February 18, 2019 Show with Pete Orta on “Confessions of a Renowned Christian Recording Artist Who Was Not a Christian” Part 2

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 18th day of February 2019, and I am thrilled to have back for the second time

Pete Orta, the former lead guitarist for the renowned

Christian rock group and Gospel Hall of Fame inductees Petra between 1996 and 2000, winner of a gold record, a

Dove Award nominee for three Grammys, and a Grammy winner for Gospel Rock Album of the

Year for the award -winning album Double Take, a contributor of production techniques to the soundtrack for the film

Left Behind, World at War, and subsequent to a genuine rebirth in Christ Jesus, is now pastoring

Cottonwood Creek Church in Denison, Texas. Today we are addressing part two of a discussion that we began last week, in fact it was last

Friday, the discussion on confessions of a renowned Christian recording artist who was not a

Christian, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for the second time for part two of our discussion,

Pete Orta. Hey man, glad to be here. Great, by the way, what nationality is Orta?

Sounds Greek. Orta, it's Mexican. Really? Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, I was born in the States, but I'm third generation. Oh, cool. Well, basically let's start off by summarizing in a big way what we discussed last week, because we want to leave time for things we didn't address last week.

You, when you were the lead guitarist for Petra between 1996 and 2000, and even after that when you went on a solo career as a

Christian recording artist, you claimed last week, in fact,

I'm kind of putting two and two together, is this the first time during this two -part series on Iron Trip and Zion Radio that you've ever publicly given this testimony about not being a

Christian when you were in the group Petra and even as a solo Christian recording artist?

Yes, this week has been my first week in I don't know how many years. Wow, well, I mean, last Friday you started on the show and then today.

So, yeah, that's, well, I'm honored that you have chosen Iron Trip and Zion Radio as a format, as a platform to let our listeners know about this, let the world know about this, because I think it's very important because of the way

Christians idolize CCM artists and do not think critically and do not use discernment when adopting many of these folks as heroes and so on.

And we have to be very careful about that. But to summarize, and I want you to obviously add anything in your own words, but you, from what we have already discussed, were basically a nominal

Christian who didn't know much of anything about Christianity when you were hired by Petra to be their lead guitarist.

Then you entered into Word of Faith Pentecostalism, your wife had already had that faith, she was raised in that faith of Word of Faith Pentecostalism, which you and I agree is a heresy.

And then, because of the letdown, because of the dashed hopes, because of the realization that it was a lie referring to Word of Faith Pentecostalism, you swung over to a heresy that's 180 degrees opposite of that.

The deist understanding of God and how he operates in the world, not even as a knowing, apologetically informed deist, but you later found out that that's really what the beliefs you had, that's how they would be best described under the umbrella of deism.

So have I got this right so far? Yes, a little bit. I always had to go back and double check with my wife on timeline because she's way better.

Whenever we talk, I always look at her for dates and times. She was raised in a charismatic,

I think under Larry Lee, the Church on the Rock, Trinity in Lubbock, Texas, that theology which is charismatic.

I met her at a charismatic church. That's when I got exposed to it, and then it was later, so that was before my time with Petra, and then after that, of course, it started bleeding over to...

I took some of that, I didn't know what it was, but that word of faith, just blab it and grab it as they say, and it just seemed to make sense as I was succeeding, but it didn't make sense anymore after that.

And I'm a pretty logical guy. I think I was told at the time that God is some type of experience or whatever, and I never wanted to be one to completely turn my face from God as angry as I've been at Him throughout my life.

But yeah, that's kind of the timeline there. And Pete has recorded with the most well -known

CCM recording artists. And then I'd like to find out how the folks who created the film

Left Behind, World at War got a hold of you, because I'm wondering if you were a Christian at that time, but even if you were,

I'm assuming, because you're Reformed today, that you have parted company with the makers of that film theologically.

Yeah, man, I'm going to be honest. I never was churched enough to even understand eschatology.

I had no idea. By default, you're dispensational in America. That might be something even all over the world.

It seems to be the most loud voice in the media in America, at least.

With no education, you're free will and dispensational. Day one of being born again, it's just kind of a,

I don't know where we land or I don't know if it's our culture, but I didn't know anything about that.

I didn't even give much attention to any end time stuff. My wife read the entire series.

I just remember her getting book after book after book after book, and she read it. She got into that.

She tried to get me into reading that end times and left behind. It just was too bizarre for me.

I am super, super logical, and it just didn't make sense for me to even know or understand.

I just knew that I was going to die before the end of it, and who knows what's going to happen after that.

Yeah, you said something key here. It is fascinating that many churches and pastors and media personalities who are

Christian, it's interesting how much is emphasized and how much the imagination of Christians are titillated by events that they're not even going to experience.

It's really tripped out, man. Because if you're raptured before the tribulation, most of what they're talking about isn't even something that we're going to know about or see.

I know, man. It's a trip. I first started at this church, and man, almost week one,

I had three people come up to me, and say, well, I'm an end times teacher, and I would like to get with you sometime.

All three of them, I said, dispensational, right? And they're all, yes.

I said, well, I would rather, if I have an end times teacher at my church, I would rather somebody go over amillennialism, and then post -mill, and pre -mill, and preterism, partial preterism.

I would want everybody, the teacher, to kind of explain each one. Right. And that's how

I got rid of them, because dispensational teachers don't even understand what

I just said. Well, we don't want to go too far, because some of my heroes, like John MacArthur, he's a dispensationalist, and I have a number of very good friends, but that is not the focus of their preaching and teaching, and their overall ministry.

Let me say this, just to clean that up. John MacArthur, I have heard his version of dispensational, and it is not the classical, historical form of dispensational, and that guy is just primo in my book.

Yes, I love John MacArthur, and in fact, pray about this, folks, but there is, from what

I understand, there's a strong likelihood that in the next several weeks to a month, that John will be returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio for his second interview, so please pray that that happens.

He's a very busy man, and his ministry keeps a very tight hold on his schedule.

