August 16, 2019 Show with Phil Johnson on “Apostasy: Recent Cases Examined”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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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.

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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.

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

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 16th day of August 2019.

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And I am always thrilled to have back as a returning guest someone who has actually been interviewed on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio more than any other guest.

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His name is Phil Johnson, and he's the Executive Director of the Media Ministry of Dr.

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John MacArthur's Media Ministry. Grace to you. And today, he's going to be addressing apostasy, recent cases examined.

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And we're also going to be announcing the 2020 G3 Conference coming up, which actually features

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Dr. John MacArthur and my guest, Phil Johnson, on the roster. Well, it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Phil Johnson.

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Chris, thanks. Thanks for having me. It's my pleasure, Phil. Always my pleasure. And for our listeners, you never know.

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We do sometimes have new listeners who are new Christians. They're not familiar with Grace to You.

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We even have listeners that are not Christian at all. We have sometimes Jewish listeners.

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We have Muslim listeners. We have sometimes atheist listening, Roman Catholics listening, and so on.

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So why don't you tell our listeners about Grace to You. Grace to You, like you said, is the media ministry of John MacArthur.

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We are celebrating our 50th anniversary. Actually, we date the beginning of Grace to You back to a time when nobody even knew anything about Grace to You.

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But it was John MacArthur's first Sunday as pastor at Grace Community Church, 1969.

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He started in February of 1969, so he's been pastor of Grace for more than 50 years now, which is very rare, as you know, in the contemporary evangelical movement for any church to keep a pastor longer than eight years, much less for 50 years.

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He's preached through the entire New Testament. The reason we at Grace to You consider that the date of our beginning is they taped that very first sermon and have taped, or at least recorded— we don't do tape anymore, but digitally record— every sermon that John has ever preached at Grace Community Church.

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So we've got a catalog of more than 3 ,500 of those. We make a radio broadcast and distribute books and use any kind of mass media that we can to get the teaching out to the world.

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And the Lord's blessed the ministry. I've been with them for 37 years, and it's just a joy to be here.

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Wow. I am so looking forward to seeing

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Dr. MacArthur for the very first time in person at the G3 Conference coming up. I've interviewed

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Dr. MacArthur in the past on the old Iron Sharpens Iron radio show when we were broadcasting from WNYG and WGBB in West Babylon, Long Island, New York, but I have never been in the same building when he has preached.

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And I am so excited about this. This was kind of a later development, it seemed, that he was added to the lineup, or at least that he accepted the invitation to be added.

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So this makes it even more exciting for me, especially. It's rare these days for him to travel and speak at conferences.

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He's tried to curtail that, and he keeps saying, no more. He celebrated his 80th birthday this year.

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Wow. And so he has had years and years of travel, and he's not fond of it anymore.

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So he declines most invitations to speak at remote places, but G3 is a terrific conference.

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I mean, you've been there at least three years in a row, right? Yeah, this will be my fourth. Yeah, it's just a great conference.

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And so a lot of us encouraged him to say yes to this. You really need to be there.

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And so finally, much persuasion worked. Well, now you've got to persuade him to walk over to my exhibitor's booth so I can interview him on site.

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Well, I'll do my best. I'll do my best. But the one thing he avoids more than conferences is radio interviews.

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And I have noticed that. It's been quite a long time.

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It's been over a decade, I think, since he's been on the show.

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But, well, I will just have to pray about that, and hopefully that will come to be. I hope I at least get to shake his hand or something.

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But I'm looking forward to at least being in the room when he's preaching. And for anybody who would like to join

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Phil and I at the G3 Conference, it's from Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, 2020.

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Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com to register. And as I keep repeating, if you have a business or a parachurch ministry or a radio program like I do,

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Iron Trip and Zion Radio, I would strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth because every year

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G3 draws over 5 ,000 people. I've got a gut feeling that with John MacArthur there, they're going to draw over 6 ,000 people.

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I just have a gut feeling about it. We'll see. I know the conference has been growing every year, and the first year

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I went, two or three years ago, it was pretty huge. I mean, they use the

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Georgia Convention Center, and it always seems full and overflowing to me.

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So I don't know how they're going to fit more people in there, but I do think they're probably going to have their biggest audience ever.

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I mean, the line -up of speakers is absolutely amazing. We've got Votie Baucom, Paul Washer, James White will be there,

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Derek Thomas, Kosti Hinn, Joel Beakey. I can't even think of them all off the top of my head.

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I was thrilled that Josh Bice took me up on my suggestion and invited Kosti Hinn to speak.

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When I first brought Kosti to the attention of Josh, he didn't know who Kosti was, and I had assured him that he had become a

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Reformed Baptist and a cessationist and really found— He's a very interesting man.

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I love him, and his writing is superb, and his insights are terrific because he's been on both sides of the

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Charismatic Divide. And, of course, he's closely related to Benny Hinn and worked in his ministry, so he knows the inside, and yet he's devoted to biblical truth and fearless in what he says and where he's willing to speak.

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So he's a great addition to the line -up. And the theme this

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January is Worship Matters. And I am just really excited to hear what every one of those speakers there has to say on this subject.

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And we'll be listing most of those speakers later on. We'll be heavily promoting the G3 Conference throughout the show, as we always do every day.

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So if you didn't grab a pen before or use your keypad on your computer to write down the information or type down the information, be ready the next time.

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Today we are discussing a subject that gives me no joy to discuss, but it's an important subject.

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It's apostasy, recent cases examined. And if you could, right off the top of the bat, define apostasy.

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Apostasy, as I would use the word, entails abandoning the faith. An apostate isn't someone who just adopts bad doctrine, usually.

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It's someone who abandons Christianity altogether or some of the core principles of the

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Gospel or whatever. In the cases that we're talking about, and really what I want to talk about, are people who seem to be genuine believers for a time and then turn completely against Christianity and in some cases become apologists for atheism or aggressive evangelists for secular humanism and anti -Christian in what they do.

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In many cases, they're more eager to evangelize people to their apostate views than they ever were when they professed to be

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Christians. But it's a remarkable phenomenon that goes back all the way to Judas. Now, you said that you typically use the term exclusively for those who become openly either enemies of the faith or just abandon the faith.

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But isn't it rightly used if someone, let's say, as it has happened on a number of occasions, more than we care to count, where a theologically reformed or Calvinistic minister becomes a

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Roman Catholic? Isn't that inappropriate? Yeah, because one of the things I said was if they abandon their core principles of the

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Gospel, someone who's been reformed and understands the principle of sola fide and sola scriptura, those are the two pillars of the

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Protestant Reformation. Sola fide, meaning faith alone, is the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone.

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Faith is the only instrument of justification. Justification doesn't require baptism or any human works.

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Sola scriptura means that it means Scripture alone. It's Latin for Scripture alone.

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And what it means is it's an affirmation of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture that ultimately the final test for every truth claim is

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Scripture. It's the highest of all authorities. And if you were reformed and understood those principles, but now you've embraced

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Roman Catholicism, you've renounced those core principles. You don't believe in justification by faith alone anymore, and you don't believe that Scripture is the sole authority for the

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Church or the final test for every truth claim. So, yeah, I would consider someone who truly understood

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Reformed theology and then became a Roman Catholic an apostate. An apostate is always a heretic, but a heretic is not always an apostate, because you may have been born and raised in a cult or a false church and have maintained a belief in a false religion, but that wouldn't make you apostate.

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Yeah, not necessarily. And the other thing that probably we ought to clarify is falling into sin doesn't necessarily make you an apostate either.

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It is possible for a believer to become entrapped in sin and even continue in sin for a while.

