Interviews from G3, Part 2

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Whatever option you choose, vote by 8 p .m. on November 7th. Get details at vote .nj

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.gov. That's vote .nj .gov. Alright, well, today on The Wrap Report, we're going to bring you some more interviews from the

01:06

G3 Conference. We have three interviews, in fact, for you today. First, we're going to be coming up with Brother Paul Taylor, and he's going to be talking about the excellent work going on there at the

01:17

Mount St. Helens Creation Center. That's going to be one where you're going to want to listen.

01:23

Then I bring on a longtime friend and fellow evangelist, Brother Phil Cessa.

01:29

He is with the Stop and Think About It podcast. Excellent content on that podcast.

01:35

And what wasn't able to be revealed there, but we're close enough now, I'll give you some insight that we are in works to bring them into the

01:44

Christian Podcast Committee. Just have some last -minute contracts assigned, and we're going to be having them as part of the

01:51

Christian Podcast Committee. Very excited about that, because these guys are excellent. And so,

01:56

Brother Phil's going to talk with us. And then we have a guy I just got to meet face -to -face for the first time, which is

02:04

Brother Nathan Fisher. Now, I got to meet him, I got to tell you, son. I was invited over his house.

02:10

His wife did an excellent job. Homemade sushi. You know me. You know I love my sushi. This was excellent.

02:16

More than I could possibly eat. And then he took me upstairs to see his Jehovah Witness library.

02:22

It put my library to shame on the Jehovah Witness area. Excellent stuff.

02:28

Three compelling interviews for you from G3. I hope you enjoy them, and they are coming your way now on The Rap Report.

02:39

Welcome to Andrew Rappaport's Rap Report, where we provide pivotal interpretations and applications.

02:46

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content, or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

03:08

All right, well, I am back. Welcome back to another Rap Report at the

03:14

G3 conference. We're here at the Striving for Eternity booth. It's actually

03:20

Striving for Eternity and Justin Peters Ministries booth. And we're also with the

03:25

Christian Podcast Community here. We've got a lot of the Christian podcasts represented here. And so I happen to be with another

03:32

Christian podcaster, though he's not part of the Christian Podcast Community. But we won't hold that against him too much.

03:38

And now, folks, if you listen to the other interview that I had with Cameron Buttell, he was from Down Under.

03:48

And so we have another guy from Down Under with a funny accent, and that's Paul Taylor. No, not from Down Under.

03:55

Oh, so are you a pom like he was saying? I'm from the land where the

04:01

English language was invented. Yeah, I've always been asking if you can learn

04:06

English because it's just hard to understand you sometimes. I'm sorry. I couldn't tell what you were saying then.

04:13

So Paul and I bust on our accents for quite a bit, but I think

04:19

I don't have one. He thinks he doesn't have one. You guys can determine whether Paul sounds funny or not.

04:26

All right. So, Paul, let's start with the fact that here we are at G3.

04:32

Now, you don't have a booth here, so we will talk about the ministry that you have. But as an attender, which of the talks have you enjoyed most?

04:41

And I should mention for folks, you have a background in music. You were trained to be a classical pianist.

04:49

And so you understand music far better than me. But when we talk about worship and we talk about some of the music things, that's something you understand very well.

04:59

So out of the messages, what are the messages that you enjoy the most? Well, I've enjoyed several of them.

05:06

I very much enjoyed the pre -conference concerts, the

05:12

Gettys. I think the things that they write truly are biblically based hymns.

05:21

Yeah, I very much enjoyed Dr. White's talk this morning.

05:28

It was very much going through scripture bit by bit. I also enjoyed Dr. Beeker's talk on what the

05:35

Puritans had to say. I'm not in any way near depth as him, but obviously coming from the country

05:42

I come from, I have done a little bit of research on the Puritans myself. And so it was good to have some of my thoughts confirmed by what he said and to dig a little bit deeper.

05:53

And I want to get back and read some more about what Puritans said on the subject of worship.

06:00

So there's been a lot of very useful things said, very useful things indeed, which

06:06

I wanted to hear said. And I'm glad that there's a movement within Reformed Evangelical churches to get to grips with what worship is about.

06:19

Because as soon as you say the word worship, obviously in most cases you tend, or in a lot of circles that I've been in, you tend to immediately think of certain way out wacky churches.

06:32

And then as soon as you say the idea of Reformed churches, you think, ah, well, they're the churches that don't worship. And that's why it's been so important to look at the scriptural basis for these things.

06:43

I have to say, you know, we may want to pick on this later, but there is just one element, maybe

06:49

I haven't been listening properly, but there's one element that I haven't heard addressed, and I would really like to hear that addressed, but, you know, see where we go from there.

06:59

Well, one of the other questions I'm trying to ask everyone is, what's one thing you've enjoyed?

07:04

Not the messages, but outside of the messages, what have you enjoyed about this conference? There's a good atmosphere here, so I've enjoyed that,

07:15

I've enjoyed chatting to people, and that's been good. I mentioned to a couple of people that I've spoken to that it's probably the first time for a long time,

07:30

I would guess probably about 12 years since I have been at a conference, where I haven't either been speaking or putting on a booth.

07:42

Just attending. Just attending to sit in the audience. Basically, I've had a lot of stuff to do over the last year or two, and it really is a great blessing to be just an attender and to be able to learn, and I think

07:59

I needed that, and it's not going to be that long before I do this again. Was this the first G3 you've attended?

08:05

Yes, it is. That's what I had thought. So let's talk about the ministry you're involved with up at Mount St.

08:11

Helens, the Mount St. Helens Creation Center. Let's talk about that. The ministry you have there, what happens, what's the

08:18

Creation Center all about? Well, the Mount St. Helens Creation Center is taking advantage of its geographical location.

08:27

It is clearly near Mount St. Helens. Oh, I thought it would have been in England. I was thinking of a retort there, but I can't think of it quickly enough.

08:40

Obviously, the geography is very important. This year is the 40th anniversary of the big eruption of Mount St.

