February 8, 2019 Show with Edward Dalcour on “T. D. Jakes & The Trinity: Should Biblical Christians Call this Best-Selling Author Our Brother in Christ?”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this eighth day of February 2019.

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I'm so delighted that after so many postponements and cancellations and Edward and myself going back and forth having to move the date of our interview that the day has finally come where our

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Lord actually has provided us the opportunity to be live again with Edward Delcor.

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He is probably the most postponed guest in the history of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and Edward Delcor is founder of the

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Department of Christian Defense and he's the author of the classic work critiquing modalism today called

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A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the Light of Biblical Trinitarianism.

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Today we're going to be addressing T .D. Jakes and the Trinity. Should biblical Christians call this best -selling author our brother in Christ.

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We're also going to be announcing the upcoming Bible conference where Edward Delcor is among other speakers on the roster.

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The Bible conference in Mechanicsville, Virginia titled Behold Our Triune God and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Edward Delcor.

02:36

Thank you very much Chris. It's been a long time since we've connected on the show.

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It was a pleasure seeing you and we're just talking about some of the friends we haven't seen for a long time.

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Yeah the G3 conference. Yeah that was awesome. Good to see everybody. Yeah it was terrific to share fellowship with you and I'm so delighted that you are very heavily involved with my dear friend

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Joe Jackowitz and First Love Radio and First Love Publishing and First Love Missions. It's just a joy to know that you are collaborating with such a dear friend.

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Yeah yeah we've done a lot. It's so productive, mysteriously what we do, you know, going to these other countries and pastor conferences and educating pastors because let me tell you, as you probably know, you know, these other countries like Philippines and Kenya, Nigeria, these places that we go, they're getting so much bad material.

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They're getting exposed to so much bad teaching out there. It's just,

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I really enjoy the productivity there of just distributing solid material that we know all the authors, you know, all these books that we give away free and I'm just glad to be a part of it.

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Yeah amen. And by the way, do you have any updates on what's going on over in Kenya where our friend and brother

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Joe Jackowitz is laboring right now? I understand there's some dangerous activity going on there.

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Yeah I heard about some of the dangers of Islam out there, harassing and doing other things to Christians out there.

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I don't know all the details, but I know there were some issues when they first arrived there, a lot of logistic issues, but as far as I know,

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I haven't seen the last update. They're proceeding with the pastor conferences and giving away the books.

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Okay, well hopefully we will hear good word from Joe Jackowitz very soon. Before we go into our subject at hand, which is

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T .D. Jakes and the Trinity should biblical Christians call the best selling, this best -selling author our brother in Christ, tell our listeners something about the

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Department of Christian Defense. The Department of Christian Defense website being christiandefense .org

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is an apologetic educational ministry which distributes lots of literature.

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We have some books that we offer as well, and it's just a hub for Christians to educate themselves on different cults and different world religions on different, particularly on one is doctrine, which is a very prolific non -christian religion, or some would say a non -christian cult.

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Now, you know me, Chris, when I define these groups like Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Oneness, Islam, I really use the term atheist.

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Atheist is the phrase non -christian cult, but Paul has no problem in Ephesians 2 .12

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saying what the Ephesians were, you know, without hope, and atheist in the world.

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That's the term he used, atheo, he uses the term atheist because without the true God. So I refer to oneness

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Christology or oneness theology as an atheistic construct, to be sure, because it's without the true

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God. So it's a place where people can get information, and they can write me, ask questions, and I'm feel free to go on the website, have a newsletter come out once every two months, it's a free newsletter, and yeah, just anyone and everyone can come on and see what we have to offer.

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And tell us something about this book of yours that has become a classic for those who are apologetically minded in efforts to have dialogue with their oneness

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Pentecostal friends, definitive look at oneness theology in the light of Biblical Trinitarianism.

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Yeah, we first, I first wrote that book actually in 2004, and there was of course just a mindful of typos from our editor.

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I've been revising it also in the fourth edition, I added new material, but we offer that book on the website.

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What it is, it's a contrast between, first it's a definition of oneness Pentecostalism, and as I point out, there's various views from oneness teachers as to a clear definition of oneness theology.

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They do have commonalities, like they're Unitarian, they believe God is one person, they believe

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Jesus is the name of the Unitarian God, and they believe Jesus exists in various roles,

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that's all Jesus, in different modes, how he's operating, and most of them believe those modes can act simultaneously, whereas you've got the way

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International holds to this really a Sibelius view, the modes were successive.

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First there was the Father creation, then there was the Son mode, and then when his work in redemption was finished, now there's

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Jesus the Holy Spirit, right, in recreation. But most one is Pentecostals do not hold to that view.

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One of the problems is defining the view. They have no official creed, you know, they have no official doctrinal statement.

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When you say they, are you referring to the United Pentecostal Church International? Actually, just oneness advocates, you know, that's one of the many denominations, there's many denominations of oneness

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Pentecostalism, and some are even, you know, even within Pentecostalism, some are not as Pentecostal as others, but dealing with just oneness doctrine, there's many different names and titles, that's why it's so difficult to get an actual number of the roll call in terms of how many oneness believers you have, which is problematic, because as you know,

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Chris, there's a lot of oneness doctrine within Christian TV, within Christian churches, and as we'll talk about this today, it's well tolerated by a lot of unstudied

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Christians. Yes, and of course the palpable irony of the

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Trinity broadcasting network allowing oneness Pentecostals on their network when the very name that they chose to identify themselves with is the

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Trinity, that's kind of strange. Well, and I hear this a lot of folks don't see

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Trinitarianism and oneness Pentecostalism as incompatible. A lot of people just think, well, you know, they do believe

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Jesus is God, they do love Jesus, they are born again, those kind of things. They do have the Spirit, especially

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Charismatics, as long as you speak in tongues, you must be saved, kind of thing. But we know that's not true, theologically.

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Yes, in fact, back in the early 20th century, I believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

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I believe that the Assemblies of God had the biblical orthodoxy and the passion for truth in regard to the

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Trinity that they excommunicated, the one that's Pentecostals, am I right? Yes, in fact,

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I have a Pentecostal, or an Assembly Pastor friend, and he gave me a lot of material on that.

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Yeah, they expunged, early in the 20th century,

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I think around 1916, 1914, I think 1916, they actually expunged 156 pastors for teaching oneness doctrine.

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And at their, I think their third General Conference, they took a very, very strong stance on the

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Trinity. Well, before we go any further into the topic of our discussion,

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I want to make sure that we begin announcing the Behold Our Triune God Conference, which is being held in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

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And in fact, I was honored to interview the pastor of that church, Knox Reform Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, which is a congregation in the

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PCA, the Presbyterian Church in America, and its pastor is Jeff Downs.

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Tell us about this conference that's coming up, that you are going to be joining the roster to present your own sessions on the

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Trinity. Yeah, there's various topics that we'll be doing, and let me tell you about Jeff Downs.

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He's a fabulous man of God, because he's so apologetic -minded.

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In fact, I first met Jeff at a conference, believe it or not, in early 2000s,

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I think 2003. He did a, I forgot the title, I think,

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Other Gods Conference, where it was an apologetic conference dealing with other non -Christian constructs like Mormonism and Witnesses and other groups.

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And it was a great conference, but I remember waiting outside, it was in Pennsylvania, because it was a break, and I was waiting,

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I was next to speak, and I was to speak on Mormonism. And as I'm waiting outside the church, two

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Bush Hill Mormon missionaries rode their bikes to me. Hey, we share some things with you.

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It was so ironic. So this conference is specifically going to be on the

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Trinity, and as you see the list of speakers, we have some fabulous speakers.

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James White will be doing, let's see, I'm thinking of the topics, the deity of Christ.

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He'll be doing the importance of the Trinity. Anthony Rogers, he'll be doing, which is really, he's fantastic on the issue of the

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Trinity in the Old Testament. In fact, if you would do me a favor,

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Anthony Rogers is the only one of the speakers who is not a friend of mine.

