01:49:09

I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother

01:49:15

Chris Arnzen in the highest esteem, and I'm thrilled that you're listening today.

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I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for reformed

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Christian literature for decades now, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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Well, with the economic nightmare that we're all currently enduring, cvbbs .com,

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I want to enable you to build a wonderful personal library of the best literature that the reformers, the

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Puritans, and the great Christian minds of today have to offer, and at affordable prices.

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Not only does cvbbs .com offer up to 50 % off retail prices, but you'll get an added 5 % off orders of $50 or more by using promo code

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IRON, I -R -O -N, an added 5 % off all of your orders of $50 or more from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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That's cvbbs .com, making the joy of reading the finest in Christian literature more affordable.

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Oh, and make sure that you tell them you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

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And don't forget cvbbs .com is now shipping worldwide.

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Also, please never forget that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Petofuco and Associates.

01:50:54

If you are the victim of a very serious personal injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the

01:51:00

United States, please call my very dear longtime friend Daniel P. Petofuco, attorney at law, at 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, or visit

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Dan's website, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com.

01:51:19

Please always mention to Dan Petofuco that you heard about his law firm, Petofuco and Associates, from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron radio.

01:51:27

I also want to remind every man in ministry leadership, you are invited to the next biannual free

01:51:36

Iron Sharpens Iron radio pastor's luncheon, which will be held, God willing, on Thursday, May 1st, 11 a .m.

01:51:44

to 2 p .m., this time being held at the Carlisle Reformed Presbyterian Church here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:51:54

And our guest speaker for the very first time is Dr. Jason Lyle, who is a world -renowned

01:52:00

Christian astrophysicist and young earth creationist, author, and a highly sought -after conference speaker.

01:52:08

If you'd like to register for this free event, send me an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

01:52:15

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and put May 1st pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

01:52:21

Also, you might want to put down on your calendar the date of our following pastor's luncheon this fall.

01:52:29

That will be Thursday, September 18th, and that will be featuring

01:52:34

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. This fall free pastor's luncheon will be held at the original location,

01:52:46

Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is Perry County. So, if you'd like to register for that luncheon as well, send me an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

01:53:00

and put pastor's luncheon September 18th in the subject line. Of course, you can register for both at the same time,

01:53:08

May 1st and September 18th. And keep in mind, everything is absolutely free, not only your meal and your admission, but everyone will also receive many free brand new books personally selected by me and donated by generous publishers all over the

01:53:26

United States and the United Kingdom. So, we hope to see you at these next two free pastor's luncheons on May 1st and September 18th.

01:53:36

And we are now back with my guest today, Steve Matthews. And if you could give us a concluding point that you want to make in response to these groups, and then you could also take some time to give more details on ExposingTheCults .com

01:53:58

and the associated YouTube page. Sure thing. Well, Chris, it's been a joy and an honor to be on with you, and thank you for your burden for these people.

01:54:10

There's a lot of people who have children and campuses who are getting sucked into these movements and confused, and the families are being separated.

01:54:18

There's so little movement out there. So, hopefully, this can be a resource to help people. This is an aggressive group, and with the

01:54:26

RCW now, there's a new energy. They're more aggressive. Definitely something to be concerned about.

01:54:32

They're on the campuses. They're trying to get our kids baptized, and bad news in a lot of ways.

01:54:38

They need to be part of a healthy church with good doctrine and not part of this movement by Kit McKean.

01:54:46

You know, we did talk about baptism. I think this is really important to show an answer for the real way of salvation, not baptism for salvation, but through faith.

01:54:58

We didn't have much time to talk about discipleship, but real quick, they make that a big point to say that baptism is a big part, so is discipleship, and their model of discipleship is pretty unbiblical.

01:55:10

We're disciples of Jesus. We're disciples of people, and the term disciples is not used after acts in the

01:55:20

Pauline literature or the other apostles who wrote the New Testament. It's basically the term brothers use, saints use.

01:55:28

Disciple is, that's more of a horizontal relationship being emphasized than there is reformed theologian

01:55:34

Paul Beasley Murray would put it, but they're very big on discipleship, and the problem, as we explained yesterday, when you become over someone, not just a partner disciple where you're giving them advice, but now it's becoming permission and control like it does in these movements so often.

01:55:54

It's very bad. They believe that they're the only true church. They're the kingdom of God, and in a biblical view,

01:56:01

Jesus clearly said in Matthew 12, 28, that if I cast out demons by the

01:56:07

Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Well, guess what? The kingdom of God was there before Pentecost, and they teach that the kingdom, the coming of the kingdom, study number two in the first principles, the kingdom arrived at Pentecost.

01:56:20

Across the board, there's a lot of false teachings here. We do want to put up resources with Exposing the

01:56:26

Cults. Exposing the Cults is going to be a series of websites. It's a platform with the kind of the mothership site,

01:56:33

Exposing the Cults, where we go into a lot of the behaviors of cultism, the theological errors, the corrective, but underneath the mother site, there's a bunch of child sites, and included in that will be

01:56:45

Exposing the ICC, so stand by for that. We'll have downloadable resources on all the important doctrines, videos, audio, and hopefully it'll be a gold standard among websites on exposing

01:56:59

Mormonism, exposing Wicca, exposing Zen Buddhism. Across the board, Kabbalah Center, where it's a very ambitious project.

01:57:05

We'll need a lot of prayer and support to get through all that, but we definitely want to create resources for the body of Christ to respond to these groups that are coming up.

01:57:16

I'm glad we had a chance to show how it's not about the old groups anymore. There's a whole bunch of new groups exploding in the landscape.

01:57:25

We'll have contact information on the sites. In the meantime, if anybody is struggling with a family member, a child on a campus has been deceived by these groups and wants more information, you gave your contact of how they can contact me through you.

01:57:40

We'll have that on our upcoming website. For now, you can definitely find this, and like and subscribe.

01:57:46

We'll announce it on our YouTube channel, Exposing the Cults on YouTube, but more to come definitely in these series of websites.

01:57:54

We just want this to be great information for people, leveraging AI and all the other technology out there for the body of Christ to give answers to the hope which lies within us.

01:58:04

Thanks for having me on, Chris. Amen, and I want to remind you folks, if you really love this show, please go to ironsharpenzironradio .com,

01:58:14

click support, then click click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card, and there will also be a physical address that appears on the screen.

01:58:27

If you prefer mailing a physical check to a physical address made, out to Ironsharpenzironradio .com.

01:58:35

That's ironsharpenzironradio .com, click support. And once again, please don't forget, if you're a man in ministry leadership, try to attend our next two free pastor's luncheons,

01:58:50

Thursday, May 1st at the Carlisle Reformed Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, featuring

01:58:57

Dr. Jason Weil, and Thursday, September 18th at the

01:59:04

Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, featuring Dr. James R. White. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:59:12

and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line, and select May 1st, September 18th, or both of them, and put that in your subject line.

01:59:24

I want to thank all of you for listening today. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:32

Savior than you are a sinner. I hope that you all have a very safe, blessed, and joyful, and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.