July 28, 2025 Show with Eli Ayala on “Are You Ready for That Knock at Your Door?”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

00:23

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 28th day of July 2025.

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Before I introduce today's guests and our topic, I want to remind you, please mark your calendars for Friday, August 1st, as we will be paying tribute to the late

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Dr. John MacArthur. And to do so, I have joining me on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, my old friend,

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Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's media ministry,

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Grace to You. Also joining Phil and I will be Dr. Doug McMasters, the pastor of New Hyde Park Baptist Church in New Hyde Park, Long Island, New York, who was at one time the director of pastoral correspondence for Grace to You.

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So please mark your calendars for this Friday, August 1st, for our tribute to the late

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Dr. John MacArthur. But today, I am thrilled to have back on the program Eli Ayala, a presuppositionalist,

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Reformed Christian apologist, conference speaker, and founder of Revealed Apologetics, and we are addressing the theme,

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Are You Ready for that Knock at Your Door? Preparation for Confrontation with the

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Cults and Other Enemies of the True Gospel and True Jesus Christ. And we're also going to be announcing the upcoming 2025

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Future of Christendom conference featuring Eli Ayala and Jeff Durbin in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and other events that will feature

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Eli in the near future. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Eli Ayala.

03:14

It's great to be back on. Thank you so much for having me. And folks, we could do nothing to rectify the quietness of Eli's voice, so turn your volumes up, and I'm going to have to have my webmaster raise the volume later for the recording because we, for some reason, have no way of correcting that right now.

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But, Eli, explain— Lucky for you, brother, I grew up in a Pentecostal church, so I can project my voice.

03:45

Okay, good. Well, do some of that projecting, please. Tell our listeners about Revealed Apologetics, please.

03:55

Yeah, Revealed Apologetics is an apologetics ministry that I started years back that kind of picked up a little steam during COVID because all of the scholars and apologists and interesting folks were available to do interviews.

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And so I was able to interview folks covering a wide range of topics, but specifically focusing on presuppositional apologetics, exploring questions that I had throughout the course of my studies on the topic.

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And then it kind of just eventually took shape. I began to do more teaching and inviting more guests on.

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And then here we are years later, and we're, I think, standing over 12 ,000 -something or other subscribers on YouTube.

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And there's been a growing interest in presuppositional apologetics. So it's very exciting.

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Well, do you want to define that for us? Absolutely. Yeah. Presuppositional apologetics is an apologetic methodology.

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So if folks are familiar with, like, martial arts styles, you know, you'll have kung fu or karate or kenpo or something like that.

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Presuppositional apologetics is pretty much a style of apologetics. However, it is not merely a style.

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It is very much rooted in the teaching of Scripture. I am very much in agreement with a mutual friend of ours, more so for you, but with Dr.

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White. Dr. James White often makes, I think, the correct observation that our apologetics should flow from our theology.

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And so I define presuppositional apologetics as an apologetic methodology that flows out of a consistent application of Reformed theology.

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And so we take the authority of the Word of God as being paradigmatic and foundational for everything that we do.

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When we engage in defending the faith, we do not entertain neutral ground with the unbeliever because we take very seriously what the

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Bible says about the unbeliever. We know in Romans chapter one, we are told by the

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Apostle Paul that the unbeliever has a knowledge of God that he suppresses in unrighteousness.

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So the presuppositionalist will presuppose the authority of God's Word, which includes how the

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Bible has defined the state of the unbeliever. And we seek to interact with the unbeliever in a way that is consistent with Scripture.

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So in essence, presuppositional apologetics is this in a nutshell, if I can use biblical categories here, it is the attempt to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, even the thought of the unbeliever, arguing that if the unbeliever does not start with the authority of the

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Scriptures and the Christian worldview, they are not in a position to make sense out of anything, anything in human experience, whether it's logic, science, philosophy, history, or what have you.

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Okay. And can you please give our listeners the website for Revealed Apologetics?

06:50

Yeah, my website is revealedapologetics .com, so pretty simple. And folks can check out my blog there.

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I've got a couple of articles there. Many of my articles are written in response to questions that I've received.

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So I get questions all the time about different aspects of presuppositional apologetics and how to apply it in different areas.

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What I've tried to do on my channel is to explore presuppositionalism's application, a whole host of topics that people might not think there's any connection, but there is.

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And so I'm just trying to flesh out the details because, unfortunately, Dr. Vonsen, who was really a pioneer in this area, he passed away in 1995, and there really hasn't been anyone to replace him as a competent spokesperson at the popular level for the presuppositional approach.

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There have been a few out there, but I, at least within my own minuscule efforts, I've tried to fill that gap and explore areas that I have found underdeveloped in my own personal studies of the literature and so forth.

07:52

Okay. And I was interrupted, sorry, by my webmaster. Did you provide for us your website?

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Yes. It is revealedapologetics .com. The YouTube channel is Revealed Apologetic, of course.

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And then people can email me, reach out to me, whether they want a speaker for an event or they just have a simple question about apologetics or the

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Bible, they can reach me at revealedapologetics at gmail .com. Okay. And I hope

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I'm not too low now. I've just been instructed by my webmaster that it will be easier for him to correct the audio of our program today by just raising all the volumes that would require me lowering mine.

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So I hope you can hear me okay. I can hear you just fine. All right. Great.

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Well, we have a couple of things to promote, one of which is the upcoming

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Future of Christendom conference in Lancaster, PA.

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And the Future of Christendom conference is run by my very dear friend,

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Pastor Joel St. of Independence Reform Bible Church in Morgantown, PA.

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This is an annual conference and it is featuring Jeff Durbin and my guest today,

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Eli Ayala. And the theme is

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No Other Name. And if you could give us more details on what you'll be speaking about.

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Well, interestingly enough, the conference is going to be focusing on the cults, but I was invited to actually do some stuff on the transcendental argument.

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There's actually going to be a focus on coming at the cults from a presuppositional perspective.

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But I'm actually going to be covering what are transcendental arguments, why are they important. And then my second talk that I'm going to be addressing is how to be a triple threat

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Christian. And basically what I'll be discussing there is the importance of being well grounded in our theology, of which our apologetic flows from and our evangelism, which is understood not in a vacuum, but within the context of a consistent biblical application as to how we are to engage unbelievers.

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So I'm going to be talking about the importance of theology, apologetics and evangelism and how they are connected and how in being well grounded in those areas make us a, to use the basketball terminology, a triple threat

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Christian. Now a threat to the kingdom of darkness, that's the context there, but the basketball terminology to be in a triple threat stance is to, when you get the ball in basketball, you kind of bring it to your side and you pose a triple threat to your opponent.

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You can square up and shoot, you can go to the right or to the left. And so basically

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I want to use that analogy to show folks that when we're grounded in solid biblical theology, we will then be grounded in the ingredients needed to defend the faith, and we will be grounded in what the

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Bible has to say with respect to how we are to engage unbelievers in the proclamation of the gospel. So those are my main topics, which will also include a 20 -minute

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TED Talk -style introduction to Hinduism, which that will be my brief focus on another religion or, you know, it's not necessarily seen as a cult, but I suppose you have, you know, offshoots that might be considered a cult, offshoots of Hinduism.

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But that's going to be the nature of my talk in that event. Well, that's fascinating.

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In fact, I already know that I want you to come back on the show on a future date convenient to you to speak about Hinduism for the entire program, if you would be up for that, because I've never had to my recollection an entire program dedicated to the religion of Hinduism.

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I'd love to. That'd be great. And while I'm at it, I might as well ask you, are you knowledgeable enough about Buddhism to do a program on that sometime?

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Well, I wouldn't say I'm an expert in either Hinduism or Buddhism. And so someone might be wondering, well, why am

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I doing talks on those topics? One of the beauties of the presuppositional approach is that it does not require you to be an expert in any one topic.

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The idea is gathering information from the Hindu or gathering information from the

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Buddhist and asking key worldview questions that challenge the foundation to each of those respective views.