But I know, I know that the staff over there at Grace to You has become thrilled and excited with my interview with the current president of Family Radio, Tom Evans, because of his repentance over the heresies of Harold Camping, who is now deceased, and Grace to You is now a part of the lineup on Family Radio.

They were refusing invitations to join Family Radio's lineup until Brother Flowers and Brother Johnson and others on staff there heard my interview, and apparently they've been spreading word about Iron Trip and Zion interview with Tom Evans, so I'm very, very delighted about that.

But that's not what we're talking about today. It's wonderful. What I'm going to do right now is,

I'm going to play another song by Pete Orta, and this is just to give you an idea of the kind of music he played and recorded.

I actually enjoy listening to it, even though I know after the fact that he was not born again when he even created the solo album

Born Again. But here is a song that features some of his guitar work, and that is

Broken on the Born Again album, Pete's first solo album after leaving Petra.

So take my romance It's endless and I've read these tears

Let me breathe as you bathe me

Let me breathe as you bathe me

When I'm slowly losing my mind

That was Broken from Pete Orta's solo album Born Again.

And I love that line, by the way, Pete. I don't know if you wrote it or not. I did. You did.

I love the line, Let those tears be the Jordan for me.

I love that line. Yeah, oh man. Do you know why I wrote that?

You get asked the same questions on every interview. I had a joke with the guys with Petra that I would cut off my pinky if I ever got asked a different question ever on tour.

And so as we were always being interviewed, I'd kind of stick my finger out on my leg and they would just start cracking up because, you know, what's your favorite color, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you know, what character in the Bible do you identify with the most? And of course, I didn't read the

Bible. And other than to, you know, pull a lyric like that bridge,

Chris Rodriguez wrote that bridge and he just pulled it. I think it's a scripture. It's where he got that from,

Blessed are the pure in heart, they were surely part of God. He's the one that added that in because I had,

I don't know, I needed a little something in there. And but I would always answer the thief on the cross.

That was my out because I just knew that I was just as messed up.

And who knew where I was going when I got messed up there.

Yeah, but that should be the answer of every Christian, actually. Because that shows in a very vivid way that salvation story of that thief, that salvation was purely of the mercy and grace of Christ.

He did not do anything to earn that at all. And in fact, many people when they refer to that story, and even in movies and on television versions of it, you usually only see one thief mocking

Christ. It's almost like good cop, bad cop where the both of the thieves were originally mocking

Christ, but then one repented. The movies usually leave out the fact that both of them initially were mocking

Christ. Yes, and both were in an extreme amount of excruciating pain.

And a lot of times we as Christians are even set out to evangelize to those that we can visibly see hurting or poor or whatever.

And we won't go to the person who's not in pain, who's making a lot of money and in the middle of their success.

So they were both in pain and one did not turn. Right. Now, when you were singing that song and many other songs, you know, it sounded like you were singing with passion and with meaning.

What were you thinking about Christ, about God, about salvation? Since you now realize that you were not a

Christian at all during those days and didn't even have an understanding of the gospel of who God was, who the triune Godhead is, what were you thinking about?

I was at the, let's see, Dark Horse Studio at the time in Nashville, and I was with Chris Rodriguez in the studio, and they were in the control room and I remember being out and on an

SM7B Shore microphone. And, you know, I'm a passionate person, you know, regardless.

I'm just made that way. I'm an all -in type person and everything I do is to an extreme.

And when I was there performing and trying to lay down the best track possible, you know, you sing with your guts.

And that's exactly what I did. As far as, like, what I'm feeling, man, it was more about making sure that it was, you know, a good vocal performance.

And I've looked back and I've kind of evaluated my solo record to think, just to kind of see, man, where was my head at the time?

And they all seem like, if you really look at it, none of the lyrics are as if I am saved.

They're almost the ones that I wrote. The songs that I wrote are someone that is contemplating salvation or not understanding of it, like the

Broken song and things like that. So, man, just performance, you know, what's

Tom Brady thinking about when he's dropping back in the pocket? You know, how does he look?

How does he feel? No, man, there's a job that's got to get done. I've got to make contact. So, yeah, that's what

I'm thinking, just a professional. Lost people can not only convince others that they're saved, they can deceive themselves that they are saved.

Oh, man, that's all around the world, especially in America. I mean, we have to sell ourselves first, you know.

A lot of times our belief is so deceiving because we just believe what we have convinced ourselves of.

That's the difference between the belief that the Holy Spirit gives us and our own belief, you know, our own self -belief.

It really is a supernatural belief. I don't think we can put much weight to it as we should.

Right. Amen. It's a gift of God, and it is miraculous that we even possess it when we do.

One of the things that I'd like to discuss with you that we didn't really get into last

Friday, and of course we are not going to name names unless you feel so convinced of the certainty of what you're going to say that you care to name a name, that's up to you.

But when you were in this CCM world and you yourself had to be rebuked by a number of people for living a life that was not reflective of somebody who was truly born again, being drunk and high and a public spectacle, if you will, and other things that may have occurred that you didn't mention, how typical, how rampant is licentious living that you were aware of in the world of CCM by the

CCM artists, the CCM lyricists, the CCM producers, the record labor executives, all of that, as much as you want to share?

Man, we're getting in on it, huh? This is what

I'll say, just to preface it real quick. You know, I don't know if you've ever taken one of those questionnaires when you were a kid and you're filling out,

I don't know if they do it anymore, it's been a long time since I've done anything like that, but I remember as a kid filling out a questionnaire and one of the questions is, you know, how many people in America drink or do drugs or whatever?

And of course, nobody can answer that. The only thing that they're looking for is, if it's a high percentage, you're around a bunch of druggies.

If it's a low percentage, you're probably pretty naive and there's less of a chance of you being on it.

So I always knew that I should answer that really low, you know, 5 % of people in the world, you know, smoke pot.

So it's kind of like that, it's according to your worldview. It seems like all of CCM was like that, but it was only because it was all the people that were just hanging around me.

So I really can't speak for everybody because I know that a lot of the people's big favorites, you know, like Stephen Curtis Chapman, I've heard nothing and know nothing of him but just integrity.

