Justin Peters and KJV Only Discussion | Rapp Report Weekly 0032 | Striving for Eternity

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Alright, so I'm here in Kootenai Community Church. This is a conference that is being hosted by them.

I happen to be the speaker. I may or may not play some of the audios on future podcasts, but I'm with two dear friends, and so I want them to be able to introduce their ministries to you.

First, Justin Peters, from a very narcissistic name of your ministry, justinpeters .org.

You were thinking all of yourself, right? Yeah, I tell people I stayed up all night long trying to come up with a name for my website, and I hope it was more just a lack of creativity than narcissism.

I like to think that anyway. I wasn't trying to be narcissistic. So basically creativity is not your strong gift.

No, creativity is not my strong suit at all. So describe your ministry.

What it is that you... I mean, you travel a bunch. I do. So what do you do? I travel, and I preach and teach, and I tell people

I'm most known for my work in the world, biblically combating the

Word of Faith movement, the Prosperity Gospel, but it's not my only interest. My first commitment is to expository preaching, but kind of what

I'm known for, I've been typecast, I suppose, into the

Word of Faith stuff, but full -time itinerant preacher. That's why some of the times when I've had you out at some conferences

I've run, I've always had to do something else, so you're just dealing with the text of the Scripture. We're going to have one of those conferences in March.

Yeah, March. We're not going to talk about Word of Faith at all. We're going to talk about suffering, struggling with things like depression, and anxiety, and long -term disabilities.

Some people suffer. Christians actually suffer, and people don't often talk about that. Yeah, that's going to be in Jersey.

You're going to come to see the beautiful side of the country, right? No. The free side.

No, you are in the free side here. Oh, here in Idaho. So I'll be actually suffering when I come to New Jersey.

Which means you've got to leave your gun at home, because, I mean, we can carry here in Idaho.

Yes. Open carry in Idaho. Yeah. Even I can carry in Idaho, but I can't do that at home.

No. No, you can't. We also have Pastor Jim Osman, and he's with Kootenai Community Church, and he's the one putting on the conference.

Yes. So talk about your ministry. You're very talkative, I know. You're very talkative when there's not a mic in front of you.

Why is that? Because I'm fearful that this might get edited in a poor way.

There's no way to edit what you say in a poor way. It's all poor. Yeah, I'm a pastor of a small church here in North Idaho, Justin Peters.

I have the distinguished pleasure of having Justin Peters as a member of the church. And it's intimidating speaking in front of the

Doctor of Discernment every Sunday, never wondering if maybe on Monday morning I'm going to show up in one of his video clips or audio clips for his conference.

So that's me. I get up every Sunday morning and sweat it out, the grind, as we work our way through a book of scripture. So how long have you been pastoring here?

22 years this December. That's not bad. You only look like you're about 30. Yeah. No, I started when I was eight.

Well, hey, that's not too bad. The first time I ever preached, I was 12. Really? Yeah, yeah.

I had to preach out of the - Preach on green eggs and ham? No, no. I had to preach. My Bar Mitzvah passage was out of the

Leviticus. And I had to preach with all of my friends from school in the congregation.

I had to preach on the burnt offerings. So that was my text.

You don't get to choose what text. It's whatever text is on that week. And I had to take that as my sermon text and talk on the burnt offerings, the sin offerings, before I really understood what sin really was, and communicate that, take it from the

Hebrew, translate it. So I was 12 the first time I did. My first sermon,

I was 22 years old, I think, or no, 18, 19, I was 19 years old. And it was in this church.

Actually, I came home from my first year of Bible college, and the pastor asked me if I would want to preach. I said, yeah,

I got three messages I could preach. I preached three messages on 1 John. God is life,

God is light, and God is love. Those were my three messages. I preached through the entire book of 1 John in three sermons.

You do that today, don't you? You've kind of tapped the brakes a little bit since then. Justin, are you saying he doesn't go that quick through books anymore?

No, he's slowed down a little bit. So it was really interesting. So we got to have dinner with some different folks.

And sitting around the table, everybody dates when they came to this church by not just what book

Pastor Jim was in, but what chapter of what book, because he would be in the chapter so long.

So it was like, yeah, I came here in John 4, I was here in John 17. So that's how everyone dates when they came to Kootenai.

Do you remember what book he was in when you came? I was in 14. You were in John 14. So you slowed down a bit.

Yeah, I did. From three sermons in 1 John to today, we're working through Hebrews. I just started chapter 4 last

Sunday, and that was message number 34 in Hebrews so far. John was over 300 messages, seven years, seven solid years.

MacArthur was seven years in Matthew. Yeah, and he was seven years in Luke too,

I think. Yeah, it could be. And the question really is not how, the issue is really not how long you take in the text.

And my goal is never to just grind it out as slowly as we can. It's to be thorough, it's to be deep, it's to be profound, to enjoy the richness of Scripture.

And the real issue for preachers is how you handle the text, not necessarily how many verses you cover. Yeah, and one of the things

I ended up learning about you is you've grown up, you've been here, this town, your whole life. Yeah, I moved to Sandpoint when

I was three years old. My family comes from this town, going back generations. And so my mother had returned back here as a single mom by the time

I was three, so this is the only place I've ever known. I grew up in this church in the sense that I started coming to Sunday school and vacation

Bible school and youth group at Kootenai Community Church as a young teenager. And I got saved as a result of the ministry of this church.

They sent me to a camp that's about 20 minutes south of town where God saved me in the summer of 1985, that's about the closest

I can nail it down, I was about 13 years old or so. And God saved me that summer and I came back to the church and started to be discipled and attended church regularly.

And then I went to Bible college and came back and when it came time to find a new pastor, I seemed like the most logical decision, the most logical one to take it over.

And so I did, starting in December of 1996. So now I pastor the church that was instrumental in my salvation.

So, I mean, other than maybe when you were at Bible college and stuff, this has pretty much been the only church you've ever been a member of.

Uh, yep. Only church I've ever been a member of. While I was at Bible college in my fourth year, I was nine months or eight months in an evangelical free church up in middle northern

Saskatchewan. And I was an associate pastor there as part of my internship, but I wasn't a member there, but I was serving on staff as it were with youth group and preaching occasionally.