08:47

Helens, and what's interesting to us is how the eruption changed the Earth's surface very, very rapidly in ways that cannot be explained by evolutionary or deep -time geology.

09:00

The recovery of life in the area on the volcano has been so rapid that it can't be explained by evolutionary biology, and so we have a living laboratory, a case study where I can take tourists.

09:13

We're almost like a tourist agency, really. I can take tourists to the volcano, to various areas around the volcano, and basically give them on -the -spot creation talks because that's the point.

09:26

Everything has happened in a manner that is completely consistent with what Genesis says.

09:32

So the main purpose of our ministry is we are a creation and apologetics ministry, telling people about the truth of God's word from the beginning of the

09:40

Bible, and we're using our geographical location to be able to back that up. Yeah, and I know that we're doing it,

09:47

Striving for Journey. We're doing a tour to Israel. We're looking to do a tour to the Grand Canyon. We're looking to do something up to, you may do a cruise to Alaska.

09:57

We want to start doing more of the things. One of the things we're doing is Dr. Svester is going to take teams of people down to the

10:03

Ark and to Creation Museum and actually walk through and teach as they go through. I do that at the

10:09

Museum of the Bible, but maybe what we should do is start talking about doing something up at Mount St.

10:14

Helens. It would be good if you did, but in the meanwhile, this year being the 20th anniversary, in August we do have a big vacation.

10:22

A Christian tribal agency is organizing this. We're bringing people together. It's going to be in August, and I can't remember the date, so I can quickly look that up while we're doing other things.

10:33

You can find out about that. The links to that are on our website, which is mshcreationcenter .org.

10:41

I'll be speaking there. We'll have Dr. Steve Austin speaking there, who's a geologist who did a lot of research around Mount St.

10:47

Helens. We've got a number of other speakers. We've got Eric Hovind, Jay Siegert, and we've got somebody else whose name

11:01

I've forgotten. It'll come to me later. But it's going to be a big thing. It's worth looking at. It's a residential thing. You can come to the area, stay in a hotel, and we'll have some talks on the subject of creation, and then a number of us are going to take people out to the volcano.

11:15

There are four different trips that we've organized, and you can do all four of them. It'll be over those four days those trips are happening, so you can go and see for yourself what's happened at Mount St.

11:27

Helens. I know you're looking up the dates, so while you look that up, the question I would like to ask you is, what is the importance of Mount St.

11:37

Helens? Because as creationists, as we are, believing that the Earth is relatively young, it's not actually young because 6 ,000 years is a long time, but we believe it's 6 ,000 years old, not millions of years old.

11:52

And Mount St. Helens is a very important, as you say, experiment or laboratory for creationists.

12:01

And I want to dig in the time we have to explain why that is. So give us the dates of that tour that you're doing.

12:09

Okay, the Mount St. Helens Creation Vacation will be from Tuesday, August 18th to Saturday, August 22nd.

12:21

And as I say, you've got the details on our website. There's a link through to the agency that's doing this where you'll be able to find out all the costs and so on.

12:30

So it'll be well worth doing. What you're going to see, you're going to see things, effects that happened in the lifetime of many people around the area who can testify to it happening.

12:43

So you can see areas where layers were set down that look like the sedimentary layers you get all over the world.

12:52

But we know how long those layers took. It's 25 feet thick of about 1 ,000 layers.

12:58

And we know that those layers took just three hours to form. And you can also find a place where a canyon was carved.

13:06

You're talking about going to the Grand Canyon. The little Grand Canyon that we have near Mount St. Helens is like a 140th scale model of the

13:13

Grand Canyon. It's got all the same sort of features, very, very similar in shape. And we know that it took nine hours for this to be carved out by a mudflow, not millions of years.

13:24

So these things are things that are known. And if you go to any of the other visitor centers around Mount St.

13:30

Helens, of which there are several, they keep using words like surprising. You know, I was watching one video at the main

13:35

Johnson Ridge Observatory, the main federal tourist center, and the narrator was saying processes which normally take millions of years happened in just a short while.

13:48

Just happened that way. Yeah, but the point is when we... Because it's supposed to be impossible, right?

13:53

We start from Scripture. And when we start from Scripture, we are not surprised by these things. And that gives us the opportunity to show people that Scripture is right.

14:01

And then we say, you know, why did the flood happen? The flood happened because of people's sin.

14:07

We can talk about the geology of it, and we do, you know, how things are carved and so on, but the reason why the flood happened is because of people's sin.

14:16

And so the things that we see are speaking of God's judgment, but not only God's judgment,

14:22

God's mercy, because the only reason we can talk about that is because our ancestors escaped the flood. Why did our ancestors escape the flood?

14:28

Because it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was saved by grace.

14:34

And in Hebrews it says he had the righteousness that comes by faith. So Noah was saved by grace through faith.

14:41

Do you know anyone else who fits that description? Yeah, I think like all of us.

14:48

Yeah, and I mean this is the thing that's so amazing, because when you compare with the evolutionists say, it doesn't line up with what we see at the

14:57

Grand Canyon. Well, the comparison I was thinking was, what they say happened at the Grand Canyon, what we see happened at Mount St.

15:04

Helens, we can actually get an exact time of what happened, when it happened, how long it happened at Mount St.

15:11

Helens, because we have video evidence. It happened within our lifetime. So when people say, well, we look at the

15:20

Grand Canyon, it had to have been millions of years, but why? When we see that one volcano can create a canyon,

15:29

I think it's 140th the size of the Grand Canyon? That's correct. So that happened within three hours.

15:35

Well, what would a worldwide flood do, which is a much larger event, could that have created something 40 times the size in just a few hours?

15:43

Absolutely right. And it's important to see that, and we look at things like that at the Grand Canyon, and those sort of explanations you're talking about are absolutely correct.

15:52

But we've got eyewitnesses, you know, because believe it or not, there were people alive in 1980.

15:58

I can remember seeing the event on television, on the BBC over in England.

