Convo with "Church of Christ" EXILES | w/ Everett Young ...an old friend of @AaronGallagherTV@GBNTV

The Apologetic Dog

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Well, hello and welcome to The Apologetic Dog, where it's our heart's desire to contend for the truth, the gospel of grace, and we do this with love and grace.

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We stand firmly on God's Word at every point and turn, and we rival against those ideologies, that pagan philosophy that tries to couch itself within a biblical worldview.

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The Apologetic Dog is grounded in 1 Timothy 620 that says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you and avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

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Knowledge is important, and knowledge presupposes truth, and where do we get truth? The Word of God.

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And so, thank you for joining The Apologetic Dog. My name is Jeremiah Nortier, and I serve as a pastor and elder at 12 .5

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Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. So if you're in the Northeast Arkansas area, please come check us out.

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We'd love for you to come visit and be a part of our fellowship. So today, I have a co -host with me,

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The Fishbone. Trey Fisher, where are you at, man? I want to talk about something real quick. You know, you got a lot going on.

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You're married. You've got the apologetic puppy at the house, waking you up every night crying, and you've got stuff like this going on.

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Bam! A free will debate with A .K. Richardson, who happens to be a Church of Christer, right?

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Yeah, that's a little bit more on the DL. But A .K. came to the James White event at 12 .5

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Church back in the fall, and we got to talk. And I've seen the debates that he's done on Donny's channel at Standing for Truth and Marlon's channel,

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The Gospel Truth. And I went up to him, Trey, and I said, A .K., when are we gonna square off, man? And he goes, well, let's debate about Calvinism.

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I was like, all right, there's five points. What are you gonna do, limited atonement? And he goes, no. Let's do free will.

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I said, let's do it. So he told me he wanted to make it live, in person. So it'll be at 12 .5

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this month, June 24th, which is a Saturday at 6 p .m. So I just want to tell your audience, if you want to come be a part, message me.

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We can reserve a seat. We can house to about 130. But it will be live streamed at the

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Apologetic Dog YouTube channel as well. That's what I'm talking about. Can I say one more thing? Hurry up, dog.

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People, I have a thousand subs, so you can send in superchats, and we're gonna give superchats priority.

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And so me and A .K., even though we're gonna be in person, we will still answer superchats that come from YouTube.

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So I want to encourage people to go and support the channel in that way. Well, I just want to say I can't get superchats just yet.

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Not yet. Hey, you're on your way. You have a few hundred subscribers. I'm really proud of you,

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Fishbump. Hey, whatevs, dude. I'm in it to go to Nineveh. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I got a buddy who's been taking me there.

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But look, you got this one going on, too. What? Another baptismal regeneration. But this is with a some...

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Baptist? I think an Anabaptist. And someone commented when Marlon posted this.

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They said, Jeremiah, you're the CEO of Baptism Debates. I was like, I kind of like that ring to it.

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So Trey, the hard thing about baptismal regeneration is there's a lot of different groups that say they believe in baptismal regeneration and mean different things.

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Like I debated a Lutheran earlier this year. I think it was January. It essentially came down to their version of baptismal regeneration.

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So this is coming up in August. So keep this on your calendar. Here's what

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I'm looking forward to. So this next one reached out to me. And it was kind of an honor.

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I mean, it was a really good conversation. It really was. It's been getting a little shady ever since, but our initial conversation was really good.

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And he asked me to come over to Dallas and debate him. And I said, man, you got to get in line because right now

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I'm doing this stuff with Aaron Gallagher. We were supposed to do... me and Aaron were supposed to do... I mean, he called. He wanted to do baptism, faith, and then total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.

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But I think he's bowing out of the election, predestination, irresistible grace part.

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We were supposed to do them weekly. And they were supposed to be discussions. He turned them into like these debates where they had to be timed and all this stuff.

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Whatever. And I even told him, I said, man, are you going to back out of these? Because I'm worried that you will. He's like, no, I'm not.

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But I think he's out. He says he'll do it months and months later from now. He's so busy.

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You better let Gallagher know that I'm ready for me and him to square up. He won't do it. He ain't going to debate you.

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I wish he would, but I think he's scared. But this guy right here, when I told him he'd have to wait,

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I said, look, I can get the apologetic dog. He's like, no, I want you. I'm like, why you want me? I said, because I feel like I'm the most hated guy in the

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Church of Christ. And he said, well, I would say you're number two. Number one is still Max Likado. Wow.

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OK. Hey, that is a magic honor, sir. Yeah, I do. But here here it is. Bam. Michael Hysel, your stepdad.

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OK, that is your real dad. So when are y 'all going to be doing this? October of 2023.

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Yeah, we don't have a date set in stone, but me and him have been talking. We like the month of October. We did talk about him potentially flying me out to Texas and us doing the whole thing.

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But the more we talked about it, I think he was interested in coming to Arkansas. And I just said, hey, that'll be a really good deal because we can film it at twelve five church and it'll be awesome.

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So he just said, let's let's kind of pursue that route. So people just be be on the lookout for a date set in stone.