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That doesn't necessarily mean he's apostate, even while he's unrepentant. It does mean, though, that he needs to repent, and his failure to repent ultimately would lead you to the point where Jesus Himself said in Matthew 18, he needs to come unto you as a tax collector or an apostate, basically an unbeliever.

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Yeah, and you would have had to have had a profession of belief in orthodoxy and biblical truth at one time in order to be categorized as an apostate.

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Right, yeah. And by the way, it's a two -way street. Unless there are people listening, either those that are ecumenically minded or they are

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Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or something else who might say, these guys are mean. They're saying that if somebody becomes a

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Catholic who used to be a historically and biblically faithful Protestant who becomes a

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Roman Catholic, they're saying that person is an apostate. Well, just to let you know, folks, the more learned

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Roman Catholics, those that truly know the history and dogmas of Rome, they would categorize me as an apostate because I was born and raised in the

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Roman Catholic Church, was an altar boy, went to Catholic school for eight years, and later in my early to mid -twenties became a

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Bible -believing Christian and Calvinist and Reformed Baptist. Yeah, Chris, not only that, but official

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Roman Catholic dogma pronounces anathema on anyone who believes in justification by faith alone,

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Protestant doctrine. And we should clarify, it doesn't mean we hate each other. It just means that both sides recognize that these are two different varieties of Christianity, and they can't both be truly

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Christian. I know there's a lot of people who want to say that, but official Catholic dogma anathematizes anyone who's not a

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Roman Catholic, and particularly Protestants. It's amazing that you'll have Roman Catholics who just, out of ignorance now,

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I'm not saying that they're ignorant people, they can be very, very intelligent people, but they seem to be ignorant about what their church teaches about dogma.

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They seem to believe that the Council of Trent is just an antiquated relic that belongs on the dust heap of history because it's not really something that is practiced and believed by Rome today, and you have the most liberal of all popes in the seat of Peter, at least in their minds, he is.

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So they would say, what do you keep bringing Trent up for? That was in the 16th century.

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Well, because it's never been overturned. In fact, Francis has not even overturned it, even as liberal as he is.

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Yeah, not only has it not been overturned, all of the key and some of the most offensive rulings of the

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Council of Trent were repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is sort of the latest compilation of official

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Catholic dogma. You could buy it in paperback form. It was published, I guess, about 15 years ago, but it still stands as the official

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Catechism of the Catholic Church, and it includes verbatim those anathemas that I was talking about.

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But it's very schizophrenic, though, because it also said that the Muslims adore the one true

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God, as they do, and they hold open hope for salvation for those who remain in Judaism and Hinduism, and of course they recognize us as separated brethren.

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None of those things were in existence during the Council of Trent. In fact, you may be risking execution if you believed those things back then.

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Yep. And so I had Robert St. Genes on this program before, who is a

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Roman Catholic, and he is more of a right -leaning Roman Catholic, and he said that as a

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Roman Catholic he is only bound to believe in the dogma of Rome and those things that are included in the

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Catholic Catechism, although it may be viewed as an official rulebook of the

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Catholic Church. There are things in there, he said, that are novel and modern inventions that are not dogma, that are mixed in with the dogma.

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Well, let's just say there are things in there that are inconvenient for Roman Catholic apologists. Anyway, what's really motivated us to take up this subject is that there have been a couple of, just in the past two weeks, a couple of high -profile

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Evangelical celebrities who have announced that they are either in process or are no longer

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Christians at all. Now, how do you be in the process of not becoming a Christian anymore?

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Well, yeah, what he says is he's losing his faith. And he's speaking of Joshua Harris?

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No, I'm talking about Marty Samson. He is a songwriter with Hillsong, and I would say he's apostate.

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It seemed to me that his original statement was a renunciation of Christianity. He was saying,

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I don't believe that anymore. But I think he got a lot of flack for it, so he took down the post that included that statement and said, basically, no,

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I'm in process, I'm losing my faith. But he says, the crazy thing is, it doesn't bother me that I'm losing my faith.

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Wow. So he is someone who, I think those who knew him and loved him, same thing with Joshua Harris, would not have suspected that they would abandon the faith.

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And I see that as a common characteristic of high -profile apostates.

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It's not the people in the Church who frequently cause problems, ask difficult questions, misbehave, and all that, that trouble us.

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It's the ones who, they're nice people, likable people, seemingly knowledgeable, and give every appearance of being devoted Christians, and then suddenly they abandon the faith.

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And I've been a Christian now for probably 45 years or so, and over those years

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I've known six or seven people personally, personal friends of mine, who abandoned the faith.

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And it's always the same set of characteristics. I didn't see it coming.

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Yeah, I have some friends that also abandoned the faith over the years, either by converting to a false gospel, or by just giving up altogether on Christianity and turning their backs on it and saying that it's not true, etc.

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Now, as far as today, who we are going to be, at least to some degree, putting more of a magnifying glass over their stories, do you want to start with Joshua Harris, or do you want to start with the other gentleman from Hillsong that you just mentioned?

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Actually, I think I'd rather just talk about the common characteristics of apostasy, because I think it applies to both of these guys, and I don't want to necessarily single them out and make a bunch of comments that people might get upset about.

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But just to say that this is not a new phenomenon, it's suddenly two cases, high -profile, and I think it was our mutual friend

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James White who said, prepare yourself for a tsunami of this, that there's probably going to be a wave of high -profile people announcing their apostasy, because in a way, this seems like the new sort of virtue signaling.

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You know, this is how you signal to the whole world that you've moved past some archaic and politically incorrect belief, and now you're truly and sincerely woke.

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I find it interesting that a recent apostate said that he no longer believes he is a

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Christian, no longer believes in Christianity, and apologizes to the LGBTQ community for not permitting them their rightful place in the church.

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Now, that seems to be quite oxymoronic. If you're renouncing a Christian faith, what rightful place does anybody have in the

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Christian church? Yeah. But you hear the echo of secular humanism in that, and popular opinion.

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He's responding, I think, to popular opinion and a number of people around him who think his views are archaic and he's just tired of taking the flak for it or something.

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I don't know. I don't know what motivates people like this. I do know that in every case that I've ever known where someone apostatized, it usually comes to light at some later point that there was some secret sin that he just grew tired of trying to cover up.

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There's almost a nobility in their minds and in the minds of some of the people who hear their testimonies of abandoning the faith.

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It's almost cloaked, and perhaps not even almost, maybe it's clearly and visibly and definitely cloaked in some kind of nobility, like,

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I am going to be honest now. Yeah, both of these recent cases pretty much introduced their abandonment of the faith in that very way.

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I've always been a real person. I've always wanted to be transparent and honest, and so I'm just going to be boldly honest here, and then they'll renounce

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Christ. Well, let's go through some of the main signs, either that somebody is heading for apostasy or has already jumped over that fence.

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Yeah, one of the points I would make is that you don't always see the signs. Of all of the people that I've ever been close to who abandon the faith, usually they sort of drop out of sight for a while, you lose touch with them, and then they come back and announce that they've abandoned the faith.

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All of the apostates who I had relationships with before their apostasy, in each case the news of their apostasy came to me as a shock and a disappointment, and it wasn't preceded by any plea for help or questions from them, but after the fact and after they'd apostatized, every one of them described that they all went through this long struggle, and nobody could answer my questions, and nobody in the church had answers to these questions, but knowing people personally who've done this, none of them ever asked me any of the questions that they later said were deeply troubling to them.

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In fact, it was as if they were avoiding me for a while. By the way,

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I want to give our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own.

