Conversations with "Church of Christ" EXILES | w/ Brandon Fugate

The Apologetic Dog

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Welcome to The Apologetic Dog, where it's our heart's desire to contend for the truth, for the gospel of grace.

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And so, The Apologetic Dog is an apologetics ministry, and I want to ground this ministry in all of Scripture, all of God's Word, because it's truth.

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But specifically, I want to draw people's attention to 1 Timothy 6, verse 20. That verse tells us,

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O Timothy, guard the deposit that's entrusted to you. And so, The Apologetic Dog is a guard dog.

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It's really saying all Christians are to guard the truth of the gospel that's been handed down to us.

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And Paul tells Timothy, do this by avoiding irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

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And so, that's what apologetics is. It is defensive. We are guarding the faith, but it's also offensive.

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We do these internal critiques of worldviews that try to rival the knowledge of God. So, thank you for joining me on The Apologetic Dog today.

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We're doing a very special episode where we are interviewing somebody that has left the

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Church of Christ, was a member, lived in it, and wants to tell us what it was about and how God saved their soul, and to tell us many things that have happened behind the scenes.

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And so, I'm somebody that I've met a lot of Church of Christ individuals, but I don't have that personal experience in my past.

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I've only interacted with people. And so, I'm joined today with my long -awaited co -host,

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Trey Fisher, who also has come out of the Church of Christ Restorationist movement. And so, we hope to do many more interviews with Church of Christ exiles that have completely left this group, this sect of people that call themselves members of the

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Church of Christ, but we know that it really stems back from the Restorationist movement, beginning with Alexander Campbell.

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So, with that, I want to bring in my co -host, The Fishbone. Hi, this has been long overdue for us to get together again.

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Well, has it been since ReformCon or something since we've done stuff together? I think it has been since ReformCon. I got to meet your dad,

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Luke Pearson, and he is a specimen, I have to say. LTV, Luke the

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Bear. I talked to him today, but let me ask you this. How's it been since we've done the responses to the

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Church of Christ exiles? What was it called?

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Yeah, our Facebook group, The Church of Christ Exiles. We were on cultish, right? Re -examining.

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It's been phenomenal, Trey. I've had so much people reach out to me saying, thank you for dealing with these proof texts and joining forces with you to be able to speak to what goes on behind the scenes and how to give a defense and apologetic with those people that claim to be

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Church of Christ. Real quick, I just want to inform people, depending on when this episode launches,

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I'm about to do a debate with a Church of Christ next week, and it's on the subject of justification and how water baptism relates to that, and it reminds me that you had a debate not quite a year ago, but a while back.

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So I've had so much positive feedback, people thanking us and joining our

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Facebook group, The Church of Christ Exiles, and you know as well as I do that there's been a lot of hate, a lot of vitriol also in light of the cultish podcast.

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Obviously, I get a lot of calls on a weekly basis but I was compared by one of these pastors in Dallas.

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I was compared. I'm up there with Max Likado in The Church of Christ. Pretty impressive.

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It takes a lot to do that, Jeremiah. You don't even know. I remember the day when Max Likado left The Church of Christ, boy, he was woo!

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But yeah, I'm in good company with Max Likado. So tell me about this. We've got a guest here who's going to talk about his coming out of The Church of Christ and his experience and why he left.

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I have not talked to him. I just met him. I know he reached out to you. Can you tell us a little bit about Brandon before we bring him on?

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Brandon is phenomenal. We've only interacted really through social media and I'll let him get into the specifics, but his testimony is so incredible and speaks to the grace of God in the midst of someone's brokenness, even though they don't know where to go.

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And so, Trey, men like this, emails that you and I have received out of nowhere, just thanking us, pouring into God's Word, and talking about his grace upon grace.

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It fills me back up. I don't know if you've ever felt like this, Trey. I feel like I'm doing so much, but when a guy like Brandon comes in your life, man, it fills you right back up and then you're just ready to go all over again.

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Yeah, that's why I've told you, you know, last year working through all this stuff and as we were getting together and doing things and how it's just, you get beat up and beat up and beat up, but then all of a sudden you get a phone call from somebody like that.

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You know, I got one from a lady in Washington State a few weeks ago, and it just brought tears to my eyes what she was saying.

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Yeah. And I mean, it just fills your tank back up. You're like, let's go, baby. You know, so you want to introduce your friend and we'll bring him in?

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Absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Brandon. I'm home.

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Yeah, we're going to need your help to pronounce your last name for us. Fuget.

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Fuget. Now, I'm not going to ask you to tell us all the different ways that people mispronounce your ways, but it's hilarious.

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Fuget? Fuget. Yeah. OK. You say so.

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I'm just sticking with Brandon. Yeah, I'm done. So, Brandon, it's great to meet you, man.

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So glad you're here and so glad you're willing to tell your story. I think it's going to help out a lot of people who are in the

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Church of Christ who are, you know, have these thoughts and these fears and they know something's not right, but they're scared to leave, probably because of family.

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They're scared to leave based on what maybe the position they have or whatever. But a lot of it is family and friends.

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They know that that's going to be a price they're going to pay. I don't even know your story, but I guarantee you that's part of it. Scared to death.

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But I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself. You want to go ahead? Sure. And I feel like it's necessary to mention that some of this, some of the story is going to be of a very sensitive nature to some people.

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So if you have that are listening, maybe. Maybe listen to it while you're not around him, because some of this is it's very dark and I have to talk about some things that went on that.

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That really you may not want your kids to hear. So I'm just going to get that out of the way.

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Yeah, go ahead, man. We're here. We're listening. We'll help you walk through anything. If you need to take a break, we can take a break and we can just me and Jeremiah talk.

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Again, if you have verses or anything you want to look at, just throw them out there and I'll put them up here on the screen for people to see.

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But man, we're going to give you the floor and we're here to listen. Sure.

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So I guess let's start back at the very beginning. I first encountered the

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Church of Christ back in 2013. I was in high school and I was a very devout unbeliever.

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I hated God. I hated church people. I hated everything about it.

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And I met someone in the Church of Christ and they invited me over to their house. And we became friends.

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And a few months later, I went to this youth rally thing and I knew that something wasn't right.

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And so I did the standard line that I had been taught growing up because I actually am the grandson of a

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Baptist preacher. He actually passed away 50 years ago.

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He would die to know that I'm a Presbyterian, but that's okay. We can't be right about everything.

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He's a Presbyterian now. Oh, yeah. Anyway, so I rejected all that.

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I rejected that childhood faith and everything that I grew up with. So I was kind of,

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I guess, a blank slate. And I started talking to this guy and started hanging out.

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Went to this youth rally thing and I felt like really convicted, although I didn't know why, and had this really emotional experience.

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And I prayed for God to save me. And I thought, OK, I'm saved.

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So I tell people at church, yeah, I got saved last night. And they're like, well, no, you didn't because you didn't get baptized.

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And that didn't make any sense to me. But they explained it to me through the scriptures.

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And of course, they proof text with Acts 2 .38 and Acts 22 .16 and all those other verses in the context.

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Mark 16 .16, which it's arguable whether that was even in the original text or not, but I'm not even going to get into that.

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Contain yourself. I'm not qualified to talk about it either. But it made good sense to me because I didn't really know the

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Bible. I grew up like my granddad was a Baptist preacher. We, my family was really very

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Pentecostal. I didn't really know the Bible and pay attention and rejected

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God at a very early age. So February 4th, 2014,

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I was baptized into the Church of Christ, started attending pretty faithfully.

