Justin Peters Responds to Sam Storms

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It's fascinating to me how easily someone in one religion can find the fallacies and biases in another religion.

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I think that what's fascinating... You're razor sharp on your criticism of Islam here.

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Yeah. But what I find fascinating, Jeff, is that you recognize that with other religions, but you don't do it with your own.

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Because I... That may be the case. I'm just saying. And there's that confirmation bias coming up again.

00:34

Welcome to Apologetics Live. We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the

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Bible. Meet your hosts. From Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro, and Pastor Justin Pierce.

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We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your challenging questions.

00:58

Or just challenges. Anything you have about God and the Bible, we are here to answer. Just join us.

01:03

Go to ApologeticsLive .com, ApologeticsLive .com.

01:09

That's the place to go. You will find two things there. Well, you'll find a lot of things. You can watch the show there, but you're obviously already watching.

01:16

But you can... That actually is a good place to go, because when we go off YouTube and we are planning on it, that will be the place to go to get the link to watch the

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So go to ApologeticsLive .com every Thursday night, 8 o 'clock Eastern time. That will always show you where the show can be watched.

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There's also a link there to participate. If you're on Facebook and watching there, there's a link in with some instructions on how to get your name to show up when we post names in from Facebook.

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So when someone puts something up like that, Justin Pierce put that one up.

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It says striving for eternal ministries. That's because we had put that up. So we are going to have the show we've been planning.

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This is attempt number three to do this. Justin Peters and his response to Sam Stormsley bring in Pastor Justin Pierce, who's working on a paper while doing a show.

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Hello everyone. I am so glad to be back. What's your paper on? What is my paper on?

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Actually, I have a thing to say, that's like saying to a pastor, what's your sermon on this Sunday?

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And he has to think about it. Well, I have a five part paper. It's application project on hermeneutics and it's five different scenarios dealing with everything from post -millennialism, on millennialism, how to deal with the

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Old Testament, how to deal with prophecy. Why do we need to use outside biblical sources, outside tools?

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Just a lot of material that we're covering. Really good stuff. Just the Bible. Yeah, only the

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Bible. We should only, we'll never look at anything but the Bible. At some point,

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Justin, you and I are going to, I got a video for you and I to review. I was invited, last week after the show, we had

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Elizabeth Prada on. That was great. If you haven't seen that, that was some great content there. Right after the show,

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I got a contact from someone that I've been saying, hey, you can come on the show. They want to give, have some, you know, want to do stuff with us.

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And I said, well, you can come on anytime. And right after the show, he said, I didn't make the show, but you know, could you come on and talk for 15 minutes about the gospel with some brothers?

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It was a complete setup. And I realized that they had a different guy that they had invited in.

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And once I came in, they kind of just pushed him to the side. And basically their whole thing is, you ready for this?

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This was a new one. When you share the gospel, you have to believe in the name of Jesus.

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Now you say, fine, we agree, right? No, no, no. God the Father's name is

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Jesus. God the Son's name is Jesus. And God the Holy Spirit's name is

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Jesus. That's their name. Not I am. Not, what do you see in Exodus? That's not right.

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It's Jesus. And it's Jesus in English, by the way. Oh, in English.

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Well, that makes sense. Yeah. You can't have, you know, the biblical names and Hebrew and all that.

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You can't do the stuff like the Greek. You can't do stuff like that. You got to do, you know, what do you call it?

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The 2020, 2021 version of the net Bible version.

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It must be in that form. Otherwise, it's not. It wouldn't be the net. It's the King James. Well, they're out of date then.

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We got a hello from, we haven't seen him in here for a while. Michael, our Canadian atheist friend, he says hello to Andrew and Peter.

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Long time no talk. I think he means Peters, which is the last, you know, Justin Peters, I guess, unless he thinks you're

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Peter. I don't know. Well, I could be Peter, I guess. Yeah. Hey, Michael. How are you doing, brother? Well, I'll say brother.

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I'm sorry. Unless you got saved. Yeah. So let's bring in Justin Peters. We'll just call him

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Peter for short. The man, the myth, the legend. There he is. So, Justin, before we get started with the response to Sam Storms and for folks that we're going to be dealing with this,

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Sam Storms wrote a defense of singing songs from Bethel and Hillsong. We'll get into looking at this, but before you get started, this is,

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I want to share this. This is from the governor. There's only a minute and a half. But this is from the new governor of New York.

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This is, to quote Justin Peters, gobsmacking would be the word to use.

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Would that be a fair term? You already saw the video. Would that be a fair term to use for this video? Gobsmacking? Yeah, that would fit.

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That would fit. Before you start, for everybody on YouTube, when we get kicked off here in about two seconds, see ya.

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Hey, hey, this is the governor of New York, so it's got to be safe. Here we go.

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This, this. OK, there's no words for it, so I'll just hit play. Prayed a lot to God during this time, and you know what?

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God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers.

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He made them come up with a vaccine that is from God to us. And we must say, thank you,

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God. Thank you. And I wear my vaccinated necklace all the time to say, I'm vaccinated.

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All of you. Yes, I know you're vaccinated. You're the smart ones. But you know, there's people out there who aren't listening to God and what

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God wants. You know this. You know who they are. I need you to be my apostles.

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I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other.

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Jesus taught us to love one another. And how do you show that love, but to care about each other enough to say, please get vaccinated because I love you.

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I want you to live. I want our kids to be safe when they're in schools. I want you to be safe when you go to a doctor's office or to a hospital and are treated by somebody.

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You don't want to get the virus from them. You're already sick or you wouldn't be there. We have to solve this, my friends.

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I need every one of you. I need you to let them know that this is how we can fight this pandemic, come back to normal and then start talking about the real issues that we have to fighting systemic racial injustice, which exists today.

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And if there's a denier, I will take you on any day because I've seen it. I know it exists and we are not going to have a blind eye to this ever again any longer under my.

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OK, so let me just be clear. Governor of New York, I deny there's systemic racism.

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You're welcome on here any time you want to come on and prove it. We will prove you are racist, but you're not going to approve.

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We are just saying if you believe it's systemic, it's because you're a racist. But OK, let me just give my comment and I'll let

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Justin, I'm going to let you guys comment on that. But I just thought it was funny that she caught herself.

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She's like, when you go to the hospital and you're vaccinated and you don't want to get sick. Oh, wait, how do you get sick if you're already vaccinated?

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She like stopped herself because she realized what she was saying made no sense. If you're vaccinated, you wouldn't be able to get sick if the vaccine works.

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But your thoughts on this brilliance, other than the the complete horrific thing of using

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God and Jesus the way she did. But your thoughts.

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Which one? I mean, you said Justin, so we're stuck. I think both are speechless. Yeah. Well, here's here's where I'm going to come.

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You guys know that I've had the vaccine. I don't have a problem with it. You know, if you don't if you don't want to do it, don't do it.

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That's fine. But people like this. The difference is people like this are trying to mandate it as a socialist policy.

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They're trying they're trying to bring it out as this is lifesaving. This is what is righteous.

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This is no, that's not what it is. I've had it and I'm fine with saying I've had it.

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I actually when I had my second surgery, you know, COVID came out and we were everybody was scared to death of it.

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And I talked to Andrew about it and and whatnot. And I said, hey, you know, my doctor has suggested I need to take it because we thought it was it was going to be way worse than it was.

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And they think, you know, I know I know a lot of people that have gotten

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COVID and gotten sick. Some people has changed their lives forever. And and I know people have died from it.

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And so coming from that standpoint, what I'm going to say is what you do, what you think, you know, between your conscience and God, you do what you think you need to do.

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But when it comes to the socialist agenda, people like this, I completely disagree with it.

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I don't think it should be mandated. I don't think the government should be in our business. And I happen to remember that before we became a socialist country, we actually had a thing called

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HIPAA where you couldn't ask people this stuff. Now it has to be a badge of the lady said she had on a necklace or something like that.

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I think that is that like a thing. Do people wear like vaccinated necklaces?

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No, I mean, you guys know I don't talk about it. I mean, I mean, I always wanted to play this live to get

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Justin's reaction live, because when we played this beforehand, Justin Peters, your reaction when she talked about the necklace was.

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Oh, gosh, yeah, I don't even know where to start, I think I lost 15 IQ points.

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Oh, yeah, aside from theological issues of her invoking

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God and answering her prayers and being her apostles, hard pass on that one.

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And yeah, just unbelievable, unbelievable.

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So, yeah, you know, and she knows what God thinks and God's talking to her and.

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Oh, yeah, stick to politics, you know, you're in over your head, you're she's about as qualified, she's about as qualified to speak to the theology of these issues as as I am to be a coach for a triathlete.

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Yeah, so, um, yeah, and let me just say for folks who who may be new and are watching and we're listening and they don't understand, they may not know who you are.

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Justin, Justin Peters is he's got cerebral palsy and walks with crutches or rides in a scooter.

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So that's the reference to being a coach of a triathlon. It's not something he practices not regularly.

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You're waiting for heaven for that. Does anybody not know who Justin Peters is? I mean, I mean, come on.

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That's that's a logical fallacy. Hey, look, look, there was no look that Justin and I went to a restaurant once we went for sushi and I had to go use the restroom and Justin sat down.

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I got up and I started making my way to the restroom and a guy stopped me and I knew I just expected, is that Justin Peters?

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Instead, he's like, is that Bruce so and so? And I went, no, and kept walking. You said, yes,

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Bruce Jenner. That's good. But no, but but here there is a tie in here that I see.

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I mean, realistically, Justin, is there a difference between what she's claiming to speak for God, that these are her apostles and that this is what

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God's thinking? Is there a difference between what we see from her and what we're seeing from some of the NAR word of faith people?

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No, only one of degrees, but not of substance. Yeah, there's really no there's there's no substantive difference because word faith

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NAR folks routinely talk about how God is speaking to them on a regular basis.

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And when you look at this movement. Word, faith, NAR, and quite frankly, not all, but ninety nine percent of charismatic preachers in general, they don't do exposition.

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They don't exegete scripture. They exegete their latest dream, their latest vision, their latest trip to heaven, the latest sign or wonder that they think they've seen.

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It's all about experience. It's all about experience. It's not it's not teaching sound doctrine.

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It's not going verse by verse through scripture, exposing the meaning of the text. That's not what the charismatic movement is known for at all.

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Oh, you know, if you were to take. If you were to take a thousand people at random, pick a thousand people at random out of John MacArthur's church and then pick a thousand people out at random out of Bethel church and and do

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Bible drill with them, which group do you think would win?

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Bible, which group? Oh, Bethel, they would they would channel it. They would channel it. They'd have it like that.

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Yeah, so it's, you know, and what we know of God is derived from scripture.

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Our knowledge of God is only deep as our knowledge of of scripture. And so if you've got a shallow understanding of scripture with which the folks at Bethel do, then you've got a shallow understanding of God.

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It's a one to one correlation here. Yeah. Yeah. I like this comment that Melissa puts up.

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Justin Peters is the Batman of false teaching. Or I can agree with that. Yeah.

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So so but you know, this the thing that I see with this is that this is done so often. I just I'm going to ask the same question to you and see a lot of people.