You know, there's artists like that that I have met. I mean, my bandmates are the real deal, you know,

Bob Hartman, Louie Weaver and John Schlitt. I mean, they are the real deal.

They are Christians. And so, you know, you find your own and you gravitate towards that.

And I think that what happened, and I see a lot of this with young artists coming in, what happens is you go into the deal and you see that it's polarized.

There is one side over here, this was my view at the time, that there was these goody two -shoe preacher kids, singers and musicians and record executives, and they've grown up in this bubble.

And they're over here trying to do cheesy Christian music, and they've got no roots on anything.

Their parents never let them listen to anything to develop their craft at all.

It's just shallow and it's contrived and you have all this stuff. And so when you complain about that, because you're trying to put out some good quality music, and you're fighting against this huge machine and fighting against the radio and who gets to approve the music and things like that, you, voicing yourself, you attract those other people.

And those other people, of course, you start off artistically saying, hey, you know what, we should be the creators of new music.

We should be setting the trends in Christian music. I mean, you look at Bach.

You look at those guys that were setting the trends back then. And so you kind of come together and you start talking like that.

And really, it starts off with musical style. And then you start to get to know each other even more.

And you'll say a cuss word here or do this or that, and it'll make somebody laugh.

And you realize, oh, well, they're not uptight. They're not legalistic. They're not real judgmental.

They're super cool people. And they just let you be who you are. And you just kind of find your own tribe.

And there really is no in -between when I was in there. Now, I've been out of the game for a while, so I can't speak for who's in there now.

But when I was there, it was the two groups were polar opposite.

I remember coming into a green room area, and I walked in, you know, point of grace.

And I walked into their dressing room and didn't realize it. And, you know, of course, cuss word came out of my mouth.

Oops, my bad. Walked out. And man, I was just demonized from that point on with that pop church camp.

And I don't blame them, you know? I mean, who talks like that in this type of deal?

So it was kind of, yeah, those are these people. And they're the legalistic. I'm not calling them legalistic.

They're legalistic, goody, goody, whatever, whatever. And then you've got the bad boys of, you know,

Christian music. And that's the camp that I hung in on. And I can't name who was with me.

Well, we are going to our first break right now. 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.

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.nyc. Have a great day. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in.

Our guest today for the full two hours is Pete Orta. This is his second guest appearance on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio.

And I don't know, do you call a radio guest an appearance? Because nobody can see you, but anyway.

But this is the second time Pete has been on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio. His first interview was last

Friday, and this is part two of Confessions of a renowned Christian recording artist who was not a

Christian. Thanks be to God he is a Christian now and pastoring Cottonwood Creek Church in Denison, Texas.

Pete was lead guitarist for Petra from 1996 to 2000.

And then went out on a solo career as a Christian recording artist. And he was not a

Christian during any of those years while performing on stage or recording under the label of a

Christian recording artist in the CCM industry. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Pete, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. And before I forget to do so, and I hope to repeat this later on, but you can always find out more about Pete Orta at his website, peteorta .com.

That's P -E -T -E -O -R -T -A dot com. And one of the reasons

I wanted you back on the show, especially since there were things that we did not discuss in depth the first time, is that I think that this is an important thing to do because people,

Christians, well -intentioned Christians, Christians who miss the music, the secular music, that they may have abandoned when they became saved or they didn't think there would be anything musically resembling some of the instrumentality that they loved in secular music and they have discovered it in Christian music, they are too eager and ready and willing to embrace an artist who professes to be a

Christian as the real deal, and that can be dangerous, can't it? Yes. I mean, I think we do it with books as well, just because it's got a stamp on it, it's okay.

And also, televangelists and radio and television preachers, yeah. Now, years ago,

I remember hearing Michael Horton say something profound on the White Horse Sin radio program, but he was talking about how a century ago and even centuries ago, when you picked up a hymnal, the songs of the church were written by pastors, they were written by theologians, they were written by biblically literate people who were truly born again, for the most part,

I'm not saying every single song in your hymnal, necessarily, but that was basically the rule, and that is the kind of music that fed the church and gave the church voice to worship, music that had and has, to this day, theologically rich words, biblically deep words, words that exalt the righteousness and holiness and majesty and sovereignty of God and reveal the wretchedness and hopelessness and sinfulness of man.

And today, and for quite a while, since the rise of contemporary

Christian music, you have marketing teams and radio executives that aren't even saved, that do not have the

Holy Spirit dwelling within them, involved in either writing or deciding what words and what songs should be featured on recordings and so on.

Do you concur with that assessment of Mike Wharton and your response to what

I just said, B? I agree with him completely. Like I said,

I think there's two different... I think there's some things that shouldn't be brought into the church, and I think that that doesn't mean that everything that's not brought in the church is necessarily bad.

If I go to see some theater, somebody's going to put on a play, or there's, like I said, a

Christian comedian, or I let my children... I know one of my sons loves

Christian rap, and I never got into that, but he is.

And he's allowed to look up the guys and show us the lyrics and like S .O.,

I think is one of his favorites, where they have some sound doctrine to them, and the sound doctrine is in their lyric.

But I don't think that that should be a part of our worship time. I don't think that that kind of stuff should be in there.

I think if it takes a performer to do it, even if it's singing, and if it's in a register that hardly any man or woman can hit,

I just don't think it's meant for corporate worship. And then it should be biblical, and some of the times with pop music,

I'm not calling it all bad at all. I wouldn't do that. But just because it's not a part of worship, they've got a little bit more creative liberty to not,

I'm not saying not be doctrinally sound, but just take liberty on maybe a situation or a relationship thing, or how we should handle forgiveness or whatever, and take liberty in writing those lyrics.

But when it comes to worship, man, it almost should be note for note and word for word biblical.

I mean, I know you've got to make things rhyme, and not everything does, and if you pull the songs out, it's written in a different language, so it translates different.

But I think there should be very little creative liberty in the songs that we sing in our worship time.