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But this if you notice, Trey, this is the same proposition or the same question. I was looking at that topic.

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I'm like, most people don't even say that, you know, but I mean, they just come down and say it.

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So, I mean, hey, good luck. Water baptism necessary for our justification before God?

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No. Oh, but Michael says yes. Yeah, it's going to be a showdown. Have you ever read

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Acts two thirty eight, Jeremiah? You know, I thought about flowing over there, but I'm kind of scared of the book of Acts.

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Here we go. Here it is. There's your next one. How then shall we live? Eschatology matters conference.

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Like, dude, this is mine. This is when I should be. You want to know what? Right. I blame you.

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I blame you. Why I'm speaking at this conference, because I was comfortable in my premillennial dispensationism.

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Right. And you're just like you're like hashtag that postmill. And I said,

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Trey, I need your help because I have some full preterist, hyper preterist. And you're like, unicorns, they don't exist.

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I said, there's two churches in my backyard that are starting to preach it. And so anyway, you and I started talking about this.

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And lo and behold, now I'm invited to speak on the resurrection of the dead at this awesome conference in September.

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So this is a little bit ways away. But I want to encourage people to be on the lookout for this conference.

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So many amazing speakers. These are pastors, theologians, and we're covering a wide range of topics concerning eschatology.

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Good deal. So now you write it. Introduce our guest who this guy reached out to me after,

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I think, my first conversation with Aaron Gallagher.

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Before we bring our guest in, I just want to remind people that we have a

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Facebook group called Church of Christ Exiles. And so the more you and I started interacting with people coming in after watching our cultish episodes and just other things, you had a fantastic idea and said,

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Jeremiah, what if we start interviewing these people and hearing their testimonies, how they either want to help Church of Christ people come out and leave the community or those that have have left and now they don't know what to do?

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And so that's what we're getting to do today. Yeah. And I mean, by my conversations with the cultish ever since then, we get phone calls and emails, but especially since the

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Aaron Gallagher discussions. And I don't think it's coming from my page. You know what I'm saying? I might have like five or seven hundred views on it.

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He has like thousands of them. So I would say I think it's from his side that they're hearing these conversations.

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They're calling. We've had four preachers get out, Church of Christ preachers. Praise God for that.

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But anyway, this guy right here, we've become good friends. He's called me, I think, since our first episode, maybe our second.

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But he has a tie with Aaron Gallagher. You ready to hear what he has to say?

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Bring him in. Who is this guy? There he is. Yes, sir. There he is,

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Everett. Everett Young. He lives up to his namesake, does he not? Yes.

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You have the fountain of youth going on over there. I'll say this, Everett, if I shave the beard, I lead the youth group at twelve five and they get mad and say, you better not shave your beard because then you'll look like one of us.

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And I'm like, you're right. I'll look about 16 if I shave my beard. Everett, are you excited about this?

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Oh, yeah. Come on. All right. I'll let, look, so here's the deal. If you and you have, but if you watch my conversations,

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I don't have a lot of prep time. I don't I don't have time to prep. I've got a lot going on.

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So, Jeremiah, I'm sure you got some good interview questions, I'll think of some in a minute and throw it

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Everett's way. But how do you want to start this thing off? Everett, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do for a living, and I want us to kind of start to transition into your testimony.

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But where are you from and what do you do? Yeah, so I'm from Birmingham, Alabama. I work for an industrial supplier.

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I'm in sales. But yeah, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in a

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Baptist church, got saved at the age of six, believed was baptized.

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Yeah, I grew up 13 years old, start realizing what it means to be a

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Christian in high school, drifted away for about five years.

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College, God brought me to my knees and made me kiss the sun, as it says in Psalms 102,

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I believe, and have been radically changed ever since, man.

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Nice. That's amazing. So go ahead and tell them.

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You want to say Roll Tide or you want to say War Eagle? War Eagle, man.

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War Eagle. Don't make me call the Hogs over here. I'll do it. Stop it. Do they even have a football team? Anyway, back to this.

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So converted early and God really just tore your heart down and showed you who you really were in college and you met a guy somehow, this guy

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I've been talking to, somehow you got involved with him. How did that happen? Yeah, so I first got introduced to the

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Church of Christ right after God brought me to my knees in my college years, and that's when

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I came to repentance, full repentance, and laid my life down, followed Jesus with everything

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I had. And we were talking one night and he told me he was in the Church of Christ.

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And I was like, man, what does that mean? He said that you got to repent, you got to be baptized to be saved, got to be baptized into the

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Church of Christ. And I was like, OK, that sounds a little off. That doesn't sound like what

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I've been taught before. A little spooky. A little spooky. That was my first introduction. But later on,

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I was listening to a podcast because I was just seeking the Lord. You know, I was driving around, worship music, podcast.

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But I was listening to this podcast and it was called The Authentic Christian. Sounds good.

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Yeah, I was agreeing with everything they said, everything they said. And then they started talking about baptism.

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And I was like, that's a little off, but me not knowing much about the

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Bible, like I knew what what was said in the Bible, but I didn't really like know it truly.

