FBC Orlando Follow Up
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Beulah Baptist in Winter Garden, FL:
https://beulahbaptistwg.org
- 00:05
- Hello ladies and gentlemen, my name is Justin Peters. I hope that you and your family are doing well today.
- 00:11
- I want to thank you so much for joining me. So this is a follow -up video to the one that I did a month or so ago on First Baptist Orlando, in which
- 00:21
- I talked about how First Baptist Orlando now openly admits that they have transgendered people,
- 00:29
- LGBTQ people who are growing and serving in their church, and they said that any healthy church must have heretics and sexually immoral people.
- 00:40
- And if you don't have those folks in your church, well you don't have a healthy church. So this is a follow -up video.
- 00:47
- I'm going to interview two men in this video. Casey Butner, who is the pastor of Beulah Baptist Church in Winter Garden, Florida, just outside of Orlando.
- 00:57
- And Tom Buck, who is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. So first with Casey.
- 01:04
- Casey knows Danny DeArmus, the senior associate pastor of First Baptist Orlando.
- 01:11
- And with all that has been revealed with that church, long story short, he got in touch with Danny DeArmus and asked for a meeting.
- 01:21
- And that request was granted, and he went to it and had a rather interesting conversation with Danny DeArmus, another pastor there, and as well as David Youth, the senior pastor of First Baptist Orlando.
- 01:37
- And he's going to tell us about what was discussed, what was said at that meeting, as well as he has received, and I have too, but he has received some emails from people who are at First Baptist Orlando, and they affirm that First Baptist Orlando is indeed baptizing open homosexuals, transgender people, baptizing them.
- 02:03
- So this is shocking, and I've seen some folks, there's a YouTube channel out there that has criticized my video on First Baptist Orlando, saying
- 02:12
- I've taken them out of context, and it's a faithful church, and Justin's just smearing and attacking them. Well, no, no, this will put any of those doubts to rest.
- 02:24
- And I'm also going to interview Tom Buck, and Tom has had some email exchanges with the
- 02:31
- North American Mission Board. Now, for those of you who are not Southern Baptist, that is the kind of the home mission board of the
- 02:37
- Southern Baptist Convention, planning churches, and he emailed NAM, as it's called in Southern Baptist circles, emailed
- 02:46
- NAM because First Baptist Orlando and NAM have had, they have a working relationship, and he asked
- 02:54
- NAM if they are willing to partner with a church that baptizes homosexuals, baptizes transgender people.
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- And Tom is going to share those emails with us and the responses that he received, and this will be very eye -opening in a very sad, unfortunate, dispiriting kind of a way.
- 03:17
- But we need to know what is going on. The social justice train, all of those cars, the egalitarian car, the racial car, the homosexual car, all those cars are coming in full bore.
- 03:33
- And as I've said before, as Tom Buck has said before, once that engine gets in your church, all these cars are coming along with the economic car as well.
- 03:44
- So that's just to set up. I think I will put some, I'll put the links to Casey's Church and Tom's Church down below in the description, as well as some timestamps so you can kind of, this will be a bit of a longer video, and so you'll be able to navigate a little bit more quickly if you want to come back to it or view certain parts again.
- 04:05
- All right. Well, thank you very much, dear ones. Here we go. Casey, brother, thank you so very much for joining me today.
- 04:15
- Yes, sir. Good to be here with you, Justin. Yeah, yeah. Well, hard to believe it's been almost a year since I was with you,
- 04:22
- I guess last May, but really enjoyed our time together, and Lord willing, look forward to worshiping with you again sometime.
- 04:31
- And I really thank you for your faithful service, Casey. Appreciate it. Man, thank you for coming,
- 04:36
- Justin. You know, I would say it's been a long time since I've seen you, but what was it, last week we were at the
- 04:41
- Shepherds Conference or the week prior? Yeah, sure were. Was that, no, that wasn't your first Shepherds.
- 04:47
- You've been to those before, but that was a good time, wasn't it? It sure was, man. It was a great time, and man, sorry
- 04:54
- I stood you up. I asked if I could sit beside of you in the worship center, and man, I found a good, comfortable seat outside and it felt bad.
- 05:03
- And I got the fellowship with you anyway, so that was great. Yeah, that's right. Well, the weather was beautiful, so I don't blame you for sitting outside.
- 05:11
- So, Casey, let's dive right in here, brother. You and I share concerns with things that we have seen in the
- 05:17
- SBC for the last several years, number of years. Full disclosure, I'm not in the
- 05:23
- SBC anymore. I was born and reared in the SBC, went to an SBC seminary, southwestern
- 05:28
- Fort Worth, but now I'm part of a non -denominational church. But your church is still part of the
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- SBC. You are pastor of Beulah Baptist Church in Winter Garden, Florida.
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- And we're going to be talking primarily today about the compromise capitulation that we've seen on the issue of homosexuality in the
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- SBC. And the SBC has always been very clear on this issue, but things have begun to change in the last handful of years, haven't they?
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- They sure have. You know, I was absolutely floored when James Merritt endorsed his son's message.
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- His son not only is a homosexual, but also was said by his dad to have preached a message that was faithful to the gospel, and it was anything but.
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- And how does a man who was a prior president of the
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- Southern Baptist Convention, who stood before us and lied to us in Nashville at an annual convention that we're not adhering to critical race theory, but yet at the same time they do it.
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- So they say one thing and do another. You'll know a man by their fruit. How do these things continue to be defended?
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- I'm also in a state of awe. I'm shocked at how all of this has happened.
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- Our previous president, J .D. Greer, said that homosexuality will not send you to hell.
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- How do I know that? Because heterosexuality will not send you to heaven. Homosexuality does not send you to hell.
- 07:09
- You know how I know that? Because heterosexuality does not send you to heaven. Homosexuality does not send people to hell.
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- How do I know that? Because heterosexuality doesn't send people to heaven. And all of these clever cliches are not rooted in Scripture.
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- In fact, they're the exact opposite of Scripture. And we're sitting back thinking, we have got to address these things because they're creeping in through pragmatism, through capitulation, through giving into the ways of the world, through all of these different things.
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- They're being defended and affirmed. It's scary.
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- Yeah, it really is. Yeah, we've got the current president, Ed Litton, of the
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- SBC, who is not only a serial plagiarist, but also he said the same thing
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- Greer did. Of course, he plagiarized what Greer said, that homosexuality will not send you to hell.
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- It's just shocking to me. And you mentioned James Merritt, former president of the SBC, endorsing his homosexual son,
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- Sermon. And also, closer geographically speaking, anyway, to your neck of the woods, you're right outside of Orlando there,
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- First Baptist Church, Orlando, which is a massive, massive Southern Baptist Church.
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- Quick timeline of events. So back in 2016, there was the shooting at the
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- Pulse nightclub where, what was it, 58, something like that. Anyway, 50 -something people were murdered by a
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- Muslim murderer, shooter. And he went in, but the
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- Pulse nightclub is a homosexual club. It's a gay bar. And so the safe assumption there is that the vast majority of people in there, if not were homosexual themselves, were affirming of that lifestyle.
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- And so given what Scripture says, all of those people died and faced the wrath of God because of what 1
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- Corinthians 6 teaches, such will not inherit the kingdom of God. But they had a memorial service in memory of that shooting of those who lost their lives.
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- And I watched that. You've seen this clip, the service. And they ushered in all of those murder victims, ushered them in straight into heaven.
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- And one of the guest speakers shockingly said that the chief cornerstone of 1
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- Peter 2 is he identified the chief cornerstone as an LGBTQ community, which is a shockingly blasphemous thing to say.
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- There was a scripture found in 1 Peter 2 that says,
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- Until you, therefore, which believe he being
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- Christ is precious. But until then, which be disobedient stone, which the builders disallowed, the same as made the headstone of the corner and stone stumbling, a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient, where to also they were appointed.
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- But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.
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- I read this passage and I thought about all of the things that's happening. And the word peculiar jumped out at me.
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- Because what we find is that in our peculiarities in life, we're not peculiar because of race, gender or creed.
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- But in Orlando, we are peculiar because of e pluribus unum.
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- Out of many come one. We are peculiar because we have leadership that knows how to follow.
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- We have leaders like Dyer and Jacob who know how to follow a
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- Demings and Mina and rise to the occasion. We are peculiar because we know how to let theological differences and disputes and factions not get in the way of love and Christ.
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- We are peculiar, I tell you, because we believe in the word and what others would have against us, what others would show as a stumbling stone.
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- We've elevated to be the head of the corner. And right now, no matter what the presence of the people of mine may think, that LBGTQ area is the head cornerstone.
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- And we are here to lift up and magnify and allow them to know that regardless of people's opinion, regardless of where we are, love triumphs over evil.
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- And then, Casey, more recently, just a couple of months or so ago, as of this recording, the pastor and senior pastor, senior associate pastor
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- David Youth and Danny DeArmas, respectively, they both preach sermons one
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- Sunday after the other. And they said that they have homosexuals in their church that are growing and serving.
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- They have LGBTQ. They have transgendered people growing and serving in their worshiping in their church.
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- We have longtime members of 50 plus years greeting and welcoming new people who are walking in for the very first time.
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- We have those who love traditional music and hymns and those who know only contemporary music.
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- We have choir lovers and non -music lovers, a pipe organ and loud electric guitars.
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- We have the 99 -year -old World War II hero and the millennial immigrant who doesn't know anything about American history sitting on the same row and listening and learning about Jesus together.
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- We have transgender, LGBTQ, straight, single, married, divorced, and cohabitating people.
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- These same people attend, listen, serve, grow, and give. And in the midst of all of this, we have one of the most beautiful worship experiences you can possibly imagine.
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- Because all of us gather around the good news of Jesus and the one who is changing us and the one who unifies us.
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- And we celebrate how he has set us all free from our bondage to sin and given us eternal life.
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- Jose, we are First Orlando. And that a healthy church,
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- David Youth quoted an article by Erwin McManus saying that every healthy church must have sexually immoral people and heretics in the church in order to be healthy.
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- So let me read you an article I came across. I thought this was very interesting, the timing of it. I once heard, he quotes somebody, and the somebody he quotes is from this church.
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- He grew up here and he pastors a church in California. His name is Erwin McManus.
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- He quotes, the article quotes him, listen to this. I once heard Erwin McManus say, every truly healthy church has two things.
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- Heretics and people who are sexually immoral. To translate, a church that consists of only committed
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- Christians probably has lost sight of its mission and resembles more the frozen chosen than the messy community that God has in mind that journeys with people as they discover
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- Jesus. So talk to us a little bit about that and the concerns that obviously caused you and what you've done about it since then.
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- Yes, sir. Well, to kind of back up there with you, that was shocking to see there at First Baptist that David Youth participated in affirming the destination of those unregenerate poor folks.
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- We wish that that had not have happened. But them and their families aside, and our condolences still go to them for certain.
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- We're talking about David Youth. So that being the case, the subject at hand here in First Baptist, Orlando.
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- Titus 1 .9 is right in the middle of the qualifications for a faithful pastor and elder.
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- And you must, according to verse nine, not only exhort sound doctrine, but refute those who contradict it.
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- And so for David not to have corrected that cornerstone issue disqualifies him completely.
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- And for him not to have corrected it even later or say anything about it. But in fact, he has defended it.
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- That is very clear. I'm personally very concerned as well with the members of First Baptist, Orlando and their lack of discernment.
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- So that's a real issue. But I understand the frog in the pan illustration. I understand long time conditioning.
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- I understand the victim's person, place of their
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- Orlando. But it's time to wake up and to compare scripture with what's being done. And don't listen, but look.
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- And so nevertheless, David has continued to do these things.
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- And if you continue to read in verse 13 in Titus, it says to reprove these types severely.
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- And so I have no qualms at all with being clear with what's going wrong there.
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- He obviously is not a complimentarian. He does not preach sound doctrine.
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- In fact, he's an egalitarian and he is an outspoken egalitarian. And so much so that he placed a woman pastor in a preaching slot at the pastor's convention preceding the
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- Southern Baptist Convention that got canceled due to COVID in 2020. So you couldn't be any more loud and clear.
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- And he would say, well, she wasn't going to preach. But you go on the website to where she is a staff member and you see that she is a pastor and she's being put in a preaching slot.
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- All of this is conditioning. We're just trying to move this type of stuff in slowly.
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- And if we don't speak up, it's going to take root. Well, it already has. All of this stuff is so rooted in and we'll get to that.
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- But nevertheless, now the case is just building over time and over time. And now you've kind of gotten to the point to where even
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- Danny Bjarmus would read this email to his staff members and staff and then read it publicly in a preaching forum and proclaim clearly that those who are
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- D, all the above, serve here and are baptized at First Baptist Orlando.
