June 6, 2016 Show with Paul Flynn on From the Kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of Christ: The Testimony of an Idolater of Metal Music Rescued from his ‘Religion’

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September 12, 2016

00:01: Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown
00:08: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,
00:16: Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:23: Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:32: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:46: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: Now here's our host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,
01:05: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming.
01:12: This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday on this sixth day of June 2016, and we are so delighted to have back on the program
01:28: Paul Flynn, who is founder of Megiddo Films, Megiddo Radio and Megiddo TV, and Paul is calling us live from Ireland, and we are delighted to be discussing a very important topic, a topic that is very prevalent amongst young people, and he is going to be basically giving his testimony of salvation that we have titled,
01:55: From the Kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of Christ, the Testimony of an Idolater of Metal Music Rescued from His Religion, and we used religion as a noun there, as this thing that he was rescued from, for a specific reason that you'll find out in regard to his metal music, but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Paul Flynn.
02:23: Thank you, Chris, for having me. And before we go into our specific theme today, which is your testimony of salvation, tell us something about Megiddo Films Radio and Megiddo TV.
02:37: Okay, Megiddo Films started back in November 2010, and I originally had a previous website involved in political activism and things like that, but I found over time that the name didn't really work very well, and over time it was changed to Megiddo Films to more fit the
02:58: Christian content that I was bringing out, and that started in November 2010, and I don't know how many films have come out, but four or five films have come out since then just on the internet for free.
03:11: And Megiddo Radio then started in May 28, 2011. I found
03:17: I just had all this extra stuff from the films, and I said, okay, why not do a podcast every week, and it kind of grew from there.
03:23: It started really, really simply, at the beginning it had really cheap equipment, and it's grown and grown since then.
03:30: And Megiddo TV basically is just the TV version of the radio. I remember a couple years ago,
03:36: I just stuck a camera in the corner of the room. Eventually, before I knew it, I was buying studio lights, and started getting a bit too much into it, so it's kind of grown into its own entity.
03:46: But I think some people like the TV version of it, some people prefer the radio. I'm more of an audiophile, so I kind of prefer doing the radio part.
03:56: I love radio, to be honest. I love listening to radio. But I find it's a great way of reaching out to people, doing the
04:02: TV version, and on YouTube people like it, so I get to play clips, and it's been a blessing.
04:10: Hard to believe it's been that long. Yeah, well, we thank God for you and your ministry, and it is definitely bringing to the forefront a lot of issues that other ministries and pastors are afraid to touch or delve into, or perhaps it's because they actually disagree with the viewpoint that you hold to.
04:33: But the vast majority of time that I've heard you speak, I'm in complete harmony with you, and just thank the
04:41: Lord for you. And let me also give our email address right away for those of you listening who care to email a question for our guest.
04:52: It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
05:00: And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the
05:05: USA. And I don't even remember if I introduced you to the Reverend Buzz Taylor on air yet.
05:11: Yes, we met the last time as well, so it's good to be back again with you. Great. Well, God bless the both of you.
05:19: And let's start out, Paul, as far as your testimony is concerned, with hearing about the religious atmosphere of your upbringing there in Ireland, and give us the specific area of Ireland you were born and raised in and so on.
05:36: Sure. Originally I was born in Cork City, well that's the hospital
05:42: I was born in. I grew up in a country, really. And I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, somewhat religious.
05:49: I mean, you would have met much more religious families than ours. But we did go to mass every
05:55: Sunday. My mother, still to this day, she still prays to Mary every night.
06:02: But it was kind of a thing when I was growing up. Everybody went to mass. Everybody did the rosary.
06:10: It's a strange thing how much Ireland has changed. It would have been quite normal for me as a 20 -year -old or 21 -year -old to go to a friend's house and pray the rosary.
06:22: That would seem quite unusual now in Ireland. But when I was growing up, that was kind of the norm.
06:30: It was starting to change. I think a lot of it had to do probably with the sexual scandals in the Roman Catholic Church at the time.
06:36: It kind really,
06:42: I remember the way I was when I was a kid. I used to pray. I was lost.
06:48: But I prayed. It was almost like in my head, I thought, well, if I pray every morning and every evening and I go to mass every
06:57: Sunday, then I'm okay with God. And I remember saying sometimes, oh, my sisters and my brother, they might go sometime.
07:06: And I would have this kind of, you know, that self -righteous moment of, well, you know what, I won't give up on it.
07:12: And I eventually did, though. I was about 18 years old, and I started asking questions.
07:18: People challenged me on what did they believe. And to be honest, I had no good foundation to believe what
07:23: I believed. I was just like, well, I don't know why. The Catholic priests were never really, you know, not all of them,
07:31: I suppose, but most of them weren't really encouraged to think or ask questions. So it just seemed like Christianity, at least the
07:38: Christianity that I thought I knew back then, was devoid of answers. So eventually,
07:44: I started to drift away from it in 1819. Didn't tell my family. Probably just kept going at Christmas.
07:52: But I didn't know God at all. But that was kind of the atmosphere at the time.
07:58: You know, you'd be blaspheming God six days of the week, drinking a lot of it as well, and then going to Mass on a
08:06: Sunday morning. You know, just utter hypocrisy that I saw around me.
08:12: It drove me almost further away from it. And I said, if this is Christianity, if this is the God of Christianity, it kind of formed what happened to me later on,
08:20: I think. Then I wanted nothing to do with it. So you then, at some point in your life, just as a lot of teenagers do, you fell in love with rock music.
08:37: And this taste that you had of rock music developed into darker and darker forms of rock music.
08:47: Basically, there's a lot of things in your own testimony that parallel mine.
08:54: I was raised Roman Catholic. Also was very involved into listening to all kinds of rock music, including punk and heavy metal.
09:06: And I understand that when I speak to young people today, they have different definitions for what those things might mean.
09:14: Like, I found out that Black Sabbath and Aerosmith, according to some young person, they're not heavy metal.
09:22: I'm like, oh, well, that's what we called them. But what... I shake my head as being a former metalhead.
09:28: I mean, anyway. If you could tell us about the progression of your taste and so on.
09:40: Sure. I remember when I was about 12 or 13 and I first started getting into music, I was into... I think from a young age,
09:47: I wanted things that were kind of exciting. But I was not into metal.
09:52: There was nobody in my house who was really into metal. And the closest thing I'd gotten to metal as a kid really was,
09:59: I still remember to this day, being a small child and my brother playing a particular Metallica song over and over again, but it was probably the most melodic song that they've ever released.
10:07: So that was as close as I'd ever gotten to it. There was nobody really in my family, at least that I'm aware of, that extended family that's even into it.
10:15: I was always, as my parents would probably attest to, a bit different. But then I remember as a 15 -year -old, for example,
10:24: I remember seeing rock magazines on the shelves and being scared.
10:30: I remember seeing a Kerrang! magazine, probably... I don't know if it's still the best -selling rock magazine in the world, but it was back when
10:37: I was into it. And I remember seeing Marilyn Manson on the cover and it scared me as a kid.
10:43: I was like, oh, that's weird. It scares me as a 54 -year -old man. And then a year later,
10:51: I was hooked on it. And it was a catalyst. When I was 16 years old,
10:57: I had a really bad accident. I was on a bike, and when was it now?
11:02: Oh yeah, it was 16, so it was about 16 years ago now. And long story short,
11:08: I went over the handlebars and knocked out most of my front teeth. It was probably the darkest period of my life, up until that point.
11:19: And I think I was in the hospital. I was so angry with God to let this happen.
11:25: And it started... Well, not started, because we were formed in iniquity from the womb, but it made me hate
11:35: God even more, in a very overt way. And I became a very, very bitter person.
11:41: I think I was bitter in other ways before then, overtly, you could say. But even more so, this was a kind of catalyst to make me...