16:03

These things can be seen. But please, let's get this right, we don't believe the

16:09

Bible, and I'm not telling people to believe the Bible because of the Mount St. Helens eruption. We start by believing the

16:15

Bible, and then we're interpreting these things with our starting point, knowing that the Bible is true and trustworthy.

16:21

That's right, because the only proper starting point is God's word, because he kind of knows everything.

16:28

That's right. He wasn't taken by surprise. The Johnson Ridge Observatory may find it surprising, but God didn't, and neither should we, because God has told us.

16:38

Yeah, and I always say this, but people who say, well, give me, I want science, give me scientific proof.

16:43

The only scientific evidence that we have for the beginning of the world is in Genesis chapter 1 and 2.

16:51

And it's an eyewitness account. That's right. If you weren't there to watch something, you're supposed to accept the eyewitness account.

16:57

That would be the normal scientific thing to do. But of course, people don't want to read this, and of course the common get -out clause there is, well, obviously, this is common among Christians of a certain bent, who will say, well, obviously,

17:12

Genesis tells us why God made the world, but the theory of evolution tells us how God made the world. And, of course, that's completely untrue.

17:19

Now, of course, there are passages in the Bible that tell us why God made the world, but actually Genesis 1 is not one of them.

17:24

If you read through Genesis 1, there's nothing there that tells you why God made the world. You can find that out in the later chapters of Job, but in Genesis 1, all it does is tell you how

17:33

God made the world. And the scientific method would require someone to be able to create the test, be able to observe it, and record it.

17:43

And that's what we have in Genesis. We have God who created it. He was there to observe it.

17:48

He recorded it. That's why I say it's the only scientific evidence. That's correct. So, you have been teaching young earth creation for a couple of years.

17:57

I have, yes. And, of course, as you know, I don't use the word young earth creation, because, as you started off by saying,

18:06

I don't believe that the earth is young. I believe the earth is extremely old. It's 6 ,000 years old, and that's very old.

18:13

And here's the point. I'm not just being awkward when I say that. If I call myself a young earth creationist,

18:20

I'm defining myself in terms of what the evolutionists believe, because the age of the earth is 6 ,000 years.

18:26

6 ,000 years is only young compared to what the millions of years of mythology that the evolutionists have.

18:32

So, I'm not a young earth creationist. I'm a biblical creationist, which is what the Bible says. And, yes,

18:37

I've been talking about that. I came across creationists at the age of 17, and I've been talking and writing about that ever since.

18:46

And since I'm now 58, you do the math. Oh, gee, and I thought you were just around the time of Noah. Okay. So, let's wrap up with what

18:57

I'd like you to do, is let folks know how they can get in touch with you. You have a podcast, and so let's plug that so people know where they can get more of that and where they can get more information, what kind of materials you guys offer.

19:09

Yeah. Well, we can be found on most of the podcasting apps, particularly

19:14

Stitcher and TuneIn Radio, places like that, and through Dog Catcher. And you can find the feed for our podcast on our website.

19:22

Our website is mshcreationcenter .org. mshcreationcenter .org.

19:29

So, you can find us there, and you can find us also on Facebook. That's basically it.

19:36

And so, the website, what kind of materials you guys have there? Well, we do have a bookstore on the website, so you can find creation materials that we've produced.

19:46

We're producing a lot of material for homeschoolers, homeschool co -ops, and homeschool families.

19:52

At the moment, we're in the middle of producing a science curriculum for older teenagers, which

19:59

I think is very important. And, you know, I do believe that literature is very important, and that's why

20:08

I'm really involved in two big writing projects at the moment that I'd value your prayers for.

20:14

One is to write an easy -to -read commentary on the whole of the Book of Genesis, not just stopping at Chapter 11, the whole of the

20:23

Book of Genesis. Volume 1 of that will be out very shortly, within the next five or six weeks. And also, doing a full -length biography of Charles Darwin.

20:34

And we haven't really had a full -length, detailed biography of Charles Darwin written by a creationist before.

20:41

And we haven't had a full -length commentary on the whole of Genesis, an easy -to -read one written by a creationist, since 1976, when

20:50

Henry Morris published the Genesis Record. So I think both those things are necessary, and I'd value your prayers for those two writing projects, which

20:57

I think are very important. Well, it's always a pleasure. I was so excited. I didn't realize you were coming until days before, and I got excited, even though I did kind of bust on you a bit on Facebook.

21:06

But, you know, sarcasm is my love language. And so, but I was thrilled. I'm getting it.

21:13

James Watkins from Five Solos is giving a big head nod on that. Yeah. But I was really excited to know that I'd be seeing you.

21:19

I was looking for you the first day. I didn't get to really see you until today. But it's always a pleasure to be with you.

21:25

The fellowship is always sweet. So thank you for coming on. It's been a pleasure, Andrew. And I know that for listeners who speak

21:31

English, they'll probably be able to get subtitles of your questions later on if they ask for them.

21:39

Obviously, sarcasm is your love language too. Amen. My name is

21:44

Andy Olson, and I want to tell you about Echo Zoi Radio. Echo Zoi Radio is a podcast outreach of Echo Zoi Ministries.

21:51

Every month I find a knowledgeable guest to talk about an important and interesting topic that affects the church today. We carefully balance the discussions of positive,

21:59

God -glorifying doctrines of Orthodox Christianity from a mostly Reformed point of view with exposés of heresy, false teaching, and poor practice that goes on throughout the church today.

22:08

You can find us at EchoZoi .com. That's E -C -H -O -Z -O -I .com. Well, we are back again at G3, the

22:17

Wrap Report. We are here recording from the Exhibit Center. So we are at the

22:23

Striving Fraternity, Justin Peters booth. But I have pulled over someone from the booth right next to us.

22:28

We've got our own little section here. And so this is kind of like the New York, New Jersey crowd here.

