Conversations with "Church of Christ" EXILES | w/ Derek Healy

The Apologetic Dog

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Well, hello and welcome to The Apologetic Dog, where it's our heart's desire to contend for the faith.

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So when you see the logo of The Apologetic Dog, the bearded dog, by the way, you see 1 Timothy 6, verse 20, where Paul says,

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Oh, Timothy, guard the deposit that's been entrusted to you. And so here at The Apologetic Dog, Christians, we are to guard the gospel of grace with all of our might.

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And so apologetics is not only defensive, but it's also offensive, right? We contend for the faith.

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And so in Jonesboro, Arkansas, I serve as a pastor and elder at 12 Five Church, which has been so wonderful.

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We are a church plant that's now coming up on completing three years. Amazing. And so if you're in the

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Northeast Arkansas area, if you're around Jonesboro, Arkansas, come find us. We would love for you to come check out our fellowship and we'd love to meet you.

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And so essentially my mission field here in Jonesboro has primarily been the

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Church of Christ. And so the Church of Christ believed that in order to be made right before God, in order to have your past sins washed away, you must get up and perform the ceremony of baptism.

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And so my heart understanding God's word is that completely distorts the gospel of grace.

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It's to be, the finished work of Jesus is to be received by faith apart from any of your accomplishments at any of your works.

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And that would include ceremonies that you get up and participate in. And so a lot of this began,

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The Apologetic Dog, last year when I debated a local Church of Christ preacher at ASU, at A -State, and we had about 200 people in attendance and it was awesome.

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I wanna encourage people to go check out that debate that I had with Brock Kendall. But in that preparation for the debate,

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I made a dear friend through social media that said, man, I've lived the Church of Christ life and God saved me out of it by his amazing grace.

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And that is none other than Trey Fisher, the fishbone. You know, when you come out of the cave, out of the darkness into the light, you wanna go back down in that cave and tell everybody in there that what they're seeing are shadows and it's not the real thing, you know?

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And so that happened to me. It happened to so many others. Praise God that we get to play a part in that with talking to people who come out of this.

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And one of them is a guy, he's a ninja, okay? And his name is

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Derek Healy. Derek, what's going on, man? So I just wanna say this. Take three. Take three,

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I wanna say this. I was talking to Durbin today because I told him if he mentioned, if my name came up, he's gonna give me a shout out, him and LTB on Apologia Radio again, be nice.

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Because somebody might be out there who has a video of the ninja getting whooped in quick hands.

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I don't know who that would be, but somebody might have a video who could tell and show everybody the ninja getting so quick.

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Yeah, what you got? Trey might've saw two other individuals in an arm wrestle back last fall.

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I did, I did see that. That was not good. But I'm a little worried, but Pastor J Dub, Jeff Durbin, said he's gonna be practicing on his quick hands, which

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I think he needs some practice, if you ask me. So he's gonna be practicing, but what I would like to do next week next time

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I go to Arizona is bring this guy with me, because he is literally a ninja. What are you, a six degree dragon warrior?

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What is it? No, a six degree black belt, yeah. I'm a master martial artist. That is awesome.

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Master martial artist in what? Dragon fire? Taekwondo.

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Taekwondo, wow. So if you and Durbin fought, who would win? I don't know, but I sure would like to find out.

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Remember when I texted him and I said, I showed him the certificate of what you just got your master's and whatever six degree dragon breath, flare kick, falcon punches.

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And he said, tell him, this was good. Derrick did good here.

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Durbin said, tell him certificates don't fight. He said, yeah, but tell him. And then Derrick said, tell

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Durbin the certificates are warnings that I do. What? That was pretty good.

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I like it. So anyway, maybe we can set that up and y 'all can duke it out one day.

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I'd love it. I think Durbin whoops you. I mean, that dude's bad. Like 100%.

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Derrick, I got your back, man. I bet you got it. I think he will whoop you. I thought it would be Trey, cause you know, we know each other.

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I know. I mean, I'll pull for you. I'm just telling you. You know what I mean? I just don't. Yeah, you're like half of my team, but you're all on his team.

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I get it. I mean, you know, well anyway, let me show you how I met this guy. You wanna see how I met this guy? Yeah. It was

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November 10th. I was in a hunting camp, about to go hunt the next morning. And I get this text and I slip in because we stayed up all night talking and it went like this.

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And I remember 10th of 21. So this is almost what, two years ago.

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So I marked out the names of the church to protect the not so innocent here. It says, hey, my name is

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Derrick Healy. I used to go to, beep. Long story short, when

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I started to mature in my faith and joined the college group at, beep, I was told about the terrible things you did and caused meaningless divisions which hurt our college group and our church.

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I didn't like you because of that. Fast forward three years. I'm now Calvinist. Now I'm married to Calvinist.

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Good for you. I now know grace. My wife and I listened to Cultures podcast and saw the one about Church of Christ.

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So I listened and agreed with everything you said. I heard about your heart for those people only to realize that it was you, the man whose name meant division and hurt my mind.

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The Lord has broken my heart for these people as well because my friends are there at, beep, my best man for my wedding is there.

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And I just want to know more about how to talk to them like you do, right? I know it's late.

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I'm about to unpack, like a weight -bearing message anyway. Called that night and we talked. And the funny thing is

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I think I was blamed for busting up that college group that I had never had anything to do with.

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I never went to the college group, never led the college group, never went to the college group, had nothing to do with the college group.

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But I guess I didn't know I was blamed for that until you told me that. But anyway, that's how we met.

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Pretty cool, huh? You and I, you ever got a message like that? Derek, it's awesome to meet you, man.

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I'm glad you were able to connect with Trey. And what's neat about Trey's experience is he lived it.

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And so for me in Jonesboro, Arkansas is, I didn't grow up in a Church of Christ church, but they're everywhere.

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They're all in my front yard, as I like to say. And I have a ton of friends. A lot of people have family here in Jonesboro that it's like everyone knows

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Church of Christ. So I remember back when I was about 21, I was starting to share my faith and engage the community with the gospel.

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That was one of the biggest pushbacks, Derek, is I got told I was preaching a wrong gospel because I wasn't telling people they had to be baptized in the waters to have my sins washed away.

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And I'm over here saying, wait, wait, isn't baptism supposed to be a beautiful picture of the gospel, a picture of the work that God has done in your life, that you've already been brought out of darkness into the light?

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Kind of like Trey was talking about, come out of the cave. So I'm curious, your interaction with Trey, did that kind of help begin this journey out of the

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Church of Christ, or how exactly did that happen? So when I first got to college, it took like a year.

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I started, lived a grace -based lifestyle, got into a college ministry. From the college ministry, then it was a

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Church of Christ college ministry, but I didn't know what that meant really. Started learning, growing in my faith, and then because of COVID, I accidentally became a minister in there.