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- And so upon hearing that, I was greatly disturbed.
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- So I sent an email to Danny right away. I couldn't send an email to David as well. His email is not on the website, but I've got
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- Danny's cell phone number. We've met in the past. We've talked. We're only 12 miles away from one another.
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- So we live close by. It's one of those things. I just email him and I said,
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- Danny, what is this? Man, you're no better than Eli in the
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- Old Testament who enabled gross immorality in the temple. If this is true, we've got to meet.
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- I'm the moderator, the senior moderator of the Greater Orlando Baptist Association. First Baptist Orlando is in our association.
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- We strive to keep a clean camp. There's no immorality that should even be mentioned among you, according to the scriptures.
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- So can we discuss this? And I emailed him and in that email also said, by the way, this is the second email.
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- And I'll tell you now why I said that. Weeks prior, the
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- North American Mission Board had hosted a pastor's luncheon there at First Baptist Orlando.
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- And I don't know, 60 pastors or so, 75 pastors came and we had lunch and we were at roundtables.
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- And there was a representative from NAMM there to preach to us.
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- And so Danny and Pastor David Youth were there at a table beside of us. And through that preaching right there in the middle, man, he felt the need,
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- I guess, to drop a four -letter word. And I looked around and unfortunately, there was laughter in the room.
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- Danny laughed, David Youth laughed, and I was completely appalled. So I took out a little note and I wrote a note to this guy,
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- Matt. And I said, Matt, what of 1 Peter 1, you know, 16 that says, be holy for I am holy, you know.
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- And then I said, there's no room for profanity while preaching, especially that preaching on prayer.
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- You say that you preach all around the nation on behalf of NAMM. Do you use profanity all across the nation?
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- And so I put my name and my phone number, folded it in half. And at the end, I looked around and unfortunately,
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- I didn't see anybody else disturbed except for the pastor that was right beside of me. So I went over there and gave him the note, handed it to him.
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- And he was good enough to give me a call. And he said, brother, I appreciate your rebuke and I should not have done that.
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- And I don't do that around the nation. So there was, you know, some recognition there.
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- But I called or I mean, I emailed Danny and I said to Danny, did you correct this brother in your house?
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- It's no secret you run the show here at First Orlando. David preaches and pastors and you're the executive administrator.
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- You got the lockdown and all. You hire and fire staff. You do it. You run the place.
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- Did you correct him? And I didn't get a response back. But when I emailed him about him using the word serve while preaching, referring to the
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- LGBT community here, growing in Christ and serving and said, this is my second email, by the way.
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- And I sent that off. I got a response and I'm not surprised that I got a response.
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- But he assured me I had nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. Blah, blah, blah.
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- And he put me in touch with his assistant and his assistant scheduled an appointment for us about 10 days later to be able to to meet.
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- And so I was really I was looking forward to being able to talk with Danny about this over the years.
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- I've had deep concerns of the direction of First Baptist Orlando. Hundreds and hundreds of families have left
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- First Orlando over the years due to the slow fate. And I was even on the phone with one this morning whose parents had been there, has been and still are there, been there for 40 years.
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- And so their children now have children. So you have generations there at First Orlando.
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- And so the one whom I was talking to said that the children's ministry was no longer being taught the word of God.
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- They were being taught things like how to be kind and how to be generous. But they weren't learning the word. And so they were concerned.
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- And then their youth felt like that the youth ministry was a party.
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- They felt like it was the place to be for fun. They were using attractional methods and the same thing.
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- They just were not learning the word of God. And so these concerns then were voiced to David and Danny, I guess, and there was no real response.
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- And then the question was asked as well in this particular meeting. This was a couple of years ago, why
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- David doesn't hunker down and really tackle the subjects and teach sound doctrine.
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- And the response was unfavorable enough to where the younger two left and brought their kids with them and joined other churches.
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- Now, their parents are still faithful. And First Baptist has three services.
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- The first one is a traditional service that would be as contemporary as any contemporary service.
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- But it's it is what it is. But, you know, the older generation are very faithful to their local church.
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- But at the same time, lack a little bit of discernment there. And so there's a separation, a division in the families.
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- And so you have this slow fade that's been happening over years and years.
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- And now we finally get to the point to where Danny used the word serve. And it was kind of like throwing a little pebble in the pond to see what ripples would happen, what kind of pushback would happen.
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- And notice it wasn't David that mentioned this, that kind of led the charge on on this church direction, on embracing unregenerate, unsafe people into positions of service and greeting and so forth around.
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- It was Danny. And so I called Danny and I wanted to talk to him.
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- I came to the arranged time and went there to meet and I was taken up.
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- And lo and behold, there were other pastors that were invited to the meeting. And I thought
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- I was meeting with Danny and nobody told me anything otherwise. And one of the other pastors there said,
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- I didn't know. You didn't know. And then David Youth walks in and he's invited.
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- It almost it almost sounds like an ambush as opposed to what you were expecting.
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- It was very different from what I was expecting. And nevertheless, Justin, I'll tell you what they had to say was was already ready.
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- And Danny had his script ready. And in short, all it is, you know, an emotional ploy from when his dad started a coffee shop and was able to reach the hippies,
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- I guess, back in the 70s. And that rejected people, felt acceptance in the coffee shop and started finding
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- Christ as Lord and Savior. Praise God. Right. It's, you know, I'm very evangelistic.
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- And so I participate in the same form of evangelism. But where he's gone wrong is that he's conflated a coffee shop with the
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- Church of God. See, the Church of God is already have the ministries prescribed according to the scriptures.
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- So nevertheless, you cannot put someone who is unregistered in to a place of service on behalf of the local church of God and place your, you know, affirmation upon that lifestyle and hope that they will be safe because that will infect everyone around them.
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- And it just is violate scripture to begin with. Nevertheless, I was there to talk about that. But that's what
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- Danny had to say, a coffee shop, the church conflating the two. Here's how we can win the
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- LGBT community. And then it was David's turn. And he told me a story of conversion.
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- And obviously, it was geared towards the heart and the emotions. And they took up the majority of the time with these stories.
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- And so I substantiated what I had to say with scripture. They told stories.
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- It kind of went back and forth. And so my appeal to the members of First Baptist Orlando would be don't listen with your heart.
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- Jeremiah 17, 9 says, you know, that the heart is a deceiver and desperately wicked who can trust it.
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- And so we can't discern with our emotions. We must use our mind and look at the scriptures and actually look what is being said.
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- So my concern generally is for the homosexual community, for the
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- LGBT folks there at First Baptist, for the members to discern what truly is right according to the word of God and submit yourselves and ourselves to the scriptures.
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- So nevertheless, in the conversation, they ever so kindly started to maneuver me into a category that they were painting.
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- And I quickly picked up on the fact that they were creating a dichotomy here between two camps.
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- And I was coming to them based upon the scriptures and the word of God and standing for biblicalist, right?
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- And they were moving me into a hater category and them into an affirming category.
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- And so I addressed that. I said, guys, this is a false dichotomy. You cannot say one group's a hater and one group's an affirmer.
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- I'm standing on the word of God, and that's it. It's simple. And so nevertheless, that was my unfortunate experience there with the meeting.
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- And to say that open homosexuals, transgender people, which there's no such thing as a transgender person, but that's the lingo nowadays, can serve and grow.
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- OK, you can't grow until you've been born, right? Spiritually speaking,
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- I mean, you have to be born again before you can start growing. So the not so subtle insinuation is that they believe that these people can be
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- Christians. Unrepentant homosexual and transgender people can be Christians.
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- I mean, that's clearly what's being suggested. Yes. Yeah, that is clear.
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- And so the problem continues. And, you know, one thing that I was kind of faced with was
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- I had some pushback with maybe Danny used the wrong word.
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- Right. Maybe he should not have. Maybe he didn't mean to say, sir. Well, obviously, I addressed that in the beginning of our meeting.
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- And I said, Dan, you're a very articulate man. And not only that, or did you read an email?
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- And so you've typed it out and now you've read it is very, very clear as to the fact you chose that word intentionally.
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- So for my good friends around me, around here who have given Danny the benefit of the doubt, maybe he just selected the wrong word.
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- Well, that's simply not true. In fact, another meeting has transpired since that meeting with another member of the church who also addressed that word, sir.
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- And Danny seemed to shrink back a little bit and say, maybe
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- I should not have used that word, sir. And then David, you spoke up and said, no, that's exactly the right word.
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- And God used that word. And so people have to make a choice here.
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- So David is clearly calling people to adhere to what he is saying.
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- He and Danny are saying and and choose. Wow. And it just continues on.
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- And in fact, in this same meeting, there was an email sent to Pastor Youth and Danny DeArmas.
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- And I'll share just a little bit of it. So by the way, this gentleman said,
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- I've got broad shoulders. You can name my name. You can give my address and email and phone number.
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- I'm with you. I want things to be right. And I said, well, just let me utilize the email and the information.
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- And so I'll read to you some of it. And some of this email to Pastors Youth and Danny DeArmas on is something that happened on a
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- Sunday morning. And he just briefly states, hey, I'm retiring now. And I want to join a
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- Bible study group. And I worship around some folks there and was invited to join a home group.
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- And they said that Pastor Danny recently taught at the group and gave them the church's blessing and approval to meet and grow.
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- All right. And I'll read it from here. It says after they had me go on their
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- Bible study Facebook page and register, it became very clear that they have had a study that caters to the
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- LGBTQ community. This Bible study is being led by Pastor Mark Penn, who is the minister to the community for the
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- Joy Metropolitan Church here in Orlando. And the two and the two administrators of this group are active homosexual men.
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- One getting married this past December to his male partner after 26 years and being together.
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- And the other man who lost his partner husband just recently will have had a celebration of life service in the next month or so.
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- One of the members of this Bible study group who lost his partner husband a year or so ago.
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- Let us know that he met another man and is going on a cruise shortly and they will be sharing a cabin.
- 34:18
- They are very happy to be part of a church that allows them to serve and be baptized without their needing to change their
- 34:28
- LGBTQ lifestyle. They are very happy to be part of a church that allows them to serve and be baptized without their needing to change their
- 34:44
- LGBTQ lifestyle. After an hour of talking, another man who was serving in one area of the church came and sat across from me.
- 34:55
- And after a few minutes of conversation, leaned in towards me, looking straight into my eye and making sure that I knew he was saying he told me that he was gay.
- 35:06
- And the way that he looked at me, it was chilling. The group kept saying that great things are happening here at First Baptist Orlando.
- 35:16
- On that car ride, it felt like we had been gut punched from our own church.
- 35:21
- In this note, I included a picture of my wife and our two granddaughters who when they are in town, we bring them to the children's area of the church.
- 35:30
- I'm very concerned that these two innocent girls may have been exposed to people who serve in your church, who the
- 35:38
- Bible states have been given over to depraved minds and that are consumed with unnatural lusts and passions.
- 35:46
- These shameless acts and passions are usually not limited in age and gender.
- 35:53
- Children fall victims to these people. And the email goes on and his concerns are specific and valid.
- 36:00
- And that's the reason why I thought I would read this particular email. And I think that this gentleman has a phenomenal ability to discern.
- 36:11
- And God is using his situation to bring light to what is going on there, along with perhaps this video.
- 36:18
- And it's our desire to see repentance and restoration, to see things righted, and to not continue to go down this road.
- 36:28
- But it is very clear, Justin, that at First Baptist Orlando, there are unregenerate, unrepentant people who are being affirmed and put into service, who are now members of the church and have been baptized.
- 36:45
- And so I asked Danny at this meeting, how do you substantiate this?
- 36:51
- This is an atrocity. And he said that we're still figuring that out.
- 36:57
- And we have affirmed that we have two different categories.
- 37:02
- And this is ludicrous. I just share with you what he told me. He said, those who affirm our church doctrine, our stances, they're living the faith.
- 37:16
- They confess Christ. They're in alignment with our doctrine. We'll baptize them.
- 37:21
- But those also who defer to our church doctrine. So he's created two categories, affirmers and defers.
- 37:28
- If they just simply defer to our doctrine and hold primarily to what we're saying and they're not adhering to anything else, then they're a candidate for baptism as well.
- 37:42
- And so for an unrepentant individual to just simply say, yeah,
- 37:47
- Jesus is Lord, they can be baptized there. And believe me, they make baptism the popular thing to do.
- 37:56
- And they drum it up and they play music that is cutting edge dance music that is just the place to be.
- 38:07
- And after each service that I was there, I came and watched it for myself after we met.