22:33

We've got a bunch of New Yorkers over here at the booth by us. But someone who

22:39

I've known for a very long time and been on the streets with evangelizing for a very long time,

22:45

Brother Phil Cessa, who is with Soul Fishing Ministries. And he also is a podcaster, so we'll talk about that.

22:52

But first up, Phil, let's introduce you to folks. I think this is the first time you've been on the

22:58

Wrap Report, correct? Yes. All right. So let's start with you and I got to know each other, actually, when you came to help me out.

23:06

I was leading an evangelism training of Chinese churches in New York City, and you came out, and we needed some more people to help train people.

23:15

And you came with, I think, two or three other brothers. And you and I just hit it off, and we would go.

23:21

I remember one time you and I were out. We parked our car somewhere. I don't know if you remember this. We parked in a park by your house.

23:28

Yes. And we went into New York. We took the train to New York, and we came back a little bit too late because we were having way too much fun evangelizing.

23:34

That's right. And all the gates were closed. And the only way out of that park, there was a police officer sitting right there.

23:41

That's right. So I got out of the car, walked up, and I said to the officer, how do we get out of here because we didn't want to go over the grass where we shouldn't with him sitting right there.

23:53

But then he told us to go over the grass, and we felt better doing it. That's right. We had NYPD stamp of approval.

24:01

So, Phil, why don't you explain, give your background. Your heart, like mine, is discipleship, which

24:06

I've been able to be privileged to watch you over the years disciple men, different men.

24:12

Sometimes there's some who have been with you for years, and then there's people who you keep bringing guys in.

24:18

It's been a privilege to watch how you disciple people. So give folks your background, and then let's start.

24:24

Before we get into soul fishing ministries, which is what we want to get into, I want to talk about the conference here. So start with your background.

24:30

So God sent me out of Roman Catholicism. I got saved at an Assemblies of God church, walked the aisle, prayed the prayer.

24:39

But God really did save me at that moment, not because of saying those things and repeating the words, but in spite of He tore my heart, and I repented of my sin.

24:49

Then I began reading the Scriptures, and I just could not put it down. I brought it to high school with me.

24:55

Everybody asked what that book was in my hand. I said a Bible. They said, Why do you have it in school?

25:01

I said, Because I like to read it. And they said, Well, what's in it? And I was so ignorant. I just told them what I read that morning.

25:08

I had no idea what witnessing was, what evangelism was. I mean, I was the ignorant evangelist. And so then

25:14

I eventually realized I should be doing this and started up a Bible club in the school. They kicked it out, and I had to fight the school board in Mayapac, New York, and we got the

25:24

Bible club back in. So that was my first time that I really had to stand for what

25:30

I believed in, standing on Christ and defend the gospel. So that was a really great experience.

25:36

I went off to Bible college, got a degree, a BS in Bible. That doesn't stand for a bologna sandwich though, right?

25:44

So I got a Bachelor of Science in Bible, and then

25:49

I got credential with the Assemblies of God, went to several different churches, had a lot of bad experiences and good experiences.

25:58

So even the bad experiences, God gave me a lot of grace, even with the bad experiences.

26:05

Sometimes models were good, but theology in the models were really bad. So I've taken a lot of the models that I've learned around, and now we have better theology.

26:15

I gave up my credential at the Assemblies of God, and now I'm a pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Queens.

26:23

A very solid church. Solid church with Pastor Peter Nicotra, and so him and I are the elders of the church, and it's really a healthy church.

26:33

Definitely not a perfect church, but it's such a blessing to serve alongside of a very godly shepherd.

26:39

Yeah, I like Peter a lot. You know I've had the privilege of preaching there. I think it was before you were there.

26:45

Yes, before my time. Before your time. I haven't been there since, come to think of it. Now I see what it is.

26:51

I don't schedule the preachers. So, okay, I like asking everyone, now you're an exhibitor, so you may not have been able to get into too many of the sessions, but two things

27:03

I'm going to ask is, what sessions have you enjoyed the most? And then outside of the sessions, what have you enjoyed most about this conference?

27:10

So, man, the first two yesterday morning were just fantastic.

27:18

Josh's message was just very convicting, and Tim Challies' message, how he just kind of took you all through the scriptures to show you worship from beginning to end and through the tabernacle and the veil torn.

27:35

I mean it was just such a picture. He really just painted a very clear picture of the gospel with his tongue, which is what

27:46

I strive to do every time I preach. So that was just a fantastic, fantastic sermon.

27:54

And just Josh's message on the deformation, there is so much deformation.

28:00

And one of the reasons I left the Assemblies of God, not that all the guys are deformed, I definitely wouldn't say that, but there's a lot of deformation going on there theologically when people are getting off in all the craziness.

28:14

So it's crucial for a time here and now. So what have you enjoyed about the conference outside of the sessions?

28:21

I really love talking to people, hearing their stories, people that I've never met from all around the country, praying with people, encouraging them, and just trying to give them any ounce of wisdom or encouragement or direction in the ministries that they're involved in.

28:41

And really trying to encourage everybody I meet, how are they involved in serving Christ in their local church especially.

28:49

So let's move into talking about Soul Fishing Ministries and then also into your podcast. So when we think about Soul Fishing Ministries, I want you to give a description of what its goal is.

28:59

For me it's been a privilege over the years that I've been able to know you and to see this ministry grow, see the effect it has and where a lot of people try to focus on the breath to try to reach as many people as possible.

29:14

You go into the depth of trying to really pour yourself into individual people and then it has been multiplying.

29:21

So let's talk about what Soul Fishing Ministries is. So Soul Fishing Ministries is a ministry that really,

29:30

God used Ray Comfort in my life as I know he did yours. Ray who? Ray who? Yeah, so listening to Ray's materials,

29:40

I was very frustrated in Bible college that people were getting saved and unsaved.

29:46

And this can happen like every week, sometimes several times a week. Let me walk the aisle again. I think that I had a bad thought like every day this week.