Yeah, how do you feel about music? For a number of years, my radio show was on a radio station that highlighted, that was dominated by CCM music, and I would be like sitting there waiting for my cue to go on the air live, and there would be

Christian music playing before the show. And I would be listening to it, and I would say very often, if not most often to myself,

I can't tell if that woman is singing to her boyfriend or singing to Christ. There's nothing in the lyrics that would be 100 % clear that she was singing to Christ, or he singing to his girlfriend or Christ.

And very often, even the manner in which, for lack of a better term, the very sexy manner with which men and women sometimes sing these songs, and you can tell that this must be a song that was intended to be a crossover song so that secular radio stations would pick it up and play it so people would automatically think, well, that's not even a

Christian song, that's a love song. Do you find any problem with that? Yes, I do find a big problem with it.

I think that this is what it is, and I was in there, I was in this crowd. There's a crowd in,

I don't know how big it is, I cannot say, I want people that are sincere, that are

Christian artists, that are sincere to be able to speak for themselves, because I'm not gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

But I disagree with that, and that goes on all the time. The people that fall into it are the people that are wired just like me at that time, where your opportunity is in Christian music.

That's just what unfolded for you. You really do wanna be in mainstream music, and if you can cross over and catch a hit on the other side, those artists will go completely over and never come back.

The problem that they find themselves in is that they're too Christian for the world and too worldly for the church, and they end up ruining their career.

And you can see many of them who have just come crawling back, trying to recalibrate and market things correctly.

But there's a lot of relationship songs that are between guys. I mean, Desmond Child wrote the very first song on my record,

You Make Me Feel. And everybody knows that he's gay, he's produced

Kiss and Bon Jovi, and he's a heavyweight when it comes to the mainstream circuit.

And I met with him in Miami with my A &R director, and it was all about getting the best of the best, and he wrote that song.

You Cannot Tell Me that's about glorifying God. It's about a relationship, and it's probably about a gay relationship.

Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, so you basically confirmed what

I was saying. Now, I wanna also make it clear, and maybe you disagree with me,

I don't know. I don't think there's anything wrong with Christians who are involved in secular art.

For instance, I don't think there's anything wrong with a Christian who sings clean and wholesome music that has nothing to do with Christianity, as long as whatever he or she is singing is not offensive to God.

But what gets me angry or disgusted or nauseous is when it is masquerading as Christian music.

That's where I'm coming from. Yes, I agree. I mean, there are some artists that could probably pull it off.

I don't know, you could be Aboucelli or Pavarotti, or you could be,

I don't know her faith, but say a Celine Dion. I've never heard any lyrics like that that would cause you to just turn it off because your kids can't hear it.

I believe that there probably are some artists out there like that, and maybe actors and people in the liberal arts.

But I'm going to tell you, there's only so far that we can go in this world because it's not our world.

How many are there? Probably not many. How popular or famous are they? Probably not the top tier of stars because it's not our world to succeed in.

Well, so just out of curiosity, were you ever invited to a smaller venue, like a church, or perhaps some mega churches are bigger than the major stadiums and auditoriums, but were you ever invited to a church by a pastor or a congregation who assumed you were a

Christian where you gave your testimony and that kind of thing publicly? Because I know of churches and pastors, even at least one who's a friend of mine, who invited a

Christian recording artist to his church to perform and to even speak and so on, give his testimony.

And the man unfortunately did not do enough digging and enough investigation to actually know what this person believed.

And right there on the stage at his church, he revealed how he went from being lost to evangelical to now having embraced the

Roman Catholic Church. And he was horrified by that because he himself, this pastor, was a

Roman Catholic who was actually in the seminary intending to be a priest at one time.

And he left the Roman Catholic Church having realized that it had a false gospel after he was saved.

And he publicly, to this day, denounces the gospel of the

Church of Rome. Now, I know that there are saved Roman Catholics, but they are saved because they believe in a gospel that is not the dogmatic gospel of their own church.

But I was just curious if that ever happened with you or with any of your bandmates that weren't believers to your knowledge.

Well, I assume still to this day that all my bandmates are believers.

Because I still know them today and they still profess their faith. So they just, gosh, gave me,

I guess, too much rope. But yeah, I was in a lot of churches. I was in some churches.

There was just a communication barrier like in South Korea, Dr. Cho's church there.

And then smaller churches in the Midwest or whatever. My testimony was

I grew up in an abusive home. I was homeless for a little while.

During this time of... One time when I was 14 years old, I think it was 14, 14, 15,

I was at a Baptist church. A friend of mine that was there was the preacher's kid.

And he went to the front and gave his heart over to the Lord. And I felt real awkward because that was my running buddy.

And I was like, man, I guess I'm going to hell. So I said the ask Jesus in your heart type thing.

And that was good. That was checklist. And I moved on.

Now look at my life now. It's wonderful. It's... I'm successful.

And it was just kind of like a Hollywood story. And pastors were happy with that.

I mean, nobody protected the Pope, but I would not let myself in my own church. You know, if I had to meet myself back then, he wouldn't have passed at all.

One other thing that comes to mind is the danger of the fascination that Christians have, and that includes pastors and leaders, the utter fascination they have with celebrities that become

Christian. And they want to immediately rush that person who makes any kind of lame profession into the spotlight.

As if, look at this trophy for Christianity that we have won out from the realm of darkness.

And they do that with sports figures. They do that with Hollywood actors.

And they do it with musicians. And that is another thing that is not only dangerous for the audiences that witness this, but it's dangerous for the person himself or herself who is being paraded around as a new trophy for Christ, isn't it?

Yeah, I've seen it. I've been a part of it when I was a kid. I used to play shows with a guy named

Jeff Finholt. And he had claims to being a part of Black Sabbath to some extent, singing

Jesus Christ Superstar. I was a kid, I was 16, 17. I saw him on the 700 Club years ago.

Yeah, you know, talking, that just reminds me of them just grabbing somebody like that. And of course, you can

Google on your own and find out where he ended up. But they do that.