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So I will be summarizing the basics of Hinduism, but I'm not going to be going into the details of all the different offshoots of Hinduism and all the 330 million gods that are acknowledged on that religion.

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What I'm going to do is I'm going to identify their philosophical underpinnings and kind of focus on why those foundations that undergird a

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Hindu worldview or a Buddhist worldview for that matter, why it crumbles and falls apart.

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And so it's to that extent that I'll be addressing those specific topics with the purpose of hopefully being useful to folks.

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I mean, it's quite intimidating, as I'm sure you know, when we talk about interacting with the cults or world religions, people are kind of fearful of, you know, having to master an entire religious perspective when they haven't even mastered their own.

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And I don't think that's a necessary component of meaningfully interacting with another world religion.

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But you do need to know something about that. So some cursory study is important. And in terms of apologetics, knowing the right questions to ask are going to be very useful to that end.

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Great. And this conference, by the way, is October 9th through the 11th in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

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And for more details, go to futureofchristendom .org, futureofchristendom .org,

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and then click on Events, and this will come up. And this is going to be an exciting time.

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No Other Name is the theme once again, and obviously that's referring to Jesus Christ.

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And there will be other speakers in addition to my guest today,

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Eli Ayala and Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, who happens to be one of the pastors alongside of my friend

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Dr. James O. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. So I am planning on being there with an

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Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitor booth. So I am looking forward to seeing you again face to face.

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It's been a long time. And also all of the brethren at the Future of Christendom conference, and also

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Jeff Durbin. It's been quite a while since I've seen him face to face.

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I believe it was at a G3 conference, perhaps two years ago, that I saw

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Jeff in Atlanta, Georgia. But I'm going to give our listeners our email address.

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If you'd like to chime in with your own question for Eli Ayala, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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U .S. of A. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

15:42

Let's say you are in a religion other than evangelical

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Christianity outside of that. Say you're a Jehovah's Witness, you're a

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Mormon, or any other religion that would be identified by evangelicals as a cult.

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And perhaps you're starting to rethink the positions that you have long held, and you are privately and quietly doing research and are on perhaps the verge of leaving that religion.

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And you'd prefer not to identify yourself publicly at this point. Well, we understand that. That would be a reason that you could remain anonymous.

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But if it's a general question, please just give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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Also, I want to let our listeners know about this other conference where you are going to be joined by our aforementioned friend and brother,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Jason Lyle, who

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I've had on the program a number of times. In fact, he's coming on the program again in a week or two.

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He was also not long ago the keynote speaker at one of my

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Iron Trippin's Iron Radio Pastors Luncheons. And by the way,

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I don't know if you're aware, but James White is going to be my upcoming speaker September 18th at the next free

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Iron Trippin's Iron Radio Pastors Luncheon. But tell us about that event and where it is and how people can register for that.

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The event you're talking about is called the War of the Worldviews. And folks can register by simply just going to waroftheworldviews .org.

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And it will take you to the home page there and it will give you all the information that is required to sign up and to reserve your spot.

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And they're hoping for, I think, maybe around 300 folks showing up there if all of the spots are filled.

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So it should be a good group. And I'm very much looking forward. I mean, I have benefited greatly from the ministry of Dr.

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White. And I remember the first time I ever heard Dr. White, the audio, any audio of Dr. White was listening to your radio program back when

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I was a young buck. So I was like, who's this James White guy? And then, of course, the ministry of Jason Lyle, I've just been blessed with as well.

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His creation ministry and his focus on presuppositionalism. So it is actually really exciting to be able to share the platform with these two great men.

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And Dr. Marcus Ross is the other speaker. I'm not too familiar with him, but I'm sure he's a great guy.

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I'm very much looking forward to this event. But folks can sign up there at waroftheworldviews .org.

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Yes, and I'm assuming Dr. Marcus Ross shares the

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Young Earth theology view on the age of the

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Earth. I'm assuming that unless he's involved in a debate. And the reason

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I even bring that up is because that's quite fascinating and exciting because the

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Old Earth crowd boasts of the fact that the majority of Christians in the field of geology are

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Old Earth. And they will claim that as a huge support for their view as being the correct view.

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So I can't help but think that if he's a part of this lineup, unless he's debating somebody, that he would be.

19:48

I believe he is a Young Earth creationist. I'd have to double check.

19:55

But I believe he is. But yeah, I'd have to look up. I've heard very little about him.

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I know that he had debated. I don't know if it was on theistic evolution or something like that against a well -known

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Christian YouTuber by the name of Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy. That was the first time I've heard of his name.

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So I think he comes from a Young Earth perspective. Yeah, I'm very wary of the kinds of arguments where people use and a lot of people use this in the realm of apologetics.

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I'm sure you're familiar with this. It's actually a logical fallacy, the appeal to authority and appeal to populace.

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All the scientists agree in this position. Therefore, that somehow demonstrates that a particular view is true.

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And that's why I very much appreciate Dr. Lyle's work in presuppositionalism, because I think he highlights a point that a lot of people miss, is that the issue of science is not a simple look and see, then conclude.

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When we look and see, we do so with presuppositions and worldview commitments. And Dr. Lyle, I think, has done a fine job reminding us of the importance of even looking at the data to be investigated through the lens of Scripture.

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So to that end, that's one of the primary reasons why I hold to a Young Earth creationist perspective.

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I'm not one of the folks who think that, quote, the science speaks for itself. I'm not that kind of guy.

21:15

Well, that event is held September 5th through the 6th in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Have you guys actually found a venue yet? Because I remember at one time all you knew is the approximate area, the city and state of Tennessee.

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But you didn't know exactly where at one point for quite a while anyway. I believe they have found a venue, although I'm not part of the planning process there.

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I was invited, so I don't know much of the back end stuff. But I do know that they found a venue, and perhaps it's updated on the website.

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If folks look there, maybe it's mentioned there. The address might be offered there. Okay. And I wish

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I could be there. I cannot, because that happens to be the week

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I will be on Long Island, New York for the memorial service for my brother

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Andy, who passed in February, February 22nd to be exact.

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And I am grateful to God that he gave me sufficient evidence for my brother that he was truly trusting in Christ before departing this earth.

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And so I am just finding peace in the evidence our Lord has given me.

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And by the way, if anybody who lives on Long Island would like to join me for that memorial service,

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I would love to see you, especially if you know who I am and listen to this program.

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You can go to hopereformedli .net for directions and the location of the church where this memorial service will be held for my brother

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Andy Arnzen. But we're going to our first commercial break. And if you have a question, again, submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

23:21

Don't go away. We're going to be right back. James White here of Alpha and Omega Ministries announcing that this

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September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.,

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I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pre -Pastor's

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Luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville. Then, on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30

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p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the Pre -Pastor's Luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, Pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government.

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And we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word. For the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our

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Triune God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture. Loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith. And we gather around the Lord's table every

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That's TRBCCarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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This program is sponsored by Hope TR Ministry. Hope TR Ministry is a podcast produced by Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan.

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35:58

We are now back with Eli Ayala, the founder of Revealed Apologetics, and we are talking about preparation for confrontation with the enemies of Christ and his gospel, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

36:20

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Eli, as you likely know, the two primary cults that go under the guys, they masquerade, not that they're intentionally masquerading, but they masquerade as Christians.

36:48

The two primary cults that will even be so bold as to go door -to -door to confront people and seek to convert them are the

37:03

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

37:08

Saints. It depends on where you live that will determine the dominance of either of those groups.

37:21

Where I live now, interestingly enough, there are a lot of both of those folks.

37:29

There are a lot of Mormons everywhere around Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In fact, I've had a number of exchanges with them, polite exchanges on street corners and at the public library and other places.

37:47

Another thing that I'm baffled about is that none of them have ever come to my door, at least when

37:52

I was at home. But these are both groups that attack, and of course they don't look at it as attacking, but they are attacking the person and work of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

38:13

Perhaps you want to give a summary of each of those groups, starting with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah, I grew up on the

38:22

East Coast, so I grew up on Long Island, so my primary exposure has been with the

38:28

Jehovah's Witnesses. I have had experience with Mormons as well, but not as often as the

38:34

Jehovah's Witnesses. Here in North Carolina, all of my interactions with any kind of cult has been only with the

38:42

Jehovah's Witnesses. So maybe that's something because I'm on the East Coast, and I guess their headquarters is in New York, so I guess the

38:49

East Coast, they're going to be more prevalent. Oh yeah, they were definitely more prevalent when I lived on Long Island.

