May 7, 2026 Show with Lee Anne Ferguson on “Christ Rescued Me! ….from the Church of Christ”

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 in view in 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, 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 seventh day of May, 2026.

Before I introduce to you my guest for the day and our theme, I want to remind everybody to mark down on their calendars a special interview that I am having next

Thursday, May 14th, here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, with the lead actor in the new movie

A Great Awakening, which is the story of the life and legacy of 18th century revival preacher

George Whitefield, as seen through the eyes of founding father

Benjamin Franklin. And Jonathan Blair, who portrays

George Whitefield in this film, is my guest Thursday of next week.

So I hope that you mark that down on your calendar. I hope that you listen and send in questions, and I'm looking forward to it.

Many of you may know, and many of you may not know, that I was raised

Roman Catholic, and the first group of professing

Christians to instill within me an interest, a fascination, and even a love for reading the

Scriptures and learning about it, was the Church of Christ, a specific

Church of Christ congregation initially, in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, where my brother

Bob was a member at that time, with his wife at that time. And they became a group of people that I grew to love and respect and enjoy their company.

But I soon, or perhaps not very soon, but after years of visiting them,

I became uneasy with the extreme exclusivism that they had of being the only

Christians on the planet earth. And I don't mean that they believe that that congregation featured the only

Christians, but their group, their movement, which is also known as the 19th century

Stone Campbell Restoration Movement. But I was later, by God's providence, led to a

Reformed Baptist church, where I was eventually baptized and have been a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace for decades now.

But I do want to make it clear that I do have a special place in my heart for the

Church of Christ, and I do owe them a debt of gratitude for being the place where I first fell in love with the

Scriptures. But having said that, wherever error is found, especially when it's very serious, it needs to be pointed out, and that is actually an act of love, to point out the errors in someone's beliefs and practices, especially in the sphere of religion, where most of society thinks that is the one place where we should not be critical of one another.

But that is the most important place to be critical, and of course, we must always do so with humility and grace and love.

And we are going to be doing that today. Our guest today is Lee Ann Ferguson, a former member of the aforementioned 19th -century

Stone -Campbell Restoration Movement, who discovered and embraced the doctrines of sovereign grace, who will address the theme of her book,

Christ Rescued Me from the Church of Christ. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Lee Ann Ferguson.

Thank you so much, Chris, for having me on. It's an honor. I'm not much of a talker.

I grew up very quiet, but the

Lord compels me by His love, and the love He's given me for His people, wherever they are, and I know they're scattered, and some of them,

I truly believe, are still in the Church of Christ of the

Stone -Campbell Movement. And just to let our listeners know, you can look up more about Lee Ann Ferguson and her ministry at christrescuedme .com,

christrescuedme .com, and we'll be repeating that later on in the program. Well, it would probably be helpful for our listeners to have a definition of who the

Church of Christ is, and then we'll get into your specific details of your own testimony of how you became involved with them and so on.

One of the things that I've learned over the years—and by the way, I still do have friends in the

Church of Christ in a number of different places in the

United States, and I've come to recognize that they are not monolithic.

In fact, the more I research their history, I've discovered they were never monolithic. It's interesting that, from what

I understand about the creation of the movement, it started primarily with Thomas and Alexander Campbell, immigrants from Ireland to the

United States in the 19th century. They had a vision and a mission to bring about unity amongst different Christians from different backgrounds and denominations and so on, and they wound up really creating a movement of division.

And the division even began amongst themselves, and they would have infighting and have been having infighting for decades, for over a century, in regard to things that many

Christians would find not only to be nonessential issues, secondary and tertiary issues, but even nonsensical issues.

One thing that comes to mind immediately—I've told this story on the program before—but

I was visiting my late brother in the nursing home, and I happened to hear some beautiful a cappella hymn singing going on, and I excused myself from my brother's room and went to look for this music, this singing, and found a group of folks in the cafeteria singing a cappella.

And I asked the man, after he was finished, the man who was leading the singing, what church he was connected with.

And he said, the Shippensburg Church of Christ, and he said it rather rudely, which surprised me.

And I said to him, oh, it just so happens I'm going to a Bible conference at the

Carlisle Church of Christ on Six -Day Creationism, and do you plan to be there?

He says, I don't know anything about it. So when I asked the minister of the

Carlisle Church of Christ, how come the guy leading a singing ministry over there at the nursing home where my brother is, how come he doesn't know anything about your conference on creationism?

And he says, oh, they don't want anything to do with us. And I said, why is that? Because we have a kitchen in our building.

And so you realize that when you are believing that your being right with God has so much to do with your own performance and things that you do and do not do, it can reach levels of insanity just like that.

But if you could give us your own description and definition of the Church of Christ. Yes. By usurp of that title, it disguises itself under the title of Church of Christ, but the

Stone Campbell Restoration Movement that started in the early 1800s also sprouted other heretical cults, the

American cults, the LDS, JWS, SDAs, etc.,

which speaks volumes. History reveals that this counter -reformation, the root of it was

Armenian, anti -Trinitarian, sacramental salvation, and it was popularized and disseminated by the

Restorationists. And of course, it's

Romanism -like. And it also sparked, of course, the one -day

Pentecostals came along later, but it paved the way, I think, even for that.

And all of these false doctrines, these unique doctrines that they came up with, the original false doctrine, though, was this, they called it the ancient gospel.

Now, all that that is, is just work salvation. The main problem they had was with unconditional election.

And so, when you want to have conditional election, you want

God to judge you based on your own works, then you're going to have to come up with another gospel besides the gospel of grace.

So, this whole movement was the result of a devastating deviation from the doctrines of grace.

And when cults center their theology on the false notion that God has done everything he can, now the rest is up to you, then their application of salvation will vary.

And this is why the ZOC came up with its new laws of salvation. And it's a type of hyper -distanciational two -gospel heresy.

And, but if you word it that way, they will deny it because they don't get behind the pulpit and say, we preach hyper -distanciational two -gospel heresy.

They're not going to say that. And they're not even going to say that they teach new terms of salvation unless you bring up the thief on the cross.

They only bring up their different terms, language, when you bring up the thief on the cross, which is very interesting because I didn't realize it all those years when

I was in the Church of Christ that this was what was being taught. And it kind of reminds me of the conversations

I've been having lately with the JWs, you know, because they asked me, they came back around after 20 some years and they said, why did you put studying with this?

I said, well, we came to a torque in the road because you all believe in a second chance after you die.