And Justin, how did you get out to Idaho? Because you're from the deep south. I mean, we hear it in your speech, especially when you say y 'all, you know, actually

I'm expecting y 'all, you know, is it all y 'all? I don't know how people communicate without that word.

I honestly don't. It is such a convenient, useful word.

I don't know how people communicate without it. And we know that you're from the south because as we found out last night, you not only like frog's legs, you like catching them yourself.

Yeah. I've gigged my fair share of frogs. So how'd you come out here?

Alligator skull in my office. That's true. That was pretty cool. As soon as I walked in your office, I was like, oh, that's cool.

Did you actually catch that alligator or kill it? No, that alligator, my mom's dad and his brother, so my grandfather and great uncle used to raise alligators in Shreveport, Louisiana.

They just liked alligators and raised them and that was one of them. Raised them as what? As pets? Basically. Yeah.

They never ate them. They never did anything with them. They never sold them. They just liked alligators. They had three ponds, one for the babies, one for the adolescents, and then one for the adults.

And they would go out to Cross Lake, catch a gator, bring it back to their property and just raise it.

They would go to the fish market and get fish guts and fish heads, put them in big barrels and that's what they would feed them.

So how did they get the mid -sized ones into the bigger cage, into the bigger pond?

Oh, I don't know. That was before I was born, so I don't, you know, but yeah, I mean, they were, that's the

South. Sounds like Tales of Cro -Magnon, man. It's like if Mississippi were to put out an episode of the Flintstones, this is what

I would expect to see. I was thinking, I'm more thinking like, you know, Crocodile Dundee with Justin's face on it, you know, give him the hat and a big, big knife.

That's not a knife. That's a knife. My granddad used to have his own service station and that's what they call them back then, service station.

And so he was, he was old school, you know, he had the hat and the tie and car comes up, he comes out and, you know, fills your tank, washes your windows.

Now only Jersey is allowed to, it's the only state where you have to do that. Well, they did this by their own, you know, business model.

In Jersey, we're not allowed to pump our own gas. We're now the only state in the Union. Yeah, because Oregon was.

Yeah, Oregon was. And so they actually had it up for vote in Jersey. And this is why

I say all good things come out of Jersey, the things that stay are a problem. We're more, I'm more than happy to give you guys some of our politicians.

No joke. This is what happened. They're sitting there voting on whether people should be allowed to pump their own gas.

One guy from the, from the, you know, the, the Senator or whoever who's voting gets up and says they're, they're giving their, their justification whether they're going to vote for or against.

And his argument was, I'm married to a Jersey girl. Jersey girls don't pump gas.

I'm voting against this because I want to have a happy home life. And there was clapping. People are like, really?

So that's, that was what, what swayed the votes. Wow. Well, at least he thought it through.

He thought it through. Yeah. You know, I mean, it would have been good if Jim thought through like singing happy birthday to his wife yesterday.

No, he plans a conference on his wife's birthday. I mean, I don't know. It just shows you their mutual love for the gospel and their, there we go.

Oh, hey. That's an angle I didn't try. Yeah. You should have tried that with your wife.

I should have gone for that. You know, praise her spirituality. It's a reflection of their love for their flock and the wanting to, you know, equip the saints.

He's good at this. Yeah. He's better than you. Next time you do this, you should call him to figure out, hey, look,

I just forgot that I booked a conference on my wife's birthday. Could you help me out here? I need you to spin this for me. Yeah. How do

I spin this better? And he said he wasn't creative. Right. I think you've been listening to the word of faith folks too long.

Yeah. You're starting to realize how they spin things. Yeah. Well, the latest thing I've heard is that some lady went to heaven and she says there's in heaven, cows drive tractors.

I want to get a picture of that. Yeah. We should ask her if she got, you know, did she get any video?

So how'd you get out to Kootenai? That's right. He never answered that. Yeah. Yeah. No. He's been trying to avoid it,

I think. So Jim had me to his church to do a conference at his church, um,

March, 2010, March, 2000. He can't remember when his birth, his wife's birthday is, but he's got that one down.

Right. March of two. Yeah, it was. And we were, we, you and I met at the creation museum at the wretched creation vacation in June of 2009.

That's when you and I met. Okay. And then I, we contacted each other and I said, Hey, I'd like to have you come out and do a, do your conference seminar.

Uh, and so the following year in March you came out just starting to thaw out and it was rainy.

It was wet. It was cool. Yeah. There were still eight feet of snow up on the ski hill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rainy, wet, cool.

Yeah. It's that way for a month. He's been trying to convince me. It's that way for a month here. A month. Uh huh. So, but anyway, yeah, that's, that's, that's how we met.

And then, um, long story short, my wife is originally from Billings, Montana. And so this is closer to her neck of the woods.

And, um, we were living in Oklahoma and we didn't want to stay in Oklahoma. We got tired of dodging tornadoes there.

And so, um, we figured, well, Justin doesn't, Justin doesn't dodge anything. Well, yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, yeah. So basically Jim basically put the same pressure on you.

He's been doing to me to tell me, you know, we should move out here and yeah, I mean, you fell for it.

He encouraged it, but it wasn't a, it wasn't a hard sell. I mean, as long as I've got reasonable access to an airport doing what

I do, I can live anywhere. I knew we would have a good church here. And it's a beautiful area when you look around.

It is. It is. And you're, and you're able to carry guns out here. I'm not used to that in Jersey. My son, my son moved to Texas.

He went to school in Texas. So my son goes to Texas and what ends up happening? He calls me up and he's like, dad, do you know that people out here, they have rifles in the back of their pickups.

My response to him was welcome to America. He had never seen a gun before he moved out there.

He was like, you know, it was a new thing for him. When I was in high school, we brought our hunting rifles to school with us, to high school with us and kept them in our vehicles in the school parking lot so that you could just get out of school, get into your vehicle and zip up into the woods to go hunting after school before dark.

Yeah. That was only 20 years ago. I could picture that in Jersey. Yeah. Maybe not.