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I reached out to him and I was like, hey, what is this? Like, I want to know the truth.

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What's the truth? You reached out to Aaron Gallagher? I reached out to the podcast group and I think me and Aaron or I think the other guy's name is

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Trey. I think we switched numbers, started texting back and forth, kind of like me and this

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Trey did. OK, good. It's a different Trey. Different Trey. But yeah, we started texting back and forth and that's kind of how our relationship grew.

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But yeah. So you started reaching out, you know, this podcast that you heard,

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The Authentic Christian, and you said you have to be baptized in the church of Christ in order to be this authentic Christian, right, to truly be saved.

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So I'm curious, how did that continue to transpire? Did you know eventually you're talking to a guy named

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Trey or eventually Aaron Gallagher himself? Hey, can we call this Trey somebody else so people aren't confused who he's talking to here?

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Let's call him Ronnie. Not that there's anything wrong with Ronnies, but it's not

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Trey. So you're talking to Ronnie and Aaron. Go ahead, Gemma. And so baptism gets brought up.

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And so that was the thing that they really started pushing. Were you baptized in a church of Christ?

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Yeah, I told him I was baptized at seven and they were like, well, do you know why you were baptized?

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And I was like, well, because Jesus commanded us to be baptized. And obviously

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I didn't know every single implication at seven years old that I knew Jesus commanded us. But we got on a call and I think

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I had the whole cast with me from the authentic Christian. I think there's three of the guys. Me, Aaron, Trey, and the other guys in the room, you're out, sorry.

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But we walked through the scriptures and I had a huge question.

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I was like, hey, what is Ephesians 1, 13 through 14 mean in comparison with what you guys are saying?

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Because it clearly states that like when I believe I'm sealed with the Holy Spirit and it's the guarantee of my salvation.

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So what did they say to that? I'm curious. They told me to get a look at Acts.

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And they told me when I think it was Paul went to the Ephesians, they hadn't been baptized into the name of Jesus.

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And so they they really weren't saved. And I'm kind of butchering this, but that was basically the gist of it.

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So they would say, so time out now, I think they would probably say, we never said that.

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But your takeaway from their answer to Ephesians 1 was that they weren't quite

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Christians yet because they hadn't been baptized. So Ephesians 1 is not written to Christians per se because they hadn't yet been baptized.

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And I know they would totally say, no, we never said that. But that was your takeaway from what they're telling you.

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That was my takeaway. They were my takeaway is that they were saying since they had not been baptized into Jesus, they'd only known the baptism of John.

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They haven't received the Holy Spirit. And that's when they received the Holy Spirit is when they got baptized. But Ephesians 1, 13 through 14 does not say that.

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Yeah. Do y 'all mind if I read this scripture? I don't know if you're able to pull it up, but I do want to talk about this.

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And then I want us to make that transition into Acts because I've had very similar conversations that people say, well, what did the saints at Ephesus do,

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Jeremiah? And I'm like, I probably got baptized if I had to guess. Ephesians 1, let's look at Ephesians 1 first with and I want us to just look at verses 13 and 14 because we know this is addressed to the saints.

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OK, so, you know, for anybody that communicates that they weren't actually saved yet.

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Well, you got to deal with the words of Paul. These are saints, those that are set apart. And the

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Spirit is very much involved here. So verse 13 says, in him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and like Everett says, believed in him.

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Right. Firm trust. When we look to pastuo, what it means to truly look upon Christ from a heart of faith.

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He goes on to say, and we're sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of Trey.

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Not your glory, but to God's glory. Right. Sully Dale Gloria, baby. And here's the other thing

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I'd like to point out. This word right here, believe, does not mean baptism. It just doesn't.

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As much as they want you to believe, believe means baptism and everything else in the bucket. That's just one of the five steps.

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It's a synecdoche. It's just a synecdoche. What have you called a synecdoche before? A get out of jail free card?

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Get out of jail free card. Everything's a synecdoche. But yes, in him, you also when you heard,

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I think that they they probably does this ring a bell with you? X -19.

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Does this ring anything with you what they were talking about, possibly? And it happened while Paul was at Corinth.

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Paul passed through the inland, came to Ephesus. Right. And he said, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

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Right. They said, no, we've never heard of it. That was John's baptism. Right. They received

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John's baptism, which here's what I always say for a Church of Christ person or a Pentecostal.

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Because both of those fundamentalist groups, both of those restoration groups claim they started in Acts chapter two, right?

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The Church of Christ and Pentecostals. But then they they part from there really quick and they are nowhere close to anybody.

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But they both say that they're the original church. But this is the dumbest question ever for either one of those people who have that view is

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Paul asking, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Because neither one of those groups believe that you actually receive the

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Holy Spirit when you believe. They both say, well, one, the Church of Christ is when you're baptized is when you receive the

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Holy Spirit. And the Pentecostal is when you're baptized in Jesus name and speak in tongues is when you receive the

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Holy Spirit. So why did he ask, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Which is a good question.

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And this is a very proper question to follow up with that when they said they never heard the Holy Spirit. He said, and to what then were you baptized?