And they're like, oh, no, we don't believe in a second chance. And sure enough, even on their website, it says this is not a second chance.

It's just another opportunity. OK, so you see how they worded that differently. OK, so that's what the

Church of Christ does. They word things differently. And I told the

JWs I can tell that when I say the word second chance, you're triggered. But if I say another opportunity, you're

OK with it. But it means basically the same thing. So there's this language barrier that has to be scaled when you're dealing with these these false religions.

And I know it's triggering if I hear the words false religion, false gospel, cult.

And when I'm on a personal level with them one by one, one on one, I don't hope that way.

OK, but when I have to come out against this religion, I have to come out strong.

And it's not my natural disposition to do so. I'm just going to tell you that right now. I'm a very quiet person.

I'm a very private person. And for me to have to come out with this, you know, it has to be pretty major because I realize

I am sitting on information that people do not know and they need to know.

Like Jeremiah Nordier said, there's not enough resources out there. And I feel like, you know, the one thing that encouraged me is that God uses the weak.

And that describes me. But out of weakness, we are made strong because he can strengthen us to do his will and to come out.

There was a fire in my bones when I stayed silent and I just couldn't do it anymore because there's people still suffering in this group.

And they truly don't understand the implications of what they're being taught. And many of them don't even really understand what they're being taught to believe.

Most of them have been raised in it. I was raised in it. I was in it for over 30 plus years.

But they still tell me, you don't know what we really believe. Yeah, I do. Because I stood strong for their doctrines.

I was highly into advancing the church of Christ.

I truly believe that we were the one true church. Now, the non -instrumental churches are more likely to outright teach that.

That we're the one true church. Of course, there's one true church. But it doesn't have to be.

It's not this cult. I'm just going to come right out and say it.

The one true church is God's people. And it's universal. It's mystical. It's invisible.

It's not a visible institution. But they have institutionalized God's grace into a system that must be worked for that grace to be operative in their life.

But God's grace is different. Saving grace is all about God.

The gospel of grace is all about what God has done in Christ. The faith centers, it's not about what we do.

But they have these isolated pretexts that they go by. And it all centers on water baptism.

Because, like I said, if you have conditional election, you have to have some way. You have to have something you do.

Whether it's walking a mile, saying the sinner's prayer, which is decisional regeneration.

Or you've got to have baptismal regeneration. They don't call it that. We did not call it that.

We didn't dare call it that. Because that is a Romanist doctrine. But it's disguised.

They call that baptism for the remission of sins, right? Yes. And like Jeremiah said, he's done more videos on it.

It's actually baptismal justification. Because if you get right down to it, they don't believe they have to be regenerated.

Because they're born with a spark of goodness. They don't believe in originals. And that's the problem.

When you get down to the foundation, you know. So, yeah.

The isolated pretext. There's actually more than seven.

There's Matthew 28, 19. Mark 16, 16. John 3, 5.

Acts 2, 38. They don't believe that there was a church. They don't believe there was a gospel.

They don't really believe there was salvation that we have today until after Acts 2, 38.

That's their different gospel. They say that there's different terms that came into play after Pentecost.

So, they created a probationary period between the cross and Pentecost.

They even call it a probation period. And it's nowhere in the scripture.

So, we've also got Acts 22, 16. Romans 6, 3, 3, 4. Galatians 3, 27.

Colossians 2, 12. Titus 3, 5. 1 Peter 3, 21. That's a biggie. So, what you've got here is they're taking these verses that have to do with a

New Testament ordinance. And they're turning it into a new gospel.

And it's a new law gospel. And they'll say, no, that's not what we're doing. But I've got proof.

You have to go to their literature. One of the things that we have to make it clear, though, they are not monolithic, even though there are commonalities that are very often manifest amongst the different congregations.

Even in the 21st century, you have Church of Christ congregations that have actually become liberal.

I know the Church of Christ in West Islip, Long Island has a woman minister.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah, you're right. And the Manhattan Church of Christ in New York City, they celebrated

Martin Luther King Jr. Day by having a conference on the prophetic voice of Martin Luther King Jr.

And Martin Luther King Jr. denied the essentials of the faith. He denied the deity of Christ, the

Trinity, the substitutionary death of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ. So and that's the kind of thing you would not hear in a typical

Church of Christ. And they did start off from the same a cappella restorationist movement.

And even amongst those that are very conservative, you have differences among them.

Like even recently, when Jeremiah Nortier was debating

Jack Wilkie, Jeremiah was going on the impression or the presumption that his

Church of Christ opponent did not believe in baptismal regeneration. Because of the issue of most, or many at least,

Church of Christ folks not believing that a new nature is given to someone when they're saved.

And Jack Wilkie apparently disagreed with that. And he admitted that there was debate in the

Church of Christ over that. And apparently, I believe, he was in some way, some level, reprimanded by fellow

Church of Christ folks after because he was really affirming baptismal regeneration.

So you do have, and you also have all levels of ecumenism.

I know Church of Christ people who believe I am their brother. I know

Church of Christ people who have actually developed an

Orthodox—when I say Orthodox, I don't mean Eastern Orthodox—a biblical understanding of baptism and have in their bulletins that baptism is conducted by immersion of a repentant believer.

And those that are saved should obey this ordinance. So that is a different way of wording it than most

Church of Christ folks would like to put in their own bulletins.

So there are differences that do exist. Hopefully, they're not all consistent either.

I have family members—one of my grandmothers was a Calvinist.

And in the Church of Christ? Well, her children became

Church of Christ. And they would joke around with her that she wasn't going to make it to heaven.

She said, oh, I didn't know that. But after she died, they were saying, if anybody's in heaven, she is.

And I'm thinking, okay, you're not being consistent with your doctrine, you know, because their husbands are preachers and teachers in the

Church of Christ. And they preach just like most Southern Churches of Christ here do.

Yeah, here in the South. Now, the ones

I know of here in the South, they are very strict in their old school. And one of their main publishing arms is the gospel advocate.

And it has been promoting their creeds that they claim not to have. It's been promoting them for over 160 years.

Now, we always had gospel advocate curriculum in the church for Sunday school.

I know that some COCs don't have Sunday school. So I guess we were kind of liberal that way.

But other ways, we were very strict. You know, some have kitchens.

Some don't have kitchens. Even some that don't have a kitchen, they've got a water fountain. So they're still not being completely consistent.

And, you know, they would allow me to bring snacks for my children. But we weren't allowed to have a kitchen in the church.