- 38:12
- I said, I've got to go see these things for myself. And so the Sunday I was there, they had baptisms after each service and they would just simply say, hey, if you didn't come ready to be baptized today, we've got a
- 38:25
- T -shirt and a towel ready for you. Go to the tent and sign up and be baptized today.
- 38:31
- When you go outside, there's kind of like a DJ type atmosphere with a microphone and music going on and people just waiting to be baptized, getting in line.
- 38:40
- And so the open baptism there is easy believism, to say the least, even down to children.
- 38:49
- And I saw a wonderful little innocent girl, couldn't have been more than five or six years old, who had been conditioned and trained and told what to do.
- 38:58
- And she jumped in and she said, Jesus is my Lord and threw her head back to be baptized.
- 39:05
- And then she was just a beautiful little girl. I have three little girls, and if there's one thing that we need to do as parents is be very discerning with our children as they are learning about sin and the need to be saved and to test their comprehension.
- 39:23
- And so I was sitting out there during the baptisms and she ran around and ended up right beside of me at one of the tables and she was soaking wet.
- 39:34
- And I said, hey, you got baptized. And she said, yep. And I said, can you tell me what sin is? And she says what's done wrong against God.
- 39:43
- So I hope that her comprehension of Jesus's death and burial and resurrection and personal atonement for her sins is there.
- 39:55
- I pray that it truly is in her mind and in her heart. But I must say to you,
- 40:02
- I have reservations because it seems that she was trained and coached to do so.
- 40:08
- And so, nevertheless, it seems like a numbers game there with baptism.
- 40:15
- Totally, totally a numbers game. I mean, in any little kid, yeah, they hear the lingo in church and they know the thing to say.
- 40:24
- They know how to answer the question just with the right phraseology or lingo because they've heard it.
- 40:29
- It doesn't mean that they've internalized it. You know, if if you were to ask that that same little girl, you know,
- 40:39
- Sally Sue or whatever name was, can you tell me how Jesus saved you?
- 40:46
- Has Jesus saved you? How has he done that? What is what is your how did that happen? Do you know that there would be no there would be no credible testimony there.
- 40:57
- Children just adopt the worldview in which they're raised. So it's I mean, any little kid.
- 41:04
- I mean, you get I get you could give me 10 minutes with any six, seven year old kid who has absolutely no church background whatsoever.
- 41:13
- And I can get them to say the sinner's prayer. It doesn't it doesn't mean they're saved. So especially when it's a party atmosphere and you're right outside of Disney World and, you know, the sun shining in the palm trees and the
- 41:27
- DJs, I mean, DJs for crying out loud, that's that's a circus. That's not there.
- 41:34
- There's that's a joke. That's not that's not a real church. You know, hundreds and hundreds are baptized there each year at First Orlando.
- 41:45
- And even with the one whom I was talking with this morning through personal testimony would say that First Baptist's own research shows that only one percent stick from those who are baptized.
- 42:03
- And the concern is if they have truly been saved and baptized, then why are they not longing to be discipled in the church?
- 42:13
- Why are they not here? Where have they gone? And so obviously there is something wrong.
- 42:20
- And that's what we're expressing. It's huge. And the lack of discernment is huge as well.
- 42:29
- And that's what we're talking about today, the fact that this is an atrocity.
- 42:35
- And unfortunately, First Baptist Orlando is kind of a template for what is happening in other churches in the
- 42:44
- Southern Baptist Convention and the same direction that the convention is going. And it is awful to see that we have had a president who was a known plagiarizer be defended.
- 42:57
- And none of our Southern Baptist Theological Seminary presidents have called for his resignation when, in fact, they would have thrown me out of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary if I would have plagiarized or if I would have said homosexuality is not a sin.
- 43:14
- The presidents of that seminary would have thrown me out of my head. Orientation will scare you to death from doing even a word of plagiarization.
- 43:24
- And yet they're defending him. Most of the presidents have defended
- 43:30
- Ed Litton. Had him in the preach at their chapel services. Oh, it's crazy.
- 43:37
- And it's a double standard. Oh, it's horrific. It's unbelievable.
- 43:43
- You're so right. I mean, I kind of got in a little bit of trouble in seminary because I plagiarized myself.
- 43:48
- I had a paper to write and it was kind of subject matter was somewhat congruent with another paper
- 43:54
- I'd written. I took a couple of paragraphs from my own paper and put it in this other paper. I got in trouble for that.
- 44:00
- I mean, it's stunning to me. Yeah. That's terrible.
- 44:07
- Yeah, yeah. Another thing that I saw there when
- 44:13
- I went to First Baptist Orlando for those three services that I was floored about was the fact that a male ballerina dancer performed on Sunday morning and.
- 44:27
- Justin. His moves were erotic.
- 44:32
- If it would have been a female, she would not have any business moving like that on stage.
- 44:41
- And for it to be presented as a worship, worshipful arts, a scriptural song by David Loveless, one of the pastors there, and then embraced by David Youth at the end and justified is an atrocity.
- 44:58
- That is not worship. You cannot take the old life from which someone should have repented of and left and is running from and display that as worship and sing to it on Sunday morning.
- 45:14
- But herein lies also a huge issue. That wasn't the first time that this male homosexual ballerina had performed.
- 45:23
- Now, since he has, according to David, repented and broke off his homosexual relationships and drugs and alcohol and now has married a woman.
- 45:34
- So praise God for that. But nevertheless, with David, you cannot have this is worship, worshipful arts.
- 45:44
- That is this erotic movement. It's an atrocity. But yet at the same time, how in the world do so many there at First Orlando see this as OK?
- 45:56
- This is not drawing attention to God. This is drawing attention to man. This is normalizing gross immorality.
- 46:04
- And I'm floored at how effective conditioning is over the years to the point where many of my my my friends would defend this kind of ministry means and methodology.
- 46:21
- Yeah, indeed. Indeed. Yeah, that's not worship. That's that's entertainment.
- 46:26
- Yeah, you're, you know, First Corinthians six, nine through eleven. Paul says, do not be deceived.
- 46:34
- Neither fornicators nor adulterers nor feminine nor homosexuals or nor revilers or coders nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
- 46:41
- And but then Paul says, but in such were some of you, you were those things, but you're not anymore.
- 46:49
- And that's very strong language in the Greek. It's a it's a break. It's a complete break with those sins.
- 46:56
- It is there's no such thing as a gay Christian. All right.
- 47:01
- If you're a Christian, your identity is not in your sin. Your identity is in Christ. And it's a it's a complete break there.
- 47:10
- Doesn't mean that you're never you won't ever again have a tempting thought or something.
- 47:15
- But when you do, you go to war with that stuff. You go to war with it. You battle it. You put to death the deeds of the body.
- 47:22
- Romans 813. You take every thought captive. You break with that, not not put it on display and not use it as some kind of a faux act of worship, which it is.
- 47:36
- Lead anyone to Christ. We must embrace who we are in Christ and abandon all of his old ways.
- 47:43
- And we are now aliens and strangers in this world. And people are brought from darkness into light through the strangeness of who we are in Christ.
- 47:52
- That is of them is the word of God. It's Christ himself. We don't have to be friends with the world.
- 47:58
- James 4, 4 says be friends with the world is enmity to God. So we don't have to embrace the world's ways in order to win them.
- 48:06
- We maintain who we are. And they see that and they truly come to Christ and they will be truly saved and won't become false converts.
- 48:15
- You know, one of the things that I mentioned to David and Danny in the meeting was this, you know, Acts chapter eight is a perfect example as to how we should be as pastors.
- 48:25
- Peter saw the magician Simon make a false profession and even get baptized because the crowd was doing that.
- 48:34
- And then when Peter recognized that he was in it for the wrong reasons, he called him to repentance and and revealed his sin.
- 48:44
- And that is exactly what we mean. We will be held accountable as pastors unto
- 48:50
- God for how we handled his word and his church people. And to affirm people in their sin is to is to is damning.
- 49:01
- Yeah. And it has to be called out. We can't be silent in this.
- 49:08
- That's the that's the ironic thing here, Casey, is that is that David Youth and Danny Dearmus and the leadership at First Baptist Orlando, and quite frankly, many other
- 49:17
- Southern Baptist churches, too, would say you and I are being mean. We're being unloving.
- 49:23
- You know, the loving thing is to accept people, but not not if you believe what
- 49:29
- Scripture says. You and I happen to believe what the
- 49:34
- Bible says in First Corinthians six and Romans one. We happen to believe that people who are in that sin, you know, that is their identity.
- 49:43
- They will not inherit the kingdom of God. And so how much do you have to. There's only two options here.
- 49:50
- If you if you truly believe that, if you really believe the word of God, then the most loving thing to do, the only thing to do that is loving is to tell them the truth and tell them there is great danger.
- 50:04
- Give them the gospel and implore them to repent so they can have freedom in Christ and the wrath of God will be removed from.
- 50:13
- That is if if we really believe what the Bible says, if they die in that state, they will spend all of eternity in hell and during the full undiluted fury of God's wrath.
- 50:24
- So how much do you have to hate someone to to believe that, but not tell them, you know, that is the purest form of hatred or or you just say you believe the
- 50:39
- Bible is the word of God, but you don't really believe it as evidenced by the by how you do church, as evidenced by how you preach, as evidenced by how you you affirm people in their sin and give them misplaced love, love that's really not love.
- 50:58
- Right. And, you know, speaking of telling them the truth, man, I was talking to some mutual friends of ours,
- 51:05
- Anthony, let's see, Silvestro and Andrew Rappaport. And Andrew, of course, converted from Judaism to over to Christianity.
- 51:15
- And and I asked him the question, how do you lead a Jew to Jesus? You really have to know the
- 51:21
- Old Testament and everything. And his answer was the answer, obviously, that I was looking for, whether it's a
- 51:26
- Muslim with child, whether it's anybody else, a homosexual, anybody who is in sin, it's the power of the gospel and the salvation.
- 51:34
- And so you love people indiscriminately. You share the gospel indiscriminately.
- 51:40
- It doesn't it doesn't matter about your eloquence. It doesn't matter about your words, your personality.
- 51:46
- It doesn't matter how you're dressed, how many teeth you have. It just matters about the gospel. Amen.
- 51:52
- The power of the gospel and salvation. You know, Romans 116 is true. Absolutely.
- 51:57
- Absolutely. And I agree 100 percent. I've I've shared the gospel with homosexuals before.
- 52:04
- And not that I asked him. I mean, you can quite honestly tell, you know, most of most of them you can tell.
- 52:09
- And I've shared the gospel with people with homosexuals. I didn't drill down on their homosexuality.
- 52:15
- I share the gospel with a homosexual the same way I share the gospel with someone who, you know, is a logger out in the woods of North Idaho or whatever.
- 52:24
- I mean, you share the gospel the same way with everybody. The only time you ever need to bring up homosexuality is if that person professes to be a
- 52:34
- Christian and is a homosexual. And then you say, no, that's not what
- 52:40
- Scripture teaches. But, you know, you share the gospel with homosexuals the same way you share the gospel with anyone.
- 52:46
- Exactly. And when I was in that meeting with all of the pastors there,
- 52:52
- I simply asked them about these things and mentioned to give hearty approval to homosexuality.
- 52:59
- According to Romans 132 is to be guilty of it yourself. They are in grave danger and they're not walking a fine line.
- 53:11
- They've crossed the line. And that's what many people need to actually hear is that.
- 53:17
- No, they're not. They're not embracing them and loving them. They're actually hating them.
- 53:23
- If they're very clear about the fact that, no, you cannot serve and be baptized and be a member of First Baptist Orlando as an unregenerate, unrepentant person.
- 53:36
- And David Youth, you know, kind of pushed back a little bit and he normalized it and said, well, sin is sin.
- 53:42
- And that's not the case. We're talking about nature here. If the nature has not been changed, if they're not a new creation, then they are not saved.
- 53:53
- And then he said, well, we just believe that sanctification starts after baptism.
- 54:00
- And then he said, we're still trying to figure out this whole process here with what it is to be a member.
- 54:06
- And I thought in my mind, how is it that you're the pastor of First Baptist Orlando for this long and you still don't have membership nailed down?
- 54:15
- You don't have it figured out. It's just simply capitulating. And in my opinion, he's keeping it ambiguous and blurry as so to do what he wants to do, to make this ambiguous area and work in this direction and continue down this path.
- 54:36
- That is a stunning thing to hear a pastor say, we're still trying to figure this out.
- 54:42
- We're still trying to figure out what church membership is, figure out how to do. You're trying to figure it out.
- 54:49
- I mean, you know what's amazing to me in every area of life, we search out the best, right?
- 54:55
- I mean, we want we want the best dentist to fill our cavities. We want the best builder to build our homes.