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Like I was a college kid helping lead college kids, which doesn't make any sense. But then

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I went to a camp. From that camp, we were working with inner city school kids and my site coordinator was a

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Calvinist. And I was told that Calvinism was terrible, like worst kind of people, barely even

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Christians, if you could call it that. And I'm a pretty confrontational guy, so I literally just walked up to him and I was like, hey, what you believe and what

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I believe are totally different. Yeah. And we need to figure out who's right, essentially.

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And so from there, we studied, and he patiently walked through the scriptures with me, and I realized that I was totally wrong in so many things.

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And I kind of became a closet Calvinist for the rest of the time I was there. I have a question about that.

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So within your interaction with your friend, essentially, when he started taking you to the scriptures,

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I love asking this question. Was there kind of a passage, a verse, maybe even a new understanding of who

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God is and His holiness, things like that? What started to begin to crack the armor of kind of the walls of the

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Church of Christ that you had put up? Was there a particular verse that he led you down that really made you like step back and think like, oh man, that may be true?

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Looking back on it, it was really just like how it was so systemized. It wasn't one particular scripture.

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Honestly, I wasn't well versed in scripture while I was still leading college ministry.

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I had a lot of logic, or at least what I thought was logic. But when we just like pieced together parts of the gospel, like I literally remember being on the phone with my wife and I was calling her, well, she wasn't my wife at the time, but I was calling her, it was like three hours.

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And it was, okay, so TULIP doesn't make sense because if it's a real relationship,

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God couldn't control the whole thing. So it's not real.

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And the whole, like we had to connect all parts of the TULIP. And then once they were all connected, I said, so if one's false, then they're all false.

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And she was like, I mean, that makes sense. And then I was like, perfect. And that was supposed to be the end.

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And then I was like, that actually doesn't make any sense. After a whole three hour conversation, and she was like, what?

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And I was like, if it's supposed to be a relationship, then it has to be completely holy.

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And if it's me in the relationship any bit, that's sinful. So the verse like more,

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I must decrease, you must increase has to be completely true. And we're just trying to imitate the perfect relationship with the

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Trinity. I'm a five point Calvinist. And that was literally how it started. Wow. Well, I just wanna say like, when

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I hear that is what you understood more was the holiness of God and how we relate to God is not the same how we relate to other people.

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There are relationships, but they're different kinds of relationships. And so I try to explain to people, look,

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I don't get to be sovereign over things that I want to do or what other people do without forcing them into it against their will.

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But we're talking about the creator of the universe. Understand there's a distinction between the creator and the creation.

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He gets to be transcendent. He gets to be sovereign. He gets to move and operate in ways that I'm not privy to because I'm a part of the creation.

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So I'm with you. I went down similar paths of just kind of being captivated in all of who

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God is as the triune God in his sovereignty, how he has exhaustive purpose in this world.

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And once I understood that I don't relate to God the same way that I do with other people, there's no contradiction.

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And then there's no way we can accuse the creator of fault when he chooses to exercise his purpose in this world.

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Yeah. I mean, it brings me back to Romans, but that's a whole other conversation. I was gonna say, sorry,

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I get a little preachy sometimes. Oh, dude, I'm right there with you. So tell me this, Derek, so you saw that from, you said some camp you were at, right?

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Yeah, it's called the Mentoring Alliance Summer Camps. They're great. The guy that was teaching me, his name's

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Ian Wade. He's still someone I would consider my mentor today. He is phenomenal.

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Nice. And so then you came back from that camp. You just started talking to people.

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I mean, how was that received? So I knew that Calvinism was bad.

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So I was like, okay, let's not go in super hard, but let's start teaching.

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So you knew you were bad? Yes. Like I knew as if I were -

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The first part, man, you gotta realize how bad you are, right? That is the first step, to realize how depraved you are and wretched, but go ahead.

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So you came back. So I came back and I basically started teaching really good lessons, like very scriptural.

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And I actually got confronted like three times because they were like, hey, you know, because to them, one thing that needs to be mentioned,

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I'm not saying for all Church of Christ people, just the people that were in my college ministry, the people that were co -leading with me were saying things like, you are teaching fatalism or close to it because Calvinism and fatalism are the same thing to them.

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And so we basically had cordial debates back and forth.

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And it ended with me quoting enough scripture for me to say, when I teach something that isn't in scripture, then you guys can check me.

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And they said, okay. Because they were comfortable. They were like, he's not teaching anything wrong. We may just not agree with how he's saying it.

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And then it just kind of went from there eventually to where they were like, this sounds super Calvinistic.

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And I was like, well, I kind of am that. Like I've been pretty convinced.

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Kind of sounds like the Apostle Paul. And this is before I ever met you, correct? Correct.

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This is way before. What am I following? I didn't even know the attachment. Yeah, yeah.

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I just read my Bible and really from Ian Wade. Then I went on this like deep dive and started studying

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Paul Washer, Cody Bauckham, like all of them. And I had a huge crush on Paul Washer.

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Like I fanboy over that man so much. He is such a good preacher. I love everything he has to say.

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Why are you laughing? I'm talking about you. Yes. Oh man.

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Derek, I'll be seeing a little Paul Washer next month at the G3 conference. I tell him he is preaching the way that God's worked and has changed my life.

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No, no doubt. He's impacted all of our lives. I've actually, something you said that really resonated with me

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Derek is Calvinism is fatalism. And what's interesting about that, fatalism philosophically is referred to as hard determinism.

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Meaning that there's an impersonal force, the universe, that everything is as it's ever going to be no matter what you do.

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And then the conclusion is you're not morally accountable. So just the accusation that fatalism is Calvinism and Calvinism is built on what's called compatibilism.

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Like it's compatible for God to exercise his divine, exhaustive, determinative will.

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And we have genuine choices that we choose to participate in and we want to do and we're gonna be held accountable.

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And so Derek, I just tell people the big difference between fatalism is the universe is being pushed by an impersonal force.

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And on compatibilism, Calvinism, everything has a purpose from the divine person,

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God who's tripersonal. And so that's the big distinction is fatalism. Everything's being guided by an impersonal force.

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And in the biblical paradigm, everything has purpose and reason. It's just been eternally settled from God's perspective.

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But we are the means that God has chosen to carry out those redemptive ends. Yeah. That's good.

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That's good. So then, so you get back, you start preaching and teaching a little bit. They are picking up that it's a lot of scripture, but they're not really agreeing with it.

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And then what happens next? What goes on from there? So everyone was pretty friendly, but that's also like, not because of, but the air or vibe,

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I hate using that word, but it's just what it is, was happy because me and my wife were engaged.

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And so we were getting ready to get married and we do get married. Six of my groomsmen are guys that I did college ministry with, guys

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I still love. We get married. We're married by an elder in training at the

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Church of Christ. He also did our premarital counseling. We get married.