You know, it just wasn't consistent. Faithfully. But that's where you can hopefully get in there and have some good discussions with them.

And like I said, when I'm on a personal level with them, I don't say, You're a cult member or you have a cult leader.

No, I try to follow Jesus when he was on a rescue mission, okay?

And when he was on a rescue mission, he had to come up against the wolves. And I do.

I did have to come up against them a lot. I had to come out strong. And since I did, they come after me.

I've been severely scourged in their churches. I've been slandered.

A lot of those things are to be expected. And I've never thought that I was a strong person to handle that.

It's only by the grace of God. Because it has been heartbreaking. Because I have lost family members over this.

And, you know, I've been disowned, disinherited, discarded, dismissed, disrespected.

You know, all of this stuff. But you have to have compassion on these people because they truly don't understand.

Because it is hammered home to them constantly. And there's so many twists and turns when you try to question these things.

They will come off with some of the most mind -twisting gymnastics that you've ever encountered.

Yeah, and it's interesting that you and Jeremiah, in your interview with him, it was brought up that they are

Roman Catholic light. And I can remember when

I first heard that comparison was from one of my oldest brothers,

Andy, who had become a Baptist. We had all been raised Catholic. And he knew that my brother

Bob, who is closer in age to me, had become a member of the Church of Christ.

And when I told my brother Andy that I was visiting my brother

Bob's church, he said, the Catholics. I said, what? He said,

Bob's church, the Catholics. I said, how on earth could you say that? They don't have statues.

They don't have even pictures or paintings of Jesus in the sanctuary. The minister isn't wearing a robe of any kind.

There's no candles burning. What are you talking about? But then when

I later became saved and embraced the doctrines of sovereign grace,

I realized how valid the comparison was. They are, in many ways, low -church

Catholics without statues.

You know, they don't have a high liturgy, and unlike Catholics, they do solely use the

Scriptures to determine what they believe and teach and do. But they just interpret it and exegete it incorrectly.

So am I making sense there? Yes. Yes, because that's exactly what makes the Church of Christ cult that much more dangerous.

Because they do use the Bible. There have actually been those who have left the

Church of Christ to become Catholic priests. Let's see. On page 127 of my book,

I go over that. Now, I go over how the Church of Christ has always been a temporary bridge back to Rome, and there is a mass exodus going on.

And a lot of people are leaving the Church of Christ because of so many inconsistencies, and they are ending up in the arms of Rome.

Now, of course, there are even people that leave Reformed Baptists and other solid churches.

In fact, I'm moderating a debate between a former Coptic Orthodox brother who is now a

Reformed Baptist who's debating a former Reformed Baptist who is now

Eastern Orthodox. Oh, wow. Now, this particular, this one guy that left, you know, they got this

Roman Catholic YouTube channel called Richard's Home. He said there's bridges back to Rome and the

Church of Christ. They're having a hard time getting the

Church of Christ to worship Mary, you know. They definitely don't want to do that.

They're not into the mass. We're not saying that. It's just that they have the same adulterated soteriology.

You know, works of man added into the equation of salvation.

It originated with Rome. And if you go on my website,

I've got an article called Arminianism of Papisquat because Augustus Toplady, he wrote

Rock of Ages, and he wrote about this years ago, that the

Jesuits, they had a plan, and they called it the drug, D -R -U -G -G, that's how they spelled it then, the drug of Arminianism, that they planted within the

Reformed Protestant camp in order to try to destroy it. And it's very interesting if you read the history on that.

And it is rampant now, and like you said, there is a lot of medical things going on now.

And so we have to be on the lookout to any bridges back to Rome. And one of the main bridges back to Rome in the

Church of Christ is the baptismal bridge. What I found to be the root of all false religions is the false free will doctrine of man.

Of course, we still have a will, but it's not completely free until Jesus sets us free.

Jesus said, whoever the Son sets free is free indeed. Then we have the free will to follow

Him. And we have to go to our first commercial break. If you 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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USA. You may remain anonymous if your question is a personal and private one.

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Welcome back. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is

Leanne Ferguson. And we have been discussing, just beginning to discuss, her life in the

Church of Christ. And we've been seeking to define the Church of Christ. Leanne, are you there? Yes.

OK, could you turn your camera back on? No, I'm sorry. That's OK.

We're video recording this for Jeremiah Nortier later on. Yeah, sorry about that.

That's all right. And I do want to let our listeners know that they may find three of my previous interviews interesting.

I don't know if you know, Leanne, who David Lawrence is. Dr. David Lawrence was a professor of history at Lipscomb University, which is one of the premier

Church of Christ institutes of higher learning. And he became convinced of the doctrines of sovereign grace while still teaching at Lipscomb University.

And they did not dismiss him amazingly. And he has entirely broken away from the restoration movement and is now on the leadership team of a

Reformed Church in Nashville. But if anybody wants to listen to a three -part interview with David Lawrence on that, we titled that Discovering Sovereign Grace While in the

Church of Christ Holes of Academia, just type in the search engine

David Lawrence, and that's spelled L -A -W -R -E -N -C -E. And those interviews took place on July 18th and 19th of 2022 and also on August 19th of 2022.

So we hope that you enjoy those. But picking up where we left off, I do want to get into your own story about having been raised in there shortly.

But is there anything that you wanted to say before we move into that phase? Oh, go ahead.

That's fine. Well, you already mentioned that you were raised in that church.

And can you tell us which branch, if you will, of the

Church of Christ you were in? Were you in a non -institutional church or did you have

Sunday schools and all that kind of thing? Yeah, it was non -instrumental.

Like I said, we went by the gospel advocate curriculum for the most part.

We also had house -to -house, heart -to -heart, Christian Courier, The Sword and Trail.

There was different ones, but the main publishing art was the gospel advocate.

And like I said, those were our creeds that we claimed not to have.

And they've remained consistent, very consistent with those creeds. Yes, I can remember a friend in the

Church of Christ invited me to a conference at his church.

And during one of the sessions, the speaker was telling everybody something that they likely heard thousands of times already, that the

Church of Christ has no creed but Christ, no confession but the

Scriptures, etc. And during a Q &A, I raised my hand and I said,

I have your church bulletin here, and it says we in the

Church of Christ are not Protestants, Catholics or Jews. We are the church that Christ established.

We do not use musical instruments in worship. Our ministers do not wear clerical robes but typically would wear business suits and ties.