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Because you should have heard the name of the Holy Spirit when you were baptized because we baptize in the authority of Christ, the name of the

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's another lesson for another day. But is this maybe what they were talking about, you think,

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Aaron? I mean, Everett? Yeah, it's for sure the same passage. But they were correlating that back with Ephesians 1?

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They were. That is so bad to the saints who are in Ephesus, who are faithful in Christ Jesus.

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But so anyway, so you had that conversation. Was that like your first initial conversation that you had with them?

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Yeah, that was my first initial conversation I had with them. I think that we had

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DMed back and forth or texted, but that was like the first initial conversation that we had.

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And where to go from there? Were you kind of scratching your head? Were you curious? I was thinking, yeah, it got me.

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It got me thinking like really hard because here I am. I'm an infant in Christ. I don't know anything. Never even read through the book of Acts before.

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So, I think at that point, all I had read was like John, Matthew, like just the

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Gospels. I think that's it. But I knew that it just wasn't right.

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But I was pretty much convinced that they were right. The Holy Spirit inside of me,

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I can say now, was guarding me from them. But I was pretty much convinced and like they sowed seeds of doubt, a thousand different seeds in my head.

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Aaron, at one point, we had texted back and forth. I almost drove to a church of Christ and got baptized because I thought

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I wasn't saved. And he even offered to come down from Tennessee or I think that's where he lived at the time.

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But he even offered to come down and baptize me himself. That's just how far it went.

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You know, that's where I came from. We had some pretty famous people, way, way more famous than Aaron Gallagher.

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And that was the sales pitch for a lot of people was, hey, you come out here and I'll baptize you, you know, like it goes completely against what

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Paul was saying in Corinthians. Why couldn't somebody else baptize you?

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Why did he need to make the trip? But anyway, yeah, so go ahead.

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So he offered to come down there. So I mean, how long has it been since he offered to come down and baptize you from when you had that first initial conversation?

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Maybe a week or two. Don't know. It could have been that same week. I really am unsure of the timelines.

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It's been a couple of years ago, three years ago, probably. Three years ago. And we had talked back and forth for about two years.

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But. But yeah, I think it wasn't long after we started talking. So, Everett, I have a question.

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What, as you're going through all this, all the seeds of doubt, and I loved how you brought up how the

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Holy Spirit that guarded you from error, I've been teaching through 1 John and I'm reminded of how

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Christians in 1 John 2, we have an anointing that teaches us all truth, brings us to the word and guards us from the spirit of Antichrist, false teachers.

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And so I love hearing that from you. And so I'm curious, as you're going through this, this doubt, having to constantly talk with Aaron Gallagher, what really made you put on the brakes and say,

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OK, I actually don't want to pursue this anymore? I just knew in my heart that it was wrong.

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And really, it was the Holy Spirit. Like, I don't I don't have a single Bible verse. I guess Ephesians 1.

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Now, let me just let me just go ahead and say this real quick, because you just said that, right?

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I didn't have a single Bible verse. This is the part where they stop this video. They chop it up, take it completely out of context because they take the

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Bible out of context. So they'll take your words in this video out of context and they will show this video 10 ,000 times and say, see here, look at him.

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He says that he didn't have one single verse. Right. He didn't have one single verse. That's what they'll do.

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Right. Not not bringing in the context that at the time you didn't know the scriptures that well, you just knew that the

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Spirit of God was speaking to you saying, like, this is wrong. Right. But that would be the context is at that time in your life of your

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Christian walk. You didn't have a lot of Scripture, understanding, memorization and those things.

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But they chop it up and say, see, they don't have one verse. Am I not? Jeremiah, is that right?

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You're right. But we're going to get into is Everett has been growing in the faith. So I'm really curious to see where you're at now.

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We've even talked a little bit over Facebook Messenger of how Jesus said it is finished.

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And so that that has massive ramifications. Right. I've heard a really good illustration.

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If you look at a master, masterful art piece, right, the artist has done.

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We see what it is. If you try to add your own paint and add your artistic flair, you actually take away from the masterpiece.

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You know what I mean? It's finished and you ruin it with just a little stroke, a little bit of your own effort, artistic ability.

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And so this is the thing. We don't add our works to the already perfected work of Christ at Calvary.

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And so I loved it when you said that, Everett, when we were messaging earlier. So tell me some more about your journey since then, because you maybe didn't have a whole lot of verses back then.

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Praise God that something in where we're saying this doesn't feel right. But now you're probably at a much different place and you can probably articulate some of the problems that you've been able to see with the church of Christ.

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Yeah, I can. So what I was saying before is like at that time, I didn't have a single

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Bible verse. I can go back and point to millions or not millions, but lots of different passages.

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They'll chop that up and they'll say there's no such thing. Now he's a liar. Maybe a little bit of an exaggerator, but no,

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I have lots of different passages I can look back now just because I've been growing in faith.

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But really, I'm so thankful that I got in touch with Aaron and that I got in touch with the people at the

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Authentic Christian podcast is because it made me search the scriptures, made me search the scriptures and see for myself, just like in Acts that I haven't read, they did the same thing.