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We moved to Texas. And then I started working at my job and I actually worked with two

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Mormons. And my wife had a friend also from the same camp and she told her about cultish.

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And so - Were you working at a dojo? I was not actually. I do stretch therapy now.

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And so my first job was actually at a dojo for martial arts.

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And I worked for like three months and then I moved over to a place called Stretch Lab. And so I worked with two

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Mormons. And so after listening to the first cultish podcast about Bethel and the new age, which was awesome.

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We really liked the podcast and my wife, I was at work and so she was being really awesome and was like, oh,

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Derek works with Mormons. Like, let me do the search and see if cultish has anything on Mormons. And they actually, what she did was typed in Church of Latter -day,

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Church of Christ, whatever it is. I don't remember. Church of Latter -day Saints. And so up popped up examining the

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Church of Christ. And she was like, oh, like, what's that about? So she listens to the whole thing and then sends it to me and says, hey, they're not just talking about the

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Church of Christ. They're talking about your church. And I was like, oh, like, that's crazy.

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I was like, not like the one. And she was like, no, literally the one.

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I started listening to it. And I used to be like - It was the dude who broke up the college group that never had anything to do with the college group.

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Right. And so - Perfect. Listened to the whole thing. And I basically was like, this is crazy.

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Because in the Monroe area, it's really bad theology just in general.

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But the idea that is Baptist in Church of Christ and they say, hey, let's not have all this division.

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We really aren't that different. A Baptist is gonna tell you to get baptized and a Church of Christ person is gonna tell you to get baptized.

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So let's not make it a big deal. That was my understanding until listening to that podcast.

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And I was like, oh my gosh, like no one actually understands grace. Because I understood it because I just thought that like, oh, they got it.

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But that's because I understood the doctrines of grace. And so it just - Just because they say the word grace, they know grace, but they don't.

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Right, Christianese. I'm like, oh, it's the same thing. You say Jesus, I say Jesus. That must be the same thing.

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You say grace, I say grace. So it's the same thing. And listen to that. Gospel, gospel. And just took this bandaid off.

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And I was like, okay, this is not the same thing even a little bit. And now I need to do something about this.

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Like I can't have all this information and not share it. And so then

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I was like, okay, so this guy is saying all these things and I agree with every single thing that he's saying.

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And he went to my church. Who is this guy? And then I found out it was Trey Fisher. Oh God.

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Me, Trey Fisher. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, what am

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I supposed to do? And I was like, well, I can't, again, I can't just ignore it. So I guess I'm just gonna message him. And my wife was like, are you gonna do it like right now?

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And I was like, yeah, if he responds, wait, if he doesn't respond right now, I mean, I could maybe go to sleep. I didn't.

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But I messaged him and then we talked to like 1 a .m. I think I messaged, we called it like 1030.

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And got to bed at like 1 .30. It was, and I didn't sleep after that. Like I was still like, okay,

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I just, I became obsessive over soteriology because I needed to know what the

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Bible said. And I had this just massive urgency to like, if I was gonna go out and basically lose all my friends for this,

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I needed to know that what I was saying was truth. Because if it wasn't, then

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I'm a terrible person, essentially. And that's what happened.

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I mean, there's more, but that's the general gist. There's a lot more. And like I tell a lot of people, this is what's about to happen to you.

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They're like, no. I'm like, this is about to happen to you. No way. I'm like, not me.

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Oh yeah. And guess what? It happens. It happens. It's sad. It's so sad.

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But you know, here's what I tell people. Like one day people are gonna realize

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I actually loved them as, you know, they think I hate them or whatever. They think you hate them. Jeremiah, they think you hate them.

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But one day, I think, and I pray it's today on this world that we live in on earth.

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But one day they will know that we actually loved them more than their own shepherds did because we told them the truth, you know?

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And that's why we're doing it. We're not doing it to make friends. I mean, there's a lot easier ways to make friends, you know?

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But it's because we love them. Oh yeah, much easier way to keep friends. Jeremiah, what do you wanna add to that real quick?

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The gospel of grace that we're pushing for is beautiful. We're saying that out of the darkness, out of the darkness of our sin,

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I was living my life for me, whether it's cloaked in religiosity or just pure hedonism, all those things.

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God, in his amazing grace, transformed a dead sinner's heart to see the truths of Jesus, okay?

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And so that's the work of the spirit regeneration. God gets the glory in that. But then when I emphasize faith apart from works, faith alone, here's the beauty.

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That is trust in an amazing Savior that did all the works necessary to accomplish redemption.

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It's your faith trusting in him, not just giving head knowledge, assenting to facts, but your heart trusting in him, not trusting yourself or anybody else in this world, but trusting in Jesus.

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That's what declares a person right, justifies a person. And Trey, and maybe you can speak a little bit this,

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Derek, but when you break it down like that, I mean, that is distinct from everything else in the entire world.

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All the other religions of the world say you have to get up, do X, Y, and Z, work your way, do these things in order to maybe achieve paradise, have salvation.

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And so to me, the gospel is just beautiful on its own terms. And when I share people with that and I emphasize the things of saying, okay, well, that doesn't mean your ceremony.

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That doesn't mean living this perfect sinless life. Like God wants a relationship with you through Jesus.

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And so I just, I get excited thinking about all those things and all the interactions I've been able to have with people that are attending the

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Church of Christ. Now we'll add to that is I'm preaching this week. We're finishing up the book of Micah, the prophet of doom.

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And he finishes his book here as the prophet of hope. And he starts off his last little hymn.

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He writes here, who is a God like you? Who is a God like you? So I want to look at it. I want to show you, this is what we want people to see.

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Who is a God like you? There's no other God like you. Not like the God we worship, not like the God of scripture.

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See, this God pardoning iniquity, forgiving completely what?

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Iniquity. What's that? Your guilt and your shame. Like it's gone. I can, and people in church cries, man, they carry in some guilt and shame because he can't confess it.

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We'll get into that later. Passing over transgressions, passing over transgressions. When you willingly transgress a law of God, and you sin, you willingly do that.

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He passes over that. Who's he do it for? For the remnant of his inheritance. Because he doesn't retain his anger forever because he delights in the steadfast love.

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He delights in this love for his people that he, because he's the covenant keeper.

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We're covenant breakers. We always break the covenant, but he is steadfast. He never, his love never changes for him.

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And it says, he will again have compassion on us because of the context of what they're going through. He will tread our iniquities underfoot.

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And look at this. He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. See, this passing over thing should give you a clue to the

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Passover, right? When he led them out of Exodus. And he passed over their sins, but he killed the firstborn of every

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Egyptian. But for his people, he passed over theirs. And guess what? When these people look back at the

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Red Sea, when they crossed the Red Sea, and that army was chasing them in the fear that they had. And they looked back at that water after it collapsed down on the armies of Egypt, God's enemies.

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You know what the people saw when they looked back at the sea? Nothing. You know why? It was gone. And so is our sins cast into the sea.

