Catholic Charismatics with Justin Peters | Rapp Report Weekly 0017 | Striving for Eternity

If the hyper charismatic movement had a poster boy, it would be

Benny Hinn. Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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

All right. Well, welcome to The Wrap Report. Today we're going to be discussing Catholic charismatics.

Does that seem strange to you? That seems like charismatic movement is something you hear within more Protestant churches.

But yes, the Roman Catholic Church has accepted charismatics and the charismatic movement to infiltrate their church.

And so what we see is they're changing with the times. As we've seen from the current pope, he's more than willing to change with the times.

Actually, I believe that the current pope is doing to the Catholic Church what Barack Obama did to America.

I don't know if that's a good thing for Catholics. They should be concerned, as we were for America. But I want to start off by taking a look at what the

Catholic Church actually teaches and what the charismatics teach. We're going to have a special guest on in a moment.

But what I want to do is give an overview of Roman Catholicism, because a lot of people, even those who grew up Roman Catholic, don't even know what

Roman Catholicism really believes sometimes. So I want to give an overview. So Roman Catholicism, when we look at this, there's some core differences between what they believe and what

Christianity would teach. Now, I'm making a distinction. I'm making the distinction between biblical Christianity and Roman Catholic.

Some people are going to go, but that's not fair. Why is it not fair? The Roman Catholic Church and their councils said that people like me who believe, as we do in the

Bible alone, should be put to death, that we would go to hell, that we're anathema.

They don't think we're part of them. So why is it a problem if I say the same thing about them?

They should accept that. This is the thing. So when we look at some of their doctrines, one of the things that's very important to first understand about Roman Catholics is that they have three sources of authority.

They're going to say they trust in scripture, but there's two other authorities that they hold to, and that's going to be tradition and the church, the

Roman Catholic Church made up of the magisterium. But the reason this becomes important is because they believe that the

Roman Catholic Church and its tradition are what interprets scripture.

Anytime that you're going to have anything that is the means of interpreting scripture, by definition, that thing, whatever it is, in this case, tradition and the magisterium, the

Catholic Church, become the authority over scripture. And if you have anything that's an authority over scripture, guess what?

Scripture is now not equal in authority, but actually less of an authority. And that's the real concern

I have with tradition. This is the very thing that Martin Luther had an issue with 500 years ago, because when Martin Luther was making his arguments against some of the teachings of the

Catholic Church, what happened was that the bishops turned and argued and gave him tradition.

And he said, give me scripture alone. And that is what began the discussion over how much effect tradition would have in the interpretation of scripture and what ended up happening.

And this was the big debate that Martin Luther had was that Martin Luther was arguing for scripture alone and the

Catholic Church was arguing for tradition to interpret scripture. If you have the church or traditions that interpret the scripture, they become the authority over the scripture and ultimately they become higher.

Now, in the latest catechism that was put out by the Catholic Church, by Pope John Paul II, they would argue in that, and that's in 1995, so it's not all that long ago.

But in that Catholic catechism, they would argue that the scriptures are in equal authority with tradition and with the church.

But here's the point. If the church and tradition interpret the scriptures, then they become the authority and scripture is now subject to the church and to the authority.

Now, I hold to two presuppositions that cannot be tested, proven or questioned, and that is

God exists and he has spoken. I do not question God's word when he has spoken.

He's the one that we trust. I do not trust fallible men or the traditions of men to interpret what

God has said. Now, think about that. Think about the way it's being worded, because what we're seeing is we're saying that scripture,

God's word, is the thing that should be the authority. And they're saying that they have something that is over God's word.

Men's words, men's traditions should be more authoritative and interpret what

God says. Think about that, because that's really what they're saying, that fallible men and fallible men's traditions should be used to interpret and explain what

God said. You shouldn't trust what God said. You need these fallible men to tell you what

God said. I'm going to trust that God knows how to communicate to his own creation.

He created the universe out of nothing. I think he knows how to communicate.

He knows how to tell his people what they need to know. One of the other big differences you're going to see between the

Roman Catholics and biblical Christianity is their view over Mary.

Mary is very big in the Roman Catholic Church. But what may surprise some Roman Catholics, even in their own catechism, catechism paragraph 491 says,

Through the centuries, the church has become ever more aware that Mary, full of grace through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception.

Now that's important, those first three words, through the centuries. In other words, what they're saying is that the doctrine of Mary has developed over time, that over time they've given more and more thinking to the doctrine that they've developed around the personhood of Mary.

And as we think about that and think about what they're actually saying with that, that should concern us because they're basically trying to imply that when

God gives us scripture, gives us doctrines, that they're changing.

They may not be what's true today may be different tomorrow, or it may be more developed through time to actually have changes.

And that's the important thing. You see, we do, as we study scripture, we do understand the scriptures more and our theology does change over time.

But the view of Mary, a doctrine on the view of Mary, has done more than just change over time.

What has actually happened is that it's contradicted earlier things. And so what you end up seeing is they have a very high view of Mary.

They call her the mother of God. And she was called the mother of God in the first century. But most people don't understand is that the the idea of mother of God in the first century had a very different mindset.

Mother of God had nothing to do with Mary in the first century. The phrase mother of God had to do with Christ, not

Mary. The idea was that Mary was called the mother of God because she gave birth to God.

And this this is an important thing that people don't quite get. That they think that somehow it's speaking of Mary in the time that the phrase mother of God in the first few centuries came up.

It came up because there was a debate over whether Jesus was divine or not. And the reference of Mary being the mother of God ends up being something to describe that Mary gave birth to deity.

She's called the mother of the church, which puts her over the church. We'll get to that when we talk about salvation. She's called the sinless one.

And in that passage that I had already read from the Catholic catechism, what you end up seeing is that they end up saying that she had had been sinless at her conception.

This is what the Immaculate Conception is. And for many that haven't grown up in the Catholic Church, they think the Immaculate Conception is dealing with the birth or conception of Jesus Christ.

Not so. It's the idea that Mary was sinless at her birth. Now, here's how the argument goes.