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I posted two polls in the Striving Fraternity Facebook group, and a lot of people, I think, got this wrong because they didn't understand what

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I was saying. So the first question is, which book and this,

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I guess, for either Justin, which book had a greater impact on you personally? Knowing God or experiencing

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God, which one? OK, so personally, personally, personally,

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I've read both of them. I've experienced both of them. So I will say this personally, knowing

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God has been more impactful for me. OK, but I know the question you were asking to get to the next question.

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OK, OK. Justin Peters. Yeah, I've read both of them as well, knowing

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God hands down. OK, so the other question I asked is, which one has a has a greater impact on Christianity, knowing

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God or experiencing God? And the overwhelming number of people put knowing God.

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Justin Peters, which do you think has a greater impact on Christianity?

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As far as when we look at the influence. OK, are we are we talking about the broad, visible?

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Yeah. OK, so not real Christianity, just everything that causes it, correct?

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You got to break it down because I know where you're going. Well, even even with real Christianity, I would argue might be the same just in the way that it has influenced so much.

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Yeah. But which book would you say? Experiencing God by Blackaby. I mean, clearly it's it's it's sold many, many more copies now.

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Yeah. Hands down. Experiencing God. One hundred percent. Yeah. And that's not a good thing.

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It's just reality. Well, and you think about it. Experiencing God is the book that introduced and brought in the charismatic ideology into the

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Baptist thinking. It's the one I'll never forget when when the church I was at, they actually did it.

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The entire church had 700 people that were going through this and everybody was experiencing

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God, you know, and it was the biggest thing going. And it was everybody's drive to experience it, to hear, to get the voice of God.

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And Blackaby was seen as being a solid evangelical

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Baptist mindset, and everybody agreed with it and nobody questioned it. So and this is going to lead into what we want to talk about tonight.

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And this is want to bring this in. So, Justin Peters, I know you talk about this in some of your seminars. What has been the influence of the

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Blackaby's book, Experiencing God, on the broad sense of Christianity?

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Yeah, it's been massive. It's been massive. And what Justin Pierce just said right there is absolutely right.

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And just just to flesh it out a little bit more, I would submit that experiencing

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God is singularly most responsible for bringing in charismatic theology into at least theoretically non -charismatic churches.

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Experiencing God came out, I believe, in 1991. And before 1991, before Experiencing God, most non -charismatic churches, which would include

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Southern Baptist, would have understood that we speak to God in prayer.

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God speaks to us in the Bible. Most would have understood that. Now, hardly anybody understands that.

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Now, almost every Southern Baptist, even though theoretically they're non -charismatic, but they because of Experiencing God and all of the and all of the tag along spin off products that come up that have come along with it because it spun off all kinds of other teachers that teach the same thing.

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You know, Charles Stanley and Priscilla Shire and Beth Moore and on and on and on. Now, almost every

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Southern Baptist thinks that prayer is a two way street, that we're supposed to talk to God and then listen for him to talk back to us in a still small voice, that God speaks to us in dreams and hunches and impressions and all this kind of stuff.

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It's that is now the overwhelming view of even theoretically non -charismatic churches.

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It's had a massive influence. Massive. It is, I would argue, the reason that people need to.

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I think you sell this on your your website at justinpeters .org, Jim Osman's book,

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Do Not. God Doesn't Whisper, and was titled your book. But yeah,

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I need to get it on my website. It's not on the website yet. So so that I mean, that book that Jim Osman wrote addresses this whole issue that the influence it has had.

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And I think, in my opinion, when we look at let's dig into this blog article that Sam Storms has written,

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I believe that some of this same thinking of experiencing

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God and this God is love and we should love one another is why he wrote this article.

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So let me just give the backdrop to this. And then I'm going to start by, Justin, letting you do any any opening comments you want to make about the article overall, and then we could go through different pieces of it.

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But this is and I don't know who Mackenzie Morgan is. I'm sure you do. Refined Church in Tallahassee.

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So I guess this person was the worship leader, I believe, and made an announcement that their song, their church will not sing any

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Hill song or Bethel songs anymore. The arguments, I guess, that were made and I'm just taking this from what

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Sam Storms said, I didn't go back and read her, her, I guess, Mackenzie's or her, I'm guessing. But I didn't go back and read

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Mackenzie's original article. I don't think that Sam Storms gave a link to it.

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So but. It seemed that Mackenzie's making arguments, Justin, that you have made for a very long time, you've made openly you've done not on Todd Friel's program where you've talked about the reasons we should not sing

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Bethel music, Hill song in church. One of the reasons. Well, let me let me let you make the argument that you usually make.

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And actually, there is a comment that came in here. Let me ask you this, because this is a strange comment. But someone is saying to Justin Peters, looking forward to your debate with Mahajib, he's a dishonest person.

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I hope you expose him, by the way. When is the date of the debate? You're you don't do debates that I know of.

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I don't even know who Mimi Hijab is. OK, I don't know. Sorry.

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So he said he. I don't know what you're talking about.

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I don't know who this person is, and I'm certainly not debating him. OK. OK, so let's let you first start with your overview.

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Why you make the case we should not be singing Bethel music or Hill song in churches, because it seems like that's what

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McKenzie is is very closely in line with your position. So why don't we start by letting you do that?

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OK, yeah, there's a number of reasons we shouldn't be singing Bethel or Hill song music in our churches, and I'll throw in their elevation music,

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Stephen Furtick's church. And and now there's a new one called. In the initials are in them, somebody might know,

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I can't remember, like. You know, it's a new up and coming kind of a thing. And theologically of the same stripe that we're dealing with.

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So, yeah, a lot of reasons, not the least of which is this is coming from a cult.

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OK, Bethel Church is a cult. Hill song is a cult. These are not biblical churches.

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They don't meet the biblical definition of a church. They preach a different Jesus, therefore a different gospel.

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Bethel is word of faith slash New Apostolic Reformation. And the only difference between word of faith and NAR is really in their eschatology.

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NAR is more kind of a postmillennial on steroids. They get into the dominion theology stuff, whereas word of faith, most of word faith folks would be primo.

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They at least they got their eschatology. At least they got their eschatology right. But but yeah, these are cults.

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They have a different Jesus. They have a different God, different Jesus, different atonement, different gospel.

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And Mackenzie Morgan's article was good. And I don't know who she is either. All I know is what you just reiterate that she's a worship leader at some church in Tallahassee.

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But other than that, I don't know. But she was right in what she said about Bethel and Hillsong.

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Sam Storms wrote a response that got a lot of a lot of traction.

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And Sam Storms, for those who don't know, Sam Storms is is a theologian, a pastor who would share our view of the sovereignty of God in salvation.

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He holds a high view of God's sovereignty and salvation. Calvinism, if you want to call it that.

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But he is a charismatic. He does believe that the sign gifts continue to be in operation today.

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So he is a charismatic. And I would in us here, we would enthusiastically disagree with him on that.

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Enthusiastically so. But. The fact that he is a charismatic, I think, explains why he has such a gaping hole in his discernment, because once you take a charismatic position, the sufficiency of scripture, by definition, is out the window.

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It's gone. You cannot hold to the charismatic position and the sufficiency of scripture at the same time.

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But Sam Storms wrote a response to Mackenzie Morgan's article. And one of the points that Mackenzie Morgan made is that what

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I just said, that Bethel is a cult. They preach a different gospel. And she said, I encourage people paraphrasing here because I don't have in front of me.

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But in her article, she said, I encourage people to examine the doctrine of Bethel music in our

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Bethel church in Hillsong. And so Sam Storm said this, and I quote. So I did just that Bethel statement of faith is profoundly evangelical and orthodox and consistent with the historic creeds of Christianity.

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They affirm the Trinity, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, the incarnation and virgin birth of Jesus Christ, his substitutionary death on the cross, bodily resurrection and ascension into heaven.

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They explicitly declare that Jesus is true God and true man. So Sam Storms pushes back and he says, well,

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I did that. I went to their website. I looked at their statement of faith. And guess what? They're thoroughly biblical, thoroughly evangelical.

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And so that is one of his arguments for for his position, that it is perfectly fine to sing

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Bethel music in Hillsong. And to that, I would say, and Andrew, we talked about this before the program started kind of backstage to that,

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I would say. It's I would encourage people to look at statements of faith, they can be helpful.

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But unfortunately, most churches, their statements of faith, their doctrinal statements are nothing more than a copied and pasted

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Christianity statement of faith 101, the very basics stuff.

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They probably didn't even write it themselves, just copied and pasted kind of a standard, typical, bare minimum evangelical statement of faith.

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But you know what? I can go to Lakewood Church pastored by Joel Osteen and his church has a very similar statement of faith.

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Yes, it would pass a basic doctrinal smell test. But there's there's not much detail there.

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And most of what is in their statement of faith, a Mormon would affirm, a

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Mormon would affirm. I don't want to talk too long, Andrew, if you want to jump in or Justin.

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Yeah, well, because I do want to go through. I mean, what you just hit on, maybe we could just, you know, we're going to go through that later.

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Now would be a good time. Let me let me share screen with some of with what you're saying. And, you know, he made the comment in this article.

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You know, it's interesting. You know, here here's the thing that I thought interesting when reading this blog article.

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He's he is an educated individual. He should know better. It is filled with logical fallacies.

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And the number one fallacy I see in here is what's called a red herring. So let me define red herring.

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I'm sure that Pastor Justin there could turn on it over his his right shoulder and read it on his logical chart there.

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But a red herring argument is where you make an argument that doesn't actually answer the question being asked.

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It's a distraction. It's to take you away. So what she ends up saying is, and he quotes her in here as as saying that you need to look at what their doctrinal statement says, but then what they're actually what they're actually teaching and preaching.

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Which is what Justin just said. Because doctrinal statements don't always agree with what people teach.

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For example, Ed Litton had heresy, had the heresy of partialism in his doctrinal statement.

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Now, has he ever taught that? Not that I know of how that got there. Who knows? They did.

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They did change it quickly. But the thing is that doctrinal statements may not be what people practice and teach.

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And she said, look at what they're teaching and preaching. OK, and Sam Storms acknowledged that.

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But the problem is Sam Storms said this, quote, I'm going to read from his his statement.

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So I did just that. You know, and just for that. Yeah. Right.

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So so he did you read the whole that the whole paragraph, though? Yeah. So so I want to do this.

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I want to share. Sorry, I was I was distracted when you were doing that because I was trying to figure out this debate you were having, and it was

30:07

Jordan. Yes. So well, in Justin's defense, he's way better looking.

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Yeah, well. So so this is.

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Yeah. And that makes sense to debate a Muslim. I definitely don't picture you debating a Muslim. But so so this is

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Bethel's doctrinal statement. Now, folks, I want you to take a look at this. This basically fits.

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As you can see, this is the beginning of it. And it fits on one screen. Just just about, you know, one one paragraph, one sentence doesn't, you know, drops off.

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That's how long this is. This is so brief that it does not really tell you anything.

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I mean, it has statements like we believe the Bible is inspired and only infallible, authoritative word of God.

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That's it. That's all it says. Well, and that it does say a lot, though. Well, it does.

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But here's the thing. When people read doctrinal statements, what they make the mistake of doing is reading it from their perspective.

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So when we read this, when Sam Storms reads this, he's reading this from his position, I'm sure, and saying this is orthodox.

