April 20, 2023 Show with Justin Peters on “The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit”

The Program Opens and the Guest Is Introduced

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have an imbuing conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 20th day of April, 2023.

I am thrilled to have back on the program one of my very favorite guests to interview. He's also become a dear friend over the years, and his name should not be a stranger to the vast majority of my listening audience.

His name is Justin Peters, evangelist, conference speaker, and founder of Justin Peters Ministries. Today, we're going to be addressing the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We're going to be discussing how and why many Charismatics and Pentecostals get the doctrine of the Holy Spirit all wrong, or at least wrong in many ways.

And it's not only isolated to Charismatics and Pentecostals, but even among cessationist evangelicals who misunderstand this very important person of the Godhead and doctrine. We're also going to be discussing two upcoming events where Justin Peters will be speaking, the Grace Life Church Conference in Anvil, Pennsylvania, and also the 2023 G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

I intend to be at both of those events, and I will certainly be in the Atlanta area this fall for the G3 Conference, where I always man an exhibitor's booth for Iron Trip and Zion Radio. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Justin Peters.

Chris, it's an honor to be with you, brother. Thank you so much for having me back on.

Oh, it's a thrill to have you back on. And let me right away give our listeners our email address. If you have any questions for Justin Peters, you can ask him a wide variety of questions on theology and things relevant to the Scriptures, things about his personal testimony and ministry.

But we're going to be focusing on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, so we would hope that many if not most of those questions involve that very important topic. First of all, Justin, before we get into the discussion on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, why don't you tell our listeners, for the rare number of people listening that may be unfamiliar with your ministry on this program, tell our listeners about Justin Peters Ministries.

Justin Peters Ministries and the Word of Faith Movement

Sure, Chris. My name is Justin Peters, and my ministry is very uncreatively named, Justin Peters Ministries. And I'm a full-time evangelist. God has graciously opened up this ministry to me. My first love and commitment is to expositional preaching, preaching God's Word verse by verse.

But what I'm most well known for is engaging the Word of Faith Movement and New Apostolic Reformation. So these are twin movements that are kind of better known, broadly speaking, is the health and wealth gospel, the name and claimant gospel, the prosperity gospel, the doctrine that says it is always God's will for a Christian to be wealthy.

It's always God's will for a Christian to be physically healed. You should never be sick, or if you do get sick, then physical healing is guaranteed. As long as you have enough faith, as long as you make the right positive confessions, as long as you sow enough seed into some minister's ministry, which, in other words, give him money, him or her money, and in return, God will grant you a harvest.

And so some of the more well-known names of this movement, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Jesse Duplantis, Andrew Womack, Joseph Prince, Joel Osteen, some of those names are some of the more well-known, Joyce Meyer as well.

And so it's a heretical movement. It's got heretical theology. It's not just health and wealth, but it is indeed a different gospel, a very different view of God, a different view of Christ and the Atonement that results in an overemphasis on health and wealth and making promises that the Bible simply does not make.

So that's kind of what I'm known for, but that's not my only interest. I teach on Roman Catholicism and various issues. I've written a book, working on another one, and I have a YouTube channel. So that's kind of me in a nutshell.

Yes, just to throw in a couple more of the shocking, blasphemous heresies of the Word of Faith movement, not that everybody who identifies with the Word of Faith movement believes in these things, but they are prominent in that movement.

One is that Jesus Christ actually became, according to them, a demonic entity while hanging on the cross on Calvary and that he became the first born-again man in hell after being tortured by Satan and the demons.

So utterly shocking, obviously not only blasphemous, but a total misunderstanding and a false concept of what hell is. It seems to be borrowing from Dante's Inferno, where Satan and the demons are ruling in hell and they are there torturing Jesus, when in reality, hell was created as a torture chamber for the devil and his angels and obviously the reprobate, those who never come to Christ while they are living on this earth, they will be cast in there in that torture chamber for eternity with the devil and his angels, but it primarily was created for them, the devil and his angels, and yet the Word of Faith movement seems to have Satan and his demons ruling there.

Yes, that's right. I don't think I need to say any more about that, but I think I've shocked many of our listeners enough who didn't know that. Welt, please tell us about your book, the new book that's coming out.