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I've never met nor spoken with Anthony that I can recall. If you could give me information off the air, contact information, because I would love to get him on before the conference as well.

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Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he'd be a great guest to have. He just graduated not too long ago from Greenville.

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Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Yeah, he's a fantastic writer, too, but his knowledge of the

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Old Testament issues will be a true blessing for everyone there as it relates to the Doctrine of the

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Trinity in the Old Testament. Yeah, and if you haven't had the time to share fellowship with Jeff Waddington, he is a friend of mine.

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I really enjoy Jeff, not only because of his brilliance, but because he is, for a

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Reformed scholarly brother, he has an enormously bizarre and hilarious sense of humor.

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You know, I wanted to meet him. Yeah, I heard he had to. He had some other engagement or some work he had to do, so he couldn't make it.

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Oh, he's not going to be there at this conference? No, he had to drop out, so I think he's going to cut his things in half.

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Oh, I didn't, I did not know that. As Johnny Carson used to say, I did not know that.

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Yeah, I think I have some of the topics in front of me. Actually, Friday we're going to have a pre -conference seminar, and they have me doing

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Distortion of God in movies and music. You know, when I first heard that title, they asked me if I wanted to do it.

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I said, okay, I'll, you know, speak on whatever you want. And all the movies with Distortion of God, but I'll specifically be addressing

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The Son of God, The Shack, Passion, Noah, you know, those great films.

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You mean movies and music actually distort God? I'm shocked.

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I thought they were all spot -on. You know what, but I told Jeff, I said, you know,

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I'll talk about movies, because most movies that are based on biblical narrative, as I see it, they do distort

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God. Some in a non -heretical way, just by blatant inaccuracies, but others just are so heretical, like The Shack.

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And I'm also going to talk about The Passion and the Catholic implication. However, I might qualify this whole thing and say, but I'm not going to say anything bad against the

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Charlton Heston and the Ten Commandments, because I like that movie. Classics, obviously.

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And then James is going to talk about The Son of God, The Shack, Passion, Noah, you know, those great films. You know, I thought they were all spot -on. I thought they were all spot -on. And then James is going to talk about The Son of God, The Shack, Passion, Noah, you know, I thought they were all spot -on. And then James is going to talk about The Son of God, The Shack, Passion, Noah, you know, I thought they were all spot -on. And then James is going to talk about The Son of God, He's going to do Behold, Your God the Trinity, that day, too. That Saturday... that's really the day of the conference.

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now Jeff Waddington was supposed to do a history of Trinitarian theology, but I think Anthony Rogers is going to do two segments on Trinity and Old Testament.

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word that all all the implications of financial of booster doctrine book humanitarian data that's so evident in the

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Old Testament, that will be his argument. And I tell you, there's a lot of data he will be presenting.

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And then James is going to do the deity of Christ, and then I think I'm the last speaker, I'll be doing texts listed by the cult, how to properly handle those texts, but it's a challenging one because there's so many of them that I want to try to focus on just the particular humanitarian ones, but there's so many deity of Christ distortions made by Unitarians.

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And of course, when you're the last speaker, here's the challenging thing, when you're the last speaker at a conference, pretty much everyone has mentioned all the passages you were going to use or miss.

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So you find yourself repetitiously saying, as he said before, or as he mentioned earlier.

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And you're the last speaker before the dinner, you know, everyone's looking at their watch. Well, for anybody who either lives in Virginia or wants to travel there, whether you take a train, plane, or automobile, you can go to knoxreformedprez .org,

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K -N -O -X reformed P -R -E -S dot org. That is the website of Knox Reformed Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, where the conference is being held from March 1st through the 3rd.

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March 1st through the 3rd. And hopefully we'll be repeating this information throughout the program.

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It's right outside of Richmond. For anyone who doesn't know Mechanicsville, it's a suburb of Richmond.

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A suburb of Richmond, okay. Yeah. And by the way, brother, just a request, try to keep your mouth as close to whatever mouthpiece you're using, or microphone, because you do cut in and out occasionally.

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Oh, okay. I'll hold it up. And I'm going to give our email address for those of you who want to join us on the air with a question for Edward DelCore on Oneness Pentecostalism, on the

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Trinity itself, or specifically on T .D. Jakes, which is the primary theme today,

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T .D. Jakes and the Trinity. Should biblical Christians call this best -selling author our brother in Christ?

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Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

18:48

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

18:57

I think it would be wise for us to start off the primary segment of our interview today with a, as brief a definition or description of the

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Trinity that you would deem to be biblically orthodox, and basically the minimum that you believe biblically sound

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Christians must believe about the Triune Godhood in order to be considered biblically orthodox.

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Right. And unfortunately, because so many Christians are inadequately taught, you get bizarre definitions from Christians, from three people in one person, to separate

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Christians use the term manifestation unknowingly, and they'll use horrible, listen, for all the audience, there are

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Christians who don't use analogies. Yeah, in fact, I'm sure you get a belly laugh as much as I do watching the

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Lutheran satire video with the two Irishmen correcting St. Patrick, many allegories that St.

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Patrick is drumming up to describe the Trinity. Of course, these were not really the words of St.

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Patrick in the video, but I think it's absolutely hysterical. And it's also, I think, education that video.

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It is. Yeah, I think they do a good job, but analogies, none of them are, especially the water one,

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I hear a lot from professing Christians, none of them are adequate. I always, my advice, stay biblical.

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One God, three persons, just it's simple, stay biblical, you know, and show that, substantiate what you're saying in scripture.

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Listen, there's a difference, and I'll say this from the onset, there is a difference between a

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Christian who has a very inadequate understanding of the

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Trinity in terms of how he communicates it, you know, saying manifestations or saying, you know, three people or three parts or something, there's a difference between that person who hasn't been exposed to good teaching and the person that says,

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I reject the Trinity, God is one person. There's a qualitative difference there. Yes, but simply, you know, so we have to understand the difference between sufficient knowledge and exhaustive knowledge, because you can have exhaustive knowledge.

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Right. And as I've brought up on my program, probably more often than my listeners care to remember, because I repeat myself a lot, but just as the

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Apostle Paul, when he was rebuking the church in Galatia, he treated those who were duped by the

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Judaizers in the church in a much less harsh way than he treated the

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Judaizers. He called the Galatians, the Christians in the church of Galatia, his brethren, and yet the

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Judaizers he had held in a completely different level of disdain, and he held an entirely different category for them.

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He believed that they were damned, obviously, from the harshness of his words. So I think the same could apply for the

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Trinity, where you might be confused, because as simple as it may be to explain, it's obviously a deeply mysterious and perplexing issue that none of us can fathom the depths of it completely, otherwise we would be

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God ourselves, if we could. Yes, that's an excellent point. In fact, let me point this out.

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Virtually all Paul's letters were designed for the express purpose to refute some kind of heresy, to undeceive the

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Christians. He's writing to Christians to undeceive them, because they were being influenced by bad teaching.

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Today, that's the pastor's role. He needs to undeceive and disambiguate Christian doctrine. Look, a good definition of the

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Trinity is simply this. There are three distinct persons who share the nature of the one

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God. Three distinct persons who share the nature, that means they're co -equal, co -eternal, co -existent, distinct, that share the nature of the one

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God. Or as Luther pointed out, when he's dealing with essential doctrine, one

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God, the three -in -one, you know, where one God reveals in three persons. And why do we give such a simplistic definition?

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It's because Scripture simplistically teaches how many times that there's one

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God over and over and over and over. But where the Unitarians and Muslims and Jehovah Witnesses do, they intrude upon a simple definition of monotheism and make that equal.

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For personalism, one God means one person, without the text actually revealing that one...

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You might have to repeat that last statement, brother, because you cut out. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry.

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One God in three persons, why do we use such simple definitions? Because Scripture defines

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God as one God, and our fundamental view of the

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Trinity starts with monotheism, in which the Unitarians make monotheism equivalent to unipersonalism, right?

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One person. So when they see one God all over the place, they say, ah, one person, but I don't have to do that.