38:54

I lived in Amityville, Long Island, and I know you're very familiar with Amityville because you used to be a member of a church right in the next town in Massapequa.

39:05

That's correct. Before I talk about Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism, I think it's important to talk about cults in general first because I think they all have certain things in common.

39:17

A cult is typically associated with a group that gathers around either a group or an individual's interpretation of Scripture, especially if you're talking about cults that try to piggyback off of the

39:29

Bible. And what I found apologetically useful in engaging with cults in general is being able to identify key presuppositions that cultists typically make.

39:40

For one, many cultic lines of thinking, for them, the Bible is either not true, has been corrupted, or is not properly interpreted.

39:52

And a cult will typically also be characterized by following a prophet, prophetess, a magisterium, or a new revelation that corrects the

40:02

Bible, that corrects what they perceive to be an incorrect interpretation of Scripture.

40:08

So those that hold to the Bible and try to piggyback off the Bible, what they try to do is place a wedge between the believer and the believer's understanding of the

40:20

Bible. In other words, most cults and religions that piggyback off the Bible will teach something along the lines that the original gospel or the original doctrine of God has been lost through corruption, and that there's this need for some prophet or some organization to bring back the truth.

40:37

You see this not just in the Jehovah's Witness, not just in Mormonism, you'd also see it in Islam as well.

40:44

Islam teaches that, obviously, Muhammad is the seal of the prophets. He corrects, he gives a full revelation of God and corrects what

40:54

Jews and Christians have done with the previous revelations. So you have this line of reasoning in kind of cults and religions that piggyback off the

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Bible. Specifically with the Jehovah's Witness, what I find interesting too is one of their attempts to remove the person from the access to the

41:12

Bible so as to interpret it contrary to their perspective. Here's a quote from The Watchtower. This is a publication that was published in 1967.

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This is on page 587 of The Watchtower. It says, The Bible is an organizational book and belongs to the

41:29

Christian congregation as an organization, not to individuals. And then to quote

41:35

The Watchtower, page 28, it says, From time to time, those who say it is sufficient to read the

41:40

Bible exclusively have reverted right back to apostate doctrine. Now that particular quote is really interesting because in essence, the

41:48

Bible is a community book. It is dangerous to read it individually because if you read the

41:54

Bible for yourself, what will happen? You will fall back to the apostate doctrines. And what are those apostate doctrines?

42:01

Well, ironically, they're all the doctrines that we've been teaching. The Trinity, the deity of Christ, the justification by faith alone.

42:08

So I think it's very fascinating that not just the Jehovah's Witness, but specifically the Jehovah's Witness, they will not encourage individual study because, of course, you cannot truly understand what the

42:20

Bible is really saying unless you understand it within their particular interpretive framework and under the authority of their organization.

42:27

So Jehovah's Witness obviously will approach the Bible from that lens.

42:33

And then, of course, what extends from that is a corruption of what the Bible teaches with respect to very key doctrines.

42:40

Now, you nailed it right on the head before when you made reference to their particular view of Christ.

42:47

When you are dealing with cults that piggyback off of the Bible, you're always going to want to ask the key questions to sidestep all of the side issues that are not important.

42:58

And one of the key central questions that you're going to ask is, what do you do with Jesus Christ? Who is

43:04

Jesus? The voice of Dr. Walter Martin, the original Bible Answer Man, is echoing in my mind.

43:10

He says, when a cultist says, I believe in Jesus, you look them straight in the eye and you say, which one?

43:16

And that is so brilliant because the name Jesus does not exist in a vacuum.

43:21

We need to understand who Jesus is within the context of God's revelation. Unfortunately, the cults will take that revelation and distort it.

43:30

In the case of the Jehovah's Witness, they have done that with their New World Translation of the Bible in which they've changed key portions of the

43:38

Scripture. When I talk to laypersons who are not familiar with apologetics, but maybe they've encountered a

43:44

Jehovah's Witness, and I run through these kind of scenarios with them, you know, what do you do when a

43:50

Jehovah's Witness denies that Jesus is divine in the sense that he shares the same nature and essence with the

43:58

Father? They will go in their mind, the Christian layperson, will go in their mind to verses that they remember.

44:05

Well, clearly Jesus is equal with God. Look at John 1 .1. In the beginning was the

44:10

Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Until you read the New World Translation of that particular verse, and then, of course, the average

44:17

Christian is going to be thrown off by that. So they change the Scripture to adapt it to their unbiblical doctrines.

44:25

And so we want to be very cautious of that. Who is Jesus? How is man made right with God?

44:31

Those are the key questions that I think are going to be very useful in interacting with groups like the Jehovah's Witness and even the

44:37

Mormons. Mormonism teaches another gospel. When I teach on Mormonism and maybe the classroom setting or if I'm speaking about it at a church,

44:46

I love to quote Galatians chapter 1, where the Apostle Paul speaks of another gospel, right?

44:52

These are counterfeit gospels and counterfeit Jesuses, and one of the ways that we prepare to interact with such groups is that we must be grounded in the truth of what the

45:03

Bible actually teaches. It's not an issue of mastering Jehovah's Witness theology. It's not an issue of mastering

45:08

Mormonism. But it is an issue of being grounded in what the truth is so as to be in a better position to identify the error.

45:17

So that being said, just a little bit on Mormonism. I often will write these two religions on the board when

45:23

I'm teaching my middle school students when we learn about polytheism. Which religion is more polytheistic,

45:29

Mormonism or Hinduism? Now, in Hinduism, the kind of a popular understanding of Hinduism is that they believe in over 330 million gods.

45:39

And to be sure, there are aspects of Hinduism that focus on kind of a polytheistic aspect to their religion.

45:45

But if you are familiar with the philosophical underpinnings of Hinduism, it is a worldview that is predicated upon a view known as monism.

45:55

Monism. Mono. One. Ultimate reality on Hinduism is ultimately one thing.

46:02

It is monistic. And specifically with respect to Hinduism, it is a form of pantheism.

46:09

All is God and God is all. And so some Hindus would affirm the belief that yes, there are 330 million gods, but they're all different manifestations of the one

46:20

Brahman. So while it can be understood as a polytheistic kind of religion, it pales in comparison to the polytheistic nature of Mormonism, because Mormonism affirms over an infinite number of gods and men can become gods themselves.

46:36

So it's very, very important to understand both what the Bible says and what the actual claims of these cults are making, because they're quite radical.

46:46

And the tricky thing with Mormonism is that it uses lots of Christian vocabulary.

46:52

To refer to Dr. Walter Martin again, the author of that great book, The Kingdom of the Cults, one of the first chapters in that book, is entitled

47:00

Scaling the Language Barrier. And this is something we're going to have to do when dealing with the cults.

47:05

We need to learn to scale that language barrier, because the language they use sounds Christian, but the meaning they give to those terms are not the same as to what we're saying.

47:15

So we want to be familiar with the Scripture. We want to be able to define our terms and then interact in a meaningful fashion with those particular groups that distort

47:23

Christian truth. Now, how would you respond to a

47:29

Mormon who says, I am not a polytheist because I only worship one god?

47:35

In fact, there are some who would say, henotheism is a more accurate description of a

47:42

Mormon because although they do believe in the existence of many gods, even an infinite number, they only worship one.

47:50

And they believe that in their sphere of worship, that he is the supreme and only

47:59

God that they will cry out to for help and so on. Well, your voice skipped out a little bit, so I didn't catch the full question.

48:08

Can you repeat the question again? Okay. What I was asking is, how do you respond to a

48:14

Mormon who says, I am not a polytheist because I only worship one

48:20

God? Even though they acknowledge that there are an infinite number of other gods, they only worship one as a supreme deity.