Mary had to be sinless at her birth so she can give birth to Jesus Christ because he was perfect.

Okay, logical thinking, one -on -one, just a little bit of critical thinking. Let's put our thinking caps on and think about this.

If Mary had to be perfect to give birth to someone that's perfect, wouldn't that mean that Mary's mother would have to be perfect to give birth to Mary?

Wouldn't that mean that Mary's grandmother would have to be perfect to give birth to Mary's mother?

And you'd have to go all the way back to Eve. You see, if you're going to say that something miraculous happens, why wouldn't you say that the

Immaculate Conception is that one that is born or conceived of a virgin? Someone without a male father.

Why wouldn't you say that it is when God is incarnate into human form that that's the miracle?

See, Mary ended up saying that she needed a savior. That means that she must have been a sinner.

And this is the thing that they will often argue because they say that she was supernaturally born.

But they have a dilemma that just a little bit of critical thinking applied properly helps you to understand that Mary could not give birth to a sinless being and have to be sinless to do so because then her mother would have to be a sinless being.

And it goes all the way on. The reality is Mary being a sinner could give birth to a sinless being because of who

Christ is, not who Mary is. Now, one of the things when we look at the doctrine of sin that they have is they will teach that things like baptism will remove original sin.

They believe that doing an act like getting baptized as an infant, that's why you'd get baptized as an infant as early as eight days.

It would be the sign of a covenant that would remove the original sin. And then after that, you are now accountable for your sin by your works.

And so you could do works to earn your righteousness.

And this is really anathema to scripture. You know, when people argue that Roman Catholics believe that we're saved by works, most

Roman Catholics will say, no, we believe in justification by faith. But there's one word missing.

And this is a word that actually created and sparked a reformation 500 years ago.

And it's the word alone. You see, the Roman Catholic cannot say that they believe in justification by faith alone because they will say that they believe in faith and works.

You need not only faith, but you must also have works to earn righteousness with God.

This is what's going to make the big difference between what Christians believe, biblical

Christians and the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that men can merit grace on their own.

Let me just give you some paragraph numbers for you to look up in the Catholic Catechism on your own. But you could look up paragraph 546, 781, 2001, 2008, and there's plenty of others.

But what they would say is things like this. Works are not enough. Deeds are required.

That's paragraph 546. Deeds are required. You cannot have faith alone.

Now, this is why I have such an issue with this, because I want you to think through this. Think about those days when you had algebra.

I know, I know some of you hated that. But do you remember those different types of principles that you would learn, like the communicable principle, where if you take something and you add it to one side, you have to diminish it from the other?

So what do you have? If you say that here's Christ, God Almighty comes to earth, dies on a cross, and you say

He did that and we have to have faith in that, but we have to add our own works. We say we have faith plus works.

What do you do to the cross? Well, you diminish it because on the other side of that equation, you have to subtract.

So when you say that you add your own works to the work that Christ did on the cross, you're actually diminishing the work of God on the cross.

That's why this is so serious, because that's what we're really saying when we say it's faith plus works.

We're saying the work that Jesus Christ, God Almighty, the creator of the universe, the King of kings and Lord of lords, when

He came to earth as a man and died on a cross. That just wasn't enough. We needed our works.

You know, this is the thing you're always going to see with man -made religions. Every man -made religion will add human effort to be right with God, to be righteous.

Everyone, you see this in kings of old, they would have their victory stories. Even if they lost the war, they would try to find a way to claim a victory.

They always want to praise their own works. And people in religions are no different. They try to create a man -made religion.

What do they do? They want to praise their own works. And that's what we end up seeing here, is that people are adding their own works to be able to get righteousness from God.

That is man -made, wrong, and the very thing that will condemn people to hell.

Most people don't know in the book of Revelation that there's a book, two books that people are going to be judged by. We're either going to be judged by the

Lamb's book of life. If your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, that means that Christ paid your penalty and you are set free.

But most people don't know the name of that other book. That other book that people are going to be judged by and condemned to an eternity in a lake of fire is called the book of works.

That's right. Those good deeds that people are trusting in are the very things that will condemn them to an eternity in a lake of fire.

And the thing is that what does the Catholic Church say? They say not only do you have to have works, but the Catholic Church is the dispenser of grace.

Not only is the Catholic Church the dispenser of grace, but Mary is inseparably linked with the saving work of her son.

That's paragraph 1172 in the Catholic Catechism. Mary is the dispenser of grace.

They raise Mary. What they say is that if you go to Mary and you ask Mary to talk to Jesus, Jesus must honor his mother even in heaven.

And therefore, if you go to Mary and plead before Mary, Mary will go to Jesus.

Now, think about what they're saying, and they don't really think this through. If every Roman Catholic around the world today is praying to Mary and asking

Mary to go to Jesus on their behalf, what are they saying about Mary? Well, first off, they're saying that Mary can hear the prayers of all

Catholics all around the world. How is she able to do that? How could she know all the prayers of all these people?

It's very simple. They are ultimately, without thinking about it, they're saying that Mary is omniscient and omnipresent, that she's all -knowing and all places at all times.

There's no other way she'd be able to hear all those prayers. They, of course, would say, no, no, no, no, we're not saying that she has divine attributes.

Of course, you're not saying that, but you are implying that. And so, because they realize the consequence of that, if you're saying that she can hear the prayers, then she must be able to hear multiple people at once all around the world.

You know, what's even sicker than that is the fact that they make Jesus submissive to Mary.

The God of the universe who created everything has to obey a woman because she gave birth to him.

Think about that. That's really bad. And so what you end up seeing is that they believe that Mary is a dispenser of grace.

The Catholic Church itself is a dispenser of grace. That's why the Catholic Church would end up saying they are the way of salvation and therefore they would end up saying that you have to do things with the church to be able to earn your righteousness.

This was one of the big things that Martin Luther had an issue with 500 years ago, because what he did was he was arguing that they were trying to charge people to earn merit.

