Should We Pray for Derek Webb?

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Salvation to any hope of heaven. The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish.

God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day.

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Pastor Conley Owens, as we answer the age -old question, should we pray for Derek Webb?

Now, before we get into the discussion, the meat of this episode, I guess first I just want to say, welcome back,

Conley. This is like episode four or five for you, so we might as well... Five.

So, you know, we're getting to the point, man, we probably just need to have, like, your own dedicated... We need to hire

Conley. ...part in the podcast. Yeah, we got to hire you on, man. It's free. It's hired.

At least it's like a contract worker or something, man. We got to do something for you.

But it's good to have you back. It's good to see you again. Thanks. Good to be here. So, you know, like we said, the title question for today is, should we pray for Derek Webb?

Now, I'm going to confess to you guys that I actually, you know, as a younger guy,

I don't know much about Derek Webb. So I'm going to defer over to Conley and let

Conley explain a little bit about why we're even mentioning Derek Webb in this episode.

Can I defer over to Tim and have him explain? Who wants to be the oldest guy here right now?

So I... Go ahead, Tim. All right.

So I guess the context here is I never really was that into music, so I don't know a whole lot.

But Derek Webb was the guy who was part of Cademan's Call. I remember some song that I had on some, you know, worship music album

I used to listen to way back in 2003 or something like that. And later on, and I wasn't really paying attention to any of this.

So this only became... I only became aware of a lot of this very recently. But he left the faith at some point in the early 2010s,

I suppose. And now he's started making, quote unquote,

Christian music again, or at least it's music about Christianity. But he's not making it as a Christian. He's making it as one who has left the faith about Christianity.

And anyway, recently I came across a Facebook post that had a picture of him in a dress and said,

Pray for Derek Webb. And I responded that we shouldn't pray for Derek Webb.

So yeah, I'd like to get into that today because I think the Bible actually does give us pretty clear guidelines on who we should pray for and who we shouldn't pray for and how we should pray for each person.

So I don't think that we can just broadly say that we should pray for each and every person the same way.

So right now, Derek Webb is kind of wrestling with this category of an ex -Christian.

So I think it's safe to put him in the category of an apostate. But what did you have,

Harrison? I was just going to say, you know, as someone who is just like, I don't know anything about this guy.

All I have is I watched the, I guess this is one of his most recent videos.

The one that you're talking about, Conley, where he's, number one, he's singing the song with someone who's named

Flamie Grant. And it's the person

Flamie Grant is a man in drag. And then, well, they're both in drag.

They're both in drag. Derek Webb is in drag as well with blue hair and blue eyeshadow and these ridiculously large eyelashes.

It's pretty bad. I'm definitely, I'm putting this in the thumbnail. If I had a good way to show the video right now, we would be playing the video because this is just,

I mean, it's utterly astounding, honestly. So it's very disturbing to look at. And I think some of the lyrics, the lyrics were pretty blatantly anti -Bible, where basically it's the same tired, you know, hey, if the church doesn't celebrate you for who you are, then the church is wrong and you're beautiful.

And it's like, I'm looking at Derek Webb in drag and he's anything but beautiful. You're not persuaded, huh?

I'm not persuaded at all. And I guess, hey, look, if you're a murderer and the church doesn't celebrate you, then

I guess the church is wrong there, too. And if you're a thief and the church isn't celebrating you, then the church is wrong there, too.

I mean, the church just needs to celebrate everyone. That's what Jesus would have done, according to Derek Webb. Jesus wanted us to be true to ourself.

Yeah, he wanted us to follow our hearts and, you know, forget the fact that your heart is evil above all things.

Just ignore that tiny little detail and you're golden, I guess. I guess,

Conley, like the broader question we're asking, you know, we're asking, should you pray for Derek Webb?

It's the question, should you pray for an apostate? So what do you think, Conley? Why don't you tell us first what an apostate is because maybe everyone doesn't know what that word is.

So tell us what an apostate is and tell us why we shouldn't be praying for them. Sure. Maybe I can say even before that, you know, part of this, you know, a lot of these, a lot of the titles of these episodes are for their shock value, right?

Because it sounds like, it might sound like I'm saying that, you know, someone's sin is bad enough.

Therefore, we shouldn't pray for them because that sin is bad enough. Not exactly. I'm not, I'm not saying that, that there aren't people who

God can radically save from the gray sins or that he ever doesn't acknowledge repentance. Rather, he's revealed in his word something special about apostates.

And an apostate is, that word can be used in different senses. But the primary sense is someone who leaves the faith completely, having been part of it, and then renounced it, saying they, you know, don't believe its core tenants anymore.

Now, this is, this is different than another sense, which some people use the word apostate, where it's someone who has left the practice of the faith, but not the belief of the faith.

So, for example, you might see the word apostate used to describe someone who has fallen into great sin or something like that.

But I'm using it in that first sense, someone who has rejected the tenants of the faith. And so the

Bible, yeah, the Bible talks about this on a number of occasions. And I guess we could, I don't know if we want to get into all those right now, because, man,

I could just talk for a long time. But basically, God has revealed that this sin, there is no turning back from it.

There is no repentance granted to the one who has apostatized. And therefore, if we are to pray according to God's will, to pray contrary to that revealed will, that there is no repentance for one who has apostatized would be to pray against his will.

And very simply, not a prayer that would be answered. Fair enough. So, I mean, I think you've said a lot of things there in terms of, like, basically you've spelled out this responsibility to actually pray according to God's will.

And I don't know that everyone intuitively thinks that way about prayer in general, like as if prayer has guardrails on it or any responsibilities.

I mean, in fact, I mean, most of the time when I'm getting in trouble as it relates to the topic of prayer, it's normally related to the subject of mentioning that there's any responsibility that a

Christian has to pray in any specific way at all. So maybe you could comment on that and, you know, make your case as to why we're supposed to actually pray in specific ways.

I mean, isn't it fine—I guess the question I would ask along those lines was, like, isn't it fine just to pray for anything?

Like, why is there—why can't we just pray for anything and let God figure it out, you know? Right. Yeah, it is something that a lot of people don't get.