Yeah, Chris, so my seminar on the Word of Faith movement is entitled Clouds Without Water, and I take that from a reference in the book of Jude, verse 12. That's one of the ways that Jude describes false teachers is as clouds without water, and so that's the title of my seminar, and this book basically is the book version of my seminar, Clouds Without Water.

So I am working on that. I've actually already got kind of a condensed version of it. It's published and out already in other languages, though. It's not in English yet, but it's a short book by design, so we can print as many as possible and get out into some of these countries, distribute them as widely as possible.

It's already out in Russian, I believe Ukrainian, and Chinese, so it's not yet available in English, but Lord willing, my English version will be longer, so I'm going to take this shorter version, put more meat on the bone, so to speak, and that will be the English version of Clouds Without Water.

Best I can tell, either later this year or first part of next year will be out.

Well, I'm excited about that. That was the theme of your address to the pastors gathered at my Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon. What was it like, three years ago perhaps?

I think that's about right. Was it pre-COVID? I believe it was.

Yes, it was pre-COVID.

Yeah, so it had to be at least three, maybe going on four years ago.

Yeah, but I remember how riveted the men were to your presentation and even heard very positive feedback from charismatic pastors in attendance who were obviously not in the Word of Faith movement extreme, but they were men that even recognized as charismatics that these things are wicked teachings that the Word of Faith movement capitalizes on.

And if anybody wants to keep updated on that book and also about where Justin Peters will be speaking and everything else you need to know about Justin Peters, go to justinpeters .org, justinpeters .org.

One of those events where he is speaking is something that I mentioned just a few minutes ago briefly. He is speaking at Grace Life Church in Anvil, Pennsylvania, and that's going to be April 20th through the 30th.

It's a free event. And tell us about this exciting event.

Grace Life Church and Knowing the Voice of God

Yeah, Chris, I'm looking forward to that. You gave the name of the church and location there. This is a church that has Dave Cunningham as its pastor. It's a church that's led by a biblical plurality of elders, which the Bible prescribes and describes.

But Dave Cunningham is kind of like the primary preaching pastor.

Yes, he was at my pastor's luncheon last week.

Yeah, yeah.

Along with Flip Michaels as well.

Yeah, Flip Michaels, he's another one of the elders there, great, great guy. He's written a book too, Five Half Truths, that I had the pleasure of endorsing for him.

Yes, I interviewed him on that. And several years ago, the publisher gave us 100 copies at the giveaway at the pastor's luncheon.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great little book, great little book. So, yeah, it's a great church. I've been there before, really enjoyed my time there with them. I've been there twice before, just really good brothers.

And so if you're in the area or are up for a road trip, yeah, we would love to have you join us. I think it'll be a profitable time. I am going to be speaking on the Holy Spirit, who he is, what he does, what he doesn't do.

And also I'm going to have another session on how God does and does not speak to us today. So, in other words, how to know the voice of God. And so those two sessions are, you know, they're different, but they're very much related.

Yeah, in fact, that is one of the areas that I have become familiar with. Cessationist pastors, even, on occasion, will get that area wrong, even though they're cessationists. Sometimes they will speak either before, during, or after a sermon.

They will speak as if they are operating or functioning as charismatics, believing in new revelation from God, even though they would likely deny that. But some of these men who are not even in the charismatic or Pentecostal camp will speak that way.

And I'm sure that's going to be refuted in your session on that, even the non-charismatic version of that.

Correct. Correct, Chris. And it's one of those things, I think, sometimes we're just careless in our lingo, careless in the terminology we use when we say things like, the Lord told me so-and-so. And you're right, I've heard that even from cessationists.

But it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You need to be more careful with the words that you're using, because what you're implying there, you've entered some very, very deep waters. So we need to be careful.

If you say, the Lord spoke to me, then you need to have chapter and verse for that, because God speaks through and only through the scriptures today, not in still, small voices or hunches or feelings or anything like that.

That's kind of a whole theology that, quite honestly, we've just created out of whole cloth, but simply is not supported in scripture. Now, some people, a lot of people, actually do mean exactly what they say.

They do believe God speaks to them in a direct, quotable sense outside of scripture. So they absolutely do mean that. But those of us in the cessationist camp, I think sometimes they just get a little too careless with the terminology that they use.

And some of this stuff comes out of nothing more or less than pride. And I'll give you an example of how I mean that. There will be sometimes, even with cessationists, a false humility over a sermon they preached, a book they wrote, a song they wrote.