You give money to the church, you can earn indulgences, you can earn your way out of purgatory.

We're going to get to what that is in a moment, but you can earn your way to get righteousness, not just for yourself, but for family members.

And this becomes the thing is that the church is able to say that someone could be set free.

Well, here's a very simple question to ask. If the church has that authority, why don't they set everyone free?

Why don't they just give it to everybody? Well, because you don't give enough money. But if you want the ultimate proof that the

Roman Catholic Church is a works -based salvation and ultimately a workspace, because remember, if Jesus did all that he can, and now it's up to your works, what's the ultimate thing that earns your righteousness?

That ultimate thing is your works. You want the proof? It's seen in the doctrine of purgatory.

Purgatory is this fictional place that the Catholic Church has created, where there's this intermediate place between heaven and hell.

And what is it that they say? Purgatory is a place of temporal punishment for sins committed on earth that may still need payment.

Those on earth can reduce time that loved ones spend in purgatory by indulgences offered on behalf of the dead.

And so what you see is that purgatory is a place to work off payments, to work off the sins.

Even the Pope, when Pope John Paul II died, they said even the Pope has to spend at least 10 days in purgatory to work off his sins before he could go to heaven.

Even the Pope has to be in purgatory. The only way to get out of purgatory is to finish doing the work.

That's the ultimate proof that Catholicism is a works -based system, because you can't get out of purgatory without doing good works.

And so this is the thing we realize. This is anathema to what the

Bible says, that it is by grace you are saved and not by works.

Our works can't save us. You see, biblical Christianity is the true religion because of one thing.

You don't see human effort in there at all. We don't like that as people. We want to add our effort to it.

We want to have something to contribute to, to save ourselves. God says he did it a hundred percent.

He did it all. That's what the Bible says, that God saved us apart from ourselves.

This is what makes the Catholic church different than biblical Christianity. If you want to study more on Roman Catholic doctrines, or maybe

Judaism, Islam, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormonism, or even Christianity, you can get my book,

What Do They Believe? It's available at whatdotheybelieve .com. Ding dong,

Jehovah's Witnesses. Ding dong, Mormons. Christian, are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell?

Do you know what your Muslim and Jewish friends believe? You will if you get Andrew Rappaport's book,

What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth, but it is very wise to know what they believe.

And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at whatdotheybelieve .com. Did you know that Striving for Eternity provides speakers and seminars that we would come to your church and disciple your people?

We have seminars on the Bible interpretation made easy, creation science, evangelism, presuppositional apologetics, even on sexual abuse.

These are just some of the many things that we could provide for your church. Consider inviting one of our speakers to your church.

You can contact us at speaker at strivingforeternity .org.

All right, so now we're going to have a time where I got some some fellas in here who are going to help me. It is time for something that I've kind of been known for, and this is a game we're going to play.

And for folks who may be new, what this is is it is a way that we can learn to practice being able to transition from the natural world to the spiritual world.

And one of the things you end up seeing with that is that many people say, I just wish that I could share the gospel with somebody.

And they wait for someone to open a conversation. The reality is you can start a conversation on almost anything with a little practice.

So we've created a game called the Spiritual Transition Game. The way this is going to work is one of my friends,

Vince or John here, are going to give me something probably pretty difficult. That's the way those guys kind of are.

They're going to give me something that they think are going to be really hard for me to transition to the gospel, and maybe it will be. I've been stumped before, and the goal for me is to transition from whatever they give me to the gospel.

Now, I have no idea what they're going to give me, but we're going to find out what they're going to give me. It's time now to start the

Spiritual Transition Game. All right, so which one of you wants to give me something that I have to transition to the gospel, and this will not be edited.

So we'll see how quick I can transition to the gospel. Since the latest

Star Wars trailer came out, how about something like Star Wars? Now, are you doing that because I am pop cultural, illiterate, and don't understand what movies are?

Okay, I will confess that Pastor Frank Mullis took me to see

Star Wars, Rogue One or Rogue something. And he will attest that while I was watching

Star Wars, he had to explain to me some of the background stories.

There were lines where everyone in the theater is laughing, and I'm looking at him saying, I don't get it. And he had to explain to me that it was in older movies of older Star Wars.

And he realized just how pop culture, illiterate, and how unknowing I am of what it seems everyone else in our culture understands.

But you know, there's something else. Something we end up realizing that there are a lot of things that different people just are ignorant of.

They don't know anything about. Now, ignorance is not necessarily a bad word. It just means we don't know something. And there are things that people in our culture are completely ignorant about.

Like, I'm ignorant about movies, movie stars, music, music artists.

I don't follow any of that, so I really don't know what people are talking about when they give lines from movies.

The reality is, is just as I'm illiterate with things like that, there's many more people who are illiterate with something that has been given to them.

And they just turn a deaf ear because they don't want to hear it. Like, I'm not interested in following all the pop culture.

Many people are not interested in hearing what the creator of the universe has said to them. He has given them his very words.

Here's what he ends up saying about us. He says that you and I both break his laws.

I know you think you never do, but you've lied before. You've stolen before. Ask yourself if you've ever broken his laws.

The reality is, is you and I could be ignorant of the sins we commit. Why? Because we do it so often we don't even think about it.

And when we really sit back and think about how often we don't put God first, we end up breaking his law.

And God himself came to earth, died as a man, and became a sacrifice in our place that we could be set free.

He who knew no sin became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. And most people are completely ignorant of that truth.

In fact, the few that grew up maybe in Christian homes want to reject that truth and call it a fairy tale.

But all that is, is trying to force themselves to be illiterate about things they should know about.

There's many more people who never even grew up understanding Christianity. And all they know of it is what the culture has told them, which is furthering the illiteracy of biblical knowledge.

But that illiteracy and refusing to accept what is true, what they know, because God has given everybody a knowledge of him, that they know this and the result is that they will be accountable for that.

And they try to keep themselves illiterate to the fact that every one of us will face

God on Judgment Day. That's how I would go about transitioning in the split second that I had to think about it.