11:49: I remember from that point on, I had to find the most angriest music
11:54: I could find, and the most blasphemous music I could find. And from 16 years old, it started off, hardcore metal in underground stuff in UK that hardly anybody listened to.
12:08: Anything, it didn't matter how popular it was, if white people in Norway listened to them and nobody else listened to them,
12:14: I wanted to hear it. Oh yeah, it was just... In fact, when
12:22: I was a teenager, that was kind of a badge of honor if you found something that your friends hadn't heard yet. Oh yeah, and if they got popular, you lost interest.
12:35: But continue, I'm sorry I interrupted you there. Oh no. I mean, yeah, it's weird looking back, because it really was this urge to be completely different.
12:45: You were just angry with everything. And I suppose
12:50: I still remember the records. They're not even around anymore.
12:57: Stamping Ground was the band, and they were just really, really heavy. And they were from, I think, Nottingham in the UK. I could be wrong about that, but they're in the
13:05: UK anyway. But I remember just listening to that record over and over again. It was by far the heaviest thing
13:11: I'd ever listened to. I got into Florida death metal, Norwegian black metal.
13:18: And you know, it was just like any other set. It was just like, I wanted more,
13:24: I wanted more. And we can talk about it later, probably later part of my testimony, when
13:30: I was getting really interested in the philosophy of a lot of what these people are talking about, which is Satanism. And by the grace of God, I didn't go any further in it, when the
13:39: Lord saved me. But I was, this was just, you know,
13:45: I remember, I was, I think it was different in a lot of ways to other guys
13:50: I was in bands with. I got into bands later on. I really wanted to push it.
13:56: It was a formal, I think, I don't know if you want to call it a formal warfare for me. I have this personality,
14:02: I'm all or nothing. And I couldn't fake it, even if I tried, I'm probably the worst. I was always very heart on sleeve, very that kind of person.
14:13: So I think, you know, I was, yeah, 17, 18 years old, massively into music, massively defining who
14:21: I was, and leading on to other problems. And just like pornography,
14:29: I've heard, does with those who are addicted to it, they get bored very quickly of what they're watching.
14:37: And they have to get something more intense, something more bizarre, something more unnatural, evil, overtly evil, even to maybe their own taste.
14:47: And in order to get any kind of enthusiasm with it. And I know that that seems to be what happens with a lot of people with music.
14:55: And there is music out there, even, you know, it's nothing new, but there has been for quite a while music out there that would make
15:05: Black Sabbath in comparison, sound like something suitable for a kindergarten
15:13: TV program, you know, a children's program, because of the overtness of satanic worship involved in it.
15:23: For instance, it is interesting to me that maybe you can respond with your own theories on this, but it's interesting that Black Sabbath, for instance, they,
15:36: I used to be very much involved in listening to Black Sabbath as a teenager, and their lyrics, at least the original lyrics of the old group, were very ironically pro -God and anti -Satan.
15:51: They were very frequently about Satan, but if you read the lyrics, they were not really in favor of Satan, or Satanism and so on.
16:01: But the group, though, realized that their occultic image was the most, one of the most attractive things about them.
16:10: So regardless of what lyrics they were singing, they took upon the image of devil worshipers, for lack of a better term.
16:20: I mean, if you remember, I know you're younger than me, but do you remember the album Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath?
16:27: Oh yeah. Remember on the front cover, there was a picture of what was supposed to be something resembling hell, with a man tied to a bed, and he's being tortured by demons.
16:37: And then on the other side, the back of the album cover, you see a very tranquil and wonderful scene of a man lying in bed that looks like he's being served by angels, and he's very happy and relaxed.
16:49: So that obviously doesn't give a message that hell is a superior place to be by any stretch of the imagination, but yet they seem to thrive on the image of being occultic.
17:02: And I can even remember being a 15 -year -old kid at Madison Square Garden, watching
17:09: Black Sabbath perform in concert, and there was a part of the concert where the music got very quiet, and a spotlight was shining on Ozzy Osbourne, and he very quietly, he said something to the effect, but a voice came down from heaven and said that heaven is the place that you need to be.
17:33: And then Ozzy Osbourne stood up and screamed, gave the middle finger to the sky, and said an expletive,
17:41: I'm going to hell with all of you, and he's pointing to the audience. They stand up and cheer, and even as an unregenerate, wicked teenager,
17:52: I felt very uncomfortable. I sat in my seat and I was thinking to myself, I don't want to go to hell. But having said all that, isn't it interesting though that they loved to identify themselves in this evil way, even though their original lyrics didn't seem to reflect that persona?
18:11: Am I making any sense here? Yeah, you are. From a former person into that, there's a kind of, within the metal community, at least where I was in Cork, it was a small, close -knit metal community.
18:27: There was a kind of, you know, we kind of, a lot of people disdain the kind of clichedness of the satanic imagery, so a lot of people were trying to get away from that, and I don't think that's anything new.
18:39: I think, okay, there's been certain movements that have really embraced and said, okay, let's go with it. But I think, even myself,
18:47: I remember the first few years I was into metal, while I listened to groups like Slayer, Deicide, were openly satanic in their lyrics,
18:58: I looked at it, even those kind of lyrics, not as a kind of, okay, we're worshipping
19:04: Satan, at least I did in the early days, it was more of an imagery of, well, here's a way of dealing with my problems, here's my demons that are torturing me, just, this might be the concept behind the
19:17: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album, I'm not too sure, and then at the end, you're kind of cleansed, you've gone through this kind of therapy or something like that.
19:27: I think that could be it, because I remember when I used to write songs, and I used to always write songs under some kind of influence of alcohol or something like that,
19:37: I used to see it as a kind of therapy, and I felt, quote -unquote, better afterwards, but ultimately, sin is very deceptive.
19:45: It makes you think that you've, quote -unquote, gotten something off your chest, but you've just gotten yourself in more and more bondage to sin, and you just, more, you're depending more and more, just like the pagans would worship an obelisk or something, and pray to it and feel better, you know,
20:01: I was doing something else, and, but I think that might be it. I don't think, the vast majority of the metal community don't think, oh,
20:09: I worship Satan when I get up in the morning. Right. I don't even think Ozzy Osbourne ever identified himself as being somebody who was worshiping
20:16: Satan. I think at certain points of time, I don't know exactly, like,
20:22: I remember one of his albums, one of the last albums
20:27: I listened to, and I remember one of the lyrics was, I'm not the Antichrist or the Iron Man.
20:33: I think in the song, he was just kind of talking about how he's misunderstood. Whose fault was that?
20:41: I think that was, what, 10 years ago. I think that was, what, 10, 15 years ago. Like, it was, I was never massively into Ozzy.
20:48: I was more into Black Sabbath. I thought Ozzy only put out one or two good records, but this is one of the last albums he put out, and I remember, oh, this was a good song, back in the day.
20:57: I, you know, like, sin is irrational. Sin is not rational. People think, deep down, even the weird, whacked -out
21:06: Satanists, they still think, I'm okay. I'm doing that which is right in my own eyes. God is the one with the problem.
21:16: And, sorry about that. I had my microphone on mute by accident there. So, you were touching on it there, that there are, and were, groups that make
21:30: Black Sabbath pale into insignificance in regard to the intensity of literal
21:40: Satanic worship and occultic imagery in the lyrics and so on.
21:47: Things that are intended to be genuine devotion to Satan or to Satanism.
21:56: If you could go on to that realm that is not the, at least to my knowledge, it's not the most popular or most heavily listened to kind of music by young people, but it's out there, and there is a definite following of it.
22:14: Oh, there is. Yeah, I mean, where I was from in Cork, there was a small niche, and to be honest, whenever people were, they didn't really like to call themselves
22:23: Satanists. They preferred the pagan, and they would tattoo the hammer of Thor or something like that, or on their shoulders, something like that.
22:32: In Cork, I don't know where I grew up, it was like kind of seen as a bit too much of a cliche.