And they will say, when someone gives them a compliment, a word of praise for what they've accomplished in this sermon, book or song or other thing, they will say, oh, no, don't thank me. This was all of God.

Every word is all of God. Don't thank me at all. I'm just the vessel here. And no, I'm sorry, pal. You're exalting what you did, whether it be a sermon, book or song. You're exalting it to the level of scripture.

So knock it off with your false humility.

That's right. That's right. I agree, Chris. I'm glad you said that. And one example, when you are describing that, that pops into my mind is Beth Moore, because she wrote in her book, I don't have it in front of me, but I think it was when godly people do ungodly things.

I think that was a particular book that she wrote this. But she said, and if this isn't a direct quote, again, I don't have it in front of me, but it's really, really close. She said, I did not write these words by simple preference.

I wrote them because had I not, the rocks in my yard would have cried out.

Yeah.

And she said, I am simply the one who received this bug-eyed. I remember that. She said, I sat there bug-eyed as she received this revelation from God. And so, yeah, what an audacious claim. I mean, just, you know, absolutely false humility.

That should be the quintessential example of false humility.

Yeah.

Yes. And also, when you were just describing that, I had another person pop into my head. And it's very ironic because most King James-only fundamentalists despise charismatic teaching and Pentecostalism.

And yet a segment, not all, I have to be careful, there are many King James-only fundamentalists who do not at all associate or support the writing and teaching of Gail Riplinger. But Gail Riplinger, she initially had as the author of her books on the cover G .A. Riplinger, which in her description was the abbreviation for God and Riplinger.

Oh, wow.

So, very strange indeed.

Oh, indeed.

Yeah.

And there's just no fear, Chris, seemingly nowadays in the vast majority of the evangelical world. Sadly, there seems to be no fear of putting words in God's mouth that he did not say. Man, people just take that so tritely, you know, to put words in God's mouth that he did not say.

That's something that God holds very seriously. He takes it very seriously. Psalm 138 verse 2, God said, I hold my name and my word above all things. So, boy, it is a—man, you're treading on some mighty thin ice when you start putting words in God's mouth that he did not say.

And this conference that I mentioned first at Grace Life Church of Annville, Pennsylvania, once again, it's held April 28th through the 30th. That's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. On Friday and Saturday, the church is providing a free lunch as well.

And if you want more details, go to Justin Peters' website, justinpeters .org, and click on events. And if you would like, you can also go to the Grace Life Church of Annville, Pennsylvania's website, gracelifepa .org, gracelifepa .org.

And hopefully I will remember to announce that toward the end of the program. Now, the other conference that I mentioned, always so excited to attend this conference, it's the G3 Conference to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, the G3 National Conference, from Thursday, September 21st through Saturday, September 23rd, on the sovereignty of God.

And you are one of many speakers. The roster at these conferences is always mind-blowing, and here's just some of them. Vody Baucom, Steve Lawson, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, James White, Mike Riccardi, Ken Ham, Owen Strand, Josh Bice, James Coates, who is the pastor in Canada that was arrested for refusing to shut down his worship services during the COVID crisis, Scott Anuel, Virgil Walker, Darrell Bernard Harrison, Scott Brown, and a speaker for the ladies, Susan Heck, and of course, my guest today, Justin Peters.

Are you aware yet? I know that many times when I interview speakers at the G3 Conference, they don't know what they're speaking on until very close to the date of the event. So I don't know if that's the case with you, or I know that the conference is on the sovereignty of God, as I've already mentioned, but is there a specific theme under that umbrella that you are speaking on?

I do not yet know, Chris.

Okay.

I don't know. I sure don't. In fact, I want to call them and talk to the guys and ask them if they have any idea yet. I have some ideas rolling around in my head, things that I would like to do, but yeah, as of today, I do not know.

Well, I'm sure it's going to be profound when coming through you as a vessel of God, no matter what the topic is. I'm sure Josh Bice will come up with just the perfect sermon for you, and I always love hearing Josh Bice, too.

He is not as globally known as some of these figures on the roster, but he is an extremely powerful and gifted preacher. I always love hearing him preach. So if anybody wants to register for this, do yourself a favor and do me a favor.

Go to g3min .org, G -3-M-I-N .org. Click on events and scroll down to the sovereignty of God, and if you're registering, enter the promo code for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, which will give you a 30 discount.