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It is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

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and please give us, as always, your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and I can readily see a topic like this being connected to personal and private questions.

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You might be considering yourself on the way out of the church, or maybe you've already become an apostate and haven't told anybody yet, or whatever the case may be that makes this a personal and private matter.

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It may be a personal friend. It may be a family member that is an apostate, and you don't want to draw attention to your identity.

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We understand that, so feel free to remain anonymous, but if you're just asking a basic theological question on this issue, please at least give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and we already have a question that has come in where there is no city and state or country of residence, so please include that in your question if indeed you're not remaining anonymous.

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You said, just like I have experienced with friends, they tend to typically disappear for a while, and then they re -emerge as confessing that they have abandoned their once -cherished faith.

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There have been, though, on other occasions, in my experience with others, telltale signs like, all of a sudden in conversation,

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I've been taken aback by people defending Roman Catholicism, for instance, where they never did before.

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Yeah, that happens occasionally, too, or they'll join a forum on the

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Internet where they either raise questions or challenge ideas for a while where they still pretend to be a believer, but, you know,

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I'm thinking about these things and so on. They're not really seeking answers, though. What they're doing is, you know, giving vent to their doubts.

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So, you know, in fact, this goes back to when I was in college and went to Moody Bible Institute, so it's a training school for Christian workers, basically.

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There were a couple of twin brothers who were the president of our class, president of the student body.

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They were twins, very intelligent guys, very likable guys. And within a year after graduation, both of them announced to me that they'd become atheists.

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I hadn't seen them for a year, and when they resurfaced, said they were atheists. Another guy in that same class in Moody who graduated with me was

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Bart Ehrman. Wow. Bart Ehrman is an interesting case in the pattern that you see sometimes with apostates.

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If you read his testimony or listen to how he says he came to his current level of skepticism, he claims, you know, he went to Moody and nobody could answer his questions.

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Now, I sat in classrooms with Bart Ehrman. I don't remember him asking any questions, but he was raised in a...

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Seriously, he was a very quiet student, very intelligent, and, you know, not a rebellious person, not a troublemaker in any way.

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I had a high opinion of him, but he wasn't a question asker. I was, because I was a new

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Christian. Bart had been raised, I think, in an evangelical family, at least that was my impression. And was at Moody, like a lot of students, listening in class to stuff that maybe seemed familiar to them, but as a person who'd come out of a liberal background and only become a

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Christian a year and a half before I went to Moody, I had lots of questions about how do we defend the inerrancy of Scripture and all that sort of thing.

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And I asked those questions in class, and I don't remember ever raising a question that I didn't ultimately get a satisfying answer to.

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So my experience at Moody was the polar opposite of Bart Ehrman's. And when I read his testimony,

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I think either he totally has a misconception of how he behaved in class and how he went through school, or he's just lying.

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Yeah, I recall the same reasons that Scott Hahn and Jerry Manatek and other former

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Reformed Christians, Presbyterians, gave when they left and became

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Roman Catholic. Nobody could answer our questions. They were very specific. They picked out

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John Gerstner and claimed that they rode in a car with him and asked him questions, and he had no answers for them. It was mainly on sola scriptura,

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I believe. Yeah, and I didn't know John Gerstner that well, but I had a few conversations with him, and I can tell you, there is no way

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John Gerstner was stymied by their questions. He was actually a modern -day hero of mine, especially as a young Christian.

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I had heard him, John Gerstner, that is, heard him preach at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology and heard him at a conference on Jonathan Edwards and so forth, but yeah,

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I could not imagine him just sitting there in silence saying, yeah, you stumped me. Yeah. But that seems to be another common thread, not that it's the case with everybody who leaves the faith, whether it becomes an agnostic, an atheist, or a member of a false church, is that they blame

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Christians for not doing a good enough job. I have heard that over and over again. There is even an old saying that might have been

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Mahatma Gandhi, but I'd become a Christian if I ever met one, that kind of a thing, where you're blaming the failures of the church and the church leaders and of pastors and of general run -of -the -mill

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Christians. That's really your fault that I'm leaving. I mean, do you see that a lot? Oh, sure.

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That's almost universal, what you'll hear. As if anyone expects

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Christians to be perfect. That's the whole thing about worshiping Christ. He is perfect. He was sinless.

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He was God in human flesh. Of course none of us are like him. Yes, we're flawed people.

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That's the starting point of the gospel. You know, Paul writes in Romans, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

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It's the power of God for salvation. You think, okay, gospel, that means good news. Here comes a bunch of good news.

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But then he spends two and a half chapters telling us how sinful we are, and he says it doesn't matter if you're a

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Jewish, Gentile, or a religious moralist. He convicts everybody as thoroughly sinful.

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There's none righteous. No, not one, he says. So that's really the starting point of Christian belief, that we don't believe we are sinless.

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You see the bumper sticker, you know, Christians aren't perfect, they're just forgiven. I think that understates it.

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You know, we are depraved people who are forgiven for our sins and struggle for a lifetime to mortify those sinful tendencies.

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But anyone who truly understands Christianity is not going to have the expectation that everybody in the church is, that the church is going to be a place of perfect fellowship and zero conflicts.

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You don't even see that in the Bible. Read 1 Corinthians, for example, where Paul is dealing with a church that was shot through with all kinds of problems, and most of them involved interpersonal conflicts between the

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Corinthians themselves. Fellow believers, brothers and sisters in Christ, but they had difficulty getting along.

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And that is the common experience of all humanity. So it's a cheap and easy cop -out, really.

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I find at least half of the time, and you know, obviously I'm estimating there, but it seems like about half of the time, what typically comes to light after the fact is that the doubts that cause this person to apostatize in the first place are related to some internal moral struggle that he's fighting.

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Either he's trying to suppress some kind of perverted sexual urge or he's been living the life of a hypocrite and he's tired of faking it.

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Who knows what he's trying to please. In a lot of younger people's case, I think they grow up trying to please their parents, and then when they get a taste of freedom and realize what that's like, they just want to throw off everything.

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So there are a lot of reasons why people apostatize, but at the heart of it all is they never were truly believers to begin with, and Scripture's emphatic about that.

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1 John 2 .19, John is talking about people who have abandoned the faith, and he had clearly some experience with that, starting with Judas.

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Remember when Jesus said at the Last Supper, one of you is going to betray me, every one of the eleven faithful disciples doubted themselves more than they doubted

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Judas. Nobody looked at Judas and said, well, but it's him. But they all said, is it

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I? Is it going to be me? And Judas was the one, and nobody suspected him. In fact, they trusted him so much they'd made him their treasurer, and he was the one who apostatized.

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And John must have had a lifetime of experience with this, isolated cases here and there throughout his life, because towards the end of his life he wrote in his first epistle about these people who abandoned the faith.

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He said, they went out from us, but they were not of us. I was just going to say,

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I want you to pick up on that when we return from our first break, we have to go to that. And before I forget,

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I have said on occasion to people who either reject the faith altogether to begin with, and never joined a church or made any profession of Christianity, or people who have apostatized, when they blame major figures, when they blame their own pastors, when they blame their

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Christian friends, I always say, well, no one could ever blame

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Jesus for Judas. And that's exactly when you pick out a scandalous figure from the church who turned out to be a fraud, for instance.

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You're blaming Judas, or should I say, you're blaming Jesus for Judas. You're abandoning

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Christ because of what someone who turned out to be a counterfeit did, or does.

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And there's no even logic to that. But we're going to be picking up where you left off about, those who left us were never truly among us.