- 55:03
- We want we want a good mechanic to fix our cars for crying out loud. So we seek out the best.
- 55:09
- But when it comes to the one thing in our lives, which is by far the most important, the shepherding of our eternal souls in worship to the creator of the universe, the one who who handles the word of God, who feeds our souls.
- 55:27
- Oh, anything will do. He's a nice guy. I like his stories.
- 55:34
- It's astonishing to me. I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't go you wouldn't walk into a hospital in need of open heart surgery.
- 55:40
- And, you know, if you heard the the surgeon's about to cut you open, he said, well, you know, I've read
- 55:48
- I've read a couple of articles on how to do this. You know, I'm kind of still trying to figure it out. You know, like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- 55:53
- You're not going to you're not going to cut me open. But when it comes to matters of eternity.
- 56:01
- Hey, it's OK. We're still trying to figure it out. No biggie. Right. It's astonishing.
- 56:08
- Absolutely astonishing. So Casey, we have to kind of begin to land the plane.
- 56:14
- I want to give you time to say anything else you want to say. We have. In fact, I've seen comments on our on the video that I did earlier on First Baptist Orlando.
- 56:24
- I saw a comment. I'll put it up on edited up here. OK, I'm going to interrupt myself here and just read this comment to you.
- 56:30
- This was a lady who posted on my first video on First Baptist Orlando.
- 56:36
- And I'm going to blur out her name for privacy, just even though her name is listed and she publicly put it up there.
- 56:42
- I'm just going to kind of err on caution here. And she said, I'm a member here. I'm very close friends with the leadership.
- 56:50
- I serve in the choir and on the welcome team with Danny's wife. Danny de Armas, the senior associate pastor.
- 56:58
- There are many homosexuals serving. I love these people so much.
- 57:04
- I've been struggling and grieving the Holy Spirit because I cannot be comfortable here. The Holy Spirit has been telling me to get out now for a while.
- 57:13
- Thank you so much, Justin. This was for me. I needed to hear you say get out. These people are my friends, but I cannot do it.
- 57:21
- I choose my Lord Jesus over everything. Thank you for this video. God bless you.
- 57:28
- And that, dear ones, that is the response of a Christian. That is someone, a sister in the
- 57:35
- Lord who's indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. And even though she loves the people there, she realizes that worship is the highest priority.
- 57:44
- And there is there is no worship going on there. They are not worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
- 57:50
- And she realizes this because she's indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And she knows it. He bears witness to her spirit of the truth.
- 57:58
- And she realizes she's got to get out. And she's right. And I guess you can you can read there what
- 58:05
- I replied to her from a lady who is a member of First Baptist Church Orlando.
- 58:12
- And she sees this. She knows there's homosexuals who are serving, who are being baptized in the church.
- 58:19
- And you also you we we've got first person eyewitness account testimony from people inside the church saying that, yes, they are doing this.
- 58:29
- Yes, that's absolutely true. And again, if if you if you meet
- 58:36
- Danny or David in a restaurant somewhere and you talk to them, you're going to get the tip of the iceberg.
- 58:42
- You're going to get a snowed over, you know, excuses. And man, you're going to they're very, very winsome.
- 58:51
- And so, again, the appeal is not to just listen to what is being said, but to discern by what they're doing.
- 58:57
- You'll know a man by their fruit. And so examine the scriptures. Don't be enamored by the smoothness of the speech.
- 59:05
- Don't be enamored by, you know, the fun, because First Baptist Orlando is just wrapped in celebratory fun.
- 59:12
- You go there. It's the place to be. They've relandscaped and done an amazing job with their facilities.
- 59:19
- And so you can go there and get some fried chicken or Starbucks. You can get baptized. You play in the playground, play on the
- 59:26
- AstroTurf grass and listen to some awesome music. You can slide down some slides in the children's department.
- 59:34
- It is very cool, you know, but here's the thing that never saved anybody.
- 59:40
- And it's it's an attractional methodology that keeps you giving the excuses as you go.
- 59:49
- And for myself, this is not fun. Nobody wakes up thinking, yes,
- 59:56
- I get to do this today. But according to the scriptures, Acts 20, 20, Paul said that I did not shrink back from telling you anything that was profitable.
- 01:00:06
- And that's my whole aim. I want to be here for people. I want to love them and tell them the truth.
- 01:00:13
- And I'll always, always tell the truth. I want to be in alignment with the reformers that have gone before us to the
- 01:00:21
- Protestant Reformation who have held true. I want to be in alignment with the Puritans. I want to be in alignment with those who who are stalwart and steadfast in the faith and who are not given to the ways of the world.
- 01:00:33
- And I praise God through the years that I've been here at Beulah Baptist Church in Winter Garden, that our people have a value to continue in the word of God and so prove that we are disciples of Christ.
- 01:00:46
- According to John 8, 31, we value truth and we want to know what the
- 01:00:52
- Bible has to say and how it opposes what is the cultural norm. We want to know how to defend ourselves against the ways of the world.
- 01:01:00
- We want to keep our children safe. We worship together as families. We're going down a very biblical path intentionally.
- 01:01:09
- And I'm so proud of our church members for standing strong because the popular thing to do is to go with the direction of the
- 01:01:16
- Southern Baptist Convention and Rick Warren, who is ordaining women as pastors and Danny Akin, who has hired an outright liberal professor who has endorsed the
- 01:01:28
- Revoice Conference that equips Christian gays. And that's an oxymoron. And the list goes on and on and on.
- 01:01:36
- So who knows how much longer our particular church will be Southern Baptist if the conservative
- 01:01:42
- Baptist network is not able to pull together and vote all this garbage out for which we're members of, then we won't be here much longer.
- 01:01:52
- We cannot hook our wagon to this. They're using our missions giving funds to forward this worldly narrative.
- 01:02:00
- And so critical race theory was voted in in 2019. Nothing was done about it since.
- 01:02:06
- And now there's a huge cry for unity, unity, unity. And I really do pray that even
- 01:02:15
- Votie Baucon's participation in the denomination here through the conservative
- 01:02:20
- Baptist network would make a difference. But I am ashamed at the
- 01:02:25
- Baptist press for publicizing an article that defames
- 01:02:32
- Votie's character with outright lies. I cannot believe that we're living in a day where this kind of stuff is allowed.
- 01:02:42
- And so Dr. John MacArthur is going to speak to the conservative
- 01:02:47
- Baptist network members at the next convention in Anaheim. Our delegates have tickets.
- 01:02:55
- We're going with a full roster to California. Our church voted to pay as many as we can go are going as much as allowed.
- 01:03:03
- And so we're going to go and do our absolute best to try and right all these wrongs.
- 01:03:08
- And if we don't see or perceive that there's any traction here, then we'll come back and give a report to our church.
- 01:03:16
- We'll wait to the following year to see if there's any traction there in 2023 in the south. But, brother,
- 01:03:22
- I'll be honest with you. This don't look good. This looks like the Titanic. And I am surprised at how many are unwilling to address critical race theory.
- 01:03:35
- I'm even surprised in our own state. Dr. Tommy Green, our executive treasurer, told me personally, we don't have a problem in Florida with social justice and wokeness.
- 01:03:47
- And my reply to that is, listen, if you ignore cancer, it's going to be a silent killer.
- 01:03:53
- And that was two years ago when I talked to him about that. One of his employees,
- 01:03:59
- Jeff Singletary, a personal friend of mine, a dear friend of our church. He spoke here at our church, just was preaching at Willie Rice's church and was peddling all of this wokeness and actually accused us of preaching a fragmented gospel.
- 01:04:18
- Jesus said the unifying, the identifying mark of the child of God is that we love one another.
- 01:04:29
- How did we miss this verse? Yes, we are dealing with the turmoil, division and divisiveness of a broken culture.
- 01:04:43
- There is tension, friction, misunderstanding, anger, hatred that exists along racial lines.
- 01:04:53
- One of the reasons for this is that too many in the
- 01:04:58
- American church who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ have preached and taught a fragmented gospel.
- 01:05:10
- They preached and taught a cultural gospel rather than the authentic gospel of the
- 01:05:16
- Lord Jesus Christ. They perpetuated a colonial narrative of white supremacy.
- 01:05:23
- The colonial gospel served to justify the further enslavement of Africans and further enslaved their mind, their body, soul and spirit.
- 01:05:37
- And brother, I'm broken hearted over all of this. And like you in times past have attached all of these issues like a train.
- 01:05:46
- Yeah. Wokeness is all connected underneath the surface. And to be part of one element is to be a part of it all.
- 01:05:54
- And so what all has to be addressed and to peddle any of this language is to cater to this worldly movement.
- 01:06:03
- And it is outright heresy. It is adding to the gospel.
- 01:06:09
- Galatians one nails it. You cannot add anything to the gospel unless you nullify
- 01:06:14
- Christ's atonement on the cross. And that's my plea to the pastors. Have a basic element of discernment about you.
- 01:06:23
- Stand upon the word of God no matter what. And be honorable in these areas.
- 01:06:29
- Yeah. Indeed, brother. Indeed. I know it's just it's shocking to see the state of affairs in the
- 01:06:36
- SBC. And at this point, I could never recommend any young man who wants to go into the ministry to be trained.
- 01:06:44
- Get his education at a Southern Baptist seminary. And I graduated from a Southern Baptist seminary. I couldn't do it at this point because, you know, they're inviting
- 01:06:52
- Ed Litton in to speak at their chapels. Who's a known plagiarist. And then when confronted about it, lied about his plagiarism.
- 01:07:00
- And he's being celebrated. He's being put behind the pulpit. It's just on and on and on.
- 01:07:08
- Well, brother, thank you. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your faithfulness to stand up for the truth.
- 01:07:17
- Appreciate you very much, Casey. And again, you are the pastor at Bula Baptist Church in Winter Garden outside of Orlando.
- 01:07:28
- And so I'm going to put the link to your church down below there in the description so folks can find you.
- 01:07:34
- And I let me let me say this as we close. And I know, Casey, you would agree with this.
- 01:07:40
- If if you're watching this video and maybe you're a member of First Baptist Orlando or you're you're at another church and you're seeing these same things in your church and you're you realize you're in a bad church.
- 01:07:52
- I look up here at the camera so I can address folks. If you're if you're seeing these things and you're wondering, should
- 01:08:00
- I stay in my church and I'll leave. Maybe I can stay and fix things. You're not going to fix them.
- 01:08:06
- You're a congregation is not going to rise to a level of spiritual maturity above that of its leadership.
- 01:08:14
- It's just not going to happen. You're not going to change the church. You need to be in a real church, biblically defined church with biblically qualified elders who are men.
- 01:08:26
- A church who a church that exposits the word committed to expository preaching a church that does church discipline per Matthew chapter 1815 through 20.
- 01:08:37
- Look for a church that has these marks and and find it and join yourself to it.
- 01:08:45
- You're not going to change the week or the bad church that you're in. You need to be in a real church because it's only in a real church that you can truly worship in spirit and in truth.
- 01:08:55
- So, Casey, brother, thank you so much. Any anything else you'd like to say before we land the plane here?
- 01:09:04
- Now, that's it, Justin. Thank you for your time. Thank you for inviting me on your show. And I appreciate your friendship.
- 01:09:11
- Yeah, I appreciate yours as well. I sure do. Thank you very much, brother. Thank you, sir.
- 01:09:22
- So, Tom, brother. Thank you very much. Let me first say I'm so appreciative of your friendship and appreciative of your service.
- 01:09:30
- And you and I share the same concerns that you and I were on the same. We were on the the meeting that ended up producing the statement on social justice and the gospel.
- 01:09:41
- And you've been very active in the SBC as much as you can be to engage these issues.
- 01:09:46
- You, along with Tom Askell and Votie Balkan, I'd say are kind of the some of the point men in the SBC that have been pushing back against the
- 01:09:54
- CRT. And as you have pointed out, Tom, the social justice movement is a train.
- 01:10:01
- And once that engine comes in, you've got all these these cars that are coming along with it. One of which is the homosexual car, something that a handful of years ago, none of us would have ever expected the
- 01:10:14
- SBC to capitulate on. And yet we are seeing that right in front of our eyes. I just spoke with Casey Butner, the pastor of Beulah Baptist Church in Winter Garden, Florida, outside of Orlando.
- 01:10:26
- And so we were talking about that. And so I wanted to bring you in on this as well. Tom, thank you first.
- 01:10:32
- Thank you very much for coming. And tell us just a little bit about yourself, where you pastor and your concerns with this as well and what you are seeing and what you want to engage today.
- 01:10:47
- Well, Justin, first of all, I just want to say how much I appreciate you. I mean, I think that needs to be said. I know that so many people do.