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The Holy Spirit Is God and a Person

Well, let's, before we go to our break, get a definition of who is the Holy Spirit. What must be believed by a faithful Christian about the identity of the third person of the Godhead, of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit?

Well, first and foremost, as Christians, we must and do believe that He is God. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the triune Godhead. He is as much and as fully God as is God the Father, as is God the Son.

He is the third co-equal person of the triune Godhead. We see the Holy Spirit. He was present and active at the act of creation itself. We see that in Genesis chapter 1. We see that in Psalm 33 and other places as well.

And one of the clearest texts in the New Testament that described the Holy Spirit as God is Acts chapter 5. It's kind of one of the most concise ones there. This is when Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of their property, and they said they were going to give the money to the church and benefit the believers there in the gospel efforts.

But they held some of the price of their sale back for themselves, and Peter knew of this. And so Peter, this is Acts chapter 5, verses 3 through 4. Peter went to Ananias, and he said, Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?

And then concluded in verse 4, I don't have it in front of me, but I believe it's verse 4. He says, You have not lied to men, but to God. So you see the connection there. Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?

You have not lied to men, but to God. So a very clear, very clear statement of the deity of the Holy Spirit. So that is first and foremost what we must believe about him, is that he is God, very God.

Amen, and that's a good place for us to go to our first commercial break. If anybody would like to ask your own question of Justin Peters on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, or on any other theological area, but we do prefer as many questions as possible being focused on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say you disagree with your pastors or your denomination over something involving our discussion today, and you don't want to identify yourself. You might even be the pastor, and you disagree with your fellow elders or your denomination over something that we say today.

Whatever the case is, we understand things like that would compel you to remain anonymous. But if it's a general question, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence.

We'll be right back with Justin Peters after these messages, so don't go away.

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We are discussing the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

The Holy Spirit as Person, Not Force

You've already established the biblical truth before the commercial break that the Holy Spirit is God, and that would imply that the common false notion of individuals, even some that profess to be Christians, even some within evangelical churches and denominations, they may not say this in a creedal sense or in a doctrinal sense, but they very often speak of the Holy Spirit as if it is the power of God and a force of God and not a person of the Godhead.

Am I right? Isn't that something that you have encountered commonly, and isn't that dead wrong?

Yes, Chris, that is correct, and that is dead wrong. In fact, one of the notable examples, well, I mean, this is common in the charismatic movement, but Benny Hinn, for example, how he slays people in the Spirit and he gets his jacket and waves his jacket at people and yells fire at them, and he pretends to wield the Holy Spirit around like a lightsaber almost.

I mean, he uses it to slay people and, quote-unquote, slay them in the Spirit. And when you think about what he's supposedly doing, literally throwing, ostensibly, the Holy Spirit of God at people, yeah, that reduces him to a thing.

That reduces the Holy Spirit to a thing, to a force. You know, it's such a belittling and demeaning of the Holy Spirit, but he is a person. You can't wield him at will. In fact, he himself has will, and I'd like to deal with that a little bit.

The Holy Spirit of God is a person. He's not a third of God. He is fully God, and he is a person. The Holy Spirit can be grieved. We see this in Ephesians 4, verse 30. Paul says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

You can't grieve a force. You can't grieve an inanimate object. You can't grieve a non-sentient being. But the Holy Spirit can be grieved. Why? Because he's a person. The Holy Spirit has intellect. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 through 11.

Again, Paul writing, but to us God revealed them through the Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the depths of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him?

Even so, the depths of God no one knows except the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. So he has intellect. He knows things. In fact, he knows all things. He's omniscient. He has a will. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 11.

But one in the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as he wills. So he has volition. He has will. Of course, that verse is talking about the spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit speaks.

Acts chapter 13, verse 2. The Holy Spirit speaking here very clearly, I might add, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Notice the clarity. Notice the crystal clear clarity with which the Holy Spirit speaks.

In stark contrast to what you hear today from the vast majority of the evangelical world when they say some things like, well, I think the Lord might be trying to tell us, said no one in the Bible ever.

You don't see that kind of language anywhere.

Yeah, like what was commonly, and I'm assuming still is commonly seen on the 700 Club, where you have Pat Robertson or another host kind of getting the signal of the Holy Spirit jammed up by maybe competing radio and TV signals because you have Pat Robertson saying, there's a listener, I think he has a lump on either his left or right lung.