How would you go about it? I'm going to now ask John and Vincent here. Do you guys have a different way that you would transition from Star Wars to the

Gospel? Well, I would say that being that I am culturally refined, and that I do understand the movie and some of the concepts of it within either the original trilogy or the newer trilogies and all the other new movies that are coming out.

I would say that definitely there is an aspect of good and evil.

So we can always go into the moral aspect of it all. As far as you have sin portraying as evil, and then you also have

God who is good. And then you can kind of twist that bad choice of words.

You can give an example of evil and good within the

Star Wars movies. You've got Darth Vader who portrays himself as an evil character. And you've got

Yoda, someone who is within the good nature of the

Jedi. You've got Jedi, you've got Sith, and you've got in the

Christianity version. See, I'm not as good as you, Ranger. And this is the thing.

The reality is, people will often say, because I have people that literally come up to me and just go, or to choke hearts.

And so what it is, is I've been doing this for 30 years. That's the reason I'm good at this, is

I do this regularly with different people. I play this game a lot. And this is something where the more you play it, the quicker you could do.

My pastor who taught me to play this game would do this all the time. It's a thing that he and I would always do.

He would always be playing this because he was always learning to transition. And it helped in creating conversations.

That's the reason we play this game. Now, if you're struggling with it, guess what? Yes, I struggled with it when

I started. I used to go five minutes before I could think of something. But over time, the more you play, and if you play with a bunch of people, you start realizing everyone comes up with a different thing.

A secondary thing I was thinking, what John was explaining, was this idea of the

Jedi's and the spiritual aspect of Star Wars, and the fact that there's this force. And some people will say, well, it's the

Holy Spirit. Others will talk about it being a life force, being more

New Age. So you could transition into, why is it that people think there's this force guiding everything, and there's this good and there's evil?

I mean, how do you even know what good and evil is? What would be the distinction between, what would you say, a

Sith and a Jedi, right? One's good, one's bad. How do you define good and bad?

You can't without God, right? So this is another way we could transition, because now we could talk about the nature of God defining goodness, and now we have a way of talking about morality.

So it's just another way that we would be able to use different things around us, from the natural world to transition to the spiritual.

And so we'll see what these guys come up with. Vincent's way of transitioning was to send a message saying, getting the kids to bed.

I think he was running. All right, so let us take a break and go to some commercials. Striving for Eternity is a

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All right, so now we're going to get into one of our favorite segments that many people who know about this segment have been looking forward to.

Let us start the next segment. That's right, this is where we are going to play a clip or read something and we are going to give a fallacy and you get to see if you can figure out which logical fallacy is being committed.

Now, today's clip that we're going to have is from a debate with Jordan Hall and Ante Pogovic.

Pogovic, I couldn't pronounce his name when I was moderating it then either. But Ante gives us a great example of a logical fallacy.

I want to play it and see if you could pick up on it and then I'll explain what fallacy it is.

The New Testament Scriptures are a Pentecostal handbook written by Pentecostal charismatic believers for Pentecostal charismatic believers.

There is no other kind of Christian in the New Testament, at least for long. The ones that are not baptizing the

Holy Ghost with the signs that follow with the evidence soon are. But the only way to understand the

New Testament properly is to know that Pentecostalism, charismaticism is assumed throughout the entire

New Testament. Okay, so there we have it. He is arguing in a debate on have the charismatic gifts including tongues and prophecy ceased.

And he is saying that for his position, which is that these gifts have not ceased, he's saying the

Bible is a charismatic handbook, a Pentecostal handbook and that to understand the

Bible, you must first accept the premise that the charismatic gifts have not ceased.

In other words, he's saying that you must first accept the baptism of the Spirit the way he's defining it to be able to interpret the

Scriptures that way. So what is this fallacy? This is called the fallacy of begging the question.

So in this fallacy, when you have a fallacy of begging the question, what you end up having is you have someone that is trying to say that you must first the premise that they are trying to prove.

It is providing what is essentially the conclusion of the argument as the premise of the argument.

That's what that is. And that's exactly what you see him saying. He's saying that in order to understand that the

Bible teaches that the baptism of the Spirit, you must first have the baptism of the

Holy Spirit. This is a fallacy known as begging the question. And this is one that he committed and notice he doesn't even realize he did it.

He's not even recognizing that he is arguing for the very thing he's trying to prove.

And so that's something that you have to be careful of and be watching for it. When you're on the streets evangelizing or using apologetics, you're going to see people do this often.

They assume the very thing that they're trying to prove. It happens very often.

So that is the name that fallacy. And we're doing this so that maybe you could start to recognize different fallacies that you may see out there.

You know, another good way of being able to identify not really fallacies, but to know the truth is to rightly divide the

Word of God, to rightly interpret God's Word. And there's a resource that could help you in your church to do that.

The good news is striving for eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks teaching them

Biblical hermeneutics. That's right, the art and science of interpreting Scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover

Jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life verse. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org

to host a Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar in your area. Thank you,

Todd. And that's true. We do host a Striving for Eternity seminars, and one of them is a Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar.

We come into your church for a weekend, and over eight hours, six sessions, we'll teach you what's wrong with all of the televangelists and radio people that you always knew there was something wrong with what they're teaching.

You couldn't put your finger on it. We're going to teach you the principles of not only how to interpret the Bible, but how to identify when someone misinterprets the

Bible. You know, we had that debate, John, with Jordan and Ante. You know, Matt Slick debated somebody.

He debated David Smalley, and he preferred debating Matt Slick, according to him.

This is what he said when I asked him a question, when he wanted to talk about God being a moral monster. He didn't want to have to answer my question.

He definitely didn't want to debate me. This is what he had to say. Mr. Smalley, do you believe that abortion is moral?

Oh, boy. I'm glad I'm debating him instead of you. And he proceeded to not answer my question.

He actually did a different type of fallacy that maybe we'll play it on a different time, but he did a fallacy of a red herring by changing the topic and dealing with something else.