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And he owns the sea. And he put up a sign that says, no fishing, private property. You know what

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I'm saying? Like, that's good news, Bubba. And it doesn't say that he does this. Look, it doesn't say, who's a guy like us parting iniquity and passing our transgressions if we do

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X, Y, Z. If we do this and that. See, that's a weak God. That's an insecure God that's got to prove himself to us.

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Like, no, not our God. He's sovereign in control of every single thing. He is almighty, all powerful.

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Anyway, I just want to get that off my chest a little bit. But yeah, that's what we want people to know. We want people to know who

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God is. And we want people, like we just said on the last podcast that we did, Jeremiah, we want people to believe the way they pray.

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We want people to believe the songs they sing. When they pray that God will save someone, we want to pray, we say, hey, why don't you just go ahead and believe that?

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That God will save someone. Because if you don't believe it, don't pray it. And don't sing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, if you don't believe it.

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Because it's that good, believe it. The promises of God are so big. Like, this is the problem.

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Our American society has dripped too much in our brain. And America says, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

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And when you hear this kind of good news, you think, no, it's too good to be true. I got to do X, Y, Z. No, no, it is that true.

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It's true, believe it. Just put your faith in Christ. Derek, I have a question for you.

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Coming out of the Church of Christ, did you have to give up anything in particular, whether it be friends, relationship, community?

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How was that process? I had to, I would say that friends were lost.

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I didn't really have to give them up. It wasn't, it really wasn't up to me. Now, saying that,

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I still have two friends that I still consider to be friends.

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One of them is awesome. He was raised Baptist, but goes to a

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Church of Christ church. So he's like, oh, I believe the same things. I'm like, okay, well then tell them. Like, what?

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But, so that one's going well. And then I have to kind of tiptoe with another one, but we can still do

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Bible studies together, but we haven't gotten to any of the hard talks yet, if that makes sense.

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He knows what I believe and I know what he believes, but we're just kind of pitter -pattering and we still talk to each other weekly.

29:29

But as far as the rest of them, like it was kind of like, cause

29:37

I, so again, like the difference or difficulty of mine is all of my friends are here in Monroe and I live in Texas.

29:47

So if I had lived in Monroe, I think it would be different. I think it would be better or worse, whatever, but it would be different if I was gone.

29:55

All I hear from some of my friends is, hey, everyone's talking about you.

30:00

Everybody's worried about you, but they're never talking to me about what they're worried about. And I just keep getting feedback of, oh, well, they're worried, well, they're worried, well, they're worried.

30:11

It's like, if everyone's worried, then why is no one talking to me? And so then

30:18

I have to go and reach out to them and say, hey, I heard you're worried about me, or I heard you think this about me.

30:25

You know, it was not fun. And I've had two of them actually tell me that they don't think

30:35

I'm a Christian at all, like straight up. They were just like, we don't believe in the same

30:40

God. That's true. And I'm glad they admit that. But I'll tell you this, Derek, it's the same thing that, exact same thing

30:47

I went through. Everybody's like, oh, I'm worried, worried, worried. I'm like, well, if you're really worried, you'd come knock on my door. You know what I'm saying? And I would tell people, people would come up to me and say, well, so -and -so,

30:55

I'm not gonna say names, is really worried and concerned about you. I'm like, look, that sounds good, but let me tell you something.

31:01

If I was really worried about somebody, I'd go check on them. I'd go talk to them, right? And they'd be like, yeah, but they've never come talk to me.

31:09

So this is how, like, all I try to do, Derek, is try to get people to think, because people are not trained to think.

31:14

We're not trained to think in our education system. We're told what to believe and we believe it. I just try to get people to think about what they're actually saying, whether that be anything, especially, but scripture, right?

31:24

Like everybody says God's in control of everything, but then you ask them, do you really believe that? And you realize they don't really believe that.

31:31

And then it's, they get, then you have a choice. You can get mad at me for bringing that up and making you think about something that you didn't want to think about, or you can deal with it, right?

31:40

And a lot of people just project that anger towards you, me, or Jeremiah, whoever, when we point these things out, just to get them to think about what the scriptures actually say and what they say they believe, do you actually really believe that?

31:51

And so that's what you went through. And go ahead. Yeah, one of the other things, like at the very, very beginning, it was really,

32:03

I don't know, shocking because I went back to Monroe like four weekends, four separate weekends.

32:13

They weren't back -to -back because whatever, schedule. But I tried to talk directly, like face -to -face with a ton of people and just like, hey, like this isn't true, this isn't good.

32:24

The Bible never says this, and this is what we've been taught. And almost all of them were like, oh, that makes so much sense.

32:33

Like they were on board, they were about it. I met with one guy, again, another one of my groomsmen for lunch.

32:43

And I told him all these things. I brought my Bible, and we just went through scripture. And I was like, this doesn't make any sense, and this is why, like read this, read this, blah, blah, blah.

32:55

And he was like, why has nobody ever told me these things? And I was like, because we're not taught scripture. We're taught a little bit about Acts and what the preacher has to say about Acts, and that's it.

33:08

And the next time I came, or not the next time I came, I was texting him because my thing wasn't, hey,

33:15

I'm a Calvinist, be a Calvinist. It was, I know you don't believe in Calvinism, and I'm fine with that, but figure out what it is that you believe, because you're telling me right now that you don't believe this because I just showed you that it doesn't make sense.

33:30

So figure out what you believe. And then we can talk. And they were like, sure, that makes sense. That's totally fine. And so I would text a few of them, be like, okay, so what have you been studying?

33:38

And they're like, I don't really wanna talk about Calvinism. I was like, I don't want to either, actually.

33:45

I would just rather talk about what it is that you're reading in scripture, but okay.

33:52

And then it just slowly dwindled from communication to communication. Hi, Derek. I just speak where the

33:58

Bible speaks, and I'm just silent where the Bible's silent. Derek, I'll tell you what. I mean, I feel like you're just telling my story.

34:05

I mean, it's exactly, I mean, this is exactly what happened. You know what I'm saying? You tell, you know, you're studying with somebody, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

34:12

And the next thing you know, they're like, stay away. Like, this makes sense. You know, I had literally one person said, this makes more sense than anything

34:18

I've ever heard in my life. And then she said, I have one question though. I'm like, yeah, what is it? What's the question?

34:24

It's like, do you really think this person is wrong? Like, so you just said, everything

34:33

I just said makes more sense than anything you've ever heard in your life according to scripture. It's beautiful. It's the most beautiful thing you ever heard.

34:38

But your question is, is this guy wrong at our church? Right? Like, that's the problem.

34:46

You see, like, they're looking up to men, you know, instead of looking to scripture and looking at God's word. And it's because at the end of the day, this is the sad thing is for many people, and it's not just there.