All right. So you've been out here for 10 years then?

No. Four years. Four years. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think when, I think when we first met, you were in Oklahoma.

I think. Yeah. Yeah. We were living in Oklahoma. Yeah. Okay. So maybe we shouldn't talk about this on the air.

Do you remember our very first conversation? I was telling Pastor Jim about this. Oh, you should talk about this.

You used a certain Yiddish word. Oh, yes. What was it?

Shmuck. Yes. Yes. Now that you bring that up, yes,

I remember you pointing that out to me. I had no idea I was using, what, Jewish profanity?

Basically it is a, so you were up there, you got done. People want to talk to you. I just kind of,

I didn't want to take too much time. I definitely didn't want to be overheard. So I kind of waited until most of the people left and I just walked up. I'm like,

Mr. Pierce, you know, being all formal, I didn't know you. And I'm like, I just, just let you know, you know, so you understand,

I grew up in a Jewish home. I grew up, you know, hearing Yiddish and that word you used, it's basically a derogatory term for the male genitalia.

And you went, oh, no, I'm never doing that again. I had no idea. So that was our first introduction to each other.

I was glad to hear that. I was glad that I was invited back to the house where you were staying and we got to know each other after that. It was a bad first impression,

I'm sure. No, no, no. I was grateful. I was just stunned. You know, I'm stunned that a guy who teaches against tongues can swear in so many different languages.

Yeah. That's why you should stay away from speaking in tongues, you know? Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Because if there had been an interpreter, they ought to know what

I was saying. And there was. And you found out. Well, actually, that's a, that's a great illustration though, right? I should have stood up and interpreted for him.

Oh, that would have been so funny. Oh, no. But I mean, that actually is, I think what, you know, Paul was saying there, right?

In Corinthians, where you could be saying something blaspheming

God and not know it, right? Yeah. I mean, not that that word would blaspheme

God, but it's not one that we'd want to use. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to,

I know folks are going to be starting to come in for this conference. Jim, what's the conference about this year?

We had you come out to do an equipping conference for training people to do personal evangelism.

And we've trained our youth, we've trained our kids, and we've trained an adult Sunday school class about using the Way of the

Master style approach to evangelism, law before grace, law to the proud, and grace to the humble. And we wanted to kick off our series of conferences, just equipping people to do that with a real intensive time of focused attention on that issue.

How do we transition from the natural to the spiritual? How do we share the gospel appropriately? How do we avoid

Christian jargon and words that we typically say, like asking Jesus into your heart, making a decision for Christ, and present the biblical gospel in a biblical fashion?

So we wanted to equip people to do that, and we thought that Andrew, you, was the best person to do that for us. You were cheaper than Ray Comfort, for sure.

Well, so I was glad, after hearing who's going to be following me, I guess I am glad that I'm first, because Jason Lyle coming in next, then

Scott Klusendorf, and then Paul Taylor, that'd be a hard act to follow. They're not going to be saying, well,

Andrew's a really hard act to follow. So yeah, I'm hoping it'll be good.

We've got an evangelist here, though, with Justin Peters. Most people don't think of you as an evangelist, but you share the gospel everywhere you go.

You take people's dogs that they put on your lap, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was a fun experience. Yeah, I know nobody knows what we're talking about.

But we'll share it. You were sharing a gospel you gave, we got a million dollar bill, and he gave you his dog in exchange.

Yes. And the dog felt that that was an appropriate time on your scooter to have a bowel movement.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Best was that girl going, that guy pooped on the handicapped guy's scooter, and I caught the whole thing on video.

It's going up on YouTube. I searched for it everywhere. I couldn't find it. Just as well.

Oh yeah, how would Benny Hinn use that one? Hey. Yeah, well, Benny would use it as, see, he touched the

Lord's anointed, and look what he gets. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, with the faith healers, things like that, who would you think is probably the most dangerous of the different faith healers that you talk with?

Or not talk with, but talk about. Well, probably one of the most dangerous, ironically, is also the one that's perceived to be one of the nicest, and that's

Joel Osteen. I've heard MacArthur describing him as a mouthpiece of Satan.

No matter how nice he appears to be or how much he smiles, he is, I think, with little doubt, the most popular preacher on the planet.

He's quote -unquote pastor of the largest quote -unquote church in the United States of America. I say that because he's not a real pastor, and he doesn't have a real church, but Lakewood Church, and his reach is global.

Everywhere I go around the world, people know him, they listen to him, and he's leading people straight down the primrose path to hell because he doesn't preach.

I thought you might have said Beth Moore because she's... Beth Moore is getting there. Yeah, well,

I thought because she's the one that's in the more conservative circles where I think

Joel Osteen, people know, people in conservative circles know he's bad news.

It's the people who are on the fringe that don't know it, where Beth Moore is taking the people from more conservative churches and leading them down the primrose path to destruction.

Yeah, I'm increasingly worried about Beth Moore, increasingly so. She is friends with Joyce Meyer, partners with Joyce Meyer.

She's friends with Joel Osteen, has preached at Lakewood Church, Joel Osteen's church. So, yeah,

Beth Moore is steadily going the wrong direction. We were just looking at a tweet of hers today, and she allegorizes, spiritualizes the text and hyper, hyper emotionally driven, but for all intents and purposes, her theology is now just about full -blown word faith.

She is teaching many of the same things that the people in my seminar are teaching, and with no small wonder because she's associating with them and preaching with them.

How long has that taken for that transition to take place? I've watched her 15 years ago and thought there was reason for not really thinking that she was a danger, but just thinking that she wasn't necessarily all that deep.

I couldn't really see what the attraction was. But in recent years, it seems like she's, how long has that taken for you to see that descent just plummet?

Yeah. From what I can tell, really in the last, say,

I would say eight or nine years, her descent has really become pronounced.

But I would say in the last five years, it is almost just at warp speed.

Like she is just, in the last five years, she has taken a steep nosedive in her doctrine theology and her teaching.

I mean, now she's all about the social justice stuff and she's all woke and all that.

I mean, she's just practically in every facet of her theology, she's steadily going downhill at breakneck speed.