48:33

And some have even categorized Mormons as henotheists, which is the worship of a single supreme

48:43

God while acknowledging the existence of other deities. So they have defined them as henotheists rather than polytheists.

48:57

Right. Well, whether you regard yourself as a polytheist or a henotheist, that's not helpful if the

49:03

Bible clearly teaches that there are no other gods. So it's not an issue of, well, we acknowledge many gods, but we worship this one.

49:10

Well, that's just idolatry from a biblical perspective. So I think a helpful passage, and maybe your audience will be familiar with this, a helpful passage to kind of use in your discussions and kind of stick and press is that passage in Isaiah 43, 10, which says,

49:26

You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe and understand that I am he.

49:32

Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. Now, when

49:37

I quote that passage, Mormons have responded, Well, there are no other gods nor gods that will be formed in this world.

49:46

You know, they acknowledge that there are other gods that rule other worlds, so on and so forth. But notice that's not what the text says.

49:53

And so at this point, I press the Mormon for consistent exegesis. I actually did this at a McDonald's, Chris.

49:59

I met with two Mormon missionaries. I stopped for, I was on a road trip, so I just came back from a conference that I had visited some speakers that were speaking down in South Carolina.

50:10

And I was driving back, and I had a craving for an Oreo McFlurry. And so I had a craving, and I'm like, you know what,

50:19

I'm going to stop real quick because I have to get it now because my wife always takes me to task when

50:24

I eat, like, junk food when I'm at home. So I can get away with all the junk food when I'm on the road. But I stopped at a

50:31

McDonald's, and I ordered my McFlurry in my special way that I order it.

50:36

I'd like a small Oreo McFlurry with extra Oreos on top and extra Oreos on the bottom. And so I got my

50:42

McFlurry, I sat down by myself, and I saw two Mormon missionaries. It looked like they were on break.

50:49

They weren't talking to anyone, or they were just sitting at the table. And one of the Mormon missionaries began to speak with the gentleman next to him, which then, in my mind, because I'm trying to think strategically here, isolated the other

51:02

Mormon. So I invited the young man. He was probably in his early 20s.

51:07

I invited him over to my table, and I began to ask him, hey, are you guys, like, selling something, or I see your name tag there.

51:14

He's like, no, we're Mormon missionaries. I was like, oh, you're a Mormon. So I began to ask questions, and I said, well,

51:20

I'm not an expert in Mormonism, but I'm kind of familiar a little bit with what you guys believe. And here's the reason why

51:26

I can't be a Mormon. And so we brought this very issue up. I quoted Isaiah 43 .10,

51:32

and he gave me his response, and then I gave my explanation, trying to force him to be consistent with the text.

51:40

And we ultimately got to the point in the discussion where I said, it seems to me what you're saying, that men can become gods, and that there are an infinite number of gods, seems inconsistent with the text of Scripture.

51:52

And he looks at me, and he looks at the text, Isaiah 43 .10, and he says, it appears so.

52:00

And he just looked confused, as though he had never seen this. And he had to admit, he said,

52:06

I have to be perfectly honest, we're not experts. This is very deep theology.

52:12

This is definitely something that I have to look into. And at that moment, I stopped pressing the text, and then

52:19

I gave him the gospel. So this is very important, because as your listeners are listening to this, they'll say, you know what,

52:25

Eli, that's cool. I've quoted Isaiah 43 .10 to a Mormon, and they have all their pat answers, right?

52:32

But the fact that they have responses doesn't mean that they're good responses, nor does it mean that they're following proper rules of interpretation.

52:40

And I like to press that. I say, don't you believe that the Bible is the Word of God? Isn't it something that we can read and understand?

52:47

Why aren't you applying proper rules of interpreting when you're telling me you believe such and such, right?

52:53

There's a conflict. I press the antithesis there. And at least in my experience, it has been very useful.

52:59

Not a knockdown argument against anything they can say, but it's a useful scripture to use and kind of press, appealing to the image of God in that Mormon.

53:09

I know he's indoctrinated. I know he has his false theology and his false interpretations. But when you apply logical consistency and show the illogic between what they're saying in the text, sometimes you see the mask drop and the coin drops for them, and they see it.

53:24

So I found that to be very useful when they ask the question that you just asked. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now, and we do have some listeners waiting for you to answer their questions.

53:38

But if anybody would like to join them and get in line, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:46

chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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Earth you live, I may be able to help you find a biblically faithful church near you, just as I have done with many

01:08:28

Iron Trepons Iron Radio listeners spanning the entire globe. So, please, if you are in that predicament of not being a member of a biblically faithful church and not even being aware of one near you, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:08:44

and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Eli Ayala of Revealed Apologetics, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:08:55

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. One thing I did want to say about the two cults that you mentioned, the

01:09:07

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons, is it not interesting that many, if not most,

01:09:16

Roman Catholic apologists will merely include them as Protestants when they are spouting off about the alleged 30 ,000 denominations or more that have arisen because of, as one

01:09:42

Catholic apologist has put it, sola scriptura, leads to anarchy, and because of the fact that we do not have an infallible hope in a magisterium, groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are on the scene, and yet, if you look at their ecclesiology, they much more resemble

01:10:06

Roman Catholicism than they do evangelical Bible -believing

01:10:12

Christianity because they reject sola scriptura. You are dependent upon them to understand the

01:10:21

Bible correctly, and, of course, they would not mimic or believe or agree upon the things that even we agree with Roman, like the

01:10:32

Trinity and so on, deity of Christ, virgin birth, but they still, at least in their power structure, over the average person in their cult, they more resemble

01:10:51

Rome, do they not? Yes.

01:10:56

We want to be very careful, though, because it depends on the nature of the comparison, right?

01:11:02

Right. I think the reason why the Roman Catholic tries to group Mormons in with all of the divisions is because I don't think that the

01:11:11

Roman Catholic thinks that we, as Protestants, have the ability to differentiate between essential doctrine and non -essential doctrine.

01:11:19

We will say we're joined together with all Orthodox denominations that affirm the essentials, but then the

01:11:25

Catholic often assumes, well, you have no basis for knowing the essentials because, what, you lack an infallible teaching authority, so on and so forth.

01:11:32

And, of course, I think that's not a very good approach because it does not allow us to define our own categories, and I think what is at the heart of Roman Catholicism and Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses is that there is an implicit denial of the perspicuity of Scripture.

01:11:51

They assume that because it's not as clear, you need kind of this external source to help interpret, so on and so forth.

01:11:58

So, yeah, I think that is an interesting similarity that I've also noticed as well, but the irony is not lost in what you just pointed out there.

01:12:10

Okay, well, let's see. We have

01:12:16

Gertrude, who is writing from Wanto, Long Island, not far from where you and I used to live,

01:12:28

Eli. Oh, wow. Is it indicated where in Long Island? Wanto.

01:12:35

Okay, all right. Gertrude says, Should any

01:12:41

Christian allow cults like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons into their home to discuss things of the

01:12:49

Bible, or should this be something only done by very seasoned, biblically literate

01:12:54

Christians? Well, I would be very cautious in letting them into your home.

01:13:00

I don't think it's completely off -limits, but you have to understand that from their perspective, they want you to come to their

01:13:07

Bible studies, so they're going to try to invite you to. It's kind of like when you call the number on the bottom of the screen and they send you a free anointed water from the

01:13:17

River Jordan, right? It's free, and then you order it, and then you get inundated with all the emails and extra stuff.

01:13:24

You want to be very careful, because they want to come into your house to start Bible studies, and if you're not equipped to engage with them in a meaningful way, that can be a very dangerous thing.

01:13:34

But as I mentioned before earlier on in the program, you want to be grounded in what the

01:13:41

Bible actually teaches, sufficiently that you're able to point out points of disagreement and contention that you're going to have with them.

01:13:49

I've invited Jehovah's Witnesses into my house before, but that's because I felt comfortable interacting with them.

01:13:55

So you want to be very careful. It's not like a yes or no, but it's more of an issue of using wisdom in deciding that.