34:56

I mean, this is the church of Christ. I mean, this is the doctrine of the, not doctrine, but I mean, this is what happens. And I mean,

35:01

I talk to people, me and Jeremiah, all over the country every week. It's the community. The real idol is the community.

35:08

The identity is who you have become in the community. And that's everything. It's your identity. It's the community.

35:14

Go ahead. Yeah, and so, like, I could hear some church of Christ say, see, they even claim to be

35:20

Calvinists. They follow men. And what I just try to tell people is to say, look, Calvin, John Calvin was a theologian.

35:27

He was a teacher, preacher, pastor in the church. And I'm a reformed

35:33

Baptist. That means that I disagree a lot with John Calvin himself. But when

35:38

I study him and how he goes to the word of God and says, hey, God is holy. That means he's transcendent.

35:44

That means that he is able to predestine what occurs in his world without being accused of being wrong.

35:50

I'm like, I'm testing his arguments. And I'm going back to the word of God. I see that God works all things together after the counsel of his will.

35:58

And this is before the foundation of the world. I'm like, oh. So I just want to kind of echo what you were talking about is, you know, they look to their shepherds, the church of Christ, and they don't test them.

36:09

They don't ask them. They just take their word for it. And somebody who's reformed, I'm saying, look at all of church history, but here's the difference.

36:17

Test what they're saying with the word of God. Don't just take their word for it as being infallible. Test what they're saying with the infallible scripture.

36:24

And so that helps people sometimes understand that we're not putting Calvin on a pedestal. We're just saying, hey, we think you got a lot of things right.

36:31

And I think you got a lot of things wrong as well. Baptizing babies. Right. I'm not a

36:37

Calvinist because I don't believe in paedo -baptism. Got that wrong. Oh. But so, a lot of that's very relatable to me.

36:48

So did you ever try to study with anybody of those leaders? I tried three times with one leader, the one who actually baptized me.

37:01

Still love him. Still, I would say a really good guy, but it was impossible.

37:06

Like we, I say we, me and my wife went to Monroe and I texted him and I was like, hey, like, we'd love to catch up and do a

37:15

Bible study. And he was like, let's do it. And so it was Monday morning.

37:21

We got there at nine, 10, we were supposed to be there at nine o 'clock. And we talked and caught up, because his son was in the same grade as my wife.

37:33

And so like, tons of relationships to talk about. And like an hour and a half in, he goes, so I got an appointment.

37:39

Like, it was really good to talk with you guys. Have a good one. And we were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

37:44

Like we didn't even do the Bible study part. Like we really wanted to do that part. We've not even talked.

37:51

So we showed up with our Bibles, right? We walk and he goes, he shows us his office. He's got his little desk, right?

37:56

And he goes, hey, we can sit over here. And there's like a couch and or couches. And so we're like, cool, cool. So we go sit over there and he didn't bring his

38:03

Bible. Like he didn't take his Bible with him. And so we were already like, this is weird.

38:09

Like, I don't know what's about to happen. And then we didn't do the Bible study and a great talk.

38:15

Like awesome to catch up with him. And so then I texted him the day after and I said, hey, you know, so sorry.

38:22

We didn't know that you had another appointment. I didn't mean to miss out an opportunity to study with you. I'd still really like to study.

38:28

He goes, sure, sure. How about you give me a call like this time this day? I said, cool, okay.

38:34

So that day, that time came and I called him and he is literally leaving the church in his truck and just driving home, talking.

38:44

And I was like, wait, are we not doing a

38:50

Bible study? And he was like, no, we can talk. And I was like, no, no, no. I want to open scripture and talk about it.

39:00

And then it ended up with him actually yelling at me because he said, that's not how

39:06

I do a Bible study. And I mean, there was more words that I said. I was like, well, you know, something, something.

39:12

I was still Church of Christ because we took Church of Christ out of our name. And he said, yes, we're definitely still Church of Christ. And basically it was whatever elders say goes in the confession of what they believe.

39:26

And I said, don't you think that's dangerous? Because, you know, it's not historical or losing all this history. You know, if they teach something false, like there's no one to check them because it's just what elders say.

39:36

And he goes, I don't know. We just never had that problem. And I was like. Right, never had any problem. Anybody bucking the system with the leaders, you know what

39:43

I'm saying? And it's just, that's the Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism says the Pope is the final authority. And this is why they say that, you know, and that's when they,

39:50

I know when they changed all that was in the time I was leaving, but, you know, they try to get people to sign these documents that if you let anything, whatever, that they were the final authority of interpretation, application and something else of scripture.

40:05

I mean, basically it's Roman Catholicism. It is Roman Catholicism, you know? I love that text, the way he talked and so and so.

40:13

Yeah, it's just sad. I mean, I had the same thing. You know, I tried to study with the leaders and I was like, look,

40:19

I mean, if it's wrong, let's just sit down and study. But none of that, no studying. Just tell everybody to stay away from you.

40:26

You know, and it's just, but it's sad. And I mean, my thing is, look, somebody calls me up for a study.

40:31

I don't care if they're Mormon, if they're Christians, if they agree with me, disagree with me. I don't care if they're six degree dragon breath ninjas.

40:40

You know what I'm saying? You want to study the Bible, I'm there. You know? And that's what, you know,

40:47

I think, you know, church leadership should be. I mean, that's your job, right? That's your job.

40:53

And so, yeah, it's a tough thing. And it's a very, you know, in my experience was shocking.

40:59

Like, wait a second, why won't they, you won't study? You won't study? But I hear all these things that they're saying, you know, and it's just, it's sad.

41:10

That's all I can say. Kind of on the flip side, because you gotta think I have a different experience than y 'all two.

41:16

Many years ago, back when I was around probably 21, I had a good friend that I was sharing the gospel with, trying to say, you know, you can't add works to it.

41:24

And my friend said, would you be willing to talk to my elders? And I said, let's do it. And so we all met up at a coffee shop.

41:32

He had about three elders with him. You gotta think, this was like the pre -apologetic dog days. So I'm kind of fresh.

41:38

I'm just one, I'm over here looking, basically at John 3, 16, Ephesians 2, 8, 9, thinking, how are you gonna explain those things away?

41:45

And so we had good conversation. And this was when I started being asked how

41:52

I understand Acts 2, 38, how I understand Acts 22, 16. And I'll never forget it,

41:58

Trey and Derek. When I was looking at Acts 22, 16, I thought, okay, I need to go, I need to go look at this, study it.

42:05

And so, you know, I think those are, that's a fantastic verse that says, look, when you call upon the name of the

42:11

Lord, that's how you get your sins washed away. The only thing is, Paul did that way earlier before his baptism.

42:17

But my point is, when you contend for the faith in love and you stand on truth, we can never fail, right?

42:25

God's going to use that. His word never returns empty or void. So I have met

42:31

Church of Christ people willing to open up their Bible with me. And you know what, praise God for that. Because ultimately, it comes down to his truth.