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Wasn't very long before they started suggesting that I should start preaching.

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So they kind of, so at this church, I don't know how it is at other churches of Christ, but at this church, there's a very big emphasis on the men.

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Every able bodied man should preach. And that was what they were all about, was raising up men to preach and didn't really consider their qualifications or whether they were a 16 or 17 year old kid.

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Full of hormones or not, that's going to, that's going to matter.

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But so it wasn't very long before I started preaching and it wasn't very long also before I'd been so thoroughly indoctrinated that I started attacking my family.

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You know, they weren't real Christians because, well, they weren't baptized in a Church of Christ for remission of sins.

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And they hadn't received the gift of the Holy Spirit because they hadn't been baptized, which is, that's just another erroneous

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Church of Christ teaching that you don't receive the Holy Spirit till after you're baptized, which doesn't make any sense because the

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Bible says that the wicked cannot receive spirit for things. So I got a question real quick about receiving the

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Holy Spirit. Did you go to a church where they said, well, the Holy Spirit is just a representative when you read the scripture or, and rejected that it was a true, actual indwelling of the

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Spirit or was it something else? Well, they, they, they, they taught that you were, after you were baptized, you were indwelt by the

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Holy Spirit. Okay. Until then. Gotcha. Which is stupid anyway, but, because a man cannot come to faith unless the

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Spirit acts on him first, because we're dead in our own trespasses and sins. Well, you know, there's some that say that the

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Spirit does not indwell you. It's just the Bible. So, yeah, I was just getting,

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I was curious. And like you're saying, there's a faulty human anthropology going on with the

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Church of Christ. They believe man can actually figure out how to seek God, right?

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And conjure up that faith that would be pleasing to him and make a decision like baptism while being unregenerate.

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And what the scripture would say is at enmity with God. And so you're pushing back and saying it's impossible, right?

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In light of what God has revealed, man doesn't seek after these things to be able to please God in that way. No, no, no one does good.

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Not even one known seek after God. In the Greek, that means no one.

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In the Greek, it means not even one. That's what it means. You mean, it means no one there? Oh, in the

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Greek it does. Crazy. But in the

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Greek, in Romans 8, where it says that, you know, the person of the flesh can't please God, cannot submit to him.

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Indeed, he cannot. That's what it means in the Greek. Go ahead, Brandon. They would just circle around that and say, well, he can't please

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God until he gets baptized and then he can please God. Brandon, I did a debate a little over a year ago, and I brought up that very verse, and he did everything he could not to answer me directly.

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You have regenerated folks and you have degenerated folks. That was the best line of the whole debate.

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Oh yeah, I love it. But yeah, Brandon, go ahead, man. Yeah, and that's going to be a common theme in this, in the

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Church of Christ in general. You're so ingrained in a certain method of interpreting Scripture.

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And really, what do I have to make this mean in order not to contradict what

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I think Acts 2 .38 is? Because Acts 2 .38,

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it's like they're God. It's like every Church of Christ person knows that verse. And they think at any time somebody mentions calling on the name of the

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Lord or salvation through faith in Christ, they're going to go to Acts 2 .38. And it's like they can't, they can't see past it.

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But anyway, we were, where was I? So, yeah, I started preaching, went to a couple of different of the camps and was asked to preach.

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I wasn't like a big name or anything like that, but I preached at a couple of different youth camps and did a little teaching and stuff like that.

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Mainly what I did was just completely destroy my relationship with my family. So I attacked everything.

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I attacked, I made fun of my family for being Pentecostals.

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And while there's plenty of things to criticize about Pentecostals, they are brothers in Christ and mocking them, ridiculing them constantly is not appropriate.

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It's not, and it's not going to get them to listen to you either. Yeah, I rejected the teaching of my, of my grandfather because he was a

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Baptist, you know, all denominations are bad. It says that because the division says the denomination, which it's terrible to even call it a denomination, that that literally points at everyone else and says that these people are all going to hell because they don't have

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Church of Christ on their sign. So there was a lot of that, and I was just really, really into it.

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And I didn't go to a acapella Church of Christ, by the way, that's another thing.

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The Church of Christ I went to actually made fun of acapella Churches of Christ. They called them acapokos.

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I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but yeah. So the other ones would not consider you a

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Church of Christ. Right. I mean, that's the unity there.

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There's so much unity in it, there's no unity, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they would constantly ridicule them and say that, you know, the other

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Church of Christ that believes almost exactly the same is not a real Church of Christ because they don't have instruments, or because they reject having instruments in worship.

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But anyway, very quickly, they started having me play and sing and stuff like that, and so I was fully involved.

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And if you've been in the Church of Christ, you know what a communion meditation is.

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They give like a little spill before communion, and they would have me do those, and it's some short little brief little message.

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And it's weird that they do this because they talk about how other churches don't take the

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Lord's Supper seriously enough. But they give like this five or ten minutes in their service to it, and of course, they take it with grape juice and wait a lot of times.

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Not trying to find anybody's conscience on that issue, just they don't really have any reverence for it.

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It's just kind of a thing that they did, and I even noticed that when I was there, I started calling it communion medication because a lot of people would show up and take communion and leave.

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Yeah, that's the legalism in it, you know, because you have to take it every week. I mean, people will show up.

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When you go on vacation, you'd have to go find a Church of Christ to go to because you can't forsake the assembly, so you've got to go find one to go take communion because if not, you're bad.

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Yes, I plan trips around it, so there was that.

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I guess I'm kind of off track with that, but those are just kind of details thrown in there. One thing

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I want to kind of reemphasize, so you are a very young age, a new quote -unquote member, and so they're already having you preach.

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They're having you maybe lead some of these Lord's Supper devotionals, so you were not a member for very long at all, is that right?

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Right. Like how long? Say four months?

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Yeah. So within four months, you're leading communion at least, speaking.

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And I would say, let's just be as fair as we can to, like you even said, not all of them are this way, but this is where you were at, right?

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Not all would get a four -month -old baptized believer to do this or that, but where you were at, this is how they were doing it.

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Well, because you were baptized and you received the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will equip you.

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They noticed I had a gift with speaking, and that I was passionate, and that I liked to read the

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Bible, so their assumption is, well, you must be meant to be a preacher, and so it was for the majority of the people in that church, the majority of the guys.

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And it's really crazy, because I know a lot of those guys aren't even

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Christians anymore. Well, they were never Christians to begin with, if you want to get technical.

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They went out from us to show that they were never of us, and they were probably never truly converted in the first place, because they trusted in their baptism and not in Christ for their salvation.

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I'll mention that that's where I was during this time, too. I don't think that I was really converted in all dimensions.

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So I get into this. I'm in this full bore.

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I go off to, maybe this is maybe a year and a half into it, I go off to basic training, because I'd enlisted in the

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National Guard. I go off to basic training, build up a reputation in basic training as the preacher, and of course, a lot of people go to me for advice, and I just encourage them to reject their childhood faith, because they weren't baptized in the

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Church of Christ, so they're not really Christians. Get out of basic training and go on to advanced training, where I did my combat medic training in San Antonio.

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And I get back. Well, I went home on holiday block leave, and of course, they had me preach on holiday block leave.

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Make any sense? And I go back,

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I finish my training, I come back home, and what's really weird is on the way back home, my parents came up to get me to San Antonio to watch me graduate.

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And they brought my girlfriend at the time with them. And on our way back, she gets a text message from the youth leader saying, where are you guys going to church today?

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While we're on our 36 -hour drive back home. And we had no control of it.