31:18

And it it is. I mean, there's nothing that I saw in here that sticks out. Some minor things.

31:23

And Sam Storms in his article points those things out. Some areas of secondary issues that he disagrees with that are in here.

31:30

But he says we shouldn't throw them out, calm heretics and things like this just because of secondary things.

31:37

Here's here is Hillsong's. Hillsong's fits on one page. That's how short it is.

31:43

Hmm. OK, this doesn't give you a whole lot of information about what they actually stand for.

31:49

And if I can interrupt, look at what they say right there about sin. A second paragraph there, which is just one line, we believe that sin has separated each of us from God and his purpose for our lives.

32:03

Yeah, but that that's weak. OK, yeah.

32:08

Sin has separated us from God, but in his purpose for our lives. You see that right there?

32:13

That is that is so emblematic of these kind of churches.

32:19

Sin is not it is never portrayed as something that you have done against God.

32:25

High treason against the omnipotent God that has incurred his righteous wrath that abides on you.

32:35

It's sin's not like that. Sin is something that just prevents it hurts you. It keeps you from having your best life now.

32:43

It just holds you back. You know, it's it's it's not it's not vertical. It's their view of sin is very horizontal.

32:50

It's a very diminished, insipid, just watery view of sin.

32:57

But anyway, I'm sorry. What does what does sin do in their in their statement there? And what does sin do?

33:03

All it all it does is separate you from God's purpose. Right. Right. And so that's that's definitional there.

33:10

I mean, when you think about what it's saying, when you think sin separates you from God's purpose.

33:15

No, sin is that thing that has caused it is the evidence that you are an enemy of God.

33:22

And God's purpose now is to glorify himself either through saving a vile, wretched sinner or by glorifying himself by being just and casting you in hell because you deserve it.

33:36

But that's not being said there. That's that's saying the purpose for your life. And it's it's it's denying the the the full truth of God's of God's entire purpose.

33:47

It's it's it's what it was doing is it's actually casting a shadow on the who

33:53

God is in his person, because God in his person will judge because he is good, not because he's angry at you, because you're not as good as him.

34:04

You're wicked and your sin is the evidence of that. And I think that's that's more than just a little off.

34:11

It's way off. And Sam Storms has issue with this statement from Bethel, which says we believe in a victorious redemption work of Christ on the cross provides freedom from the power of the enemy.

34:26

Sin, lies, sickness and torment. So he says that's a secondary issue. Now, we're going to get into this one more later on, because this is this for Justin Peters to unpack.

34:38

This is going to be a lot. But he says this is secondary. Well, when you understand what

34:44

Bethel means by this, it's not secondary. It becomes a primary issue. But I just I just, again, want to look want to give you the example.

34:52

And when he says, well, I look at these doctrinal statements, here's the doctrinal statement of Bethel. Here's the doctrinal statement of Hillsong.

34:58

So so let's take a look. Here's the doctrinal statement for striving for eternity. This is just the section on holy scriptures.

35:06

Here's here's the section I got, the section on God. The God, the father, son and spirit fits is longer than the entire doctrinal statement for either

35:18

Hillsong or Bethel. This is just the section on God and loaded with scripture, by the way, filled with scripture.

35:24

Yeah. In the section on angels is longer than either of their statements. This man, soteriology, that one's much longer than either of theirs.

35:36

The church is longer than theirs. Any one of these topics, the end times is longer than theirs.

35:44

Here's Justin Peters. This this is so so the striving for his doctrinal statement is going to be 10 to 12 pages long.

35:51

Justin Peters is four to six pages long. Where the others are just one page.

35:56

You see a difference here. When you get into this with with people who are Justin's, you have things like hermeneutics defined, something you were just talking about,

36:04

Mr. Justin. Right. He he explains this. He explains creation.

36:10

This is giving definition to things, not just a one line statement. This is what we believe.

36:16

Now, in a doctrinal statement like this from Justin Peters ministries, you can dig in to say this is what he believes.

36:24

You can have a clear understanding of what he believes on different positions. This is the list that anything goes now before you say anything,

36:34

Justin. I do. Justin Peters and I wanted to I said I wanted to look at this one.

36:40

Here's here's another doctrinal statement, a little bit shorter. But is there anything wrong with this? This is the core beliefs of this church.

36:47

God loves you as a unique child of God. You are loved immensely by your heavenly father.

36:54

He is the father of your spirit. All humanity belongs to his family as a loving parent.

37:01

He knows you is aware of your challenges and wants you to have a strong relationship with him through prayer.

37:08

You can talk to him. He will hear you and listen. And if you listen in return, he will provide answers, inspiration and comfort.

37:17

That sounds fine, right? Is that is hold on. Don't don't don't I got to ask. I got to ask you a question.

37:22

No, no, no. Is that a universalist church that you're talking about? We're going to get to it. OK, the second core belief is

37:29

Jesus is our savior. So Stephen Furtick, we all need help in life.

37:36

We face trials, have questions. We make mistakes. This is why we need Jesus Christ. He is the he is the son of God and our loving savior.

37:46

His perfect example shows us the way to live. His teachings give us direction.

37:52

But most importantly, he suffered and died for our sins so we could be forgiven when we repent through him.

38:00

We can find lasting happiness and look forward to living again with God someday.

38:05

Now, this is important because this is the type of language that Sam Storm said with both

38:11

Bethel and Hillsong, why they're not heretical. They have an orthodox view. This would be many would see this and say, have no problem with it.

38:19

Life has purpose. The third one. You are born for a reason.

38:25

Life can be difficult sometimes, but we are here to find happiness and help others do the same.

38:32

Your heavenly father knows that you learn and grow and become like him. You'd be you'd come to earth, receive a physical body and as an opportunity to make choices for yourself.

38:43

If we choose to follow his plan, sometimes refer to as a plan of salvation or a plan of happiness.

38:50

We and our families can return to live with him stronger, wiser, with more compassion, compassionate version of ourselves.

38:57

And many would have no problem with that. These seem OK. So maybe there's a secondary doctrine. Maybe we'll find it here under scripture.

39:04

Study with us. God's God's plan centers around Jesus Christ. OK, that sounds orthodox.

39:10

One of the most important ways we can learn about Jesus Christ is to study the scriptures that testify him. Scriptures are made up of the writings of the holy prophets.

39:19

God spoke to those prophets and they wrote his words down to read. Now, so far, that sounds pretty good, right?

39:24

The scriptures include the Holy Bible, which details Earth's creation and lives and the lives and lessons of Old Testament prophets.

39:34

Most importantly, the Bible contains the account of Jesus Christ and his teaching, his miracles, his death, his resurrection.

39:40

All of that sounds orthodox. This is just a secondary thing. This next line. The scriptures also include the

39:45

Book of Mormon, a collection of writings from ancient Christians who traveled from Jerusalem to the

39:51

Americas during biblical times. Oops. Oh, just a secondary issue,

39:59

Sam. I thought it was I thought it was universalist. But, you know, I mean, you see what they we can look at that and say that seems orthodox.

40:07

And this this reference to the Book of Mormon is just secondary. Yeah, yeah.

40:13

And we read in there or you read in there, Andrew, that those the

40:19

Mormons said we've committed sin. That's why Jesus is important. Paraphrasing here. And Jesus died so that we can be forgiven of our sins when we repent.

40:29

Sounds pretty good. They're Mormon. They're Mormon. So, you know, these minimalistic doctrinal statements are not helpful.

40:38

You could cut and paste that doctrinal statement from Bethel and put it into the

40:44

Mormon website and they would have no problem with it. So it's not it's not so much having a bare minimum minimalistic doctrinal statement.

40:56

What does the church actually teach? What does the church actually teach?

41:02

Not what they say they believe. What do they actually teach? That's what's important.

41:08

And Sam Storms apparently is is I hope

41:14

I hope ignorant of what Bethel actually teaches, because what they teach is a different Jesus.

41:24

They teach a Jesus who did his miracles, not as God, but as a man.

41:29

They teach a Jesus who died a spiritual death and had to be reborn, that Jesus actually had to get born again.

41:38

They teach a Jesus who promises us health and wealth. They teach a

41:44

Jesus that has really not a Jesus. It doesn't get too worked up about sin.

41:50

Just a Jesus that wants you to have your best life now, wants you to be healed, wants you to be prosperous. It is a different Jesus than the

41:57

Jesus of the Bible. And we're going to show this. I think we can we'll be able to see it in a video clip,

42:03

Andrew, that you'll play here shortly. But but in a baptism service, they actually have people standing up there ready to be baptized, baptized, wearing

42:12

T -shirts. It says that say, God is not mad at you. No.

42:19

Yeah, he is. That's kind of the whole meaning of the cross. So, well, that's actually the very words, isn't that of, you know,

42:28

Psalm 711, God is a righteous judge and angry with the wicked every day. He was angry with the wicked and the bow of his wrath is pulled back.

42:36

I mean, you know, one thing that KT said here, I want to pull up for you guys. Is KT and Jesus, she said a lot of doctrinal statements are lacking and they're really difficult to weed through to figure out unless they are blatantly blatantly obvious heresy.

42:52

And one thing I want to. Well, it's not done. But here's the thing that with that, though, and this is someone said earlier,

42:59

I didn't get the comment up. But and this is what Justin Peters was saying is when we look at these doctrinal statements, we have to understand what they mean by what they say.

43:09

I mean, like Justin was just talking. I actually had trouble. Were you talking about Mormonism or word of faith?

43:15

Because they both teach Jesus had to be born again. You know, the only difference is that, you know, the

43:21

Mormons would say Jesus never said sin and didn't have to go to hell to pay for sin and be born again.

43:28

But there's so much this would be the same if we remove that section about the Book of Mormon. Yeah, you want to know storms?

43:34

Would he say it's orthodox? I'm sure. So if by looking at their doctrinal statement, though, it's it's even less than the than Bethel Hillsong, he would say that's orthodox.

43:47

You have to know what's being meant by this. And somebody here it is. And I don't know who face this

43:52

Facebook user is. If you go to ProjectsLive .com, there's a way to that has instructions on how to allow

43:58

Facebook to give us your name. But so much Mormon language when I was reading it now to anyone who understands

44:04

Mormonism picked up on those things. Yeah. But if you are not knowing what they teach and Sam Storms doesn't know what

44:11

Bethel and Hillsong are actually teaching, he's not going to pick up on that. And he's not going to see some of that.

44:17

Now, a lot of churches, a lot of churches teach things regularly that are in direct opposition to their own statement of faith.

44:26

Well, even even to you have to think what she was talking about a moment ago on the statement of faith, you know, you pulled up those other two.

44:33

And the reason that one thing that should should help you as a Christian is when you look at a statement of faith, if it's thorough, this is a this is a usually not always, but usually a group of Christians who have come together and who have tried to research, tried to study.

44:51

And they want people to know this is what we believe based on the text of scripture. These other guys are minimalistic because like I was saying earlier, it actually explains more than, you know, about what they leave out.

45:05

You know, it explains a lot more than, you know, look for what they have left out.

45:10

You know. Yeah. If you want a good example of this, go go listen to my rap report podcast. Andrew Rapwort's rap report.

45:17

Bud and I are going through week after week. We're going through the doctrinal statement is striving for eternity.