And we only have male ministers in our church. We believe in a plurality of elders.

And it was going on and on with all the details of what this church believed and practiced.

I said, this is your creed. I said, you'd say you don't have a creed.

This is it. Yeah, yeah. You know, the inconsistency and the hypocrisy is one reason so many people are leaving.

It's because you develop cognitive dissonance if you don't. Like you said, it can lead to insanity.

Well, you know, I felt like I was losing my mind.

I mean, I got where I just couldn't do it anymore. It was so legalistic. You know, we always had an invitation at the end of each service.

And the focus was always on our response. That was the deciding factor.

So I lived in fear that if I didn't do everything just right,

I was going to be lost or I couldn't keep my salvation. You know, we believed you could lose your salvation.

Now, what really helped me was just reading the

Bible. One of the Bible verses that really stuck out to me was Romans chapter 10.

Romans chapter 10, verse 9. And I knew

I just didn't have that kind of heart faith. It was all intellectual. I didn't know the true

Christ. I didn't know what he accomplished at the cross. I didn't understand what happened at the cross at all because all the focus was mostly on us, what we do.

And still today, when I communicate with the churches of Christ, it's all about what they do.

And they call it their education. You know, they say you need that education. You need to know what to do to be saved.

Well, Jesus already did it. He did all the work. We did all the sinning.

That's what we did. That was our part. Only Christ can save us.

It's not what we do. And you know, what really helped me was the book of Romans.

And then I kept reading that I needed to believe. And I knew that Jesus was my only hope.

Despite all the false teachings, I still knew Jesus was my only hope.

And even my grandmother, when I was little, I remember one time she told me, she said, well, you have to believe in Jesus.

Okay. But in practice, it never seemed like that was the emphasis.

Right. You know. In our curriculum, that was not the emphasis. But I do hope that deep down, grandma knew that.

Because she told me, well, you have to believe in Jesus, of course. Right. I mean, you have to have faith plus works is what they teach.

But just faith in Jesus, period. I mean, he is our eternal security. He told

Peter, he said, I pray for you that your faith fail not. And I didn't understand the intercession of Christ.

I never heard of the intercession of Christ. Until I read Bunyan by accident.

My husband's friend loved the intercession of Christ. Christ the complete

Savior by John Bunyan. I thought it was, you know, Paul Bunyan. I don't know who

John Bunyan was. We never heard of John Bunyan.

I'm sure they didn't want me to know. How did you get a hold of that book?

Well, we're still in contact with the homeschooling family. But they had a house full of them.

And so they loaned them to my husband. And I got a hold of it and started reading it.

Because I wanted to disprove the Baptist doctrine. Because, you know, my husband grew up Baptist. And I wanted to disprove them.

But it wasn't Reformed Baptist. He wasn't raised Reformed Baptist.

So, in a way, I did find out what was wrong with the hyper -graced Baptist. At the same time,

I found out what was wrong with my false gospel. That I had believed my whole life. Because one of the last things that I let go of was the baptism.

Regeneration. I had already come out of the church of Christ when I was with my. . .

When I got with Mother Heston. But that was one thing that just lingered on. Because it scared me to death to even think of letting that go.

Because they tell you that's not how you're saved. But when you're saved. Whatever.

But it was still scary. I'm like, okay. If that's when I was saved. And if I renounce it. And have a normal baptism.

It just scared me to death. But God. After I read that book. It all just started coming together.

And then I found out. There was this character named Charles Spurgeon. And. .

. Because I was looking up things about John Bunyan. And it said that John Bunyan was one of Charles Spurgeon's favorite writers.

I'm like, who is Charles Spurgeon? So I ordered The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray. And when

I read that book. I remember laying there in the bed. And it felt like I had the deepest sleep.

I just went into the deepest sleep. The deepest comfort I had ever felt in my whole life.

And it wasn't just about feeling. It was in my heart. That Christ had died for me.

That he had actually given me this faith. That I had in him.

He gave me the ability to even pray for that faith. This faith is of him.

Because he procured it. I never heard such a word. Procured. And we didn't talk about propitiation.

We didn't talk about imputation. When I found out these big words. You know, I confirmed it to my aunt.

She said, what do you mean? Where are you coming up with all these big words? Imputed us a world in chapter 4.

All of it. So she turned to me and she said. Oh. So. She kind of backed off there.

But. It's sad because. We never were taught. Imputed.

Righteousness of Christ. We were never taught about his propitiatory atonement.

And I still. It still amazes me. So I cried myself to sleep that night.

Tears of pure joy. And I wrote it in the book.

I wrote. What was going through my heart. And I kept that forgotten

Spurgeon book with me. Everywhere I went. I took it everywhere with me. Along with my

Bible. Along with the intercession of Christ. And. I'm like,

I can't believe I was never taught this. Now, there was a part of me that was a little angry. I'm like,

I can't believe I've been misdeceived. And I thought, well, all they really need to know is the truth.

Right? Well, I found out. Quick. No. Only the Holy Spirit can change a person.

No matter how much information you give them. No matter how much biblical evidence you show them.

If the Holy Spirit is not already working with them, it's not going to do any good.

And so then I went through another bout of depression. And that's when I found

Bunyan's book, Reprobation, I started. And it explains some things that helped me.

And it was another one of those old books. This homeschooling family said they were cleaning out everything and they were going completely digital.

And they said they knew I liked Bunyan, so they was giving me these Bunyan books. And I just, I held on to that.

And I kind of remember Bunyan saying, well, there's much more I could say about this, but we'll just end it there.

And I'm like, no, please don't stop. So I just continued to devour everything

I could. I was reading these Puritans. And I'm like, if only

I could find a church like this. This is while you were still in the Church of Christ.

No, I'd already come out of the Church of Christ, but I hadn't completely let go of the baptismal regeneration doctrine.

Now, as far as the things that led you up to leave the

Church of Christ, was it independent, private Bible study or providentially getting

Reformed books in your group? Yeah, it started with Romans chapter 10.

And it scared me because I felt I didn't have that kind of faith.

And then I didn't learn later that God had granted me that faith.

It was 20 -20 hindsight. And so I started writing articles.

And these articles, they finally turned into a book, but, well, two books.

So once I started learning the doctrines of grace, a

Reformed Baptist actually reached out to me. And so I did find out there was Reformed camps. But here's the issue,

Chris. I had been reading all these Puritans, right? And I thought that I was going to enter into the

Reformed camp and all the women would be dressed in prairie clothes and the men would be field workers and doing

Bible studies by candlelight at night. These romantic ideas of what a

Reformed Baptist was, right? But we're living in a different time. So it was sort of a culture shock.