They just take off with this. You know, talent covers a multitude of sin. And, you know, to defend on the other side, the

Christian music industry, because I know that it's easy to play armchair quarterback and find everything that's wrong.

But I think what pastors need to realize, too, in order to have the kind of mercy and prayer life you need for these people, you know, we were children.

I mean, we're really young. I mean, I've got a friend of mine, Jackie Velasquez.

I think she signed a contract when she was 15, 16 years old. You know, I was in my early 20s.

And, you know, I look back now and we were kids. I mean, we're not supposed to be that wise or smart.

I mean, we're working on our craft. And, you know, we need discipleship.

And, you know, it's an easy fix if the Christian music industry would start operating biblically and start from the top of the

CEOs that are running it and understanding what is their statement of faith. You know, just like you would vet anybody else that is in leadership.

They're representing the universal church as a whole. I mean, they're a big part of how they're serving the body.

And I think we should, I think we're looking for CEOs instead of pastors these days, even in our own churches.

But, you know, it's just to kind of not defend or condone anything.

And we are all to blame. And I was definitely to blame in my behavior and what my motive was being in music.

But at the same time, there is just nothing set up for mentorship, for discipleship.

There's, I remember one time, I thought it was really wild. I didn't know what to think about it. But when I was out touring with the

Newsboys, they had a pastor that would tour with them.

You know, I have no idea what their faith is like, their doctrine or anything like that. But they're the only ones

I've ever heard of anything like that. And I look back at that and I'm thinking, man, you know what?

That's not a bad idea. And they would, he would do devotionals with them, like little Bible studies daily with them.

And, you know, and that's why I never saw him doing anything crazy, probably. I mean, they were professionals.

And they were, as far as I know, they were great guys to tour with. And they just seem to be one of those that is sincere.

You know, and like I said, I don't know. I'm thinking back, you know, long time ago. So my memory isn't all that clear.

But those things aren't set up, and they should be. The people in leadership, my

CEO of the label at that time, the A &R directors at that time, the head of marketing at that, they're all grown men.

They were all my age or older and women. They should know. They should help.

So it's kind of like some of these, any star that you might see, even in the mainstream, you see it happen.

They gain popularity and power and money.

And it's just too soon. And it just destroys people. Yeah.

In fact, as you have already said, there are quite a number of people who are executives in the

CCM industry who are not even Christian at all. They have no place to make wise decisions in regarding the nurturing and protection and preservation of artists in their faith.

I know for a fact. If I was held down to name names, I could name several that were not and still are not believers.

And well, that's okay, because I already recorded a private conversation we had. I'll air those names later. I'm only kidding.

Oh, I'm just kidding. I'm sorry if I offended anybody. But anyway, we're going to go to our midway break right now.

It's the longer than normal break that we have, because Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida needs to localize

Iron Sharp and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida by airing their own commercials and public service announcements during this break.

So please use this time wisely by writing down the information provided by my advertisers.

The global advertisers that support this radio program, write down that information so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them.

Because the more you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they're going to remain our advertisers.

And that means the more likely Iron Sharp and Zion Radio will remain on the air, because we rely upon our advertisers' funding to exist.

So please write down the information provided by our advertisers and patronize them as much as you can. Also write down questions for Pete Orta about his testimony, about anything else within the realm of the

Christian music industry, or about his life, that you would like to ask. And the email address is chrisanzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages with more of Pete Orta and part two of his confessions of a renowned

Christian recording artist who was not a Christian, part two of the two -part interview that we began last

Friday. So we hope to hear from you with questions for our guests after these messages. Don't go away.

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Harvey Cedars, where Christ finds people and changes lives. Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of God in the churches of our

Lord Jesus Christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of Holy Scripture. I'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of Scripture, and even the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths. Indeed, future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of God's people.

If you want to learn more about our program, visit us online at irbsseminary .org.

Did you know that all believers are priests? In 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9, the Apostle Peter describes

Christ's church as comprising a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

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

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.nyc. Have a great day. Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnson on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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If you are not a member of a local church and you're not prayerfully seeking for one, you are living in disobedience to God.

So please rectify that situation. And if you need help finding a biblically sound church near you, send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com

and put in the subject line, I need a church near me or something similar. I have lists of biblically sound churches all over the world, and I've already helped a number of people in my audience find good churches.

And I know for a fact that some of these folks have joined these churches so please don't let that rest another day.

Send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com and put, I need a church home. We are back now with our guest

Pete Orta. And Pete Orta is the former lead guitarist for Petra.

That was from 1996 to 2000. Petra is a renowned Christian rock group and gospel hall of fame inductees.

And Pete Orta has also won all kinds of awards and a Grammy and many other things.

And by the way, I want to make sure our listeners know this before I forget. You can hear the sermons of Pete Orta by going to iTunes.

And that is under the heading Pete Orta's Sermons.

And his last name is O -R -T -A. Pete Orta's Sermons at iTunes. And I'm sure you will be blessed by that.

Our subject today is part two of a discussion we began last

Friday. Confessions of a renowned Christian recording artist who was not a Christian, and obviously now

Pete Orta, by the saving mercy and grace of God, is a Christian. And he's not only a

Christian, he's a pastor. And he's not only a pastor, but he is a reformed pastor, which always brings joy to my heart.

And why don't you let our listeners know a little bit more about Coconut Creek Church in Denison, Texas.

Something about what you are preaching on, what they can look forward to if they go to iTunes and look for Pete Orta's Sermons.

Yeah, Cottonwood Creek Church. We're in a small town here in Denison, Texas.

And, you know, I think that what I have introduced this church to is expository preaching.

And they can look forward to, you know, just unboxing one scripture, sometimes even one word at a time.

And right now we're in the Book of Romans. So we are in the middle of chapter two.

And we will just— What does that book have to do with Reformed Theology? I'm just kidding, obviously.

Yeah, I told him, I said, you know, we won't be skipping chapter nine. By the way,

I have to tell you this. I know a pastor, I'm not going to mention his name. He's a friend of mine who is a five -point

Calvinist. He used to be a freewill -believing, fundamentalist, King James -only, independent kind of a guy.