42:39

And so it's interesting with y 'all's experiences, y 'all have met many Church of Christ that are committed to their tradition, we'll say,

42:46

I know they wouldn't like that, but they're not wanting to get into the context of kind of some of these proof texts. So appreciate y 'all talking about that.

42:54

I'll tell you, about a couple months ago, there's a girl who left the

43:00

Church of Christ here locally and is getting engaged to a Reformed Baptist guy.

43:07

And they asked, her pastor has asked if I would come. Her and his elder asked if I would go to this meeting because they said that one person could come.

43:17

And it was at the Church of Christ. And I was shocked, they let me in, but they let me in. And we had a good discussion. I just respect the guys for all, you know, there's four of their elders and pastor, preacher, whatever.

43:28

And we all got to sit there and open up the Bible. And it was amazing. And so I just really respect when people will say, you know, let's just see what it says, you know?

43:37

And, but there's something to just say, I ain't studying, you know? So Derek, back to you, what else you want to say there?

43:43

So you tried to study, that didn't work out. What happened next? On the third phone call, he was like, so what else do you want to talk about?

43:52

Because we had already talked about the elder role. And he was like, well, there's no problem. And I said, okay, well, I don't, like, it was so much of a stonewall.

44:00

I was like, I don't even know how to, like, continue on that conversation. So let's just scratch it and do a different one.

44:06

And I was just like, so do you still think, because we're Church of, because you're Church of Christ, like the church is, do we still teach that baptism is like saving?

44:16

And he goes, I don't really like the way you asked that question. I was like, I don't understand what you mean.

44:24

He was like, it seems like you're trying to pigeonhole me into an answer. And I was like, I am not, like,

44:31

I am, that is a very basic theological question. Like, I'm trying to figure out how it is that you believe salvation comes about.

44:39

Do you believe it's for baptism? And he got angry with me and, like, yelled at me.

44:45

And this is, again, this is like, he taught me in high school.

44:50

He was the guy who baptized me. Like, it was crazy. I had never seen him angry or heard him angry.

44:58

And it was so much so at the end of the phone call, he literally texted me an apology and said, my apologies for my tone was not reflecting what

45:06

I truly was feeling. I was not upset at all, but my tone was definitely strong.

45:12

Looking forward to visiting. It's just so hard to admit. You know what I'm saying? It's just so hard to say, you know what? I'm sorry, I messed up.

45:19

Like, just stop putting lipstick on it. I mean, this is the Church of Christ. I mean, when you're in a workspace, when you're in a workspace deal, it's like, like, oh,

45:26

Aaron, you know, when he says, he said, I'll be honest with y 'all. I mean, there's times when

45:33

I just don't, I'm not perfect. And there's times where I've broken the speed limit.

45:40

I pull over and I pray and I ask for repentance and then I get back on the road. Like, come on, man. Like, you know, so it's so much easier just to say, look,

45:48

I'm a wretched sinner, forgive me. I need grace and mercy, you know? But it's just, they can't do it.

45:53

I mean, they can't, it's so sad. It is heartbreaking, man. I mean,

45:59

I want them to be free, you know? Yeah, I had one, again, one of my groomsmen,

46:04

I respect this guy highly because we had six study, like Bible studies back to back.

46:13

And the only frustrating part was he literally, like, afterwards, so we did the first two and it was only about how we're born sinners.

46:21

That was it. I was like, that, like God's sovereignty, but we both agree that God is sovereign, right?

46:28

Now, what that means, that was a whole other conversation. Everybody says it, right. He then said, but babies aren't sinners.

46:34

And I was like, okay, so let's start there. Like, let's just, let's start there.

46:40

And we did six back to back Bible studies. And the second one, he actually got mad at me and ignored me for like three days.

46:49

And then I texted him, I was like, hey, like, what happened? Like, did I say something? And he literally said, no, it's my fault.

46:57

I'm sorry, I got upset with you. It wasn't fair to you. I just thought this was gonna be a lot easier.

47:02

And I realized I didn't understand my position. And I was like, oh, like, this is cool.

47:08

Yeah, it was great. And then we studied two more times. And it was like, I'm sure

47:15

I could text him and like fight my way into a Bible study, but he doesn't actually want to study with me.

47:20

And I'm okay with that. Like, I'm not gonna just keep, you know, hitting him when he is actively trying to back off from it.

47:30

Because again, I'm not trying to convince him to be or believe something.

47:35

I'm just trying to reiterate what scripture says about something. So I wanna point something out to you that before I do, before I show you this,

47:45

I like to point this out to people, especially when, you know, for evangelism, for doing what we're called to do and to defend the faith, right?

47:54

I point this out to people because you're gonna have to be comfortable with it because you're gonna have to deal with it, right?

48:00

And it's this right here. Look at this with me. This is 2 Timothy 2, verse 24.

48:07

The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, okay? Must not be quarrelsome. So let's remember that.

48:13

Okay, check that. Kind to everyone, okay? Got that. We should be able to teach, okay?

48:22

Patiently enduring evil, okay? Correcting his opponents. Now, this is the part

48:28

I wanna point out here. Correcting his opponents with gentleness. Don't mind me, right?

48:33

With gentleness, okay? But here's the thing. When you do this,

48:39

I don't care how gentle, how gentle you're gonna be, right? Gonna bold that.

48:46

The person you're correcting right here is not gonna take it gentle.

48:52

They're gonna think it's quarrelsome. They're gonna think you're trying to start a fight and argue, right? Because people, none of us,

48:59

I don't, nobody likes to be told they're wrong, right? And so when you're correcting an opponent with gentleness, the man of God, and you're not being quarrelsome, you're being kind about it.

49:08

You're just showing them scripture. You're just getting them to think about things that they've never thought about. But then all of a sudden, you're gonna be accused of being quarrelsome and divisive and all these things, right?

49:18

And that's when you have to remind yourself, you know what? So was Jesus. He was accused of the same things, right? God knows your heart.

49:23

You know your heart. And so you're just gonna have to be comfortable with knowing that when you try to gently correct someone in their teachings and their understandings, you're gonna be accused of the same things

49:32

Jesus was accused of, Paul, Peter, all of them, you know? And that's what you have to be ready for. Go ahead,

49:37

Jeremiah. Well, actually, if you'd pull that verse back up there, that passage, because you're exactly right.

49:44

Like this, if we believe in the doctrines of grace, then we do not have any justification for being cage -stagey, right?

49:52

We should be the most gracious people doing these things in love because we have been saved by an amazing love and amazing grace.

49:59

And so what Trey's pointing out there, be kind to everybody, correcting them with gentleness. This is the means that God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

50:12

And so that should humble us, thinking it's not gonna be my argument, it's not gonna be all these things that convinces a person.

50:17

God has to grant them repentance. And that passage right there, Trey, that really changed my approach.