22:38: We wanted to be a bit different, so, you know, to identify Satanists to Satanism. However, I did personally know some
22:45: Satanists. I mean, at the same time, I mean, I remember I was getting into Satanism, if I was going to put on a step of one to ten as being ten the most religious
22:59: Satanists, although what could, hard to know how you'd even define that. I was probably like one or two, getting interested in listening to more of the lyrics, things like that, thinking more, it was more of a philosophy.
23:12: But I remember, like, at the same time, you know, I even had my own lines that I never went to the cross.
23:19: Like, for example, I remember some of the guys who would have been, actually, to think about the top of my head, like, there was a few
23:26: Satanists that I knew of, and they were also Neo -Nazis. Now, they weren't openly, openly
23:33: Neo -Nazis. I think they would have known that they would have gotten shouted down by a lot of people, but there would have been a few parties where they went after a bit of whatever, and then it comes out.
23:44: I remember one gig when I was a musician, I was about 21, 22, I was so furious after it.
23:50: There was the cake, the birthday cake, we played, we were second on the bill, and there was a swastika as a birthday cake.
23:57: And what drove me crazy was the other band members were like, almost like, ah, say nothing, you know, like, gonna,
24:03: I can't remember the exact reaction, it was almost like, oh yeah, you know, it's stupid, boss, you know, we're playing a gig.
24:10: Yeah, like even Sid Vicious wore sometimes a swastika t -shirt, and I'm not even sure if he was really a
24:17: Nazi, but it was just a shocking image. Who was that? Sid Vicious from Sex Pistols.
24:24: Yeah, it's hard to say, you know, because I, you know, I remember, I was firmly against it, but there was always, there was always elements of it.
24:34: There's been, you know, as much as I wanted to deny it back then, there has been elements,
24:42: I suppose you could say there's elements in a lot of different sectors of black society, but there was just a particular dark element, and there was no real connection between the two of them, because one of the things the metal community used to pride itself on, regardless of where you went, was this kind of togetherness, again, like a religion
25:00: I was talking about. Like, it didn't matter where you went, if you were in a metalhead, you're one of us, we'll look out for you.
25:09: There was that. Oh yeah, in fact, it's interesting how I can even vividly remember, although I didn't recognize it then,
25:18: I can see clearly now how much of a religion music can be, because you, those outside of your group and who had, who had your shared musical tastes, you would look upon, like for instance, disco lovers as heretics.
25:35: You wouldn't use the word, but they were, like, banned from your company. They were, they were people,
25:41: I wasn't, I wasn't clever enough back then to use the word heretic, but if you know what
25:48: I mean, even, you know, we would look at people who were into bubblegum rock music as, you know, just totally,
25:56: I don't think square was an outdated term by the time I was a teenager, maybe it was still alive and well when you were riding your horse,
26:04: Reverend Buzz. But, and it may be back in vogue now, but it was definitely, seemed like sectarianism in a religious sense in the music lover's world.
26:18: Yeah, it depended, it depended where you were. I knew people who were into every kind of music and didn't care what anybody thought of them.
26:27: Right. Like, they would listen to very pop rock, but then they listened to the heaviest death metal, stuff that would even make me, kind of, my eyes water back in the day.
26:35: So, but they were, but by and large, that was more corp where I was from, because it was a very tight -knit music community in general, because it wasn't really big.
26:45: Everybody knew everybody. I mean, one time we were a metal band and I was in a metal band and we supported a hip -hop band, which is other parts of the world that would be kind of really frowned upon, but there was a kind of a sense of,
26:56: I think, especially when you're in your 20s, I think when when metalers got older, 30s and 40s, this kind of faded away a bit, but there was this kind of sense of, oh, there used to be things in magazines of private pleasures of, you know, like, it was almost like, you know, again, like the religious thing of secret sins or something.
27:16: I would listen to this pop artist when I'm just sick of listening to metal music or something.
27:21: It was treated like, they say that there was no rules, but there were rules, and this is, you know, there was a certain way of dressing.
27:28: It had to be, it was, but there's lots of clicks, there's lots of sub -genres, but generally back in the day, it had to be different, it had to be edgy, it had to be not mainstream or else it kind of sold out.
27:43: For example, when Metallica got massively big, everybody said they sold out just because they got really, really popular, people didn't like to listen to them anymore, they weren't cool anymore, but back in the early 80s, they were doing something radically different, and they were, you know, radically fighting against the more glam rock of LA and things like that, and again, it was an attempt to just be different and rebellious and anti -establishment, anti -authoritarian, anti -gods above all else, and back in the 60s and 70s when rock and roll started, you know, the term the devil's music was very prominent, and it was something, it was a badge of honor, and they got really annoyed when the
28:34: Christians started taking it in the 70s onward. We do have some listeners online waiting, well not online, well yeah, online in the internet, still using my phone language from when we had a call in a program, but I guess online still suits when they're on the internet waiting to have their questions asked and answered, and we're going to be going to a break right now, so if you could be patient, we'll get to you as soon as we can, and our email address if you'd like to join them with questions of your own on the air is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
29:08: chrisarnson at gmail .com, please leave or please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the
29:17: USA, and if you need to remain anonymous for some reason, perhaps you're talking about a family member or something like that, you may feel free to remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable.
29:31: That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Paul Flynn and his testimony of being rescued from the false religion of heavy metal idolatry.
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33:28: Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Paul Flynn calling us live from Ireland.
33:35: And he is the founder of Megiddo Films, Megiddo Radio, and Megiddo TV.
33:41: We are discussing his testimony of being rescued by our sovereign Lord and Savior Jesus Christ out from the idolatry of metal music, not to mention false religion that he was involved in in other areas of his life, which we will get into.
33:58: If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Before we go to some of our listener questions,
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36:05: But we do have a couple of listeners who have contacted us.
36:11: First of all, I want to give a shout out to Linda in British Columbia.
36:17: Linda sent us a very nice note that she is listening to Iron Sharpens Iron along with her fellow vineyard workers.
36:29: I'm not sure if she was using that as an analogy of Christian evangelism or if she is literally working in a vineyard picking grapes or something.
36:37: But she and her fellow workers in British Columbia, Canada are listening to Iron Sharpens Iron and we helped break up the monotony of their work there.
36:47: So, we thank Linda. She actually was looking for the
36:52: MP3 of our last interview with Paul Flynn on the shack.
36:58: We did an expose on the shack and my new webmaster unfortunately has not yet gotten that posted.
37:05: He's still getting up to date but Paul does have that as a YouTube available already posted on the internet that you can view and listen to.
37:17: And you will be spared of looking at my ugly face because you'll only be seeing Paul and not mine.
37:24: Unfortunately you won't be spared of my face. But give us that specific website
37:32: Paul where people can look up things like that. Yeah, YouTube is youtube .com
37:38: forward slash Megiddo Films, I think that's the one. If you type in Paul Flynn into YouTube, I am the guy who is not the hurler, the
37:47: Irish hurler. Okay. And so thank you again to everybody in British Columbia who are listening and we also have
37:54: Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island who asked, what do you think of churches like New Spring Church, I'm not familiar with them, with a popular leader like Perry Riddle, I'm having a difficult time reading this, playing
38:13: ACDC's Highway to Hell to reach unbelievers.
38:20: How do you respond to something like that Paul? That does seem a bit bizarre,
38:27: I don't know how they're, because the ACDC group seems to be very delighted that they're on a highway to hell when they're singing this song.
38:37: I'm sorry, I mispronounced the name, I enlarged Tyler's email, it's
38:43: Perry Noble, he plays ACDC's Highway to Hell to reach unbelievers.
38:50: What is your response to that? Well, it's going to reach unbelievers, but with what?
38:55: Right. The question is whether to reach out to believers or to reach believers.