And he came out of that. His father -in -law is also a pastor who is still an independent, fundamentalist,

King James -only pastor. And when he heard that my friend was preaching on Romans 9, he said to him, listen to me, you got to use my sermon notes.

I'm going to give you my sermon notes. So he says, he's looking at the sermon notes. And in the comments in the margins of the paper, it says, you've got to go through this chapter real quick.

It's like tearing off a band -aid, because if you dwell too long in any of these verses in Romans 9, you may lead people wrongly into an understanding of Calvinism.

So you've got to read through this real fast. And he actually put, where Jacob I loved and Esau I hated, he actually put in red pen, do not read this.

Oh my goodness. You're talking about somebody who has a wooden literal understanding of how to interpret scripture.

And yet with Romans 9, he's telling his son -in -law, don't read this and avoid this at all costs and read it quickly.

But anyway, I couldn't help but find that hilarious. Yeah, we're going to park on that chapter for a few

Sundays, I'm sure. Now, how can, in addition to the iTunes, how can somebody who lives in Denison, Texas, nearby, or are visiting there, or they have family, friends, and loved ones there, how can they locate information on the

Cottonwood Creek Church in Denison, Texas? Yeah, they can go to CCCDenison, that's

D -E -N -I -S -O -N .org,

CCCDenison .org. So you can go there or you can find it on my website. I've...

My website leads people to our In Triumph ministry and the church, and so that's kind of the hub.

Yeah, and we're going to go into In Triumph ministry in greater detail than we had time for last week.

Let me go to some listener questions. First, we have Joseph in Little Rock, Arkansas, who wants to know, to your knowledge, were or are any of your former bandmates in Petra now theologically reformed?

Not to my knowledge, no. Okay, that was a quick answer for you, Joe. I don't know any of my peers that are reformed,

I should say. I'm not talking about believers. They are, but reformed, I don't think so.

Okay. Well, thank you for submitting that excellent question, Joseph. And guess what?

Since you are a first -time questioner in the Iron Trip and Zion Radio audience, you are receiving a free

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the

NASB, and also compliments of CVBBS .com. We'll be shipping that out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Make sure we have your full mailing address in Arkansas so that CVBBS can get that out to you.

You're nicer to Razorbacks than I am. I'm a longhorn.

Well, we try to keep college sports out of the show because of the ugliness that comes to the surface.

I mean, it's worse than professional sport. Oh, man. We have, let's see.

We have Gary in Na 'alehu,

Hawaii. And Gary says, Roger Breland, and I'm assuming that's how to pronounce it, founded a traveling ensemble group,

Truth, in 1971 that traveled worldwide until the early 2000s.

What influence have you seen Roger Breland and Truth have in the Christian music industry?

I am not familiar with Roger Breland, so I'm not sure who he's referring to. Yeah, I think

Truth was a revolving door where they kept the name going and they hired several musicians.

I cannot speak on that at all, but I have a good friend named John Thorn who

I toured with and a good friend of mine who is a believer, a very sincere one at that, who played bass for them for some time.

That's all the knowledge I know on Truth. So. Okay, Gary, keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio there in Hawaii and keep spreading the word about it in Hawaii and beyond.

Well, let us now enter into a discussion on this fascinating ministry in triumph that we just basically touched the very tip of the iceberg with last

Friday when we were running out of time. Tell our listeners about this very, very valuable ministry.

I'm very impressed by what you're doing within Truth. Well, yes, it started first by, of course, the

Lord saving me and then being instructed, discipled in the word, and then discipling my wife in the word, just basically regurgitating what

I've learned to her and, you know, raising our kids in a godly home.

It's always wonderful to hear things about ministry referred to as regurgitation.

That's all I knew how to do, really. I would write notes down there in the Bible study and go, look what

I learned here. That's about all it was. I didn't even know what a commentary was at that time.

So yeah, so after that season, and they got my legs under me and my faith was strong and as far as just my boldness and just even comprehending what happened to me, that took a little while.

We just felt a call to ministry. My wife and I both agreed on this, and because of the background that I came from,

I wanted to help just unfortunate young people that just kind of didn't start off with all the advantages that other people might've had and ended up on the street, homeless most of the time on drugs.

So what I did was I called up the foster care organizations and the children's homes, anybody that was aging out, detention centers and jails and homeless places, downtown, and I said, listen, if there's anybody between the ages of 18 and 24 that your organization can no longer handle because it was word for word, that they have spit on you, they have punched you, they have cussed you out, you don't know how to handle them, send me your worst.

And that's how it started. And I started getting emails and phone calls and our home line was circulating amongst the homeless youth and they needed a place to stay, they needed food, they needed clothes, and my exchange was, well, you've got to sit down, the mandatory thing here is you got to sit down and hear me preach the gospel every day.

And I did and that was part of it and that's how it started. And it was a rough start at that.

So tell us more about the physical details of this ministry. Where do these folks stay and what do they do while they are under your supervision?

Well, they live with me and that's where it started and it's still like that now.

They live, I started pulling them in and we gave them a home. And how big is your home?

At that time, it was just an average home. I don't know. I don't know, 3 ,000, 4 ,000 square feet,

I'm not sure. Wow. And so I would pull them in and the first guy that came in, you know, he got the sofa and the second guy came in, he got the second sofa and then before you know it, they're sleeping in the foyer and the kitchen floor and the living room and we've got blankets and pillows and all kinds of things and we are just like bohemians.

It was just crazy and it was in a regular home. We had a homeowners association that we were trying to keep this under wraps until we could find a place and man, it was just day by day and I didn't have, there's not a rule book on this or there's not a, you know, you can't go to a

Christian bookstore or even online and go, okay, how do you set up a ministry like this? You know, how do you protect yourself and how do you have some wisdom in this area?