- 01:10:53
- But you've just been a faithful servant of God to be willing to address issues, tough issues, take them on straightforward.
- 01:11:00
- I've watched your ministry and been blessed from afar long before we've been able to become friends.
- 01:11:07
- And so I've respected you for a long time and thankful for you. I'm down in East Texas.
- 01:11:13
- We're near Tyler, a town called Lindale, and we're about an hour and 15 minutes east of Dallas.
- 01:11:19
- I've been here at First Baptist Church for 16 years. This past Sunday was my 16 year anniversary. And so thankful for the years
- 01:11:26
- I've been able to be here. And I have been Southern Baptist my entire life.
- 01:11:33
- I was a member or not a member, but I was a part of Southern Baptist Church forever. Got saved, obviously, because I was in an
- 01:11:40
- SBC nursery one week after I was born. And I've been in my entire life.
- 01:11:46
- So I have a vested interest in these type of things, discussions that we're having.
- 01:11:52
- And you're right, the social justice train has been plowing through the Southern Baptist Convention. I think it's been plowing through unknowingly so for a while before it even showed up at our churches.
- 01:12:04
- It's been plowing through our institutions for some time. And I said a few years ago when
- 01:12:09
- Josh Weiss at G3 had a had a panel, of course, Josh Weiss has been a leading voice.
- 01:12:14
- He's the organizer of the statement that we signed a meeting for that. And then, you know, just left the
- 01:12:22
- SBC. But I said at that conference on a panel that this social justice train is coming and it will be pulling up to your church very soon.
- 01:12:31
- That was in 2019. Little did I know that the entire all three cart boxcars of this social justice engine is now in the
- 01:12:43
- SBC full force. We've seen it with, you know, the soft kind of issues like same sex attraction and living out.
- 01:12:52
- And Sam Albury, who worked very closely with the ERLC. And there's been you know, they've been pushing these edges for a while.
- 01:13:00
- And now with this situation, First Baptist Orlando, I think we see it starting to come into full bloom.
- 01:13:06
- Yes, indeed. Yeah, we have for sure. And in shocking things we we've seen in recent weeks,
- 01:13:14
- Tom, the last couple of months as of this recording, that the pastor and senior associate pastor,
- 01:13:21
- David Youth and Danny Dearmus, respectively, have both said that their church has open homosexual people, transgender people, to use their terms, serving and growing in the church.
- 01:13:36
- And just interviewed Casey Butner. Oh, and David, you said that he was reading an article from Erwin McManus saying that every healthy church must have heretics and sexually immoral people in it.
- 01:13:50
- You've got to have those folks in your church in order to be healthy, which is an astonishing thing to say.
- 01:13:59
- So and these were not these were not slips of the tongue or being inarticulate. I mean, he's reading an article.
- 01:14:05
- He's making that point very forcibly. And Casey Butner just told us about how there are he got a letter or an email from someone who was a member there and absolutely affirms they are.
- 01:14:16
- They are baptizing and accepting as members open homosexuals.
- 01:14:22
- So that spurred you, correct, Tom, to write the North American Mission Board, NAMB, about your concerns and their partnership with First Baptist Orlando.
- 01:14:33
- Talk to us a little bit about that and your interaction with them. Yeah, I think that, you know, this let's just clarify a couple of things.
- 01:14:40
- I think one is I think that you and I would agree and correct me if I'm wrong on this, that we want our churches to be a place where an unbeliever can come in.
- 01:14:49
- Right. And, you know, we would put this in quotations welcome in the sense that we would show love to them.
- 01:14:56
- We would want, you know, as we see in First Corinthians, that they would come in and see how God's people worship
- 01:15:01
- God and they follow their needs and believe upon the ever living God. We, you know, of course, we don't want to put on our door no
- 01:15:11
- LGBT people welcome. That would just be that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about in serving is not even if, you know, if if we were setting up tables and in the room and one of these individuals of whatever issue of sin that they're dealing with, whether it's
- 01:15:32
- LGBT or maybe they're, you know, an adulterer or something of that nature is coming to the church. And they began to help us, you know, put the tables away.
- 01:15:41
- We're not going to push them to the ground and say, you can't serve here. That's not what we're talking about. This is what we're talking about.
- 01:15:46
- And what we know they're talking about is giving them a sense of normality in the church.
- 01:15:52
- That's why they use the term belong before you believe. Right. And they say, which first time
- 01:15:58
- I ever heard that was with Andy Stanley. And we want them to feel like that they're a part of the community.
- 01:16:04
- And then that will lead to them eventually being able to believe. Now, there's all kinds of problems with that. Obviously, their doctrine or their soteriology is driving towards that's a man centered doctrine.
- 01:16:14
- And because they don't believe that you can stand and preach strongly against homosexuality, you've got to give you've got to have a death by death by a thousand qualifications of how you know that.
- 01:16:26
- Well, I have friends who are homosexuals and I understand homosexuality is not any different than any other sin. But we don't talk about any other sin that way.
- 01:16:33
- Right. We don't say I have lots of friends that are adulterers and we've got a few adulterers on the front row today.
- 01:16:40
- And and and we want them to feel like they belong. It's it's it's ludicrous and absurd.
- 01:16:47
- But we've got to define these things correctly so that people think that not not think or think we're saying something we're not.
- 01:16:55
- Yeah. So, yeah. In fact, just very recently, we had a this is absolutely true.
- 01:17:01
- We had a transgender individual come into our church. It was a man who was dressed like a woman. He came in and sat near the back on my right as I was looking.
- 01:17:11
- I actually thought it was a woman. And then I found out after the service that it was actually a man.
- 01:17:17
- And our church people knew when they as soon as you were around him, you could tell it was a man.
- 01:17:22
- They were kind to him. The ushers gave him a seat. The people that sat around him were kind to him.
- 01:17:29
- So and that's the way it should be. But we're not going to coddle or give them a sense of belonging because they don't belong.
- 01:17:36
- So I wrote NAMM because David Youth in that video made the statement that they were going to be partner in the same video where he announced all this stuff, that they were going to be partnering with NAMM to plant churches.
- 01:17:48
- I think it was on the campus of UCF, which would be University of Central Florida in Orlando. And and just talking about that partnership that he was going to have.
- 01:17:59
- Well, you know, as well as I do, if you're a if you're affirming or even soft in your position on LGBT, it's going to most certainly show up on a college campus.
- 01:18:10
- You're not going to be harder about that position at a college campus than you are in your local church.
- 01:18:16
- That's for sure. So I I can't help what FBC Orlando does. In one sense, I believe they should be disfellowshipped from the
- 01:18:23
- Southern Baptist Convention because they're a biblical position, which is, in my understanding, a violation of the
- 01:18:29
- Baptist faith and message. We have a very strong statement about homosexuality. And I doubt these same people would say,
- 01:18:36
- I have lots of friends that are racist. We have some racists on the front row today. And racism is not different than any other sin.
- 01:18:43
- And we want them to feel like they belong before they believe that would never be said. And the Southern Baptist Convention would come down on them very quick and very fast and use the
- 01:18:52
- Baptist faith and message statement on race regarding. So I wrote Nam and I'll share with you what
- 01:18:59
- I asked. OK, please do. So I've learned to be very specific because you don't you have to hone in on the question.
- 01:19:08
- So does Nam ascribe to the ministry philosophy that you can belong before you believe?
- 01:19:14
- OK. OK. In other words, that you can serve in roles at the church, even if they're heretics or living in sexually immoral sin.
- 01:19:24
- OK. Straight question, right? Great question. Yep. Question number two. Now that FBC Orlando has made it clear that they're partnering with Nam to plant churches that fit with their belong before you believe philosophy.
- 01:19:38
- There seems to be only three answers that could be given. A. Nam knew this was
- 01:19:45
- FBC Orlando's philosophy and is fine with partnering with them. B. Nam did not know this was
- 01:19:51
- FBC Orlando's philosophy, but we will continue to partner with them. Or C. Nam did not know that this was
- 01:19:58
- FBC's philosophy and we're going to withdraw from any partnership to plant such churches. That's pretty straightforward, right?
- 01:20:05
- It's pretty straightforward. Yes, it is. So the answer I got was Nam has a strong and thorough process for vetting church planters.
- 01:20:13
- They meet it and they must meet our standards and guidelines before they're ever endorsed or funded.
- 01:20:20
- Of course, they all have to agree to the Baptist faith and message. BFM 2000 brings much unity and clarity, says something about that.
- 01:20:28
- And then it says, while I would decline the invitation to weigh in on how local churches conduct their individual ministries.
- 01:20:34
- If you have not done so already, I encourage you to personally contact David Youth at First Orlando and address your concerns with him.
- 01:20:45
- Not one question I asked was answered. Right. And what's that got to do with it? So I replied back.
- 01:20:52
- And by the way, I sent him the video clips that I was referring to so he could review them.
- 01:20:58
- They were in the email. I responded back and said, the point of my email was not for you to undermine the autonomy of FBC Orlando.
- 01:21:08
- My concern in coming to you is that David Youth says that they're partnering with Nam to plant these kind of churches.
- 01:21:17
- So I'm asking if a Nam church plant would be allowed to practice such a thing. And I gave an illustration of the racism illustration, you know, that nobody would allow that.
- 01:21:29
- Right. So the response I got back, I did not get a response back from him.
- 01:21:36
- I got a response back from one of his persons that he gave it to.
- 01:21:41
- And he said, Kevin's traveling and in meetings and asked that I would reply. He said, I think his first response addresses all your concerns.
- 01:21:49
- We track closely BFM 2000, yada, yada, yada. But it seems best in your situation to reach out to First Baptist Orlando.
- 01:21:58
- Why? First Baptist Orlando doesn't run Nam. David Youth's not the president of Nam. I'm asking a simple question.
- 01:22:05
- Yeah. We own Nam churches. It should have been, no, we don't practice belonging before you believe.
- 01:22:10
- We wouldn't do that. No, we would not allow LGBT people to serve. Right. So I'm kind of a bulldog, as you know, on these type of things.
- 01:22:17
- So I wrote back again and I said, you must have not read my questions. And I asked the question specifically again.
- 01:22:25
- I said, so I wanted to be as clear as possible and said, is
- 01:22:30
- Nam planting churches with them on the UCF campus? He writes back and says to me again, we follow the
- 01:22:39
- BFM 2000, yada, yada, yada, does not answer the question. I write back again and say,
- 01:22:48
- David, you said that Nam is partnering with FBC Orlando to plant a church on the campus of UCF.
- 01:22:55
- Is this true? And that was the 16th of March.
- 01:23:02
- And on March 18th, which was Friday, I received this response. Thank you for your latest email.
- 01:23:08
- I look forward to getting back to you next week sometime. I mean, it's a yes or no question.
- 01:23:15
- Right. Right. And it's not a gotcha question. No. Like, do you still beat your wife?
- 01:23:21
- Right. Right. No. You can't. I'm setting you up. Yeah. Are you planting churches with First Baptist Orlando on UCF campus or are you not?
- 01:23:33
- Right. Right. That's not a hard question. That's not it's as you said, it's yes or no.
- 01:23:39
- They wasted much more time dancing around that and much more time and effort dancing around that and obfuscating than it would have taken just to answer the questions.
- 01:23:49
- Yeah. You see this? Yep. These are all the emails. Wow. To get a question, to get that question answered.
- 01:23:58
- And I still don't have an answer to it. So, you know,
- 01:24:04
- I don't know what to say. We're in deep trouble because this is this is where money for my church is going.
- 01:24:13
- Yeah. FBC Orlando can plant whatever kind of churches they want to. But when
- 01:24:18
- NAM takes the money from churches like mine and others, they owe us an answer. And they don't need to wait and find out if the church planter is going to it's coming out of that stream.
- 01:24:31
- I guarantee you NAM would not partner to plant churches with a church that talked about welcoming open races.
- 01:24:41
- Yeah, that's right. That's right. Nor should they. Yeah, exactly. Or should they?
- 01:24:47
- I mean, they accuse us as conservatives, I guess, they accuse us of harping on one issue.
- 01:24:55
- You know, with you, it's always about abortion or gay marriage. But I guarantee you,
- 01:25:00
- Tom, and you're so right in what you said, if we were dealing with open racists.
- 01:25:06
- I mean, I guarantee you if someone walked into First Baptist Church Orlando wearing a white hood, they wouldn't be baptized there.
- 01:25:17
- They wouldn't be growing and serving there. That's exactly right. They'd be run out on the rail.
- 01:25:23
- And rightly so. And rightly so. Exactly. And rightly so. They would be called to repentance.