50:23

I don't wanna win an argument with somebody. I want them to know that I love them. I'm trying to be faithful to what

50:29

God has called me to do, but I wanna love on them. And I pray that God would open their heart to these truths, right, that He would open up their heart to receive the truths of Scripture.

50:37

He has to be the one to grant them repentance. Mm -hmm. Yeah. There it is right there. Takes a lot of stress off of you too because it's like, okay,

50:46

I don't have to, I don't have to get everything right because it's not me doing it anyways.

50:53

And it's not my words. Like I just have to be faithful to the message. That's all I have to do. If I sound dumb, trip over my words, or maybe not as consistent or coherent, like it's okay.

51:05

Like it's good to have all those things. And to practice, but ultimately that's not gonna win people over because it's not me.

51:15

Yeah, and me and Trey get accused all the time of saying, oh, well, you don't believe that you have to be persuasive.

51:22

Trey's really good younger brother, old T .T., basically says, you know, reformed theology, you don't have to be persuasive, and it contradicts

51:29

Scripture. It's like, no, we are persuasive. Just like the Apostle Paul, he went to the synagogues trying to prove to them from the

51:36

Scriptures that Jesus was raised from the dead. But in our persuasiveness, trying to declare the gospel of grace and the truth, we know the thing at the end of the day is

51:45

God has to do a work in their heart, show them the light in order to trust it.

51:50

We might can present truth objectively to somebody, lay it all out for them, but the thing that's gonna make them trust it is not their own volition that they create ex nihilo from nothing, but it's gonna be the powerful working of God opening their heart.

52:05

Right, and so I'll show you another verse here that Todd Wagner, he planted

52:10

Watermark Church in Dallas, kind of a big church, solid church. But he's one of my mentors, and I love him to death.

52:19

And I was talking to him one day about, he's either going on cultish or talking to T .T.

52:24

for the first time, just seeing what he thought, you know, and he said, well, turn here to 1

52:31

Timothy. And let me ask you this question, because if you can pass this test, he said, have at it, baby. Here it is.

52:39

If the aim, he says, if the aim of your charge is this right here, get after it. If the aim of your charge is love that issues from a pure heart and good conscience and a sincere faith, take it to him, right?

52:52

And that's it, I mean, that's what we have to see when we're talking to these people that we love, and we know that like Jesus loved people, but they thought that he was mean and divisive and all these, he was a troublemaker.

53:03

And Paul started riots in the streets, you know what I'm saying? And he was loving though. And so you never forget that Jesus Christ was put on a cross because he was accused of not being loving.

53:14

So you're in good company, my friend, when they think that you're not loving and that you're always causing trouble by talking to them about the word of God and trying to correct them.

53:24

I mean, that's the job, you know, what is it, 2 Timothy 3 .16, or Timothy 3 .16, where it says, all scriptures

53:30

God breathed is used for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training the man of God so he can be thoroughly equipped. That's our job,

53:37

I mean, to correct. It's there for the correction, right? That means I might need correction, you might need correction, but let's look at God's word together and let's be open to his word, not

53:46

Billy's or Elder whatever, you know? Grandma's church. Grandma's church, it don't matter, you know?

53:54

And so anyway, so then tell us what happened next there.

54:01

Ninja Warrior. After the talk with the

54:07

Elder and several Bible studies with other people, this one guy who was a part of the college ministry that I didn't really talk to that much just like messaged me out of the blue.

54:17

And he goes, hey, Derek, what is, like, tell me what Calvinism is. And I was like, what?

54:23

Like, I don't talk to him. And we were good friends. Like, I would say that we could confess things to each other, right?

54:30

Like that kind of friends, but like, I'm not gonna talk to him on a daily basis. And certainly when I moved, like that relationship kind of nulled out, right?

54:38

And so he just messaged me out of the blue and I was like, okay, so I know that I am being talked about because he's like literally coming to me saying, hey, what is

54:51

Calvinism, right? So it's like, okay, so this is being talked about again. Let's talk about it, you know?

54:57

And I said, now I - Go to that church down the road and talk to Pastor Fishbone. He'd love to talk to you about it.

55:03

I've tried. But literally, I told him, I said, so I just wanna be clear.

55:11

I wanted, I said, I just wanna be clear. You're asking me about Calvinism. I'm not trying to convince you to be a

55:18

Calvinist. He was like, no. And he got mad at you for talking to him, right? Not quite. He, I told him, like you told me,

55:27

Trey, I was like, hey, so after this conversation, you'll probably never talk to me again, but you know, I'm ready for that.

55:32

He was like, no, I'll still talk to you. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I talked to him one other time and then we haven't talked since.

55:41

And then one of the guys I had heard again was worried about me.

55:47

And so I messaged him and we scheduled a call and this guy was younger than me, just like background.

55:53

Like he was younger than me. I let it, I really taught him, like ministered to him. I considered him a younger brother kind of person to me.

56:02

And we just started talking about what I believe versus what he believes. And he said,

56:09

I don't believe, we believe in the same God. And I said, so just, I just want this to be out in the open.

56:14

So you don't think I'm going to heaven right now. And he goes, no. And I said, okay. I said, so I was teaching the same thing.

56:23

Yeah, and I was like, okay. So I was teaching the same thing. And there that I believe now, like I'm just better at knowing scripture right now.

56:33

And I said, and I taught you nothing different and you still loved me. Now, with that being said, because you believe

56:41

I'm going to hell, will you study with me so that way I won't go?

56:48

And his exact response, and I can't exaggerate this. He said, man,

56:53

I don't know. I'm just really busy. And I was like, okay, I get it.

57:00

Like, I get it. And then another one of his friends, again, same thing,

57:07

I called him because I heard he was worried about me. So I was like, let's talk. And so I asked him how one guy was,

57:14

I just mentioned him. I said, how has he been doing? And he said, I don't know how to talk to you about faith things. And I was like, great.

57:20

That's actually what I wanted to talk about was faith. So we get in this whole conversation about what

57:25

I believe, how he doesn't think that the God that I believe in is holy. And he says that what

57:30

I believe isn't Christian. And so then I was like, okay, again, let's go into it.

57:37

I said, do you think that, I said, what is your counter?

57:43

So you don't believe in my position, which my position has been Orthodox Christianity historically for ever.

57:53

And I just named a bunch of people. I said, all the Southern Baptist seminaries, they were founded upon Calvinistic theology, right?

58:01

They may not be there now, but they were founded on that. Are you prepared to say that? Yeah, I was like, are you prepared to say that I'm not and they're not?

58:11

And he said, well, I can't speak for other people. And I said, well, you're speaking for me right now. So what is your counter of belief?

58:19

And literally all he said was, I believe God is holy. I said, that's not a system of belief. That's just a statement.

58:25

And we continued on through this whole thing. And I just gave him verse after verse, after verse, after verse, because this talk was about sovereignty because it was all about like, if God is holy and blah, blah, blah.