39:04: I mean, it's like how to make friends and influence people, but are you trying to reach them for the gospel?
39:10: I mean, this whole thing, and I was talking to you in the last show, and it's sad in the modern church, we don't identify this.
39:19: The problem, it doesn't start off with... there's all this external stuff that happens.
39:25: Perry Noble, I remember seeing this before, but their symptoms of a greater problem, we've neglected the issues of Reformation.
39:33: They would talk for hours and hours, and they would write books and books and books, over what? Free will, and the idol of free will.
39:41: Now we just treat it like philosophy, like it doesn't matter anymore. And eventually, see, the thing is, if you see man's will as in some way free, or if you go all the way over to the
39:53: Pelagians, you're going to say, well, we, in order to get them into the church, we've got to, you know, to reach them.
40:01: What do they like? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And if they can just make the right decision, based on, oh, we're going to tickle...
40:11: and that's the point. I mean, I think we've either got,
40:16: I don't care about Calvinism or Minism all that, or there's the other side, which is, I think, okay, there's some very theologically robust arguments for Calvinism, but I think what we've failed to do is take that and practically apply it everywhere of life.
40:35: The play out in my family's life, how will this play out in how we preach, how, you know, everything, the sovereignty of God.
40:43: And it wasn't just the kind of a theoretical head knowledge thing, as it seems to become in a lot of places.
40:49: We almost, like, lecture through it. But it was very much like Bunyan preached to the heart, that kind of thing, where the affections, and you realize how much you're...
41:00: I mean, you can have all the... you can tick all the boxes, so to speak, but if we're not humble, we're never going to completely get it.
41:07: That's the best way to put it. We do have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, in the 1980s and 90s, it was very popular for some
41:23: Christian ministries to expose backmasking on heavy metal records and other kinds of rock music records, whereby when they were reversed, it was alleged that secret satanic messages were being recorded backwards in a stealth manner, so that the typical person who was not in the know would be totally unaware of this practice.
41:51: What do you make of this? Is it real? It might be, but I don't think you need to go there.
41:58: I know, you don't even need to go backwards, do you? They're honest forward, really. Bad forwards and bad backwards.
42:06: It just shows their creativity, that's all. I don't... see, the thing is, you know, like, there's a lot of theories on the internet, and it's like we're like the
42:15: Greeks of the first century. We want to hear something new. But yeah, what you're finding couldn't be true, but is it going to benefit you or anybody else?
42:23: We have to kind of go, is this going to be of benefit to the body of Christ, or are we going to be obsessing over satanic lyrics, satanic bands, and things we just, you know, what are we supposed to meditate upon?
42:36: Whatever things are lovely, whatever things are true. And I know when I was first saved,
42:42: I still listened to metal for, you know, I took out some of the really overt satanic stuff, but it kind of downsized the downsize as time went on.
42:51: But you just want to get people down to what's important, that they have this love for Christ that this stuff fades.
43:00: I'm not saying it's going to completely go away. I'll sometimes go to a music shop, and I'll hear a song from 10 years ago, and my flesh still kind of in some way yearns towards it.
43:11: But there's no joy there. So, I mean, of course, this stuff can be true, and lots of stuff that people can get the popular stuff.
43:21: It isn't funny how this is hugely popular, but you can never pack out something about the
43:26: Atonement, or regeneration, or things like that. No, it's not amazing the way that is.
43:33: But you have to be kind of like, okay, this could be true, but how will it benefit you?
43:40: How will it benefit your brother in Christ? Or will it just be a stumbling block? You mean, how will knowing about it benefit you?
43:47: Is that what you mean? I don't see it benefiting anybody, even if it is true. I mean,
43:54: I feel for people. I understand why people... I don't want to be little people.
44:00: I want to be careful. I don't want to be little people who are involved in this. I understand it. I understand it probably better than most people do, because a lot of people
44:11: I still have a lot of respect for in a lot of different ways. And I would have watched a lot of things, you know, history, rock and roll, and all this kind of thing.
44:19: But you don't need to... I suppose it's an old cliche. You don't have to study every single counterfeit bill, you know, bill, as you call it in America, and nose here in Ireland.
44:30: You don't have to study all that in order to know what's counterfeit and what's destructive. Right. And of course, it would be more of an important issue if there were allegedly
44:43: Christian recording groups having satanic messages when you... and that they were purposely recording so that when they were reversed, you would hear them.
44:53: That would be something more important to know about, because the heavy metal groups and other groups have evil lyrics going forward, listening to them in a normal fashion.
45:07: It's no big shock if they're saying something evil in the reverse. But if somebody had some secretive reason for doing it that they were presenting themselves in the light of being
45:19: Christian or something like that, that would be a different matter. Oh, yeah. It seems we left
45:26: Paul in his testimony getting to the point of hating God, and we never resolved that.
45:32: Yeah. I also wanted to just at least touch a bit more on what perhaps you should alarm parents about in regard to those forms of music that are literally the most evil, that are actually involved in authentic satanic worship and that kind of a thing, that's the most dangerous of this type of stuff.
45:59: Perhaps you don't even think you should mention them at all, so that others don't get drawn into it. But I'll leave that up to your discernment whether you think that you should be alerting specifically parents about them by name, or if you'd rather not.
46:11: That's up to you. Yeah, probably, because I'm just thinking, I could name a bunch of bands that I listened to that I loved, but it never starts off there.
46:19: It never starts off with... One of my favorite bands was from the UK, and they would wear upset and crosses around their neck, and I loved that near the end.
46:27: And they were one of my favorite bands. You see, I think we've kind of...
46:33: I don't know if everybody does this, but a lot of people, when they think of Satanism, they think it's bowing down before an image of Satan or something like that.
46:40: Usually it's not. The vast majority of the time, Marilyn Manson once said that it was worship of self.
46:46: Yes. And that's... And I remember going, oh, that's me. I worship myself. Who else am
46:52: I gonna worship? So, and I remember I loved the writings of Nietzsche. I just kind of...
46:57: It was just me. You know, it wasn't... I don't know how you put it. It's just like, it doesn't start off there.
47:04: I mean, you might say, well, there's... There's a danger too with, here's a hundred things to keep out of your house.
47:13: You know, yes, you shouldn't have things that are destructive, you know, anything influential, but I think we're getting it the wrong way around.
47:23: You can... I mean, we'd love in our religious... You know, we can be all Pharisees in our own way at times.
47:29: We'd love a list of a thousand things to stay away from. So we'd look at that list and go, hey, look at all the things I didn't do today.
47:36: But I think we really have to, we really have to think of positively what to fill our houses with.
47:45: The word of God, worship in the morning, worship in the evening. And we're gonna be so busy serving the
47:51: Lord that the junk just won't get in there. I think sometimes we can be so scared of the enemy.
47:59: Sometimes I remember, I would read Christian books years ago. And, you know, books that I don't think they're...
48:04: I have any major problem with them, but it's just like, they would be against, oh, you know, don't ever read
48:10: Plato. When all of the reformers had all read Plato, not to agree with them, quote him, they didn't study the classics, they studied all these things.
48:18: No, I do think there's certain things you should never read. You know, and, you know, anything pornographic or anything like that.
48:24: But if you're reading the thoughts and motivations of brains with the view to enhance your education and things like that, and help maybe your son or daughter's 15 years old, and they're gonna encounter these thoughts in the world.
48:40: So, okay, educate them. A lot of society has been formed by Plato and all this, and, you know,
48:47: Socrates and whatever. There's a purpose to that. When you get into the Led Zeppelin and all this, do you really have to go through all the sordid stuff that has been influenced by that?
48:58: So there's discernment there. There isn't a list of a thousand things we should... The Puritans talked about the regular, the principle of worship, but we should never have a kind of a regular, the principle of life.
49:10: We get into a dangerous, the legalistic, overly stringent thing that the
49:16: Bible doesn't place upon it. It gives us enough principles to make discernment that it's quite clear.