01:14:02

Great. Well, thank you, Gertrude, for the excellent question. Let's see, we have

01:14:09

RJ from White Plains, New York, who says,

01:14:17

I believe Chris Arnzen misspoke before. Although I am not a Jehovah's Witnesses, nor do I defend them, they do believe in the virgin birth of Christ.

01:14:27

Yes, that's true. When I was saying that, I was just saying, I was rattling off things that evangelicals agree with Rome on, that cults do not necessarily agree with.

01:14:43

And you were right. Jehovah's Witnesses do believe in the virgin birth of Christ, but they do not believe Christ is

01:14:49

God. They do not believe in the deity of Christ. Mormons have a very creepy understanding of the conception of Christ in Mary's womb because they believe it was an actual sex act between God, the

01:15:03

Father who tabernacled in flesh and had marital relations with Mary. Isn't that true?

01:15:11

That is correct, yes. It's all wrapped up in their conception of God. I mean, for them, God is about six foot tall, has a physical body of flesh and bones.

01:15:20

So because of their picture of God, it makes sense from within their context to believe that God would accomplish the birth of Christ through sexual means.

01:15:31

And in fact, I think, if I'm not mistaken, that view, that understanding that Brigham Young taught about the conception of Christ in Mary's womb being of a sexual origin between God and Mary, that is not a commonly known view amongst your average

01:15:56

Mormons, from what I understand. I can remember a Mormon who came to my door after I invited him, that is, responding to a commercial on TV, to have a

01:16:08

Book of Mormon hand delivered to my house by an elder, by a

01:16:13

Mormon elder. I responded to that ad because in my stage -cage

01:16:18

Calvinism, I basically was setting them up for an ambush.

01:16:26

And I probably did not handle myself as graciously as I could have, although I was never mean -spirited to them.

01:16:38

But I did bring that up. And that was the last thing that I brought up.

01:16:45

Before the younger Mormon, there were two of them, and I thought the older Mormon was going to be the brains, but it turned out that the younger

01:16:57

Mormon was definitely the sharper and more knowledgeable one. And he got very upset when

01:17:03

I said that. He started packing up his stuff because he swore that that was a lie.

01:17:09

And I told him, please look it up in the writings of Brigham Young, do whatever research you need to do.

01:17:17

I don't even think we had Google in those days. This was in the 1980s. And so I called him back a few weeks later to see if he had looked that up, and he said he had not, and he didn't have time to speak.

01:17:34

He hung up on me. But would you agree that the average

01:17:39

Mormon does not typically know that? Yeah, so funny story. As you know, Chris, I work at a

01:17:45

Christian school, and I remember I had a free period, like a prep period, so I went downstairs.

01:17:51

I work on the second floor of the school. I went downstairs to use the restroom, and as I was walking to the restroom, one of the secretaries that's in charge of interviewing new families, she pulled me aside and she goes, there's a

01:18:04

Mormon family that wants to enroll in the school, and I told them they can't, but I don't know why they can't.

01:18:10

Can you please help me? So I got pulled into an office with this Mormon family, and I had to explain to them, we can't accept you in the school because we have fundamental differences.

01:18:21

There are classes that explicitly teach the opposite of what you guys believe. For example, you guys believe in many gods, and that family, the mom, she looked at me, she goes, no, we don't.

01:18:34

And I'm like, yes, you do. You believe that God the Father used to be, and we don't believe that, and I'm like, okay.

01:18:41

So it was interesting that this Mormon family wasn't even aware of their own doctrine.

01:18:48

So this is a common thing, especially because Mormonism has evolved over the years.

01:18:55

If you go back and you listen to, for example, the old debates with Walter Martin back in the 80s, right, and the questions that people used to ask from the audience,

01:19:05

Mormons were very committed to a very conservative Mormon perspective that affirmed all of the bells and whistles that we typically associate with the oddities of Mormon doctrine.

01:19:16

But people in the modern context, there has been a great attempt to polish Mormonism and make it more acceptable.

01:19:22

So it is interesting to observe that many modern Mormons are not aware of some of those doctrines that were really staples of Mormon theology early on.

01:19:31

So I've experienced that myself. Now, with respect to the issue of God coming into Mary and having sexual relations with her, again, this is very much wrapped up in their conception of God.

01:19:45

This is why theology is so important. In my talk that I'm preparing at the event there in Pennsylvania, where I talk about the importance of theology, apologetics, and evangelism, your theology is so important because it determines everything else, right?

01:20:01

If you have a particular view of God that is unbiblical, that is going to seep into and pour into other areas of your belief.

01:20:08

Mormons, because of their deficient view of God, this is why you have some of these other aspects of their theology that doesn't work.

01:20:15

It is because of the materiality, so to speak, of the nature of God in Mormonism that you get all sorts of other things that seem to contradict

01:20:22

Scripture. For example, in I think it's the First Vision of Joseph Smith, if I could just read the quote here, it says,

01:20:29

I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head. When the light rested upon me, I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air.

01:20:38

One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other, one of the personages pointing to the other.

01:20:46

Notice the physicality there. This is my beloved son. Hear him. So if the personage is pointing to the son, then we are safe to assume that the personage that said that was the father.

01:20:58

So this would mean that because of their particular understanding of God and how he's revealed himself in this particular instance, that God, the father, is someone that can be seen.

01:21:08

And that's very much wrapped up in the Mormon doctrine of God. But of course, this runs, you know, a head -on collision with what the teaching of Scripture tells us.

01:21:16

1 Timothy 6 .16, Who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one, look at this, whom no one has, past tense, ever seen or can ability see.

01:21:30

So he's not even able to be seen, the father. Yet Joseph Smith is able to see the father.

01:21:35

So you see a deficient view of God leads to other deficient views, which then kind of smack right into a clear teaching of Scripture.

01:21:43

So again, this is an example of how your theology kind of seeps into other areas. Great. And one thing that differentiates

01:21:54

Mormons from Jehovah's Witnesses, I mean, they are in many ways polar opposites. But one of the differences, major differences, is the public relations approach that these two groups have.

01:22:15

I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Jehovah's Witnesses are still very bold and upfront and honest that they are the only true

01:22:29

Christian religion. Whereas the Mormons, unlike that young man who came with the older man to my home, the missionaries in the 1980s, were clear after we had a period of niceties and friendly exchanges and refreshments that I served them.

01:22:55

The younger man was extremely clear that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints was the only true church.

01:23:03

Today, when I have encountered young Mormons in the streets of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, they will say things like,

01:23:12

Oh, I know you've probably heard a lot of weird things about us that we think we're the only Christians. That's not true.

01:23:18

We're just a different denomination, and we have some unique beliefs, but we're

01:23:24

Christians just like you are. And that is like a new approach by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

01:23:29

Saints. Have you encountered this? And would you agree with my assessment? I have not heard people say that specifically, but I have heard them when

01:23:41

I try to have conversations with Jehovah's Witness, for example, I will ask questions to see if they admit the conflict between, for example, our different conceptions of salvation.

01:23:54

So when I say, Well, I'm a Baptist. I believe in justification by faith alone. I've had Jehovah's Witness say,

01:24:00

Oh, we believe that. You know, I was like, Well, I don't believe that works, justifies us. Oh, well, we believe that.

01:24:06

And I'd start, I'm like, if you keep saying we believe that, then I don't know if you are a

01:24:12

Jehovah's Witness. I'm just giving you the staple theology that I affirm. So I would imagine when they say we believe that, the meaning and content of the terms

01:24:22

I'm using is being reinterpreted in their mind to mean something else. Otherwise, they're just not aware of the official teachings of their own church, which, which is quite prevalent.

01:24:35

I mean, we, when we give talks on apologetics in different places, what do the apologists always say?

01:24:41

Right. We need to know our faith. There are many Christians who are very ignorant, biblically illiterate, all so on and so forth. That's also true to some degree in a lot of the newer

01:24:49

Jehovah's Witness and Mormons. They're just not literate in their own doctrine, or at least in some of the more odd areas, because I've actually had

01:24:57

Jehovah's Witness and Mormons look at me like I have three heads. When I say your church believes such and such, they act as though they've never heard this before.