58:41

And eventually it got to the point where there were a few things in the conversation where he said, how do you define this?

58:48

And I said, no, no, no, I'm not talking about how I define this. Let's look at the Greek. What does the Greek say about this? Like Ephesians two, you're not saved by works.

58:56

And he was like, so how do you define a work? And I was like, no, let's look at what the word work means.

59:01

Let's look at what the word grace means, unmerited favor. And he was like, I don't know if I agree with that.

59:07

And I was like, it's not my definition. Like, I can't stress this enough.

59:13

Jeremiah, do you ever run into these issues? With the wrong definition of words? Derek, have you seen anything on the

59:20

Apologetic Dog? If you haven't, I forgot. I haven't. I haven't. Well, you have watched like two of the

59:26

YouTube videos, but past that, no. You gotta be an Apologetic Dog fan.

59:33

I've done about nine debates or so, Derek, and everything you just said is literally my game plan.

59:40

The grammatical historical method of interpretation, that means we are going to define words, and context is king.

59:49

And so that's what you can do. I mean, you can look at proof texts. If you can understand the surrounding context, that's going to inform us.

59:58

Or is that what you're showing us? I literally, I have my battle plan right here, pulled up of everything

01:00:05

I go through. So like I've got definitions already written out, and then I've got how regeneration is a true, because if I say regeneration, it's like less skeptical than total depravity or any of those other things.

01:00:20

Regeneration is like a real doctrine. Like any Christian has to believe in regeneration. So like let's look at what that says.

01:00:27

And so then I go through regeneration, where it is in scripture, church history from Augustine versus Pelagian, Luther versus Erasmus, Calvin versus Arminian.

01:00:37

And I just go through all of that with them. And I try it, that gets a little bit, like they're like, oh, okay, this makes a little bit of sense.

01:00:47

And then we lose them later, but it at least gets them somewhere engaged, where it's not like outright, no, like,

01:00:56

I don't believe what you're saying. It's like, I'm not saying anything about me. I'm just repeating this.

01:01:02

One of the last things I want to kind of begin to close with is, we've been talking a lot about reform theology,

01:01:09

Calvinism. I love having those in -house discussions, right? Does regeneration precede faith or vice versa?

01:01:15

How does that work? Man, I can high five with somebody that we have a disagreement on that. These are important, especially in terms of understanding our eternal security.

01:01:25

But Derek, and I love your heart, just trying to love on people and showing them those gold nuggets that you come out of the coal mine and say, look,

01:01:32

Eureka, look what God has revealed to me. It's so precious and beautiful. I try to tell people, and like you said earlier,

01:01:39

I'm not trying to convert people to Calvinism. I want them to understand the gospel of grace.

01:01:45

Now, what's the theology that sustains that gospel of grace? Well, it's the depth of who

01:01:51

God is and his transcendence and his glory and his sovereignty. You know what I mean? Like the way that we've been talking about it.

01:01:57

I try to tell people that the hill I'm willing to die on is justification by faith alone.

01:02:05

And so when people are like, when people are like, yeah, but you gotta work out your salvation and fear and trembling. Well, what is salvation?

01:02:10

What type of deliverance is the context talking about? Because like your definitions of word on your page,

01:02:16

I talk to people about what is regeneration? What is justification? What is sanctification? What is glorification?

01:02:22

Because the word saved, depending on the context, could be talking about a number of those things. And so I simply try to tell people, are you justified?

01:02:30

When is the moment that you are justified before a holy God? Is it your faith in Jesus plus you working a particular action like baptism?

01:02:39

Okay, well, that's faith plus works. And Galatians 1 anathematizes that. It said, no, don't turn away from the grace of Christ.

01:02:46

Look to Jesus in faith. And so I just wanted to remind our audiences, hey, we can talk about the depths of reformed theology versus Arminianism and kind of how the church historically has continued to sharpen each other in these things.

01:03:00

But what we hold near and dear is salvation by faith alone and Jesus Christ alone.

01:03:06

So, Troy, is that in your background? You have a sola fide. Yeah, I got some sola fide up in here. That's how

01:03:12

I do it, right there, right behind me. But I'm the same way, man. You know, I think these doctrines are very important.

01:03:19

And I always tell people, I'm preaching on this Sunday, that perfect doctrine, perfect theology doesn't save anyone.

01:03:27

Faith alone in Christ alone saves people. But doctrine and theology reveals your heart. That's what it does. So if you come across these doctrines, this theology and you're seen in scripture, and if it makes you angry, we don't have a theological problem, we have a heart issue.

01:03:42

It's a heart problem. These things shouldn't make you mad, shouldn't make you angry. It should, theology is not, the end of theology is not aha.

01:03:49

The end of theology is worship, you know? So when you study theology and who God is in the depths of Him, it should make you fall on your face in awe of Him and His just almighty power of who

01:04:03

He is and His grace and His mercy, you know, His perfect justice, all of His attributes. So, but Derek, thank you so much for doing this.

01:04:10

This was fun. Yeah, this is great. Got the ninja up on here. I appreciate the opportunity, man.

01:04:17

I really do. It's been hard, but I'm not giving up.

01:04:22

I still love the people. I'm still gonna continue to pursue them. And yeah, like,

01:04:29

I like how you guys said it. It's my Nineveh. It's like, dude, this is, there's times, there's certain people

01:04:37

I'll say in the church that I don't believe are saved and that makes me want to talk to them all the more.

01:04:44

Like I will make the amount of time in my schedule to study because it's the only thing worth doing.

01:04:53

Yeah, I mean, because either it's true or it's not. And I mean, either heaven is real and heaven and hell is real or it's not, right?

01:05:00

But we believe it is. And we know God's word is true. So thank you for doing that.

01:05:05

Don't stop sharing. Always remember that the aim of your charge should be love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith and love for them.

01:05:17

And I'll do my best to do the same. We'll hold each other accountable to that. And is there any last words either one of you guys want to say?

01:05:25

So I'll say, Derek, thanks so much, man. I need to get your contact information. It's been a pleasure getting to know you.

01:05:31

And I love how you're writing definitions of terms out. And like you said earlier, it's not our definitions of terms.

01:05:38

It's not what we feel like. But what, as R .C. Sproul would have said, what hath God wrought? What does

01:05:43

God's word say? And so dude, just keep contending for the faith. Definitely be praying for you and reach out to me or Fishbone here if you ever need anything, man.

01:05:53

Oh, we talk. We talk. All right, guys. Hey, we'll talk in just a minute, but we're gonna shut this one down.

01:06:00

Thanks for watching everybody. And I pray that you were edified by it. So again, one body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the church of Christ.

01:06:11

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

01:06:17

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

01:06:24

God the glory and Jesus. Grandma's church, Baptist church, Presbyterian church, church of Christ.

01:06:31

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