45:23

I mean, we you know, we're spending I think we spent three weeks just on that first section on on the scriptures.

45:29

We spent two weeks just on the God, the father, because there's so much in there that in this word, a doctrinal statement should do is it it it gives you guardrails.

45:40

Yeah, you you don't go out and there's so many things that saying we're not this and there's this is what we are. Yeah. There should be clarity in a doctrinal statement that tells you this is what this is, what

45:50

Justin Peters believes according to the scripture. And will you align with this?

45:56

Because, you know, I must speak for Justin. I'm Justin Peters. And this is where I stand, according to the scripture.

46:04

And it's been vetted by thousands of years. And this is what I'm going to follow. And I will not deviate from, like you said, that those guardrails.

46:13

Yeah, I'm not going to deviate. But this is who I am. So either you're in line with this or we're not in line with each other.

46:20

Someone's asking some questions. So let me let me clarify someone. I don't know if these are the same Facebook user, but this

46:26

Facebook user says, oh, hi, Andrew. Justin, love your work. Keep up the good work. But then but then and this is where maybe confusing these

46:32

Facebook users saying, isn't the Jesus of Mormon a false Christ? They're more

46:38

Gnostic in their central belief. Yes. And this is the whole thing Justin Peters was saying with Hillsong and Bethel.

46:44

They are a false Christ, too. Yeah, exactly. These Facebook users saying, wait, are you saying that Bethel endorses

46:49

Mormonism? No, I'm not. I'm saying that there's a lot of similarities between Bethel and Mormonism.

46:55

And so Sam Storm should know better than bring to bring that up. So let's let's bring up.

47:01

Let me bring someone in here. We have a guest real quick backstage, the the host of Matter of Theology himself.

47:08

Mr. Chris Huff, how are you, sir? I'm good, brothers. How are you guys? Hey, what's the hat you're wearing?

47:16

What's what's man? Yeah. What's what might that stand for? It just thinking podcast.

47:21

Oh, OK. The just thinking podcast. So so I have a matter of theology hat.

47:26

But no, you know, I don't have one yet, Drew. We got to get on that, bro. We got to get on that. So good evening, first of all.

47:34

Second of all, I hope you guys are doing well. I am just tuning in. It's been a crazy day.

47:41

But so I'm not sure what you guys have already covered. I would agree with a statement

47:48

I'm repping Matter of Theology. We're in JT. Amen. You know,

47:54

I'm talking about statements of faith. I want to quote Drew here from from YouTube.

47:59

And if you guys want to put that up, minimal statements of faith will indicate their view of scripture. You know, the lack of clarity, lack of lack of scriptural references.

48:12

But here's what here's what you got to be really careful of. And I'm going to quote my brother, Kosti, and Pastor Anthony Wood and their book,

48:20

Defining Deception. I'm not going to quote. I'm going to paraphrase. I don't have it in front of me. But but they said that, you know, the poison that is the most dangerous is the poison that's wrapped in something sweet.

48:31

And so often what you find with Bethel, what you find with Hillsong, what you find with Elevation, what you find with Passion, what you find with Chris Tomlin, what you find with that whole crew of the you know, the new and improved

48:48

Jesus movement is they're going to use they're going to rip scripture out of context or they're going to cleverly disguise the heresy wrapped in this this gorgeous truth that we have in the word of God.

49:03

And the problem is there are too many professing evangelical Christians who who have zero discernment.

49:12

They don't think biblically because they don't know their Bibles. They are not

49:18

Bereans. And so when they're presented with what what was has been said, and I don't know where this quote came from, but people will sing their heresy before they believe it.

49:31

And and that's what you find coming from Bethel, Hillsong, Elevation.

49:36

That's what you find coming from the latest up with Passion. You know, the upcoming Passion Conference in 2022 is going to be a woke fest.

49:43

It's going to be that's exactly what it's going to be. But it's going to be a woke fest shrouded in Christian ease and sweet biblical language that that unfortunately there are so many.

49:54

And I don't use this word as a as a, you know, as a way of tearing down, but are so ignorant when it comes to their ability to think biblically.

50:06

And and this is a problem. We are not called as believers in the

50:12

Lord Jesus Christ to partner with in any way, shape and form with any sort of false teaching.

50:20

And we see too many professing evangelical Christians. And here's the bigger problem.

50:25

Too many professing evangelical pastors who who aren't just letting the wolves come in.

50:31

Oh, no, they broke by. They broke in the fence. I don't know what happened. They're inviting this adulterated, just if I can say just now,

50:41

I'm not going to say that this music into their church that and teaching into their church, because teaching into the church willingly, because here's what you're doing with music.

50:52

You're teaching the main the main person in charge of structuring the gathering on the

50:59

Lord day should be an elder qualified man. He should be an ordained minister of the gospel of God and the

51:08

Lord Jesus Christ. There are too many. There are too many to use Dr. Josh Spice's words.

51:14

There are too many Christian out there that are that are crafting a craft, crafting these these service for other

51:21

Christian. Instead of going, no, we want to we want to pray the word, sing the word, preach the word, live the word.

51:29

And I'm going to finish up this this real quick with just this this this one quote by Bishop J .C. Ryle in a letter he wrote entitled

51:36

Pharisees and Sadducees, quote, to keep gospel truth in the church is even of greater importance than to keep peace.

51:46

The Apostle Paul value unity greatly, as we know. Why? Because he dreaded false doctrine.

51:53

He feared the loss of truth more than the loss of peace. Many people have a morbid fear of controversy.

52:01

Very close quote. Yeah, but I would argue that what you just said,

52:07

Chris, that is what this blog article is. This is Sam Storm saying to people, please let them come in.

52:15

He's he's he felt he needed to write an article because someone said, you shouldn't listen to this.

52:22

Have this music in your in a worship service. And he's no, you should. You should.

52:27

This week and we can't we can't use the excuse that maybe Sam Storms doesn't know.

52:34

No, we're past that. He knows. He knows at that moment in that moment with with with that support for Bill Johnson and Bethel.

52:45

At that moment, Sam Storms is a wolf and he must be marked and avoided at that moment.

52:51

You can't you cannot invite this in. I mean, this this kind of music is and I put this on Twitter blast sometime this year.

53:01

I said that Reckless Love is the most dangerous song to come out of the cult known as Bethel Church. Yeah, it's a poison.

53:08

Their music is a poison wrapped in sweet biblical language. And any any pastor or elder that's allowing that, allowing

53:15

Hillsong, allowing elevation, allowing passion to be sung inside your churches. You are failing, sir, at your charge and command the directive you've been given by your king.

53:25

Yeah, that's right. Well said, Chris. Well said. And it's you saying that that how

53:30

Sam Storms could not know about Bethel. It reminds me very much of, you know, Michael Brown pleading ignorance about Benny Hinn.

53:37

You know, it doesn't pass the smell test. I want to read to you what a statement from Sam Storms article defending

53:45

Bethel and Hillsong. He says this, quote, note well, there is nothing in the statement referring to Bethel statement of faith.

53:55

There is nothing in the statement that affirms the word of faith movement in its beliefs or the so -called health and wealth gospel.

54:04

If anyone at Bethel teaches these notions, it is not because they are acting in conformity with the church's official statement of faith.

54:14

So somebody sent him to wake up all of stuff. Somebody sent him to wake up all of stuff then. And when

54:20

Bill Johnson recorded an eight minute video of this grotesque treatment of what they did to that family.

54:29

So someone send that to him and say, Sam, let's rethink this with an open

54:35

Bible. Yeah. Well, one thing, too, is you think about Justin was starting to say something.

54:41

I'm just saying that that statement right there. How, how could he say that Bethel is, if anyone is teaching word of faith, they're acting in contradiction to their statement of faith.

54:54

That is, I'm going to use my word, favorite word, gobsmacking to me. That's what

55:01

Bethel is. That's like saying, well, if anybody in the

55:06

Southern Baptist church is teaching believers baptism, they're teaching it in contradiction to their statement of faith.

55:13

No, that's a Baptist distinctive. That is, I mean, it's a biblical distinctive, but I mean, to say that Bethel is not teaching word of faith doctrine, that's what they are.

55:25

That's a lie. One of the things, though, Justin, with this, that we have to look at their doctrinal statement.

55:33

This is where Sam Storms, he should know better. And, and, and I guess to say with what Chris was saying,

55:39

Sam Storms, if he, you know, putting this out, if he's not a wolf, as Chris was saying, he at least lacks the discernment that he's, he's writing an article that having not researched it, but the doctrinal statement doesn't say anything against word of faith.

55:58

Yeah. So the fact that they teach word of faith does not mean it's against their doctrinal statement because their doctrinal statement doesn't say it's wrong.

56:05

That's why it's so weak. Said. Right. So in other words, you're intentionally vague. These doctrinal statements are intentionally vague on purpose.

56:12

Correct. If you started to teach that the gift of tongues was for our present day, if you started teaching that, that would be in opposition to your doctrinal statement because your doctrinal statement makes it clear you don't hold to that.

56:29

Yeah. That's what would it mean to be in teaching against the doctoral saying, but if the doctoral statement doesn't say anything about it, you're not teaching opposite to it because it doesn't clarify that issue.

56:42

I mean, go ahead, Justin. Actually, I was just going to point out that, that to say somebody doesn't know is not a good enough argument.

56:53

It's not, it's, I mean, to say, oh, well, you know, Michael Brown didn't know that Sam didn't know that, that's not a good enough argument.

57:00

When you put somebody on your platform on blast, you have a responsibility to know you have a responsibility.

57:06

I mean, look guys, guys, here's the problem. There's so many people that are allowing wolves to come in.

57:12

John 10, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. He says, he tells us this is, this is who I am and all the others that are coming in.

57:20

The reason that they're opening the door up is because they care more about the money and the fame, the fortune.

57:25

They care about the academia. They care about the status because you don't let in a passion conference because they're biblically solid.

57:37

You let in a passion conference because there's billions of dollars to be made at it. And you're going to run in there and you're going to make the hand over fist money because it sounds good.

57:46

It feels good. The reason that Sam Storms or anyone else is going to stand up and defend

57:56

Bill Johnson is because guess what? Bill Johnson makes more money and his corporate group, they make more money.

58:06

The Christian radio stations are funneling in money from the churches like crazy to bring

58:12

Matt Maurer, Bill Johnson, Elevation, all of these guys in. It's not because they don't know.

58:18

And it's not because, first of all, it doesn't matter if they don't know. I don't care if you don't know, you have a responsibility to know.

58:26

If you're going to be a representative of God, you have a responsibility to know and to speak.

58:35

Justin Peters, you and I were being interviewed at a radio station. I don't know if you remember this. You were speaking against playing

58:41

Bethel music and Hillsong. And the DJ said, because this was off air now, and you said, you guys have to stop playing this stuff.

58:53

Do you remember what his response was? I don't know if you remember. But it's something like, but it's popular or something like that.

58:59

He said, but this is what it's popular, this is what people want to hear. And if we stop playing that, we'd have nothing to play.

59:06

Yeah. Okay, so let me read this quote here from my favorite episode of Just Thinking.

59:16

Episode 106 was entitled, The Biblical Exposition of Unity. Listen to this, and this goes right with what we're talking about here.