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We find that there's one being revealed in three persons, because that's what we find in Scripture, three distinct persons who are presented as Yahweh, who are presented as the

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Creator, but yet there's one God. So it's, I think, a doctrine that the

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Bible, just the simple biblical data defines for us.

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Well, tell us now something about the main figure that we are going to be discussing today, and the reason why

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I wanted to discuss T .D. Jakes personally, and who knows, maybe we can get him on to respond to everything that was said today.

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But T .D. Jakes is a greatly beloved figure, even amongst

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Trinitarian or professingly Trinitarian evangelicals. Perhaps, especially in the

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African American community, but not exclusively, I can remember after 9 -11,

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I was in a sales meeting for a Christian radio station that is a part of the largest

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Christian radio network in the world, and we were having a sales meeting on how to have the best response to this, to give encouragement and counsel and comfort to the body of Christ in the tri -state area of New York City.

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And one of the primary, or should

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I say initial, ideas that was presented to us in the sales meeting,

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I was an account executive at that time, I was not a talk show host, and the initial word of very strong advice that we had from somebody in the upper echelons of the management there was, we've got to get

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T .D. Jakes here. We've got to get T .D. Jakes to come to Manhattan to give a word to Christians on how we should be responding to this.

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And I raised my hand and I said, excuse me, T .D. Jakes doesn't believe in the Trinity. Oh, here goes

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Chris Arnson again nitpicking. And I was like, wow, I didn't know that nitpicking, that belief in the

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Trinity was nitpicking. But, and I also said, well, you know who takes this issue seriously about the

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Trinity? You know who takes it very seriously? One is Pentecostals take it very seriously, and of course in varying degrees.

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But I wanted to address T .D. Jakes because he is held in such high esteem even by Trinitarians.

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And he is, I don't know if he still is the top selling Christian author today, but I can recall back in the 90s when

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I was still working for this Christian radio network, he was the, at least for a number of years, the number one

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Christian author. And I use the term just because of the way that the book selling industry would describe it.

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The number one selling Christian author that there was in existence. So there's obviously, this is very important reason to address someone of his stature.

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And on top of that, there is confusion and a realm of mystery involved into what

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Mr. Jakes really believes. There are lots of rumors that he had repented of his oneness heresy and become

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Trinitarian. And I've heard the same kinds of rumors about Phillips, Craig, and Dean, which we could go into in a little bit.

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A very well -known award -winning Christian, and I use the term as the industry does, quote, quote,

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Christian recording artists, but that are one is Pentecostal. But if you could tell us as much as you can about the origins of T .D.

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Jakes and bring us to the point of where he is today in his profession.

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And by the way, in fact, what we're going to do, so I don't interrupt you mid -sentence, we're going to have you do that when we return from the break, because we have to go to our first break right now.

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And if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

29:14

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please, as always, give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

29:23

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

29:29

Perhaps you are a one that's Pentecostal and you don't want to draw attention to yourself.

29:34

You are either questioning your beliefs or the only defend them and you just don't want to identify yourself.

29:47

We could understand why you would want to remain anonymous, but other than that, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

29:56

USA. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

30:02

Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages with Edward Delcor and our subject,

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T .D. Jakes and the Trinity. Did you know that all believers are priests?

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That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio here.

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I want to tell you about a man I have personally known for many years. His name is Dan Buttafuoco.

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Dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer, but not the type that typically comes to mind.

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Dan cares about people and is a theologian himself. Recently he wrote a book titled

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Consider the Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword.

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Dan also has a master's degree in theology. Dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states.

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He represents many Christians in serious injury matters all over the country. Dan is an exceptional trial lawyer.

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He wrote the test for the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for one million dollars or more and in approximately 10 different states.

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In Illinois, his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history. In New York, his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the

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Dan Buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878. 1 -800 -669 -4878.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. My name is

37:24

Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

37:30

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

37:36

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

37:42

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown

37:47

Manhattan. You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc

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.nyc. They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

38:12

New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

38:19

.nyc. Have a great day. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is

38:27

Edward Delcor. He is the founder of the Department of Christian Defense and author of A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the

38:35

Light of Biblical Trinitarianism. We are going to be discussing today T .D. Jakes and the Trinity, Should Biblical Christians Call This Best -Selling

38:43

Author Our Brother in Christ? Also, we want you to know about the upcoming Bible conference in Mechanicsville, Virginia, Behold Our Triune God, where Edward Delcor is on the speaking roster.

38:55

That's March 1st through the 3rd. Once again, if you want more details on that conference, which we hope as many of you as possible will attend, you can go to knoxreformedpres .org.

39:15

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Edward Delcor on T .D.

39:21

Jakes or on Oneness Pentecostalism in general or on the Trinity, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

39:28

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Edward, as I said before the break,

39:34

I'd like you to give us as much history about T .D. Jakes as possible, as much as you know, in a summary form, obviously, in regard to where he came from, what denominations or fellowships or organizations he has been involved in theologically, because of the fact there is a wide spectrum of Oneness Pentecostalism or anti -Trinitarianism or Unitarianism out there, ranging from those that consider the issue of the

40:08

Godhead in regard to Trinity versus Oneness. The spectrum ranges from a wide group of people, beginning with those that believe that Trinitarianism is a heresy, that it's really tritheism, it's really the belief in three gods, no matter what we say, they would say that we are lost if we believe this.

40:32

And then you have, all the way over on the other spectrum, a group that seeks to be considered just one of many

40:39

Christian denominations and modern Evangelicalism, they may hold their

40:45

Oneness views with great importance, but they still consider Trinitarians their brethren in Christ, and of course we cannot judge the motives of those individuals, how much of that is sincere or how much of that is a smoke screen, and of course that would change from person to person and church to church,

41:03

I'm assuming. But tell us about what you know about T .D. Jakes. Well, currently

41:08

T .D. Jakes is the senior pastor, as most know, of the Potter House, and I think they have over 30 ,000 members, that's just in the church.

41:18

I mean, he has a huge listening audience, it's located in Dallas, Dallas, Texas.

41:25

And I remember several years ago, Jakes was named America's Best Preacher by Time Magazine.

41:32

He was America's pastor, which is horrible. Now how does

41:38

Time Magazine, a secular magazine not known for its high view of Christianity, how do they come up with a criteria that gives them the so -called right to choose

41:50

America's best pastor? I think they're just looking at America's most popular preacher, because if you look at the most popular preachers, you've got

42:00

Jakes, you've got John Olsteen, you've got the women false teachers like Joyce Meyers and others, so I think they're looking at the popularity to make an interesting article.

42:14

But nevertheless, the problem is many Christians do follow, Christians follow

42:19

T .D. Jakes. Many Trinitarians follow T .D. Jakes. And the fact of the matter is, they fall in because Jakes, if you look at all

42:28

Jakes, like its catalog, if you look at Jakes' catalog, if you look at his subject matter that he has taught in previous sermons, he really doesn't deal with the nature of God, not much.

42:40

He doesn't, so you're not going to find a presentation of oneness doctrine repetitiously.

42:47

Now he has, but on oneness, and in a moment I'll share that. But for the most part, people are mesmerized by his, you know, the way he pauses, his speaking ability.

42:59

Oh yeah, he has a great oratory gift. He's mesmerizing. I think he speaks with great authority and his

43:05

God -given voice adds to that. I mean, he has a great voice, has a great radio voice, better than mine.

43:14

But as far as official affiliation or denominational ties, has he changed over the years?

43:22

And what denomination or affiliation he has had? Has he been always independent? You know, because as we said before, you have the

43:30

United Pentecostal Church International. Even Robert Sabin, who used to be a part of that denomination, left and is a part of one of the apostolic groups, which very often when you see the word apostolic,

43:44

I'm sure you would agree, very often, not always, but very often there is a tie to oneness theology.

43:49

But he has a much more kinder and gentler version of that than he used to in that he views

43:56

Trinitarians as his brothers. I'm speaking of Robert Sabin and I'm assuming T .D. Jakes does as well.

44:02

So if you could tell us about Jake's denominational affiliation and if he ever was a vehement oneness

44:09

Pentecostal to the degree that he would view Trinitarians as false believers.