And more ways than one. Okay. Plus, you have to remember,

I was in a non -instrumental church. So hearing music in the church, for years, things have triggered me.

And I just want to say that those that are coming out of the Church of Christ, and I want to speak out to the

Reformed people, too. When you're reaching out to these people, you cannot just expect them to jump into another church.

The Lord is, He's very gentle. And we need to be very gentle with Him, too, and very tender.

And there's a lot of things that trigger us. When a lot of us were mentally ill in the

Church of Christ, and there's a lot of work that still has to be done. And I've heard other ex -court members, too, say, you cannot always just jump right into another church.

You have to take it slow. And the Holy Spirit, you know, was really dealing with me.

And the thing He really convicted me of was the imputed righteousness of Christ.

He comes to convict us of righteousness. It's the righteousness of Christ. That's the only way that we can be saved.

And that is, I didn't understand because when I left the

Church of Christ, I went right into a medium, a

Bible church. And then from there, I ended up in a Word of Faith movement.

And it was still Armenian at its core. Everything was legalistic. I was being told, you have to pray in tongues so many minutes a day.

You have to do all this stuff. And you could lose your salvation. So I started trying to talk to them, first of all, about the book

I found, Intercession of Christ. And they looked at me like I had three heads, you know. What are you talking about?

What's the Intercession of Christ? Well, He intercedes for those He died for.

They cannot be lost. Now, is that Word of Faith church the same as the

Deliverance Ministry church that you entered into? Yes. I was going to do a book on Jesus delivered me from Deliverance Ministries because there's a lot of the pieces that go on in there.

But a lot of those Greeks actually know the gospel. So, you know, I've always been the kind of person, if you can't be completely dogmatic and come all the way out with something and take it to its logical conclusion, leave it alone.

So I came up against a roadblock with that book because I'm not a complete cessationist.

And so God took me a different route. It was the route of the thief on the cross because I went through an ordeal with my grandmother that just completely floored me because I loved her.

She was the main spiritual influence in my life.

And her reaction to the true gospel just completely floored me. It was blasphemous.

But the thief on the cross has always given me hope. I don't know what happened in the last moments of grandma's life.

Now, you're not talking about the Calvinist grandma. You're talking about a different grandma. No, no.

My other grandma, she was staunch COC. Yeah. And both of my great grandmas were staunch

COC. And like I said, it really bothered me.

And so I would take her articles. That's what became the book. And it was such a contrast between believing the true gospel and believing a false gospel.

I just felt like it was the right thing to do to write about it. But I will tell you that it has been hard to come out with this.

It has caused a rift in my family. But Jesus said he comes to divide.

Sometimes he does divide. But I still have hope. Just this morning, I ran into one of my aunts.

And I was at a Goodwill, and I picked up this plaque.

It said grateful. And suddenly I was reminded I was so grateful of what God's done to me.

He brought me out of a cult, and he saved me. And I turn around, and there she is.

And I hug her. And we both almost cried. She said, call me.

And, you know, please pray for me. Anybody out there, please pray that God will put this family back on the right path.

Come on, Lord. Every day, they're on my heart. And I love them. Hallelujah.

We will do that. And one thing that I wanted to say before we go to the break that I wanted to get your response to,

I told the same thing to Jeremiah when I last interviewed him, is that in all my years of being a believer and having interaction with professing

Christians on a very wide spectrum of theological beliefs, the

Church of Christ are the only folks that I have ever encountered who believe that a person can truly love

Jesus, and I'm emphasizing the word truly, not mistakenly think that they're loving

Jesus, but truly love Jesus, truly repent, truly follow

Him. And yet they will be cast into the eternal lakes of fire when they die because they didn't understand baptism in quite the right way, the way that the

Church of Christ defines it. And would you agree with that assessment? Yes.

Now, there's also those, there are some people on the reform camp that are perfect knowledge advocates that, you know, that's why.

See, I was, God had already saved me. I was still in the Church of Christ. I was coming out.

He was bringing me out. But we can never just write somebody off this side of heaven.

There's always hope as long as they're still alive. But yeah, like Romanism, the

COC labors to instill legalistic fear by repeatedly hammering it into people that they will go to hell if they do not renounce salvation by God's grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone, through the glory of God alone.

This religion pressures people into its pharisaical formula for salvation, which requires baptismal cognizance, the external availability of water, the

COC mediator, and a denial of the true portrayal of Jesus in the Bible and what

He actually accomplished at the cross. Now, what I mean by baptismal cognizance is they believe you have to actually believe it's for a literal remission of sins for it to be a valid baptism.

Now, I know that there are some differences between Churches of Christ on whether you have to believe it's for the remission of sins to be saved.

That's true. Even when I spoke to Jack Wilkie before his debate with Jeremiah, he did not believe that.

Okay, I'm going to clarify that. Yes, you are correct. In fact, that was a big division in the movement, and I can't remember the figure from history that started to popularize the idea that you must understand it's for the remission of sins for it to be effective and for you to be saved.

That started in 1827 with Walter Scott, if I'm not mistaken. It wasn't even with the original

Restorationists. But like I said, once you go the route of conditional election, you end up with something like that, and that's what they ended up with.

That's what they went to. And we have to go to our midway break, and we're going to have you pick up right where you left off there.

So don't forget where you want to pick up. If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name, at least city and state of residence and country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

We're going to be right back after these messages. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com.

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And before I return to my fascinating conversation of Leigh Ann Ferguson and the book that we are addressing, written by Leigh Ann, Christ Rescued Me from the

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Last but not least, if you're not a member of a biblically faithful, Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where you live on the planet earth,

I may be able to help you find a church that's biblically faithful, as I have done with many listeners spanning the entire globe in the

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and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to ask a question of Leanne Ferguson on the

Church of Christ and give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. That's chrisarensen at gmail .com.

And we do have a listener question that will take before we have Leanne continue. We have

Eloise in Indian Hills, Kentucky, who says,

I know that the Church of Christ typically believes that a true Christian can lose his or her salvation.

What are the reasons they give why someone could lose their salvation?

That's a good question. Like I said, the root is conditional election.

If your salvation is dependent on conditions that you have to fulfill, then you could always fail on those conditions and lose the salvation that you conditionally gained.