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When we return, this is our first break, and if anybody else has any questions, please send them in to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

34:32

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

34:37

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away. We'll be right back with Phil Johnson on apostasy, right after these messages.

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Got to tell you, for my money, Chris Arnson's radio program is just the best.

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Iron. Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

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This is Todd Friel of Wretched Radio and TV, with Phil Johnson of Grace To You, inviting everybody to come to the

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It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnson was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

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It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place.

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We are now back with our guest Phil Johnson, Executive Director of John McArthur's Media Ministry.

42:24

Grace to you. And we are discussing apostasy and you were mentioning before the break that those that leave the faith never were really a part of the faith.

42:38

Phil, are you there? Yes, sorry. A little gap there. Yeah, no. In fact that is one of the things,

42:45

Chris, I think that confuses people most about apostasy because as I said earlier, it is often and maybe

42:52

I should say usually the people you least suspect might be struggling behind the scenes or grappling with some sin or whatever.

43:02

Often they're the ones who apostatize and you don't see it coming and you think back on it how could that guy, how could he possibly have been an unbeliever and yet Scripture is very clear.

43:14

John says they went out from among us but they were not of us for if they had been of us, in other words, if they had been really in the body, true believers in Christ, they would have continued with us.

43:25

One of the marks, if not the distinguishing mark of genuine saving faith is its endurance.

43:33

We endure to the end if you're truly saved because God is the one who keeps us in the faith.

43:40

But John says they went out so that it might be made plain that they are not all of us. In other words, God providentially orchestrates the exposure of non -believers who in cases have infiltrated the church or snuck in unawares or maybe they don't even have sinister motives they just have self -deceived hearts in order to make it clear the

44:02

Lord drives them out of the church or exposes their apostasy. Let me tell you about one case that I dealt with like this.

44:09

A man named Ken Pulley, and I can name him because you'll find out when I hear his story. Ken Pulley graduated with a

44:16

PhD from Bob Jones University taught theology in a very conservative I guess you could say fundamentalist theological institution.

44:28

And I met him in the 1990s. He flew out to California to meet because he wanted to discuss some of the problems in militant fundamentalism and particularly the way the doctrine of separation was being applied and all of that.

44:43

He was a nice man, knowledgeable man, understood the scriptures, could quote all sorts of scripture, taught theology.

44:50

And I would say his theological instincts seemed fairly solid to me.

44:56

He didn't ask any troubling questions about any sort of controversial doctrines or anything like that.

45:04

He just wanted to discuss how can we get past the rather extreme militancy that was ripping his branch of the fundamentalist movement apart.

45:16

And since I'd written on abuses of the doctrine of separation, he wanted to discuss some of these things with me.

45:22

It was a friendly discussion. I liked him. He was a gentleman and nothing about him raised any red flags with me.

45:31

And we corresponded I guess for the better part of a year. And then I had to go to India for the summer.

45:37

I was gone for more than a month. When I came back, I never heard from him again for a long, long time.

45:45

His email address had changed. It wasn't necessary for me to try to track him down, so I didn't.

45:51

I just figured he'd moved somewhere and was engaged in some other ministry somewhere else. Then more than a decade later, he surfaced on the

46:00

Internet as part of one of these groups that is angry and militantly anti -Christian, doing evangelistic work for atheism, trying to convert people to atheism.

46:14

And he was a whole different kind of personality now. He was kind of sarcastic and mean -spirited and not entirely honest, because as he told his story, he said he had struggled with the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the idea that Christ could shed his blood to pay for someone else's sin.

46:36

It just didn't seem just to him. He couldn't explain the justice of it, and he said no one he knew could explain it to him, and he'd struggled with it for years.

46:44

Well, I corresponded with him for about a year. I still have all that correspondence. He never once raised that issue with me.

46:51

So he clearly wasn't really seeking answers. I don't know what it was that caused him to apostatize, but he came out as just a very vocal and angry apologist for atheism and showed up a decade or so later on my web, and again, we had some exchange of correspondence where obviously we disagreed, but it was cordial, and I still, my heart grieved for the idea that he had abandoned

47:19

Christ, and I wondered the things you always wonder. How did this affect his family? How did it affect all the relationships he ever had?

47:27

What had this done to his life? And it was obvious that it put a lot of stress on him, and about a year and a half after he resurfaced,

47:35

I heard that he had died suddenly with a heart attack. Wow. One of the saddest stories

47:40

I've ever encountered. I wrote about it at the time, and those who want to read in depth,

47:46

I gave some, this was more than a decade ago, some observations on apostasy that are still on my website.

47:57

Do a search. As I recall, the title of the article was Stone Cold Liar. It was actually about another guy who had apostatized, who

48:06

I didn't know, but this guy had hung around, this other guy had hung around my blog for about a year sort of making all sorts of critical comments about anything that smacked of Orthodox theology, and I assumed from the start this guy was an unbeliever.

48:23

And again, he disappeared for several months, and then resurfaced announcing that he had embraced atheism, and he'd abandoned the faith, and so on.

48:31

So I was writing about it, and while I was writing this article titled

48:37

Stone Cold Liar, that's the only way I know how to tell you how to find it. That was the title. So if you do a Google search for Stone Cold Liar and my name, it'll show up.

48:46

And in the comments section on that blog, my friend Ken Pulliam resurfaced.

48:51

It was the first time I'd heard from him in more than a decade. And it just broke my heart that he was had abandoned the faith, because I had a great deal of respect for him.

49:02

And then a few days later, a few days after that, I wrote another follow -up article where I expressed some of my thoughts about Ken and some of the common characteristics of people who

49:13

I had known who had abandoned the faith. You can find both of those articles online.

49:18

I think the second one, I can't remember what it was titled. I'll quickly do a search while we're talking.

49:25

I had a similar experience, not that resulted in death yet, anyway.

49:32

But a friend who was a member of my brother's, my older brother's rhythm and blues band in the 60s and 70s and probably early 80s.

49:47

He had a very worldly life of drug abuse and sexual promiscuity and all that.

49:57

And then became a professing believer and for a while was a member of a mildly

50:07

Pentecostal congregation. And then became a rabid

50:14

King James Only fundamentalist and supporter of the

50:22

I had his name in my head just a second ago who was the very well -known King James Only pastor in Pensacola, Florida, Ruckman, Peter Ruckman.

50:32

He became a huge advocate of Peter Ruckman, was giving away dozens and dozens and dozens of his cassette tapes.

50:42

And one of the odd things about that is that Peter Ruckman was well -known for being a racist, and he would say things from his pulpit and write things that were clearly racist.

50:54

And this person happened to be a very dark -skinned Hispanic person, which puzzles me.

51:01

The next time I saw him, after I heard that he had been a Ruckmanite for several years,

51:07

I'm in a shopping mall on Long Island, sitting there with a pastor friend, and I see him walking by, eating something, and he recognized me, came over and sat down, and he had denounced that he was an atheist.

51:21

And he was mocking my friend and I, my pastor friend and I, saying that we base our whole life and our future on a book.

51:33

And I said to him, well, what do you base your atheism on? How on earth did you go from being a fundamentalist to an atheist?

51:41

He said, oh, I've read so many books. I said, what? You're mocking us for basing our life on a book, according to your claim, but it's a book that has been tested by millennia as a true and faithful book, whereas you are basing your eternal destiny on books that won't even be remembered in ten years.

52:04

Yeah, that's a common... That, I would say, is another common characteristic of the apostates

52:11

I have known. Some of them are younger guys who experience cataclysmic worldview shifts about every two or three years.

52:22

In fact, I think you and I have a mutual friend who sort of fits that category. He has revamped his whole theology.