44:17

Out of my knowledge, he's never said Trinitarians are false believers, but dealing with his origins, you know, he has a very eclectic background.

44:25

He was associated with a Baptist church early on, but also he was associated with Oneness churches.

44:31

But in 1980, around his early 20s, he actually became the pastor, one of his first jobs as pastor, of a church called

44:41

Greater Emmanuel Temple of Faith in Montgomery, West Virginia. And it started out as,

44:47

I believe, it was a small storefront church, about 10 people, but eventually it grew to 100.

44:53

But it was a Pentecostal oneness church. So that was his first exposure to being a pastor at a oneness church.

45:01

Independent? Yeah, it wasn't associated with the

45:06

UPC. To my knowledge, he's never had a church where he's been associated with the

45:12

UPCI. But as you know, there's many oneness advocates who are not associated with the

45:18

UPCI, maybe for legalistic reasons, but not for, of course,

45:25

God or theological reasons. After this, he just started growing.

45:32

He had those conferences he used to do about people being loose, and he just became big in their life.

45:42

Currently, now, here's the thing. When people say he changed, I would point out two things.

45:48

Number one, go to the man's website of his church. Go to the church's website in which he is a pastor and read their statement of faith on God.

45:59

It still says, it still defines God as existing in three manifestations.

46:06

Chris, that's never been Christian doctrine. Manifestation is not even an ontological reference.

46:14

Manifestation has to do with appearances, right? At one point on his doctrinal statement which he changed before this one, it said three dimensions.

46:25

Dimensions, manifestations, appearances, these are not persons. A husband is not married to a manifestation.

46:34

A wife is not married to a manifestation. These are persons in terms of historic definition, biblical definition, the

46:43

Trinity, not manifestations. Now, so number one is Potter's House Church still has the definition of God in three manifestations.

46:57

Number two, this is very important, currently, right now, G .D.

47:03

Jakes is still the vice prelate, like a vice president, of the

47:09

National Executive Board of Senior Bishops of a oneness organization, a decidedly oneness organization called

47:18

Higher Ground All These Abounding Assemblies, which is a network of Miss Pentecostal churches.

47:25

He's like the second one. The headquarters of that church. So are you telling me, you know, he changes you?

47:33

If he radically changes you and all of a sudden he's Trinitarian now, would he still be involved in a non -Christian heretical,

47:42

Christological heretical construct? I don't think he would, I mean, unless he's so ignorant, which I don't believe this is the case.

47:49

I believe he knows what he's and he knows he has Trinitarian followers, so he's careful about what he teaches and what he doesn't teach.

47:59

I would guess that since oneness theology represents a tiny minority of professing

48:07

Christians, and I emphasize the word professing, that he would be horrified at the notion of losing followers from the

48:17

Trinitarian base, because they have to make up the majority of those. If he is a best -selling author, there's no way that the majority of those purchasing his books could be oneness

48:27

Pentecostals. You're absolutely right. Again, I've had so many dialogues with folks from the church who defend

48:36

T .D. Jakes as saying he's a man of God and, you know, it's not really how he believes.

48:43

I just say, go to the man's website, you know, let the man speak for himself, and look at what position he's in right now with this high -ground

48:51

One Pentecostal network. He's the vice prelude. He's the guy in charge, right?

48:57

The second person in charge, and his headquarters is at the Potter's House Church.

49:02

Unfortunately, I think today, as you know, many professing

49:08

Christians are very uncritically embracing Jakes as a Trinitarian, mainly due, as we'll discuss, the whole sessions that we heard on the

49:19

Elephant Room with the wishy -washy Calvinist Mark Skoll. I think that's one of the reasons why he saved.

49:25

Yeah, tell us specifically, especially for those who have no idea what you're speaking about, the

49:32

Elephant Room, tell us about the Elephant Room, who participated in it, and the specific episode, for lack of a better term, of the

49:41

Elephant Room that involved T .D. Jakes, and I understand that he was being addressed by the term brother and so on, but if you could, let our listeners know about the

49:54

Elephant Room. Absolutely. First, some of the events leading up to it, I believe it was in February 2000,

50:04

Christianity Today Online Edition posted my views on the

50:09

Godhead by T .D. Jakes. One of the paragraphs that I saved, Jakes said, he communicated, he says, voila, why

50:18

I mix with Christians from a broad range of theological perspectives. I speak only from my personal faith and convictions.

50:26

I'm not a theologian, obviously, I'm not a theologian, and I avoid quoting even theologians who agree with me.

50:35

To defend my beliefs, I go directly to the Bible. Then he says, I believe in one

50:40

God, who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I believe these three having distinct and separate functions.

50:48

I do not believe in three gods. What does that tell you, Chris? I do not believe in three gods. Well, he is saying that perhaps people who believe in the

50:59

Trinity are viewed as believing in three gods, tritheists? Many oneness differentiate their doctrine with the

51:11

Trinity, because the Trinity is three gods. That's how they... According to them, yeah. In fact,

51:17

I did a debate a few years back with a pastor in, it was some small town in Missouri, and he was...

51:28

the whole town was oneness. It was just a very interesting town. There were six Christians that showed up, that's it, and 500,

51:34

I'm not exact, 500 members of his church and others, 500 oneness

51:41

Pentecostals were sitting in the debate. So you can imagine whatever this man said, it was always, hey man, brother, amen, you know, and he...

51:51

Anyways, the town paper and the church, in terms of their advertisement of the debate, without my approval or knowledge, they title it like this, one

52:04

God versus the Trinity. One, think about that, one

52:11

God versus the Trinity. Versus the Trinity. It's obviously an accusation that Trinitarianism is not monotheism.

52:20

And yeah, I think that's what Jake's saying, I don't believe in three gods, I don't believe in that Trinity of three gods. But when it comes to believing these three having distinct and separate functions, that's how oneness people believe.

52:31

They believe the modes are distinct, that the Father's not the Son, the Son is not the

52:36

Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the modes are distinct, and they have different functions.

52:44

It was Jesus, the human function that died on the cross. It wasn't

52:50

Jesus the Father that died. You know, Jesus as the Holy Spirit that regenerates, right?

52:56

So they do, from an oneness perspective, the modes have different and separate functions. But, and then one of the things also leading up to this this elephant room, there was a radio interview which

53:10

I listened to, I don't know if you heard this one, I believe it was just in LA, KKLA, Jim Coleman and Christian, his show was called

53:21

Living by the Word. I believe this was right before this article in Christianity Today.

53:28

Um, which he was interviewed by Jim Coleman, and he interviewed

53:33

Jakes in 1998, a few years before this article.

53:39

And some of the, just some snippets, Coleman had interviewed Jakes here, and Coleman asked

53:45

Jakes, how important is it for the Christian to believe in Trinity?

53:52

Here's his answer. I think that it's very, very significant that we first, first of all, study the

54:01

Trinity apart from salvation. I'm so amazed at that statement.

54:07

Yeah, I don't even understand that statement. Like it's not a salvatic issue.

54:13

And first of all, he says, we have to embrace Christ and come to him and know who he is, having to know who he is.

54:20

And then we begin to deal with the Trinity, which I believe is a very complex issue. And he says,

54:26

Trinity, the term Trinity is not a biblical term to begin with. And here's the last statement of this segment.

54:36

When God got ready to make a man that looked like him, first of all, I don't know what he meant by that.

54:42

That sounds like Ken Copeland. He was six foot two, right? That looked like him.

54:47

Yeah, that is strange. He did make three. He made one. However, the one man had three parts.

54:55

He was body, soul, and spirit. We have one God, but he's Father in creation, Son in rejection, and Holy Spirit in regeneration.

55:05

Now, anyone who's studied Sabellianism and Sabellius' view would realize this statement is uncanny in terms of resembling what

55:18

Sabellius taught. Those are roles, not personal distinctions.

55:24

Yeah, exactly. The one person is Father in creation, Son in redemption, Holy Spirit in regeneration.