I remember talking to one person who said, you know, I know the Bible says that not everyone will be saved, but isn't it good to hope that everyone could be saved or to pray that, you know, that everyone would be saved?

And, yeah, his idea seemed to be that this is a better outcome than the one that God has determined, and therefore

I'm going to pray for that thing even though God has determined otherwise. Yeah, it's—no, we are never to pray against God's will.

We're never to think that our will is better than God's will. And so just like Jesus did, not your will but mine, we are to pray according to God's will.

Yeah, I guess that's kind of an interesting thought because, you know, I think most

Christians probably think the same way that that person, you know, whoever it is that you're talking about, in terms of like, hey,

I'm just—I know not everyone is going to be saved, but I want to hope, you know, that everyone will be saved or at least like, you know, most of them will be saved or something along those lines.

And I don't necessarily imagine that those people are thinking that, you know, coming from a place of like, hey,

I know better than God here. They're not—I don't think they're like probably consciously thinking,

I know better than God. But then the reality is, if God has said, you know, not everyone will be saved, and I mean, just go read

Romans 9 and what it says there about, you know, how God is determining who he's, you know, who he's choosing to redeem and who he's not choosing to redeem.

Whether you're consciously thinking it or not, it does seem like what you're hoping for is essentially saying like, hey,

I am more merciful than God because I want everyone to be saved and God doesn't want everyone to be saved, right?

That's what you're getting at, basically. You're asking him, and you're kind of asking him to be more merciful than he's told, like revealed himself to be, essentially.

Right, and then at that point, you're basically—you're also at the same time asking

God to not be perfectly just as well, right? Yeah, you're introducing some new standard of goodness that you're asking

God to conform to, not recognizing that he is the standard of goodness. And yeah, just to point people to some scriptures on this,

James 4, 3 says, you ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures.

So, yeah, if we ask just what pleases us rather than what pleases

God, we won't receive it. And that's what you see throughout scripture is that David, he asks things that he desires, but he makes sure that they are in line with God's desires where he says, in order that your mercy may be known, in order that your glory may be seen so that I can praise you.

You know, he has ways of tying this in to what God has revealed about himself that he desires to show these things to man.

But you see later on in, I guess not necessarily later on because it's not the same book, but 1

John 5, 14 says, and this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him.

So there's an assurance that as we ask according to God's will, because God does all that is his will and his will is good, if we are asking for good things there, actually, there is a 100 % assurance if we happen to know

God's will in a matter. For example, if we pray for the return of Christ, we know that he will answer that prayer. There are things where we're feeling out

God's will and we don't know for certain because we're fallible beings. But in as much as we are praying in line with God's will, we can be that assured that we will get the answer that we're anticipating.

I think it's just so – I mean that really is such an important concept that I think most people don't realize about prayer in general.

I mean before we dive into more of the reasons why you're going to tell us it's wrong to pray for apostates.

But I think it's such an important part of prayer in general that most people – I think most people are just kind of treating prayer like they're blindfolded and they're throwing darts at a dart board or something and hope they stick.

Instead of just – instead of thinking about like what is God's will and how can

I pray what I know his will to be. So people have – I mean people obviously have that kind of concept to some limited degree as it relates to – like I shouldn't ask

God to let me sin or something like that, right? So I think most people would – like if you're praying for something that's explicitly condemned in the

Bible as like a sin that you shouldn't do, I think most people would maybe have some sort of break at that point.

But then just related to the concept of praying towards God's will in general, you do have to kind of know what his will is for the world and try to align your will towards that will.

And there might be a lot of things that are just purely neutral, but trying to think, well, what – how do

I like align this request to God's priorities and God's values?

And that might be that there's a lot of things that you're asking for that have nothing to do with any of his priorities and values at all.

Exactly. So, okay. I have a question along the lines of this just to kind of maybe to help some people think through this issue and we'll just use my life as like a – as the lab work on this.

So recently I found an auction for some guns that I want to buy.

And so I put in some bids for them. And then I remember thinking to myself, like I was driving home and I was thinking like,

I wonder if I should pray to God and ask him to give me those guns that I put in bids for, right?

And then I started thinking about it and I was like, man, that really feels like selfish desires that I'm asking for right there, you know?

But so that feels like selfish desires, right? Now, let's assume – it hasn't happened yet, so I don't know what is going to happen with all that.

But let's assume, you know, I actually get some of them, right?

Whether or not, you know, whether or not I actually prayed for it, let's just assume that I do get some of them.

Now, that means that it was God's will for me to get some of them, right?

So then am I, you know, am I still praying contrary to God's will at that point because, you know, in the future

I did actually get them? Or, you know, does it not matter because, hey, you know, like that's obviously just selfish desire type stuff.

How does that work? Well, there's a distinction between God's prescriptive will and His decretive will.

Or other categories people use are secret and revealed will.

Basically, He has revealed, He has prescribed what is good. So, for example, you know,

His glorification is good. He has prescribed that different good works are good, that other things are evil.

And evil things happen all the time, so just the fact that it comes to pass and it's part of His decretive will, that it occurs according to His decree, does not necessarily make it something that was good to pray for.

You know, you couldn't pray for, you know, the death of 100 people or whatever, right?

And the fact that 100 people die, that would be a good thing necessarily, right? Right, right. So you can't just, yeah, you can't just pray for something and it become good because it comes to pass.

Rather, yeah, what we're talking about God's will here is that His priorities be glorified in the occurrences that happen.

I mean, He could give you those guns so that your wife could shoot you with them. I mean, we do have an assurance.

Yeah, we do have an assurance that all things come to pass for the good of those who love

God in Romans 8 .28. So we do know that anything that does come to pass does glorify

Him. So in that sense, but if you're praying for it with the wrong, you have to do it, you know, with the right reasons.

You have to know how it would play out to, you know, His glorification, etc. If you're just using that as a phrase, it doesn't mean anything.

Counterpoint here though. And, you know, I think this is, you know, I don't know what you're going to be able to say against this basically, but guns equals freedom and freedom is good.

So, you know. God's a God of freedom, right? Yeah, God loves a gun -toting

American, you know, so there you go. I don't, you know, I don't know what else to tell you, man. Well, you know,

I do think there are legitimate reasons to own guns as do you apparently, right? Yeah, and multiple.