49:22: I don't want to say that the Bible remains silent on anything, but does that make sense?
49:28: The Puritans talked about the regular, the principle of worship, but I see the sad thing is like,
49:33: I think we always get excited about more about, can you give us a regular, the principle of life? They're not as interested in the worship part.
49:41: So there's general principles in life. You know, what job we should pick. It doesn't tell us which one we should pick, but it gives us, if something's wrong about one thing and godly and will serve the kingdom of God in another, we should go towards that.
49:54: So yeah, I'm about to forget the original question. Well, then continue with your testimony.
50:04: Yeah, basically Buzz was referring to the point that you reached where you hated
50:10: God. Yeah, and I think, you know, I think it's important to point out, when
50:18: I first came to it, the first church I was in, and if any of them are listening,
50:23: I'm not trying to speak down to you or anything, but I remember I would tell people I hated God. And they would say to me, no, no, no, you know, they would try to water it down a little bit.
50:33: And I think I know what they were saying. They were trying to not make me depressed or something like that. But you know, sometimes self -loathing is a good thing if it's in the right way.
50:42: Now, you know, if it's hating of your sin, at 16, I kind of,
50:48: I think, I knew more overtly I was angry with God. It grew past that point.
50:55: I think it's important to point out, if we're not in Christ, if we don't receive, if we don't come to Christ to repent of the faith, we see a problem with Him, and we do hate
51:05: Him, regardless of whether we're Satanists, the Roman Catholic, or anything else. But when I was 16, 17, that animosity grew and grew.
51:14: And I got more and more into the lyrics. And I had, you know,
51:21: I think, you know, the things that we misunderstood in the modern world, the things like depression, we think, oh, he's got such a low self -esteem of himself.
51:29: Problem with me is I thought too much of myself. I wanted to be, I don't know, a top psychologist.
51:35: And then when I didn't get that course, I was depressed and I wanted to get into, become a doctor. Just missed out on it.
51:41: You know, I noticed a lot of people that suffer from depression. They have, they're very goal -orientated, a lot of them.
51:48: And when they don't reach that very high standard, it's their life is over. So they have a massive standard.
51:55: And if they don't reach it, everything's over, things like that. So there was, you could say, various disappointments that came along the road.
52:04: I went back and forth in my studies. Sometimes I did great, and the next year I completely flopped.
52:09: And I got heavy drinking about the age of 18. Not the usual Irish person, sadly.
52:17: But we can talk about that more later. It's a massive problem in Ireland.
52:22: Sadly, we joke about it, but sadly, a lot of it's true. At 18, 19, 20,
52:29: I was just, I think just, I just, you know, grew and grew.
52:35: The heart of my heart grew and grew even more. And I was 20, 21. I got the psychology course
52:43: I wanted. It was second choice after medicine. But I remember I got into it.
52:49: First month or two, I did okay. And it just was a big letdown. And I remember that month, I was just angry at everything, angry at the world.
52:57: I hated most of my classmates because I thought they were pretentious at the time. You know, I just,
53:03: I was an angry person at the time. And I lashed out. Hadn't been in a band in years. And then
53:08: I joined a series of bands over the next couple of years. 21 years old. And in four years prior to my conversion,
53:15: I was in four different metal bands and became really ambitious. Again, I've always been a very driven person in some way, shape or form.
53:26: I suppose we all are in some ways. But I wanted to,
53:33: I didn't want to, when I died, be a nobody. If that made sense.
53:40: And I thought that was arrogance of mine. It definitely was. There's no doubt about it. So, you know,
53:46: I wanted to take my animosity on God out in the world. I didn't look at that at the time.
53:52: But remembering my lyrics, the way I, a lot of it was metaphorical. But, you know, looking back and even the little bits that I remember, you know, it was primarily, you know, it was, you know,
54:05: I was like, I was a professional victim. I suppose a bit like a social justice warrior nowadays. But you kind of, the world owes you something.
54:15: And this is why I kind of, sometimes when I talk to people and say, oh, I don't have a high self -esteem, you know, like,
54:21: I say, no, you do. You think too much yourself. If you don't expect that much, you know, if somebody doesn't expect food as a very low standard and they find a loaf of bread, they're pretty happy.
54:33: So, you know, I mean, I mean, I suppose, you know, a lot of it was self -pity. And that's what helps me sometimes when
54:41: I'm like, if I go, every Christian goes through levels of depression and it's normal. But then
54:47: I just remind myself, Paul, you're just thinking too much about yourself. Yes. And I remember having been a person myself who was rescued from very serious alcoholism or drunkenness, perhaps is a better phrase, because I tend to dislike clinical terms for sin, but very dangerous levels of drunkenness, habitual drunkenness.
55:13: I was rescued out of that. And I know that self -pity can be one of the most dangerous states of mind to have because you think that you deserve to obliterate your brain cells with alcohol and drugs.
55:30: You know, you deserve this because life has treated you so harshly. So, therefore, there's nothing wrong with cheering yourself up, even if it means drinking to excess or getting high or what have you.
55:44: And I know that that could be a really dangerous road, personally. Oh, yeah. I mean, it started off with, again, you bring up various things, but it was a series of disappointments.
55:56: I mean, I guess it was, and sadly today, you know,
56:02: I would have been a bit compared to today and maybe a bit unusual. But nowadays, it's kind of like everything's a...
56:10: I got a pity party, I suppose. The pop lyrics everywhere, it's like the world owes you something, whereas I'm not saying that this is the proper way to deal with something.
56:21: If you've got a teenager who's going through hard trials, you know, you don't want to just hit him on the arm and say, get over it.
56:26: But I mean, you know, that's probably just going to make him worse. Sometimes people just need somebody to listen to them, and that helps.
56:34: But how would I put it? There's kind of... We're kind of... We're treating everybody...
56:40: We're training everybody to be a victim, I suppose you could get into, you know, what's happening with, you know, feminism and all the isms at the moment.
56:48: And everybody's a victim, I suppose. The core issue is sin. But we believe that the world owes us something.
56:55: Here's the standard. And again, it's like you think too highly of yourself. And that, you know,
57:03: I go through periods of time like we all do, you know, have bouts of times where you're just annoyed with things, and you just have to kind of remind yourself of, this is sinful.
57:13: I should be... If I counted all my blessings, all the things that God has given me, where I should be if God gave me...
57:20: Where I would be if God gave me justice. You know, we have so many reasons to enjoy.
57:26: Yeah. We're going to be going to another break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, please feel free to email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com.
57:38: chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Paul Flynn of Megiddo Films, Radio and TV with his personal testimony of being rescued out of the idolatry of the heavy metal religion.
57:55: So don't go away. We're going to be right back. I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.
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01:02:35: Welcome back, this is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is Paul Flynn. We are hearing his personal testimony of being rescued out of the religion of metal music idolatry, and that in some people's mind might sound like an extreme phrase to use, religion of metal music, but anything that has become an idol in your life that has eclipsed
01:03:00: God in your mind and in your heart and in your way of life, that has become your idol, and therefore it has become false religion.
01:03:10: And so therefore, I think it's very suitable that we describe
01:03:16: Paul's testimony as being about one who has been rescued from the religion of heavy metal idolatry.
01:03:25: And there are planes soaring outside, and I'm wondering if the microphone's picking up. I don't know if we're under attack right now, but they don't sound like zeros.
01:03:35: But anyway, if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:03:43: Before we go back into the main topic at hand, we do have a listener in Newville, Pennsylvania.
01:03:49: We have Susan who asks, I'm familiar with some kind of debates that you have done on the radio.
01:03:57: Would you ever be willing to participate in a live moderated debate in public on any issue of your choosing?
01:04:09: That's for you, Paul. Is this for me? Yes, yes. I haven't done any debates, but I mean, if the right one came up, sure.