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At the time. Right, right. You got to be careful when you're dealing with them, I'm not kidding you, they're very legalistic and they'll take everything.

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So and so here's what I want to know. What when you were studying with him for those two years, did it get you.

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How did it make you feel in your heart, what was in your heart and your mind, what was it good, bad, what was it?

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It was terrible, struggling with anything. Yeah, yeah. So many things I was struggling with.

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The main thing that I was struggling with is like, what if they're right? Because the

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Jesus that they know is not the Jesus I know. And there's only one Jesus on the throne and we have to know the right one.

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And that was the main thing I was struggling with is the devil would come at night and he would just whisper on the ear, like, what if they're right, what if they're right?

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And the Holy Spirit would guard me and point me to the scripture and point me in prayer and confirm that they are not right.

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That is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Amen. Yeah, Everett, I was going to say,

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I can relate to something you said there about the being challenged. This has happened a number of times in the past decade of my life, especially putting myself out there and sharing the gospel with people that I meet in the community.

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And I had one friend that, you know, I was really talking to him about the gospel of grace.

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And I knew he attended Church of Christ and I knew that they had this understanding that you had to be baptized in order to have your sins washed away because in their mind, it's their past sins.

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And so he said, will you be willing to talk with some of my elders? And so you got to think this is like pre -apologetic dog days.

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So I was very zealous, but wasn't equipped yet. And so I stepped into an arena that I was challenged majorly.

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And I remember I was talking to a few Church of Christ elders. We were all really cordial with one another.

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We said at the outset, hey, we don't want this to turn bad. Let's just ask questions to one another, ask about verses and how we would understand that.

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And in that conversation, they brought up Acts 22, 16. So I don't know if you want to bring that up.

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I love it. This is one of the verses that challenged me personally. Like I remember this elder was just like, says what it says.

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It means what it means. Right. And I just remember looking at that thinking, I want to read it real quick.

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Acts 22, 16 says, and now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.

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And so I was challenged. I remember thinking, I don't have an answer right now. That is a good point. I got some studying to do.

30:08

And so just over time, I just want to encourage you. I've had similar experiences. God has just shown me the clarity of his word and renewed my heart to trust in Jesus alone, truly in his finished work, in faith, not adding my own works, not my ceremonial baptism, not my works that I continue to do in obedience.

30:28

None of those things declare us right before God. And so this verse, Trey and I, we've talked about this a lot.

30:35

I've done public debates. And so this gets brought up. And what I tell people is this is

30:41

Ananias declaring the gospel, saying, hey, this is I'm being faithful to the

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Great Commission, baby, and you need to repent and believe the gospel, Paul. And so earlier in the context,

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Paul already called upon the name of the Lord. And when I started seeing the context, because context is king,

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I'm just like, oh, this is a demonstration of faith. And then how would

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Paul understand the words of Ananias? We go over to somewhere like Romans 10 and he says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, then you are present tense justified.

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Confessing with the mouth is worshiping from the heart and that manifests with not only what you say, but also how you live the rest of your life.

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And so when I started looking at Acts 22, I'm like, this is so rich. And Trey started pointing out other things like, well, we see that Paul was already praying as Saul of Tarsus.

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Last I checked that God only hears the prayers of those who are regenerated and are his the righteous, his children.

31:41

And so we see and you talked about this with Aaron Gallagher, Trey, Ananias called him brother.

31:47

And this is in a Christian context, right? Not just they looked alike because they probably didn't, but there's a spiritual connection between Ananias and Saul of Tarsus at the time.

32:01

But yeah, Everett, I just wanted to mention that that's one of the verses that challenged me many years ago. Yeah. And this is the one that Aaron told me first and still today that that's the verse he can't get around.

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If he could get around that one, he wouldn't be in the church of Christ, which I painted out. I showed him all the verses in the

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New Testament and the Old Testament that God does not listen to the prayers of the wicked, but only to the righteous, you know.

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And you have to jump through a lot of verses and say the Bible contradicts.

32:30

And that's that's the problem with it, because they they love baptism. It's their it's their idol, you know.

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And but from that conversation I had with Aaron on this chapter right here, I cannot tell you how many people called me from the church of Christ.

32:44

Who said, I'm getting out, you know, just from seeing the breakdown of that right there, of all the verses that you have to jump through and convince yourself that the

32:52

Bible actually does contradict. And you have to sleep well at night, but good luck if you're trying to say that it doesn't.

32:58

Right. So, yeah. What do you think, Everett? It's a good exegesis right there.

33:07

Mm hmm. Yeah. And, you know, we keep going because you can't hold the book of Acts kind of as the number one book above everything else.

33:18

No, Scripture is a unfolding revelation. I mean, it's a closed canon now, but the book of Acts is a narrative book that flows out of the harmony of the

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Gospels. This is a book of what we would say descriptions describing the birth of the early church.

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And it's the church of Christ that more often than not deny the indwelling ontological indwelling of the

33:41

Holy Spirit. And so it's interesting because they're going to look at the book of Acts and pretty much say, well, that don't apply to me.