And it seems that there's nobody in the Southern Baptist denomination that's pumping the brakes. Yeah, I wanted to bring that because we talked on the

Apologetics Live podcast that we did and you mentioned that. That's the other thing you said, that no one's willing to address it.

No, no. There is not a single prominent voice in the Southern Baptist Convention that dares speak a word against Beth Moore.

No one raising a caution flag with her, no one in the SBC institutions, none of the seminary presidents, none of the seminary presidents are saying a word about Beth Moore.

She's untouchable. Why do you think that is? Because she is so enormously, if Southern Baptist had a female pope, it would be

Beth Moore. Who would the male pope be? I don't know.

I don't know that they would have a Rick Warren. All the male popes are pushing for her to be the president of the

Southern Baptist So maybe she would just be the pope. There's actually talk of her being the president of the Southern Baptist Convention in a couple of years.

I don't know. You know, when Josh Bice and I did the podcast on the statement of social justice and the gospel, we talked about that.

They were thinking of having her as the president. And my issue is I'm not against Beth Moore being the president of the

Southern Baptist because she's a woman. Right. I have an issue with her not being the president because she's a heretic.

Yeah, and I would say both. The Southern Baptist Convention, at least theoretically, it's a theological institution.

And so as a female, she should not be in a position of leadership in a theological institution.

Some say, well, the SBC, it's not a church. It's just a collection of churches. Well, if she shouldn't be a pastor of a local church, what makes it right for her to be a head of an association of thousands of churches?

How does that work? And speaking to those churches. And speaking, yeah. And having authority over those churches.

Right. Yeah. Right. Before we wrap up real quick, you mentioned this social gospel.

Right. You were one of the 14 people involved in this statement on social justice and the gospel.

Briefly talk about that. What was the pressing need to address these issues in our day and time?

There has been a movement afoot that the pieces of the chess board, if you will, have been put in place in the last number of years more or less behind the scenes without any kind of fanfare.

But once the pieces were in place, then in the last, really just in the last year, the trap has been sprung, basically.

But there is a concerted effort to make social justice issues an integral component of the gospel itself.

That the church should busy itself about righting social injustices.

Perceived or real. Some of them are real. Some of them are perceived. But the church should be about, you know, racial sensitivity, egalitarian issues.

We've got to right all these societal wrongs. Well, that's not the primary mission of the church. The mission of the church is to preach the gospel.

And then hopefully, which is what we see happen, when you preach the gospel, the preaching of the gospel, making of disciples has a trickle -down effect into the culture that has a happy effect on the culture.

But that's trying to change the culture is not the mission of the church. The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, make disciples, observe the ordinances, you know, do these things.

One of the aspects of the social justice movement that really grieves my heart is that there are a lot of people in this movement,

Kyle J. Howard would be one of them, a prominent voice in this, saying that basically,

Kyle J. Howard and Tabeti and Ubele, if you are white, you are guilty in contributing to this systemic racism that is even in the church.

And if you're white, you're guilty of it. And Tabeti and Ubele wrote an article for the

Gospel Coalition. He said, if you're white, you need to repent of the part that you played in the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wasn't even alive when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. But apparently, I have some role to play in that, some fault to confess to and repent of.

And my family members, just because they're white, you have some... And when does it end?

That's the end game. The end game is that there is no end game. It is a perpetual cycle of victimhood.

But that's, in and of itself, antithetical to the gospel because none of us are victims.

We're not victims. We're enemies of God. We violate His law. God owes us nothing. God owes us absolutely nothing.

And so, there's so many facets to this. But it's diverting the church's attention away from its primary responsibility, its primary mission.

And it says, in effect, a lot of the people in this movement, they're saying, yeah, the gospel is enough to cleanse your conscience and behavior from adultery, from fornication, from blasphemy, from idolatry, but not racism.

For racism, you've got to bring out the big guns. And somehow, the gospel is not enough to cleanse one's heart from the sin of racism.

And I reject that. I reject it. I don't know if you heard this, and we'll wrap up in a bit, but I had, after having signed it and had my name on there, had some people contact me and one tried to argue, appealing to Calvin and Geneva, saying, but look, the leaders of Geneva brought

Calvin in because they wanted to clean up Geneva. It was a cesspool.

And look, it worked. And my argument is, it may have worked, but it was unbelievers who saw the

Reformation cleaning up other areas, and they thought it was the Reformation that cleaned it up. And when he came in and preached the gospel, they kicked him out at first for like two years because they didn't like the gospel.

But it wasn't, it was not the Reformation that cleaned up Europe. It was the gospel that changed people's hearts.

And because of that change, the byproduct was, yes, Geneva got cleaned up, but that's the byproduct.

Even if unbelievers say this is the reason for doing it, that wasn't Calvin's reason for doing it. Calvin's reason was the gospel, and yes,

Geneva got cleaned up. Right. But we shouldn't set that as the goal. The goal for Christians in the church is the gospel.

Let God do the rest. Yep, that's right. At least that's my impression, my opinion. Jim, you have anything to add?

Nope, nope. I think it's well stated. Alright, well, thanks for not only coming on to the show, but thank you,

Pastor Jim, for having me out here. Thank you. I'll go ahead and thank you ahead of time for coming out even though I haven't seen the product of what you're going to produce just yet.

He's got such faith. Two, two, two great books and one website.

Visit strivingforeternity .org There are two books that I would like to recommend you purchase.

What they, meaning people who aren't Christians, other religions believe, and what we believe.

Systematic Theology Made Simple. Both are great resources especially if you plan on witnessing to somebody.

Strivingforeternity .org Justification. This theological term is legal in nature.

But to understand it we must first understand our legal predicament. Because we have sinned against God i .e.

broken His law and thought word and deed we are guilty in His court and must be punished as lawbreakers.

You see, since we have sinned against an infinitely holy God we deserve an infinite punishment.

Enter Justification. This is the one time event when God declares the lawbreaker us righteous in His court.

It's been said that to be justified means that God sees me just if I'd never sinned.