- 01:25:34
- What we're dealing with at this point is not just a lack of discernment. This is more than that.
- 01:25:41
- This is spiritual malpractice in the pulpit. It's spiritual malpractice among the pastors of that church.
- 01:25:51
- David Youth has no more of a business being a pastor of a local church than, you know, whatever you might compare that to if somebody that has no business whatsoever.
- 01:26:03
- That's just the point. He has no business doing that. Any more business than I would have coaching someone how to run a triathlon.
- 01:26:11
- Well, point taken, but I couldn't say that. Or me running a weight loss camp.
- 01:26:17
- But anyway, that on the side, we have got to start addressing these things with extreme boldness.
- 01:26:26
- It's time to quit playing around because souls are at stake, including the LGBT people who need the gospel of Jesus Christ, who need to hear that God calls them to repentance.
- 01:26:40
- And when you baptize them, in fact, one of the things that was said is, and I don't know if your other interview covered this or not, but they said they would baptize someone as long as they'll call.
- 01:26:52
- As long as the person being baptized will say Jesus is Lord. And they either confirm or they defer to their doctrinal statement.
- 01:27:07
- Where has anybody ever heard of anything like that? And here's what they mean by that. It's quite clear.
- 01:27:13
- They can either fully embrace their doctrinal statement or they can say, you know, I'm not ready yet to give up my lifestyle of homosexuality.
- 01:27:22
- I'll be going home tonight to live a life of debauchery. But I'll defer to your statement that says something different than I believe, but I believe enough to be able to say
- 01:27:36
- Jesus is Lord. They don't understand what Lord means. Nope. So this is easy believism on steroids.
- 01:27:47
- Yep. This is a kind of stuff that would have made
- 01:27:52
- Rick Warren blush with shame 20 years ago. Maybe it wouldn't now, probably wouldn't now, but it would have 20 years ago.
- 01:27:59
- But you're right. This is easy believism on steroids. And it's not enough to just say Jesus is
- 01:28:05
- Lord. Kenneth Copeland says that. That's his byline. I mean, a
- 01:28:10
- Mormon could say that. So it's meaningless unless you actually internalize what that means.
- 01:28:19
- And it has an impact upon your life. Well, what does 1 Corinthians tell us? No one can say Jesus is
- 01:28:24
- Lord apart from the work of the Spirit in their life. So if they don't really have the Holy Spirit, they can't.
- 01:28:29
- Whatever they're saying is not truly Jesus is Lord, right? Which is what Paul's addressing there. A real affirming of that.
- 01:28:37
- But what we're seeing right now in the SBC is the metastasizing of the cancer of pragmatism.
- 01:28:43
- That's what we're seeing. This is from the same stream as firetruck baptistries that Ronnie Floyd had.
- 01:28:52
- This is from the same stream of all of that. It just is worse, if you will, because now we're dealing with an easy believism and a type of pragmatism that is now allowing some of the grossest rebellion to be brought into the church and to be sanctified and washed, if you will, by the waters of the baptistry.
- 01:29:12
- This is no small thing. And if we don't identify the stream from which this flows, where all of this is coming from, we're never going to be able to fix the
- 01:29:24
- SBC. This cancer cannot just be cut off by nipping the tip of this, of the
- 01:29:31
- LGBT issues. We're only going to fix the SBC if we go to the root of it and dig it out at its root, do the radiation, whatever needs to be done to get it out.
- 01:29:41
- And that's not going to happen as long as we continue to have pragmatists running the
- 01:29:47
- SBC. And that's why I have very little hope that we're going to be able to turn this around. Yeah, so many of these churches,
- 01:29:54
- I mean, FBC Orlando, and they're not the only ones doing this. They're just kind of the ones we're talking about.
- 01:30:00
- They're one of the larger, it's one of the larger churches in the SBC. But if there were truly any real doctrinal standards with some teeth behind it, if you will,
- 01:30:13
- FBC Orlando would have been kicked out of the SBC. They would have been kicked out of the
- 01:30:19
- SBC for doing this 20 years ago. But not now. Now they're being celebrated.
- 01:30:24
- Now, David Youth, he was the president of the pastor's conference in the
- 01:30:30
- SBC in, was it 2019 or 2020? Yes, and was bringing in a woman pastor for that.
- 01:30:37
- And that wasn't even the biggest story. The biggest scandal was not a woman pastor. That tells you something.
- 01:30:42
- The biggest scandal was a church that he had that was sexually immoral in the way that they did their quote unquote worship, which was down in Florida.
- 01:30:51
- So, we knew that there were problems. But nobody really wanted to deal with it because they won't deal with the megachurch.
- 01:30:59
- Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They won't deal with the megachurch. Because the bigger church, the more influence, the more power it wields.
- 01:31:08
- You don't know this yet because I just interviewed Casey and I know you haven't seen it. But Casey Butner was telling me that he was speaking personally with David Youth and about baptism and baptizing homosexuals and transgender people.
- 01:31:25
- And David Youth actually told him, he said, well, you know, with baptism, we're still working these things out.
- 01:31:32
- We're still trying to decide what we believe or how we're going to do this. We're working it out. What do you mean you're working it out?
- 01:31:39
- You're a pastor. You don't understand baptism? Well, that's why I said it's malpractice. He has no business being in the pulpit.
- 01:31:46
- Right. No, he doesn't. I mean, I don't say that lightly. Matthew 28,
- 01:31:52
- Jesus told us we don't have to work it out. When we baptize them, it's leading to teach them to observe all the things that Christ commanded.
- 01:32:00
- But one of the things that they claim, from what I understand, is that sanctification begins really after baptism.
- 01:32:08
- So they have this very low bar for baptism. And then
- 01:32:13
- I think what they're reading is you baptize them and then you teach them to observe all things that I've commanded.
- 01:32:19
- I think that's how they read that, which they need another class in exegesis. Because that in no way is what what is being said in that passage.
- 01:32:29
- Right. Let me say one other thing, at least. And that is how the culture is influencing the church on these things.
- 01:32:37
- I was also repulsed growing up when the church's attitude towards homosexuality mirrored the culture in the past where they would make fun of homosexuals in the pulpit.
- 01:32:50
- And they would demean them as just as people. Right. Where they would make comments like, you know, it's true that God made
- 01:32:58
- Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. That's actually a truth. I don't have a problem with the truth of that. But you can say it in such a way that it's clear that you're mocking and you're if someone was sitting out there in the audience listening that truly was, you know, engulfed in that lifestyle.
- 01:33:15
- That in no way is calling them to the kind of repentance Jesus would call them to. So I'm repulsed by the church following the cultural trends of mocking homosexuality 30 years ago.
- 01:33:27
- And now I'm just as repulsed, probably more so because it's now pushing them towards the sin.
- 01:33:33
- Yeah. By us mirroring the culture now to be affirming. It was wrong then. It's wrong now.
- 01:33:39
- And the same thing that was wrong in both situations is a misapplication and mishandling of the word of God.
- 01:33:45
- We need to stand true on what God's word says regarding every sin.
- 01:33:51
- So let me ask you this, because one of the things he says in the video is that homosexuality is like every other sin.
- 01:33:58
- So I don't know if you've seen the video where they have a male ballerina dancing for worship.
- 01:34:03
- Have you seen that? Which is interesting. Now, apparently this young man is now married and I hope, you know, hopefully he has completely turned from that lifestyle and repented of it.
- 01:34:16
- It seems like from the conversation that David you've had did. But he makes this statement that, well, homosexuality is no different than any other type of sin.
- 01:34:24
- How would you answer that? Because I don't think I would say that in that way. No, I wouldn't.
- 01:34:29
- I wouldn't say it that way either. I mean, it is true. I mean, James tells us if you offend in one aspect of the law, you break one law, you've broken them all.
- 01:34:37
- So in that sense, but homosexuality is, well, we know from Scripture that sexual sin is different, right?
- 01:34:44
- Because it's committed inside the body, not outside the body. It has, there's something fundamentally different with sexual sin.
- 01:34:51
- But homosexual sin especially is of a different nature than heterosexual sin in that it's not inherently sinful to be heterosexual.
- 01:35:09
- That's God's design. It's not inherently sinful for a young Christian man to be attracted to a young Christian woman.
- 01:35:16
- I mean, if that was not the case and nobody would ever get married. But homosexual desire and activity, that is a uniquely post -fall sin.
- 01:35:30
- That did not come into play until after the fall.
- 01:35:35
- No man would have been attracted to another man before the fall. Although men would have been attracted to women. Yes, men would have been.
- 01:35:42
- Not in an ungodly sexual way, exploiting way, but would have had an attraction.
- 01:35:47
- Right. Yes. Yeah. Not in a perverted way, but that is God's natural design for men to be attracted to women.
- 01:35:54
- It is not God's design. Never was God's design for a man to be attracted to another man or a woman to be attracted to another woman.
- 01:36:01
- And when you, so it's a uniquely post -fall desire. So it's disordered in a way that heterosexual is not disordered.
- 01:36:12
- It's not inherently sinful. Now, absolutely there is heterosexual sin to be sure, but it's not inherently sinful to be heterosexual.
- 01:36:21
- But when you look at the language of 1 Corinthians 6, when Paul says, do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor revilers, nor covetous, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
- 01:36:35
- But then he says in verse 11, for such were some, or verse 10, for such were some of you.
- 01:36:41
- You were those things, but you're not anymore. You were a reviler, but you're not anymore.
- 01:36:47
- You were covetous, but you're not anymore. You were a homosexual, but you're not anymore.
- 01:36:53
- That's very strong language in the Greek. It's a complete break from that identity.
- 01:37:00
- And we, Tom, you and I, we hear this a lot and we hear it from, we've heard it from Revoice and these other venues that it's coming from, coming out of, but a gay
- 01:37:11
- Christian, as long as you don't act on it, it's okay. You can be a gay
- 01:37:16
- Christian, just don't act on it. Well, as Christians, our identity is not in our sin.
- 01:37:24
- Our identity is in Christ. There's no more any such thing as a gay
- 01:37:30
- Christian as there would be a child molesting Christian. You never hear that. I'm a child molesting
- 01:37:36
- Christian. Or a racist Christian. Or a racist Christian. Or a racist
- 01:37:41
- Christian. You don't hear that. I'm a bank robbing Christian. We don't say that for any other sin, but we do for homosexuals.
- 01:37:53
- So that's a canard to say that homosexuality is just like any other sin.
- 01:38:00
- No, it's, if you're truly a Christian, you're going to be, that identity will be broken.
- 01:38:06
- Yeah, and you just touched on something. In verse 11, it is verse 11, and such were some of you.
- 01:38:12
- Now listen to the next four words, but you were washed. Yes. Now that's talking about spiritual washing, right?
- 01:38:20
- Yes. That's talking about when we're saved, that we're cleansed, washed. And that happens when?
- 01:38:28
- That happens at the point of salvation. That's right. Now we know that theologically we continue to have our feet washed if we use the upper room discourse, right?
- 01:38:41
- That there's still that need to go on and continue washing. But if we take that, what is baptism?
- 01:38:50
- It's a spiritual picture, it's a physical picture of the spiritual reality. Yep. So why would you wash someone with the physical baptistry waters if there's not evidence that they've been spiritually washed?
- 01:39:04
- That's right. You see, this is not rocket science. No. So there is not a,
- 01:39:10
- I'm from Tennessee. I've always said, if I can get this, anybody should be able to get it. It's not intelligence.
- 01:39:16
- I have a Southern accent. The SBC knows I have no intelligence. That's another story with Nam on another day.
- 01:39:23
- But clearly, we should not baptize anybody that is not giving evidence that they were washed spiritually.
- 01:39:36
- And someone who says, I'm still a homosexual, that's a violation of 1
- 01:39:42
- Corinthians 6, or a misunderstanding, misapplication, whatever, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and 10. That's right.
- 01:39:48
- The other thing I would say on that is, don't you find it interesting that two of the boxcars of social justice are egalitarianism, the issue of women, and the
- 01:40:00
- LGBT issues. Both of those defy the created order. Yep. Both of them.
- 01:40:06
- Yes, they do. Paul says this in Romans 1 for LGBT issues, and he says it in 1
- 01:40:12
- Corinthians 2, 12, regarding the issue of women teaching. Social justice training,
- 01:40:20
- CRT, is wicked, it is vile, it's anti -God. It's not a useful tool.
- 01:40:27
- It is of the enemy, the devil. This is not overstatement. It absolutely can be illustrated from the fact that the very thing that Satan does is what critical race theory does, and what these
- 01:40:42
- SBC churches that are employing it are doing. They are joining
- 01:40:47
- Satan in his attempts to undermine the Bride of Christ, to destroy the
- 01:40:52
- Bride of Christ, to infiltrate the Bride of Christ. This is a serious issue.