Right. So, yeah, if you're depending on your own free will response to the gospel, then you could freely leave

Christ. Right. But the Bible makes it clear that Christ doesn't lose him if he or she he intercedes for his people.

And I would just plead for people to realize that when Jesus intercedes for somebody, his intercession never fails.

The Father always answers his prayers. And I'm assuming that the answer to that question would differ from one church of Christ to another, from one minister to another.

Some might say that if you changed, even in an insignificant doctrine, if you changed in your mind what you believed about a certain thing that is not a salvific issue in most churches, they would turn it into one,

I'm assuming. Yes, that is rampant in the Church of Christ, turning side issues into salvation issues.

That's one of the main problems. And that's why there's so many factions, because there are those that believe that they have a kitchen, that they'll be hell bound.

I know that sounds a little crazy. Well, as I said, I experienced it here in my area of Pennsylvania.

Yeah. And so, there might just be one church in the area that doesn't have a kitchen, so they get the monopoly on those that have that mindset.

And then they're afraid to leave, because they're like, oh no, all the other churches have a kitchen, so I can't go there.

So it's a form of control, too. That's how they keep them there, right?

So, if you're going to keep people from dropping out, you've got to have something to hold

Oprah down. Like, if you leave this, oh, I've seen this in the Word of Faith movement, too.

If you leave this church, I've seen terrible things happen to people when they leave the church, but they're making it sound like it's their church.

They're making it sound like if you leave their church, you're leaving Christianity altogether. They don't understand the universal, mystical, invisible body of Christ.

We're scattered, and we were scattered even in the biblical times, people were scattered.

All three Acts talks about the believers. They were scattered, and they were preaching the

Word of God everywhere they went. You know, if God didn't scatter us, if he just kept us in one location.

You know, that's one reason why the C .O .C. never was that big on evangelism.

We never was that big on that. Really? Now, the other restorationists were.

The Mormons are big on it. The J .W.'s, you know, they go door to door.

But we was not big on that. And I'll tell you one reason why, and this will go through my mind.

I would be like, how am I ever going to get anybody to come here and believe this? Because I would sit there and strain and try to hear what the gospel even was.

I did. I truly did not know what it was. And of course, they make it sound like the gospel is baptism.

Baptism pictures the gospel. But it's not. It's not Christ and him crucified.

Also, Paul said, I determined to know nothing except Christ and him crucified. And I have to say, when

I'm speaking with these people and I want to focus on Christ, they can get very uncomfortable.

I think one reason is because they see Christ as this hard task master.

You know, he meets you in the waters of baptism and then loses you as soon as you come out and you sin again.

You know, but then they come along with their second laws of pardon. And it's kind of like wrong second plank of justification.

Now, this second laws of pardon doctrine is unique to the churches of Christ.

Now, if you ask a regular member, they'll say, what is that? Right. But even

GBN, the Gospel Broadcasting Network, has done a full video on that.

I think it's still up on YouTube. The two. Laws of pardon.

And if you want to go look into that, it's a real thing. It's a unique doctrine within the churches of Christ.

So they not only have a hyper dispensational gospel heresy, they've also got two laws of pardon heresy.

And I go over this a little bit in my book also. And I explain it more in depth than I can do here.

But I just pray that God helps me do justice to the true gospel.

Because our moral inability and sinful imperfections has never nullified

God's perfect standard of righteousness and our accountability to him as responsible image bearers of God.

And they see us as being irresponsible. They think we want to get out of duty free card when we point to the thief on the cross or Jesus is an imputed righteousness.

That's not the case. Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, came to do what no one else could ever do.

He came to save and rescue the unrighteous. Can you explain that double pardon or two pardon principle that you were just mentioning?

Yes, yes, I can. And the best way is it's like the second plane of justification.

You're initially saved in water baptism. But then it's like you lose that initial salvation.

So you've got to have a second way of pardon. Now, I've asked Bill before. Are you just as lost if you sin after baptism?

Are you just as lost as you was before baptism? And some of them will say yes, but some of them will say, well, no, you're still in a condition.

You're savable. You know, after you're baptized, you're at least savable. Before you're baptized, you're not even savable.

Oh, yes, they will all word it that way.

But it's the idea that you're initially saved in baptism. But you lose that if you sin.

And so then they swoop in with this other second loss of pardon.

And it's kind of like they dodge Paul's condemnation of work salvation by giving lip service that you can't earn salvation.

But what they really mean is that you can't initially you can't initially earn your salvation because Jesus laid the sacramental groundwork for salvation baptism.

But after baptism, works of repentance and faith, etc.

Are made to be meritorious for their male type of baptized work.

Does that make sense? So the gist was that one couldn't earn salvation by works until until after you're baptized.

But it's still a salvation by works. It's just misleadingly worded different.

It's very tricky language. It's works of a different category.

And so the second loss of pardon are conditioned upon our own works. But they say that you're initially saved by Christ Institute and these new laws of salvation, which is the baptismal formula, the five acts of worship.

They turn those into a five -scale plan of salvation.

They don't understand God's eternal redemptive purpose, which was eternal before time began.

They have turned new covenant ordinances into a new gospel, but a new covenant pictures the gospel.

Pictures what God does. He's merciful to our own righteousness.

Hebrews 8, 12. He's merciful to our own righteousness and our sins.

He remembers no more. That's the new covenant, but they've turned it into a new law. And sometimes they'll come right out and say it's new terms, different terms.

New standardized fees of how you get saved. They've got a different way of saying it, but it usually doesn't manifest as clearly until you bring up the thief on the cross.

And they will even insert. In order to avoid.

That Jesus. Fulfilled the new covenant at the cross. You know, they tried to avoid that, so they will say.

They'll bring up his resurrection. Well, the thief on the cross didn't believe in his resurrection, so he couldn't have been saved the same way as us.

He was saved under the old covenant. And it was by being obedient to the old covenant.

So they insert. Jesus's resurrection into Hebrews 9.

Verse 16 through 17. But nowhere in those verses does it even imply that a covenant goes into force after one's resurrection from the dead.

Instead, they reveal that it immediately goes into effect after one's death, not after one's resurrection from the dead.

The new covenant was fully enforced at the cross and the thorn veil. The thorn veil.

I've got a whole chapter on the thorn veil. It's beautiful. It happened at the moment of Jesus's death.

About all the Bible verses. And these are things we never learned in the church of Christ.

And when I think about. I was just amazed. God's word is so beautiful.