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That don't apply to me. And it's funny because some of these things I would say, yeah, it's a narrative. It's descriptions like we don't see

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Pentecost being done over and over and over again today because Acts has a historical context.

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And so in my conversations, Everett, I try to say, let's let's go look at didactic scriptures.

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Let's go look at the epistles because this this is prescriptions, commands of how we learn theology and how we respond in light of the gospel of grace.

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And the overriding theme is we are justified by faith apart from our works.

34:25

And so, Everett, I'm curious. Have you seen any of my episodes on the apologetic dog interacting with church

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Christ? I have, actually. They get a little they get a little fiery. Oh, yeah.

34:38

I want to point out here, this is the one they don't really want to look at when it looks at Paul's conversion. They only want to really look at two,

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Acts 9 and 16. They don't want to look at Acts 26 or Galatians 1 because it completely contradicts everything they're saying.

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But here in Acts 26, Paul's conversion, when he's telling the king here, he has this vision, look what

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God, Jesus Christ says to him, that he's sending you to open their eyes so they may turn from darkness to light from the power of Satan to God.

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They may receive forgiveness of sins in place among those who are sanctified by faith in me, not by baptism in me.

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But it gets even better, right? So he was sent to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and not be baptized.

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And so then look at this. They're like, Paul, are you out of your mind? Your great learning is driving you out of your mind.

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King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. And Agrippa said to Paul, in a short time, would you persuade me to be a

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Christian? Now think about this. What a horrible evangelist Paul was back in that day.

35:39

The king Agrippa's takeaway from his gospel message is that he could be persuaded to be a

35:45

Christian, not dunked in water to be a Christian. Does that make sense? Like Paul, the evangelist who wrote two thirds of the

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New Testament, didn't even know what he's talking about. Because the takeaway of his gospel presentation to the king

35:58

Agrippa was that he could be persuaded to be a Christian. That's ridiculous. No Church of Christ preacher,

36:04

I promise you, no Church of Christ or leaves a gospel presentation. And that's somebody's thought, that they can be persuaded by just simply believing and being persuaded.

36:14

That's pretty good, man. I may have to steal that from you sometime. You like that? I got a lot more.

36:21

You can think through a lot of things when you were in the... You lived it. Yeah, lived it, preached it, taught it, and argued it.

36:30

So that's why I didn't prepare for Aaron. I mean, what am I going to prepare? I'm curious, what's some of the other content you've seen at the

36:37

Apologetic Dog that's maybe been helpful for you with some of my interactions with the Church of Christ? You know,

36:44

I saw, I think it was on Baptismal Regeneration, like almost all of your debates are with Church of Christ, because that's where it all lies right there.

36:59

When we're talking about Church of Christ, it talks about baptism, it talks about works. But I've only seen one video, to be honest.

37:07

I forget, man. You know how you can make it up to me? I'll tell you what, no, no, no. You can subscribe. If you go watch some of his conversations with T .T.,

37:16

you'll learn so much. Oh, T .T. Travis Thomas, truth or proof, he made me a superstar on his channel.

37:27

Hey, Grandma's Church, you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Hey, Everett, you'll have to go to my

37:35

YouTube shorts and you'll find a video called Grandma's Church. Which, in fact, it'll be the outro of this video, which will air soon.

37:49

So tell us some more. I want to hear more of these conversations. So did you ever get to share with him anything?

37:55

So he kept talking to you, offered to come baptize you, and then what,

38:01

Everett? So first, sorry, while you were talking,

38:08

I just couldn't stop thinking of my Grandma's Church actually preaches the correct gospel. But after that, yeah, so we stopped talking for a little while and I would start posting things on my

38:25

Instagram story or something just talking about Jesus, talking about the sovereignty of God.

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And that's when I started learning kind of what a Calvinist was, because he would text me about it.

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And and he's like, hey, are you are you a Calvinist? And at the time,

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I'm like, what is a Calvinist? So I had to look it up and because nobody taught me that before.

38:55

But I looked it up, man. And I was like, man, I am I'm not a

39:00

Calvinist. Like, I don't believe that because he told me that Calvinists believe babies go to hell and, you know, that we,

39:12

I was a big Arminianist before until I started reading my Bible because all that I had repented and that I came to Christ and just like the prodigal son, me and Trey were talking about this earlier, just like the prodigal son, that was me.

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I went away. But why did I come back?

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It's because I knew the character of my father. I knew he would accept me. I was always a son.

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And that's that's where it just draws the line. I believe God is sovereign. And so now

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I walk miles barefoot across glass yards before I deny that God is sovereign and before I deny that.

39:55

I hold to a Calvinistic approach of the Bible and Calvinism is not some guy who taught something, taught a certain doctrine.

40:08

It's just the Bible. Oh, they're going to love that. You're a

40:13

Spurgeonist. Yeah. Charles Spurgeon says it's just the nickname for the gospel. It is.

40:20

I think Stephen Lawson says it too. Yeah. So I didn't grow up in a

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Calvinist church either. It's actually a very anti -Calvinist, but Southern Baptist church. Love my SBC brothers out there.