So now what I want to do before we close out is to give you an interview with a very special friend, and that is

Justin Peters, and I had the opportunity to talk with Justin. Now, I will say this. If you listen to this, you're going to be saying, well, hey, this was great, but this was not the full interview.

If you want to hear the full interview and some of the best stuff, including that intro quote that you heard and the context of that is all on our

Patreon page. That is for those who are supporters. If you go to the Patreon page, you will get to hear the full discussions that we had with the people that we are playing here.

So we're going to be able to play a shorter version for you, but for those who are Patreons and supporters of this podcast, you will get the full version.

And trust me, we did not leave all the good stuff just for those who hear it free. Some of the good stuff is in that podcast, so you're going to want to get over and listen to that.

Okay, well, I'm very excited right now because we're going to have a special guest, someone who is a very dear brother, someone who

I love very much. And I know he hates when I say this, but he's probably the humblest man

I have ever met in my entire life, which means he's already upset with me for saying that.

But what I would like to talk about, the Catholic charismatic movement.

And yes, I'm talking about Roman Catholics and the charismatic movement. So if you're going to talk about the charismatic movement, there is no one better in the world to discuss this subject than Justin Peters from Justin Peters Ministries.

So Justin, how are you today? Andrew, I'm doing well, brother. I'm very glad to have you on the podcast.

You and I have gotten together a couple of times, and we have some fun stories that we're not going to share.

We're not going to talk about dogs. No mention of dogs on the boardwalk. No, never talk about dogs on the boardwalk.

That's right. You have a background in studying the charismatic movement. So you've kind of been typecast as the word of faith, charismatic, all -knowing guru of all things.

Word of faith, right? What a lot of people don't know about you, your passion really is to exegete scripture.

And you even have a book that you just wrote, your first book, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the charismatic movement or word of faith movement.

So let's start off, before we get into the Catholic charismatics, share a little bit about your ministry, what it is you do, and your book, and where people can get a hold of you if they wanted to have you come and speak or preach or something like that.

Sure. Well, thank you, Andrew. Yes, I'm an evangelist. I sometimes hesitate to use that term because when you think of an evangelist, you automatically think of the televangelists who are the very people that I critique in my ministry.

As you said, my first love is exposition, preaching, teaching

God's word. That's my first commitment. But I have been typecast, I suppose, in relation to the charismatic movement, the word of faith movement.

I have a seminar entitled Clouds Without Water, referencing Jude, verse 12.

It deals with the health and wealth, prosperity, gospel, name and acclaim at gospel, people like Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer and all this stuff you see on Christian television.

But I travel. I'm not a pastor. I'm an evangelist or an itinerant preacher.

I travel across the United States, around the world, preaching and teaching in churches and Bible conferences and seminaries.

I'm on the road or in the air quite a bit. That's kind of in a nutshell, but you mentioned my book.

I have written one book thus far. I've got a couple others that are in the works, but my first book is entitled

A Biblical Examination of Childhood Conversion. It deals with some of the precautions that we should take in dealing with children.

Just because they've made intellectual assent to basic gospel facts does not mean that they're ready to be baptized.

I talk about the nature of children, contrast the nature of children with the nature of conversion.

All of this can be found at my website, justinpeters .org.

I've never been accused of being very creative. That was just years ago.

This is when I came up with the name of my website. I didn't know what else to call it, so I just said justinpeters .org.

It's been there ever since. Let's share one thing before we get into the

Catholics and Charismatics. You've done your thesis on Benny Hinn, correct?

Correct, yes. You know much about the Hinn family. I do, yes.

Maybe even more than the Hinn family knows about the Hinn family. In some cases, that might be true.

Here's the thing. A lot of people will say why you go and you expose all of the things that a

Benny Hinn would do. What profit is that you're attacking? Some would argue you're attacking fellow

Christians, that they would see them as fellow Christians. Some people might give you a hard time, but there's specifically, even within the

Hinn family, some fruit that you've seen from the ministry of you proclaiming God's word accurately.

You want to share that a little bit? Yes, Andrew. Truly, one of the phone calls that I will never, as long as I live, forget came in.

Actually, this gentleman left me a voicemail initially on December the 28th of 2016, so just about 10 months or so ago.

Long story short, he left me a voicemail. I pulled it up on my email and saw the transcript of it before I actually listened to it.

I could tell from the transcript. Sometimes it's not 100 % accurate because the computer doesn't always understand what you're saying, but I got the gist of it.

I could tell that this gentleman was calling to thank me for my ministry, tell me how much he's learned by watching

Clouds Without Water. He just wanted to thank me for it. Then I read a line in there, and he said,

My name is Kosti Hinn. I was just looking at that transcript, and I was thinking, no, no way.

I actually listened to the voicemail. Sure enough, Kosti Hinn. Kosti is

Benny Hinn's nephew. Kosti's father is Henry Hinn, Benny Hinn's brother. So, of course,

I called him back, and Kosti and I had a wonderful conversation. We talked for about two hours the first time.

Andrew, Kosti got – okay, Kosti was – when he was in college, he's now 32, 33 years old, but when he was in college, he worked for his uncle, flew all around the world with him, participated in dozens of his miracle crusades.

He was a catcher. He would catch people, and Benny Hinn would slay them in the spirit. He said he stayed in $25 ,000 -a -night hotel rooms, living the good life, traveling around with his uncle.

But about five years ago or so, give or take a little bit, Kosti was given a

John MacArthur commentary and was reading it out of John 5, and that's the healing at Bethesda, totally revolutionized how he looked at healing.

And shortly after that, he came across – well, it was around that time that he got converted, genuinely got saved about five years ago.

Thought he was a Christian, but wasn't. Now, he'll tell you, he had questions, even when he worked for his uncle.

He had questions and things that he was reading in his Bible just weren't measuring up with what he was seeing from his uncle and hearing from him, hearing from his own father,

Henry. But about five years ago, he got genuinely converted. God, Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, called his sheep named

Kosti Hinn to himself, and Kosti went to him savingly. Came across my ministry and started watching my stuff, watching the

Strange Fire Conference. So let's talk about a movement that many in the

Protestant movement don't know much about because we really don't focus in on the

Roman Catholic Church other than how to correct them and tell them what the true gospel is.