01:25:05

so yeah, it's definitely something that can go both ways. You know, the Christian can be ignorant of what the

01:25:12

Christian is supposed to believe and Jehovah's Witness and Mormons can be ignorant as well. But, but, but to quote, but to quote

01:25:18

Dr. Walter Martin, I would argue that the cultist is not as ignorant as the average ignorant

01:25:24

Christian, as Dr. Walter Martin says, that the average Jehovah's Witness can turn the average

01:25:31

Christian into a doctrinal pretzel, because they are typically more familiar with the text of Scripture than the average

01:25:37

Christian, unfortunately. So you're saying that in your experience, the public relations approach by average

01:25:46

Jehovah's Witnesses has become similar to Mormons in their acting as if they are just another

01:25:55

Christian denomination. Is that what you're saying? Yes, there is a sense of softening the blow of their original doctrine.

01:26:04

You see this in Roman Catholicism too, right? Back in the day, what? What did the Catholic Church teach, right? Outside the Catholic Church, there is no salvation, right?

01:26:11

Protestants, sorry, you're out, but then later on, what are we? Separated brethren, right? You say, so you have kind of this, this kind of smoothing over to be more appealing.

01:26:20

Some, some groups do it self -consciously. Some, you know, become more liberal within the context of their own groups and stuff.

01:26:27

So that's why it's important to be able to define terms because Jehovah's Witness and Mormons will often use terms that we could agree with them on the surface, but either they're ignorant of their true meaning or they are intentionally softening the presentation so as to be more acceptable.

01:26:43

And you have one of the differences there with Roman Catholic Church is that you had an official council, the second

01:26:51

Vatican council teaching directly from the Pope that there was a change in attitude towards the

01:27:07

Protestants and others, even those that deny Christ, like the

01:27:12

Jews, the Muslims and Hindus and so on. Whereas there was a possibility for heaven for all of them.

01:27:26

And in fact, when it comes to the Muslims that they were identified in the current

01:27:32

Catholic catechism and article 841 that they adore the same one true

01:27:41

God as the Muslims. So there is some, what of a difference between the shift of Catholicism and the shift of your average

01:27:51

Mormon or Jehovah's Witness? Yes.

01:27:57

Yeah, I would agree with that. There's definitely, definitely a shift there. I think it's,

01:28:03

I think it's Lumen Gentium 16. The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the creator in the first place, amongst whom are the

01:28:10

Muslims. These profess to hold the faith of Abraham and together with us, they adore the one and merciful

01:28:15

God who on the last day will judge mankind. Yeah, that is something that we would take issue with.

01:28:25

Also, too, when you say they worship the same God, you have to be very careful. You know, when something is the same as something else, there is a one -to -one correspondence between the, between the two, right?

01:28:35

But ontologically, with respect to their beings, I mean, the God that Muslims claim to worship ontologically is distinct from the

01:28:42

God that we worship because we worship a Trinitarian God on the one hand and Muslims worship a Unitarian God on the other.

01:28:48

So, again, words have meaning in context. When a Muslim says, I have a high regard for Jesus, we need to be very careful because the, as I said before, which

01:28:59

Jesus, right? The word, the name Jesus has a particular context that gives it meaning, right?

01:29:06

And so if you are saying we have a high regard for Jesus, the question is going to be the same when the, when the

01:29:12

Mormon and the Jehovah's Witness used the word Jesus, which Jesus, the Jesus that is a mere prophet or the

01:29:19

Jesus that is the second person of the Trinity who became incarnate and dwelt among us and atone for the sins of sinners, right?

01:29:25

So these definitions are going to be so important. Always remember, and this is so helpful personally in my own apologetic interactions.

01:29:34

And I found that others have found this useful is every key term that is brought up in discussion, whether it's

01:29:40

Jesus, God or salvation or whatever, always remember that those words have a context.

01:29:46

And so you want to ask for that context. Someone says, I believe in the Trinity. What do you mean by that? I believe in Jesus.

01:29:52

What do you mean by that? Those are simple questions that draw out the presuppositions that are lurking behind the use of those very common terms.

01:30:03

Okay. We have Amethyst in Jupiter, Florida, and Amethyst asks, can you tell us what you believe are some of the biggest mistakes your average

01:30:15

Christians make when they are having conversations with people of other religions? I think one common mistake is, as I went before, not defining your terms.

01:30:27

So I remember when I first encountered a Mormon, I said, well, I believe in the Trinity.

01:30:32

And the Mormon just looked at me as, oh, well, we believe in the Trinity too. And I was like, oh, all right, cool. I kind of moved on to something. Like now

01:30:40

I think if I'm like, okay, wait a minute. So what I believe about the Trinity is not the same thing.

01:30:46

This is the conversation I had with that family in the office at my school. And I said, well, we teach the Trinity. Well, we believe the

01:30:51

Trinity. I was like, okay, is the father God? The woman was like, yes. Is the son

01:30:57

God? Yes. Is the Holy Spirit God? Yes. Is that one God or three

01:31:02

God? She was like, that's one God. I'm like, this woman doesn't understand what she believes. Mormons affirm that those are three separate gods.

01:31:09

It is a tri -theistic perspective. So when they use the word Trinity, they don't mean the same thing we mean when we say the word

01:31:17

Trinity. In like fashion, when the Muslim affirms Jesus as a true prophet, right?

01:31:24

That doesn't mean that they're using Jesus in the same sense as we are. Okay. There's a very big misunderstanding of who

01:31:30

Jesus is in Islam. I remember there was a debate that was going to happen between a Christian and a Christian and a

01:31:35

Muslim, and they were debating over the proposition of the debate. They were arguing, what should the debate be about?

01:31:41

And the Muslim suggested that the debate should be Jesus, God, or man. And the

01:31:47

Christian was like, I'm not going to debate that topic. And the Muslim's like, well, why? He's like, well, because I believe Jesus is both God and man.

01:31:53

So you see, we can use these terms, Jesus, but we have to fill them with content.

01:31:59

That is why we need to be grounded in scripture so that we can fill those terms with biblical content and correct the misrepresentation of those terms when used from different religious perspectives or different cultic groups and things like that.

01:32:12

So I think that's one big mistake. We, we engage in conversation, assuming that the cultist is using words in the same way that we think, you know, in the same way that we hold those terms.

01:32:24

That's one thing. Number two is getting overly defensive. I find this to be very, very counterproductive.

01:32:31

It's very easy to get into survival mode when you're interacting with a Jehovah's Witness and a Mormon. But I think it's so important that we consider not just what we're saying, but how we are communicating.

01:32:42

Right. Very important that we keep focused, that we, we leave out this part often, right?

01:32:48

We mentioned it, but people don't really focus on it, that we are to set it. We are to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that's in us.

01:32:54

If anyone asks for the hope that's in us yet do so with gentleness and respect.

01:32:59

Listen, I'm talking to Christians here. If you have the truth and you believe you have the truth, then there is literally no reason for you to get up in arms and argumentative, right?

01:33:11

We need to stand on the truth and calmly interact, not feeling the need to always get the last word or to, um, just unleash all of the apologetic stuff that we're, we've been thinking about and planning to use when we encounter one of these individuals.

01:33:27

We need to, we need to walk wisely, patiently ask questions, develop a rapport with the person you're speaking with.

01:33:35

And genuinely, not simply for the purpose of waiting for an opening that you have to understand. Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses and atheists are

01:33:43

Muslim. They're not our enemies. Okay. They are people made in the image of God. They are believing damnable things, but we are to show love to the people that we're interacting with.

01:33:52

And one of the ways that we do that is we listen, we are kind. Yet at the same time, we do that simultaneously with being straightforward and biblical and standing on the truth of God's word.

01:34:04

So, um, defining terms or the lack thereof and, um, our attitudes.