And so if we're told to pray to God for daily bread and for other things, you know,

I don't think there's anything wrong with incorporating anything that you might do that is reasonable into your prayer life.

However, you know, it's once again, is it for your own pleasures? If it is for your own pleasures, should you even be purchasing the thing, right?

So, like, it's the command to pray in this way is not just a command to limit what we speak to God about.

It's also a command to change how we're living our lives. So if you are doing something that you can't pray for God's blessing on, maybe you shouldn't be doing that thing.

If you're doing something and it is reasonable, then yes, it's perfectly appropriate to go to the Lord with that in a way that is acknowledging where it would fit into his priorities.

Once again, not for your own pleasures, but with his priorities. That's something as I've looked at James 4, and I've tried to pray prayers that weren't violating the spirit of James 4.

It really does cause you to think about, well, why am I asking for this? And am I asking for this for the right reason?

And it really does help you to think about what you're actually doing in your life and the decisions you're actually making.

And if you can't pray for it with a good conscience, then as you're saying, it really is an indication that maybe you shouldn't be doing the thing anyway.

All right, fine. I'll go cancel the bill. Hey, you may need them in order to stop this tyrannical government.

Conley really needs them because California just passed that bill, or is trying to pass that bill that will throw him in jail if any of his kids start to feel confused about their gender.

I'll send you the link to the auction, Conley. Get your collection out before then.

All right, so back to the title question, should we pray for apostates? So I'm sure you gave one kind of answer, but maybe elaborate on some more answers.

So what's the case you have? So I'm sure your listeners are just dying to know the answer because we haven't really gotten to, like, why shouldn't they?

The very next verse, I read 1 John 5 .14 that says, If we ask for anything according to his will, he hears us.

And then 15. The very next verse addresses this matter. It says, There is sin that leads to death.

I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin that does not lead to death.

So there is a sin that leads to death that we should not pray for it. Now, I've pointed this out to people, and they have said, well, saying that you don't have to pray for this is not saying not to pray for this.

And I would argue that there's no reason that John would mention that someone doesn't need to pray for this unless the point is that you shouldn't be praying for this thing.

Yeah, we are not to pray for this one who's committed the sin that leads to death. And so the question is, what is the sin that leads to death?

And there is enough other scripture that confirms that this is referring to apostasy, a complete leaving of the faith, rejection of the faith.

Maybe you could spell out, before you give those reasons, maybe you could spell that out a little bit more as to why that leap is, the explanation you just give is necessary.

I mean, I've talked to people about this verse in general, and they will instantaneously go to the argument that you just made, and they will say, well, he doesn't say that you shouldn't.

He just says he's not telling you to. So why is that such a poor response?

Maybe elaborate on that a little bit. Yeah, well, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts, too. But basically, if we're supposed to be praying according to God's will…

If we're supposed to be praying according to God's will, and he has revealed his will, for him to say that we should not be praying for that, or that he does not say to pray for that, then it either means that God has not revealed about this matter, in which case, why not pray for it?

Because if it is possible, then you should pray to lead this brother away from death. Or that he has revealed contrary, in which case, you shouldn't be praying for it.

So either way, James should be giving a firm answer to pray or to not pray. The idea that he's just leaving it up in the air,

I don't know whether or not you should pray, or that it's of a lesser priority or something, it's…

Yeah, this is a poor way of approaching Scripture that I think comes from a desire to… a predetermined answer, basically.

Yeah, I think the whole idea, too, just to piggyback on that a little bit, too. The whole idea of praying according to the will of God, that seems like a positive instruction that we're actually told to model our prayers after.

And I think that's the thing that many people, they really… I really think most

Christians think that praying according to the will of God just simply means saying, like adding that phrase,

Lord willing at the end. And so I think in their mind what they think is you just pray anything you want to pray for whatever reason you want to pray it.

And that's totally cool, right? Just as long as you don't hold on to it too tightly and say,

Lord, you can do it if you want or don't do it if you want. And so I think most people in their mind, that's kind of the hang -up.

The hang -up is they have this view of prayer that you just… Like you're just, like I said, you're like a blindfolded person standing in front of a dartboard and hoping something sticks or something like that.

Instead of there being a real obligation that you pray according to the will of God. And if there's a real obligation, even in that passage, to pray according to God's will, and then he says,

I don't say that you should pray for that. Then that should tell you that, like if you want to pray confidently, you need to figure out what

God's will is. And John just told you he's not telling you to pray for that. Yeah, exactly. So along those lines then,

I mean, what's your case? So what's your case? So first John is talking about… The sin leading to death.

Sin leading to death. And you're tying that to, like, how do we know what that is, right? So the next response that people are going to give is, well, whoever knows what that means, right?

So who knows what that means? Why do you think you know what it means? Who are you?

How dare you? So tell us why it's what it is.

Yeah, well, if John expects his readers to understand what he's saying, we are those readers.

We should know what he's saying. And as I said, Scripture gives us enough hints.

They're not just hints. Scripture interprets Scripture, and it lets us know what this is. Jesus is clear.

There's only one unforgivable sin. You know, he talks about all the different things that will be forgiven. But the one thing that will not be forgiven is blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit. And so if this is the sin that can't be forgiven, that we shouldn't be praying for God to forgive, and Jesus told us what that one thing is, that gives us an answer.

And then furthermore, there's the related passage in Hebrews 6, which likewise speaks of the impossibility of repentance for the one who is apostatized.

And so when you realize that none of this makes any sense unless all these passages are talking about the same thing, that's when you are able to build this together and say, ah, these are all talking about apostasy.

So why does it not make any sense unless they're all—I mean, I agree with you. I'm just—I just need to spell it out.

So why—spell out why they all go together, and then spell out why it wouldn't make any sense.

Right. Well, it wouldn't make any sense in that we wouldn't be able to understand completely what's being said, and they are written for our instruction, right?

These words are written for us to understand. So in order for them to be understood fully, and that's what

I mean by making sense, which we know is a guarantee in a passage that's didactic like this.