It was just raw and it was fueled by nothing but gratitude that the

Lord had saved my life, saved my family and I had so much gratitude. I wanted everybody to have

Jesus and I knew that I wanted to serve and I wanted to,

I didn't even know it was a ministry. I told people they would come by and said, how can we support you? They'd see all these kids here and everything and they would make the checkout to In Triumph Ministries and I'm like, we're not a ministry.

You know, I didn't see it as a legit ministry. I was just pulling in kids and feeding, clothing them, giving them shelter and I was giving them

Bible studies every day and teaching them how to pray and answering their questions and I mean,

I've had kids that, I've had a young man say, man, the only thing my dad ever did was hit me across the head with a shotgun and I've had people that have

OD'd and just got out of the emergency room and checked out of the hospital and then took a plane over to our place and so it was just my wife and I and man, the stories are unbelievable and the

Holy Spirit really did just ordain all of it because I look back at how we started and how underdeveloped we were and unprepared we were and I'm just surprised that nothing really, really dangerous ever happened.

Now, what's it like today? Today, we have a vetting process and we do interviews with them and I've got, of course, a board of directors and a team, a local team that helps out and we've got people that are definitely part of the community that help out and we don't take everybody in.

We want to make sure that nobody's just taking advantage or just using us for resources and calling it ministry but that they really want help and they go through an interview process and it's a profiling process.

We do the Myers -Briggs personality all the way up to criminal profiling to make sure, and it doesn't mean that we won't take in felons.

We do. It doesn't mean that we won't take in people of all kinds of backgrounds, even though we've had youth group kids come in, which actually have been some of our worst.

I'm not lying. Some of the worst we've ever had and some of the most entitled but we go through that process and so they check in and for about a couple of weeks, you know,

I don't talk to them too much to let them get acclimated and they're in my home and they have kitchen detail and duties that they do and things that keep them busy and they've got classes that they've got to be a part of.

They help serve the church as well and there's just a process of discipleship that has been set up for them to understand who

Jesus is and then we just hope and pray that the Holy Spirit, you know, it's their time to do work.

So I've seen, I think the roughest part of the ministry that I have seen and I experienced, which

I had no idea that this would be a part of it, but you know, when you're doing the

Lord's will, we always think that God is doing great things when we get to see a salvation, when we get to see somebody come to the

Lord and learn the Bible and start serving the Lord and they start dying to themselves and we see that.

That's the great part of ministry, but what mostly happens because of the area of the world that we're working in is we see, also the

Lord, that we see them reject the Lord. We see their hearts hardened by the gospel.

We see kind of the threshing floor. The hardest part of ministry is understanding that God used me to preach the gospel to them, so when

God damns them to hell, he's just... That's hard to swallow.

To be used that way, and when you're in a ministry like this where you're dealing with...

Most of the people have been handed over to their own demise. The percentage on that is really high, and it's...

I have had people that I have called to repentance, that I have preached the gospel to, that I've begged, that I've done everything to serve them in any way

I can and end up, you know, dying right after.

You know, getting run over or being drunk or hanging out with the homeless in real sketchy places, and I've heard them profess to me that, no,

I'll never serve your God. Wow. And it's tough to know that... Because I used to look back and question, well,

God, what is this for? Is most of this in vain? And it's not. I mean, I'm helping the

Lord in his... Not that he needs any help to be just, but he's using me to prove he's just on Judgment Day when he reminds them of the gospel

I preached to him. It's a hard part of ministry. Amen. Now, again, as far as the physical nature of this ministry, this outreach that you have, are you still inviting these folks into your own home for this?

Yes. And has the home grown in size at all, or how many people can you handle at once for this ministry?

Yeah. We can physically handle more than I can mentally handle. And it just depends on the...

Now we're a 501c3. We're a nonprofit. And the ministry has bought a home, you know, bought a hotel.

It's a traveler's hotel. You can find it online. We're at 300 East Main Street in Denison, Texas.

And it was about 120 -year -old hotel built by a German sea captain.

And so we have taken some of the rooms for our family, and we've taken some of the rooms where we...

One of the rooms where we made our family living room. But we are on the ground. I mean, they are living with their pastor.

They are eating breakfast with their pastor. They are eating dinner. They are doing things that have to be done around the place.

And it is true, like biblical discipleship back in the day where you shadow me, you know,

I'll follow Christ, you follow me, and we will just, you know, pray that the

Lord, you know, honors my effort and your effort. And so it's still like that right now. It's a big enough place we could handle quite a bit.

At one time, I had 14 young people. If you can imagine 14 of the toughest young people, that probably won't happen again.

I mean, usually, you know, five to six, we try to keep it around. If, you know, if we've got a really, really difficult person, man,

I can only handle three. If we've got a season where we're kind of catching a groove and everybody's heart, man, is really to learn and it's softening, you know,

I can handle seven. And I do have help within the ministry. And like I said, the people that are a part of the community that provide the, you know, toiletry things and stuff like that.

It is a, it is a, it's a beast to run. I'll just be honest with you.

Well, if anybody wants more information about InTriumph, you can go to InTriumph .org,

InTriumph .org. And of course, you can also go to PeteOrta .com, PeteOrta .com.

And we're going to go to our final break right now. It's much briefer than the last one. So please send in your emails now if you intend to have a question asked on the air.

We're running out of time rapidly. Send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages with the conclusion of part two of our discussion,

Confessions of a Renowned Christian Recording Artist who was not a Christian. And I'm speaking of Pete Orta, the former lead guitarist for Petra.

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Spread the word about firstloveradio .org. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in for the nearly last two hours, we've been interviewing

Pete Orta, former lead guitarist for the Grammy award -winning group

Petra, who has been inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame. And we have been discussing confessions of a renowned

Christian recording artist who was not a Christian. And today, thankfully, Pete is a Christian. And he is the pastor of Cottonwood Creek Church in Denison, Texas.

He's also a theologically reformed minister of the gospel. If you want to join us, we are going to be out of time before you can blink an eye.

So please email us quickly at chrisarnzen at gmail .com if you have a question. We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who has a question that is very similar to one that you and I were discussing off the air before the show,

Pete. Okay. She says, I have an understanding of the South where Calvinism is a tiny minority.