01:04:18: Okay. And well, obviously the listener has my enthusiasm over debates.
01:04:28: I personally have arranged many public moderated debates, probably close to 30 or 40 over the course of about 25 years.
01:04:40: And typically with my friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, but they have involved others as well.
01:04:48: And they have been involving opponents such as Roman Catholics and liberal
01:04:54: Protestants and even Muslims and people who are in cults. I do love debates myself.
01:05:01: I think they're very valuable. And I know that we do have Christian brethren who do not believe in conducting them because the enemy is given a platform from which to give their ideology.
01:05:15: But my opinion is that the enemy is already giving his opinion in many forms of media.
01:05:23: And to have somebody immediately correct them and refute them is, I think, very valuable. I think there's some debates that I'd be willing to do.
01:05:31: Maybe not everything, but within the Visible Church especially, things can be really, really helpful or against liberals to expose that what they believe is not
01:05:42: Christian or Orthodox or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, people have different views.
01:05:47: And I think some debates are excellent and some not so. And we do have
01:05:54: Christian in Suffolk County, New York. Who wants to know, do you think that there are specific melodies and rhythms that are innately evil without any lyrical context?
01:06:11: Yes and no. I think it's anything just driven. If it's driven by the melody, it tends not to...
01:06:18: And this is more of a general principle. If it's driven by the melody, it doesn't mean necessarily that that means it's okay or anything.
01:06:26: But if it's driven by the melody, it tends to be a lot better than if it's driven by the rhythm, something that appeals to our flesh.
01:06:35: And that would be the kind of general principle I would go by. When we're talking about music, evil, not evil and all that, it usually comes back to worship.
01:06:46: And I just kind of say, what does the Word of God sanction? Rather than let's have a thousand things that the
01:06:53: Word of God bans, I think if we... I would encourage people to study what the
01:07:00: Puritan said about the regular principle of worship and things like that. And then once we can get to that point, yeah,
01:07:07: I mean, we're talking, I suppose, about secular music now, stuff that wouldn't necessarily be worshipped. I suppose backbeats and stuff that can lead, but I think we've got to be careful being overly rigid about it, if that makes sense.
01:07:23: Right, I mean, I have to confess that I do enjoy a talented electric guitar player who is just playing his guitar in a way that demonstrates a lot of talent.
01:07:35: And I'm not saying that I would want that happening in a worship service. I'm just talking about sitting, listening to a
01:07:42: CD or something. Well, you have to recognize that the seal of God's image is even on the pagans.
01:07:48: And he has allowed them to display great talent. And we can certainly benefit from listening to that.
01:07:56: But in any style of music, and I'm not going to say, I mean, there's some that I just simply don't like.
01:08:02: So for me to say it's ungodly would be more biased, I'm afraid. But even in the kinds of music that I like, you have those that you can tell they just made it in the corner of their basement and it's not very good.
01:08:19: And then you have others that are very polished. You have good musicians and you have the junk and you're going to have that in any genre.
01:08:26: By the way, Buzz, for in case Paul doesn't know, and perhaps some of our listeners don't,
01:08:31: Reverend Buzz Taylor is a professional trumpet player and is mostly involved in like big band type of music.
01:08:40: Oh, I love it. Yeah, right, right. Jazz and big band. But you know, really though... And Christian music. Oh, definitely.
01:08:46: Most of my concerts are in churches. Right. And but there again, there's a lot of songs like secular songs where I would say, well, it needs a trumpet simply because then you can't hear the lyrics.
01:08:56: Well, going back to the regulative principle, the Paul, there are many in there who embrace the regulative principle who don't believe in musical instruments at all in the worship service because they believe in strictly a cappella singing.
01:09:12: And I actually love a cappella myself. But I agree that melody and rhythm are important issues when it comes to worship music, because no matter what anyone says,
01:09:29: I don't think that those things are neutral in regard to the moods that they create.
01:09:38: And like, for instance, there are groups identifying themselves as Christian who are involved in the form of music that and perhaps you can enlighten me on what it's called, because I can't remember.
01:09:53: But you know, the type of music where the people have this very guttural scream that they sing the lyrics with and I use sing loosely the term.
01:10:04: I'm sorry. Is it like death metal or something? Perhaps, you know, where's my, you know, it's like you can't even really understand what the person's saying.
01:10:12: But there's lots of genres with that. Like there was some group that where all the group, the members of the group were wearing masks and they had like dreadlocks.
01:10:22: I can't even tell. Oh, that's Slipknot. Yeah, yeah. There you go. What would you call that? What kind of music is that? When they came out, they were called
01:10:28: New Metal, NU dash metal. But as time's gone on, people just refer to them as a metal band because they've taken a lot.
01:10:38: They're kind of unique because they've taken a lot of different styles and just blend them together.
01:10:43: You know, they've even got a DJ on the stage. So it's kind of a lot of the stuff that's come out over the last 10, 20 years.
01:10:52: People want to categorize it, but it's almost impossible to do it. Like there's so many sub genres now. Right. Back in the 70s, it was just heavy metal.
01:11:00: That was it. You know, there was just Black Sabbath and a couple of other groups and there was not much to it. But then the 80s onwards, there was, you know, people took what
01:11:08: Sabbath did, sped it up, slowed it down. And then they just copied
01:11:14: Sabbath. I mean, most people have just said that, you know, like basically everything from that point on has been, it's everything copying
01:11:20: Sabbath. It's just the speed is faster or the, you know, they've dropped their guitars from down to D or C or whatever they do.
01:11:30: It makes it a lot deeper. So it's just kind of like, I mean, you notice with all of this stuff, right?
01:11:36: It's always, there's an influence. There's a spirit behind it. Even, you know, like the Beatles were a big influence on Black Sabbath and what influenced the
01:11:45: Beatles was a lot of the new age movements. And I didn't even know that the Beatles were a big influence on Black Sabbath.
01:11:53: Oh yeah. But I think they were a big, big influence on everybody. I think, okay. Yeah, I think anybody was, but yeah,
01:12:00: I think Ozzy Osbourne and any of you talked about him being one of the influences, but back in the 60s, the
01:12:05: Beatles were one of the heaviest things. Yeah. I can see Helter Skelter fitting into that. And their hair used to be longer than everybody else's too.
01:12:12: Even though it was short compared to, I mean, there are fundamentalist Baptists, King James only pastors wearing haircuts like that.
01:12:21: But going back to what I meant by the metal screamers is there are
01:12:29: Christian groups or those identifying themselves as Christian who are peddling music like that as being
01:12:36: Christian. And I think that that's virtually impossible to combine the two. But first of all, because you could typically not even understand what these people are saying.
01:12:44: They could be praising Satan or Jesus in their lyrics. And the mood that is creating is certainly not one of worship.
01:12:52: It's chaos. It's fear. It's tension. It's whatever you want to call it. There are certain lyrics that are overtly sensual.
01:13:00: And even everybody in the rock and roll industry knows that. And that's the way that they would even define their own music as creating the mood for sexual activity.
01:13:11: Do you agree with where I'm coming from, Paul? From what I know as well, even the term rock and roll comes from the very act itself.
01:13:19: You know, I mean, I don't want to consider anything. But back in the 60s, a lot of rock musicians were fairly well, we could say, well -read, things like that.
01:13:29: They were well into the occult. They knew what they were doing. From the 70s, 80s onwards, everybody's been kind of copying the
01:13:35: Led Zeppelins and all these kind of people. But you find that they knew what it came from. They said, you know, rock music was the devil's music.
01:13:43: That this is our music. Where it comes from, you know, Jimi Hendrix, Isaac Hyde on cocaine and talking to spirits and things like that.
01:13:53: And so it's just, well, you know, if you look at the spirit it kind of comes from, you know, it doesn't inspire.
01:14:01: It's the same thing with, you know, like hip hop. It just, it doesn't kind of inspire.