So if we can understand it fully, we should be able to know what the sin leads to death is. Given that Jesus has said that there is this unforgivable sin, we know that that's the same thing.

Now, when Jesus talks about this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, it's a little difficult to discern what that is,

I would say, apart from having the interpretation of Hebrews 6, which also describes what it means to be one who cannot be forgiven, who will not be granted forgiveness.

Maybe you could read Hebrews 6 for us. Yeah, where it clearly describes apostasy. So, yeah, let's go ahead and look at Hebrews 6.

It says in verse 4, So, yeah, just to point out some things here.

This is one who has once been enlightened, has tasted the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy Spirit, and tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come.

Now, a lot of people worry or wonder, is this talking about the process of losing salvation?

You know, someone who has the Holy Spirit and then loses it. Like, isn't that talking about losing salvation?

Or there are some people who say, who have a Calvinist understanding of salvation, they say you can't lose your salvation, but this is actually talking about losing your salvation.

You know, Charles Spurgeon, if you go and you read his sermon on this, he basically says that. He says, this is talking about losing your salvation.

Now, this has never happened before, and it won't ever happen, but it's a hypothetical that could happen. It's a really weird take on it.

Is that like treating the warning passage as essentially an impossible hypothetical that's meant to bring about perseverance, essentially?

Yeah, exactly. So it's a means of perseverance by warning you against something that functionally can never happen.

Exactly. Yeah, and I don't think that's a very sensible interpretation of this. Rather, you know, we can see lots of examples in Scripture where someone has the influence of the

Spirit on their life that is temporary. Right? Like Saul in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit comes on him and he prophesies.

Now, a lot of people really get hung up on the pronouns of in versus on and stuff, and I think that's honestly like a little misguided.

But also, talking about tasting the heavenly gift, talking about being enlightened, having tasted the goodness of the

Word of God, what I think this is all really getting to is not an experience of salvation, but rather an experience of the goodness of God so that your knowledge of the truth is not merely a propositional one when it comes to the truth of salvation, but an experiential one where you have felt the goodness of what

God is doing in his church in an immediate sense, not a mediated way where you've heard about it or even, you know, even gone to church and heard about it, but rather have experienced it more fully.

So when I'm talking about leaving the faith, I'm not talking about necessarily the child who grows up in the church and then they, you know, when they get to their adulthood, they have more freedom and so depart from the faith, you know, say they don't believe it.

I think there's still hope for such a person typically. However, because and the reason

I say that is because they haven't necessarily experienced what this is talking about. You know, they haven't necessarily participated in the fellowship in such a way to have been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift.

But one who has been a part of the church in a larger capacity, we have reason to say that they have tasted the heavenly gift.

They have experienced these things. And as such, then when they reject the word of God, not just as a proposition, but as something that they have no excuse to reject as one who has experienced this goodness, they're not losing their salvation, rather they're one who has experienced the realities of salvation without having experienced, without having been saved and then reject that truth.

Would you think that part of that is, you know, I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but this is something

I've thought about over the years with these passages, but related to like tasted the heavenly gift and like once been enlightened, having tasted the heavenly gift.

I mean, over and over again as you're reading through Hebrews, it seems like the frequent kind of admonition is, you know, today if you hear his voice, you do not harden your heart as they did in rebellion.

And I mean, obviously, like the Holy Spirit, he works on people in different ways. And one of the ways that he works on people was to convict them of sin, righteousness and judgment.

And so, you know, if I'm trying to describe the difference between maybe like the kid growing up in church, who as compared to the difference between what you're talking about, it seems like part of that might be just a real experience of conviction of the

Holy Spirit that they have, like he's been convicting them and convicting them and they're suppressing that and unrighteousness and ignoring that.

But would you think that that would be part of how you would explain the Holy Spirit language in there? Or how do you explain the Holy Spirit language in there?

Are you more talking about it in terms of just like phenomenologically, like experiencing the work of the

Holy Spirit with other people? Like, is there any aspect of the Holy Spirit being at work in the apostate short of, you know, obviously indwelling or something like that, that you think that this is referred to?

Right. Yes, there is some work short of indwelling, short of what the believer has, and that's why

Jesus is willing to call this blasphemy of the Spirit, right? Because it is, and he says that blasphemy against the

Son will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit, you think, why would he distinguish the

Son and the Spirit this way? It's not like the Spirit is higher than the Son. Rather, it's that the

Spirit is the one who communicates these convictions, these truths to the heart of someone.

And then if they reject that truth, there is a higher level of culpability such that because they are crucifying the

Son of God again, and that's the way it phrases, you know, the guilt of having done this, because they are doing this,

God will never grant them repentance. Now, it's not saying that he would never forgive one who comes to him in repentance.

So, you know, a lot of people get concerned that maybe they've committed the unpardonable sin or something like that. If you come to God in repentance, you can be assured that you are not one who has committed the sin.

But he is saying that he will never grant repentance to the one who has committed the sin. So, basically, you're saying there that, you know, someone who apostatizes themself, they're never going to want to come back to the true church in the first place, right?

Exactly. Yeah, they may be tormented of soul. They may have regrets. You know, later on in Hebrews, it talks about Esau, you know, who found a place for repentance, right?

Yeah, Hebrews are diligent with tears and all that. Right. Yeah, so there might be there might be torment of soul.

You know, you even think of Judas, right? He had a lot of regret, but he found a place for repentance. So it's not that that worldly sorrow is not godly, is not godly repentance.

But yeah, godly repentance will never be granted to the one. They will never have that in their heart. The Holy Spirit will never regenerate them so that they would be born again and have that level of repentance.

If anything, it would just be like a regret, you know, for any sort of negative consequences they face in this life for their apostasy or something like that.

Right. Yes, exactly. So would you describe that work of the Holy Spirit primarily in terms of language of conviction?

Or is there another category that's in your mind that you would describe it? The thing that they're rejecting, the blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit, is that mostly like through the work of the

Holy Spirit convicting the world of sin, righteousness and judgment kind of thing? Or is there broader than that, you think?