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And he said, so you're not going to? And she said, well, we can't really go anywhere because we're traveling, and we're not the ones driving.

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And he just like laid into her because we weren't going to a Church of Christ and taking communion on the

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Lord's Day. Don't get me wrong, like I'm a

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Sabbatarian of Sabbatarians, but I'm not going to say somebody's sinning because they literally have no control over a situation.

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Right, because we know these are heart issues, right? Where your heart's at, that's going to be the pattern of your life as far as taking communion and gathering together with the saints.

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If you're unregenerate, then eventually that's going to manifest itself, that that's not really where you want to be.

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You were quoting that verse in 1 John 2, like give enough time, those people that hate

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God that are playing games, they're going to show themselves. So it's a heart issue, like you're getting it.

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Yeah, so we're on our way back, and we get back, and just back a couple months, and they had me preach a few more times, like in the main service, and I swear, unless I'm on camera,

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I never say like this much in one sentence. That's okay. I know how to start having you preach sermons, business as usual, and then

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I go off to college for the first time. I'm 19 at this minute.

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How old was I? I think I was 18 or 19 at this point. It doesn't take me very long to fall into sexual immorality with this other girl.

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I repented of it, and a month later, they had me teaching at another camp because I repented of my sexual immorality.

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And so at this point, this is when things start to really go downhill.

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I continue this. I won't go into too much detail because it would take hours, but I continue in this pattern for like two or three years.

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I'm really faithful, faithful in the church of Christ, doing all the things they want me to do, doing like all the good works that make me look good, like preaching and leading and singing and doing community meditation,

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I don't want to call it that, and doing all the things.

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But all during this time in the background, I am living this total double life.

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I would leave for months, then come back for a few months, then leave, then come back. Eventually, they caught on, which was good.

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I'll say it shouldn't have taken that long, and maybe if it hadn't taken that long,

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I would have repented sooner. But maybe

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I wouldn't have, but the Lord used it. So this all comes to a head back in July of 2019.

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The girl that I was sexually immoral with, of course, I stayed with her.

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And I don't want to give too many details because I want to protect her privacy, but she was very clearly not a

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Christian. She went off on a trip somewhere, and basically, she did something horrible to me, and I got super depressed, and I started drinking a lot, drinking every night.

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I would drink every night and go from bar to bar, and I would drive home drunk, just hoping, hoping

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I would crash on the way home and die, because I had decided that at this point,

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I was worthless and that I was going to go to hell anyway, because I can't do enough to please

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God. I can't, because in the Church of Christ, it's all about your obedience. Your obedience defies you, not your faith.

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So I have this struggle. I can't do anything to please God. I'm worthless.

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He's punishing me. I might as well just die because I'm going to go to hell anyway and get the anticipation of it over with.

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So it all comes to a head. One night, I just decide I'm sick of it.

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I'm laying in the bed. My parents aren't home because they were in the process of moving. I'm still living with my parents at this point, which is normal for a 27,

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I guess. But I'm staying at home, and I just look over at my 40, and I decide that I'm going to kill myself.

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So I take the gun, and I'm trying to squeeze the trigger, and I can't do it.

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And the more that I can't do it, the angrier I get. I start getting angry and cursing

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God and throwing insults towards His way and saying, why won't you just let me do this?

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You're going to send me to hell anyway. And I couldn't do it.

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I couldn't do it. So I threw it down, and I was going to get my car keys, and I was going to go to the bar, and I was going to get drunk.

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Maybe hopefully I would die on the way home because that seemed like the only way it was going to happen. But I couldn't move.

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I couldn't move at all. I was stuck in place. And so I only had one place to go, and that was down on my knees.

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And when I did that, I actually saw how heinous my sin was before I believed

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God, and I cried out. And when I got up,

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I was changed. And I will say to this point, something

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I failed to mention was before I got baptized, the leaders of the church took me downstairs and counted the cost with me.

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And they said, basically, how hard this is going to be, how much Satan is going to attack you, and your people are going to attack you because you're not real

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Christians, and all this stuff is going to happen. The gospel of Christ was not mentioned one time.

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The one thing that I needed to hear was not mentioned. So I was baptized for the remission of my sins, but I didn't know the gospel.

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So I'm going to end there because it matters for this. I didn't know. So at this point,

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I would like to say I immediately broke things off with that girl because I was still dating her.

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I found a new church of Christ to go to because I didn't know anything else.

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And again, I get there, I go there once or twice, and they figure out that I can play the guitar and sing really good.

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So I'm there a couple of times. They don't even ask me what my testimony is, although I eventually shared it, and they just start having me playing.

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They're having me lead in worship every Sunday. And so I continue this for like nine months or so.

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And at this point, I really do believe that I was genuinely converted that night, but I'm struggling because I have this ongoing sin, and I didn't understand it as sin.

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I knew that you're not supposed to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever, but I made all these justifications like, well, we're going to get married anyway, and then it won't be a sin.

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But right now, I'm just going to be really faithful, and we're not going to have sex and all this stuff. And it didn't work, by the way.

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That didn't work. The flesh is weak. So I know what you're talking about. I just want to say, you know, when

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I was in the Church of Christ, everybody that I know that's come out, again, when you're in it, you can't admit these things.

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Am I right? When you're in it, you can't admit this. But when everyone I know that's come out, they're like, oh my gosh, it was miserable because I was struggling with so much sin.

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I was struggling. I just kept doing the same thing over and over and over. I had no victory over my sin. And it was just eating me up inside.

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But I had to put my smile on my face. I had to act like everything's great and good. But deep down, I was dying, you know.

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It's because they haven't came to the point of where you came to of seeing your absolute total depravity and your nasty sinfulness in the eyes of a holy and the presence of a holy

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God. And, you know, the good news is not good unless you know the really bad news, that there's nothing

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I can do. You're an absolute wretched, sinful person. And without the grace of God, you can do nothing. And when you come on Him and Him alone, that's when you'll be saved.

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And so I get exactly what you're talking about. It makes sense with everything else I've ever heard from anyone else coming out of the church of Christ.

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So I'm at this point, and I'm still struggling because I know

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I'm sinning. But also I'm doing all these good things for the Lord. And while I wouldn't have admitted this at the time,

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I was still trying to please the Lord with my works and thought maybe if I did all these things and said all the right things and did all the right things, that God would be pleased.

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So in 2020, I moved to Owensboro, Kentucky for a time. Now, okay, there's some things that happened first.

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Let me not get to that yet. So what actually happened, early 2020,

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I started talking to a friend of mine who was very cage -stage

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Calvinist. And I'm like, this guy, idiot.

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And I start asking my church leaders about the arguments and stuff that he's making, because he made really good arguments, because Calvinism is just biblical.

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Because it was just saturated with Scripture. I like what Spurgeon said. Reformed theology is the nickname for biblical

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Christianity. But I would ask them questions about Romans 8 and 9 and Ephesians 1 and 2 and say, really seems like this is saying that God predestines, that He's sovereign over every part of this thing.

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And I would go to Romans and talk about how we're justified by faith. And of course, when you say—

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But faith doesn't mean faith. Faith means baptism. You know that, right? Right. It means obedience.

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They're not two separate words, apparently. The Church of Christ talked about how they use the

36:28

Bible. Well, they don't know how to read it. So— It's true. And I want to chime in real fast,

36:35

Brandon, because I've had a lot of interactions with self -professing Church of Christ, and there's about eight proof texts with the word baptism, right?