01:34:10

I think it's very, uh, very important that we, that we have good attitudes and interacting with folks. Those are the two things that I think are often, um, uh, problems that I see when

01:34:19

Christians interact with, with other folks. And I think one of the reasons for that, Chris, is a lot of the content that people, um, take in, um, apologetically and theologically today, um, is through YouTube.

01:34:32

So, so a lot of people who kind of have like apologetics as their hobby horse and they kind of listen to the podcast and they watch the

01:34:38

YouTube channels, what they're seeing are the debates and like the fiery back and forth.

01:34:43

But guys need to recognize that that is not the normal interaction that you're going to have with someone on the street.

01:34:50

You cannot speak to someone on the street in the same way as Dr. White is, is in laser sharp focus, cross -examining someone.

01:34:59

Once, once someone feels cross -examined in that way, they check out. They're like, I don't want to talk. Now, Dr.

01:35:05

White does that beautifully when he's in debate, but I guarantee Dr. White does not, does not function in the same way he doesn't debate when he's talking to someone on the street.

01:35:14

We need to be aware of our context. Do not transfer the, the YouTube world of apologetics and interaction onto, you know, uncle

01:35:23

Jerry, a Thanksgiving dinner. It's just not the same. And it's a big turnoff for a lot of people. Do you think that that involves, uh, the wisdom to know when to keep silent and give the person with whom you're having the conversation from another religion, the, the, the time to speak and make their points, because we have to demonstrate that we are truly interested in them and what they believe and not constantly interrupt them or steamroller over them.

01:36:00

Now, many people, especially those very early on in their faith might be the opposite.

01:36:08

They may just keep their mouth shut the entire time after inviting Jehovah's Witnesses into their house and they be, uh, theologically used as a doormat.

01:36:18

Uh, but, uh, we have to be balanced with that, don't we? Yes. And, and, and people say, well, how do

01:36:26

I know, Chris, when is the right time to open my mouth? Um, and there is no, um, you know, one answer to this.

01:36:34

I like how you use the word wisdom. It's going to be different in different contexts, right? We just need to, the more you speak with people, the more you practice interacting with people and you practice listening.

01:36:45

At the same time, you're also practicing, you know, sharing, you know, you doing apologetics and giving your arguments, so on and so forth.

01:36:51

But the more you do it, the more sensitive you become in knowing when is the right time. It's kind of a thing that you learn.

01:36:58

It's not necessarily, hey, Eli, give me a quick, a quick answer to this question. At what point should

01:37:04

I walk away? Right? You ever hear that question? People at what point should I stop witnessing to someone?

01:37:09

Like the Kenny Rogers song, no one to hold them, no one to fold them, no one to walk away, no one to run.

01:37:17

That's right. That's right. So it's something that's learned and you have to use wisdom. I mean, it's, and the wisdom comes through practice.

01:37:25

So you're not going to learn that wisdom if you only read books about apologetics or, you know, you're just listening to podcasts and debates.

01:37:33

We should be listening to those things so as to equip ourselves to actually go and talk to people. And when we do that, we learn, you're going to mess up, by the way,

01:37:41

I've messed up before. And even experts will admit, yeah, we, you know, you can study the Bible. You could have degrees in theology and apologetics and so forth, but you don't always share the faith and defend the faith perfectly.

01:37:52

We learn through experience. It's an opportunity for God to mold us and teach us how to interact with unbelievers in a

01:37:59

Christlike fashion. It's, it's challenging, but the more, the more practice we have, the better we get at it.

01:38:04

And we'll be able to recognize those key moments when, when, yeah, this is a great time for me to kind of interject and, and, and share my part.

01:38:11

And when we do that respectfully, people want to continue the conversation, right? You don't want to, you don't want to have someone leave the conversation with the attitude.

01:38:20

I never want to talk to another Christian again. Because of the attitude, not necessarily because of the content, right?

01:38:26

The content of the gospel is going to be offensive, but as the saying goes, we do not have to be offensive in the way that we carry ourselves.

01:38:35

Okay, great. We have Liza, who is located in Santee, South Carolina.

01:38:48

Can you give us some tips about the first and primary biblical verses we should cite to a

01:38:58

Jehovah's Witness and then move on to Mormons? For the Jehovah's Witnesses?

01:39:03

Yeah. She actually asked for both. The first, give the biblical texts that are primary in your mind to bring up to a

01:39:13

Jehovah's Witness. And then after you're finished, bring up the Mormon ammunition.

01:39:20

Yeah. So with the Jehovah's Witness, I think Chris nailed this at the beginning when he made mention of the fact that the cults typically have some kind of, you know, false view of Christ.

01:39:32

So you're going to want to focus on Christological texts, but it really is going to depend. When I talk to people on the street,

01:39:38

I typically focus on, like, the gospel. Obviously that's not independent of the person of Christ, but I like to bring up passages that deal with the certainty of our salvation.

01:39:53

Because what this does is this compares the certainty we have with the uncertainty that the cultist has.

01:40:00

For example, when I spoke with a cultist, I asked him straight out, do you know that you are in right standing with God?

01:40:07

Are you certain of your salvation? And I had a guy look at me, he says, I would not be so presumptuous to think that.

01:40:15

And so I looked at him and I said, then why should I exchange the certainty I have in Christ for the uncertainty that you have?

01:40:22

Right? That's not a knockdown logical argument, but it is an existential use of the scriptures that has an emotional punch that strikes at the heart of one's certainty.

01:40:33

We have a certainty because of what Christ has done on our behalf. They do not because they have a false price.

01:40:39

So any verses pertaining to the certainty and the surety of our salvation is going to be very, very useful.

01:40:46

I've used Philippians one six, and I'm sure of this, that he would began a good work and you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

01:40:52

I believe that when God started in me, he will accomplish. Do you believe that?

01:40:58

Well, many cultic perspectives believe you can lose your salvation. They don't have that surety. So you can focus on, you know, the surety of salvation.

01:41:06

Romans eight, 29 to 30. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. And those whom he predestined, he also called.

01:41:12

And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. We are those that have been saved by God's grace with certainty such that those who are in the hand of Christ will never be plucked out.

01:41:24

That is the certainty that we have. Mr. Cultist, do you have that certainty? If not, why should

01:41:30

I exchange the certainty that I have for the uncertainty of your position? That's been a very useful technique for me personally.

01:41:39

With respect to the Jehovah's Witness understanding of Jesus, what I found very helpful are the alpha and the omega first and the last phraseology that found in the book of Revelation, where the titles that are given to God in the

01:41:54

Old Testament, he is the first and the last are titles that are also given to Jesus Christ.

01:42:00

And so those are helpful verses to use to show that Jesus is giving divine titles, which equates

01:42:07

Jesus with with Yahweh. So I think those will be very helpful as well. So you want to have salvation passages and Christological passages.

01:42:17

Also, apart from a passage, I think what's helpful, too, is a Colossians, because Jehovah's Witness believe that Jesus was the first created being of Jehovah in that passage in Colossians, where it speaks of Christ creating all things through him, all things were created.

01:42:34

What's interesting is in Colossians 1, I think it's 14 through 16. I don't know. Let me double check that.

01:42:39

That's Colossians. Let me see. Colossians 14 through 16. Let's see if I've got that here.

01:42:45

I want to make sure I quote the whole passage here. Yeah. So in him, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

01:42:51

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

01:43:01

In the New World Translation, they add the word other. So in the New World Translation, in whom we've redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

01:43:10

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all other things were created.

01:43:17

Now, what I've found helpful is to bring this up in conversation with the Jehovah's Witness. Why is the word other there?

01:43:23

In their Bible, it's in brackets and there's a note that the word has been added. Now, the apostle Paul could have used two

01:43:29

Greek words for the word other. He could have used the word heteros and allos. One is other of the same kind, another of a different kind.

01:43:37

Paul could have used those words, but guess which one he used in that passage? None of them, because the text does not say, why do you add words to God's word?

01:43:46

Oh, well, no, this is what I've been told. It's only used to clarify the verse. No, it doesn't clarify the verse.