I think it's broader than that, given that this passage lists multiple things and doesn't just say having shared in the

Holy Spirit, having tasted the goodness of the Word of God, the powers of the age to come, having been enlightened, having tasted the heavenly gift.

Basically, there's a fullness to the experience of realizing the power of the kingdom and experientially having engaged in a way that even though the child may be catechized and taught that these things are true, the one who has experienced it, who has truly experienced it, should they reject it, having been a part of it?

Like the Pharisees and all that, they knew that Jesus' miracles were true miracles and that led them to want to kill him.

So that kind of thing is the kind of thing you're talking about, essentially. Right, yeah. They're part of the people of God.

They are like the book of Hebrews making the analogy to the people in the wilderness.

These are the people of God experiencing the works of God, experiencing the miracles of God as they're being performed through Jesus.

They are seeing the powers of the age to come and tasting the goodness of the Word of God. And as they reject it, there is no forgiveness for that because they will never be granted repentance.

So how does that work? When you think about the doctrine of Calvinism, one of the five core tenets of it,

I guess, is irresistible grace, right? So how do we harmonize this idea of irresistible grace with what the

Bible is essentially telling us? There are people who will experience, they'll taste the goodness of the

Holy Spirit and then blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. So it seems like they're in some way resisting.

Now, I want to hear your explanation because that might not be the most faithful way to communicate it, but I think that's probably what some people are going to hear is that you have this doctrine of irresistible grace, meaning anyone who's called by God cannot resist that call, right?

And I'm saying that it's irresistible. And some might hear you saying, hey, it is actually resistible according to this other passage in the

Bible. So how do we harmonize those two ideas? Well, in the

Reformed tradition, there's a distinction between the general call of God and the effectual call of the

Spirit. So the general call is just any time the Word is preached. The effectual call is when the Holy Spirit regenerates someone and they become born again, born of the

Spirit. And so that general call may come in different ways.

It may come with various levels of work of the Spirit. And so when I am talking about someone rejecting,

I'm not talking about someone rejecting regeneration. You know, when the Holy Spirit regenerates someone, when he changes their heart to desire

Christ, there's no undoing that work of the Spirit. But if he presents this truth apart from regeneration and they reject that work, if he presents this truth in such an experiential way that I've described previously, then they are apostatizing.

And maybe some more explanation would be helpful. These passages, you know,

I talked about how they are all linked. There's more linkages as you look around. And really, this is just one of those times where you only begin to understand this more fully as you learn your whole, at least

New Testament, if not Old Testament, also very fully. Because the next couple of verses in Hebrews 6 say,

For the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God.

But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. And so I believe that's the author of Hebrews here alluding to Jesus' parable of the soils, right?

You have the soil where the seed is cast on different grounds. You have the good ground where the plant grows. You have the ground that turns into thorns and thistles.

And you have the ground that's hard where the plant falls away as soon as the first trial comes.

And so these are different kinds of faith, right? You've got true faith. You've got false faith that blows away very quickly, like maybe perhaps the child growing up in the church or something like that.

Or you have this apostasy faith where you have thorns and thistles. And so I believe he's further interpreting, not that Jesus doesn't already interpret his parable, but he's further interpreting that parable to speak of an apostate.

Yeah, I remember I had to write a paper in school on the security of salvation for believers.

And towards the end of the paper, I had essentially what was like a quote -unquote problem passages for my position in terms of like, here's the passages that people are going to go to to try and refute the security of salvation.

And one of them was Hebrews 6. And when I was studying all of those things, what you just mentioned was the thing that kind of helped me get through Hebrews 6, was connecting it back to Jesus's parable of the sower of the seeds.

Because I think just thinking of it in the abstract, it's easy to get lost in the words that are being used in Hebrews 6.

But then when you think about the parable that Jesus teaches there, I mean, when you think about the soil that produces a plant with a shallow root, like it says, and the sun scorches it, basically.

Meaning, yeah, the first trial comes and they immediately fall away from the faith. Well, that has to mean something, right?

Now, I say fall away from the faith, not necessarily in a true spiritual sense, but at least in like a what -we -see -with -our -eyes sense.

That has to mean something. And for us as finite beings who can't always see and understand what's going on behind the scenes spiritually, and we definitely can't know the depths of someone's heart, that means there's times where you have someone who looks like they come to the faith.

They look exactly the same as any other Christian might, but then the minute trouble comes their way, or the minute some temptation comes their way, they immediately drop everything and reject it.

I think for me, that was the passage that really helped me get through Hebrews 6 and come to a place where I felt comfortable to say, this just doesn't mean what a lot of people often think it means.

I mean, Jesus had to have meant something besides just, hey, I shared the gospel to someone, and I guess they didn't look like a

Christian, because then that would destroy my interpretation of Hebrews 6 that says you can actually fall away from the faith.

So they didn't look like a Christian, but they were somehow a plant that did grow up, that looked like all of the other

Christian plants that eventually yielded 60 times what was put into them or 100 times what was put in them.

So at that point, it just feels like it all falls apart, basically. The only question

I have for you related to that, too, is just in terms of responses that people have.

I want to ask you about responses that you've gotten as you've argued with people over the years, but then

I'll tell you about one response. Because I'm such an argumentative guy. What's that? Oh, yes.

I said because I'm such an argumentative guy. Because you're so cranky, and you like to get under people's skin by saying things they don't want to hear.

So you've noted that there's some kind of subject, or sometimes it's hard, right?

Sometimes it's hard to know the difference. So in terms of with a child who's grown up in the church this whole time, it may be difficult to know whether or not they're in this category.

Someone like Derek Webb, it may be much more clear. So the response that I typically hear from people related to this kind of topic is just to say that, well, because it's fuzzy, isn't it just better to be safe than sorry and just pray anyways?

And so isn't it just because you can't really know absolutely whether or not they fit in that category.

So shouldn't we just hope for the best and keep on praying? And what's the harm in just keep on praying?

So functionally, yeah, I mean, maybe there's some kind of category of someone in the

Bible that we shouldn't pray for. But because we're not God, and we can't judge the heart, shouldn't we just hope for the best and just pray anyways?

So what do you think, Conley? Yeah, I think we don't approach anything else that way. Just let go and let God, right?