36:44

And this is something Trey and I talk about all the time is, let's go to the proof text and look at context, and let's define words biblically, right?

36:52

The way that they were intended when they were written in the first century, right? And then you press for consistency.

37:00

And like you mentioned the word obey or obedience, we get that that's a biblical word, but it means to submit to, to be in agreement with.

37:08

And so when we read about being obedient from the heart, that is talking about our faith, right?

37:15

Obeying faith. And the just shall live by faith. And so you then— I didn't mean to do that.

37:21

I really did not mean to do that. Hey, I needed that applause real quick. Anyway, what

37:27

I'm getting at is context is king. Even with Acts 238,

37:32

Mark 16, 16, I'm getting ready for a debate in just a few days. And my strategy,

37:38

I'm very open with everybody. We're going to define terms. We're going to look at context, and we're going to be consistent.

37:44

They can't do that, bro. I just want to show something real quick while you said that, you know, one of the verses is, you know, 2

37:52

Thessalonians 1, 8, 9, right? Right, Brandon? 2 Thessalonians 1, 8, 9. You have to know

37:58

God and obey the gospel, right? You have to obey the gospel. Well, here's what— What's that?

38:04

Yeah, obey the gospel. But obey here does not mean that, okay? The obey doesn't mean to do something.

38:11

It means to hearken, to give ear, to answer by voice or act when called to answer, like to call a name, you know, call the name of the

38:18

Lord. It's to hearken, to give ear, to be in agreement with. So these are the things that, you know, why a grammatical, historical interpretation of Scripture matters and not a literalistic reading of Scripture.

38:33

So you've experienced that, just how those verses are just pounded in your head and pounded in your head, and that's all you see.

38:41

Go ahead. Pick it back up. Yeah, well, there was a big emphasis on the nine conversions in the book of Acts, and one thing they make error, and this is a very common error.

39:03

It's taking what is descriptive and making it prescriptive. So since baptism was immediate, like when—one of my favorite ones that I would pick on when

39:18

I was in the Church of Christ was the conversion of the

39:26

Philippian jailer and his family. They would point out, you know, Paul and Silas had been beaten, and they had all these open wounds, and they would say, well, why would they baptize him and his family immediately if it wasn't for salvation?

39:42

Why wouldn't they wait for their wounds to heal? Because it would hurt, basically, this argument.

39:48

Why wouldn't they wait until they were healed? And that's, like, really stupid now that I think about it, but I thought it was so compelling.

39:56

Yeah, but can I take a little break here and point something out here?

40:03

Yeah. Okay, so let's look at this jailer. I just have a hard time not doing this when we're sitting here right here talking about it.

40:11

So I literally had a Church of Christ guy email me—or not email me—message me yesterday, and he said, can you give me a book, chapter, verse of what one must do to be saved?

40:28

Can you give me one? I was like, yeah. How about this? Look at this.

40:35

That's the question. That literally is the question he asked. Can you give me a book, chapter, verse? What must I do to be saved?

40:40

What does someone have to do to be saved? And so they said right here, believe

40:46

Lord Jesus and you'll be saved, you and your household. And it's, I mean, it would be like, it was like fighting words.

40:53

He got all mad at me. And I'm like, he's like, you don't understand. You got to keep reading. I'm like, so do you think

40:58

Paul—I mean, Peter is lying to them here? Is Paul lying to them? Is he shortchanging them? Is he kind of like not telling the whole truth because he didn't say baptism?

41:08

Or is this it? But anyway, but again, it's just the dripping and the dripping and the dripping, what

41:16

I would call brainwashing. Trey, can I chime in? Yeah. Because on these accounts, we see people believing.

41:26

And if the Apostle Paul were standing off to the side of this, he would say, yeah, you're justified before God. And then the

41:31

Church of Christ would say, yeah, but you still got to be baptized. We're like, of course. We're called to live a life, to give

41:37

God glory, to be set apart, to walk in sanctification, to grow in holiness.

41:42

So, of course, the Philippian jailer, his household— Of course. Forgive me, Brandon, for my

41:48

Reformed Baptist tendencies coming out, but I'm sure they received the Word and believed too, and they're wanting to demonstrate their faith to the watching world.

41:56

Because this is what Christians do, right? Christians get baptized. Brother, Presbyterians are

42:02

Baptists in a missionary context. We just— That's right. That's right. You're right.

42:14

Maybe that's another discussion. That is. I love Douglas Wilson, by the way. Daddy Doug is what

42:20

I call him. Well, be careful saying you like Doug Wilson. You'll get— That's not everybody's favorite go -to, but he's done many wonderful things for the kingdom.

42:34

So, Brandon, where were you? So, you're doing this stuff. So, at what point, when did you say, what am

42:41

I doing here? What was the turning point? Okay. So, really, honestly, it was—so, having this conversation with Calvinist brother of mine, and he really just got me grappling with these issues.

43:01

And I go to the church and ask them these questions. I say, this is really—it seems like what this scripture is saying.

43:08

And they kind of blew me off, or they would gaslight me, or—

43:15

Because they had no answer for it. And then the final thing was, one of them said,

43:22

I wouldn't serve a God like that. And I thought, that answer's great.

43:31

Brandon, can I say one thing? It goes hand -in -hand with what you're saying. So, in preparation for the debate

43:37

I had a year ago, I would meet with these two individual Church of Christ ministers, and they're asking me a ton of questions about what

43:44

I believe. But I'm an open book, baby. I was telling them everything, unashamedly. And one of the gentlemen said,

43:52

Jeremiah, if what you're saying is true, I would rather be agnostic. And I'm over here like, oh,

43:59

I didn't say this, but I thought to myself, of course you would. Right? You hasten one true God that is truly in control of salvation.

44:07

All the glory is his. Of course you don't want to believe in that God. Because you won't acknowledge that you were born a hell -deserving sinner.

44:17

Well, let him have it, Brandon. Let it fly. How do you really feel? That's wrath.

44:23

You deserve. You deserve that. You were born in iniquity.

44:29

You were, by nature, a child of wrath. That's what it says.

44:35

You're exactly right. This is what I tell people all the time. You want to have a discussion about baptism, but if you don't see your sinfulness, nothing else is going to make sense to you.

44:44

And this is the problem with the Church of Christ. They don't see their sinfulness, and this is why I want to always talk about original sin and their sinfulness.

44:51

And thank goodness me and Aaron Gallagher are going to get to talk about that pretty soon. He's taking a month off, but we're getting back at it

44:57

March 31st. Just a little plug there. Well, yeah, that's another problem that probably leads to their rejection of the clear doctrine of predestination in the scriptures.

45:15

They deny original sin. You're born perfect, which is Pelagianism.

45:20

The Church condemned heresy like 2 ,000 years ago almost.

45:31

I think it was 418 and 430 -something, twice. Yeah, I know, but I didn't have the years ready.

45:39

No, I mean, I'm just saying it was not like it was decided over a cup of tea. No, no, it was something that was done lightly.

45:51

But brother, all we need to do is look at Psalm 51 .5. You want to look at that?

45:58

Psalm 51 .5? Yeah. Yeah, I have it pulled up because I can't see nothing.

46:07

You can't see that? Yeah. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and sin, and my mother conceived me.

46:17

You know what they would say about that, right? They would say a million things to it.

46:24

Yeah, at the end of the day, a bunch of us who came out, we almost made t -shirts that said, hashtag, it don't mean that, because that's what we always got the answer.

46:33

It don't mean that. Well, they would say— I mean, it doesn't matter what it is. Like, justified by faith, they don't mean that.