01:43:51

It literally changes the meaning of the verse. Why do you change the word of God? So Colossians 1, 14 through 16, those

01:43:57

Christological passages that I mentioned, where Jesus has given divine titles and salvation verses,

01:44:04

I think are going to be very, very useful to engaging the Jehovah's Witness. With respect to the Mormon, obviously that passage in Isaiah has been super, super helpful.

01:44:14

I've oftentimes in conversations with Mormons, never gotten past that verse. I mean, when you go to that passage in Isaiah, where God says that there will be no, there's no

01:44:23

God before me, nor will there be one formed after me, staying there and pressing that verse and then just sitting back and pointing out the fallacies that follow.

01:44:34

For example, we believe that there is no other God before him, nor will there be one formed after him.

01:44:40

But that's talking about the God of this world. Well, if I'm going to follow what you're going to say, how do

01:44:46

I get that from the text? Can you explain to me how you're getting that from the text and not simply adding something external to the text?

01:44:53

It's there. Can you help me with that? And what they typically try to do is they try to twist and turn and try to explain the text in light of what

01:45:00

I've, what I've laid out there. And all I've had to, all I had to do was point out that that's not what the text says.

01:45:07

You're sneaking in assumptions here. So I lay it out in that fashion.

01:45:12

I say, if this is truly God's word, ought we allow the words of God to speak for themselves?

01:45:18

That's a question. I know that you disagree with me, Mr. Mormon or Latter -day Saints. I don't know if you've had this experience,

01:45:24

Chris, where Mormons don't like to be called Mormons. So, so regardless, whatever they want to be called,

01:45:33

I lay that out on the table. If the Bible says this and you're telling me it says this when it clearly that's not what the text says.

01:45:40

I know you believe that, but that's not what the text says. I mean, who am I going to listen to the scripture or your interpretation?

01:45:48

And I've had people say, you know, I need to go back and think about this. So again, not a knockdown text.

01:45:53

If it was a Mormon or a Latter -day Saint listening to this program, I'm sure you'll have your answers. But what I found is that this text really is a nail in the coffin that proves very useful in interacting with Mormons in conversation.

01:46:07

Before we go to the final break, are you aware of any other cult, false religion, et cetera, that is on the rise and using the tactics of going door to door?

01:46:23

I'm not sure that they go door to door, but I have seen these individuals in parking lots and malls and things like this.

01:46:31

It's the mother God cult that started over there. And I think Korea somewhere. I remember walking out of a stop and shop and a gentleman asked to speak with me.

01:46:40

And, you know, I was like, put my, my, my groceries down. And he says, I know that you've probably heard that there is a father

01:46:46

God, but did you know the Bible teaches that there is a mother God as well? And so I've heard. And then

01:46:51

I've had friends tell me, have you ever heard of these guys? They're going around saying that there is a mother God. So that that's another cult that is prevalent on Long Island.

01:46:59

I've experienced. Pardon. When I was on Long Island, I heard multiple stories of people meeting these folks in the malls and parking lots and supermarkets.

01:47:08

And then of course I had my own personal experience, which by the way, all the cults share the same thing in common in that they have a false gospel.

01:47:17

Yes. And instead of talking about mother God, the majority of my conversation with that individual was how are we made right with God?

01:47:26

Huh? And all the cults have the same set, the similar features. It is all based on some kind of system of works.

01:47:34

The, the individual told me you are saved by faith and you must obey God's commands. And I asked him, do you obey

01:47:40

God's commands? And he says, I try. And I said, no, no, no. Do you obey God's commands? I try. So trying is not obeying.

01:47:48

It's trying and, and he's admitting he's failing. So here he, here you have an individual who on his own basis is not saved because he's not obeying

01:47:58

God's law perfectly preaching to someone who doesn't hold to a system, how to be safe.

01:48:05

You see the inconsistency there. So I've been, I've come in contact with people who say they try, but don't, which kind of undermines their own position.

01:48:12

And I've approached people who have said that they do obey God's law perfectly. I've had people that say, yes,

01:48:19

I obey God's law. I no longer sin to which I respond. You just sinned because the

01:48:24

Bible says he, who has, who says he has no sin makes God out to be a liar. So I love how God has set things up in such a way that we cannot escape our own sinfulness and thus we cannot escape our, our, our need for a savior.

01:48:37

But those are just kind of interesting points that I see prevalent in a wide range of different cults that I've interacted with.

01:48:44

And we're going to our final break. Don't go away. We'll be right back. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a

01:49:06

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Buttafuoco & Associates, from Chris Arnzen at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And, Eli, I would like you to make sure that you summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today when it comes to preparation with confrontation with the cults and other enemies of Jesus Christ and his gospel.

01:54:25

Yeah, I'd like to keep it simple. Read your Bible. Believe it. Trust and go. I think a lot of people get caught up in, like, oh,

01:54:32

I've got to learn all this kind of stuff, and so I'm never going to be equipped to go out and share the gospel. Remember that the words that we speak don't go out alone, right?

01:54:40

We go with the power of the Spirit and standing on the firm foundation of his word. And so there comes a point where we're just going to have to read the

01:54:47

Bible, believe what it says, and go out there and proclaim God's truth, trusting God for the results. So that's what

01:54:52

I'd like to give the audience here. Now, do you have any YouTube videos that you'd like to highlight that may help equip our listeners for their confrontations with the cults and other enemies of the gospel?

01:55:09

Yeah, if they go to my YouTube channel, they can type in Revealed Apologetics, Jehovah's Witness Refuted, or Jehovah's Witness Mormonism.

01:55:17

I've got videos and interviews with experts in these areas that cover a wide range of issues relating to this.

01:55:23

As a matter of fact, I did an excellent video with Dr. White where we go through the doctrines of Mormonism and what they believe and stuff like that.

01:55:30

So if you type in Revealed Apologetics, James White, Revealed Apologetics, Matt Slick, a friend of mine over there at CARM .org,

01:55:37

the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. He's great in interacting with Jehovah's Witness and Mormons and things like that.

01:55:43

So I've got a lot of content there on my channel. Great. And I do want to remind our listeners about two events that Eli Ayala will be speaking at.

01:55:55

The first one will be September 5th through the 6th in Nashville, Tennessee.

01:56:03

War of the Worldviews. War of the Worldviews. And on that roster of speakers is not only

01:56:13

Eli Ayala, but also the aforementioned Dr. James R. White, Dr.

01:56:19

Jason Lyle, the Christian astrophysicist, and the before -mentioned

01:56:24

Dr. Marcus Ross, a paleontologist and geoscientist.

01:56:31

And if you'd like to attend that conference, go to TennesseeApologetics .org,

01:56:41

and that's the whole word, Tennessee. TennesseeApologetics .org forward slash

01:56:47

War of the Worldviews. TennesseeApologetics .org

01:56:53

forward slash War of the Worldviews. And then in October, the event that I will be attending, because I have an exhibitor's booth there,

01:57:05

No Other Name is the theme of the conference. That's October 9th through the 11th in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

01:57:14

And for more details on that conference, go to FutureofChristendom .org

01:57:21

forward slash events. That's FutureofChristendom .org forward slash events.

01:57:29

That's events, plural with the S at the end. And I had a blast, as always,

01:57:35

Eli, to have you on the program. I look forward to, God willing, seeing you in October at the

01:57:42

Lancaster conference. And I hope to have many other opportunities in the future to have you on this program.

01:57:50

In fact, I just heard from Jeff Durbin today. I don't know if you're aware, but he's going on.

01:57:58

He is dealing with a lot of things right now. He is trying to come back on Iron Trump and Zion Radio very soon.

01:58:06

Our listeners can pray for his father -in -law, who is in urgent need of heart surgery, and keep praying for all of the many things that Jeff Durbin sets his hand to do, including the adopting of children, rescuing them from the abortion slaughter mills, and the confrontation of people who are about to have their babies murdered at abortion mills, trying to bring to them the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so many things that he's involved in.

01:58:46

So pray for Jeff Durbin, and we will keep you updated if Jeff can join us in the near future, as he is trying to do at this point.

01:58:56

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And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.