This is more appropriately stated God sees me just if I'd been Jesus. See, Jesus lived the life we couldn't live and died the death we should have died and was resurrected on the third day.

In this, Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law and paid the fine for our lawbreaking.

If we repent and believe in Him God credits His righteousness to our account. Only then are we seen just if I'd been

Jesus. This has been another Growing Moment with Robert Houghton. For more information visit growthproject .org

I cannot take responsibility for anything that may happen in this segment.

I'm just saying anything. It's not my fault. But we have

Josh Comstock who goes to Jim Osman's church and we figured this might be more in the comedy section.

You know, Justin, we were too serious we brought Josh in to lighten things up. So, actually

Josh give your background and don't get yourself in too much trouble. I'm only going to share this with the people who well, it would get you in trouble with.

That's very comforting. Thank you. I don't really know what much to say.

I was born in Ohio went to me and my brother were lived in Ohio for five years and my dad came home one day and decided he wanted to go to Bible college.

Not really sure how that all transpired but he wanted to go to Bible college and we ended up moving to Northwest Indiana.

So, he wanted to go to Bible college, Hiles Anderson Bible College in Crown Point, Indiana under Jack Hiles which most people may have heard of him or saw him at least in the

Baptist realm and so for 20 plus years I grew up in Hammond, Indiana went to kindergarten all the way through high school and even college at Hiles Anderson myself for a couple of years until the

Lord saved me from that. Okay, so explain that because clearly there's a lot of history there.

You may not know who Jack Hiles is. Right, right, right. Well, I mean Jack Hiles was one of those guys that he had at one point his ministry was coined the world's largest

Sunday school and it was one of the more humble accolades that he received and he ran buses all over Chicago area and we

I remember having memories of growing up as a kid my dad used to drive a bus and on Saturdays we would spend half the day in Chicago visiting kids on these bus this particular bus route.

I think they ran I want to say maybe 300 buses I could be wrong but it was a lot and they had

Chicago and Northwest Indiana segmented out and every route had so many drivers so many workers primarily from the college and my dad had this particular route and we would go on Saturdays and visit door to door this particular route and after that entire day had gone by sure enough on Sunday morning at about 330 we would wake up and from Indiana drive to the bus center as they called it and boy this is

Providence right here this is one of my Hiles Anderson buddies that's calling me right now he's already listening so you didn't realize that they had this bug no

I thought this was a regular mic but no Fundamentals Baptists are listening in that's right so Josh Musser I will call you back anyway

I we would wake up on Sunday morning bright and early and go to the bus center in Illinois pick up this bus and warm it up because I remember the debt of winter for whatever reason and then we would drive that bus to go pick up the bus kids that entire route and try to be back for Sunday school by 930 that Sunday morning from 330 all the way until about 10 o 'clock that night we were going nonstop on a

Sunday because 930 was church 1045 was church and then we would have some kind of program in between and we would take the kids back home after church was over that wanted to go home and then those who wanted to go to night church as we would call it we would take them back to church so we were into Chicago and back home at least two to three about two times a

Sunday and then Sunday night church started at seven and after that was done we would take them back home so we would drop the bus off at ten o 'clock all in time to go to school at eight o 'clock so that was my

Sunday for many years for Jack Hiles people who may know

Jack Hiles would talk about the quote unquote heroes of the faith of his era and one of them being

John Rice and he would preach several places and I didn't find this out until just a couple of years ago so I mean we're talking 25 years or more 30 years perhaps

I didn't know this but I found out through this amazing thing called Google that John R.

Rice did not subscribe to KJV only he actually I believe used an

American Standard if I'm not mistaken he did and he was allowed to speak with Hiles him and Hiles spoke together

I was too young to ever remember John R. Rice preaching at our church I don't even know if he did we got to Hammond Indiana I think in 1984 so I don't remember much about that I was only 5 years old so anyway

I asked my folks about that and it was it was a very awkward conversation

I never got a straight answer funny I never heard about that until my own research but they conveniently left that part out about John Rice and for folks who may not be so familiar with KJV there are some that aren't because outside of some of the

Baptist circles people don't make a big deal of King James especially King James only I was in not a

King James only church but an only King James church for many years and then we switched to new King James but heretic

I know but that would be the case it is they would say that by taking away from the word or a jot or a tittle that would fall under that belief which is kind of different but I mean most people think that that's a very strange world view or strange concept and really it is did your folks believe that the 1611 was inspired or did they just say that the

Textus Receptus is the only manuscript that should be used or is it that they saw that the authorized because folks who don't know there is a 1611 which was based mostly off Tyndale's translation like 75 % of it was from Tyndale and then you had the 1611 but it was updated several times

I think the last one was 17 69 yeah I thought it was 80 but yeah it's the 1700s and that's actually the one that most people are using it's the 1700s version and it's called the authorized version not the

King James version which most King James folks don't realize they're not actually using the King James right it's an interesting question it kind of segues into a different topic that has not been brought up but after Hiles died his son -in -law took over the church

Jack Scopp and all any of the listeners have to do is Google Jack Scopp and they'll be buried with information on that whole ordeal but I remember

I had no longer gone to the church because I had moved away and there was a big controversy within the ministry about the

King James version inspired and I'm trying to remember back to the conversation because this was a big to -do under Hiles ministry he had many wealthy benefactors that would help donate to his ministry

Jack DeCoster was one of them Russell Anderson was another one of them which the college is named after Russell Anderson and Jack Hiles and after Hiles had left and Scopp took over there was this dust -up over the whole authority of the

King James and whether or not it was inspired and if my memory serves me correctly the instance that Scopp came down on was that God's Word itself was inspired the

King James translation is not it's just the translation and that actually is correct and he took a lot of flack for that and in fact people like DeCoster and Anderson from what

I understand pulled all their money out and they were done supporting the ministry and even went as far as Russell Anderson and they wrote letters to Baptist churches and we would joke that Baptist churches would point their prayer rugs to Hammond and pray three times a day because he had such a reach in the

Baptist community that everybody knew who Jack Hiles was and when he passed on we were at his funeral and my dad was a pall bearer at his funeral my dad was a pall bearer at his my pall bearer his funeral

Latin folks who don't know, you had King James who, after wars, literally, between the previous kings and queens, who would say, okay, we're

Anglican. No, we're Catholic. No, we're Anglican. Basically it was, okay, when they were Catholic, they throw out the

Geneva Bible that was used by the reformers, and now the church, the state

Bible is going to be the Catholic version in Latin, and then you get the, someone says, no, we're not

Catholic, we're Anglican, and we throw out the Latin version, and we would go back to the Geneva, and James wanted to put a stop to that, and say, no, we're going to have one standard

Bible that is what the King James Version was. And it is what most people, especially people that hold to the

King James only position, especially being expired, don't really realize that King James Version 1611 included the

Apocrypha. So, for those who say that the 1611 was inspired, first off, then the

Apocrypha was inspired. The English is very different than the English that was eventually standardized after that in the 1700s.