46:40

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and sin, and my mother conceived me. They don't mean that. Okay. But the most common thing

46:47

I would hear was that David was so depressed about his sin.

46:54

He felt that way. Where's that in the text? No. It's supposed to speak where the

46:59

Bible speaks and silent where the Bible's silent. I love— It's supposed to speak where I can conveniently twist the

47:08

Scripture and be silent when I don't have an answer. Wow. Um.

47:15

Gaslight you. I can't even think right now. Where is that again? Where is it? You're born like vipers.

47:24

Where's that at? Jeremiah? Oh, you would ask me. I can't— Honestly, it's one of the

47:30

Psalms. Oh, yeah, it's right here. I think it's like 53. Right, here we go.

47:37

Okay, here we go. So, let me show you this one. Um. While you're looking at that one,

47:46

I'll quote the one that Brandon quoted earlier from Ephesians 2. We were by nature children of wrath.

47:55

And so when Trey quoted—both of y 'all quoted that there's none good, no, not one.

48:01

There's none righteous, no one who seeks after God. That's quoting from the Psalms also, where it says the sons of Adam.

48:07

That's literally the Hebrew there. So, the offspring, the posterity of Adam, they go not seeking

48:14

God, but they go their own way, seeking their own lust, doing unrighteousness.

48:19

And I've noticed with the Church of Christ, they want to make a glaring exception for children. And when

48:25

I debated—when I called in Travis's show and we talked about the depravity of man, he said, well, you believe some people are righteous.

48:34

This says there's none righteous. And Brandon, I said, well, we're born in a state of rebellion, at enmity with God, and we're saved by His grace.

48:43

And so, anyway, that's what I wanted to say in this time of Scripture. So, this is for—this is going to be for Aaron Gallagher when we talk about original sin on May 31st, or March 31st.

48:56

This will be for him, because I've heard his little spiel. I watched one of his episodes on original sin, and you're not going to believe what he says.

49:06

And I hope he says it to me, and if he doesn't, I'll remind him that he said it and ask him if he said it.

49:12

And if he doesn't admit it, I'll just play it where he said it, you know, because I want to explain this right here. This is crazy.

49:19

So, here it is in Psalm 58. The wicked are estranged from the womb.

49:25

They go astray from birth, speaking lies. Okay. Now, here's what the explanation is.

49:34

This is poetry. This is poetry. Trey, that's got to be talking about Israel.

49:41

Yeah, well, it's just poetry, because babies can't speak. So, their answer is babies can't speak, and then they say they have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear so that it does not hear the voice of charmers.

49:55

Like, do they really—do we really have venom? Do babies really have venom? They don't even have teeth.

50:01

And so, then he goes on, break their teeth and their mouths, tear the fangs of the young lions. Are they young lions?

50:09

And I'm like, okay, so let me just say this. Yes, it's poetry.

50:14

It's poetry. So, it's not speaking of what it seems like it's speaking of.

50:20

So, does it mean that we're born perfect? So, the wicked, who's the wicked? Well, that's everyone, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

50:28

The wicked are estranged from where? The womb. That means you're born perfect. That's poetry. Right.

50:34

It's your environment that corrupts you, not your nature. Yeah. And this is—it's so bad, although Jesus says it's out of the heart.

50:41

It's not outside of you. It's inside of you. But we won't get to talk about all that. I cannot wait. I cannot wait.

50:46

But that's what they would say. They would say, it's poetry. Doesn't mean that. It actually means opposite of what you think it means, unless it's a verse that we like in Psalms, and then it means exactly what we think it means, right?

50:57

So. So, Brandon, you're talking to this Calvinist, and he's making some interesting points.

51:05

Yeah. Yeah, he showed me how—he really didn't talk to me about justification by faith, but he made some interesting points.

51:16

I started asking those questions, and when the evangelists—I'm calling them pastors because they certainly weren't.

51:25

That's the thing. They, like, freak out if you call them pastors, and one time, like, the lead evangelist at that church said, you know,

51:33

I wouldn't want to be a pastor because I wouldn't be that responsibility. Well, it sure showed whenever I was going astray and having all these—I don't want to—I don't want to turn this into—I talk about my hurt feelings, but I'm just saying, man, they sure were consistent with not being pastors.

51:57

Because being a pastor would imply that you have to care for your flock. So true.

52:05

So what happened next? Did you continue developing this friendship with this alleged

52:10

Calvinist? I did. I continued friendship with him.

52:17

He didn't convince me, but he kind of opened it up for me to think about it.

52:23

And then when I got the response, you know, I wouldn't serve a God like that, I thought, man, of course you wouldn't.

52:34

Because when I heard that, that's actually when it started to make sense. You just proved it.

52:42

Yeah, and then just on the Calvinism aspect,

52:47

I was reading—I wasn't actually reading any of the Calvinist verses in the

52:54

Bible, which—it's the whole Bible, by the way. Get them. But I was actually reading

53:02

Isaiah chapter 10, and I read about how God used Assyria as his to bring justice.

53:10

And then he judged them for it. What right does an ax have to boast over the one who wields it?

53:18

And I thought, man, that doesn't sound very free will -y of you, God.

53:23

God sounds like a sovereign God. So that's when I started considering Reformed theology.

53:29

Wow. So that set the groundwork for what happened next. I enrolled in school again at a

53:40

Westland University in Owensboro, Kentucky. And I had—another thing

53:49

I should mention, because you guys are going to find this hilarious. I know you will. I was so at my end of the rope with Calvinism, and I couldn't get any answers from anybody, that I Googled arguments against Calvinism.

54:06

Oh, he Googled. Guess what I found. Guess what

54:13

I found. What? The dividing line with Dr. James White. That's what you found?

54:20

Oh, you found J -dub. Hey, Trey, tell

54:26

Brandon about that book you showed me in your library. I like to send to people.

54:35

Y 'all just talk amongst yourselves. I'll find you the book. All right, Brandon. So you found

54:40

Dr. James White and the dividing line. Started listening to him and found out what a Reformed Baptist was, but all of a sudden

54:47

I wasn't a Presbyterian yet. I wasn't right. You were still being sanctified, right? Yeah, yeah.

54:55

Hadn't come to the right thing yet, but I like to give brethren a hard time.

55:03

I'm actually very, very thankful for my Reformed Baptist brethren. I would not be here if it wasn't for them.

55:09

So I started listening to him and I found out what a Reformed Baptist was.

55:14

And I was like, I guess I believe this, but there are no Reformed Baptist churches here. And I had had conversations with the pastor who actually called himself a pastor, which was an enigma in the

55:27

Church of Christ. I had a conversation with him about justification by faith because I had asked him how were people saved in the

55:41

Old Testament? And he said, the same way they're saved in the New Testament, by faith in Christ.

55:49

It's so profound. Blew my mind. So I started to consider these things.

55:55

And when I went to move to Owensboro, where I was going to go to school at, I looked for a Reformed Baptist church.

56:02

And I ended up going to Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky, with Dr. Sam Waldron and Joe Wilson and Pastor Ben Carlson.

56:15

And I didn't know that Sam Waldron was like the original Reformed Baptist, just because he's wrote so many books like Reformed Baptist Manifesto and a modern exposition on Baptist Confession of Faith.

56:28

So he was there when Reformed Baptists were invented. I got a few books here.

56:37

But real quick, I want to interrupt you. You as a Presbyterian should read this,

56:45

Baptist Thorough Reformers. We're the true Reformers.