- 01:40:58
- I don't speak lightly about these things unless I believe it's on this level, and I believe it is.
- 01:41:04
- And unless we root it out, it will be a cancer, as Paul warns about. We're not even dealing with a little leaven at this point.
- 01:41:14
- The little leaven was the firetruck baptistry. This is the metastasizing, this is the leaven having worked through.
- 01:41:24
- Yeah, that's right. And you're absolutely right,
- 01:41:29
- Tom. From the firetruck baptistry to where we are now, that's... In fact,
- 01:41:36
- Casey and I were talking about how they're at First Baptist Orlando. They're baptisms. They've got this huge, ornate outside area with a pool and waterfalls, and they've got a
- 01:41:53
- DJ going. They've got the music, fried chicken if you want to, and I guess a
- 01:41:59
- Starbucks is there at the church. I mean, it's like Disney World, and rather apropos because it's in Disney World's backyard.
- 01:42:09
- But yeah, I mean, who wouldn't want to be baptized with that going on? Their baptistry is a cesspool of godless immorality.
- 01:42:21
- Being blessed at some level because they will not address the sin that needs to be repented of.
- 01:42:27
- And they blaspheme the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by having someone say
- 01:42:33
- Jesus is Lord, who does no more than defer to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
- 01:42:39
- And anybody who is unwilling to speak out on this either is a coward or doesn't understand the scriptures enough, and they need to go back to Sunday school, first grade
- 01:42:52
- Sunday school. And I'm not trying to mock. I believe this. No, I know you do.
- 01:42:57
- And I agree with you 100%. I made the point in my interview with Casey.
- 01:43:04
- You know, Tom, it's interesting that in every area of life, we seek out the best. We seek out people proficient in their field of expertise of work.
- 01:43:13
- We want a good mechanic to fix our car. We want the best dentist to fill our cavities. We want the best plumber to fix our leaky sink even.
- 01:43:21
- But when it comes to the one thing that is by far the most important, the shepherding, the nurturing of our eternal souls, the handling of God's eternal word, who is
- 01:43:34
- God, who is thrice holy. Nothing is more important than that. And yet when it comes to that, oh, anything will do.
- 01:43:42
- You know, he's got to win some personality. Yeah, he might not be able to exegete himself out of a wet paper bag, but he's nice.
- 01:43:50
- He tells nice stories. I mean, it is trivializing that which should be by far the most important thing to us.
- 01:44:00
- We would not want a doctor who told us we had a cold when we have cancer. But they're fine with a pastor to tell somebody they have the sniffles.
- 01:44:09
- When in reality, they're dead. Feet two, one to three. We don't want to hear that.
- 01:44:16
- We want to believe we're alive. The thing that we hate more than anything else is rebels of God is to be told that we're under his wrath.
- 01:44:25
- We believe too much well about ourselves. And I preached Ephesians two, one to three
- 01:44:30
- Sunday and addressed this very strongly. I addressed
- 01:44:36
- FBC Orlando from the pulpit because it was apropos. I was talking about when I preached
- 01:44:41
- Ephesians two, one to three, I went back and looked at my notes. And last time I preached, it was in 1998.
- 01:44:48
- That's 25 years ago. And I've preached through many other books, but I hadn't preached through Ephesians two, one to ten.
- 01:44:56
- And it may have been the first time I preached it. But anyway, I went back and looked at my notes. And in 1998,
- 01:45:02
- I said, because I was talking about how the age of this world sways us and how that unbelievers and how that unbelievers will, you know, 25 years ago would be against things.
- 01:45:16
- If the culture was against it, if the sway of the world's against it, they're against it. And if they're for it, they're for it.
- 01:45:22
- And they're OK with morality as long as the culture is agreeing with it or, you know, having sense of morality.
- 01:45:29
- And in 1998, I said these words, our culture is beginning to accept and embrace homosexuality.
- 01:45:37
- Our culture is beginning to 25 years ago. Yeah, and it really was.
- 01:45:42
- They didn't believe in gay marriage back in 1998. The majority didn't know. And I said in that sermon that my life before my lifetime ends, if I live long enough, that gay marriage will be legal.
- 01:45:55
- Yeah. And people back then, my wife affirmed this on Sunday, that people back then said,
- 01:46:01
- Tom, you're just you overstate things. And I said, yes, I do. I overstate a lot of things, but not when it comes.
- 01:46:08
- I don't I try not to do that when it comes to the word of God, even more so. And it wasn't an overstatement.
- 01:46:16
- I never did. I dream that in 25 years we would move not only from gay to gay marriage, but where a man is standing before you that you can visibly see.
- 01:46:29
- Right. Is a man. Right. Because there's no woman that ugly.
- 01:46:34
- That's right. Has what's her name? That's the general. Oh, man, it's clearly a man.
- 01:46:42
- Rachel Levine. Rachel Levine. It's clearly a man. And the world is saying this is a woman.
- 01:46:49
- Yeah. Yeah. How did we get there? Part of why we got there.
- 01:46:55
- And I'm going to say this and I believe it wholeheartedly. Is because of churches like First Baptist Orlando.
- 01:47:02
- And the SBC who has coddled these type of churches for years that have pushed pragmatism and there's not been anybody standing on the walls warning of the danger that is coming.
- 01:47:18
- And when there have been men that have stood up to do that, they've been scoffed. They've been mocked.
- 01:47:24
- They've been rebuked. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
- 01:47:29
- You've suffered this yourself. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. We have gone from, as you said, 25 years ago, being just could not even comprehend that one day there would be homosexual marriage.
- 01:47:47
- And now it's not only being accepted by the culture, it's being accepted by the quote unquote church. That's right.
- 01:47:53
- That that is shocking to me. I mean, I think it was in 2008 that even
- 01:48:00
- California voted down same sex marriage. I mean, that's just the state of California, as liberal as it is.
- 01:48:08
- And now we're now fast forward to 2022 and we're baptizing.
- 01:48:15
- I say we, but some Southern Baptist churches are baptizing open homosexual people.
- 01:48:21
- That is shocking. Yeah. Let me share. Let me share this one story with you, Justin.
- 01:48:26
- So people, I don't think I've shared this with you, but to show you that where I come from and what
- 01:48:33
- I believe about the power of the gospel. Yeah. In 19. This would probably be 1997.
- 01:48:41
- OK, 19 around that time. Ninety seven. Ninety eight. Yeah. That I preached Ephesians to one to three.
- 01:48:47
- We had a guy in our church who was a believer, but came forward and confessed that he had struggled with the issue of being attracted to men.
- 01:48:59
- He had even engaged in the past in that activity, repented publicly about it, was totally open with the elders and the church about his past.
- 01:49:10
- Right. And he eventually he eventually worked in our church, not as a pastor, not as a deacon, not as an elder.
- 01:49:20
- OK. But he was openly repentant. But, I mean, he was on the payroll. Right. OK. Right.
- 01:49:26
- But we were very careful about where, you know, where he was and all of those things. So I went over our children or anything of that nature.
- 01:49:34
- Not that not that all homosexuals are attracted. It's just we were careful. Right. Sure. We didn't put him over our students or anything of that nature.
- 01:49:41
- Yeah. But the point I'm sharing that with you, his we we saw his life as being transformed and changed.
- 01:49:47
- He was repentant. He was open. He could there were certain areas that we wouldn't put him in to serve. Yeah. But we didn't shun the man.
- 01:49:55
- Right. So now I guarantee you that me doing that back in ninety five, ninety six, whatever, there would have been some people who would have said that I that I shouldn't do that.
- 01:50:05
- That are now on the other side. Right. Saying that we need to be open. I'm talking about a biblical balance of the gospel that says you look at someone and you say, if you continue in that lifestyle, you're evidencing that you're never saved.
- 01:50:19
- That's right. You're not going to inherit the kingdom of God. That's right. You need to come out of that and repent of that.
- 01:50:25
- Yeah. There may be limitations for where you can serve in the church even after that.
- 01:50:31
- Sure. But you are still going to be a part of the body of Christ. Be open about your sin.
- 01:50:37
- Don't don't call yourself by that. That's not what defines you. That's right. That's right. So I'm not a typical, you know, independent
- 01:50:46
- Baptist fundamentalist who screams and squawks from the pulpit, homosexual jokes and attacking those that have turned to that lifestyle.
- 01:50:57
- What I do is I love them enough to tell them they're under the wrath of God, like every unbeliever is. That part's true.
- 01:51:03
- But that they must turn not just from the activity, but they must turn from defining themselves at any level by that attraction because that is in and of itself is wicked.
- 01:51:17
- Just as I would tell someone who says I'm tempted to steal. You need to repent even of the desire to steal.
- 01:51:25
- Amen. Because the desire for something that is sinful is also in and of itself sinful.
- 01:51:32
- And neither one of us, Tom, is saying that after you're saved, you know, if you're saved out of alcoholism, for example, say you were a drunk and now you got saved and you're no longer a drunk.
- 01:51:45
- But we're not saying that for the rest of your life, you're never going to have a passing thought like, oh,
- 01:51:51
- I'd like to have a beer right now. You know, you can have these thoughts, but when those sinful thoughts come, you put them to death.
- 01:52:02
- You go to war with them. Take every thought captive. Take every thought captive. Right. Yeah. It's not that a
- 01:52:08
- Christian cannot be tempted, of course. But as Christians, we can stumble into sin, but we don't swim in it.
- 01:52:15
- We don't coddle it. We don't nurture it. We're not at peace with it. We're to be at war with our sin.
- 01:52:21
- That's what a Christian does. He goes to war with his sin. She goes to war with her sin.
- 01:52:28
- So to say that, you know, you're OK in your homosexual desire. Just don't act on it.
- 01:52:36
- That's not the gospel. That's an insult to the gospel. And it's to diminish the very, very strong and very powerful words of the
- 01:52:45
- Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God in 1 Corinthians 6. And we battle it at the level that it is.
- 01:52:52
- So if a man has if he looks upon a woman and has lust in his heart for her, he sinned.
- 01:52:58
- Right. So we confess even the desire. Yeah. But we but you don't have. But it's not the next level.
- 01:53:06
- The next level would be, well, is it wrong for me even have an attraction? And we're talking about sexual.
- 01:53:12
- Right. But even an attraction towards men or towards women, that doesn't have to be confessed.
- 01:53:17
- But someone who has a homosexual desire for a man, he does have to even go to the level to say,
- 01:53:24
- Lord, remove even the attraction for me, because it's not it's not of you. I repent of that.
- 01:53:30
- I want that to be read, read, read, written for me. And they don't have to then live in guilt of that.
- 01:53:38
- They just surrender it back to the Lord and say they don't want to have those thoughts anymore.
- 01:53:43
- Even the attraction itself. Yeah. That's necessary to fight the sin at that level, because it's a disordered desire.
- 01:53:51
- Yeah. Yeah. As we were saying a few minutes ago, it's a fundamentally disordered desire.
- 01:53:57
- Absolutely. And people will say, well, temptations, not sin. Well, OK, temptation just, you know, as the concepts not sin, because Jesus was tempted.
- 01:54:06
- Correct. But he wasn't he wasn't. We have internal temptations. James talks about the fact that when
- 01:54:14
- I go into sin, it's because when tempted, the desires draw me that way. Yeah. So Jesus did not possess sinful desires.
- 01:54:22
- Right. So when temptation comes to me, if you put something in front of me that I have no desire for, it's still a temptation.
- 01:54:29
- Right. If somebody is tempting you with something. Yeah. Technically, it's a temptation. But if I have no desire for it, it does not have that internal temptation for it.
- 01:54:38
- But you put something I really want in front of me. Now that external temptation becomes internally desiring.
- 01:54:46
- Jesus didn't have that. So people don't even understand what we mean by temptation. Yeah. So, yes, sometimes temptation is absolutely sinful in and of itself because it's appealing to something within me that's wicked and evil.
- 01:55:04
- Yeah, that's right. Does that make sense? Yeah, in total sense. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I agree 100 % with you.
- 01:55:11
- Yep. Jesus was even tempted at his level of desire. Right. Say that this way.
- 01:55:17
- So hunger. He tempted. But that desire is not evil. Right.
- 01:55:23
- It's not sinful to be hungry. That's right. He tempted him at the desire to be made known to be the son of God.
- 01:55:31
- That's not sinful. But he wanted him to do it in a way that was self -promoting rather than God glorifying because the cross was the path.
- 01:55:39
- It wasn't. Jesus had a desire for all the kingdoms to be his because the father had promised him to him.