But there has been a movement within Roman Catholicism that branches what you've just been talking about, and that's what's being called the

Charismatic Catholic Movement. And just like the Charismatic Movement started influencing in Baptistic churches and Presbyterian churches and different denominations, it moved its way into Roman Catholicism.

And I have seen a resurgence of Roman Catholicism, people who are coming, as one ad said to Roman Catholics, welcome home.

They're encouraging Roman Catholics to come home as they get this charismatic experience.

And the thing that they're really coming to is an emotional experience. That's the thing

I've noticed with it, and this is similar to what we see in the Protestant churches. This is an area of study you've done a lot on.

So the Charismatic Movement, do you find that it's heavily emotionally based?

Andrew, without a doubt, without a doubt. And Kosti and I have talked about this quite a bit, and he's got a great deal of authority on it because he could not have been more on the inside of this movement than he was.

But the Charismatic Movement, basically, it would collapse if it were not for the music.

If you were to take away their music, honestly, Andrew, they would have nothing. It is highly dependent upon feelings and emotions, and one of the ways that they whip people up into emotional frenzies and what

I would say is even putting people in, basically, the first stage of hypnosis is this emotionally charged music that almost always is extended.

I mean, very, very, very, very lengthy songs. I've been in Benny Hinn meetings.

I've been in other Word Faith meetings, Charismatic meetings, and they can literally play the same song for almost half an hour, the same song for half an hour, and this is all part of lulling people into a suppressed state of mental activity.

Your brain kind of shuts down totally, obviously, but it goes into a lower state of activity.

Your intellect, the rational thinking part of your brain is diminished, and your emotions are heightened.

So much of this is completely dependent upon that very thing, emotions, experiences, feelings, not doctrine.

Sound doctrine is absolutely anathema to the Charismatic Movement, and as you said, it is this

Charismatic Movement began, well, it began in 1904, really, 1904, 1905, with the

Azusa revival, quote -unquote revival, and really gained a foothold in the 1950s, and you see the rise of men like Kenneth Hagan or Roberts, William Branham, A .A.

Allen, some of those guys. But then in the 1960s, it spread to the

Roman Catholics. The Charismatic renewal in the Roman Catholic Church began at Duquesne University, which is a

Roman Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It began in 1966, and just a year or so later, in 67, there were two

Roman Catholic priests that claimed to receive the quote -unquote second blessing, and they began to speak in tongues.

And so the Charismatic Movement began in the Protestant Church, loose sense of the term there, spread into the

Roman Catholic Church in the late 1960s, and now you have Charismatic Roman Catholics literally all over the world in over 200 countries.

I was in the Philippines a couple of years ago preaching, and Charismatic Catholicism is huge in the

Philippines and in almost all of the world as well. And so you're seeing the exact same behavior in some

Roman Catholic churches. Now, not a majority of them, not a majority, but there's, I would say, a significant minority of Roman Catholic churches that you would find

Charismatics in there, and they exhibit the exact same kind of behaviors that Protestant Charismatics exhibit.

Speaking in tongues, you see a lot of Roman Catholics who claim to be able to speak in tongues. In some cases, you'll even see some of the jerking and shaking.

You'll see being slain in the spirit. Now, getting into some of the more extreme stuff, like being slain in the spirit and the jerking and shaking, not a lot of Roman Catholic churches would have that, but a few would.

But quite a number of them would have the speaking in tongues. And, of course, you would have far more still individual

Roman Catholic people who do this at home. They may not speak in tongues in their church services or in their mass or something like that, but they do it privately when they go home.

So even though most Roman Catholic churches, if you went to one of their services, you wouldn't see this kind of behavior, not in most of them anyway.

And this is why I think Catholic Charismatics are so dangerous, because the

Catholic Charismatics are getting people to feel emotionally about something, and they're basically putting their brain on the shelf and saying, but I feel good, so it must be right.

And a guy like Matt Marr, who's Roman Catholic, who believes in a works -based salvation, people are turning a blind eye to that and saying, but if his music makes me feel good, or some of the songs can be

Christian and Catholic because they're not defining their terms, then it's okay.

I really see that as dangerous. And I know you'll agree with this statement, because I've stolen it from you basically, reworded it.

But it's not that Islam is not a threat to the church, but something like Charismatic Catholics are, because they seem like they're coming from within.

People who already accept the Charismatic gifts are starting to be swayed over, and some are even leaving

Protestant churches, or like Assemblies of God churches, and returning to Catholicism.

And I see that as a danger, because it brings people under the law. At least if they stayed in an

Assemblies of God church, they have a better chance of hearing the right gospel. So let me ask you this.

You just got done saying that there's no difference whether it's in an Assemblies of God church or a

Catholic church. They're having the same experiences. They're having the same outward expressions.

How could somebody then have the discernment between that one is of God and one is not?

Or would they have to say they're both of God? Yeah, Andrew, that's a great question, because you can't.

I mean, there is no way to distinguish theoretically between— I mean, if Catholic Charismatics are doing the exact same thing that Protestant Charismatics are, then there's a problem, because as you said, the

Roman Catholic Church does not have the right gospel. They have a works gospel.

I would submit to you that they don't even have the right Jesus, because their view of the

Atonement is insufficient, and the Atonement, the value of the Atonement is in direct proportion to the value of the one who atoned.

So they have a diminished view of the Atonement. Therefore, they have a diminished view of Christ. So I would say they don't even have the right

Jesus, and they sure don't have the right gospel. So if they're doing—if lost

Catholics are exhibiting the exact same behavior that Protestant Charismatics are, then there's a problem there.

And, Andrew, I'll take this a step further. Not only are Charismatic Catholics and Charismatic Protestants exhibiting the exact same behavior,

Hindus exhibit the exact same behavior as Charismatics.