52:30

He did it, you know, every three or four years for a couple of decades, and finally landed in a kind of ecumenical stance where he has abandoned

52:40

Sola Fide and the Gospel, and seems to be more at home among Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox than he does with evangelical

52:49

Bible -believing Christians. I have a question for you from David in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

52:58

I'm going to read the question, and then we have to go to the midway break, which is the longer the normal break, because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

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FM in Lake City, Florida requires this longer break in the middle because they have to, by FCC regulations, localize

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Iron Trippin's Iron Radio to Lake City, Florida, and they air their own public service announcements and commercials and so on, while we air our globally heard commercials.

53:22

So, I'll have you answer David's question when we return from that break. David from Albuquerque, New Mexico asks,

53:31

Josh Chavez, protege of Jacob Prosh, or I may be mispronouncing that, was attending my

53:38

Bible study until we confronted him. How should we look at these teachers?

53:44

Apostates? And I'll have you answer that when we come back. Alright, thanks. And if anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

53:53

Please, as always, give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves personal and private matter.

54:01

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Phil Johnson, right after these messages. Back together again, yeah.

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Back together again, yeah. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and my friend

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Chris Arnson and I are excited to be attending another G3 conference together in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, on a theme that is vitally important to all of us,

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John MacArthur. A fascinating new addition to the roster is Kosti Hinn, nephew of the notorious false teacher,

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Come join me and Chris Arnson at G3 2020, January 16th through the 18th in Atlanta by registering at g3conference .com

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That's g3conference .com See you there! Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine

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they're open 10 a .m. to 4 .30 p .m. Eastern Time, this coming Monday, call 800 -656 -0231, 800 -656 -0231, and just ask them on the phone for either or both

01:07:07

What is Love? and also A Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cohn, depending upon how much you want to spend, and you have to mention

01:07:17

Chris Arns and Avariantrip and Iron Radio if you're on the phone with them, obviously. Before we return to Phil Johnson, just have a few upcoming special events that we've got to announce.

01:07:29

First of all, in September, my friend Bruce Bennett is going to be debating a

01:07:37

Roman Catholic apologist. It's September 7th, 6 .30 p .m., and the theme is,

01:07:44

Is the Office of Pope Biblical? The Roman Catholic apologist is Matthew Luke Broderick, and this is going to be held at the

01:07:52

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. That's the church that Pastor Bruce Bennett is the pastor of, and he is defending the

01:08:01

Protestant position that there is no office of Pope in the Bible. If you want more details on this, go to WOTChurch .com.

01:08:10

That stands for Word of Truth, by the way, W -O -T, Word of Truth, W -O -T -Church .com,

01:08:17

or call 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614, at Saturday, September 7th, 6 .30

01:08:28

p .m. at the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. Then this December, during the

01:08:35

Christmas season, I'm packing up my bags and heading back to New York City, my old stomping grounds, to go to the

01:08:41

Foundations Conference, a conference hosted and orchestrated by SermonAudio .com.

01:08:47

What better place in the world to be during the Christmas season than in Manhattan? It's Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th.

01:08:55

That's the dates of the conference. It's only for men in ministry leadership. They can only handle less than 200 people in this venue, so they have restricted the attendance to men in ministry leadership.

01:09:08

If you fit that category, we hope to see you there. Dr. Stephen J. Lawson is on the lineup,

01:09:14

Paul Washer, Rev. Jeff Thomas, Rev. Armin Tomasian, who I am certain is going to be a household name over the next decade amongst

01:09:22

Reformed Christians. He's a young pastor, but he has a power and gifts and wisdom and biblical knowledge that surpasses his youth.

01:09:32

I just always love hearing him preach. I feel like I'm listening to a Puritan from centuries ago preaching.

01:09:39

Richard Colwell Jr. and Andrew Quigley are on the lineup as well. I've never heard those two brothers, but since Sermon Audio selected them,

01:09:46

I am sure they must be excellent. So if you want to join me Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in New York City at the

01:09:52

Foundations Conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com.

01:09:58

Then the conference that Phil and I were already discussing during this interview, the

01:10:05

G3 Conference is being held Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta at the

01:10:15

Georgia International Convention Center. I am going to be manning an exhibitor's booth there, so if you do register,

01:10:21

I hope you look for me at my Iron Trip and Zion Radio exhibitor's booth. They always have a phenomenal lineup of guest speakers, and this

01:10:31

January is no exception. When they speak on the theme, Worship Matters, speakers include the aforementioned

01:10:39

Kosti Hinn, the nephew of notorious heretic Benny Hinn, and Kosti has repented of the

01:10:45

Word of Faith heresy and is now a Reformed Baptist pastor and a cessationist. Daryl Bernard Harrison, who is a colleague of my guest

01:10:55

Phil Johnson at Grace to You. He is also a brilliant writer,

01:11:01

I've never heard him speak, I'm looking forward to hearing him speak for the first time at G3. David Miller, who is an old school preacher and teacher,

01:11:09

I just love hearing him preach. Derek Thomas, who is definitely no stranger to the vast majority of Reformed Christians.

01:11:18

What a wonderful writer and preacher and teacher he is. Once again, we have

01:11:23

Stephen J. Lawson and Paul Washer on the lineup at this conference. Our mutual friend,

01:11:29

Phil Johnson's mutual friend of mine, Dr. James R.

01:11:35

White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who I've called my dear friend since 1995. Another friend that I've had since the 1990s is

01:11:42

Dr. Joel Beakey, president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio.

01:11:53

Tom Askle, the executive director of Founders Ministries, the Calvinistic ministry within the

01:11:59

Southern Baptist Convention. Vody Baucom, who is one of the most profound preachers alive on the planet

01:12:04

Earth. My guest, Phil Johnson, and as you've heard, the latest addition to the lineup is one of my greatest heroes alive today,

01:12:15

Dr. John MacArthur. He is going to be speaking at this conference. If you'd like to attend, go to G3conference .com,

01:12:21

G3conference .com, and as I said earlier, please, if you have a business or if you have a parachurch organization or an event or something that you want to promote to the body of Christ, well, they usually have over 5 ,000 people at the

01:12:37

G3 Conference. I think, with John MacArthur on the lineup, they're going to have over 6 ,000 people.

01:12:42

I am just very confident of that. If you want to join me there, go to G3conference .com,

01:12:47

G3conference .com, and register to attend, and also, if it applies to you, register for an exhibitor's booth while they still have room.

01:12:55

They will more than very likely run out of room a lot earlier this time around because of John MacArthur's addition on the lineup.

01:13:05

Last but not least, if you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, you don't want us to disappear from the airwaves, please,

01:13:12

I beg of you, go to IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

01:13:18

You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card by doing so, and you could also mail in a check the old -fashioned way via snail mail to the address that appears on the screen when you click support at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

01:13:31

As I always try to remind you, never siphon money away from your regular giving to your local church in order to give to IronSharpensIronRadio.

01:13:37

Never do that. Never put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to IronSharpensIronRadio. Those two things are commands of God providing for your church and home.

01:13:45

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01:14:07

IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. You could also advertise with us to help us stay on the air.

01:14:13

Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line, and as long as whatever it is you are promoting is compatible with what

01:14:20

I believe, doesn't need to be exactly identical to what I believe, but you need to be promoting something that is at least compatible with what

01:14:27

I believe. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. If you are not a member of a local

01:14:34

Bible believing church and you're not even looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God, please rectify that situation.