40:33

But I tell you what I wrestled with was having security of my salvation and yet trying to hold on to some free will.

40:44

That's what it came down to. I think he got froze. He did. But. Yeah, that's what it came down to for me was, how can

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I have free, like free will? How can I come to Christ and then me trusting my salvation in Christ and then me have to keep it?

41:09

Like if it's up to me to keep it, I'm going to lose it. Like I said, I'll lose my salvation 10 ,000 times a day because I habitually, every time

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I sin, I walk away from Christ. And just like the prodigal son,

41:27

God comes running back after me again and again and again. That's what it came down to for me was, do

41:40

I have free will over my salvation or did God choose me before the foundation of the world?

41:45

Yeah. And I mean, here's the thing. If you if you did something to earn your salvation, you're going to do something to lose it because you're the one that got yourself in that situation.

41:53

And the thing is, with the church of Christ and others, you're looking to yourself for salvation. Your faith is in yourself.

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It's not in Christ, you know, because the reason you're going to maintain your salvation is because you're going to keep doing these things.

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I'm going to keep reading. I'm going to keep studying. I'm going to keep going to church. I'm going to keep sharing. I'm going to be faithful to your faith is really in yourself, you know.

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And so that's the sad thing, that their faith is not in Christ. And and it's just not known the scriptures.

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And and for some like it's just sad. They're there. Look, I say this all the time.

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I believe there's many Christians in the church of Christ who truly have their faith in Christ, but they just have such a heavy weight of just a heavy yoke on them of works.

42:34

And they're trying to prove themselves. They know something's not right. But God will get them out. Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, will give them good pasture, you know.

42:42

So. When you're going through this with our our guy we know, when did you start challenging him back on what were you challenging him back on and how did he handle those things?

42:58

You know, it just got to a point where. I had to stand up for the true gospel, and I knew what the

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Holy Spirit was telling me was the true gospel, is that it's by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

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I'll say that a thousand more times. And that's what I would preach back to him is a faith alone in Christ alone.

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But. But yeah, he would send me things and I would have to clap back at him.

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But it just got to a point where I had to choose one or the other. And it comes to every every person like who's been listening to the

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Church of Christ. They all have to choose. It's faith alone or it's

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Jesus plus yourself. Is his sacrifice on the cross sufficient or do you have something to do with it?

43:59

It comes down to this. When it says, therefore, since we've been justified by faith, either we have been justified by faith when we had faith or we were not justified by faith when we had faith.

44:10

Right. And faith does not mean baptism as much as they want to try to convince people.

44:16

It's just ridiculous to say that. I mean, and what they do is they go into the

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Greek and they take the third definition or the fourth definition of the word and try to apply that everywhere.

44:27

And it's just ridiculous. Just going back to Acts 19, OK, when they say the word believe, when it says believe in whoever believes has eternal life, they say, well, that's ridiculous.

44:39

Believe means baptism. Well, look at Paul again here in Acts 19. Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

44:45

Right. When you believed, they said, no, we've not heard there is a

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Holy Spirit. He said, into what were you baptized? See there? See, he knows the difference between these two words.

44:57

He uses them separately. He says, look, did you receive the spirit when you believed? No. Well, then what were you baptized in?

45:04

That means that they're not the same thing. They don't mean the same thing. Right. But they want to convince you or not you.

45:11

Well, you they try to convince you and others that it means the same thing. And it's a very sad, sad thing.

45:17

And Jeremiah is about to be back on here, hopefully, because I want to bring up some other things that of their talking points.

45:24

So I want you to tell me, what else would you like to say about your dealings with the

45:31

Church of Christ and just how you feel about it now? Whatever you want to say about it.

45:38

I want to speak back to some of the scripture we're talking about. They can't say that it's in faith alone because it's

45:45

God who gives the faith. They if it's us coming to Christ and God not regenerating us, then we did that right.

45:55

But it's scripture clearly says that God gives faith. And so that's why they can't say it's in faith alone.

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It's a gift. It's a gift. Faith is a gift. I mean, that's that's as clear as a bell.

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Just look that up real quick. Just to show people don't believe us for my grace. You've been saved through faith.

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This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works.

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Which works is something that you play a part in that you do. Right. Has nothing to do with that is a gift.

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It is the gift of God, you know. So and that's what it takes. Here it is again.

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Second Corinthians four. Look here. For we proclaim what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. With ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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That's what it takes. It takes God Almighty to shine. If you think you have some knowledge, it's just it's just head knowledge.

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It's not down to the heart. He showed he shined this in our hearts to give this knowledge, to know who

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Christ really is. You might have some head knowledge of who you think God is and who Christ is.

47:12

But if it's not in your heart, that's what true faith, faith comes from the heart. Calling on the name of the Lord is a heart change, an allegiance change.

47:19

It's not simply saying, Lord, as loud as you can. Otherwise, people who can't talk cannot be

47:25

Christians. That makes sense. Absolutely. I think it's all true believers.

47:33

Yeah. And when you say that, it's hard for them to understand, like how someone can walk away from the faith.