You can look at video clips of what is known as Kundalini. Kundalini is kind of a subset, if you will, of Hinduism.

And people in Hindu Kundalini exhibit the exact same behaviors that Charismatics do.

They jerk and they shake. They have uncontrollable laughter. They get slain in the spirit.

They fall over when the guru will touch them under the power of some spirit.

They fall over backwards. They prophesy. They even claim to have physical healings.

And they speak in tongues. And they do it in the exact same way that Charismatics do.

You can take video clips of Hindu Kundalini, put them side -by -side video clips of Charismatics, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, it doesn't matter, and they look exactly alike.

They look exactly alike. So the very fact that rank pagans exhibit the exact same behavior that Charismatics do,

I mean, that tells you a lot right there. The fundamental problem is, you know, I don't doubt that these people are having experiences.

That's not the question. Of course they're having experiences. The question is, is what is the source of these experiences?

Most of it is just peer pressure, group dynamics, mind over body, hyper -emotionalism, that's most of it.

Some of it, some of it, I am absolutely convinced is demonic. And so it's a profoundly dangerous place to be to start interpreting the

Bible about what you experience. Well, tongues must be real because I've experienced this.

Well, people, private prayer language must be from God because I have a private prayer language.

I use it in my private time of worship. Well, no, it's not necessarily from God because Hindus are doing the same thing you're doing.

So we cannot interpret the Bible about what we experience. We've got to interpret our experiences by the

Bible. That's how it must be. You know, I'm going to have to disagree with one thing you said. That's the one word, uncontrollable.

And the reason I say that I disagree with it is there is a video of a guy in Africa where he is on the ground.

He's rolling around, shaking, and the preacher's preaching over him as he's rolling back and forth on the ground.

And his cell phone rings, and the guy immediately stopped, answered his phone, and is yelling at his mother because he's at prayer.

And as soon as he puts that phone back in his pocket, he's rolling on the ground and shaking back and forth.

He can't control it. He can control it. It's absolutely controllable. And that video that they took was the proof.

You look at the videos, and we have on the Striving for Eternity YouTube page, we have a video that someone did.

It's you preaching, and it's a picture of the fake karate guys who, you know, someone charges them, and they just spin out of the way.

The guy falls over just from his spinning motion. The air, you know, his energy just knocks a guy over.

And then it goes from that, and then it shows Benny Hinn basically doing the same thing, just touching people on the forehead, and they just fall over.

And it's amazing. There's always someone right behind him to catch him, like they know it. Yep, that's right.

That's exactly right. And you're right. It is controllable for the vast majority. They claim it's uncontrollable, which is why

I said it's uncontrollable. That's what they claim. But as you said, that's not true because, yeah,

I've not seen that particular video that you're talking about, but I've seen others similar to it. I've experienced it.

I've seen it in person, actually, because I go to a lot of these different kinds of meetings for research, not for edification.

So I've seen it with my own two eyes. So you're absolutely right. I'll have to get the link to that and drop it in the description of the podcast.

You mentioned 1904 with Azusa Street. Before Azusa Street, the only place that we really saw the gift of tongues being discussed was in the

Mormon church, the Church of Latter -day Saints, the cult. And they had the same experiences, the same emotion.

So the question for folks to realize is that, to ask themselves, is the fact that how can we say that this is of God and be discerning?

Because if you're speaking in a tongue, and one of the things I know you and I've talked about this, Justin, most of these people will say they're speaking an angelic language.

They're not speaking some language that's known. Most of the people that speak a, quote -unquote, known human language are always in some foreign country where there's no videotape and no way to confirm it.

Well, if you don't know what you're saying, and the Catholic is saying something, how can you say what they're doing is wrong and what you're doing is right?

That becomes a dilemma. How can we discern that one is right and one is wrong when all we have is the external?

We can't compare what they're saying to the word of God because nobody knows what they're saying.

They say it's a private prayer language. So it can't be compared with scripture. All you could do is compare what they're doing to the instructions given in first Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 and say, does it match that?

But it usually never does because there usually is never an interpreter. They're usually never know what these, these supposed tongues are that they're saying.

And so you, you can't say that ones of God and one's not just based on the person.

And so this is the thing. These people put experience above scripture above rationale, and that's what makes it so hard to talk to people that are trapped in this because they, they are not thinking through it.

They're feeling through it, which is really what we see in our culture nowadays. Our culture has given up thinking rational thought is, you know, it's funny because you and I have now seen you and I are both old enough.

We saw a time when, when people used to try to argue that science was the, the atheists were the groups of science and reason and reason was the, the answer to everything.

And you have to be smart. And now those same people are saying, well, a boy could be a boy if he feels like being a boy and a boy could be a girl.

If he feels like being a girl, like they just decide that they've given up all the science that they said was absolute and necessary for reasoning.

And, and to be really smart, they're giving that up for how they feel. And the same thing is happening in the church.

The one place that it shouldn't, I mean, scripture says, come let us reason together. We shouldn't put our brains on the shelf and go with an experience.

And this is what I see in the charismatic movement. Oh, absolutely. Without Andrew, there's, there's almost a palpable disdain for doctrine and theology in the charismatic movement.

I hear it all the time. And there may be a few people listening. I don't know who would take issue with that.

And I'm not saying a hundred percent of charismatics would have this view, but, but the vast majority of them do.

And I can confidently say that because I've studied this for so long. I've been to charismatic meetings. I've been to charismatic churches.

I've talked to them. They, you know, they, they'll say, oh, the, you know, the, the letter of the law, the letter kills and spirit gives life.

And, and they, they have this, they have this disdain for doctrine and theology. They think it's somehow unspiritual.

Oh, you're going to quench the spirit with doctrine. you know, and which is 180 degrees polar opposite from the truth from biblical truth.

But yeah, for them, everything is feelings and emotions and experiences.

And you and I have talked before, you can't exegete an experience. You can only exegete scripture.