55:31

Sabellius taught what's known as successive or developmental modalism, where the roles are successive, as I mentioned before.

55:41

And, of course, most Oneist churches believe what Sabellius held. They don't agree with what

55:47

Sabellius held, too, in terms of that. One more issue before the elephant room.

55:53

It's interesting. When I told you, Chris, that it's very difficult to find a sermon or a book or an teaching on the nature of Christ.

56:12

But there was one, and I grabbed it. It was actually a friend of mine, my friend

56:19

Todd Keene. He recorded it, and he gave it to me from June 1999.

56:25

It was a sermon. When Jakes would preach, he used to have a

56:32

Bible reader. He would yell out, he would quote a verse, and then he would say, read. Then the lady would stand up and read.

56:40

Now, here's what's very interesting. He's getting to James 14, 8 through 10, and he told the lady to read.

56:49

She read it like this. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father. And it is enough for us.

56:56

She just said to him, have I been with you so long, and yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the

57:03

Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Verse 10, don't you believe that I am in the

57:11

Father and the Father is in me? Then Jake says, this is in the sermon right after that, he says, oh,

57:18

I am the Father. I am the Father.

57:24

That's not how the verse reads, but Jake's quoted it that way. I am the

57:31

Father. You hear that?

57:36

He called it Yahwehistic language. And he goes on to talk about John 1 in the water and ice, but he misquotes it to say,

57:45

I am the Father. Quoting Jesus as saying that I am the

57:50

Father. I'm the very person of the Father. Now, that's a sermon. And what I went with, interesting, that year,

57:58

I went to CRI with James White. James, I think, was with a

58:06

Catholic apologist. They were going to debate on Hank's show.

58:12

I gave that video to Hank to use. Of course, he had to get my friend an autographed copy of his resurrection.

58:21

That was the deal. As my friend said, that was the deal. But I gave it to him, and they used it. But just the blatant misquotation to promote an early heresy of the

58:32

Church. I am the Father. And in Christianity Today, back in 2000, also posted by Katie Jakes in Wiki, actually said that in his

58:46

Spirit Riser conference, he says, When God said,

58:51

Let us, let us, let us make man in our image, one God, but manifest in three different ways.

58:58

And he repeated that Sibelius quotation, Father in creation, Son of redemption, and Holy Spirit in recreation.

59:06

So now we come to the elephant room. And if you could actually tell our listeners what that is, because I don't think we ever described, what is the elephant room?

59:19

You know, it's similar to what we're doing. It's a forum to discuss theological topics.

59:25

And who is the, who are the hosts of this, especially the ones that were involved in the T .D. Jakes interview? Back then, it was

59:31

Pastor James McDonald of the Harvest Bible Chapel, and Pastor Mark Driscoll at that time,

59:40

Mars Hill Church. They first organized it. So there was a few others, but those were the main proponents. And by the way,

59:47

I don't I don't want anybody to hate me. But I have heard James McDonald say some excellent things.

59:52

And I actually read a book by him that I thought was excellent. But in fact, Ted Tripp, very known, very well known reform theologian, has a very high regard and close friendship with James McDonald.

01:00:05

But I just thought I'd throw that out there. No, yeah, I mean, I mean, Driscoll has said some okay things, too.

01:00:11

And unfortunately, there's a lot of folks who are fairly sound. I mean, they say good things.

01:00:17

But sometimes in these issues, they don't put their critical hat on.

01:00:23

So they get duped by this stuff. Well, the elephant room, I think this happened in 2007.

01:00:31

And the organizers of the elephant believe that talking openly about their differences, pastors, pastors, churches, and church leaders can assist in edifying edifying the church, which is a good thing, you know.

01:00:45

But by the way, I have to I have to quickly correct myself. I think I said Ted Tripp has a close friendship with James McDonald.

01:00:53

It's his brother, Paul. I'm sorry, Ted, if I caused you any discomfort. But it's

01:00:59

Ted's brother, Paul, who is a Presbyterian and prolific writer and highly regarded reformed author and pastor.

01:01:08

He has a close friendship with James McDonald and holds him in high regard and so on.

01:01:14

But anyway, I just wanted to make a correction because I don't know what Ted thinks of James McDonald.

01:01:20

I didn't want to put words in his mouth. But anyway, sorry about that. Yeah, McDonald has made subsequent statements affirming

01:01:28

Jakes as our brother and Trinitarian and all these things. I mean, even subsequent to the elephant room.

01:01:34

But in January of that year, McDonald and Driscoll and I think several other participants, but it was mainly

01:01:41

Jack Graham was there, but mainly McDonald and Driscoll had a dialogue with T .J.

01:01:47

Jakes in actually the Harvard Studios in Chicago, Illinois. And as they're going, now

01:01:53

I can picture this, you know, the high and mighty T .J. Jakes steps into the room and it seems everyone just buckles, you know, under the hand of T .J.

01:02:03

Jakes, you know. But Jakes explained to Driscoll, these are actual quotations, he says, my father was a

01:02:08

Methodist and my mother was a Baptist, he explained. I was raised in a Baptist church, but I really didn't have a real commitment experience with Christ until my father died.

01:02:18

My father died, I had a real experience with Christ, a real conversion with Christ, and I had it in a

01:02:25

Oneness church. That's what he said, a real conversion. And I, what if I said

01:02:31

I had it when I was in the, when I, when I used to be a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness, you know, people would just shudder, but no one is bothered by that statement.

01:02:40

His conversion was at a Unitarian Oneness Pentecostal church that denies

01:02:46

Christ, but yet he's claiming he had a real conversion there. In fact, let's pick up right there, where we left off, because we have to go to our midway break right now.

01:02:54

This is a longer than normal break, so we have to have this longer break than normal because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida needs to localize

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01:04:15

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Edward Dalcor of the Department of Christian Defense, and our subject,

01:04:22

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01:14:34

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and if you just joined us, our guest today for the full two hours is

01:14:41

Edward Delcor, founder of Department of Christian Defense, author of A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the

01:14:49

Light of Biblical Trinitarianism, and we are discussing today T .D. Jakes and the

01:14:54

Trinity. Should biblical Christians call this best -selling author our brother in Christ? Our email address, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. And also, we want you to be reminded that from March 1st through the 3rd,

01:15:13

Edward Delcor is going to be joined by Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Apologist Anthony Rogers at the upcoming conference at Knox Reformed Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and the theme is

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Behold Our Triune God. That's March 1st through the 3rd at the

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Knox Reformed Presbyterian Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia. For more details, go to knoxreformedpres .org.

01:15:46

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01:18:49

If you do not have a church home and you're not prayerfully seeking for one, you are living in rebellion against God. So please, if you are having a hard time finding a church home, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:19:03

and put in the subject line something like, I need a church home, help me find a church, something like that.

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Just send me that email if you do not have a church home. And remember, this is a very important matter.

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You are living in disobedience if you're not prayerfully looking for a church home. Now we are back with our guest

01:19:31

Edward Del Cor. We are discussing T .D. Jakes and the Trinity and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:19:38

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Before I go to any of our questions from our listeners, Ed, I want you to pick up where you left off about the elephant room.

01:19:45

And during that elephant room, it was a broadcast, right? A radio broadcast perhaps or a podcast?

01:19:51

Yeah, but they broadcasted on several videos.

01:19:58

And so during that, T .D. Jakes, in describing his own conversion experience, said that he was not born again while a

01:20:08

Baptist or Methodist, which were the denominations of his parents, he believes that he truly came to Christ in genuine living and regenerate faith in a oneness church.

01:20:23

Yes, and he had to mention that. He said, a quote, a real conversion with Christ. I had had it in a oneness church.

01:20:32

And he emphasized right after to Driscoll that oneness Pentecostal congregation, the one that he was referring, referencing was home to, this is his quote,

01:20:43

Christians who believe in Jesus Christ, believe that he died and raised from the dead and is coming back again.