56:50

But neither here nor there. One more plug. I'm running out of these stickers.

56:57

Everybody's taking these stickers from me, Brandon. You know why? Trey, if you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out.

57:03

Look at that. These stickers are famous, and everybody wants them.

57:09

It's called Grandma's Church. Grandma's. Oh, man. I don't know if you know anything about Grandma's Church. Grandma's Church.

57:16

Baptist Church. This is honestly, if you want to study

57:21

Calvinism, and if you want to have not just an emotional argument, because typically the arguments that you get from people who hate

57:30

Calvinism are emotional arguments. You know, it always comes down to babies and grandma. And the guy in the wilderness in the

57:37

Congos of Africa, the good guy, right, that doesn't exist. It always comes down to those. So I always offer people and tell them to order this book off Amazon.

57:46

It's an exegetical refutation of Calvinism. So it's exegetical.

57:51

So it's biblical. And at least it's some good arguments, right? And so here's the table of contents.

58:00

So if y 'all can see this, I mean, everybody wants, right?

58:07

Looks like five points. It's the five points. And then, you know, I love the last one is it's cervetus.

58:16

So here it is. Check this out, Brandon. Calvin didn't kill cervetus. He tried to convince him to recant.

58:23

This is it right here. I mean, this is it. This is it. This is it. That is good.

58:30

That's a lot easier to read than this. That's the exegetical refutation of Calvinism. If you want to do it biblically, but if you want to do it emotionally, you can write a lot of books.

58:39

I have some up here. I got one. I mean, the cover even looks like vomit. Brandon, did you ever read

58:46

Muscle and the Shovel? No, I have a good friend who is writing a book to refute that.

58:54

You may be able to talk to him. They could just read Romans. That was all. They could read

59:01

Romans. You know what? We can make it even shorter. Read Romans 4. That's another thing.

59:08

Just since you brought it up, I know. I want to know this, Brandon. When you came out, okay?

59:15

When you came out of the church of Christ. So your buddy, let's get back on that. Your buddy Calvinist made you start thinking.

59:20

You went to your pastors, your shepherds, whatever, your elders in the church of Christ. You told them.

59:26

They said, it don't mean that. And then they said, if that God is true, I don't want to have anything to do with him. I heard pretty much the same things you did.

59:33

What after that? Then what happened? What'd you do? Well, I was still at a church of Christ, and I talked to the teaching elder there, and I had a conversation with him about how were people justified in the

59:54

Old Testament? It was with a question I asked him. Because people were... No, no, that's the thing.

01:00:03

What is it? So if people are justified by baptism in the new, how are they baptized in the

01:00:09

Old Testament? He said, by faith. And he said, the same way people have always been justified.

01:00:17

And while he didn't mean what we mean when we say that, it made me start thinking.

01:00:26

And like I was talking to... I was telling Jeremiah while you were away, I'd started...

01:00:33

I don't know if you heard the part where I Googled arguments against Calvinism and found James White. Yep.

01:00:40

Reformed Baptist was. And when I had moved to Owensboro to go to school, because I was started...

01:00:49

When I started back in school, I started back there. I founded a Reformed Baptist church,

01:00:55

Pastor Sam Waldron and Joe Wilson and Ben Carlson.

01:01:04

And that's when I was out. Out. When you talked to these men, was it a different demeanor?

01:01:14

Could you feel the care and love that they had for you? Those men...

01:01:20

Let me tell you about those men. They... I would not be here.

01:01:28

It did not take them very long to catch on to the sin that I was in with that girl.

01:01:36

And Dr. Waldron. I don't know why I'm calling him Dr. Waldron. It just makes me feel cool,

01:01:42

I guess. He's the original Reformed Baptist, you know.

01:01:47

He wrote a modern exposition on a London Baptist confession. So I had the best of the best

01:01:54

Reformed Baptists, and I still turned out to be a Presbyterian. So take that for what you... When we left

01:02:02

Rome, we left all of Rome. But I mean, if you still want some of it, you can have it. Yeah. There's something to be said about reactionism, taking things too far, because you...

01:02:14

We can have our in -house discussions, but right now we're talking about these outward thoughts. American folk religion that started in the 1800s in America.

01:02:24

That is another discussion. And honestly, maybe this will get me kicked out of the

01:02:32

Presbyterian Club, but I don't really care that you don't baptize your babies. It's just my personal conviction.

01:02:40

I believe that's what this group teaches. I love my Presbyterian brothers. Love them. Me too. Read all our books.

01:02:46

I think that's true. Y 'all don't read ours, though. So when you came out, what happened there?

01:02:59

Well, I guess people started saying things like, well, you came out because of Calvinism.

01:03:08

Calvinism must be evil. They hadn't invested enough in me to know anything about me.

01:03:16

About what was going on. And they said, you started sinning when you started becoming a

01:03:23

Calvinist, because it doesn't matter what you do. If you're a Calvinist, you can do whatever and still go to heaven.

01:03:31

And you've left the Lord's Church. You're an apostate.

01:03:37

You're not a Christian. You're not any of those things.

01:03:46

And a lot of people, though, honestly, most people just stopped talking to me.

01:03:53

They just cut me out of their life completely with nothing to say. They didn't seek after me.

01:03:59

They didn't do anything. They just cut me out completely.

01:04:08

Actually, the guy who gave me this hat was in the

01:04:13

Church of Christ. He gave it to me about, let's see, before I went off to basic training.

01:04:21

So that would have been 2014. He hasn't said a word to me in three years.

01:04:31

I said it. I mean, we've all experienced that. I've lost, I lost my closest friendships.

01:04:36

I thought they were friendships. But obviously they weren't. But over this, over saying, like, because they would say,

01:04:44

God's sovereign, but we mean it. They would say we're saved by faith. They would say we're saved by grace.

01:04:51

But we mean it. And they get mad at you, right? They would say that Christ, like your hat said, paid it all.

01:04:57

We would be like, yeah, and we mean it. And they get mad at you, right? And they don't want to have anything to do with you anymore. And, you know, and here's the thing, honestly, it's like football.

01:05:10

Like, say you don't know football, right? I know football. I played football, coached football, love football.

01:05:16

I can play arena football, coached in the SEC, baby. But here's the thing.

01:05:22

I can talk football with you. But if you don't know football, guess what you don't want to talk about? Football. People don't want to talk.

01:05:28

People know, people know that they're Baptist, Church of Christ, Methodist, whatever. And they know they're a

01:05:34

Republican or Democrat. But the reason they don't want to have those conversations is because they don't have any depth of knowledge in it. And so they don't want to be exposed for their ignorance.

01:05:41

So here's the deal with people, the majority of people, and not just in Church of Christ. Most people, when it comes to religion, they don't really know the scriptures.

01:05:48

And so they don't want to talk about it because they don't want to be exposed for not knowing something they should know. Right? And so it's an insecurity.

01:05:54

Instead of saying that the Bible is the most important book in the world, I just don't want to talk about it. It means everything to me. I just don't want to talk about it.

01:06:00

It's crazy. It's mind boggling, especially when it's your leaders coming out of the Church of Christ who refuse to study with you.

01:06:06

That's what I went through. I mean, I begged and begged and begged for them to sit down and study with me, and they would not do it.

01:06:11

And it's because, I mean, the more I got deeper down this and studied more and more and more and understood, it's because they didn't know it.

01:06:18

They don't understand it. They can't. What are they going to say to some of these scriptures other than, it doesn't mean that.