59:23

This is Daryl, Daryl Harrison. This is what he said, quote, when you scan the landscape, this landscape that passes for evangelical

59:30

Christianity today, particularly in America, many pulpits are populated with applause -pursuing man -pleasers as opposed to holiness -pursuing

59:39

God -pleasers. The worship services, quote unquote, if you can call them that, are catered to the superficial and worldly tastes, whims, and felt needs of people out of a desire to bolster their numbers, and not from a desire to do what honors and magnifies

59:54

God. Their true heart's desire, if they were honest, is to exalt themselves in the eyes of the world so that they are celebrated and affirmed by the culture rather than by God himself.

01:00:07

And the reason they do that is because they're cowards. They're not willing to pay the price for carrying a cross.

01:00:15

A price in many instances means total anonymity and total insignificance for them in the eyes of the world, but they can't live with that.

01:00:24

They can't live without recognition and accolades. They're neither content nor willing to wait on and wait for God to reward them in heaven, so they seek their reward in the here and now, which is more often than not consists of a temporal and passing adulation, commendation, and ego -stroking of the world.

01:00:44

Consequently, they call for unity, quote unquote, under the false pretense that Christians are to remain silent in the face of that which is objectively and objectively evil in society, and sell ourselves in an exchange for the image of false peace that is a mile wide and an inch deep.

01:01:02

Period. Close quote. Yep. Well, that's it. Mike, you know, let me show,

01:01:09

I want to expose what guys like this, like Sam Storms does when he writes articles like this.

01:01:15

I mentioned earlier, Red Herrings. Let me give one. This is right after the part where you just read

01:01:22

Justin earlier. Quote, and this is, he's explaining as Justin just read, right after what

01:01:29

Justin read earlier, he talks about, there's one statement he wants clarification on, then he says this, quote, and there is a lengthy, thorough biblical defense in their statement concerning the historic and traditional biblical sex ethic in which marriage is designed solely for one woman and one man, as for homosexuality and transgenderism,

01:01:55

I can't recall ever reading a more clearly defined and thoroughly biblical perspective on those issues.

01:02:02

Now, here's what I wrote in my notes. So what? You know why I say that?

01:02:07

It's a Red Herring. See, what he's done in that, first off, there's nothing in that doctrinal statement that I put under, as he calls it, lengthy, and anything that would fit in his clearly defined and thoroughly biblical, because they're all one -line statements.

01:02:26

They're not giving enough detail in anything. And for that matter,

01:02:32

Muslims would agree with us on a sexual ethic. I mean, when

01:02:38

I say, yeah, Muslims view homosexuality as a damnable sin as well.

01:02:46

Yeah, what this does is it gets you to buy into, well, see, this is biblical, because what does he do?

01:02:53

He goes to something that you and I would agree with and says, see, that's going to sway you in your thinking to think that these doctrinal statements are biblical, but they're lacking in giving enough information to be biblical.

01:03:09

Well, the Pharisees thought they were biblical, too. Yeah. So he says, there's another quote there, and Justin, I'm going to let you respond to this one as well, is if some in Bethel or Hillsong believe in so -called prosperity gospel, they are, of course, in error.

01:03:29

But as grievous as that error may be, and it is, it's not damning.

01:03:36

Those who embrace that view are not for that reason consigned to eternal condemnation.

01:03:44

Now, this is something I do want you to camp on a bit, Justin Peters, because I think there are some things that people don't realize with word of faith, prosperity gospel, that we would say, you know, specifically, maybe you could address,

01:04:01

I'll give you one to address specifically, their view of where Jesus paid for sin, how he paid for that, and him needing to be born again, because that raises to a primary issue.

01:04:16

Yeah, it absolutely does. For one thing, their anthropology is extraordinarily elevated.

01:04:23

They teach that we are gods, which is very similar to what Mormons teach. But specifically with Christ, I think

01:04:31

I said this earlier in the program, but they believe that Jesus, to quote

01:04:36

Bill Johnson, laid aside his divinity, laid aside his divinity, and he performed miracles, not as God, but as a man, and only a man, in right relationship with God.

01:04:51

And when Jesus died on the cross, the work of the atonement had not been completed.

01:04:57

It had just begun. When Jesus died on the cross, nevermind what he said to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise.

01:05:05

No, apparently Jesus didn't really mean that. They know better, you see, because they know that Jesus really didn't go to paradise. He went to hell.

01:05:12

He went to hell and was tortured by demons, died spiritually, and had to be reborn.

01:05:20

That Jesus had to be born again. In other words,

01:05:26

Jesus had to get saved. Now they're going to deny that, but they've taught it for years.

01:05:31

I mean, Bill Johnson can't ignore what is in black and white, in print, in his own books.

01:05:39

So the atonement, they have a very aberrant view of the atonement, that Jesus actually had to be born again.

01:05:47

You've completely destroyed immutability. You've completely destroyed immutability.

01:05:53

Hebrews 13, 8. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. If there was ever a time when Jesus was not

01:05:58

God, then he never was God to begin with. And as far as Sam Storm saying that health and wealth, it's error.

01:06:07

He acknowledges that, but he says it doesn't rise to a primary issue, doctrinal issue.

01:06:14

I would take issue with that because in this system, as I said, sin is never presented as what it is.

01:06:23

High treason against a thrice holy God that incurs his righteous wrath that will rain down on you if you don't repent from that sin and trust

01:06:32

Christ. It's not presented that way. Sin is something that just hurts you. It hinders you from having your best life now.

01:06:41

Sin, in their view, is very horizontal. It's not vertical. It's horizontal. And their gospel is not the true gospel.

01:06:51

Their gospel is come to Jesus because he'll make you wealthy and he will heal your body. Almost everybody on the planet wants those things.

01:07:00

Come to Jesus because you'll be rich and you'll be physically healed. Sign me up.

01:07:06

Sure. I like that, Jesus. Who doesn't? But that's not the real

01:07:11

Jesus. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. So this prosperity gospel, even though that's kind of what they're known for, the emphasis on health and wealth is just some of the bad, low -hanging fruit off of a rotten theological tree that's rotten at its core.

01:07:28

Amen. And for Sam Storm to say that this is not word of faith, that is just unbelievable to me.

01:07:34

I mean, it's like saying the Pope is not Catholic. Just unreal.

01:07:41

And this might be a good place, Andrew, to play a couple of those clips. Lest anyone doubt that I am speaking in hyperbole.

01:07:55

I have watched a number of baptism services from Bethel Church. You can go on their YouTube channel.

01:08:00

You have to hunt for them. But they don't do it every Sunday, but from time to time they do. And this is just a couple of them.

01:08:07

Now, what this is, okay, so that guy, and I can't recall his name right now, but he's on staff at Bethel.

01:08:16

And all those people lined up in the back, those are the folks that are about to be baptized. And he goes up to each or has each person come up to him and he asks them two questions.

01:08:26

One, what is your name? Second question, why do you want to be baptized? Those are the two questions.

01:08:31

What's your name? Why do you want to be baptized? And I have watched, oh,

01:08:37

I don't know, dozens, dozens of these so -called testimonies. I have yet,

01:08:43

I have yet to see anyone give even a vacation Bible school kind of a testimony.

01:08:49

But let's play a couple of these. Which one do you have? This is good vibes. Okay, this is good vibes.

01:08:55

Okay. So let's get a good vibe from this one. Here we go. Listen to what this girl says. Everybody come forward. What was your name?

01:09:01

And tell us why you're being baptized tonight. My name is Camille and I hope that tonight's baptism, excuse me, will cause some positive influences in my life, positive things in my life, future opportunities and strengthen my relationship with God.

01:09:18

Camille, that's amazing. Thank you. Camille, that's amazing.

01:09:24

That's amazing. So she's getting baptized because she hopes that it will cause some positive things in her life.

01:09:32

That's why I titled this good vibes. The good vibes baptism. That is someone who has no understanding of what she's doing.

01:09:41

No understanding of the gospel. No understanding of conversion. In fact, Andrew, don't play it yet.

01:09:47

Look at the, all right, see the guy's left arm. See the lady behind him. Okay.

01:09:53

She's wearing a shirt handed out by Bethel. These are Bethel shirts. God is not mad at you.

01:10:00

Okay. Unbelievable.

01:10:06

Unbelievable. Okay. So Chris, I saw you kind of putting your hand over your, like in shock at what you're, you ain't seen nothing yet.

01:10:14

Oh boy. Oh, wait for this one. Watch this one. This is the next lady, by the way.

01:10:19

This is consecutive. Okay. Let me give, let me give warning to people. If, if you're, if you're driving now might be a good time to pull over on the side of the road.

01:10:30

You, you may need to be, make sure you're seated for this because you're just not going to believe what you're about to hear in 30 seconds.

01:10:38

Here we go. Friend, why don't you come over and tell us your name and tell us why you're being baptized tonight. Hi, I'm Crystal.

01:10:48

I just know that God is calling me to be a warrior for his animal kingdom and that I'm to lead angels of art, an army of angels to protect animals across the world.

01:11:02

And I just know I can't do it without God. Come on, give Crystal a round of applause.

01:11:08

That's amazing. I just got to say, you know, did you see his face when she says that he's even like, he's looking at the crowd like, what did

01:11:16

I just hear? They baptized her. It apparently didn't bother him too much.

01:11:24

They baptized her. Does she work for PETA? Yeah. I mean,

01:11:30

I'm not, I'm not trying to be funny. I just, I don't understand that at all. Hakuna Matata. I mean, this is, that is, now, now, now

01:11:42

I, I have to contain my righteous indignation. I defy anybody, anybody with a theological

01:11:51

IQ above freezing to watch those baptism services and you tell me that they're preaching the gospel.

01:12:00

Yeah. What's baptism for? Linda here says she mentions God almost as an afterthought, you know, and, and, and, you know, this is why, you know, when they quote

01:12:13

Sam Storms, quote, if more time were spent by Bethel critics praying for them, then is given to writing hypercritical reviews, perhaps such practices would diminish over time.

01:12:30

Unquote. You know, I, I don't think that's the case. Someone pointed out that, you know, that Justin, when you expose the gold dust, suddenly that practice stopped.

01:12:40

You know, you think about when people do things like this, what is the gospel they're preaching and what happens to the people that go off the stage, think they're saved and walk out in the middle of the road and they get ran over tonight or tomorrow or whatever else.

01:12:55

And I'm going to say the same thing with you got William Lane Craig running around here, putting doubt and question into the scripture, into the

01:13:01

Jesus of the Bible, the new Testament, the old Testament, historical Adam, historical Jesus, all this stuff.

01:13:08

And everybody says, well, well, he's a brother. I don't care. I'm sorry. Look, okay. You want to say

01:13:13

Bill Johnson's a Christian. You can say it all you want to. He's going to stand before God, but he's sending people to hell.

01:13:20

Yeah. Yeah, that's Justin. That's what I was going to say. I was going to, you know, seeing that first girl,

01:13:26

I immediately got my Bible and open it up to Matthew and the people walking off that stage, this, this is what they will experience.

01:13:36

Should the Lord not intervene and exercise his saving work that we have all experienced as professed believers in the

01:13:44

Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 7, 21. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.

01:13:51

He who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day,

01:13:57

Lord, Lord, in your name, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name do many miracles.