So, it's not even the same English, the words are different, and they don't use that one. The other thing

I always point out is that if the 1611 was inspired, then

God is a God of confusion, because we do have English words for words like baptize.

I mean, we have an English word to translate that, but they couldn't translate baptismal as dip or plunge when they sprinkle, and so they created a new

English word. So, that would basically be saying that God is a God of confusion, confusing people in an inspired version if we're going to hold their view.

Well, that wasn't the only thing that was inspired. It was also the table of contents to the BAPs. All of it was inspired from cover to cover.

And if your table of contents varied from mine, then you might want to get it checked. Well, the thing that's interesting with that is if you actually look in 1611 and you get the actual 1611 and you're going to say that, well, you have a real problem because in the introduction it actually says that there will be later updates that should happen.

Right? I mean, that's the thing. So, you're saying if this is inspired, then the updates must be inspired.

So, hey, New King James must be fine. So, that's a little bit about your background.

Let's talk, the conference is now over. We talked to Justin. The conference hadn't begun yet. Right. And so, let's talk about that.

Although Josh is tired because he was sitting in the back on his phone the whole time running the soundboard as I saw.

I mean, it's hard work for him. It's exhausting. That Tetris game he was playing must have really taken a lot out of him.

It was actually Temple Run, not Tetris. Okay, I don't even know what Temple Run is. Okay. So, how do you feel that the conference went?

I think the conference went well. We had a good attendance. I was talking with a few folks from our congregation about the attendance numbers.

We have a church of about 200 people on an average Sunday and we had 125 people there for an evangelism conference.

And I was discussing this with you that there's a lot of megachurches or churches of a thousand people that if you had an evangelism conference, you would be lucky to get a hundred people to show up for something like that.

It'd be probably something more akin to like a small group Bible study that you would have of 30 or 40 or 50 people, even in a church that big.

So, I was really delighted to see that number of people out and engaged and interested in evangelism and asking good questions.

And obviously, the people that attended yesterday and today have been involved in personal evangelism.

They've been talking to their friends and their family. Because a lot of the questions that they asked during question and answer had to do with, you know,

I have witnessed to my friend or my family or how do I engage a friend or a family member I've witnessed to before and they've blown me off.

How do I engage somebody that is openly hostile to me? A lot of questions like that.

So, I think it was very good. I think it went well. It was well -received and I heard a lot of good comments and I'm very grateful that you came out.

And, you know, like I shared with you, my hope is that this will be a sign to spark the church and encourage church to actually form their own evangelism team to go out.

Not just, you know, I know that there was, because we did that bonus segment on open air evangelism.

So, a lot of people are like, oh, I'm not ready for that. But, you know, I said to folks, it's like you don't have to do that. Just create a team and encourage.

If there's some people that want to do that, great. But everyone else, hand out tracts and, you know, I mean, I'm hoping

Josh gets saved by the end of this. I was actually one of the ones who asked Jim about whether or not we were going to go to the streets and hit downtown

Sandpoint. Because I still have PTSD in my days of these preacher boys going to Chicago, knocking down bar doors.

And I remember you saying that you've met most or a lot of street evangelists that have done it wrong, that you just, you would prefer they wouldn't do it the way.

And the entire list of people I went to Bible college with, they would be probably on that list.

So I was a little bit scared. When you mentioned that you're going to go do that, because that's my only experience in that realm.

Since we're talking about independent fundamentals, Baptists, and evangelism, tell Andrew, now see,

I know what questions to ask, because I have discussed this with Josh so many times. So I know exactly what questions to ask.

So it's really, are you going to ask questions that put him on the spot, like you did me up there? No, I'm not going to ask,

I'm going to try and ask, not ask questions that will get Josh in trouble with anybody who listens to this podcast. But tell us about the

Pentecost Sundays. You actually don't have to worry, no one actually listens. Oh, that's good. I want,

I forget. There's a Pentecost Sunday. Yes, it was a Pentecost Sunday that Hiles wanted to do. And you can Google this and read different people's accounts.

But my recollection, and I want to say I was in junior high, perhaps around this time, they wanted to baptize 5 ,000 folks in one

Sunday. And so they would go out and they had all of these horse troughs that were converted into baptistries, and they took them all over Chicago, all over Northwest Indiana.

And they were, okay, first of all, you need a little bit of a background. When I grew up with evangelism, and basically how to witness to anybody, the only thing that I was taught was strictly the

Romans Road. That was it. And a lot of it, even though folks in my family will say that they don't believe this personally, but it was still what was taught there, came across as one, two, three, pray after me, easy believism, right?

And not only that, but childhood conversions. And you know, if you were seven years old, and weren't saved and baptized by the time you were seven, people kind of looked at you funny, you know, it was expected.

Well, and part of it, I mean, to be clear, right, so typically not Calvinistic?

Oh, no, definitely not. And therefore, it is almost the parents responsibility to have their children saved.

I mean, because I'm also from the fundamentals about the circles. And so if your child wasn't saved, it's almost as if it's the parents fault.

That is correct. You know, because they must not have explained the gospel right or raised them right, as if the parents can save the children.

Yeah. And not only that, but I mean, Bible schools and even some Sunday school teachers, I mean, it was almost like a trophy to an,

I hate to say that, but to see who could be the one to, quote, unquote, save that child, you know, who was responsible for it.