But they, they, they actually encourage people to disengage their minds, put the old noodle in park because your, your intellect is supposedly the enemy of the

Holy spirit. And so you've got to disengage your mind. Well, nothing could be further from the truth.

It is the cults that encourage you to disengage your mind. The, the

Bible does. In fact, I mean, we, we are to, as Paul said to Timothy, study to show yourself approved unto

God. We are to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our minds. Philippians one verse nine is a good little verse to, to read and remember in relation to what we're discussing.

Paul says, Philippians one, nine says in this, I pray that your love would abound still more and more in knowledge and discernment, knowledge and discernment.

And he connects that with love. And yet so many people, not just charismatic, but even many non charismatic evangelicals somehow think that knowledge of God and love for God are separate entities.

And they're not, they're not. Uh, the Bible never separates knowledge of God and love for God.

The Bible always combines these things. And so for people who say that they don't like doctrine, they don't like theology, they just love

Jesus. Well, I would submit to you that they don't love Jesus nearly as much as they profess to love him because it is sound doctrine and right theology that deepens our knowledge of God.

And it's only when our knowledge of God is deepened that our love for God will be deepened.

So, um, these are not separate entities. Uh, they're, they're, they work in conjunction. and, you know, it's so key what you just said, because a lot of people will, when they rely on an experience, they're going to tell you,

I had this experience. What do you say about that? This is the experience I had. And my answer is, as you just said,

I can't exegete your experience. I can't tell you what you had an experience.

What's the source of it? I don't know. Well, if someone is a believer there, can they have an experience?

Yeah, you had an experience. I mean, it's the expected response. And if you have that same response happening in assemblies of God, word of faith, and word of faith is a totally different God rank heresy with a

Catholic church and a false gospel, and they're all having the same experience. It must cause the reasoning person to say, how could we discern?

And if, if this experience is the same and there's no way to test it other than to say, well, this person is a believer.

Therefore, it's true. And this one's not a believer. Therefore, it's not true. You can't do that. If the experience and the claims are identical, where I see it being a real danger to Christianity, as I said earlier, is the fact that this is an attack from within.

This is a desire to take people from possibly good churches, or at least churches that have a right gospel and pull them out into a false gospel and, and basically get them ingrained in that because of their emotional experience, they're putting more faith in their experience than in their reasoning.

And here's the real fear of this. And we'll close out with this on this. And that is the real fear.

And the big problem is that many of these people, they believe that they are going to heaven.

They think that their experience is what they're trusting in, and they're going to hear these very words.

Let me read from you from what God's word says in Matthew 7, 21 to 23. Jesus said, not everyone who says to me,

Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven on that day, many will say to me,

Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. My fear is that many of these people who are trusting in their experience are going to hear those words from the lips of Jesus Christ.

They're going to stand before him and praise their experience and the works they did. And he,

Jesus Christ, the judge of all mankind is going to say, I never knew you. You have someone that hates

God and goes to hell. They never wanted to be with God, but the person who thinks they're going to heaven is the hardest person to reach.

And, and these Catholic charismatics are trapped in a, in a feeling based system.

And because of that, they're trusting their experience over God's word. And they are going to hear those words spoken of them.

And that's why we, we bring this up so that people are aware that this is a real issue that is happening in the charismatic

Catholic movement. There's pulling people even out of more Protestant churches into a false gospel.

And that's the real concern. The concern isn't, uh, you know, whether Justin or I have our theologies better than a charismatics, that's not the issue.

The issue is that there is a slippery slope. That we see into emotionalism that takes people from a path that could lead them to the right road to being tied in and locked in, uh, to an experience based system that keeps them going to hell.

And we want them to know the truth that they could be set free and come to know Christ and have forgiveness of sins and understand what repentance is and have got the righteousness of God.

And as long as they're trusting their experience, they're never going to have that. And so, Justin, I want to thank you for coming.

Any last words you want to share? um, I just want to, I just want to thank you for this opportunity,

Andrew. I think it's been a great conversation, a needed one, uh, something that I want more people to be aware of.

and if you have a friend or family member who's in either word of faith or Roman Catholicism or whatever other cult it may be, love them enough to tell them the truth.

I tell people all the time, it's not up to us how the truth is received, but it is up to us to communicate it.

And if we love our friends and family members enough, we, we, if we truly love them, we should love them enough to tell them the truth.

You, you do the right thing. You obey God's word, you tell them the truth, and then you leave the results up to God.

It's out of our hands. Once we do that, we leave the results up to God. So, um, but Andrew, I appreciate you so much, brother.

I'm honored to call you my friend and, uh, grateful to have you as my brother in the Lord. So, uh, fully support you and, and the important work that you're doing, striving for eternity is a great, great ministry.

So I point people to you all the time. So thank you for this opportunity, brother. And when you go to justinpeters .org,

the most important thing you could do when you get there and you get on the page, you go see the homepage and the about and all of that.

But what I want you to do is click the button on the left side that says, donate, go there and make sure that you are donating regularly to the ministry of Justin Peters ministries.

Justin goes all over the world for folks who don't know you, Justin, you have cerebral palsy.

It's not always easy for you to travel to get around and you go, uh, even to other countries where it's not as easy for handicap accessibility.

And I've, I have never in my life heard you ever complain about anything.

And this is the kind of man folks that Justin is. And that's why I I'm telling you to go and support him, uh, get his book, but check out his ministry, check out what he's doing.

I want you to check out. If you don't know anything about Justin Peters, please go to, go to Justin Peters ministries. And I, you know, the, the clouds without waters is a must see for anybody.

And, uh, Justin, I just want to thank you again. I love you, brother. You're, you're, uh, just, you're one of my heroes.

And I know you hate when I say that, but, uh, that's why you are one of my heroes because you're too humble to accept it.

But, uh, you're a great brother in the Lord. So thanks brother. Andrew. Thank you, brother.

Thank you. The feeling is very much mutual. So God bless you, brother. Thank you for what you're doing. Well, I hope that you will go to Patreon to support us to get to hear the rest of that interview.

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