01:14:07

Then this is Christ's words. And then I will declare to them.

01:14:13

I never knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

01:14:19

And that's exactly what that is, is lawlessness. That's exactly what young crystal there.

01:14:27

Should the Lord not intervene and save her and her repent of her sin to, to think again, to change her mind, take action, to turn to Christ.

01:14:36

That's what she will hear. I don't care what you do for the animal kingdom as, as God's ambassador full of angel armies behind you, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

01:14:47

You do not know Christ. You, you say you believe God, but you don't believe in him. He is not in you.

01:14:53

That is heartbreaking. And what you, and, and, and none of the others were any better. I mean, what you, what we just saw there, this, this endless parade of people being baptized who obviously don't have a, even a basic understanding of what the gospel is.

01:15:11

That is a reflection of what they are being taught from the pulpit. Yeah, exactly.

01:15:17

Yes. I just got to say with, with this, seeing that, that second baptism, what that makes me want to do is it just, it, it makes me want to just put my head into a pillow and cry.

01:15:28

And if you need to do that, a good thing to do is to go get yourself a, my pillow by, by going to my pillow .com

01:15:36

or calling 1 -800 -873 -0176. Get yourself a, my pillow so you can cry into it, but make sure to use the promo code

01:15:46

SFE so that not only would you get a great pillow to cry in, but you'd also be supporting and striving for eternity at the same time.

01:15:55

Now, Chris was just like, wow, where did that come from? That was the worst transition. That was a good transition.

01:16:02

I was going to transition. I was going to, you know, let me bring Chris up to here a little bigger.

01:16:07

I was going to say, you can clearly see that Chris is part of like the Bar Network team because it looks like he's been losing some weight there.

01:16:14

No, that's not the hat. It's that he's been losing weight there with Dwayne, you know, and I was going to talk about the fact that he may need to get some sleep, you know, that's where I was going to go.

01:16:25

But we got a guest backstage here. Let's bring him in. He's a fellow podcaster on the

01:16:31

Christian Podcast Community from Squirrel Chatter, Mr. Squirrel himself.

01:16:36

Hey, greetings, gentlemen. How are we tonight? Hey, how are you? Hey, brother. Is this mean we get to see the live hamster that, you know, watches all the recordings?

01:16:48

I would have to switch cameras. I've got another camera where you can see the, well, I can do that if you want.

01:16:57

He ends each show saying that this was recorded in front of a live studio hamster. Studio hamster, yes, indeed.

01:17:06

They're nocturnal, so, well, we're in our beds with our heads on our

01:17:11

MyPillow pillows like they're running on her wheel.

01:17:18

Apparently, hamsters run like 15, 20 miles a night, not hamster -scale miles, actual real miles.

01:17:27

I was reading an article where they were talking about hamsters. Sorry, I'm still munching on what's left of my dinner.

01:17:34

Still, I was reading an article talking about hamsters, and somebody wanted to decide, was this wild behavior, or was this captive behavior, or do hamsters like these wheels?

01:17:47

And so somebody got a grant, probably from our federal government, using our tax money. I was about to say, that sounds like a federal program right there.

01:17:53

And they went over to Mongolia and southern Russia and put a bunch of hamster wheels out on the ground.

01:18:00

Guess what? They loved them. So, yeah, that's the hamster thing.

01:18:08

You have to go to Mongolia to find a hamster? Yeah, the dwarf hamsters are

01:18:13

Mongolia and Russia, and the big teddy bear hamsters are from Syria.

01:18:20

That's where they're the crunchiest, I believe. You never know what you're going to learn on Apologetics Live.

01:18:30

There you go. We're on Squirrel Chatter, which is your podcast. So you got a question for us tonight, or do you want to comment on what we've been talking about?

01:18:38

I just wanted to comment on it, because the popularity of this music and the thing that there is so much good music that we can sing in the church.

01:18:53

Yeah. The ancient hymns. Amen. Come on. The psalms. I just got a new psalter.

01:19:01

It's buried over here. I can't pull it out, but there was a new psalter just published.

01:19:14

That's the one. Hymns of Grace from Mass Seminary Press. The stuff coming out of Getty and Sovereign Grace Music.

01:19:25

There's tons of good music out there that we can be singing.

01:19:32

And yet we're singing these insipid songs of the 7 -Eleven songs or just the

01:19:42

I Love Jesus over a strong backbeat for 45 minutes. Yeah.

01:19:48

And it's sad. Well, you know, Sam Storms addresses that, too. He gives a list, and I didn't count how many songs here, that he gives this list of songs, and he says,

01:20:01

I'd go on the record to say that God is profoundly honored and exalted by each of these songs.

01:20:06

Songs like All Hail King Jesus, Shout to the Lord, Fall afresh,

01:20:12

Lamb of the Lion and the Lamb. But you know which one I didn't notice in there? He doesn't mention the song that talks about that Christ thought about you on the cross above all, that he didn't think about God the

01:20:26

Father. He wasn't thinking about the sin he was paying for. He was thinking of you, because clearly you are the most important thing in the universe that at the most important time of the entire history that Jesus is dying on the cross,

01:20:41

Almighty God dying on the cross, that the only thing he's thinking of is you because you're just so important.

01:20:50

Well, it's because his love is crazy, right? I mean, you know, everybody knows that. What is it?

01:20:56

Reckless. Reckless. That's what it is. That's what it is. Reckless love. And then because you think the

01:21:02

Holy Spirit was pouring down like fire on us and blah, blah, blah. I have a couple of their lyric songs pulled up here.

01:21:11

Okay. One of them is named Closer. Okay. Now, granted, some of their songs do pass a basic doctrinal smell test.

01:21:21

Some of them do. Okay. That doesn't, that's not an excuse.

01:21:27

No. A lot of their songs don't. Here's one named Closer. Now, listen to how romantic this is, romanticized.

01:21:35

Your love has ravished my heart and taken me over, taking me over. And all

01:21:41

I want is to be with you forever, with you forever. So pull me a little closer. Take me a little deeper.

01:21:49

I want to know your heart. I want to know your heart because your love is so much sweeter than anything I've tasted.

01:21:55

I want to know your heart. I want to know your heart. That's the boyfriend song. That's creepy. It's a

01:22:00

Trump 40 love song. Yeah. I love my wife, my husband. Yeah, sing it to your prom date.

01:22:07

And we say that a lot of times almost as cliche, you know, some of these contemporary Christian music songs are you could sing to your boyfriend or girlfriend, but no, it's actually true.

01:22:17

It's actually true with a lot of these songs. Here's another one. The title of it is We Dance.

01:22:24

OK, I guess we're dancing with Jesus now. Here we go. You steady me slow and sweet.

01:22:31

We sway, take the lead and I will follow. Finally ready now to close my eyes and just believe that you won't leave me where you don't go.

01:22:42

You spin me round and round and remind me of that song, the one you wrote for me.

01:22:49

You spent one hour. That's almost right around Jesus, isn't it? You spin me right round, baby, right round.

01:22:55

That was exactly. That's what I was thinking about when you said they all grew up in the 80s. That's what I was thinking about that Christian one.

01:23:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Creepy as that. You steady me, steady me slow and sweet.

01:23:08

We sway, take the lead and I will follow. You're literally dancing with Jesus.

01:23:15

It makes you feel like you need to take a shower and get the sick off of you. I mean, no joke.

01:23:20

It sounds blasphemous. Like, I mean, maybe it's not. I just feel like it's too far.

01:23:28

This is the second verse of the same song. I've been told to pick up my sword and fight for love.

01:23:35

Little did I know that love had won for me here in your arms. You steal my heart again and I breathe you in like I've never breathed till now.

01:23:48

Oh, what? You steal my heart. I breathe you in. We've moved into pantheism now.

01:23:58

It's almost like, I don't want to say erotic. What am I looking for? But it is.

01:24:04

You're right, John. Almost erotic. Okay, well then, okay.

01:24:10

I'm just, I mean, I'm trying to be really, I guess I want to look at it in the most gracious sense that I possibly can, but it still seems awful.

01:24:18

Yeah. No, he says this. This is the same as what Mike Bickle at IHOP has been teaching for years.

01:24:25

Dangerous romanticism in his teaching of the Song of Solomon 2. And that's really, that's really where it's, you know, if I was singing that,

01:24:37

I think, you know, what you said earlier, Justin, if I sing this to my wife, I think it might be appropriate.

01:24:44

To the creator of the universe? Yeah, I don't think so. No, not at all. So you have that low view of God to sing that, thinking you're singing that to God, and he's going to accept that.

01:24:55

I would equate that with this. When Jesus said to the woman in John 4, in verse 22, just the first line of that verse, you worship what you do not know.

01:25:08

Yes, I agree. That's it. That we, you know, and this is something that Drew and I talked about a little bit.

01:25:16

We've talked about this, is the fact that— And for folks who don't know, Drew is your co -host on Matter of Theology. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:25:22

He says he's not going to be on the show. Oh, no, he's back. He's back full time. I mean, he's like, he always says he's not going to, he's going to do other things, and you're going to do this, and then he comes back.

01:25:32

Yeah. Now, just so everybody knows, real quick, speaking of Drew, he posted on here a little while ago, be praying for him.

01:25:39

Yeah. I guess he did test positive. He did, yeah. And so not only is he ugly, but he also is, you know, positive, so.

01:25:48

Positive from what? COVID. COVID. So, you know, this is something that we see a lot, obviously, in the circles that we're talking about.

01:26:00

We see an over -romanticized, over -emotionalized, you know, stoking the emotions, saying the same thing over and over again.

01:26:08

And notice how that doesn't work if you don't have the lights, you don't have all the sound, you don't have the bells and whistles to make an experience, the smoke, the gold dust, so on and so forth.

01:26:17

But check this out. This is what we have to remember when it comes to how we worship God in song.

01:26:24

And sometimes in reform circles, right, we can go to the other ditch to where it's, I don't want to use the word stale, but it can come across that way.

01:26:35

We are to engage our emotions. But Christ addressed this here in John 4, further in John 4, in that same section.

01:26:44

I shouldn't have shut my Bible. But he says, you know, you worship what you do not know, and that's what we're experiencing. But an hour is coming.

01:26:51

And now when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit, spirit is lowercase there in the LSB and NAS.

01:26:58

This is our spirit, our inner man, who we are. But here's the thing.

01:27:03

Our emotions have to be fueled by truth. It can't be this overly emotional, overly pragmatic, overly sentimentalized song structure.

01:27:14

It's got to be songs that are fueled by rich theological truth.

01:27:20

That's what people need. These lyrics you're reading, you know, I think the titles of some of those songs,

01:27:26

Fall Afresh, it's like, you don't want the Holy Spirit to fall afresh on you. You don't want fire.

01:27:32

Be careful what you ask for. No, I mean, so when it comes to our music in our churches, it needs to be simple, but rich.

01:27:44

It needs to be deep. And then that deep theology drives a wondrous and beautiful and true doxological response.

01:27:57

And that's what so many in these contemporary Christian circles refuse to lay down.

01:28:04

And here's why. Because they have a golden calf and the golden calf is themselves and their preferences, instead of being regulated by the word of God.