And there were some good people, I mean, good, sincere folks that I grew up with. But generally speaking, evangelism was definitely, it was very on the surface.

And I didn't feel like there was any depth to it. I know, like for me, as I've told

Jim, you know, the first time I was introduced to the Doctrines of Grace, I told him, I said, I felt like I was lied to for the first 30 years of my life, because it was just, it was all a completely new concept.

But anyway, so all that being said, when we go door to door, soulening, as they would call it, or evangelizing,

I remember in our youth group, we would also have these big days in our youth group.

We had a fairly large youth group of probably a couple hundred people, I'd say. And so we would do these teenage soulening marathons, where we would have youth from junior high all the way up to high school.

And we would go out for an entire Saturday and have some goal that we were, you know, trying to reach or whatever 5000 souls saved in a day or whatever that is, that just seems so, you know, astronomical.

But to us, it was doable because of how we did it, you know, the methods, right? Because you just need someone to pray a prayer.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so we would, I have these these vivid memories of driving around Chicago. And my buddy,

Josh, who just called me, he could he would vouch because his dad was actually one of our drivers that we would drive around Chicago and just have a great time.

But we would look specifically look for sports teams, because of the large numbers. And we knew that, you know, you have a bunch of white guys going into an all black community, you're one of two people, the police, or the church, we were the church.

And so they would see us coming and from a mile away, and we would we would get the entire team there.

And here you have some, you know, 15 16 year old kid, giving a very basic Romans road presentation in under seven minutes, if that, and basically now bow your head and pray this prayer.

Now it's not the prayer that saves you but repeat after me, right. And and that's and so you'd walk away from that I have 33 people saved here, you know, in five minutes ago, right?

And and that is literally I remember our vehicle, our vehicle just by ourselves, there was

I think eight of us in a minivan on one Saturday. Again, junior high high school age boys claimed that in one

Saturday, we won 1000 souls to Christ, if you can believe that and and looking back, it horrifies me, you know, but at the time, that's just how that's how the foundation was built.

And so for these big days that that we had, that's the that's kind of the background of these big

Pentecost Sundays. And so what I always wanted to do is have I think 5000 baptisms in a day, and or maybe it was 3000.

It's been so long ago now I can't remember. But regardless, both is astronomical. And, and I remember it was sitting on the those who have been to that church, the old auditorium,

I was sitting in the balcony, piano side, on the overhang, when they made the announcement of whatever the number was, but we hit our goal and then some, and the entire church just went nuts, you know, for about three minutes, just, you know, clapping and hooping and hollering all this great stuff, because we had baptized fundamentals,

Baptists are not allowed to hoop and holler. Oh, no, we had an amen section, where if you were a college preacher boy, you could sit in these particular sections around the church, and you could hoop and holler.

It was, I mean, our our preacher Hiles would would knock down microphones, kick them down with his, you know, just kick them down just to get a rile out of the crowd.

See, we nowadays we just get to see, you know, what's his name that kicks the people with his boots?

Todd Bentley. Todd Bentley. We just see Todd Bentley kicking things, you know? Yeah, so I mean, that that was kind of the foundation when you understand how evangelism was done.

And anybody who got baptized at that church was considered a member. So if you were to look at the baptism record, you could say our church had 150 ,000 members or so.

But I mean, you only had, we averaged anywhere, the old auditorium sat, I think, 5 ,500. And it was full every

Sunday. And we had approximately 10 ,000 -12 ,000 folks a Sunday on the campus between all the ministries.

And so it was a pretty big, big deal. But nowhere near the numbers of baptized. Well, no, no, no, we should have had, we were the third largest property owner in the state of Indiana at one time, with all the buildings and things that we had.

But even if that, if they were true converts, yeah, we would have had, you know, high five figures for sure every

Sunday, you would think. You'd think. And you know, it really, the thing that strikes me is this time we talked about this weekend is the pride you end up seeing in folks where it's like, oh, look,

I did this. I got all these souls. And it becomes a competition in pride, which right there should help people to realize there's a problem, right?

Like, this is not about us trying to win souls for our bragging rights.

I mean, you know, bragging about JustinIWin .com, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair.

And we should say for the record, since, since we recorded earlier with Justin, since since that recording,

I think he won one battle. Yeah, he did. This was interesting, because Andrew's been trying to get people to go to Andrew's ministry and donate.

So we're giving away... Wait, are they trying to get to who's? Oh, sorry. There's a Freudian slip there. It was. Get people to go to Justin's ministry and donate at JustinIWin .com.

Oh, yeah, you're gonna tell the story. We had a we had a drawing, a raffle, we handed out tickets to everybody who registered and we were giving away books and things throughout the course of the beginning of every session throughout the course of the weekend.

And at one point, I had gone back and there was two of these Mormon giving gospel to Mormon.

Sharing the good news with Mormons. That's it, sharing the good news with Mormon books left. We wanted to give away one and then we're going to raffle off the last one to the highest bidder all to support

Andrew's ministry. Justin found out about this. And the very first very first offer that I had of a nickel,

Justin raised his hand and and then he started bidding. And Justin bidded up to $50 for this book just to give

Andrew the money. Bidded up to $50 for this book. But who was he bidding against? He was bidding against nobody because after he got to 50 bucks,

I'd say, is there 55? And Justin would raise his hand. Do I hear 60? Justin would raise his hand. He bid himself up to 125 bucks just to give it back to Andrew.

So Justin had his swing at you. He not only that, but I think there's some some pictures.

I think you're going to get those pictures up to Justin. Yeah, we'll add them to the JustinIWin .com.

And yes, we're just so bad. Round two, Justin won. So I have I won round one at Shepherds Conference.

Justin, I think, was won round two, thanks to Jim Osmond here, who says, Hey, I got a great idea.

Let's raffle off a book to the highest bidder for donations to your ministry.

And Justin was like, as soon as I heard there was going to be a raffle off of the, you know, or a bidding on, he said,

I knew exactly what I was going to do. And a little bit more background on Josh. Josh is the one who does our website, our podcast, our audio work, any video work, our graphic design, all of that.