47:41

They think that there is not possible for someone to walk away from the faith who were just faking it.

47:48

They think that everyone who walks away from the faith were truly Christians and they believe that. And the reason they have a hard time wrapping their mind around it is because they have this.

47:56

It's a workspace deal. So if you get baptized, then you are a Christian. It doesn't doesn't matter about your heart.

48:03

If you get baptized, you're a Christian. So therefore, once you walk away, you lost your salvation.

48:09

When you listen to our conversation with Aaron, it's never about the heart. It's all about doing. It's all about doing, not about the heart.

48:16

I mean, if if you think back to the Old Testament, where one of the seals, if you wanted to be in Israel, if you were born in Israel, you had to be circumcised, right?

48:28

You're a man. But everyone who was circumcised was not chosen by God.

48:35

It makes sense. It says that some people were born in Israel that weren't part of God's kingdom.

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They didn't believe in Christ. And it comes by faith. I'm actually

48:46

Genesis right now. And Abraham was justified before circumcision, as Romans chapter four says.

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And he was justified by faith before he offered up Isaac, before he offered up.

49:05

Before he was tested, he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, just like me.

49:11

So and this is another thing right here. I had a guy from the Church Christ listen to our conversations with me and Aaron.

49:18

He called me up with his preacher and he had some questions about, you know, some of these things and he wanted his preacher on the phone with us.

49:24

And so I had the preacher and him on the phone and we were just going through Romans four. And this is where it's really hard for them to see

49:35

James chapter two because they take it out of context and just twist it and turn it. It's ridiculous.

49:43

But James two and Romans four just cannot go hand in hand. You're going to have to throw one out the window.

49:49

Right. So they throw Romans four out the window when it says no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God. But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do.

49:59

Here we go. I'm sorry. I should have had it up here, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That's why his faith was counted to him as righteousness, not because he did anything, but simply because he had faith that God was able to do what he had promised.

50:14

That is true saving faith right there when you believe the word of God over your own reality, because his reality was like that.

50:22

That's impossible. How can this be if all the blessings are going to come and I'm going to do this? But he said, no, I believe your reality.

50:28

I believe your promises more than my own reality. And that's why that's why his faith was counting his righteousness, not his works.

50:34

I mean, it starts off Romans four. What shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

50:46

Nope. Your works, anything you do and that you play a part of is nothing.

50:52

You're saved by faith. It's a gift from God so that nobody can boast. You know, so this is what we just have to still continue to fight for is the true faith and the

51:02

Christian faith, which is the only faith in the world, the only religion in the world that says that you're justified and made right in the eyes of God by faith.

51:14

Every other religion in the world, you can call it whatever you want. You can put lipstick on it as much as you want. You can make it all pretty.

51:20

But every religion in the world says you have to actually believe that God exists. But then you have to do these works for him.

51:27

And then once you please him, then he'll accept you. That's just not Christianity.

51:32

That's not it's not the Bible, but it is every religion in the world, you know. Yeah. And so I'll tell you this,

51:39

Everett, I'm so glad and thankful for you and our friendship that we've we've developed since these conversations.

51:48

I appreciate your heart. I mean, I know you love the Lord Jesus Christ. I know, too, that some of those things that sunk down in your head from those conversations still get you sometimes, you know.

52:00

They still creep up. And but I do love how you you fight it back with the word of God and with scripture.

52:07

I'm thankful that we get to talk and have a friendship now with you and Jeremiah. And you are standing up for the faith.

52:15

And I would love for you to see you and Aaron talk again one day. I think it'll be a little bit different this time.

52:20

I think you've you're trained up in God's word. It doesn't take much to to show them that they're taking things out of context, you know.

52:28

Yeah, man, I I'm just so thankful for your those debates with Aaron, because I think

52:34

I reached out to you and I said, like, man, if I would have had this video back when

52:39

I was talking with him, like it would have just changed everything. Everything, especially the same person who was telling me all the same things, man, it would have changed everything.

52:51

And so everybody who's in the Church of Christ that's that's wondering, like, how much is enough?

52:58

Like, how much is enough to please God? I go back and watch these debates, go look up the word of God, read the

53:05

Bible for yourself, pray to to the Father that the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to reveal the truth to you.

53:12

Because yes, to me and Trey. And I'm so thankful for you, man. Dude, I appreciate you.

53:19

Love you. And we'll probably do this again. Might have to do the whole thing over again because Jeremiah got cut off because he lives in Arkansas and they have like poor internet up there, you know.

53:29

So do it again. It's fine. We might have to. But look,

53:35

I love you. I appreciate it. Hang on. And we're going to close this thing out real quick. And thanks for watching, everybody.

53:42

So again, one body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the

53:48

Church of Christ. I mean, if you just had some a little bit of common sense, you think he drove by these denominations where it says

53:54

Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Life Church. I mean, he drove an hour, 20 minutes here and they act like they give

54:03

God the glory and Jesus. I mean, Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Presbyterian Church, Church of Christ.

54:10

Same thing again. They deny redemption. Man, if you just had some a little bit of common sense.