Let go and let God. I don't think we approach anything else that way.

You know, when you pray for someone, you pray according to the knowledge that you have of them and what you think about the state of their soul given what's been revealed, right?

You don't cover your eyes and hope that it's other than what you've seen. You know,

God has given us information to work off of to pray. And more than that, we have this statement from James, I do not say you should pray for such a one.

We ought to be able to incorporate that into our prayer life and not just pretend that we haven't been given this, while it's not stated imperatively, that we haven't been given this command that it needs to affect our prayers.

But doesn't that mean that you're kind of like a hateful bigot? Aren't you being judgmental,

Conley? Aren't you saying that you're better than people? I'm God, yeah. I get to judge even though I can't see the heart.

Isn't it wrong to judge the heart? You know, it's just something, though we are fallen, and I acknowledge that any one of my prayers might be, you know, a bit off because I have misread

God's providence in some situation, I only have to go off of what I have to go off of. And God has instructed that we pray according to his will in what he has revealed.

And so I can't just reject what I've seen or what he has said about apostates or what

I've seen with apostates, apostatizing. So the person who wants to take that route, they're basically saying that John never needed to give this command, and in fact, it's probably harmful that he did give this command because we should just be giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.

The follow -up then, you know, because we really don't want to apply this at all, Conley. So, I mean, not us,

I mean, but just people. No one wants to apply this, so you sound like a crazy person asking to apply it.

So is it wrong? Are you saying it's wrong to pray for someone like Derek Webb?

Or are you saying it's just worthless? Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, no, that's a good question.

And I'm saying it is wrong, too, that at that point you are praying against the will of God and we should not be praying against the will of God because at that point we're praying for what pleases us rather than what pleases

God. So it's not just that it's not going to work and you're wasting your time.

It's that you're actively fighting what God has said and his decree. So how do we know when we're in that situation?

So give us some guardrails. How can we be confident that we're in? What are some guardrails to say, hey, you know, and it's obviously not rocket science, but come on, give us some guardrails.

I mean, to a certain type of person, it certainly is like who wants to make everything absolutely muddy, they can make this kind of thing muddy.

But what are some, you know, guardrails to tell you that you're in this territory? Yeah, I would say it primarily has to do with the depth of their church involvement, that as they are deep in the community of God and they are experiencing the things that Hebrews 6 describes, that then having left the faith, having rejected the tenets of the faith, that is apostatizing.

So it really just comes down to the matter of discerning, was this person who is now rejecting the faith, are they one who has once been enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the

Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come? You know, is that person one of these?

Or were they, you know, just a person who, you know, heard a few tenths of the faith, thought that seemed like a good message and, you know, believed it temporarily?

What you're discerning is, is this the rocky soil or is this the thorny soil?

And the one who is experiencing this stuff and then rejecting it, truly experiencing the depth of that work of the power of God.

So, you know, one question I have with that distinction that you've made is, you know, it seems like essentially you're talking about the person who was at a, like, a faithful church to begin with and, you know, they left at some point, basically.

So, you know, when we're talking about this idea of, like, apostates, are we putting heretics in that same, or, you know, false teachers in that same category?

You know, because, like, sure, Derek Webb, like, maybe he was in a good, you know, good church and then now he's dressing in drag and saying that, you know, all churches should call them beautiful or people in drag beautiful or they're not real churches who are faithful to God.

You know, that seems like that falls pretty clearly into the category you've made, but then, you know, if you think about, like, a

Kenneth Copeland, for example, you know, I'm not sure, you know, I'm not sure where he went to church growing up, but, you know,

I'm just going to assume for the sake of the argument right now, like, let's just assume he went to a bad, you know, bad church to begin with, was raised up in that bad theology.

Maybe like a Costigan kind of type or something like that. Yeah, yeah, just someone who went to a, who basically isn't hearing the real gospel to begin with and then takes that and, you know, runs with it essentially.

So they're not free of guilt in any way, but then, in your mind, does that person fall into the category as well as someone who should not be prayed for?

Yeah, a false teacher, you know, they're not necessarily one who has tasted the goodness of the Word of God.

So, for example, you know, my, I've got a co -pastor who was a former Jehovah's Witness, and he was one of the early users of YouTube who was going on YouTube and teaching a false gospel, you know, back when he was a teenager, but he was a false teacher.

And so, you know, God saved him out of that. So it is possible for false teachers to be saved.

However, what Scripture also reveals, now this is not apostasy, this is not the unpardonable sin, but does reveal that as someone is engaged in that sort of thing, and the

Lord has handed them over and over, that there is a reality to what the Bible calls the hardness of heart. And so our prayers for one who has been hardened need to take a particular shape.

You know what I mean? Like, we can't pray for each thing the same way if it's possible.

We pray for it with the exact same, you know, level of optimism or assurance or whatever, right?

We pray according to how God has revealed things, and we need to understand that some things are, in a very real sense, even though God is all -powerful, less likely than others, or that God has revealed things that would make it very surprising that he would answer certain prayers rather than others, right?

So, you know, anyone who had prayed for the man I just mentioned, you know, while he was teaching a false gospel on YouTube, God answered their prayers, but, yeah, one who has been deep in it, the way you ought to pray for them isn't necessarily just to not pray that they would be saved.

I mean, I suppose you could pray for their salvation, but it definitely has to be attended with the understanding of the gravity of what hardness of heart is.

So does the church help? Maybe, yeah, Tim has some clearer thoughts than I did on that last one.

Well, I mean, does the church help with some of this related to the binding and loosing and the keys of the kingdom and, you know, that kind of thing?

Do situations like that where a church has formally declared someone to be an apostate give us an indication of, like, hey, you know, whatever's been bound on earth is going to be bound in heaven, you know, loosed on earth.

Is that where you'd go with that, too, with just situations to give us confidence in? I mean, not every church discipline case is obviously, like, a case of apostasy, but then some of them are, okay?

Right. Yeah, so I think that's a good question, and maybe this won't be the most developed answer, but I would say you do see two different kinds of church judgments distinguished in Scripture.

There is the binding and loosing of Matthew 18 where someone's being removed because of a particular sin.