01:20:50

All the same things you do. All the same things. Yeah, so you see how he views oneness as many do as just something that's compatible, you know, as long as you have

01:21:04

Christ, that's what matters kind of thing. But as we know, that's as untypical as you can get because everyone has a

01:21:12

Christ. Everyone has a definition of the Son. Anyways, back to the elephant room.

01:21:19

Jake's told Driscoll again, there's very little difference between what I believe and what you believe.

01:21:27

Okay, then, now this would have been a great opportunity for Driscoll to press him. But Driscoll and the others in the panel were so undefinitive, so wishy -washy, so vague that it never got accomplished.

01:21:42

You've never pressed theologically of issues pertaining to the doctrine of the

01:21:49

Trinity. Driscoll asks, here's his question, for you, Jake, the issue between Trinitarianism and modalism, at its essence, is one

01:21:59

God manifesting himself successfully in three ways, or one

01:22:06

God simultaneously existing eternally. You're misunderstanding now. What you say is one

01:22:12

God manifesting himself in three ways. Now, he already said this. That's what he believes, one God manifesting in three ways.

01:22:18

Or, Driscoll asks, one God in three persons. Here's Jake's answer. I believe neither one of them are totally get it for me.

01:22:28

Here's why. I'm not crazy about the persons. Most people who know me know that my doctrinal statement really is no different from yours, except I use manifest instead of persons, which you describe as modalists, and I describe as Pauline.

01:22:46

And then he, you know, this is before he quoted 1 Timothy 3 .16, the mystery of godliness is manifested in flesh, so on and so forth.

01:22:56

But of course, everyone says one God, right? Muslims, for witnesses, you know. That's what we're dealing with with T .D.

01:23:02

Jakes and this whole interchange. There was no definitive questions. Jake said this, quote, the language of the doctrinal statement of our ministry is referring to the potter's house.

01:23:13

It refers to the trinity of the Godhead as manifestations, does not derive from modalism.

01:23:20

Now, to comment on that statement, well, he equivocates here.

01:23:25

Jake's equivocates because he says not derived from modalism. As you know, there's, with modalism, there are two forms.

01:23:32

Many would see historical modalism, as Sibelius taught, as three successive modes, developmental modalism.

01:23:41

So in that sense, he can say, yeah, I'm not a modalist. I don't believe that the modes are successive. But Chris, as you've seen his other quotes, he's so inconsistent because, yes, he does.

01:23:52

This is exactly what he said. But he also holds to a simultaneous kind of oneness doctrine.

01:23:59

And he also, again, cited here 1 Timothy 16. Then Jake says this to Graham, Jim Graham, Frank Graham, Graham and I have talked.

01:24:11

There's very little difference what I believe and what you believe. But here's where I have a problem.

01:24:17

I don't think anything that any of us believes really describes God, Driscoll says.

01:24:24

We also would agree that in the nature of God, there is a mystery. I don't think

01:24:30

Driscoll understands mysterion or what mystery means, biblically. But anyways, and Driscoll says, it's like a dimmer switch, how much certainty, how much mystery.

01:24:41

Would you say one God manifesting himself in three ways or one God and three persons?

01:24:47

Jake, again, says, you know, neither one of them really did it for me.

01:24:54

But I think the latter one is where I stand today. What he says, God and three persons,

01:25:00

Driscoll, Jake says one God, three persons, one God, three persons. And here's why I am there.

01:25:05

I'm not crazy about the word person. Most people who follow me know what I really mean. My doctrinal statement is no difference from yours except the word manifestation.

01:25:16

And Jake says manifest instead of person, which you describe as modalist and I describe as Pauline.

01:25:24

So that was the only thing Driscoll really asked about the Trinity, which was a huge broad issue.

01:25:30

And Jake can be equivocal and skirt around it. And Jake says absolutely, you know, he believes everything that Driscoll believes.

01:25:38

But the whole time, the Christian panel, Driscoll, McDonald, and the others were so bashful in the presence of Jake.

01:25:45

They're so equivocal. Again, never pressing as to their preexistence and unipersonality of the

01:25:52

Son preexisting as Yahweh. And the end result, this whole elephant room, after we read the statement, after much discussion, the conclusion of the panel was that Jake now embraces the

01:26:05

Trinity. Well, he never said that. Yeah, that was the conclusion. He never said he changed anything from what you said.

01:26:14

I don't recall you saying anything about him saying, I have now changed my view or anything. Yeah, I mean, he now embraces the

01:26:23

Trinity. Go to the man's website. Why is he still vice president of a oneness group? Why did he still have manifestation?

01:26:31

Obviously, one of the key questions that should have been asked, because this is a distinction, when

01:26:37

Trinitarians say, well, oneness isn't that bad because they believe

01:26:42

Jesus is God. Well, the fact of the matter is they do not believe he is eternal.

01:26:49

As far as eternity passed, they do not. They believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, and of course there are differences amongst modalists and Unitarians, I know.

01:26:59

But the primary or most vocal group of oneness Pentecostals believe that Jesus Christ came into existence in the incarnation.

01:27:10

Am I right on that? Yes and no. They will say, no, we don't believe that.

01:27:15

But what they mean is they don't believe the Son, the mode, the Son is eternal.

01:27:22

But the person of Jesus is the Father, so they would say Jesus is God, he's eternal, he never came into existence, he's

01:27:29

God as the Father. But what came into existence was the

01:27:34

Son. The Son did not have a life before Bethlehem. Right, and of course we believe that the incarnation did not occur until his conception, but he existed eternally as the

01:27:45

Son. The person of the Son. Yes. The person of the woman, whatever you want to call him, existed as a distinct person.

01:27:53

The Father, Son, Holy Spirit, as scripture defines this. Right, and nobody ever asked that question of T .D.

01:27:59

Jakes whether he believed. No one ever pressed him, and when he quoted 1 Timothy 3 .16,

01:28:05

which a lot of even Christians quoted to show you the trinity of the ministry, the problem is 1 Timothy 3 .16

01:28:11

speaks of Christ as incarnate. It's not even talking about the trinity, it's speaking about the mystery that was revealed now, it's not a mystery anymore, that Christ was incarnate.

01:28:22

Right? It's by dealing with the trinity of the mystery. Right. And so there you have it.

01:28:30

It's a mystery to me why anybody would think that the Elephant Room would publicly declare that T .D.

01:28:38

Jakes was now a Trinitarian. He never claimed any change that I am aware of from what you've said in his theology or his understanding of God and the

01:28:51

Godhead. All right, let's go to some listener questions. We have

01:28:57

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

01:29:02

Does, as many Oneness Pentecostals insist, does

01:29:08

T .D. Jakes baptize in the name of Jesus only, and what level of importance does he attribute to that formula of baptism?

01:29:19

As you know, many if not most Oneness Pentecostals claim that without this formula of baptizing in the name of Jesus only, one cannot even be saved.

01:29:30

That's an excellent question, in all fairness. I'm not sure his baptismal mode. I can suspect it's from his background in the name of Jesus.

01:29:38

I'm fairly confident it's in the name of Jesus, but I can't guarantee that. I don't know if he does a

01:29:47

Trinitarian formula and you're baptized and do three manifestations. I'm not sure if he does a

01:29:53

Trinitarian formula in his mind, in practice. Right, because that doesn't make a baptism necessarily orthodox, even if words that sound

01:30:05

Trinitarian are used, because the Mormons use a formula that sounds

01:30:11

Trinitarian, and they are, depending upon what theologian or scholar you're speaking to, they would be accurately described either as polytheist or henotheist, because they believe that their one

01:30:25

God that they pray to and worship is a more important God than the multitudes that exist.

01:30:33

They're not really monotheists in any stretch of the imagination. I'm talking about Mormons. Jehovah's Witnesses, I think, even use a

01:30:41

Trinitarian formula. They wouldn't call it that. They wouldn't view it, they wouldn't understand it that way, but they use the

01:30:48

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Exactly. A Trinitarian formula does not make you

01:30:53

Trinitarian, neither does Jesus' name necessarily make you one. I was actually surprised watching on the video,

01:31:03

I'm not even sure why I was watching this, but a Unitarian Universalist female minister was performing a wedding ceremony, and she blessed the couple in the name of the

01:31:14

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, which actually baffled me, because she's a Unitarian Universalist. Oh, that's interesting.