01:14:41

I can help you. I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world. So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:14:47

and put I need a church or something like that in the subject line. I have helped many people in the

01:14:52

Iron Sherpa Design Radio audience find churches where they live, not only in the United States, but in Australia and other places, in England, Wales, and if you're going on vacation somewhere,

01:15:06

I can help you find a church where you're going on vacation. If you have family, friends, and loved ones that live in an area and they haven't found a church yet,

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I can help you there too. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line.

01:15:20

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Phil Johnson about apostasy. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:15:28

And Phil, as you may remember, before the break I asked you David in Albuquerque, New Mexico's question.

01:15:35

He says, Josh Chavez, protege of Jacob Prosh, was attending my Bible study until we confronted him.

01:15:41

How should we look at these teachers, apostates? Yeah, well, that's a tough question.

01:15:50

Let me start with Jacob Prosh. He's been around a while. I think his background is Jewish. He came out of the

01:15:58

Calvary Chapel movement, which is, of course, renowned for minimizing the need for training among their pastors.

01:16:06

Some of the older Calvary Chapel guys were pretty good preachers, but I think when you have no training and doesn't really meet all the biblical qualifications for skill in handling scripture, over time it hasn't been good in that movement.

01:16:25

And Jacob Prosh is one of the products of Calvary Chapel that managed to garner a sizable following of his own.

01:16:35

He's a passionate man. I'd say he's a blowhard, actually, but that may sound a little cruel.

01:16:43

He's eccentric and easily angry, angered. In a lot of his videos online, you see him just almost as if he's lost it, yelling and angry, visibly angry.

01:16:57

Somewhere along the line, he discovered that if he pointed out other people's errors, it maybe minimized the criticism that was aimed his way and also garnered him a large audience of people who share that kind of passion.

01:17:13

So he has a large audience of people who are prone to be passionate, but not necessarily passionate in a good way.

01:17:22

I won't go into much more detail about him, other than to say just Google him and look around. You'll find numerous critiques of his teaching and all that online.

01:17:35

He's clearly not open to correction. He did a video a few years ago in the wake of a conference we sponsored, the

01:17:42

Strange Fire Conference, in which he just went off on John MacArthur and R .C.

01:17:49

Sproul. This is just one example of the fallacies in his tape.

01:17:55

He had clearly confused R .C. Sproul with Gary North. He was confused about the two.

01:18:03

I tried to correct that, but he was insistent. He refused to correct it.

01:18:08

As far as I know, he never did correct it. He took his original video down. That's the sort of thing.

01:18:14

I don't know that I've ever heard him humbly acknowledge that he got something like that wrong.

01:18:21

That tends to breed followers of a similar kind. Joshua Chavez, he goes by the name

01:18:28

Servus Christi. It's Latin, S -E -R -V -U -S, not S -E -R -V -I -S.

01:18:35

Servus Christi means a servant of Christ, which he definitely is not. He makes these angry

01:18:41

YouTube videos where he criticizes anyone and everyone. He tends to gravitate to the most conservative, respectable figures in the evangelical movement.

01:18:50

Those are the ones he aims his harshest criticisms and the most volume of his criticisms at.

01:18:56

He's a younger guy. He's certainly younger than me. He's got a neck tattoo that is the logo for Calvary Chapel.

01:19:06

That's how you'll recognize him. Look for the big Calvary Chapel logo neck tattoo on the side of his face.

01:19:13

My advice to most people who wonder, is this guy right? Is he on? Some of the things he says are true.

01:19:19

Some of the things he criticizes deserve to be criticized. But I think if you watch him long enough, he's his own self -refutation.

01:19:26

His basic line of argument is that there is a never -ending chain of connections that can connect anyone, no matter how respectable he is, with a heretic.

01:19:39

You're aware of the theory that says everybody in the world is connected to everybody else in the world by no more than six degrees of separation.

01:19:50

You could choose any random person in the world, any other random person in the world, and if you look far enough into who they know, who they're related to, who they've been with at the same time, all those sorts of things, we're all connected to one another.

01:20:03

He uses those kinds of connections to sully the names of respectable men.

01:20:10

Let's take R .C. Sproul, because that was, I think, one of his targets.

01:20:16

He would say, OK, but R .C. Sproul spoke at this conference where, let's say,

01:20:27

I don't know, somebody else spoke, and they spoke at a conference where ultimately Beth Moore spoke, and Beth Moore spoke alongside

01:20:35

Joyce Meyer, and therefore R .C. Sproul is connected by this line of relationships to Joyce Meyer, and he's a heretic.

01:20:44

Why anyone would be persuaded by that kind of argumentation, I don't know, but he does seem to have a lot of followers.

01:20:51

I get emails on a fairly regular basis, maybe once or twice a week, from people who have encountered his stuff and want to know, have we answered it?

01:21:02

My answer usually is, watch enough of it, and he's his own reputation. I'm not going to waste time on somebody like that trying to answer every video he brings out, because he brings them out almost,

01:21:12

I think, on a daily basis. So do we look at him as an apostate? He's certainly a troublemaker.

01:21:18

He's more, I'd put him more in the category of Alexander the Coppersmith than Judas Iscariot.

01:21:27

One thing I think you have to be clear about is what side of his neck is his Calvary Chapel tattoo on.

01:21:33

Mine is on the right side, so I don't want people to get confused. Just kidding,

01:21:38

I don't even know what the Calvary Chapel logo is. It's a dove, basically. Oh yeah, that's right, that's right.

01:21:45

Stylized dove. I do want to say that I do have friends who are Calvary Chapel pastors and members of Calvary Chapels who are very gifted and biblically literate pastors, even though there seems to be a trend that there are varying degrees of anti -Calvinism amongst them.

01:22:05

I happen to be, as my listeners who listen faithfully know, I am a Reformed Baptist and a Calvinist, and they seem to range from uncomfortable tolerance of Calvinism to vehement vociferous anti -Calvinism in the

01:22:21

Calvary Chapel. Right, and it wasn't always that way. I have a lot of friends who are Calvary Chapel too, and I don't mean to impugn the entire movement, but I do think the movement has a tendency that's not going to keep it very well anchored, and you can see the drift over the past two decades or so where I didn't hear anything against Calvinism from the

01:22:42

Calvary Chapel movement until around the start of the new millennium, and then it became more and more voluminous all the time and more and more aggressive all the time.

01:22:53

And it's not just Calvinism. There was a rift within that movement over the emerging church movement and all that.

01:23:01

I just think they could use a little more, a little better doctrinal grounding, and this sort of self -appointed expert in discernment like Service Christi Joshua Chavez is a predictable response from a movement that pretty much lets anybody who wants to rise and teach, and that's what he's done.

01:23:29

He's used YouTube as an opportunity to sort of create his own audience with his own distinctive style.

01:23:37

And also because of his teaching on separation, hyper -separation, there really isn't anyone he can fellowship with.

01:23:45

It doesn't surprise me that he had to be asked to leave a Bible study group. If he was there at all, it was only with the hope he could take it over and be the teacher, because he's not going to tolerate anybody else's teaching.

01:23:58

You just listen to him. Unless it would be Jacob Prash himself, who is his mentor and the only person

01:24:03

I've ever heard him abstain from criticism for. So it's a sad case, really.

01:24:10

It's kind of sad to watch him, but if anybody is confused by it, I say watch enough of it, and I think you'll see he refutes himself.

01:24:18

Thank you, David. Keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Albuquerque, New Mexico and beyond.

01:24:23

We have an anonymous listener who says, Can a truly regenerate born -again

01:24:30

Christian for a period abandon the faith, either by becoming a member of a false church or by becoming an atheist or agnostic, but who would return later after a reasonably brief period of time?