It's so multifaceted. And I just can't express enough.

How beautiful it is. And I just had to write about it. I'm just a big old bookworm.

All I want to do is just write about God and his word. And I spent a lot of time in solitude.

You know, years ago, people were really getting heavy into Facebook. And I just found

Christ. I didn't want any distractions. All I could do is just write about everything

I was learning. I was learning true expositions of the gospel. And it was through writers like John Bunyan.

And I'm like, if people like John Bunyan can help people like me.

Then maybe if I can put it in more modern language, it can help people today. And I have discovered that my first book does seem to really be a help to people that are already coming out of the church of Christ.

And I'll have to put a warning out there that if you're not, it's really going to probably offend you.

Now, I remember John MacArthur and he said, I try to offend as many people as possible. You know, the gospel is offensive.

Now, I don't believe in being unnecessarily offensive.

You don't have to be. But it's a fine line to walk.

There's a lot of things that I have had to come out with. And I've had to submit myself to the judgment of the church of Christ people.

A lot of them hate me now. I've really had to put myself out there.

I'm a private person. But when Christ rescues you, you can't just remain silent.

There's a testimony there. And these leaders and these cults have tried to destroy the testimony of the thief on the cross.

God vindicates his testimony. And I had to write about it.

You just don't. You don't hear these things. I had to go into covenant theology, not the

Presbyterian version. But there is a Baptist expression of covenant theology.

And Jim Johnson did an excellent work on that. Yeah, I read his book, The Fatal Flaw of Infant Baptism, where he goes into an excellent description of Baptist understanding of covenant theology.

Yes. Yeah, he did a whole book on it, and it's beautiful. So that helped put the pieces of the puzzle together for me also.

And like I said, when I left the Church of Christ initially, I didn't know. I was just baffled in midair.

I didn't know where to go or what to do. I was just searching for the true

Christ description. And like I said, I ended up in the Word of Faith movement because these people were at least passionate.

You know, Church of Christ can seem like a dead religion. It's very quiet. There's no music.

And it's very solemn and rigid. Not all of them.

I mean, we were old school. We're talking about old school restoration movement.

And the Word of Faith people were at least passionate, but they were still, most of them were really, really out there.

But you cannot lose your salvation.

And I'm not saying what's saved always saved. There's a difference between the doctrine of what's saved always saved and eternal spirit.

But a lot of these regular Baptist churches now around us are hyper -grace.

They believe you can just become an axe murderer and it's okay as long as you have a weapon. And that gives a bad name for all

Christians who believe that true salvation can't be lost because the opponents of that teaching, they broad brush us within the group that believes you can live like Satan for your entire life after coming to a saving relationship by inviting him in your heart, by inviting

Jesus into your heart. You can live like Satan the rest of your life and still go to heaven. And we reject that as false. But we do have a listener,

Dooley in Natchez, Mississippi. And Dooley says, isn't one of the primary texts the

Church of Christ uses in John chapter 3 when it's talking about the encounter

Jesus had with Nicodemus. That actually I think backfires on them because I'm going to read it right now, at least a portion of it.

And John 3 starting in verse, let's see.

I'll just start from the beginning. Now there was a man of the Pharisees and Nicodemus, the ruler of the

Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know you have come from God as a teacher for no one can do these things.

No one can do these signs that you do unless God is with them. Jesus answered to him, truly, truly,

I said to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said, how can a man be born when he is old?

He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? Jesus answered, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

And that's where they will pretty much end the story in the

Church of Christ. But if you keep reading, that which is born of flesh, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the

Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed when I say to you that one must, that you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going.

So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be?

Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?

Now, if baptism, immersion in water for the remission of sins, did not exist in the old covenant, how could

Nicodemus be expected to know that? And so he would have been very, he would have been very familiar with being symbolic of the purifying agency of God's spirit in the

Old Testament. We got Ezekiel 36, verse 25. The New Testament parallel is that the

Holy Spirit is the regenerating and purifying agent and the water of the word is the instrument he uses to guide his people to Jesus, whereby all of God's grace are called into exercise.

You know, that verse makes it clear you can't control the Holy Spirit. He quickens how many wheels, but when you believe in baptismal regeneration, it's a type of thinking that you can summon the

Holy Spirit on demand. But what

I meant was, though, the church of Christ knows that even under their understanding of baptism for the remission of sins, immersion in water for the remission of sins, they know that that was not an

Old Testament ordinance. And so Jesus could not have been teaching that idea if he expected

Nicodemus to understand it as a teacher of Israel. In other words,

Jesus was somewhat embarrassing him here by saying, are you the teacher of Israel and don't understand these things?

So, anyway. How can they use that as part of their new terms of salvation when

Nicodemus was still under the Mosaic dispensation? Yes, exactly. And what are some other of the key verses that they use?

One of the verses before you go there that I think is key is in the book of Acts, where you have…

Obviously, the Jewish Christians were not baptizing

Gentiles. Is that Acts chapter 22? I believe so.

And Peter says to them, how can we forbid water, or how can you forbid water, to those who have the same gift of the

Spirit as we do arise and baptize them?

Let's see. I'm looking for that verse here.

I just had it in front of me and it disappeared. Well, the point is that they already had the gift of the

Spirit before they were baptized. How is that possible if they were not regenerate? Well, the

Church of Christ makes Acts 22 .6 .10 contradict Acts 2 .21, Acts 10 .2,

Acts 22 .8, Acts 22 .10. The one that I was…

It comes before baptism in those verses. Where did it come before baptism? What I was referring to was in Acts 10 .47,

where can anyone object to their being baptized now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?

So, even during the debate that Jeremiah had with Jack Wilkie, Jack really didn't have an answer for that.

He was like, oh, come on, you know, we both have verses that are, you know, one example in the

Bible that are tough for us, you know, that kind of thing. But you can't have the same gift of the

Spirit as a Christian if you are not regenerate already, and if you're not born again already.

Is that Cornelius, Acts 10, that involves

Cornelius? Well, I pose the question, did Cornelius do something to cause all of that, or did

God move him? That's the question. Who moved who? Well, God is always the initiator.

Yes. And how do you respond typically to the text, the classic text in 1

Peter? See, is that Noah's Ark?

Yes. I thought… 1 Peter? Yeah, I thought… 3? 20? Well, Noah's family was saved by water only in the sense that the reality of their salvation became obvious through the trial of water.