Josh is the one who does that. So if you've benefited from the Ministry of Kootenai Church, that's due in large part to Josh's faithfulness.

Not from the preaching from the pulpit. It's all you, Josh. It's all you, Josh. And one other thing we should we should point out here.

Can you tell them about pickle evangelism? About what? Oh, my goodness. Okay, so Pickle evangelism.

Pickle evangelism. Pickle evangelism. Is this pickle evangelism the son I should include? This is something you should have a whole whole session just on pickle evangelism.

You know, one thing we do, we talked about like the hand signals we do. One of the things I didn't talk about that we do in our evangelism team is we use the pickle.

And pickle pickle is because we want a word. Basically, especially in New York, you want some way to tell everyone, hey,

I just saw something and don't look that way. And we used to say pickles. And then we tell you the way there's a problem.

But the problem is, if I say pickles left, everyone looks to the left. So now now, if there's something I see to the left that no one should be looking at,

I just call pickles right. It means we all look right. We had a real problem with that in New Orleans. Pickles everywhere?

It was. We're sitting there. It was like, pickles right, pickles left. And Jennifer Peplin goes, pickles up.

And I'm like, I'm looking down. What is going on? Like, my head to the ground. So I don't think that's the pickles evangelism you're talking about.

I remember. I won't mention the the guy's name.

Okay, so you're gonna you're gonna change the names to protect the guilt. Yes. So let's, let's, let's, let's pretend. We'll call him

Jim. Jim. Yeah, actually. So let's say his name was Jim. He was what we would consider our bus captain.

Okay, so every bus route had a bus captain that was in charge of that particular route. Okay, you can see the hierarchy here is complete, you know, network marketing at its final finest.

Yeah, it was like, you know, one big pyramid. So every bus route had a bus captain.

And our particular bus captain to help on one of these big days. I mean, keep in mind, we were going into the ghettos of Chicago, Cabrini Green, Robert Taylor homes, these areas with some of them that aren't even around anymore.

But I mean, these, this is a rough, rough neighborhood. And, and for me growing up,

I grew up in Gary, Indiana, which is, you know, 95 % black, but we didn't know any different.

We had a good time growing up, we had a great childhood, lived in a trailer park. So I was white trash with, you know, multicultural neighbors.

And we just, this is how we that's how I was raised. And so for Chicago, we, this guy, in order to get numbers of salvations and baptisms would offer a he had a big jar of pickles.

Oh, you get you get in the water, you get dunked, you get a pickle. And so I mean, and at the time, we thought, boy, this is a great evangelism tool.

We're getting all kinds of people saved. Well, of course you are. And not one of them are actually getting saved. Not one of them are actually getting saved.

Actually, what you're doing, I mean, what that produces is false converts. Yeah, people that think on the serious side.

Yeah, it's scary. It's but and we'd have they'd have silly contests where the most if you would hit a certain number on a bus, people would swallow goldfish and all these crazy things just to get the biggest crowd possible.

But the one I the one that really stood out to me was was the pickle evangelism, where they would, that's how they would get crowds, get them to come.

And as a full disclaimer here, because I don't want that it was just that one particular person on that bus route, the church as a whole did not condone that.

Have you have you had pickles since that day? Not like that. Well, I, you know,

I think it was good. I think, you know, it was a good weekend. I think a lot of folks. I mean, my impression was a lot of people felt that that was a good time, blessed time.

They hopefully learned a lot. We still have so tomorrow for Sunday, so I'll be good.

Yep. I hear you're doing Jesus calling book reading. Yeah, I was I was thinking, but it was a tough call between, you know, that and I was thinking maybe or truth or territory that you haven't read yet.

No, no, no, that I haven't read. I won't read that book. That's a Jim, Jim. What's it? What's that guy?

Osmond? Yeah. And so now I want truth and territory.

No, no, but maybe maybe Joel's done. He's got some good stuff. Yeah, I could read I am isn't that one of his?

You know, I don't follow Joel much, but I have plenty of books from Hiles that I could bring do a study.

There we go. There we go. Like meet the Holy Spirit. That was a good one. Or the

Hiles church manual. If you don't need to know how to build a church from Sunday school lessons to how to arrange your platform,

I can get it to you in the Hiles church manual. Because I can tell you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, obviously. Yeah. And that's the other thing, too. You can go to it. Okay. So those who are who those who grew up fundamental

Baptist can can relate. You can walk into any fundamental Baptist church across this country and and walking in not knowing necessarily what they believe.

But but you can look at a how their platform are set up or be the missionaries hanging on their wall and you know exactly where they stand.

Yeah. Yeah. I remember actually, we had one missionary in our church who when we when we changed the name of the church from Baptist to Bible.

How dare you? Well, he quit. He we were giving him money. He said, I don't want your money anymore. Well, have you ever had a church named after yourself?

Like Rappaport Baptist Church? No, no, I would hope that never ever happens.

Well, you know, there is a Hiles Baptist Church in Virginia. Yeah, yeah, that I know.

Yeah. Yeah. So something you can aspire to. That's right. Yeah. Osmond.

Osmond Church of the Bible. Osmond Memorial are changing the name on me. I'm gonna ask you to get both of you.

Well, I mean, it'd be easier to pronounce than kukuni kukuni kukuni kukuni kukunusa.

So kukuni is a fish. Well, thanks for coming on.

It was fun. We had we we actually the three of us could be dangerous together. I think I think the brainchild of Justin, I win.

I came up with the idea, you grab the domain. And well, it's been a lot of fun. I encourage you to go to justinwin .com.

Donate to Justin Peters. Just remember to put in the comments put hashtag Justin, I win. Let your friends know, make sure you hashtag

Justin, I win. Tag him in it just so he knows that, you know, I have the bragging rights and I'm winning on this contest.

So I think we're gonna have to have the final the final battle at CHEPCON, which

I'm going to, you're going to CHEPCON. Suddenly, I don't feel like going. I think I'm sick.

All right. Well, thanks for joining me, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Would you consider donating to striving for eternity?

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