01:31:21

But anyway, well, thank you, Susan Margaret. And guess what, Susan Margaret, our friends at First Love Publishing have provided for you a free copy of Edward Delcor's book,

01:31:36

A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology in the Light of Biblical Trinitarianism. So make sure you give us your full mailing address so that cvbbs .com,

01:31:45

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, can ship that out to you as soon as possible. We're going to go to our final break and take more of your questions when we return.

01:31:55

This will be a much more brief break than the last one, but please, we're running out of time, so if you intend to get online and ask a question behind those that are already waiting, please do so immediately, because we are rapidly running out of time.

01:32:10

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

01:32:19

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. We'll be right back with Ed Delcor and our discussion on T .D.

01:32:27

Jakes and the Trinity. Did you know that all believers are priests?

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01:35:06

Gary Kimbrell, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi. God tells us in James 127 that pure and undefiled religion is a visit to fatherless and widows and their affliction.

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In the providence of God, three years ago, I discovered a poor, small church outside Lusaka, Zambia, in a township called

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Cabanana, who are taking care of 24 orphans. I found them just at the time when they had lost all their funding.

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What was I to do? Could I just say, God bless you and walk away? The situation of the children set heavily upon me.

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The entire need for their clothing, food, education, and some medical services is $73 per month per child.

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If just 50 of us would give $35 a month, we could meet the need. Bethlehem Baptist Church will pay the fee to get the funds there.

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So if you give a dollar, a dollar will get to the orphans. In this season of hope and giving, will you consider giving hope to 24 orphans?

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Please send your gift of any amount to Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi, 39443.

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Or donate through our website, bbclaurel .com. Again, the address is

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Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi, 39443.

01:36:17

Or bbclaurel .com. Thank you. Hello, my name is James Renahan, and I'm the president of IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

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The Word of God says, If a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a good thing.

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It has been a wonderful partnership. Now we have advanced our school into an independent seminary, offering a full program of courses leading to the

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Master of Divinity degree. This is IRBS Theological Seminary. We believe that the scriptures of the

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God in all things. IRBS Theological Seminary is dedicated by God's grace to preparing godly ministers who will be committed to these doctrines.

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Do you sense a call to serve Jesus Christ in his church as a pastor? Why not consider

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That's irbsseminary .org, two S's in the middle. I hope to hear from you soon.

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God bless you. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?

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Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

01:37:54

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist church and we hold to the

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London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect

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Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

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That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

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We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

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If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

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You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.

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Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

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that's providencebaptistchurchma .org, or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

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Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

01:40:41

I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

01:40:47

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

01:40:53

It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown

01:40:59

Manhattan. You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc

01:41:06

.nyc. They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

01:41:14

If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

01:41:31

.nyc. Have a great day. The family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available

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Their website is www .cvbbs .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church, and to Christ.

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That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at www .cvbbs .com. That's www .cvbbs

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Make sure you tell them that you heard about www .cvbbs .com from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. If you're ordering online, the only way that you could tell them this is by clicking on Instructions after you place your order, and in the

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Instructions section say, I heard about www .cvbbs .com from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

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Please make sure you do that so they are aware of where their customers are coming from.

01:44:05

And we are back now with our final segment of today's interview with Edward DelCour on T .D.

01:44:12

Jakes and the Trinity. Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. If you have a question, that's chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

01:44:20

And by the way, Ted from Tuscaloosa, Alabama wants to let you know,

01:44:26

Edward, that... Let's see here. The Elephant Room conference was in 2012.

01:44:35

So he just wanted to let you know the exact date. I guess he looked that up while we were speaking. Oh, what did

01:44:40

I say? I don't know. I don't remember. I think I said it was developed in 2011. Okay.

01:44:46

I don't remember specifically. Let's see. We have

01:44:52

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, what good can you say about T .D.

01:45:01

Jakes and his teachings? I'm sure there must be something worthwhile in his sermon library or in his writings.

01:45:11

Well, I think that on a positive note of T .D. Jakes' teaching, it keeps me and other apologists busy.

01:45:22

But look, here's the issue. Oh, if I can mention one thing. I know one of his doctrines is infiltrating the

01:45:29

Spanish community. My friend Luis Carlos Reyes is a fantastic apologist.

01:45:36

I've worked with him many times. He debates in South America. His YouTube channel is

01:45:41

Mopar440HP. If you want some more information, let me know. But he's a fantastic apologist to the

01:45:48

Spanish people. He's excellent. Proficient in languages. Proficient in theology. Anyways, here's the thing.

01:45:55

Look, with Mormons, this is T .D. Jakes, Beth Moore, Joyce Myers. We can go on and on.

01:46:02

Every false teacher, I don't say false teacher lightly. I don't say someone's a false teacher because they're just, you know, they have some errors in eschatology or something.

01:46:12

That's not what a false teacher is. You can teach falsely, make mistakes in docs, not necessarily be a false teacher biblically defined.

01:46:21

A false teacher, biblically defined, denies in some way, shape, or form, the person, nature, and finished work of Christ.

01:46:28

If you deny the Trinity, you're denying the person. You're denying the nature of Christ. You're denying the nature of God himself.

01:46:36

They all give an element of truth. They want to give you, in most cases, as much truth as possible.

01:46:44

So it's not what they say that's accurate. It's what they hide or what they don't say or these heresies that they do communicate, which makes them dangerous, and nobody should promote a false teacher.

01:46:58

And thanks, Arnie. You've also won a free copy of the book by Edward Delcor, A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology.

01:47:05

Make sure we have your full mailing address in Perry County, Pennsylvania, and cvbbs .com will ship that out to you.

01:47:12

Let's see here. We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. And Ronald asks,

01:47:20

You mentioned Phillips, Craig, and Dean earlier. They are a very popular Christian recording group.

01:47:26

And of course, I use the term Christian loosely because I understand they are oneness Pentecostals. I had read somewhere that the

01:47:33

Southern Baptist Convention put a seal of approval on them because they allegedly had changed their views on the

01:47:40

Godhead. Is this true? And what can you tell us about them in regard to an update on what they believe in regard to the

01:47:48

Godhead? Well, I have zero evidence that they actually have changed, if someone could provide.

01:47:58

Because if you go to their actual website, if you go to their actual, because they're pastors,

01:48:08

Randy Phillips, Sean Craig, and Dean, to go to their doctrinal statements, you'll find things like, for instance, at Randy's church,

01:48:18

Randy Phillips' church. Now, this is current right now. In his doctrinal statement, we believe in one God who has eternally existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

01:48:27

He goes on about Jesus. Can you believe it? We believe one God who has eternally existed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

01:48:33

That is oneness. That is a oneness representation or a representation of God as someone who's extraordinarily unaware of what their

01:48:44

Trinity actually teaches. There's nothing about persons or anything. Could you say that that could also be a

01:48:53

Trinitarian's explanation, but very woefully inadequate? It's not detailed enough. Now, you're absolutely right.

01:49:00

It could be. Like I said, you may be extraordinarily unaware of what the Trinity teaches, but the next segment, where Jesus is the

01:49:07

Son of God, notice it's not God. It's the Son of God. He enters the proof text. Listen to this.

01:49:14

Isaiah 9, 6, and Colossians 2, 9. Isaiah 9, 6, and Colossians 2, 9 are clear oneness proof texts.

01:49:22

Jesus is the Son, and he's not God. He's the everlasting Father. And Isaiah 9, 6, 2, 9, all the

01:49:30

Godhead, Elson, Jesus, these are... Why would he put oneness verses under Jesus, the

01:49:36

Son of God? Right. You know, all of them are like this.