01:14:07: Even if I'm not talking about even worship here, it doesn't create a good influence. I mean,
01:14:12: I don't want to be creating a list of things we should and shouldn't do. I mean, at the same time,
01:14:18: I think we're getting so distracted about, can I do this? Well, if you have to acquire the taste, it's probably.
01:14:25: I'm sorry, Paul, can you finish what you were saying? Buzz was kind of interrupting there. No, that's okay. It's just, you know, it's just, you know, so much stuff, like we have so little time in this earth, this, you know, where this life is but a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
01:14:40: So I would encourage people not to be trying to think of a list of things that they can do in their
01:14:45: Christian liberty. We think of things that fill our time with prayer and Bible worship and everything else.
01:14:53: And I can guarantee you most of these issues go away because you just simply don't have time for them. And I'm sorry,
01:14:59: Buzz, you were saying? Yeah, I was thinking if you have to acquire the taste, it's probably distasteful.
01:15:06: Well, one thing that I brought this up before, whenever the subject of music comes up on my show,
01:15:12: T. David Gordon wrote an excellent book called Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns.
01:15:18: It was a sequel to his book Why Johnny Can't Preach. And he was refuting the notion that melodies are neutral when it comes to worship and even instruments, even musical instruments.
01:15:32: And he said, if you really want to put that to the test, think of how you would feel if you were at the funeral of a precious loved one of yours who passed away and a group came in and started to play music on kazoos.
01:15:48: You would probably be immediately jolted and angry because there would be a mockery of the solemn memorial that was taking place.
01:15:59: And so therefore, he was making the point that to say anything goes in Christian worship is just not true.
01:16:07: It leads to chaos and confusion. And if you look at, like, David playing before Saul, there's no kind of encouragement that, how to put it, that the
01:16:20: Bible is in any way neutral on the instruments. And if anything, it was very, very strict in who was allowed to play the instruments, even back in the
01:16:27: Old Testament, and even restricted to the temple, et cetera. But I don't want to get too sidetracked either.
01:16:33: All right, well, let's get to the point now where you are discovering the gospel of Jesus Christ.
01:16:41: Having been raised Roman Catholic, you weren't taught that, although there is a minimum of truth in the
01:16:50: Catholic Church. For instance, when I was raised Roman Catholic and the
01:16:56: Lord led me to salvation through his sovereignty and mercy in a Baptist church.
01:17:01: But I did know that there was a Jesus and I did know he was God. I did know that there was a
01:17:07: Trinity and things like that in the Catholic Church that were taught in the Catholic Church, although obviously distorted, especially in regard to the gospel, in regard to the depravity of man and their false gospel of adding works and the merits of not only human beings desiring to be saved, but those of the saints and Mary and so on that need to be added to the merits of Christ's sacrifice that kind of thing.
01:17:39: But there is some element of truth in the Catholic Church. When you came to discover the
01:17:48: Christ of the scriptures and the gospel, how did this come about initially?
01:17:55: My testimony is a little bit different to most, you know, like sometimes people might, you know, get attracted and read us and go home and maybe see that they're sinners.
01:18:04: With me, it was like over a long period of time, I was reading, I was studying for, from about 2008 to 2009,
01:18:13: I was reading a lot of, how would you put it, kind of like political activism, especially a lot of articles online.
01:18:20: And every now and again, I would come across a Bible verse, especially Matthew 11, 28, come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
01:18:28: And I remember when I read that and read all the verses like that, I thought, oh, that's nice. But that's for the, you know, and I kind of, you know, at the time
01:18:36: I was still a bit into Satanism, and I, but it kind of, I was softened towards Christianity.
01:18:43: I remember it was early 2009, December, January, around that time when they basically renounced
01:18:52: Satanism, I was just kind of like, I was doing a lot of research online.
01:18:57: I was doing a lot of, I suppose you could say conspiracy theory research and things like that. And I came across like, you know, satanic rituals and I go, oh,
01:19:06: I don't want to have anything to do with that. I used to wear an upside down cross around my neck. And that just kind of went, no, no,
01:19:13: I'm done. This is me done looking into this and being enamored with this.
01:19:19: I still wasn't a Christian, but it kind of started a process of maybe Christianity is not the enemy anymore.
01:19:27: And I remember just starting to read articles and things what the Pope said and things like that for a couple of months.
01:19:34: And long story short, I guess having, I suppose, you know, we can never know how much knowledge we need to know.
01:19:43: We need to know we're sinners. We need to know that Jesus Christ is the only way.
01:19:49: We need to know he's God. You know, things like that. We need to know we need to forsake our old way.
01:19:56: But I remember just, I remember it was in the middle of March, 2009.
01:20:01: I remember just a number of people who are doing the same research as me.
01:20:07: One person, one of the videos said, if you're an atheist, you have fallen for, you know, great deception.
01:20:13: I can't remember the exact words. Or the new world order lies be really big into conspiracy theories years ago, but not much anymore.
01:20:20: But I remember him saying that to me and I knew what he was saying was true, that atheism was a lie and I knew
01:20:28: God was real. I remember just hit me like a ton of bricks 4 a .m. in the morning walking upstairs and I remember just tears just falling down my face.
01:20:37: And it was a strange night because I remember just at the end of my bed, all
01:20:43: I could come out of my mouth was, I'm so sorry. And I remember just feeling for the first time in my life, horrible for everything
01:20:52: I'd ever done, everything I'd ever said against God just flashed through my head. And I remember just saying,
01:20:57: I don't care, I just want to follow you, Jesus. I remember just, it was a very simple prayer, but I remember
01:21:04: I just sobbed my eyes out for like half an hour. And the knowledge
01:21:09: I had was very minimal. It was very minimal. I, so much so that, well,
01:21:15: I didn't know any Christians at the time and within a day or two, I was on, I felt really, really convicted to get a
01:21:22: Bible. I went to, I got my Bible from a Roman Catholic shop of all places.
01:21:30: And kind of a funny story how I got the Bible. I remember the only version
01:21:35: I knew about was the King James. I had no clue about any of the others. And I remember saying to the guy behind the counter, this is in the
01:21:42: Catholic bookshop, and I remember saying to him, do you know anything about the King James Bible?
01:21:47: And I said, kind of sheepishly. And not really, I still, to be honest, I didn't understand a lot.
01:21:53: I kind of just knew that I changed. I kind of knew, I kind of had new desires, new affections.
01:22:00: I wanted to do different things. But I remember just talking to him, I remember he leaned forward and he said, that would be the
01:22:05: Protestant Bible now. And it was like, right, so I'll get the other one, will
01:22:11: I? Okay, right. And still to this day, the first Bible I ever bought was a Deuteronomy's Jesuit Bible, too expensive to mention, but I read that Bible at home.
01:22:21: And I remember a few days later, I met up with my friends, I think it was like the next day or the day after, and I was drinking like I normally would, but I hated it.
01:22:30: I absolutely hated it. I was just like, I was drinking pints. I probably had about six or seven, but that would have been a normal, nothing big deal, not drunk or anything.
01:22:39: And just remember just kind of going to myself, I'm not enjoying this. I was praying and for a few days,
01:22:47: I thought, oh, I'm back. There was nobody kind of to explain a lot to me.
01:22:52: It was a kind of a strange month where I was kind of looking around the dark, you could say. But I remember just,
01:22:58: I remember waking up the next morning, said, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm kind of done with this. I'm done with drinking too much.
01:23:04: And then I remember when the first passages I opened up in Ephesians was, do not fill up a wine, but fill up in the
01:23:11: Holy Spirit. And I was like, oh, that makes sense. And little by little,
01:23:16: I mean, to be honest, I was, I had so much baggage even when I went to, I went to my first church like a month later.
01:23:24: And the woman at the church said to me, it's great to know, now she probably shouldn't have said it at the time, but it's great to know you're definitely going to heaven.