Now, that person can be restored. The Bible's very clear about that. You've got the man in 1 Corinthians 5 who, sleeping with his father's wife, removed from the church, and it is quite likely that in 2

Corinthians 6 it's the same man being restored back to the church. And you also have,

I believe it's 2 Thessalonians 3 .14 that speaks of correcting someone not as an enemy but as a brother, and I believe the—and maybe it will be helpful if I pull that up exactly— but I believe what it's distinguishing between is saying that this person could never return and hoping for their restoration rather than prescribing some different level of excommunication.

Some people have, like, different levels of discipline. Well, you're still a member of the church, but you can't take communion. The Bible really only has two categories.

You're either in the church or you're out of the church. But for the one that is out of the church, that can be pronounced in a more or less censurious way, and so censurious meaning disapproval.

Yeah, if anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person. Have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed.

You know, that's describing the process of discipline. And it says after that, do not regard him as an enemy but warn him as a brother.

And so a lot of people take that as, like I said, saying that there's, like, some moderate level of discipline that should be used rather than full excommunication.

I think it's talking about full excommunication, but it's saying that he basically should not be anathematized. So he should not be declared to be completely accursed, that he would never be restored.

And where you see the church making a proclamation of anathema is in Galatians 1, where it says that, but if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. So here you have the

Judaizers who have come. And remember, this is a situation where Judaizers are a part of the, you know, people of God.

But they're not, it's not like this distinct, you know, church setting where they're being fed a false gospel and so teaching a false gospel.

They are part of the true people of God teaching a false gospel. And the church is being commanded in Galatians 1 where the letter is being addressed to the church that they are to declare them accursed.

That would be giving some guidance on, like, the type of situation you have in mind in those kind of cases, correct?

Right. Yeah, so I do think that the church needs to play a role in making these judgments. Many churches don't.

They just kind of, churches today have very loose standards of membership and loose understanding of what membership is.

And so a lot of these statements don't get made. But I do believe that this is not something that is, each

Christian needs to discern it in his own life in order to pray correctly. At the same time, this is something that I believe churches as a whole are called to discern and make judgments on corporately.

Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. So essentially, as it relates to this case in general, you're connecting all of, you're connecting 1

John, you know, the sin that leads to death, with Hebrews 6. And then you're connecting that with the impartial sin that Jesus mentions in the

Gospels. What other passages come to mind? You said that there's other connections besides that that you're thinking of?

Yeah, well, you know, I'm thinking, I was thinking just about how a broad understanding of Scripture really helps ferret a lot of this stuff out.

Because later in Hebrews 12, it talks about— Just elaborating on those concepts, essentially. Yeah, like Hebrews 12 talks about being aware of any root of bitterness that springs up.

You know, a lot of people take that as, okay, I've got to watch out for any root of bitterness in my heart. They don't realize that what this is talking about is, it's alluding to a passage in Deuteronomy that talks of root of bitterness springing up in the camp.

It's talking about an individual who's secretly worshiping other gods. So that command in Hebrews 12 is not for each person individually to watch out for their own heart.

Rather, it's telling them as a community, as a church, to watch out for any individual who might be apostatizing secretly.

And anyway, there's just a lot of related passages that, you know, if you can see these references or just click on the cross -references in your

Bible app or whatever and discover a lot of these things, it can be really helpful. Another passage that comes to mind, though, is

Matthew 10 .33. It says, but whoever denies being before men, I will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

And so there is a real gravity to a rejection of Christ.

Now, we do see in Scripture, you know, the example of Peter who denies

Christ and yet he is restored. So I wouldn't say that, you know, anyone who engages in any kind of denial would be subject to this.

But rather that there is a way to reject him after having had this experience where you are held completely accountable for that rejection.

The wilderness wandering is kind of an example of that, too, where Jude mentions that, right?

Like, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterwards destroyed those who did not believe.

Like, it seems like that whole promised land experience and the wandering in the wilderness and the refusal to enter the promised land is a picture of salvation.

It's a picture of people who, as you said, they experienced the miracles of God. They know that they're true, right?

Of all the people, they've seen them, but then God was not pleased with them. They wouldn't enter into His rest in that way.

I don't know if you would go so far with all the—I don't know. Would you put all the wilderness wandering people in there?

No, I'm sure there were some who were—I'm sure there were some who were saved. I mean, at least Caleb and Joshua.

Maybe Moses. Maybe Moses was all right. But, I mean, it is an analogy that's meant to basically make the same kind of point.

Whether or not it's applied 100 % in that case, for sure. Maybe Moses got in.

Yeah, could you imagine Moses not making it? Well, Harrison, you got any more questions for Conley on this?

No, no, I think I'm good. But, Conley, do you have anything else that you want to say about this topic in general?

Yeah, so there's one more interpretation of these passages about the unpardonable sin that a lot of people give.

So a lot of people say, well, this is just rejecting Jesus all the way until your death. So have you ever heard this before?

Like someone saying basically that the unpardonable sin is just not believing in Jesus for your entire life.

Yeah, yeah, I have heard a few. Well, I mean, I don't know. I can probably count on one hand the amount of people

I've ever heard talk about these passages at all. But I have at least heard that one time.

Yeah, I think this is the most common one I come across. And so I would just say that I don't know where that flips into the idea of blasphemy of the

Holy Spirit. Jesus was talking to living people who had committed this. They weren't people who had gone all the way to their death rejecting these things yet.

So I'd say that's a reason to reject that. Another thing I get is, you know, you see these people on social media and people telling you that you need to pray for this apostate or whatever.

Should you perhaps do that given that you don't know their personal situation? You're far removed from them.

I would argue that we are much closer to them than the early saints were to some of the people that they refused to pray for.

So one example in early church history is the Emperor Julian, who's known as Julian the

Apostate because he had departed from the Christian faith. And Christians of his time did not think highly of him, obviously.

And so Gregory of Nansiensis, who's known for his very deep

Trinitarian theology, in his Oration 18, this is basically the funeral sermon that he preaches at his father's funeral.

He talks about his father and how his father prayed for all people and had no malice towards anyone.

So even those who persecuted him, he prayed like Stephen did. But then later on in that same message, he compares his father to Hezekiah, who prayed for the destruction of Sennacherib.

And he said that his father hated Julian and that he despised him with a perfect contempt.

And so you have here in the early church an example of a

God -fearing man that people greatly respected, Gregory's father, who prayed for his enemies even, but prayed for the death of Emperor Julian.

Because he recognized that this was not one that God was going to save. There was nothing good to pray for for this man other than his swift removal from this life.

So that's a stark contrast. Does that contradict the command to pray for our leaders?

To pray for our leaders? Well, that's a good question. I think we should definitely pray for our leaders to make just judgments.

I guess he was technically praying for him, wasn't he? He is. There's a sense in which it's merciful for someone to be removed from this earth swiftly if they are keeping up more and more judgment for themselves from God and there's no hope.

And no one should take me as saying that we should, you know, that word hate, a lot of people don't understand how that should be used.

I'm not saying that, you know, you go out and you find ways of assaulting someone, right? Vigilante justice or something.

Yeah, vigilante justice or even that if you were in a situation where, you know, he was dying and needed your help, you weren't, you know, compassionate or whatever, right?

Because you've got Jesus saying that you should love your enemies because God loves his enemies.

But then you also have passages like in the Psalms where Psalm 139, 21 through 22 says,

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with a complete hatred.

I count my enemies. So as we are walking the Christian life, we need to emulate God and hate the way he hates, love the way he loves.

And what that is is if he has revealed about someone's soul that their soul is given over, then we should pray accordingly.

But as he is still merciful to their body, we must be as well. And so I think there is a way to both love and hate someone simultaneously that Scripture calls for as we emulate

God's own character who loves his enemies. It would give us some opportunities to pray some more imprecatory prayers, right?

Exactly. Yeah. Well, most Christians just pretend those aren't there. And you all have an episode on that not too long ago that people can go look at.

But yeah, exactly. You should give us an opportunity. I know you've been itching to pray those imprecatory prayers.

Here's a case. Here's a good opportunity to get it all out of your system. Here's an example for you to think through.

What do we pray for Joe Biden? Yeah. Well, I don't believe Joe Biden is an apostate. He's that false church example that you gave, right?

And he's not even living in line with that false church. So while what

I said about hardening of heart as someone continues in sin for very long time, while all that is perfectly applicable, there's still hope for a soul.

God could be merciful to Joe Biden. We should, as he is a ruler, pray for his salvation. Pray for his salvation.

Don't pray for his death. No. Pray for sound judgment, that kind of stuff, right?

Right. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And as we're talking about imprecatory prayers. Yeah, typically people say, well, imprecatory prayers, you just pray those generally.

You don't pray those for specific people. But, you know, here in these circumstances, I think it is right for us to pray imprecatory prayers specifically for apostates.

That God would be just in his judgments, and he has declared what his judgment is in this matter. All right.

Well, I think that's a good place for us to start wrapping up the episode on. You know, one thing I was thinking about,

Conley, as we were talking through all this, is whenever I talk to people who ask me about Calvinism, for example, most of the time it's people who are opposed to the doctrine of Calvinism.

And one of the things I tell them is, you know, hey, look, this doctrine is, at least, you have to admit that as you read the

Bible, the Bible at least leaves the door open for the doctrine of Calvinism to be true.

Okay? So, if it at least is, you know, obviously, I think it just teaches this doctrine to us, but, you know,

I'm trying to appeal to them. If the Bible at least leaves the door open for Calvinism to be true, then you have to ask yourself, if it is true, am

I okay with that? Or, am I at a place where I'd say, even if it is true,

I'm not okay with it? And that's sort of a good test of your own heart to see.

Am I actually opposing this because I'm just truly convinced the Bible doesn't teach it, or am I actually opposed to it because I just don't like it?

And I think this is probably a similar idea, where at least you have to admit that at least the

Bible leaves the door open. Those verses have to mean something.

So, they're at least leaving the door open for what you're arguing for. And people need to ask themselves, hey, if it is true, am

I okay with that? Or am I not okay with the God who is actively condemning some people and not giving them a chance at repentance at that point?

Is that a fair thing to say, or what are your thoughts on that?

Absolutely. So many people say, well, if Calvinism is true, I wouldn't want to worship a God like that.

You do have to check your own heart and make sure that your beliefs are being informed by Scripture rather than your own sensibilities and sense of what good and love and right and wrong are.

Well, I think that's something for all of our listeners to think through.

Whether you're opposed to this idea, or maybe you've just never thought about it before, I think that is a good check to think through.

Hey, if this is true, am I okay with that? Or am I in that position that says, no,

I'm not going to worship a God who does that. If that's the case, then I think you're in a very dangerous place in general, and you really need to repent of a lot of things there.

Our hope with having these conversations is that you think through what we're talking about, and you go and you study these

Scriptures for yourself. You ask yourself, what do these actually mean? And don't go to all the people who, like Tim says this a lot, don't go to all the people who are going to tell you everything that this verse doesn't mean.

Go and find the people who are going to explain to you what these verses actually mean. And that's part of the goal with what we're doing here, is try to explain these things.

Our hope is that this is helpful for you, and that this is glorifying to God, and that this encourages you to pursue faithfulness to the things that God has commanded us to do.

As we close out, Conley, do you have anything? Do you want to point us back to any work that you're doing right now, or any helpful resources on this topic?

Yeah, so I would highly recommend for anyone who's interested in this subject,

John Owen's book, Apostasy from the Gospel. Specifically the first chapter, if you're just trying to understand apostasy, the first chapter is really excellent.

You can stop reading after that if you're just looking for something short. However, the rest of the book is about that second kind of apostasy

I said, the kind of apostasy where you just generally fall away from the practice of the faith, not necessarily reject the tenets of the faith.

And the rest of the book is an incredibly good devotional thing to ask yourself whether you're being sufficiently watchful over your own soul so that you might not fall into that second form of apostasy.

But yeah, John Owen, Apostasy from the Gospel. Very good work. Okay. All right.

Well, thanks again, Conley, for coming on. And we appreciate all you guys out there who support us week in and week out.

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