For they were enabled by God to pass safely through the destructive waters by being in the Ark, which represented

Christ. Now, we wasn't really told the Ark represented Christ. We were told the

Ark represented patterns, and thus we went into the pattern theology of the

Church of Christ. Now, I could cover that later, but these words, saved by water, and they say it means what it says.

But the Bible also says that women are saved by childbearing, and they will admit context matters there.

Why doesn't it matter here? Context matters. And, you know,

I'm not a Greek scholar, but the word by, say, by water here is translated through in the original

Greek, and the water itself was a means of God's judgment, not a means of salvation. So, they've taken something where the focus is supposed to be on Christ once again, and it's put on water.

Wherever the word water is, they automatically think that it's baptism.

And, you know, let's see, Acts 2 .38, we got the

Greek word eis, or eis, however you want to pronounce it. But that same

Greek preposition is used in, let's see, where it speaks of Moses.

Did the Israelites, were they baptized in order to get Moses to be their leader? Or was it because he had already led them out of Egypt?

Because it says that, let's see, I think that's 1 Corinthians 10 through 9, baptized into Moses.

They were not baptized, so to speak. I'm not talking about today's form.

I'm talking about the Red Sea. Speaking of the Red Sea, they were not baptized in order to get

Moses to be their leader. Well, one of the crucial things about this whole subject is that the

Bible never warns of condemnation to people who put too much of the credit to Jesus Christ for their salvation.

And it does, in the Bible, condemn people who trust in ceremonies for salvation, like in Galatians.

I mean, Paul was infuriated that the

Judaizers were deceiving people into believing that circumcision was essential for salvation.

And so there you have an example of the Bible warning against people putting trust in a right, in an action, in a ceremony for salvation.

And yet it never, in any page of Scripture, condemns a man, warns of damnation for a man, says a man has a false gospel.

If he's giving too much credit to God for salvation. So I think that that is a huge dilemma for the

Church of Christ. Yes. Also, Paul stood strongly against that heresy.

Their system is actually, ironically, patterned after the

Galatian heresy. Faith plus works. You know, circumcision today is without hands.

Baptism, you have to have hands laid on you to be baptized. Am I correct? It's the circumcision of the heart.

It's a heart transformation that only God can do or else.

They have human mediators involved in people's salvation. If baptism has anything to do with getting saved, then human mediators are involved.

There's one mediator between God and man, and that's Jesus Christ. Amen. We have to go to our final break.

And if you have a question for Leanne, send it in to chrisorensen at gmail .com.

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We have Arnold in Fishkill, New York, who has a question for you, Leanne. Are there any prominent, especially national evangelists on TV who are from the

Church of Christ that we need to be warned about? And I have heard that Max Lucado is in the

Church of Christ. Well, Arnold, I know firsthand, having known

Max Lucado for quite a number of years, and at one time having a friendly relationship with him, that he departed from the

Church of Christ as we are describing it today. He even changed the name of his church from the

Oakwood Church of Christ to the Oakwood Church in San Antonio, Texas.

And he was once a part of the Restorationist movement. But the main problems that have developed in Max is thinking he's become extremely ecumenical on the 180 degrees opposite side of the spectrum from being in the militant

Church of Christ, and even was a signer of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document.

He's been on Glenn Beck's show. Glenn Beck is a Mormon, and he refers to Glenn as his brother.

Things like that. But he's no longer in the Church of Christ that we are describing.

Do you have any people that you know about that you do not believe people should be viewing or listening to that have programs,

Leigh Ann? Yes. The Duck Dynasty crew, Ashamed.

I think it's Unashamed podcast on YouTube. The Duck Dynasty crew,

Phil Robertson, of course he passed away, but his sons are really on the forefront of this ecumenical movement.

And one thing that makes it so dangerous is they are starting to drop the title

Church of Christ because people are catching on to that because it connects them with the

Restoration movement. I mean, it's all come out, so they're starting to change their strategy.

But they're on a lot of political platforms too, and they're still going to Church of Christ churches and universities across the nation.

But like I said, this is a temporary religion, so it's going to go into Romanism even deeper because they're all holding on to the baptismal regeneration formula for the most part.

But those that are not going along with this transition, there is a mass die out, a mass exodus going on.

So that's one of the main ones that I can think of right away.

Every time I go get yard sales here in Goodwill, I'm finding tons of Max Lucado hooks.

So I don't know if he held on to the baptismal regeneration. No, he abandoned it.

He was in the mainstream Church of Christ at one time, but he abandoned that a long time ago. Yes.

Okay. Well, I would like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

And also, you could tell our listeners about your other book, about The Thief on the

Cross. Yes, and it's very important because it is the Achilles heel of the

Church of Christ, because they make it sound like there was no church, no gospel, no salvation until Acts 2 .38

where they do not understand the retroactivity of the new company. Oh, because every aspect of salvation is a fact of eternity before it ever takes place in time.

That's Luke 22, 20, John 17, 4, Romans 8, 28 through 30.

The eternity of the cross reveals that the thief was saved the same way through faith and upon the exact same basis,

God's grace through Christ and his work that every sinner throughout redemptive history has ever been saved.

And regardless of the two different dispensations that he lived and died under, and regardless as to whether John baptized him or not,

Jesus's atonement was timeless. It covered the entire realm of time itself, past, present, and future, because Jesus has effectively provided a perfect righteousness for believing sinners to be justified from the power of God's law to forgive them.

And even in the Old Testament, those saints, their sin debt was imputed to Jesus before its payment was even demanded of him in time.

See Romans 3, 25. You know, Jesus stressed our desperate need for his imputed righteousness for our justification because he emphatically stated that unless one's righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, one can by no means enter the kingdom of heaven,

Matthew 5, 20. And when I was in the church of Christ, that would terrify me and just put me into legalism mode full blast.

But what Jesus was trying to get across is he provides everything we like, because no matter how rigorous one's religion is, and this is a rigorous religion,

Jesus's perfect righteousness is the only one that God will excel for our salvation.

And it's by faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, by his grace alone.

That's the only way that we can be saved. And when you've got a religion that's telling you you have to renounce, the only way that you can be saved, there's a problem.

Amen. And we are out of time. And the website for Leigh Ann Ferguson is

ChristRescuedMe .com. ChristRescuedMe .com.

I want to thank you, Leigh Ann, for being such a wonderful guest. I want to thank everybody who listened today.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your entire lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. Amen.

Thanks, Chris, for having me on. You're welcome. Right on. Thank you, sister, for being on.