01:06:23

You know, you've got to give me more than that, buddy. Yeah, but they can't. And that's because many of them are unbelievers.

01:06:33

Many of them have never accepted the gospel. Brandon, I love what you said there is many of them, because what that also means is there are some people in the

01:06:47

Church of Christ that are trusting in Jesus Christ alone, but they don't know how to articulate that, right? They've been brainwashed.

01:06:53

And so we trust God that He has a people in these, and that's why Trey and I spend so much time warring for truth with that gospel.

01:07:00

Go ahead. I'm an example of that. Give you money. And it took me a while to get out of it, because it's all

01:07:10

I knew. And I had many of the fears that probably many of the people in your Church of Christ Exiles group have that I'm going to be rejected by my family, by my friends.

01:07:21

I'm going to lose my position. I think I saw somebody not long ago talking about there were a lay teacher or something in the

01:07:28

Church of Christ, and they want to reform it from the inside. Brother, there ain't no reform in the

01:07:36

Church of Christ, because it is not of Christ. There's no reforming it.

01:07:43

If you believe what the

01:07:48

Church of Christ teaches, and you believe it consistently, it's very important.

01:07:55

And you cannot be saved, because it's a different gospel. Yeah. It's not just baptismal regeneration.

01:08:04

Although I reject that, I think that many Lutherans are saved. So it's not just that.

01:08:10

I think it's error. There's a difference between error and heresy. Thank God for consistency.

01:08:18

Let me point this out to you. And this is what I point out to them all the time, too. They don't really believe that you have to repent and be baptized to be saved.

01:08:26

They don't believe that, because if they believe, truly, then in order to be saved, you have to hear the gospel, repent, believe, confess, right?

01:08:35

Be baptized. If they really believe that, then they should be totally okay with all the

01:08:40

Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and everybody else, because we've heard, we've believed, we've confessed, we've repented, and we've been baptized.

01:08:48

But see, they don't really believe it. Well, yeah, because you have to believe not just in Jesus, you also have to believe in baptism.

01:08:56

Because baptism is their other demigod. You have to believe that that's when your sins are washed away.

01:09:04

You have to believe that that's when you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's Gnosticism. It's a secret super knowledge.

01:09:12

Did you have a formula? It was almost like a magic incantation, they said, when you got baptized.

01:09:20

Let's say if I were a Church of Christ preacher and I were baptizing you, I'd say, Trey, do you believe that Jesus is the

01:09:27

Christ, Son of the living God? And you would say, yes. And I would say, upon your confession of faith, I now baptize you in the name of the

01:09:33

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and you will, for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

01:09:40

They didn't say that. Somebody didn't say that. And that person who was baptized, they just got wet, went down to the dry center, came up a wet center.

01:09:50

You didn't come in contact with the blood. You didn't come in contact with the blood, because at the end of the day, it's all about you.

01:10:01

It's all about your profession. It's all about your profession of faith.

01:10:07

That's why it's important to understand, like when I'm talking to Aaron Gallagher, and I'm really pressing him on what the gospel is.

01:10:14

And I just texted him today. Are we going to do it again? Are you done? He said, no, we're going to do it at the end of this month.

01:10:20

And so I told him, before we get on faith alone, I want to talk about the gospel and really line that out. Because when they say gospel, they throw everything in the kitchen sink in that, including baptism.

01:10:30

And like Aaron in our last podcast said, that baptism, I said, look, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but does the gospel include baptism or not?

01:10:37

Is baptism part of the gospel? And he said, yes. Well, now we're very clear that this is a false gospel.

01:10:44

Very clear that this is a false gospel that you believe, because here's why it's important to understand what the gospel is.

01:10:49

Because if they say faith is believing the content of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that's true.

01:10:56

But the gospel of Jesus Christ is not baptism included. That doesn't include baptism. And so, you know, anyway, it's a very sad thing.

01:11:04

But yes, it is a false gospel is the Galatian heresy. Well, they have a faulty foundation.

01:11:11

From the very beginning, I just, I want to go through this. I took a class on this sometime.

01:11:21

I go on evangelism and where we want to start when we're sharing the gospel with somebody is we want to start with God.

01:11:31

Who is God? Well, Genesis 1 .1 says that in the beginning, God created the heavens, the earth and Genesis and Psalm 24.

01:11:39

One says that the earth is the Lord's and all it contains and all who are in it. And it says that he's perfectly hope.

01:11:46

First, John 1 .5, that he's light and there is no darkness in him at all. And that he requires perfect obedience to his law in James 2, in James 2 .10.

01:11:59

That whoever keeps the whole law, but stumbles in it in one point has become guilty of all of it.

01:12:05

So we look at God. Here's our standard. Here's what we have to live up to.

01:12:11

He requires perfect. He requires perfect holiness. And then we look at ourselves. And this is where the church of Christ person would agree with this first part that God is all these things.

01:12:23

God requires these things. But then we get into man. Man has broken

01:12:29

God's law. There's none right, just not even one for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

01:12:35

They say they believe that, but they don't. Man will pay eternally for sin.

01:12:43

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of life is eternal life. Jesus Christ, our Lord, and man cannot save himself by his good works.

01:12:55

Titus 3, 5, he saved us not on the basis of deeds we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing over generation and renewing of the

01:13:05

Holy Spirit. They say they believe that, but they don't. They don't believe that because they believe that you have to do something.

01:13:15

But they believe you're perfect. So man hasn't broken God's law until he reaches the mythical age of accountability, which is found nowhere in Scripture.

01:13:25

He doesn't deserve eternal punishment. And he can save himself by his good works.

01:13:32

Baptism is a work. It doesn't matter what they say. It is something that you do. It is a work.

01:13:40

So right at the beginning, they've looked at God and they've looked at man and it's been skewed.

01:13:51

The next thing that I would do, I just want to go through this whole kind of formula because I think it's really good and I think it's really helpful.

01:14:01

So after we've looked at it— When you go through this formula, we'll begin to wind it down after you go through this formula.

01:14:07

Sure, sure, because I think that, yeah, and I kind of wanted to get to the end with this is because I think many of these people haven't heard the gospel.

01:14:16

Many of these people don't understand the gospel and I do this out of love for them.

01:14:24

So we understand that God is holy and that he requires perfect holiness. We understand that man has broken

01:14:32

God's law and that he will pay eternally for a sin and that he can't save himself by his good works.

01:14:41

So then what do we do? Well, we can't do anything because we've just addressed the fact that we can't save ourselves by our good works.

01:14:50

So then Christ came to earth as both God and sinless man for in him all the fullness of deity dwelt bodily.

01:14:59

And he demonstrated God's love by dying on the cross to pay sin's penalty. But he demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were sinners,

01:15:07

Christ died for us. And he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

01:15:15

And he rose from the grave and is alive today. So that's what Christ did that.

01:15:21

That's what Christ did. Many people in the church of Christ know that but they don't understand.

01:15:28

They understand that Jesus died for sins but they don't understand that he paid the penalty for sins.

01:15:34

You have to do something. You still have to do something. They don't understand that in order to be saved you must repent of everything that dishonors

01:15:50

God. It's not baptism. By the way, I will point out that there was not a big emphasis on repentance in the church of Christ.

01:16:02

It was the emphasis was so much on baptism that when I, buddy, when

01:16:08

I got and started preaching in the church of Christ I was still struggling with a filthy mouth because I didn't know.

01:16:18

I was trying to do better but buddy, I was baptized. I was good and I was doing the best I could.

01:16:24

But the Bible says that sinners must repent of everything that dishonors God. Isaiah 55, 7

01:16:30

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will have compassion on him to our

01:16:37

God for he will abundantly pardon. And if anyone wishes to come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

01:16:48

So if you're still in the church of Christ and you're listening to this it is not enough that you are baptized.

01:16:55

You must repent of your sins and you must believe in Christ as your

01:17:02

Lord and Savior not in your baptism. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is

01:17:08

Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you shall be saved. And so I'll ask you this.

01:17:17

In Acts 17, 30 Paul asks he asks at the I believe at the

01:17:23

Areopagus he's speaking at the Areopagus he says, Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance

01:17:28

God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent. Have you repented of your sin and trusted in Christ?

01:17:40

Or are you still coming to God with your hands full of all your good deeds and with your trust and hope in your baptism?

01:17:54

Is that what you're doing? Or are you coming to Christ and saying like that old hymn says nothing in my hands

01:18:01

I bring simply to the cross I claim. Are you doing that? Because if you've not done that then you have no reason to believe that you're saved in every reason and every reason to examine yourself to see if you'd be in the faith.

01:18:22

That's good. Brandon, thank you so much. Before we give that to you

01:18:28

Jeremiah, can I just say what basically he said? He preached the same gospel sermon that was preached in all through Acts.

01:18:35

The same gospel sermon. This right here. This is in Acts chapter three. And the

01:18:42

God's healed to this we are witnesses in his name by faith in his name, by faith in his name.

01:18:48

Jesus has made this man strong whom you see and know and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

01:18:58

And now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers. This is what you're saying,

01:19:04

Brandon to those in the church of Christ. I know you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers. But what

01:19:09

God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets. Look at that. What God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets this

01:19:17

Christ would suffer. See, Christ was preached all the way back in the Old Testament. Those aren't just stories.

01:19:22

The prophets told about it. Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.

01:19:30

They're not lying to the people. They're not selling them short. He's telling them to repent so their sins will be blotted out.

01:19:38

Repent, look to Christ, faith in Christ. That's what you're saying. Go ahead, Jeremiah. Well, I want to piggyback off both of y 'all and that's the same message that Peter preached at Pentecost.

01:19:50

And he's not conflating faith and works when he calls the Jews that are pricked to the heart and said, what must we do?

01:19:59

They understand the blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy and they realize they've killed the

01:20:04

Mashiach. They deserve all the cursings of God Almighty. Peter, what are we to do?

01:20:11

And he tells them, hey, not all hope is lost. You need to repent, right? Metanoia, change your mind, right?

01:20:17

This is a change of disposition. Not looking to yourself like Brandon is saying, but look to the only one who can save you.

01:20:25

Look to Jesus. And the backside of repentance is always faith. Trey just read that passage.

01:20:31

Repentance and faith always go hand in hand and they are categories of the heart. God grants repentance and God gifts faith.

01:20:39

It's of the heart and God knows our heart and we know our heart when we examine it. And so, of course, the people at Pentecost were called to be baptized.

01:20:47

Why? To demonstrate your faith, give fruit of repentance.

01:20:53

How do you do that? Look to the forgiveness of sins. Look to Jesus Christ Almighty, what he did at Calvary.

01:20:59

Trust in him. That's the gospel of grace that is consistent from Genesis to Revelation.

01:21:04

Brandon, thank you so much for coming on our channels. We'll have to do this again sometime.

01:21:11

Thank you for sharing your testimony. You got me teared up, man, because when I heard your story,

01:21:16

I just thought how gracious is God. You were talking about the Philippian jailer. He almost fell on his sword, right?

01:21:23

He was staring into eternity, right? He was about to kill himself. And you know what? He probably was thinking back to Silas and Paul, who were singing hymns in the prison.

01:21:34

And right before he killed himself, he said, sirs, what must I need to do to be saved, right?

01:21:40

And so God was gracious in the same moment with you, looking down a gun, right?

01:21:46

Looking at eternity. And he prevented you from pulling the trigger. Man, that's when,

01:21:53

Brandon, when you reached out to me with that story, I knew we needed to share this with the world. So thank you so much for doing that, man.

01:21:59

Yeah, of course. Thank you, Brandon. I appreciate it. And we're looking forward to doing a lot more of these interviews with people who've come out of the church of Christ and just hearing their different stories.

01:22:08

They're all different, but they're all the same, really. So yeah. I'd say one more thing.

01:22:16

Just if you hear this and you think that, man, this guy is an apostate and he's doing this because he hates the church of Christ.

01:22:36

Please consider that this is going to absolutely wreck my reputation with many people.

01:22:47

People have already rejected me, but it is absolutely going to...

01:22:54

Any bridges that were left unburned, buddy, they're gone. I'm not doing this because I hate the church of Christ.

01:23:02

I'm doing it because I love the church of Christ and I love the people who are in it.

01:23:09

And I want you to know the gospel. I want you to know that your salvation is not dependent on your works.

01:23:19

I know that you've been told that you must maintain good works in order to be justified before God.

01:23:28

But your works are nothing but filthy rags. And if you would turn in faith to Jesus Christ and really put your trust in Him, you can have true assurance of salvation.

01:23:40

I remember so many times I would question, man, should I be baptized again? Because I wasn't sure it took.

01:23:48

There it is. Did it take? Correct. People would encourage that.

01:23:54

But let me tell you, friend, Jesus will never do that to you. If you will trust in Him, if you will really trust in Him, then you'll have a peace that surpasses all understanding.

01:24:04

And you'll live, and you'll live. You'll have peace with God.

01:24:11

I don't really have anything else to say other than that. That was perfect. Thank you so much, man. We appreciate it.

01:24:19

And Jeremiah, we're going to have a lot more of these coming up pretty soon at the end of this month. We got to.

01:24:26

We got to let people hear how the grace of God has changed so many people and saved them out of legalism.

01:24:33

I know we have a lot of them lined up wanting to do it. It's just hard for us to find the time, everybody for them to find the time that matches with my time and your time, and we all get that organized.

01:24:45

But we do have some coming up, and we're going to be putting them up on my channel, probably your channel as well, because as much as we can do it together, we're going to do that.

01:24:52

So I'm just grateful that Brandon reached out to you and you let me meet Brandon today. That was fun and interesting and God blessing.

01:25:01

What do you want to end with? Well, that's perfect. I loved how we got to talk about the gospel from many different angles.

01:25:09

What Brandon said that rang true in my heart and soul is, do not look to your works.

01:25:14

Baptism is a work. I will be pushing for that point biblically come my debate in a few days.

01:25:20

And most people, it's intuitive. We realize that that's a work we participate in. And should we be baptized?

01:25:27

Yes, in light of God saving us by his glorious grace. And so I just want people to understand the gospel is not one of our works.

01:25:34

It's the works of Jesus. And we receive forgiveness of sins by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone.

01:25:43

There you go. There's four solos right there. That's right, Trey. I'm looking forward to doing more of this with you, man.

01:25:50

It's always fun to be back with the dog. So thanks for watching everybody and we'll catch you next time. See ya.

01:25:57

Deuces. So again, one body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the church of Christ.

01:26:06

I mean, man, if you just had some, a little bit of common sense, you think he drove by these denominations where it says grandma's church,

01:26:12

Baptist church, Methodist church, life church. I mean, he drove an hour and 20 minutes here and they act like they give

01:26:19

God the glory in Jesus. I mean, grandma's church, Baptist church, Presbyterian church, church of Christ.

01:26:27

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