I don't know if that's a stereotype or not, but I was wondering what it's like to be a reformed pastor in Denison, Texas.

Do you receive much flack for preaching these truths that seem to be in the minority?

In fact, I'm sure that many of our listeners will concur. Reformed theology is a minority everywhere in the world right now in the 21st century, perhaps other than Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Anywhere else, it's a tiny minority. That wasn't always the case, but if you could,

Pete, let us know about this. Yes. It is very...

Oh my goodness. They don't know how to handle it here. Let me give you just... Let me just give you exactly a good snapshot of it.

When I started to my first day behind... Sunday behind the pulpit, the place was packed.

We had... Every chair was... pew was filled. Was that because people knew that you were the former lead guitarist?

Yes. Okay. Yes. They wanted to... This was going to be a great church, and even some people asked me if I was going to sing and they were just expecting an amazing morning.

Little did they know on my... I was just going to preach the word of God.

And I was going to glorify him through unboxing every verse that we had planned that Sunday.

And it was half that number the next Sunday and half that the next.

And it was startling. It was disappointing. I wanted to believe that they were here for the word.

And on purpose, I just have not ever even joined in. I won't be a part of our worship team, nothing like that, just to not even give anybody any hope.

But yes, the moment they hear the doctrines of grace and where I am at here...

Matter of fact, I think we are the only Reformed Theological Church in our area.

So it is... We have people that sometimes travel over an hour to come to our services because they're few and far between.

Wow. Thank you, Susan Margaret. Keep listening to... Pray for us. Yeah, keep praying for Pete Orta and keep listening to Orange Represents Iron Radio in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania and beyond.

Well, I want to make sure that you have three minutes approximately to close the program with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

What I would say is this, I have... In my experience and my frustration,

I got very frustrated. There's a part when I first came to the Lord, I was grateful and then I was angry.

I was angry at the church as a whole. I was angry at pastors that I was around at times and I was even mad at some of my peers that were raised in church, that were preacher's kids, that, you know, didn't have one conversation about Jesus with me.

And I had to get over that season and it didn't last very long and then the Lord just started softening my heart and made me realize that I'm blessed to understand the

Bible at the depth that I do. That it's a blessing and it's something that I think at the beginning

I got really upset, like, why don't people get this and why don't they understand? And I hear a lot of people, a lot of Reformed people get in the stage and some of them never ever click out of it and they're just frustrated and they've got a microscope on everybody and they're skeptical about everything, which we should test all things.

We should weigh the fruit out. I'm not saying not do that, but we get stuck in this thing and we're just so upset.

And what helped me there was realizing that this is a blessing. That the Lord chose some people that understand the doctrines of grace to understand it to a level that we can minister with this understanding.

And that not everybody, like where I am at, there's hardly any Reformed people anywhere around that you could drive to.

And it's an honor for the Lord to say, you know what, I'm choosing you and I'm placing you in this area where it is bleak and you're going to be the one to figure out a way how to navigate through this culture and preach the full counsel of God.

Yeah, you're talking about cage -stage Calvinism, as it's often called when you were preaching before you had a much more merciful approach to those around you.

I did not. I was slaughtering goats and sheep. And then

I would say to the believer where I felt where I was most offended after I did become saved is that nobody approached me and I've even had some talks with my peers and say, why couldn't you preach the gospel to me?

You know the gospel. Why weren't you bold enough? I mean, I know that I was, I was,

I'm a very bold person and I know that I don't pull any punches, saved or unsaved, but they never did.

And I encourage them, don't do that again. You know, you need to, you need to express your faith and not be ashamed of it and not be ashamed of any type of persecution that can happen.

So I would just tell people this, especially if you're in the Bible belt, when people say they're a Christian, you just can't assume that.

I mean, we, we have to, we have to preach the gospel. We have to talk about Christ. We have to talk about the attributes of our

Holy Father. And we've got to talk about repentance. We've got to talk about humility. We've got to talk about serving just through gratitude because it's all of these things that show that we are saved.

And I think the conversation stops when we ask, so what church do you go to? And the person says, what church?

Well, I go to this church and that's the end of talking about anything. Nobody's talking about Jesus.

Yeah. And we who are Reformed have to be reminded constantly not to violate the very precious truths we believe in the way that we react to people who don't agree with us.

We act as if very often it is because of our own brilliance or keen insight or wisdom that we come to these conclusions.

But even understanding the doctrines of grace is a gift of God. Yes. And I'm going to tell you, most of our congregation doesn't realize they're

Reformed. I don't use buzzwords. I don't spearhead with that. I preach the gospel.

I preach the text. And if you were to go and ask them, you know, all five points, they would all agree.

But, you know, we're just here to serve Jesus and we're here to do it as best as we can.

And we are very mobile in our evangelism and preaching the gospel.

We are not the frozen chosen. And, you know, when I show up before the behemoth feet,

I want him to look at me and just say, you know, I'm proud of you, good and faithful servant or slave, you know, come into my kingdom.

I just want to show up worn out, out of pure love, not earning anything.

I mean, there's, I'll get the nosebleeds when I get to heaven. I won't, I won't be, you know, anywhere. MacArthur will never meet me.

He'll never cross paths in heaven. You know, I'm going to be in the nosebleeds, but it's not to earn anything at all.

It's, I'm just so grateful. He saved me. I cannot get the cross of Christ is just burned on my conscience and I cannot remove it from my eyes.

Amen. Well, we are out of time, brother, and I want to make sure that our listeners know that they can find out more about you at PeteOrta .com,

Pete, O -R -T -A .com. You can also find out more about the church where Pete pastors at C -C -C -Denison .org,

at C -C -C -D as in David, E -N as in Nancy, I -S -O -N .org. And you can also find out more about InTriumph at InTriumph .org.

And you can find out more about Pete's sermons on iTunes under the heading Pete Orta's sermons.

Pete, this has been a blast, these last two interviews. Yes, I've enjoyed it.

I look forward to you returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, not only soon, but often. And I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write in.

I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.