01:28:13

Well, and think about it this way. Is God worthy of love and adoration and worship? Yes, because he's

01:28:20

God and not a spouse. I mean, look, we're the bride of Christ in the universal sense.

01:28:28

But each one of us individually are not that spousal sensual bride in that sense.

01:28:35

And that's never seen that way. We have to be very careful when you're trying to equate in a music worship sense with people who have no clue about who

01:28:48

God is. Right, there's another thing. Let me move in our last segment.

01:28:54

We got 30 minutes. I want to move to the last part of the argument that Sam Storrs makes. And Justin, I want you to be able to respond to this.

01:29:02

No, the other Justin. I knew it. I just want to see what you'd say.

01:29:09

Peter's. My brother up here in Montana. Yeah. So his last argument that he makes is basically like, if you're going to avoid and you're going to avoid

01:29:21

Hillsong and Bethel music because they have some error, you have to avoid everything.

01:29:26

I mean, where are you going to go? You're going to go to Kroger. You're going to go to Target, all these different things. He makes one argument here.

01:29:32

And this is an argument many people make. And I want you to be able to address the distinction here because there's a very strong distinction in what

01:29:41

Bethel and Hillsong are doing with their music. And this is why I'm so against it versus some of these other groups or other songs that may be out there.

01:29:51

And I want you to be able to address this. But he says this quote, should we refuse to sing? It is well with my soul because the author of his lyrics,

01:29:59

Horatio Spafford, eventually denied the existence of hell, affirmed universalism and purgatory, and was guilty of multiple instances of fraudulent financial dealings.

01:30:09

So is this the same thing? I mean, is it well with my soul was written by someone who we would now have to look at his life and say he probably wasn't a believer.

01:30:19

Can we then say, Justin, that therefore we shouldn't sing that anymore?

01:30:25

Is that the same level as Bethel and Hillsong? What say you? You know, there's a couple of logical fallacies here, theological fallacies too, that he makes.

01:30:36

Yeah, granted, Horatio Spafford did not end well, doctrinally speaking, in his life. Wrote a great song, it is well with my soul.

01:30:42

We all love that song, good song. But a couple of points. One, Horatio Spafford is dead and he no longer has an ongoing ministry that he is trying to draw people into.

01:30:57

He's dead. And there's no Horatio Spafford Ministries Incorporated or whatever that is continuing his work or trying to draw people into his theological system.

01:31:09

So I know some people who won't sing that song because of those reasons.

01:31:15

Isn't that a matter of your conscience? That's fine. I'm OK with that. But you can't make that logical leap from it is well with my soul to Bethel and Hillsong.

01:31:24

Bethel and Hillsong are current, ongoing cults that are intentionally, they're using their music specifically to draw money in.

01:31:37

And actually, Chris, I want to ask you about that here in a second with the CCLI stuff. But they're using their music to draw, to raise money, to expand their cult.

01:31:48

And two, in a church, when you're in a church, even in some good ones that play this stuff, you're sitting in the pew and you're looking up at the screen and it has the lyrics of whatever.

01:32:02

And you see in the fine print, the lower left -hand corner, music by Bethel, music by Hillsong.

01:32:09

Oh, Bethel, Hillsong. Well, they must be OK. We're singing their music after all.

01:32:16

I think I'll check them out. And so pastors, music leaders, when you put that stuff up on your screen, you are exposing your people, your sheep, from whom you are to be protecting against wolves.

01:32:36

You're exposing them to wolves, introducing them to wolves. And without saying it in so many words, you're inviting them to go into the den of wolves by checking out

01:32:51

Bethel music and Hillsong and Elevation and all this. What are you doing?

01:32:57

You're to be protecting your flock, not exposing them to wolves. And that is exactly what they're doing.

01:33:03

And Bill Johnson, by his own admission, he says, we use our music to expand our tent, to grow our brand.

01:33:11

That's what they're doing. Horatio Spafford's not doing that, OK? You're not putting your people in any kind of theological danger by singing it as well with my soul.

01:33:22

You are putting your people in a world of theological danger by exposing them to a current, ongoing, massive, and growing cult.

01:33:33

Now, what if for all the churches, even some of the good ones, or maybe especially the good ones that are singing

01:33:44

Bethel and Hillsong, would you sing a song that has pretty good lyrics that would pass a doctrinal smell test?

01:33:52

Would you sing a song on Sunday morning as worship that has good lyrics, but you know it was written by the

01:34:02

Watchtower Society? I dare say no. No, you wouldn't.

01:34:08

Would you sing it if it was written by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? I dare say no. So why are you singing it from Bethel?

01:34:16

Why are you singing it from Hillsong? They are just as much a cult as is the Watchtower Society or the

01:34:24

Mormon Church. Just as much a cult. And when you sing these songs,

01:34:31

Chris, I'll pass it off to you. I'm acting like I'm the host of the show. I'm sorry, I'm not. Chris is more knowledgeable about this than I.

01:34:40

CCLI, Chris, if churches are doing it right, when they sing these songs, correct, they're supposed to be sending in money to whoever wrote it.

01:34:49

Is that right? They won't send in money. Here's how that works.

01:34:57

If your church is broadcasting these lyrics and your bands and song orchestrations, however it works in your location, if you're playing these songs, you're singing these songs that have been written and copyrighted, that's done through the

01:35:17

Christian Copyright Licensing International, CCLI. And what happens is what you're supposed to do as a church singing these songs is you are supposed to report to CCLI.

01:35:32

I want to say it's three times a year. I could be wrong about that, but you're required to in the contract that you agree to.

01:35:41

So if you're seeking to be honest and do things on the up and up to be above reproach, you're required to report to them the songs that you sang, how many times you sang them and when you sang them.

01:35:52

Most churches will use an application called Planning Center, which will keep track of that for you.

01:35:59

And you just send that report over to CCLI. Now, what happens is CCLI then pays royalties to the writers of these songs, the people who have penned these songs and copyrighted these songs.

01:36:13

So in turn, what this means is that if there's a church out there that as since I've been on this program, they're on the up and up as far as their statement of faith, they preach the whole counsel of God, they preach the life, death, burial and resurrection of the

01:36:34

Lord Jesus Christ, forgiveness of sins, repentance, faith, a proper soteriology, so on and so forth.

01:36:40

Yet you're still playing these songs. You are financing heresy.

01:36:46

You are contributing financially to false teachers spewing false teaching through their songs.

01:36:54

You are making them millionaires, millionaires. The last stat

01:37:02

I saw in one year, I mean, it was millions of dollars that CCLI paid out in royalties.

01:37:10

And all that does is go to fund these ministries. It funds Bill Johnson, Chris Vallotton.

01:37:16

It funds Jen Johnson, Jesus Culture. It funds Stephen Furtick, Maverick Music.

01:37:23

It funds Hillsong, Brian Johnson, Brian Houston, excuse me.

01:37:29

It funds all of that. So even though you may not believe in it, even though you may do your part in going, we're not really going to sing a bunch of these songs, but we're going to do some of them because some of them do pass the doctrinal smell, the smell test.

01:37:42

If you just look at the lyrics, the problem is, is that you are contributing financially.

01:37:48

You are giving them what the Lord has blessed you with to steward from the people in your congregation to fund wolves.

01:37:59

Think about that. That's right. Thank you for that, Chris. That's very, very helpful.

01:38:06

And I made this point in an interview I did with Todd Friel a couple of years ago at G3, and I said,

01:38:12

I want to illustrate absurdity by being absurd. Great interview, by the way. Oh, thank you.

01:38:18

I appreciate it. I took a lot of heat for it, but let's just say for whatever reason, that Planned Parenthood, they get together, they have a board meeting.

01:38:27

They say, guys, even though we're awash with taxpayer money, we still need a little bit more, a little side there.

01:38:33

But let's figure out a way to raise some more money. I know what we can do. Hey, Bill, over there.

01:38:39

Yeah, you're a musician. How about you write us some Christian songs and make sure the lyrics would pass a basic doctrinal smell test so the

01:38:50

Christians will sing them on Sunday morning, and that will be another revenue stream for us. And so Bill gets on it and he starts writing some songs, and sure enough, they pass basic doctrinal smell test, pretty good beat, whatever.

01:39:02

People like it, and churches start singing it. Would you ever in a million years, if you knew that a song was written by Planned Parenthood, would you throw that up on your screen on Sunday morning?

01:39:15

With music by Planned Parenthood, would you sing that? Far too many will. Of course not.

01:39:21

And I would submit to you that doing that, singing music by Planned Parenthood is reprehensible and detestable, as that organization is, that would not be as bad as singing music by Bethel and Hillsong, because at least

01:39:41

Planned Parenthood, even though they're murdering babies, they're lost, and lost people do what lost people do.

01:39:49

Bethel and Hillsong claim to be Christians, and what they're doing is even worse.

01:39:56

They are preaching a false Jesus and a false gospel, and they are leading literally millions of people into an eternal hell, and they're doing it under the name of Jesus, but let's sing their music.

01:40:12

I think that's the most dangerous thing there is that the music, what people don't understand about music, or at least they don't seem to understand it, is all through cultural history, music has been the avenue to draw people into whatever doctrinal or educational system that you have, and it doesn't matter what it is, if it's biblical or if it's heretical, music has always been the avenue because it's in the mind, it stirs the heart, it grabs the emotions, and it causes you to not forget it.

01:40:45

If you look at the secular music, the reason it's so popular is because it is,

01:40:51

I hate to say it, but it's so good, and it's so good at capturing your emotion, your attention, your imagination, and these guys are good at being secular.

01:41:00

They're good at bringing in that secular drive. They love to bring in that stuff that will stir your emotions, stir your desires, stir your understanding, and it's like you said,

01:41:14

Bond Servant said, it's catchy, it pulls us in, it drives our emotions, and so we will run after whatever feels good to us, if it feels good, do it.

01:41:24

Well, it teaches, Justin, to your point, it teaches, right? Okay, so if I asked everybody right here, right on this screen right now, if I said, all right, we're going to go in a row, and I want you to sing the

01:41:36

ABCs, I guarantee you everyone's going to sing something very, very similar, okay?

01:41:41

It teaches you, it's how you learn, and when you look in the

01:41:47

Old Testament, I'll have to go back and research where it is, but in the Old Testament, the Levite priests who were responsible for leading music, their qualifications were higher than those bringing the message for that very reason, okay?

01:42:02

So we have to remember that you're in a teaching position when you're singing songs on a

01:42:10

Lord's Day, like you are, you are teaching theology. So Chris, let me ask you, which book of the

01:42:17

Bible contains the most theology? When we go through and we're looking, we're doing systematic theology, what book gets quoted more than any other?

01:42:28

Psalms. Why? Because this is how you teach, you put theology to music to be memorized, especially in an illiterate culture that didn't read.

01:42:45

Now think about, oh, sorry, brother. When Jesus was hanging on a cross, and he said, my

01:42:50

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The crowd knew what he was talking about.

01:42:56

Psalm 22. They knew it was Psalm 22. They didn't know 22 because they didn't have numbers to them back then. They didn't have numbers, but you think, if you go all the way back to Genesis, now

01:43:04

I'm studying Hebrew, I'm taking the Hebrew class and whatnot, Andrew knows this, I'm sure you guys know this, but a lot of people don't.