- 01:55:46
- So Satan tempts him not because there was an evil desire in Jesus because there wasn't.
- 01:55:52
- But he was tempting a good desire to be met in an evil way. And so people just don't think deeply enough about these things.
- 01:56:00
- And there's not enough theology in our church that can fill a thimble in most SPC churches.
- 01:56:06
- Okay. So that's why that they can be fooled so easily by sugar -coated candy.
- 01:56:12
- Cotton candy theology. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I know it's what we're seeing is a reflection of and unfortunately the bad fruit of many, many years of an abandonment of expository preaching.
- 01:56:29
- Digging into the text. So many Southern Baptist churches, they just give these surfacy three points in a poem kind of sermons.
- 01:56:37
- Topical, eisegetical, reading a meaning into the text. In fact, I should put the screenshot.
- 01:56:43
- I think I've shown you the screenshot of from First Baptist Orlando on a Sunday service they had a couple years ago.
- 01:56:50
- And they had Luke 14 26 on the screen. And the title apparently of the message was living within a budget.
- 01:57:00
- You know, when Jesus talked about counting the cost. And they apparently read that into that, that we should live within a budget.
- 01:57:10
- No, that's not what that verse is talking about at all.
- 01:57:18
- And we chuckle, but that really is. I know. It's really an abuse of the word of God.
- 01:57:25
- That every person should get up and walk out. That has the understanding of God's word immediately and never go back.
- 01:57:33
- Yeah, that's right. That's right. And that's another thing that bothers me so much about what
- 01:57:39
- I've seen from First Baptist Orlando. It's like, why are people in droves not leaving that church and walking out?
- 01:57:48
- I mean, that's not even a South. That's not a church. I'll quote my wife. That's not a church. That's a goat farm. And there may be some very immature there.
- 01:58:00
- Now, let me put it this way. Malnourished sheep in that church. But boy, they need to leave because that's not a real church.
- 01:58:09
- David, youth, Danny, the armists are not biblically qualified to be elders. And so they need to leave.
- 01:58:16
- It is absolutely true. And until we're willing to speak those things with boldness and they'll say, who are you to judge?
- 01:58:24
- Well, Justin Peters and Tom Buck are nobody to judge. Right. But we stand all under the authority of the word of God.
- 01:58:32
- And I should be judged by the same standard. And they should be judged by that same standard. And until we're willing to do that, things are not going to be any better.
- 01:58:42
- And we owe Joel Osteen an apology. No kidding. Isn't that the truth?
- 01:58:48
- I mean, so many of us, I'm not Southern Baptist anymore, but as Southern Baptist, we've made fun of Joel Osteen.
- 01:58:57
- What we're seeing from First Baptist Orlando, well, it might make Joel Osteen blush with shame.
- 01:59:02
- I mean, it's certainly no better than what you would find at Lakewood Church. It's just, it's appalling.
- 01:59:10
- It's the most hateful thing you can do for someone is to know the truth and not tell them. And so that's what you and I are trying to do.
- 01:59:16
- We're trying to tell people the truth because we actually believe what the
- 01:59:21
- Bible says. We actually believe that if someone dies in his sin or her sin, that they will face
- 01:59:29
- God's undiluted wrath for all of eternity. We believe that. And we also believe that the gospel offers them complete freedom and forgiveness and a new life in eternity with Christ.
- 01:59:47
- We believe that too. People need to hear a proper diagnosis so that they can run for the proper cure.
- 01:59:55
- And what these churches and the world does is they medicate you, your problems, but they don't give you the solution.
- 02:00:04
- And that's what we're seeing take place. I don't hate any of these individuals.
- 02:00:11
- I don't, you know, I'm not, I'm not even angry. I'm brokenhearted that it takes place.
- 02:00:16
- I'm angry in one sense, you know, righteous anger, but I don't feel any kind of, you know, inward, you know, whatever consternation within me.
- 02:00:26
- But, you know, whether whoever we're talking about this teaching, false teaching, whether it be
- 02:00:31
- Joel Osteen or it be Beth Moore or be David Youth or whoever it may be. We've got to call out the
- 02:00:37
- Alexanders, coppersmiths. We've got, we've got to say who they are and we've got to define what it is specifically that we have a problem with and warn people and then let them make their choice.
- 02:00:52
- But the most mean -spirited thing is not what you and I are doing right now. It's not mean -spirited at all.
- 02:00:57
- What's mean -spirited is David Youth and DeArmas standing up before a congregation and making people feel that if they died that minute and are going to go to hell to make them feel coddled in their sin and to feel comfortable.
- 02:01:14
- And they're going to wake up in hell. Many of them are going to wake up in hell and wonder why they had not been told.
- 02:01:21
- Yeah, that's right. That's right. You know, with David Youth and other pastors like him, there's only two possibilities.
- 02:01:31
- If he does believe God's word to be true and inherent and infallible and sufficient, which he clearly doesn't.
- 02:01:39
- But if he did, and this is how he does church, then he truly is showing nothing but pure undiluted hatred towards his congregants and towards homosexuals.
- 02:01:54
- He is showing pure hatred towards them. And let's be real honest about this as well.
- 02:02:03
- That if he persists in this, I have no more confidence that he'll wake up in heaven. I really don't.
- 02:02:08
- I agree. Because I think when you lead people on a path to hell, and it concerns me that the
- 02:02:14
- Southern Baptist Convention right now, Dr. Moeller, Dr. Aiken, Dr.
- 02:02:21
- Do, Dr. Allen and so forth and so on.
- 02:02:27
- Dr. Greenway, every one of these guys ought to be speaking up and saying, this needs to stop.
- 02:02:33
- We need the president of the convention, Lytton. We're not going to get him to say anything. You know, because he's got his own issues.
- 02:02:42
- So if we don't stop this and who's going to stand up and say enough is enough.
- 02:02:49
- I know that Dr. Aiken and Moeller and all these guys,
- 02:02:54
- I don't believe they believe what David Youth believes. I really don't.
- 02:02:59
- I think that they would say that that is a wrong view of ecclesiology. I have at least that much hope in my heart left for these guys.
- 02:03:08
- Okay. But that does us little to no good. If you won't do something about it.
- 02:03:14
- That's right. You know, and Tom, to tag on that, the only
- 02:03:22
- John MacArthur has said this before, but the only objective measure we have of our love for Christ is our obedience to Christ.
- 02:03:30
- Our love for Christ is not measured in feelings and emotions, and I'm not against emotions, but that's not how we measure our love for Christ.
- 02:03:39
- Our love for Christ is measured by our obedience to him. If he who has my commandments and loves me,
- 02:03:45
- I mean, he who has my commandments and keeps them, obeys them. He is the one who loves me. So, you know, one of these days we're not going to stand before a board or a committee or a denomination.
- 02:03:59
- And you just named Al Mohler and Danny Aiken and Adam Greenway and these others.
- 02:04:05
- You know, it makes you wonder, do you really believe that one day you will stand before Christ with eyes of flaming fire and feet of burnished bronze?
- 02:04:17
- Do you believe you will stand before him? Not a board, not a committee, not a denomination.
- 02:04:23
- Where is your loyalty? Is it to a denomination, to the machine, or is it to Christ? And one of these days
- 02:04:29
- I'm going to stand before Christ. And that terrifies me, not in an eschatological sense, not that I'm worried that I'm going to go to hell because I know my sins have been forgiven.
- 02:04:40
- But I'm going to have to give an account for how faithful I've been with his word and how
- 02:04:46
- I've handled it. And that's never far from the forefront of my mind. And I don't expect these men to do it on Twitter.
- 02:04:54
- I understand that. I mean, I don't expect them to get on social media and blast away at David Youth or FBC Orlando.
- 02:05:02
- It's not because I believe it's wrong to point those things out. Obviously, I do. And I think that it's a platform to speak out.
- 02:05:08
- But these men have no problem of joining and writing resolutions and writing public statements about sexual abuse that's gone on in Southern Baptist churches.
- 02:05:21
- The typical pattern in the Southern Baptist Convention is they wait until it's too late and then they say something.
- 02:05:30
- Yeah. So why don't they go to the convention and stand up on the floor and call and themselves call for a disfellowshipping of churches like FBC Orlando?
- 02:05:41
- Call for a disfellowshipping of Saddleback Church because of its ordination of women. I was told by one of the presidents of the
- 02:05:49
- SBC, and I'm not going to mention his name because it was in a private conversation, but it's not who most people would probably think
- 02:05:55
- I'm talking about. But he told me privately that he believed that Saddleback should be disfellowshipped.
- 02:06:01
- That needs to be said publicly. Yeah. It doesn't have to be on Twitter, but they need to stand up at the convention to do that.
- 02:06:07
- If they can write articles against churches that have had poor practice regarding sexual misconduct, and that certainly should be spoken against.
- 02:06:18
- They should do the same thing on this. It should be no different. It should not require the
- 02:06:23
- Houston Chronicle or the New York Times to move one of our presidents to finally speak the truth of God's word.
- 02:06:30
- Amen. They should be able to do it because they have the unction within themselves.
- 02:06:36
- That's right. I'm tired of being driven by the politics of this world and being driven by the newspapers of this world to tell us what sins we should be calling out and giving attention to.
- 02:06:47
- Right. Because the problem with sexual issues in the SBC should have been addressed back when
- 02:06:53
- Daryl Gilyard was being allowed and platformed to go around. He was raping women. We all knew it.
- 02:06:59
- I spoke out against it when I was at DTS when it was going on. I spoke out publicly then.
- 02:07:04
- I didn't have social media, but I was as much speaking out against these things then as I am now.
- 02:07:10
- I was pushed away just like I am now in the process of it. So when do we talk about Daryl Gilyard?
- 02:07:18
- When it doesn't matter anymore. When lives have been destroyed. When women have been raped.
- 02:07:23
- When the gospel has been dragged through the mud. And when the Houston Chronicle finally gets a story, then they come out on it.
- 02:07:31
- Yeah. So I've had it. I'm fed up, as you can tell, with that. I'm not angry. Not in any sense of boiling.
- 02:07:39
- My blood pressure is not up right now. I just am literally sick and tired of dealing with this kind of approach that's political rather than biblical.
- 02:07:51
- Yeah. Amen. Amen. If the gospel is not enough to motivate us, it's the honor of Christ, the purity of Christ, the glory of Christ.
- 02:08:02
- If that is not enough to motivate us, what is? I mean, as you said, the
- 02:08:08
- Houston Chronicle, if that's your motivation, then something's wrong. Something's wrong.
- 02:08:14
- Exactly right. Yeah. Well, Tom, thank you very much for joining us.
- 02:08:20
- Brother, thank you very much for your input, for your faithfulness to God's word. Appreciate it very much.
- 02:08:27
- And again, for those folks who are watching, Pastor First Baptist Lindale, about an hour, hour and a half east of Dallas.
- 02:08:34
- Is that right? Not that much. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll put the link to your church down below in the description, along with Casey Butner's church as well.
- 02:08:45
- And I'll go ahead and just make it public. So we now have to be on the record that we're working on.
- 02:08:51
- We got to get you back down here. We had you booked, and then COVID knocked you out. And two years later, we're going to get you down here.
- 02:08:59
- People want to hear you. And so now that I've gone on the record, I've got to do it or I'll be a liar.
- 02:09:05
- So we'll get this going. You just painted yourself into a corner, brother. I did, didn't I? Well, it'll be an honor to come, and I look forward to our fellowship, brother.
- 02:09:16
- I really do. I love you and appreciate you, my friend. Same here, brother. Love you as well. God bless you.
- 02:09:21
- You too. Okay, dear ones, thank you very much for joining us.
- 02:09:27
- And I hope that this was helpful for you. I know probably not necessarily the most encouraging video, but these things need to be said.
- 02:09:37
- And the most loving thing we can do for people is to tell them the truth. And if you find yourself, whether you're at First Baptist Orlando or some other church that is having these issues, you see the same things going on in your church as what we're talking about here, then
- 02:09:54
- I would encourage you to leave that church. Don't leave the church over minor issues, the color of the carpet.
- 02:10:01
- That's not what I'm talking about. But if the truth is not being expounded upon from the pulpit, if the gospel is not being taught, if repentance is not being taught, if your church does not do church discipline, if they don't do that per Matthew 18, you're not going to change the church.
- 02:10:20
- You're not going to be a little source of light and you're going to change the church from the inside out.
- 02:10:26
- A congregation is not going to rise to a level of spiritual maturity above that of its leadership. So find a good church led by biblically qualified men and join yourself to it because it's only in a true church, biblical church, that you will be able to worship
- 02:10:40
- God in spirit and in truth. So until our next time together, may the grace of our