29:53

Okay, I'll walk the aisle again. Okay, now I'm good for an hour. Yeah, I don't know if this is a theological term, but I called it yo -yo

29:59

Christianity because it seemed like the yo -yo would go down and up, down and up. And I asked my theology professor, what is this?

30:07

How can people get saved and unsaved, saved and unsaved? And I don't remember him giving me a satisfactory answer.

30:15

And eventually I started listening to Ray Comfort's material, which a guy in my Bible college who is not

30:22

Reformed even to this day per se, he turned me on to Hell's Best Kept Secret. And then a guy

30:28

I was discipling in Bible college had the audio cassettes. And for those of you that don't know what an audio cassette is, you can call up Andrew and ask him.

30:35

He'll describe that to you. Okay, I'm in trouble because you're the second person to tell everyone to go call me about what audio cassettes are.

30:42

Cameron Butel just did the same thing from Grace to You. He was like, oh, yeah, if you want to know what a cassette is, ask

30:48

Andrew. There you go. So you're discipling ministry. Yes.

30:54

But you start, as I do, with evangelism as the first part of discipleship. Absolutely.

30:59

And so you have been able to, I just think of the team that you bring here each year.

31:06

You have one or two guys that have been with you for a long time. I think of, you know, Jose and Daniel who have been a long time working with you.

31:14

Then I keep seeing new guys pop up every year. Guys, I'm like, oh, I don't recognize this guy. Let me introduce myself.

31:20

And just seeing these guys continue to grow as part of Soul Fishing Ministries, what is it you're doing?

31:27

What is the material you offer? So one of the things that is important to me is like walking in life with these guys.

31:36

So I want to pour myself into them, find out what giftings that God has given them, and like just pull them out of their hearts and then use those giftings for the glory of God.

31:47

So we want to minister together. And so one of the greatest things is I use a lot of our discipleship materials.

31:53

I wrote a book called Multiplying for the Master, which focuses a lot on the stages of spiritual growth as well as spiritual disciplines, time, talent, and treasures, and other such topics that we cover.

32:05

So we go through that material. But really I get to see the growth because when

32:11

I go minister someplace, if I go to the hospital, I'll call one of these guys up and say, I'm going to the hospital to pray with somebody, minister to the family, can

32:18

I come pick you up? So I never want to travel to minister alone. Any place I go,

32:24

I always try to bring guys with me. And then along the way, give them opportunities to minister if the opportunity avails itself to do that.

32:33

And wherever they're gifted, just give them, train them in that area and help them to grow, speak to them, comment on how they're doing, encourage them, correction if needed.

32:46

But I've just seen really tremendous growth, and these guys have blessed my heart so much because there's no way

32:53

I can carry this ministry alone, no way at all, nor would I want to. So their fruitful growth blesses my heart to no end.

33:05

So let's talk about your podcast. Let's stop and think about it and talk about your podcast. I saw what you did right there.

33:13

And for folks who didn't pick up what I did, your podcast name is? Stop and Think About It.

33:20

That's right. So let's do that. So let's talk about that because it's not just you.

33:26

You've got a couple of guys doing that, and it's been a thrilling podcast. I've listened to every episode. Wait, did

33:31

I just admit that to you? Oh, no. I never heard it before. You can always edit this.

33:38

That's what's good about post -editing. That's right. But let's talk about the podcast you're doing. So we started the podcast last.

33:46

We started in February of 2019. So we're almost coming up on a year right now.

33:52

I've always wanted to do something like that. But when you're doing so many things, and I know you do so many things, and I do so many things, we just wear a lot of hats.

34:03

Every time you have a new idea, it's kind of like you have to learn a whole new job description for this other thing you want to do.

34:10

And so sometimes I want to do things, but then to learn all of the intricacies to do that, you're like, man, if I do that, then

34:17

I'm going to take away from doing this. And so one of the brothers who came to our church named Steve Langella said, would you like to do a podcast?

34:26

And he asked a couple of guys. I said, I'd love to do it. And he knew how to do kind of the mechanics of it and the post -production, all those kinds of things.

34:34

So he knew how to, you know, design logos and make intro music and all of that, those kind of things.

34:41

And so I was like, all right. So we started in my basement, and he brought all the equipment, and we would meet on a

34:47

Saturday, and it would take like all day to do it. And now we've been doing it online instead, which is a lot easier.

34:54

So he's the... He's the brains behind it. Well, I was going to say, he does the technical.

34:59

You have someone else who does the content, and you're just the voice, right? Yeah, I'm like the

35:05

Wizard of Oz. Just the guy behind the curtain. Yeah, so I normally come up with a lot of the content, and I just create a

35:16

Google document, and I kind of start to populate it with some kind of an outline, and then

35:22

I let the guys have access to it so they can add. And Glenroy, our West Indian wordsmith, who is an

35:29

English major, he goes in and massages things for us. So he's good at editing before we kind of go live with things and parsing things out.

35:40

So I feel like we really have a good team to work with. It's a good chemistry on that podcast, which is important.

35:48

You need to have... And I think it's because you guys know each other well. You have that chemistry that really flows well so that you're not talking over each other.

35:55

The content flows from one idea to another very smoothly, which is good. And you guys have some great content.

36:02

It's educational, but because of the different voices, it keeps the attention. And so I think it's a very important podcast to be listened to because you guys deal with some big issues that need to be addressed.

36:13

You don't shy away from them, which so many, unfortunately, do. So you and I both are in discipling ministries, but we do it very differently.

36:21

You do it the way I wish I could, which is more of a shepherd, because my passion has always been to shepherd a church, as you know

36:29

I used to. And I love the idea of discipling people and just having a group of people where you're discipling them and you get to watch them grow over a long period of time.

36:38

That's not where God has me. But that's more the ministry that you have, is to really pour yourself out.

36:45

And you said it, and that's so true, and I want you guys who are listening to understand when he's saying that he pours himself into these guys,

36:54

I'm an eyewitness to that. I've seen that. Literally, he does not do anything alone.