01:43:10

If you go from Genesis all through Hebrew text, they're all set to music.

01:43:16

They're formed to music because it's the easiest way to get you to memorize and understand what's being taught.

01:43:24

In fact, when I was born Mitzvot, I sang my Haftorah reading.

01:43:30

The Haftorah is the after Torah, so mine was in Jeremiah, but you sing that, you put it to song.

01:43:39

Okay, so yeah, you do that. I want to get back to something that Justin Peters, you said earlier, because I really, really, really want to highlight this because this is the main argument against why is it that we should be against what

01:43:55

Sam Storms is saying we should be for? Why should we be against having Hillsong and Bethel music in our church?

01:44:02

Because something that I want every one of us listening to listen to what Justin said, it's the fact that Bethel music and Hillsong music, they are very open about the fact that they use music to bring people in.

01:44:21

In other words, this is their evangelism. Who do they evangelize?

01:44:27

People in your church. When you're playing that music pastor, when you're putting that up there,

01:44:34

Bethel music, Hillsong music, you're doing exactly what they want you to do.

01:44:39

They want you playing their music so that your people will get hooked on their music and then those people will come check out their church and get into their cult.

01:44:50

That's the difference with Horatio Safford. Not just that he's dead, not just that he doesn't have an ongoing ministry.

01:44:56

He never wrote his song to try to bring people in the church out of the church into a cult.

01:45:04

But that's exactly what Bethel and Hillsong are doing. They're specifically using the music to try to lure people in solid churches into their group.

01:45:15

They're open about that. So why, why, why pastor, would you use this music that they use as a hook to bring your people into their false teaching?

01:45:30

Why would you give them that platform? Why would you give them that opportunity? Do you not recognize that you have a responsibility to protect your flock?

01:45:39

You wouldn't sit there and send your people in your church to a Bible study with the Jehovah Witnesses, would you?

01:45:45

If you would, I would hope that you'd rethink that unless you have someone who is solid enough that they're going to do research.

01:45:54

But you wouldn't send someone that is unknowing to go, oh yeah, go study with Jehovah Witnesses.

01:45:59

That might be good for you. There was somebody that just posted here. Somebody just posted on here a moment ago and I can't find it.

01:46:06

But they said that their youth group, they all bring these guys in.

01:46:12

And if you think about it, and it's exploding and making their ministries huge. If you think about it, why does a passion conference do what they're doing?

01:46:19

Bring Bethel and bring all these false teachers in and bring all these false music leaders and everything else.

01:46:25

Because it's the hook. It's the hook that brings these kids in. And these kids are coming from all the

01:46:31

SBC churches, going to passion, going to all these events. And they're hearing this great, you know, feel good music.

01:46:37

And here's the thing that they're doing. They are making sure that adults who know better, who know doctrine, who understand theologically, they're not allowed to be in these groups.

01:46:50

They bring in 18 and under to passion conference and everything else. They leave everybody else out and they say, okay, let's hook the kids in.

01:46:58

Let's bring them in. And when they do that, they open the doors up for these people, these kids to follow into this occultic, you know, false teaching.

01:47:08

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Sorry. I was muted. Justin Peters, before you jump into that, if I may, and I want to give you plenty of time to do that.

01:47:21

Just something that you guys are saying right now just reminded me of something that the

01:47:29

Puritan Stephen Charnock talks about. And here's what we're seeing.

01:47:35

I think ultimately what's happening. And I think the bigger issue here is, is instead of asking, you know, why pastor, why would you do that?

01:47:43

I think the first place you have to start is there's no fear of God. There's no fear of God whatsoever.

01:47:52

And there should be, there should be, there should be this, this, this response, the way that Isaiah responded in Isaiah six.

01:48:00

Whoa, is me, I am ruined. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm destroyed. I'm perished in the presence of a holy

01:48:08

God. But see, here's the problem is you have all of these professing evangelical churches out here that, that through their actions, through the preaching, through the song selections, they're acting more like practical atheists.

01:48:24

That's what they're doing. They are acting like practical atheists instead of ministers of the gospel or believers in the

01:48:30

Lord Jesus Christ. And here's why I say that Stephen Charnock, the Puritan Stephen Charnock in his discourse on practical atheism, here's what he said.

01:48:37

This, he, the practical atheist denies any essential attribute of God or the exercise of that attribute in the world.

01:48:45

They don't believe that God is going to judge them. They're not acting like it. Charnock goes on to say that in addition to natural atheism, right?

01:48:54

Um, the, the natural, there is no God that it also belongs to these, listen to this, who give not that worship to God, which is due to him who worship many gods or worship one

01:49:11

God in a false or superstitious manner when they have not right conceptions of God nor intend an adoration of him according to the excellency of his nature.

01:49:24

That's what's happening. You have so many people out there who have bought into the lucrative business that is church because it is a lucrative business.

01:49:33

And we see that Justin, you've seen that in your ministry, brother, and all the people that you've exposed. And, um, from Kenneth Copeland to Jesse to plan us to build

01:49:40

John and everybody else. But that's the problem is you have so many of these seeker sensitive, pragmatically driven churches and pastors and leaders out there who are, are, are more like a practical atheist than they are a minister of the gospel.

01:49:54

And then that bleeds over. They're setting the example as the shepherd for the sheep. And then the sheep follow suit.

01:50:01

And so we approach God in this way that is Mark chapter seven says Jesus, when he's accusing the

01:50:07

Pharisees, we approach God in a way that holds more to the traditions of men than the scriptures.

01:50:13

That's the problem. We don't fear the God of the word or the word of God.

01:50:19

And we don't believe that it's sufficient to be regulated by when we gather together to worship the

01:50:26

Lord in the given time. Yes, that's it. Amen. That's it. Amen.

01:50:32

No fear of God. No fear of God at all. At all.

01:50:38

Worship. Well, no, cause God's your boyfriend. Why would you fear him? No.

01:50:44

Yeah. And he's not mad at you. And he's not mad at you. And he wants you to protect the animals.

01:50:53

Well, but when sin is only you, you didn't fulfill the purpose that God has in your life.

01:51:00

You know, according to the thing that they had, we had up there a little bit ago. You know, you failed to live up to the purpose there.

01:51:07

When that's the only standard for what sin is, why would you worry about judgment?

01:51:13

Because, I mean, okay, what is that? That's so amorphous. I didn't live up to the standard.

01:51:20

Okay, so I go take care of the birds or I've got a whole charge of angels.

01:51:26

I get baptized, go take care of birds or whatever that lady said, you know, whatever. And that's her low view of scripture based on the low view and low teaching of scripture.

01:51:34

Yeah. Walking around singing good vibrations. What's a low view of God? Justin, let me let you finish this out with anything that you want to respond with.

01:51:47

Oh, gosh. Yeah, I don't know what else we could say. But it is just all of this betrays in so many of us as having such a low view of God, a low view of His holiness,

01:52:05

His holiness, a low view of worship. Worship's not about us. Worship's not about how you feel.

01:52:12

I don't care how a song makes you feel. I don't care how much you like the song.

01:52:18

I care about how much God likes it. I want to care that He is, I care that He is being worshiped in spirit and in truth.

01:52:26

Amen. We worship a thrice holy God, thrice holy.

01:52:34

And we should all have the posture of Isaiah. Whoa, it's me. Do we have any idea what we're doing?

01:52:41

You know, and I know I've kind of gotten worked up in this, but my goodness, we've got to remember who it is that we're talking about, who it is that we're worshiping, who is the object of our worship.

01:52:55

And, you know, I know there's good churches out there, good churches that sing these songs.

01:53:00

And I would implore the pastors, I'm hoping that most of this is being done out of ignorance.

01:53:10

But it's time for the ignorance to stop. You can't use that as an excuse.

01:53:16

Pastors, you're a shepherd. You've got to teach sound doctrine, and you've got to refute those who contradict it.

01:53:26

Yeah, let me just say in closing, Justin, you and I are going to be, at the end of this month, we're going to be in Colorado Springs.

01:53:38

You're going to be doing a Clouds Without Water recording. So you're going to be doing a seminar there in Colorado Springs.

01:53:46

And if I could look up the church, I'll get that. It would help if I could look up.

01:53:53

I think it's Hope Chapel. Yeah, that's what I was trying to... Okay, Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs. So if you're in the area, that is going to be

01:54:01

October 29th and 30th. And I believe you're preaching on the 31st.

01:54:06

Is that correct? Yes, I think so. So if you're in the Colorado Springs area, want to come meet us out there, that would be wonderful.

01:54:16

That is something to look forward to. Other than that, Justin, we're grateful that you came on.

01:54:22

We know it took three attempts to get this to finally do this, but a lot of people were glad that you finally responded to this.

01:54:30

And so I appreciate you coming on and doing that. Let me mention... Any other comments you want to make before we close out?

01:54:37

Anything you want to promote? Promote? You're so good at promotion stuff.

01:54:45

Yeah, I'm not a salesman. Yeah, but I mentioned earlier the

01:54:51

Wrap Report Podcast. If you check out the Wrap Report Podcast, my most recent episode,

01:54:58

I think it was my most recent, I'm not sure now. But I did one that was really from a

01:55:04

Bible study at our church, Grace and Truth Bible Church, out of 1 Peter 3 on wives and submission.

01:55:11

I've been getting a lot of feedback on that. That is one that I guess a view that many...

01:55:17

Well, there's many people that think they have a view of what is meant by submission for wives, and the scriptures may have a little bit of a different view.

01:55:28

So go check out the Wrap Report Podcast. That's wrapped with two Ps. Check that out. Last, before we go,

01:55:34

I just want to encourage you guys, if you want to support us at Striving for Eternity, keeping us doing shows like this and other things, just go to strivingforeternity .org

01:55:43

slash support. You can see ways you'd be able to support us on a monthly basis.

01:55:48

That helps us a lot. COVID was a difficult year. A lot of ministries were hurting.

01:55:54

We were one of them. We get most of our support as we travel and speak, and we were doing no traveling and speaking, or not much.

01:56:03

So if you could, after giving to your local church, that is, if you could support

01:56:09

Striving for Eternity, just go to strivingforeternity .org slash support. We would greatly appreciate that.

01:56:15

This is just one of the things that we try to do here at Striving for Eternity, is to show you how we use this to try to teach you not just why you shouldn't use

01:56:24

Bethel Music, but as you saw, we went through the article, I tried to show you some of the things that Sam Storms does in the articles.

01:56:32

So we want to make those things apparent to you so you can spot them, know how to identify that.

01:56:40

I'm not sure what we have going on next week. I don't have anyone scheduled right now, so we may just do an open

01:56:47

Q &A. If you have any questions, any challenges, that is what we're trying to do here, is to be a place where you can get questions answered.

01:56:57

And so we may do an open Q &A and just answer any questions that you have. If you're on Facebook, you can go to our

01:57:04

Apologetics Live Facebook group. That's a good place to ask your questions, to find out more about the show and what we're doing.

01:57:11

We also answer apologetics questions there as well. So we're glad that you came.

01:57:17

Glad, I hope this was helpful to you all, and that you learned a lot, and that hopefully this would be something that would be some information you could bring back to your church, especially if your church is playing

01:57:34

Bethel music or Hillsong. So again, thanks for listening. Hope this was good, educational for you.