01:49:42

They get ambiguous, and there's no evidence that they've ever changed. Now, how would you respond to those who would say, yeah,

01:49:51

I know that they're oneness Pentecostals. I'm not going to join their church. I'm not going to follow in their footsteps and their understanding of the

01:50:00

Godhead. But I love their music, and I'm going to continue to listen to it because the lyrics of the words of my favorite songs that they record are completely compatible with what

01:50:11

I believe. And I love them, and I find them very pleasant to listen to. In fact, our mutual friend,

01:50:18

Dr. James R. White, at one time really liked Phillips, Craig, and Dean until he found out that they were oneness

01:50:24

Pentecostals, and his listening habits in regard to this group came to a complete and abrupt halt.

01:50:33

And he said on the dividing line that he would never listen to them again, if I'm remembering correctly.

01:50:39

Well, yeah, the main issue here is when we hear songs, Phillips, Craig, and Dean, and they say

01:50:45

Jesus, they say God, they say spirit, they mean something radically different.

01:50:52

Then I look at Jesus. In other words, they're singing about a false God, a false Christ, a false spirit.

01:50:58

What in the world would someone want to listen to someone who's attacking the cross rather than promoting the biblical representation, the biblical revelation of who

01:51:07

Christ is? I could not listen to them because I know that Jesus of Phillips, Craig, and Dean is a heretical, non -existent

01:51:14

Jesus. And what about, not to go too far afield of the subject, what about all of our listeners who just love, especially perhaps during Christmas time or other holidays, they love to listen to the

01:51:27

Mormon Tabernacle Choir because the choir is very often singing

01:51:34

Christian hymns. It's not like Phillips, Craig, and Dean who are writing their own lyrics to songs.

01:51:41

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I mean, for that matter, there are secular artists who sing

01:51:47

Handel's Messiah and other things. But if you could, what do you think about that? I mean, yes, no one can deny,

01:51:55

I've heard Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the beautiful voices and so on and so forth, but it brings me to the same issue.

01:52:02

When they're singing Christian hymns, Christian hymns, in their mind, they're singing about Jesus of the

01:52:10

LDS. They're not singing about the Jesus of biblical theology. They're singing about the Jesus of the

01:52:16

LDS. When they're interpreting these Christian hymns, that's the God and Jesus and incarnation they're singing about according to the lens of their own theology.

01:52:27

My huge problem with that is if Christians understood what the

01:52:34

Mormons believe about parental or the actual body of Christ, how it came to be, if they understood what

01:52:42

Mormons teach about the Father and the Virgin Mary, I do not think they would want to listen to Christmas songs sang by the

01:52:50

Mormons. Yes, I myself, I get kind of queasy when

01:52:57

I knowingly am hearing the Mormons sing our favorite hymns, even if they sing them beautifully, because I know that they are worshiping a false god and they believe in the existence of countless millions of gods, even though they only claim to worship one, which...

01:53:18

There's no difference between singing those hymns or quoting from the Bible, when a Mormon quotes from the Bible. Right. Let's see.

01:53:27

We have... Where was I? I was looking at that question just a moment ago.

01:53:35

Oh, we have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, can we benefit at all from listening to sermons by T .D.

01:53:45

Jakes, just as we may benefit from reading the writings of great men of history who were not

01:53:51

Christians as far as we know, such as Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt and G .K.

01:53:57

Chesterton, who was a Roman Catholic, etc.? Not too long ago,

01:54:03

I listened to a segment of Louis Seracon. It was teaching on one of the parables of the

01:54:09

Bible. Just the voice of him and how he articulated the parable, and most of what he was saying was utterly true.

01:54:20

I forgot the point. I think it was humility or something. Probably it's the same problem, though.

01:54:26

They're preaching the Jesus that they're proclaiming. The gospel notes that they're proclaiming is based on heresy, based on an attack of the

01:54:37

Bible, not an affirmation. So when T .D. Jakes, again, when he speaks, says something about God, says something about Jesus, we have to understand the

01:54:46

Jesus about which he is speaking, the gospel about which he is speaking.

01:54:52

Remember, his gospel came from a oneness church. He said it. I was converted at a oneness church.

01:54:57

They believe just like we believe. Okay, that's a... The Apostle Paul would not approve of something like that.

01:55:04

But the Galatians and the Colossians... Or, yeah, the Galatians and the Colossians, when they're with the

01:55:09

Judaizers and the Gnostics, he didn't point out all the great things that they taught. He didn't point out agreements that they had.

01:55:17

He focused on the disagreements that denied the essentials of Christian truth. Thank you,

01:55:23

Bobby. You've also won a free copy of a definitive look at oneness theology. So please make sure we have your full mailing address in Hartsdale, New York.

01:55:31

We have RJ in White Plains, New York. I know that his idea of the

01:55:38

Godhead is entirely heretical. But as far as you know, is

01:55:44

T .D. Jakes actually preaching a true gospel? And can one preach a true gospel with a false understanding of the

01:55:51

Godhead? A very good question. And a lot of folks would have that question.

01:55:56

Of course, the answer would be categorically, based on Scripture, no. Because when

01:56:02

Paul says, Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and he was raised on the third day and according to the

01:56:09

Scriptures, he's talking about a particular Christ. When he says, gospelize in Romans 116, which has the power, the gospel has the power for salvation, right?

01:56:20

When he speaks of the gospel, he speaks about the gospel of God the Son. He speaks of the vicarious work of the person of God the

01:56:29

Son. T .D. Jakes does not hold to the gospel that Paul held to. T .D.

01:56:34

Jakes does not hold to the Christ that Paul preached, who is from the Father, who taught distinct persons.

01:56:42

It wasn't the Christ that Peter preached. It wasn't the Christ that Christ preached himself when he mentioned the distinction between him and his

01:56:51

Father from eternity, like in John 17 .5. So I say no, because if you have the wrong

01:56:56

Christ, you simply have the wrong gospel. Thank you, R .J. You've also won a free book.

01:57:01

Get us your address as soon as possible. We have C .J. in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who asks a question that is somewhat similar.

01:57:09

Do you know if T .D. Jakes ever taught or teaches now that speaking in tongues is a necessary sign of one's true regeneration experience?

01:57:21

And do works come into play in regard to one earning salvation, as many in the

01:57:27

United Pentecostal Church International seem to teach? Perhaps I'm wrong on that, if you could clarify.

01:57:34

Sure, the UPCI and other Oneness big denominations do hold to a works salvation, just like Rome.

01:57:42

Many teach tongues is the evidence of baptism of the Holy Spirit, hence true salvation.

01:57:48

However, Jakes, to my knowledge, based on his doctrinal statement at the church, does not hold to that.

01:57:53

He does not hold to, based on his doctrinal statement, does not hold to the idea of you're not saved unless you're speaking in tongues.

01:58:01

To my knowledge, he doesn't hold that. And to my knowledge, he doesn't hold to baptismal regeneration, as far as I know, as with some other

01:58:10

Oneness churches that don't hold to baptismal regeneration, or it has to be in the name of Jesus.

01:58:16

A lot of these are distinctive with the UPCI and some of the larger Oneness organizations, and also the apostolic churches.

01:58:25

Many of them do teach a baptismal regenerational view, and you have to speak in tongues as evidence that you're saved.

01:58:32

But as far as I know, Jakes does not. Okay, well, we are now out of time. I want to make sure our listeners have all the necessary contact information they need in regard to my guest,

01:58:43

Edward Delcor, and upcoming events. First of all, the conference, Behold Our Triune God, which is being held

01:58:51

March 1st through the 3rd in Mechanicsville, Virginia at the Knox Reformed Presbyterian Church.

01:58:56

You can find out more details at knoxreformedpres .org, K -N -O -X, reformed, pres,

01:59:04

P -R -E -S .org. And of course, Edward Delcor's ministry,

01:59:10

Department of Christian Defense. That website is christiandefense .org,

01:59:20

correct? Yes, christiandefense .org. christiandefense .org. I want to thank you so much,

01:59:25

Eddie, for being on the show. Let's not wait so long to have you back. I want to have you back on as soon as possible. I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

01:59:34

I hope you all have a safe, blessed, and happy, and God -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

01:59:40

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:46

Savior than you are a sinner. We look forward to hearing from you and your questions next week on Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio.