Keep sharing good news without ads.
Link to register: https://signup.thebiblebeltconference...
Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Justin Peters. I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today. I want to thank you so much for joining me. This is just a video to let you know about a conference that is coming up this April 19th and 20th in Jackson, Mississippi, titled the Bible Belt Conference.
The first one of these was held just last year, and so this is the second, what we hope will be an annual conference. I'm really, really excited about this. I was part of the conference last year. It was an absolute joy to be there, and there's going to be some great speakers coming, just like we had last year, this year as well.
Omri Miles, Carl Hargrove, Daryl Harrison, and Virgil Walker are some of the speakers that will be there. Most all of the big conferences, the good conferences, are in big population centers, Dallas, Fort Worth, Atlanta, Los Angeles.
This is in Jackson, Mississippi, in the heart of the Bible Belt. I'm really excited about this. It's a wonderful opportunity to reach some people that otherwise would not be able to go to some of these larger conferences in larger cities.
Theo Davis is one of the pastors of the hosting church, Christ Church in Jackson. One of the things that has really endeared me to Theo is not only is he a capable expositor of God's Word, but he just has a real tremendous heart for people and for evangelizing people in the Bible Belt.
He gets out in some pretty rough areas in Jackson, and he goes door to door, knocking on doors, sharing the gospel with people. He puts feet to his faith. He is the real deal. I just love this man and love what he's doing.
I want you to hear from him and Daryl Harrison. I'm going to interview both of these brothers here, so you can hear their hearts in this conference, learn a little bit more of what the conference is about, what we will be talking about at the conference.
It's going to be a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. The link to where you can register for the conference is down below. At the end of this interview, towards the end of this video, stay through to the end, because I have a special word of encouragement and an opportunity for you.
Don't miss it. Watch it all the way through. I'll catch you on the flip side. Brothers, Theo Davis and Daryl Harrison, how are y 'all doing?
Doing fantastic, Justin. How are you doing?
Doing well. Doing well.
Same here, brother. Doing well, also.
All right. Good deal. Daryl, you've got a new home now. You have relocated from California to Arizona, correct?
Yeah. Relocated from Southern California here to Arizona in the Gilbert area, where I'm now one of the pastors on the staff at Redeemer Bible Church here in Gilbert, Arizona, where John Benzinger is the lead pastor.
Again, I'm one of several pastors who are on staff here. My wife, Melissa, and I moved here officially around mid-January of this year, so we've been here for a few weeks now and enjoying it very much.
All right. All right. And Theo, brother, you are the pastor, one of the pastor's elders at Christ Church in Jackson, Mississippi, correct?
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. One of the teaching elders here, and we've been in a church plant for—we started in June, two years ago, so we will make—what is this? March the 21st? We'll make three years, actually, this June.
All right. All right. So a new church plant, and Theo, it was my joy to be with you last year at the first Bible Belt Conference, and we're doing it again this year, right? We are. Lord willing, this may become an annual thing, but tell us a little bit, Theo, about the conference.
Why are you doing this? What is your heart in it?
Yeah, absolutely. So I was born and raised here in Jackson, Mississippi, and one thing that's—and that's the point of the name of the conference is the Bible Belt Conference is actually a play on words.
It's a double entendre, if you will. We're stating the problem in the name of the conference, and Mississippi is considered one of the buckles of the Bible Belt, and my life is a product of that. My grandfather was a country pastor.
I was in church all my life, baptized at eight years old, and we joke. People say they go down a dry devil and come up a wet devil. Nothing changed in my heart. No regeneration, and it wasn't until my junior year in college where I heard the gospel and got—and I was saved and eventually went to seminary at the Master's Seminary and trained under MacArthur there for a season and came back here and planted a church.
They actually support us through a ministry called Grace Advance, which my mentor Carl Hargrove oversees, and so he has his hands in what we're doing here, which is why he comes to our conference annually.
He's a really dear brother of mine, but to speak to that issue, it's just we're plagued with nominal and cultural Christianity, and it's just part of my heartbeat would like to see that change here, and we've been engaging and door-knocking.
We've been in the trenches, and we just want to kind of alert everybody in the South that, hey, we want to do something special here in Mississippi where we tend to be first in everything that we should be last in and last in everything that we should be first in, and I don't like that.
That's a problem, and we just want to use this conference as an anchor where people say, hey, Mississippi is doing something special. I want to come to Mississippi for a change because the only time you hear about Mississippi is if somebody has a layover on a flight they're just passing through, or I remember when a hurricane hit in the South, and the news anchor, I kid you not, he called Mississippi the huge landmass down South.
That's the way he described Mississippi, and so that's the heartbeat behind what we want to do, and you're from here as well. We've grown to be really good friends, and I just love the fact that we can tag team this together and just start to do biblical Christianity well and galvanize great men like Daryl and Virgil.
We had Vodie here last year, and we just want to keep doing it each year, building upon what we've created, creating a strong foundation, and so that's the premise of the conference. Yeah, amen, amen.
Well,.
I definitely resonate with your testimony, Theo, because I was the same way. I was baptized when I was seven, and yeah, I went in dry, came out wet, but I wasn't changed. That happened much, much later, and there's such a culture of Christianity down there, but as I said, so much of it is just cultural.
It's shallow. There's no depth there, not to say there aren't some good churches. There are, but the great majority of them are. It's just a cultural Christianity, and so we want to bring an emphasis on true biblical Christianity, true fidelity to scripture to the Bible belt, and so tell us, Theo, who are the speakers?
Of course, I'm going to be one, and Daryl's going to be one. Who else we got coming?
Yes, sir. We have Virgil Walker. He'll be here. He's one of the co-hosts with Daryl with the Just Thinking podcast, and he helps run G3 Ministries, and we also have an individual who just moved from Arizona, by the way, Virgil.
His name is Omri Miles. He was sent out to Planet Church in his hometown of New Orleans, but he's an ACBC certified pastor, and he's really gaining a name in the ACBC world and speaking to the sufficiency of scripture with biblical counseling, and so I kind of tapped him to say, hey, brother, I know you just moved back here.
I don't want to pull you away from your local assembly, but if you could come for a day and just speak to biblical counseling and the need of that, and he was elated to do it, and so we're bringing him in from New Orleans, and as I mentioned before, my mentor, Carl Hargrove will be here as well.
He's a pastor at Grace Community Church with MacArthur there. He oversees Grace Advance as well, which is many church plants across the United States, and we don't have many in the South, by the way. This is really one of the only plants that we have here in the South, and so those are our main speakers that will be there.
Okay, and Darrell, what will you be speaking on? You were sharing some of your heart in this before.
We started recording. I tell you, Justin, I just cannot express how excited I am about this conference, and I want to say one thing before I get into debriefing your viewers and listeners on the subject that I'm going to be speaking about, but I do have to commend Theo on, number one, having the courage to put on a conference like this in an area that has somewhat of a stereotypical reputation for not being worth the time and effort that Theo has been giving to putting this conference together and holding it there in a place like Mississippi, but so Theo, I do commend you for your perseverance, your courage, and your willingness to bring people like myself, Justin, Dr. Hargrove, Omri, and Virgil in to speak.
That said, so I'm going to be speaking twice. My two messages are titled respectively. On Friday, I'll be speaking on living by truth in a world of lies, where I'm going to be bringing Scripture to bear on, first of all, two things.
Number one, why it's important, why the truth is important in the life of the Christian, and then especially as it relates to these cultural issues and threats that the church faces. And then along those lines, speaking of cultural threats to the church, in that message, living by truth in a world of lies, I'm going to be specifically drilling down to expose and put a scriptural, biblical lens on the issue of transgenderism, gender identity, and queer theory, which in my opinion is the most demonic worldview I have ever seen in my life because of many reasons, but not the least of which is that queer theory, especially as it manifests itself in gender confusion, gender identity, and the whole agenda behind that, is trying to attack, indoctrinate, and warp the minds and hearts of our youngest individual image bearers of God, which are children, which are our children.
And it is gaining steam at an incredibly rapid pace, where parents are exposing their children to this, this ideology. The teachers of these children are exposing their students to this ideology. And again, it is the most wicked worldview I have ever encountered in my life.
And I say that in light of Ephesians 6, 12, where Paul writes, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
And that's exactly what this whole movement is. Queer theory is a demonic, satanic worldview that is seeking to destroy lives, the lives of people, literally, especially the lives of the young people and children.
So I'll be talking about that on Friday. Then on Saturday, I'll be talking about the spiritual deception of wokeness, the spiritual deception of wokeness. More specifically, my thesis will be that wokeness within the church manifests itself in two ways.
Number one, it produces theological relativism, where, you know, the gospel is compromised so as to widen the narrow road to God. And you just, you just accept everything and let everybody in to the church with no requirement or accountability to change as a salvific response of, a salvific result of accepting Christ as Lord and Savior of your life.
And then number two, that that same wokeness leads to ethnic tribalism, ethnic division, ethnic separatism. I'm going to explain in that message what that looks like and why the idea of racism and race is unbiblical.
I'm going to explain that. So on those two messages, and I think we may be doing a Q &A or two during the conference as well. So I'm excited to talk about the people of Mississippi on those two topics.
And I just encourage wherever you may live in the state, but especially if you're in the Jackson area, I have a special heart for the people who live in Jackson. I want to say to you all, I've never been to Mississippi.
This will be my first time coming there. But as we were talking off air, Mississippi, from a historical standpoint, has a special place in my heart, just because of the history that has happened there in forming and shaping America as a nation.
But if you're in the Jackson area, especially, we need you to come out and attend this conference. You will not regret it. So Justin, I'm so looking forward to coming to your native state for the first time, brother, and fellowshipping with you and the other speakers and hopefully the hundreds of people who will end up registering for this conference.
I can't wait to get there and speak with you all.
And fellowship with you all as well. Amen. I can't wait either, brother. I'm really, really looking forward to this, and I appreciate so much your heart in this, Darrell, and of course, Theo. And I resonate with that so very much.
I love the people in Mississippi, and there's a great need for solid Bible teaching and solid Bible equipping. And one of the dangers, I've noticed since I've been living up here in the Montana, Idaho area, but Montana now, when you get outside of the Bible Belt, there's definitely not nearly as many churches, but it's easier to tell who really is and who really is not a Christian up here.
But in Mississippi, in the Deep South, almost everybody professes to be a Christian, and so there's a danger in that. And so, yeah, but God has his people everywhere, and he's got his people in Jackson, Mississippi, too.
And so, I'm excited about it. Yeah. Amen. Theo, what else, brother? Oh, I guess we should talk about some logistics here. So, if people want to come, where do they go?
Yeah, absolutely. And so, we're hosting a conference in a neighboring suburb called Pearl, Mississippi, at Truett Baptist Church. And so, we'll have a link listed for the exact address to Truett and where they can register.
And so, that's where the conference will be hosted. And then, when you go to our website, you can see locations. We have a block of hotels with a discount in Flowood, Mississippi, which neighbors Pearl.
And so, if someone was traveling in, they're free to use that block of hotels. But if those get filled up, we'll send a list of recommended places to stay in the Pearl Flowood area, where you're very close to either the airport if you're flying in.
If you're driving in, you'll be very close to the conference. So, that's the biggest logistical thing, is where to stay if you're coming from out of state. And Truett will be the church with Pastor Dennis Ellenberg.
He's actually doing a church revitalization there. And so, he's graciously allowed us to host the conference at their local church there. And we appreciate him so much for that.
All right. That's so great. All right. April 19th and 20th, right? Yes, sir. April 19th and 20th. All right, dear ones. All of the links down below there in the description. This really is a very special, unique opportunity to bring some really good caliber speakers and preachers in.
I don't mean to put myself in that group, but there's some really fine men coming. And to have it in a place, you know, most of your big conferences, they're in the big cities, right? You know, the big population centers, you know, Dallas or Atlanta or Los Angeles and Jackson, Mississippi.
This is a really special opportunity. So, y 'all do come. We would love to meet you and have fellowship with you and break open God's Word together.
Brothers, thank you so very much. Yeah, absolutely. Justin, I did want to say something. Because you were doing this live conference and this live chat, for any of your viewers who wanted to attend, I wanted to offer a 15 percent off code.
They just use your name, Justin Peters, and they can get 15 percent off because our early bird slot to field up. And we wanted to provide something for your viewers. And the same with you, Daryl. If anybody use Just Thinking, they will get 15 percent off the conference.
And that's all I had there, brother. All right. Great. Great. Thank you.
Thank you very much for that, Theo. And speaking of Just Thinking, Daryl, I imagine most of the people watching this are familiar with you and Virgil, but tell us just a little bit about your Just Thinking podcast and how it's doing.
Yeah. So, thanks for that opportunity, Justin. So, yeah. So, the Just Thinking podcast, which I co-host with my partner in crime, Virgil Walker, has been around now. This is 2024. So, this will be the seventh year of the podcast existence.
We launched it in December 2017, our very first episode launched in December 2017. And that was just an episode where Virgil and I were just sort of introducing ourselves to our then audience at the time.
But Just Thinking by God's grace has expanded to be one of the most, matter of fact, I'll quote Phil Johnson, who is executive director at Grace to You. Phil Johnson has described Just Thinking as the most influential long form Christian podcast in the world.
So, we appreciate that recognition from Phil. Virgil and I now, we've got 127 episodes that we've done over those seven years. Just Thinking is a very unique platform. It is an expositional, long form platform where we take social, political, theological, cultural topics, and we examine them, we exegete them, we exposit them at a very deep level through the lens of what the word of God says about those topics and issues.
So, you will never listen to the Just Thinking podcast and hear two people offering you their opinion. We take a very hard look at what the word of God says about the issues that we talk about, and then we just lay the truth out there, and we let the listeners do what they will with that.
But we have now over six million downloads of our episodes over those seven years. We have listeners all over the world. You name the country, we probably got listeners there. So, we're just incredibly humble by our listeners.
We have very unique listeners. You just cannot explain how it is that people are on pins and needles waiting for a three and a half hour episode to drop every month or every other month. I mean, how do you explain that?
But we're thankful for those folks. Funny story, Justin, is when Virgil Walker and our executive producer, Dwayne Atkinson, initially approached me about doing a podcast with Virgil, I turned them both down.
I said Oh, is that right? I did. That's a true story. I turned them both down. But a couple months after that initial invitation, the Lord changed my heart, and here we are. So, folks can find our podcast either on our website at justthinking .me.
That's just thinking. That's one word, justthinking .me. Or they can download and listen to the Just Thinking Podcast on any podcast platform. I don't care where you listen to the podcast. You can just do a search for Just Thinking.
You'll see that black and white JT logo, and you can hit subscribe or follow, and you'll be able to listen to all of our episodes that way. All right. What you would have no way of knowing.
About, Theo, is that this conference, we've only had it one year thus far, but last year at the conference, the revenue that was generated from ticket sales did not even meet the expenses. They didn't even break even on this conference.
And what was left, Theo took care of out of his own pocket, not even from the church, his own personal pocket. And that shows you the heart of this man. And I don't know that even if all the tickets are sold, if they will break even this year either.
So if you see the need for this conference, and there is a tremendous need, this will be a huge benefit. This conference is specifically designed to reach people in, quite honestly, some pretty rough areas of Jackson who otherwise would never have an opportunity to go to some other conference, but they can to this one.
And if it is in your heart to do so, to help with the expenses, to help cover the costs, and to help, Lord willing, make this something that we can do on an annual basis, there is also a link down below in the description where you can donate to support this conference.
This is not a money-making deal by any stretch of the imagination. Theo has done this largely out of his own pocket. So I just, this is totally my idea. By the way, I rarely ever ask for people to donate to whatever, but this is a worthy cause.
And I know there's probably people watching that if you knew the need, if you knew the need, you would want to help support it in some way. So anyway, if you can, wonderful. Thank you so very much. Link down below there where you can do so.
And if you're up for a road trip, or if you live in the Jackson area, come see us. April 19th and 20th, all the information again down below. Thank you so much, dear ones. Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all.