36:59

He takes guys with him everywhere, and there's men around him all the time that are being discipled in one way or another.

37:08

And that is what it takes to pour yourself into people, and that's what we're all called to do.

37:14

Now, I do that privately. I don't get to do that in the ministry that I'm in. It's a disciple ministry, but it's more providing tools and a way to help the church to do that.

37:24

Yes. And so you get the fun part, but let's talk about the importance of discipleship because you and I both have a very, very strong view of discipleship and the need for it in the local church.

37:41

So let's talk about why it's so important. Yes. So it reminds me back to a conversation of the guy that discipled me in Bible college.

37:48

He said, What has God called you to do? And I was going to be the next Billy Graham, as far as I understood. At least go with Billy Sunday or something.

37:57

Sorry. I didn't know much. More like Billy the

38:02

Kid. So my perspective was

38:08

I was going to just go out and share the gospel with everybody that I met. And he said, What are you going to do if somebody gets saved?

38:14

And I literally and ignorantly said, that will be the pastor's problem. And he said,

38:21

Are you planning on getting married one day? I said, Yes. He said, Are you going to have kids? I said, God bless me with kids. He said,

38:26

Are you going to leave the kids on someone else's doorstep to feed them and raise them? Ouch. And I was like, No?

38:33

So I was like, Why would you ask such a dumb question? He goes, And why would you do that spiritually? He said, Why would you share the gospel, see

38:40

God save someone, and then not know how to raise that person in their walk with Christ?

38:47

And I mean, I was just very ignorant. But I think it's so crucial because people are at different stages in their spiritual development, and sometimes they don't know that.

39:00

So if you step on a scale, you can find out how much you weigh. And if you use a tape measure, you can find out how tall you are.

39:05

And I don't need much of a tape measure for that for my own personal self. But how do you know where you're at spiritually, like in your stages of growth?

39:16

Where are you? So we point a lot of people to 1 John 2, where it talks about the world, children, young men, and fathers.

39:24

And we try to take people along that journey and help see people, Where are you right now?

39:29

And are you willing to pay the cost and to die to self to grow to the next level on toward becoming like Christ?

39:36

And there's less and less people in each category because you have to die to self. And that's not fun.

39:42

But it is joyful to do so. You speak about the spiritual maturity. When I was pastoring and preaching through Matthew 18, the first half, everyone is familiar with the second half, which is this one, thanks to John MacArthur.

39:55

But the first half talks about pride and humility. And as I was working through those texts of Scripture and I'm trying to figure out how do

40:02

I communicate to people? How can we test our spiritual growth? I mean, it's not like you fill this chart out and now

40:09

I know how I'm doing spiritually. How can we examine our spiritual maturity? And I thought about it.

40:15

And as I was preaching through it, the whole part of that first half of Matthew 18 talks about pride and humility.

40:21

I started to realize that's really the sign of spiritual growth, how humble I am compared to how prideful I am.

40:26

But how do we test our humility? So now I had another dilemma. Okay, now I know the thing, but how do I test the humility?

40:32

I started thinking about it. I said it really seems to be a way to test our humility is one thing that we do is when someone comes up, they correct us.

40:41

And we're wrong. Not like they're just misrepresenting. We're actually wrong. How quick are we to defend ourselves?

40:48

Because that's the pride. And humility is to say, no, he's right and I'm wrong.

40:54

How quick are we willing to submit to someone correcting us? How quick are we to trying to defend ourselves?

41:00

Because when we look at those two, that's a way of judging. And that's on within our own mind. We know when someone corrects us how fast we're going to be to defend it or whether we're going to heed to it.

41:10

That's a way to measure that spiritual growth. Another way I often say is how quick are we to look to, if we see someone who's in sin, how quick are we to correct them?

41:21

Because that shows that we care more about God than ourselves because we know it's going to cause conflict and we don't like the conflict. But do we care enough about God that we're going to go do something that we don't like to do?

41:30

Yeah. Well, it's been, like I said, I had a lot of bad church experiences.

41:37

I learned a lot of what not to do from guys that I worked with in ministry over the years.

41:43

But when I kind of yoked up with Pastor Peter in ministry, he just walks in such humility and he always takes the low road.

41:53

I mean, even if he's not wrong, per se, he always humbles himself and he's always very gracious with the sheep in the church.

42:02

And so I needed to just really learn that so much more. I guess when you have a prideful heart, like I'm normally,

42:12

I could be a rough guy. You look like a rough guy. I look like a rough guy. You look like someone that teaches in Harlem.

42:19

Don't tell anybody. So, you know, like God gave me two daughters because I needed to learn more gentleness.

42:29

You're from the Bronx, right? I live in the Bronx, yeah. Because you know what happened when two guys from the

42:34

Bronx got to heaven? Uh -oh, here it comes. Yeah, so they get up there and there's, you know,

42:40

Peter and he's going, what are you guys doing here? We're supposed to be here. He says, I think there must be an error.

42:46

You're from the Bronx. Let me go talk to Christ. He goes to Jesus and says, hey, there's two guys from the

42:51

Bronx. They're not supposed to be here. Go find out what they're doing here. He goes back and goes to find those guys.

42:57

They're not there. So he goes back to Jesus and says they're gone. You go, the three guys? No. The goal, go ahead.

43:03

No, the gates. That's good, that's good, that's good.

43:08

I actually have them in my house right now. But yeah,

43:17

I mean, seeing how people respond to correction is very, very important.

43:24

Do they take, you know, do they go low? And I hear Pastor Peter all the time, you know, when somebody comes with us, you know, with an issue, we always teach them, listen, humble yourself and go low.

43:35

You might be right on something. It doesn't mean you're saying you're wrong now. Just go low in humility.

43:42

Because, I mean, if we want to be like Christ, I mean, he walked in humility all the time, 100 % of the time he walked in humility.

43:50

Even when he was correcting people, he was still walking in humility. Yeah, yeah. And people couldn't deal with it.

43:56

No, they crucified him for it. Yeah, that's what happens when you walk in humility. Yeah. Hey, well, thanks for coming on.

44:02

Why don't you share the website to your ministry, how folks can get in touch with you, what kind of things you have to offer for them, and where they can get the podcast.

44:09

Sure. So, our website is www .soulfishingministries .org and we also have our

44:16

Stop and Think Podcast .com as well. And the two websites integrate with each other.

44:24

So, if you go to one, you're going to get the other. And we have links to our YouTube videos.

44:29

We did an evangelism conference. So, there's links to that. We're doing another one this summer. So, we invite you all to come out to it.

44:37

It'll be in Queens in August. And we have been training young men to be expository preachers.

44:45

So, we're mentoring a church right now called The Last Call Church with Pastor Gabriel Hernandez, which we met here at the

44:52

G3 four years ago when I still have no idea how I ended up speaking on the platform.

44:59

God is definitely sovereign because I didn't know up to two hours before I was going to go. That was even happening.

45:06

But out of that bore so much fruit because we've been training him. And then

45:11

I met Nick who's in our ministry here at the G3 as well. And so, Nick has been a tremendous blessing, as is

45:18

Jose has been with me many, many years and has been just such a right -hand man. Well, thank you for coming on.

45:24

Thank you for the ministry that God's given to you. God bless you. God bless. Are you just watching?

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45:59

Well, welcome back again. We are at the G3 booth here in the exhibit hall at the

46:05

G3 conference. We're at the Striving for Eternity and Justin Peters Ministries booth.

46:11

And we've been talking to several people. And in front of me now, I have someone who I've got to meet in person just this last week is

46:18

Nathan Fisher. Now, Nathan and I have been friends on Facebook for a while and just talking back and forth.

46:25

And I happen to be preaching in a church. And you were like, hey, you are like 10 minutes away from me.

46:31

Get over here. And he knew exactly how to entice me. His wife is like a cooking phenom.

46:39

And he said, hey, my wife is making homemade sushi. Knew exactly how to get me to say,

46:44

I'm there. And we had way more sushi than we could possibly eat.

46:51

But I tried. I did try. And so you and I got to meet. We got invited to your house, which was very generous of you.

46:59

The hospitality that you showed. And then you drove us all the way down to Atlanta. And so we really appreciated that.

47:06

But in getting to know you, we found out that you have a very interesting background that we want to get to in a moment.

47:13

Before we get there, the first question I want to ask you, or first two questions really that I'd ask everyone. Out of here at G3, what is the talk or the session that you enjoyed the most and why?

47:24

And then the second question is, outside of the sessions, what have you enjoyed most about the G3 conference?

47:30

Sure. This morning I enjoyed listening to Dr. White. He did a

47:35

Greek sentence. Wait, wait, wait. I think that's just because you have some favoritism there. You've listened to 1 ,000 hours of him.

47:42

I don't know if that counts. Okay, I'll switch to yesterday. I like Mody Bacchus.

47:47

It was fire, that sermon. That was quick.

47:52

You were ready for that. It was a good sermon. Yeah, it was. And then MacArthur afterwards. I mean, any time

47:58

MacArthur gets up and exposes scripture, you're going to learn a lot. Yeah, yeah. So outside of the sessions, what have you enjoyed about the conference?

48:04

Just the fellowship and walking around and meeting people and basically just being here.

48:11

That seems to be the common theme with everyone is the fellowship because you can watch all the sessions online and you can catch them, but you don't get that same fellowship that we have here.

48:21

We have people from all over the place, and you just have that kindred spirit. And when you start coming year after year, one person came up to me yesterday and said, this is like a family reunion.

48:30

I mean, I look forward to coming here because I get to see everybody again. And there's a lot of people that are regulars. They come year after year and really get to be closer, and you always meet new friends.

48:39

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Last year some Canadian brothers came. Now they brought their wives this year. They came back to my house for dinner last year.

48:47

Well, they did not go away hungry. It wasn't sushi, though. I can't remember what she cooked, but it was definitely good.

48:55

Yeah, well, that seems to be the trend because, you know, we have a mutual friend in Pastor Rhodes, and he had warned me before coming over.

49:02

He says, listen, you better be really hungry because when his wife cooks, she really cooks.

49:08

That's why I've put on 50 pounds since we've been married. Yes, I can understand that.

49:14

I've put on 40 pounds with my wife. She doesn't cook as much, but anything she cooks I'm finishing, which is the problem.

49:21

Always. So let's talk about your background. You came out of a cultic background.

49:28

Yes. And so you were a raised Jehovah Witness. Yes. And so let's talk about your background as a

49:36

Jehovah Witness and then what brought you out of Jehovah Witness, not into Christianity yet, and then into Christianity.

49:42

Sure, sure. Yeah, so I was raised a third -generation Jehovah's Witness. My dad actually attended or served at Brooklyn Bethel in the 1960s for about four years, which is their headquarters and their printing press where they print all their publications.

49:58

They've since sold that building, but definitely had a very strong Jehovah's Witness background and upbringing, was trained.

50:06

My dad was the lead elder, what they call elders in their church, and so I grew up as an elder son.

50:16

And then what brought you out of being a Jehovah Witness? Well, around 20 years old, I mean, I was a young man and started to, you know, kind of steer away from the

50:25

Jehovah's Witnesses and one and two date, and I fell into some sin. And, of course, they have their own structure of how to deal with sin, and so that's kind of,

50:35

I got excommunicated. Do you still talk to your family? I can speak to them probably about once a year, maybe twice a year for about a five - or ten -minute conversation, and it's generally just, how are you doing?

50:48

Are you still alive? Are you still healthy? But they follow the strict shunning policies of the

50:54

Jehovah's Witnesses since my dad's position is higher up. That's hard, isn't it?

51:00

It is. It's been over 20 years, yeah. So what brought you to Jesus Christ? Well, so I was an agnostic for about 17 years after I left around 21, and I had kind of been through a lot of ups and downs, depression, suicidal tendencies, drugs, just a lot of just really bad things happening in my life.