01:24:46

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say if the root problem is confusion or a lack of teaching, perhaps.

01:24:54

I mean, I've known Christians who for a while got sort of drawn towards the

01:24:59

Jehovah's Witnesses or something like that. But if they're genuine believers, Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.

01:25:06

They're not going to get drawn permanently into a cult or permanently away from Christ.

01:25:12

So we can fall into sin or confusion for a time. But, you know, that's what

01:25:20

I think 1 John 2, 9 is saying. John is saying if they depart completely, if they abandon us permanently, if they walk away from the faith entirely, it's proof they were never of us.

01:25:31

Because if they were, they would have stayed with us. So a temporary departure is one thing.

01:25:37

But I also have to say about apostasy, it is, I think, the most frightening of all sins.

01:25:43

Because I've never known anyone who actually had a full knowledge of the gospel and with full understanding and eyes wide open abandoned the faith and then later repented and came back.

01:25:56

And I sometimes wonder if that's what the writer of Hebrews is talking about in those warning passages when he says it's impossible for those who are once enlightened to renew them to repentance if they abandon the faith.

01:26:09

I think that's the idea that this is... It's also, I think, related to what

01:26:14

Jesus was saying in Matthew 12 when he talked about unpardonable sin. He was saying that standing in the presence of a group of Pharisees who had just accused him of casting out demons by the power of Satan when they knew full well that wasn't the case.

01:26:29

They were just trying to dissuade people from following Christ because he wasn't the kind of Messiah they wanted.

01:26:35

But they knew from the miracles themselves that he was the Messiah. So they were rejecting him with full knowledge of who he was which was a blasphemy against the

01:26:45

Holy Spirit who had opened their eyes to who he really was. And so Jesus refers to it as the blasphemy against the

01:26:50

Holy Spirit. And I sometimes wonder if his words about unpardonable sin encompass everyone who purposely apostatizes after they have full knowledge of the truth.

01:27:04

It's impossible to renew them to repentance because it seems in the real world where I've observed it that is usually the case.

01:27:12

That is always the case. I don't know of anyone who has truly apostatized and then returned to the faith.

01:27:19

I've known people who sort of flirted with heresy or dabbled in cultism or something like that for a time but without utterly abandoning

01:27:28

Christ. And they might be recoverable. But someone who abandons the faith and after having written books that inform other people of the truth of Christianity announce,

01:27:42

I no longer believe this. That's apostasy. And I've never seen it turned around.

01:27:50

Now a part of that question I think involved a truly regenerate person becoming an agnostic or atheist.

01:27:58

Do you really think that that is possible even for a brief period of time? Because that's like an extreme. I can see somebody, and I've met people, who become furious with God.

01:28:09

Who become angry with God. Right. It depends on what they mean by that. Does it mean they have questions and doubts?

01:28:16

Because I think we're all assaulted with various doubts about any doctrine including the existence of God.

01:28:22

That's not a doubt I ever struggle. But you'd be surprised to read Charles Spurgeon's testimony in which he says he was, as a young believer, assaulted with precisely those kinds of doubts.

01:28:36

Obviously he never gave up the faith or gave voice to any kind of unbelief.

01:28:43

But for him to confess that those doubts assaulted his mind for a time make me reluctant to say, no, if you're a

01:28:51

Christian you're never going to have a doubt. You're never going to dabble with agnosticism.

01:28:57

I think some do, and particularly young Christians who aren't well taught. We have a question from Mary in Cork, Ireland.

01:29:06

And Mary asks, if a person is a thoroughgoing

01:29:11

Calvinist Reformed Christian who believes in the essentials of the faith and has embraced them and has loved them for years, should this person ever fear that they may become an apostate?

01:29:25

Well, I don't think you should be debilitated by that kind of fear, but I don't think you should assume that no sin or doubt could ever possibly threaten to topple you from where you're at.

01:29:38

It's exactly what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 10, I think it is, where he says, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

01:29:46

And he cites the example of the Israelites in the wilderness who had been delivered from Egypt, and he says that's the example of unbelief he's trying to point out.

01:29:56

These were the people of God. They identified with God. They knew enough truth to be saved, but clearly they didn't believe it.

01:30:05

And in that context, Paul says... Was it

01:30:10

Paul or is that Hebrews 4? I think it's Hebrews 4, the writer of Hebrews.

01:30:15

He says... Well, some people think that was Paul who wrote that. Yeah, whatever. I don't know.

01:30:20

My mind is fuzzy right now. I just got back from Northern Ireland, by the way, and still I'm jet -lagged.

01:30:26

So anyway, Scripture tells us not to be overconfident, and we're supposed to examine ourselves every time we partake of the

01:30:36

Lord's table. And the writer of Hebrews does say, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith.

01:30:44

So it's not that you should be debilitated by doubts all the time, but I think it's a healthy thing for anyone, no matter what state of their

01:30:51

Christian life, to really do a thorough, periodic self -examination and ask the question, is my faith real?

01:31:01

Yeah, one of the things that makes this complicated is that we who believe in justification by faith alone, by salvation, by grace through faith alone, we see people that have been delivered from darkness.

01:31:23

We see people who have repented of the most heinous of sins, and then they become not only lovers of Christ, it seems, and followers of Christ faithfully, obedient in their lives, and enviable, perhaps, even in the way they live.

01:31:40

They have such wonderful, enviable Christian lives, and then they may even excel into areas of brilliance.

01:31:50

They might even be considered by some biblical geniuses, and then all of a sudden, boom, they fall away.

01:31:57

That is where you have to, not that you would give slack doctrinally to our five -point

01:32:07

Arminian brothers and sisters who believe you could lose your salvation, but you can at least more understand why they may have given weight to that belief.

01:32:20

Right, and let's face it, we are all subject to self -deception. Our hearts are deceitful above all things, desperately wicked, and sometimes our own hearts lie to us.

01:32:30

So you can't trust your feelings or listen to your own head. You have to examine yourself according to Scripture.

01:32:38

What you just described, actually, I don't know who you're thinking of, but who pops into my mind is

01:32:44

Clark Pinnock, who in his younger years wrote some brilliant defense of the authority and inspiration of Scripture, and then

01:32:52

I would consider him an apostate. I think he abandoned enough of Christianity that I really would fear for his soul.

01:33:00

He was a brilliant man, very talented as a young man, and I think stands as an example of why

01:33:07

Scripture says, look, don't lay hands on anyone too suddenly, and don't raise up young people as heroes until they're truly proven.

01:33:17

You know, Bernard Ramm falls into that category as well. He was more orthodox in his younger years than he was later when he adopted tenets of neo -orthodoxy and stuff.

01:33:28

Again, a young genius, but he didn't develop in a right direction.

01:33:35

John in Bangor, Maine says, although we cannot claim any infallible knowledge of our own salvation or the salvation of others, do we not need to treat people and ourselves like Christians until they prove otherwise?

01:33:52

Do we go around doubting everyone around us just because there may be false believers among us, or do we give full credit to the profession made to others and even be convinced and assured of our own salvation while we are living faithfully?

01:34:09

Yeah, that's a great question, too, because let's face it, there are people, I think, who are prone to actually doubt and question and attack anyone.

01:34:17

The guy we talked about earlier is one of those. I don't think there's anybody he wouldn't somehow find a reason to disqualify.

01:34:25

You wonder if he really thinks he and his mentor are the only two Christians left. So there are people who,

01:34:31

I think, have that tendency, and we really ought to be careful about it. So yes, I agree with what the questioner is saying, as long as you understand the difference between a superficial profession of faith and a credible profession of faith.

01:34:46

I don't think we should automatically assume everybody who says, I love Jesus, really loves

01:34:52

Jesus. But when somebody can give a testimony about faith in Christ that reflects that they do understand the fundamental truth of the

01:35:01

Gospel enough to know that they're not trusting their own works, they haven't invented a Jesus in their own mind who they really love, but it's not the

01:35:08

Jesus of Scripture, but they can give a credible testimony that shows some knowledge of what

01:35:16

Scripture teaches about Jesus, then yes, I think we should take their testimony at face value until there's a good reason not to.

01:35:24

We have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says, I feel uncomfortable asking this, but since this is a world -renowned figure,

01:35:32

I think it is appropriate. Do you believe that Hank Hanegraaff has become an apostate by becoming

01:35:38

Eastern Orthodox? Yeah, that's a tough question. I'd really have to grill

01:35:45

Hank on the question of how would he define the Gospel now, what actually has changed in his doctrine, what is the issue.

01:35:57

I don't really have the patience or opportunity to do that with him, so I would kind of refrain from trying to make a judgment on it.

01:36:04

But I would say that his embrace of Eastern Orthodoxy and all the sacerdotalism and bad doctrine that's associated with that really gives me pause and causes me to be very concerned for him.

01:36:18

And whatever it is that has motivated him to make such a shift. But I think it clearly demonstrates that someone who can shift to that degree without even making a convincing case for it isn't someone we should regard as the

01:36:33

Bible answer man. So frankly, I don't trust him or recommend him, but I'm not willing at this point to make any kind of definitive judgment about his soul other than to say,

01:36:44

I think it's a legitimate concern. And I think if I were close enough to him to be able to ask those questions,

01:36:50

I would grill him with those questions. Because from where I stand, it does look like apostasy.

01:36:58

One can say, if they are on our side of the

01:37:03

Tiber River, that if somebody becomes a convert to a religion that adheres to a false gospel, if they are actually believing in the false gospel of that religion, they certainly have become an apostate.

01:37:23

But you have people who are either deceived or ignorant or naive about what the religion they've become a part of actually teaches.

01:37:34

Yeah, also I think in some cases people maintain a willfully naive understanding of the doctrine.

01:37:42

They're there for sentimental reasons, or they've made a shift in order to have more comfortable family relationships, or whatever.

01:37:51

Those are all bad reasons for converting. But I think a lot of these questions won't be sorted out until God himself sorts them out at the great white throne.

01:38:01

Amen. We have a very faithful and generous supporter of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Grady, has a question.

01:38:11

Grady from Asheboro, North Carolina. Greetings brothers Chris and Phil. I agree with our brother

01:38:16

Dr. James R. White that we're going to see this more often. I believe that these false believers are seeing that the true believers are going to be facing great persecution in America soon, and that's one reason they're leaving.

01:38:31

Do you agree with this assessment? Yeah, perhaps. I mean, again,

01:38:37

I don't know anybody's motives. What scares me most about it, though, is that I wouldn't say it scares me, but I think what grieves me about it and what is probably my biggest concern is the vast numbers of people who identify currently as evangelicals who are there because they've followed some trend or done what they think is popular, and as soon as they find out it's not popular, they're going to abandon it.

01:39:02

Back in, I think, 2010 or 2009, Time Magazine published an article about the ten ideas that are currently shaping the world, and one of the ideas they highlighted was

01:39:12

Calvinism. And lots of people, lots of my Calvinist friends, were rejoicing when they saw that.

01:39:18

I cringed because I said, okay, now this is going to make Calvinism the popular fad wagon to jump on, and everybody's going to self -identify as a

01:39:29

Calvinist, and when they get tired of that, they will jump off the bandwagon and become the worst critics of all because they're going to say, well,

01:39:39

I was a Calvinist once, and I see the errors of it, because they're only there because it's popular.

01:39:45

They don't embrace the truth of it as much as they do the trend.

01:39:52

And so I'm wary of trends, and I think what we're seeing may be the harbinger of a trend from people who are abandoning faith.

01:40:02

Like I think I said at the beginning, James White also said this, that this public renunciation of Christianity is a new kind of virtue signaling.

01:40:13

It gets you in with all of the people who currently have the loudest voice and the most popularity.

01:40:20

Yeah. Well, we have to get to our final break right now, and if you want to join us on the air with a question of your own, do so immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:40:28

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors with more of Phil Johnson and our subject,

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Apostasy, Recent Cases Examined. So don't go away.

01:40:45

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Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. Welcome back, and I have a very brief prayer request for our

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Iron Trepans Iron Radio listeners that relates to the ad you just heard. Joe Jakowicz, who is the president of FirstLoveRadio.

01:55:01

In fact, he sat down for quite a while having a time of fellowship with Phil Johnson and I at the last

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G3 conference. Joe Jakowicz is not only preaching every day after Iron Trepans Iron Radio, and is also involved in the

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Ministry Relations Department for Family Radio. He was just diagnosed with leukemia, and he has given me permission, in fact urged me to publicly announce this and request prayer for him.

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The prognosis is reasonably good. The doctor told him that because of his age, which is he is in his 60s, and for other positive things about his health, he has a 70 % chance of survival.

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But at the same time, that's still a scary number. So please, not only pray for healing for Joe Jakowicz, but pray that the

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Lord gives him peace of mind and confidence and encouragement and comfort, and that he just trusts fully in the will of God during this trial in his life.

01:56:08

And we want Joe to stick around a lot longer. He's a dear brother in Christ and friend, so please keep him in your prayers.

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And I will keep you updated as to the progress in his health. And last but not least, Richard Bennett, a former

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Roman Catholic priest who became a Reformed Baptist and founded Berean Beacon Ministries.

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His wife believes that he is so critically ill he may be on the very brink of eternity.

01:56:33

So please keep Richard Bennett in your prayers. But Phil, I want you to summarize what you most want our listeners to remember about apostasy today.

01:56:44

All right. And it may be something I haven't said yet, and that's this. Don't let the apostasy of other people shatter your faith.

01:56:54

Scripture acknowledges and even demonstrates through case studies like Judas that there are people in the

01:57:02

Church who identify with Christ, who claim to believe in him, who give every sign of being faithful followers, who nevertheless aren't.

01:57:10

They're either faking it or they are self -deceived or whatever. But if they depart the faith, it's because they never really truly believed.

01:57:18

And so that's why we should give diligence to make our calling in election sure, make certain that your faith is genuine faith, and welcome the testings that come to your faith, the things providence allows in your life to put you to the test.

01:57:35

Those things ultimately should bolster your assurance, and as you grow in Christ, whatever doubts you struggle with and all of that should gradually and over time diminish.

01:57:48

So don't be shaken by the failure of others, but pursue Christ. Keep him in the focus of your forward look and keep following him, and God will conform you to his likeness.

01:58:02

And there will come a time when we understand all of this, and as I said earlier, the Lord at the great white throne will sort out all of the questions that we have about what this means and how could this happen.

01:58:14

Amen. Well, I want our folks to remember that the website for Grace to You is gty .org,

01:58:20

gty .org. Don't forget about the G3 Conference where Phil Johnson and John MacArthur and many others will be speaking in January, January 16th through the 18th, 2020.

01:58:30

It's g3conference .com, g3conference .com. Phil, if you wouldn't mind holding on for a minute,

01:58:36

I want to give you a proper goodbye off the air. And I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write.

01:58:43

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

01:58:48

Savior than you are a sinner. I hope you all have a blessed and safe and happy weekend and Lord's Day.

01:58:54

We look forward to hearing from you and your questions next week for our guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.