51:23

And I had met my wife, and she started cooking. No, just kidding, just kidding.

51:28

So she knew the way to a man's heart was through the stomach. It worked, yeah.

51:33

No, but in all seriousness, she kind of saw something in me that I guess no one else had seen, and I don't know what that was, but she started cleaning my life up.

51:45

And she took me to a local church that she wanted to attend, and so I started kind of considering God again, so to speak, because I was an agnostic.

51:59

And my grandmother, who was 95 years old, lay dying in the hospital, and I had not seen her in over 17 years.

52:07

And I kind of said some kind of mangled prayer, basically saying,

52:14

God, if you exist, show her who you are before she dies. And then

52:19

I realized that I didn't know who God was. And so that kind of took me down a journey of investigating what

52:26

I had never investigated before, which is the past and the history of the Jehovah's Witnesses. So I went online, took to YouTube, and started investigating and watching everything

52:34

I could on them. Of course, when you do that, you get a hold of a lot of the people that have left, and they're religiously abused people.

52:42

They're generally leaning towards agnosticism or atheism. They're very, very angry at God. They're very angry at the

52:49

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower organization. But I was hearing the false prophecies, and, you know, where Rutherford predicted this and it didn't happen, and then all of the 1975 stuff.

53:02

And I had my jaw dropped because I'm listening to it for the first time. But then

53:08

I ran across Dr. Walter Martin, his old tapes from the 1980s into the 90s, and started listening to a man who was arguing against their position using

53:17

Scripture. And when I heard that, I was like, I know all these Scriptures. You know,

53:23

I used to try to use these against people. He's wrong for this. And so what I started doing was trying to beat

53:29

Dr. Walter Martin, which didn't work. There can only be one Dr. Walter Martin.

53:34

The Lord prevailed, and I started to slowly have my eyes opened and see from the

53:41

Scripture that what I had believed my entire life was wrong. And so then

53:48

I got a hold of Dr. James White as a suggestion from YouTube. YouTube's great on suggestions.

53:53

And listened to hours and hours of him debate the Trinity and the deity of Christ with all different kinds of people that hold all different kinds of beliefs.

54:05

And during that time period between January and March, I realized the state that I was in.

54:11

I realized that I had been going for 30 -something years, 37 years almost.

54:17

And I was just completely bankrupt morally and just emotionally, and I had nothing left.

54:24

And at that point, I realized who God was versus who I am.

54:30

And I repented of my sins, and I was saved right then and there. So now you have a little bit of a library on Jehovah Witnesses.

54:41

Yeah, I started collecting quite a bit afterwards from eBay. Probably one of the best that I've seen as far as materials on Jehovah Witnesses, and you've researched it very well.

54:53

You and I talked about the fact that you haven't been saved all that long, but yet you have a great amount of knowledge of theology, and you had said that you just basically engrossed yourself into study.

55:06

How many hours a day were you studying? I think ever since probably that time period that I was saved,

55:13

I've put in two or three hours a day just listening to something, reading something. And it's not that I'm trying to be something.

55:23

It's just that the Lord put it into me to learn all of this stuff and to learn who He is and to be able to properly articulate

55:30

His truth, and I can't see myself doing anything else with my time. So that's what

55:36

I do. I just study and read and listen, and I've always got something on my mind that I'm thinking through.

55:43

Well, you've got a debate coming up, so let's talk about that. You're going to be debating Will Duffy, who Matt Slick recently debated.

55:50

What's the topic? Well, we're doing two debates, which I probably shouldn't have done on second thought.

55:56

Because you have how many debates so far done? Zero. Zero. Okay, so you just jumped right in. When Matt Slick decided a couple years ago, he was like, you know,

56:03

I think I'll debate David Smalley on one day on one topic and Matt Dillahunty the next day on a different topic.

56:11

I mean, they just had one debate to plan for, and he had two. I was like, what were you thinking? You at least said it's the same person, so he has two to prepare for and you have two, but he's got a little bit more experience.

56:22

He's got a little head start, too, because both of those debates, I think, are similar to what Matt Slick and him debated on.

56:28

Not to mention Matt Slick actually did it two nights in a row, not the same day.

56:33

I don't know what I was thinking. So what's the debate topic? Give us all how you're going to argue against it.

56:43

Put me on the spot there. No, so the first debate topic is does the

56:48

Bible teach an open future, which obviously is his… So what's his background? His background, which is open theism, and he'll be in the affirmative and I'll be in the negative.

56:57

So for people that don't know open theism, give a quick synopsis. So open theism, they believe that the future is not open to God.

57:05

God knows the present events, all current events, but he does not know the future.

57:11

And because he doesn't know the future, they basically believe that if he did know the future, that man could not be truly free because God would know what man was going to do as part of what they believe.

57:29

So what's going to be the second debate topic? The second debate is Calvinism's view of God's sovereignty biblical, which probably is a debate question that puts me at a little bit of a disadvantage, but I accepted it nonetheless.

57:45

So it's basically a debate on God's sovereignty. So we'll get into decrees and God's will and how he carries out his will based on his decree and in time.

57:56

Well, it's been neat. I got to spend a little bit of time with you this week. It was thrilling to spend that time, really got to know you a little bit and really see how

58:05

God has used you. It's been encouraging to see. So any last things you want to share with folks before you sign off?

58:13

I would just say get out, start meeting people here at G3 if you're here. And if you are wanting to talk to some

58:22

Jehovah's Witnesses, I hear there's a good book that has a section on Jehovah's Witnesses. What would that book be called?

58:29

You wrote it. You tell them. What do they believe maybe? I saw it over here. Yeah, it does have a section on that.

58:37

That's true. But I thank you for coming on. It's a joy to get to know you. It was very much a joy to eat your wife's cooking, just saying.

58:45

I'm looking forward to getting to spend more time with you and get to know you more. We'll be praying for this debate.

58:51

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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