01:23:30: And I went, can you really know that? And I went home and I just felt this over, I spent like,
01:23:35: I was looking at every YouTube, you know, video I could get my hands on and reading any scripture like that they mentioned.
01:23:42: And I remember when it just dawned on me that nothing could take me out of the hands of the Savior. And that was another night where I just bawled my eyes out.
01:23:50: It was, it was a strange, surreal thing. But it was just like, I knew from that day,
01:23:56: I started being, I started hating, cursing God's name. I didn't enjoy the drink, and it went from me very, very quickly.
01:24:05: And I struggled with other things. Not everything went for me. I had a really bad problem with pornography that took a while.
01:24:12: I backslid a few times. The first few months I was saved and realizing I was trusting too much of myself.
01:24:17: I wasn't spending enough time in the Word and in prayer. And I just went from realizing
01:24:23: I hated God, and I felt, I remember that night, I just felt horrible.
01:24:28: I just, I, all that could come out from my mouth for half an hour at my parents' house, stranded because I lost my car because I was such a drunken idiot.
01:24:40: Were you the star of, dude, where's my car? Yeah, it was, you know, seriously, it was,
01:24:47: I was that guy. And, you know, there was a kind of a tragic face to it because I was falling apart, but I was the party animal.
01:24:53: I was the guy everybody, not the only guy, but one of the guys everybody wanted to get out. And everybody was texting for a year afterwards.
01:25:01: And I didn't want to be too much of a quote -unquote religious fanatic at the time. I was meeting up with friends for a beer here and there.
01:25:09: And I do believe, you know, the Bible's okay with drinking in moderation. That took me a few years to realize because I spent a few years in fundamentalism.
01:25:19: But anyway. Yeah, I did too. Yeah, I felt guilty and then
01:25:24: I left it out. But I just said, you know, I don't get in arguments with people over it. But what
01:25:29: I was going to say, like, I mean, it was just a surreal moment in my life where one thing
01:25:38: I know, like, you know, I didn't know a lot, but I knew I was wretched. I knew I was just, for that first month,
01:25:45: I just felt so happy. It was just, you know, and I met, you know, like looking back, it was hazy.
01:25:53: And it was probably months later when I grew an assurance. But I thank God for the way it happened that I didn't go to some revivalist meeting and I prayed a prayer and had frustration and all this.
01:26:04: Because I was in just desperation. I reached the end of myself. I, the information of what was going on in the world, globalism, whatever you want to call it.
01:26:14: I was in utter despair. I felt helpless. And I was a good place to be at.
01:26:19: I was helpless. I felt hopeless. But I saw hope in Jesus Christ. Now, the situation with your habitual drunkenness, you said that the
01:26:32: Lord removed that from you like immediately. It was something that was no longer a part of your life because that's obviously an important issue with me.
01:26:41: Also, I was a drunkard. The Lord saved me out of it twice because I fell back tragically into alcohol abuse even after being a
01:26:53: Christian for 18 years. But then was delivered from it again. I am a person who, although I believe in the
01:27:02: Christian liberty to moderately consume alcohol because you can't find a strict prohibition of it anywhere in the
01:27:09: Bible, I personally cannot even dabble in it moderately. I know that I can't.
01:27:15: You may have a different circumstance. But for those of our listeners who have been involved in drug and alcohol addiction, just be a little bit more detailed on that end of it if you could.
01:27:27: Yeah, and it's different for everybody. It's not the same for everybody. There's certain things that the Lord might take from you straight away.
01:27:33: I mean, and he does it for different reasons. And there's a reason, I think, I can't remember the book, it's a thing called Heaven and Earth.
01:27:40: I think it was Thomas Boston, maybe. I remember reading part of that, and that the
01:27:46: Lord takes things from you at the beginning, you know, to, I suppose you could say, encourage you, things like that.
01:27:52: But he doesn't take away everything. And there's a reason that we never get too confident in ourselves.
01:27:58: It's always to drive us to Christ. We have struggles.
01:28:03: But we're supposed to always not to say, oh, I'm going to try harder, but that I'm going to give up all hope and self -trust, and Lord, with all of my heart, and lean not in vain on understanding, as it says in Proverbs chapter 3.
01:28:17: So that we are brought to the end of ourselves more and more as we grow in sanctification, that we are not saying, oh, look at what
01:28:25: I achieved. I stayed so many days away from pornography or something like that. But that we're saying,
01:28:31: I am, you know, I can, a Christian can fall into the worst sins, imaginable, and still be a
01:28:38: Christian. But a true Christian will not stay habitually in that lifestyle.
01:28:44: He will hate it. He will, of course, a Christian can backslide, and often, you know, and do.
01:28:52: We should never have too much confidence in ourselves. And the experience is different for everybody.
01:28:58: But those things that cause you to sin, whatever they may be, avoid them.
01:29:03: Whatever they may be. And we should never, you know, whatever the weaknesses and strengths of other brethren, we should never...
01:29:12: I know people who are very... I stayed away from alcohol for a couple years after I was saved.
01:29:18: And I felt kind of a bit, you know, not great about it. And I remember, you know, other believers, you know, kind of sticking to my face, almost like, you know, why don't you want this?
01:29:27: We almost get kind of odd about it. We should be very careful that we're very...
01:29:33: We'll meet people where they're at. You know, people have different strengths and weaknesses. And we should never take Christian liberty as something to go...
01:29:40: And sometimes it happens way too much in reform circles, especially. And then, look at what
01:29:45: I can do. And it's... In fact, we do have a listener that sent us an email on this very issue from Clinton Township, Michigan, that I'd like to address his question, even though you've already dealt with what he is asking to some degree.
01:30:05: But I'll address it after we come back from the break. And this is our final half hour.
01:30:11: So if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
01:30:18: chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Paul Flynn and the remainder of his testimony of being rescued from the religion of heavy metal.
01:30:28: Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am
01:30:33: I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.
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01:30:48: We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how
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01:31:23: You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.
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01:34:11: Iron Sharpens today. Welcome back.
01:34:18: This is Chris Arnsen revealing that I don't mind electric guitar behind some of my advertisements. But we have been for 90 minutes discussing
01:34:28: Paul Flynn's testimony of being delivered from the religion of heavy metal idolatry.
01:34:36: And we believe that anything that has become an idol in your life is a false religion or is a part of a false religion, an idol of a false religion or in a false religion.
01:34:50: And therefore, we think that this is an appropriate way to describe Paul's testimony.
01:34:57: In fact, he religiously was involved in music in the sense that it became something that he did habitually with great devotion and great enthusiasm that eclipsed everything else in his life, especially
01:35:13: God. And this is our final 25 minutes or so.
01:35:19: So if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.
01:35:25: And prior to the break, we were talking about Christian liberty and the abuse of it.
01:35:32: And Jeff from Clinton Township, Michigan, who is listening, he says,
01:35:38: Related to the issue of worldly music, I've met men recently who are playing with cigars, pipes, and alcohol.
01:35:46: I'm sad to see the elements of the world that I was fleeing after my salvation appearing among the younger folks in our church today.
01:35:54: Is all of this related to the hyper grace movement? Aren't we supposed to pursue personal holiness and godly behavior?
01:36:02: Am I being unreasonable in my opinions? Well, that's a very good question. And as we were saying before the break, we on this program here, at least right now, seem to be in harmony that those things that were mentioned by Jeff may be a part of a
01:36:19: Christian's liberty to participate in in moderation. But there is also a danger of flaunting liberty selfishly and making a brother stumble.
01:36:27: Am I correct on that, Paul? Would that be your view? Yeah, I was in fundamentalist churches for a couple of years after I was saved, and by the grace of God, I was led through the doctrine of grace after a couple of years, and I think the key, we've got to be consistent in whatever position we take.
01:36:50: We've got to be careful not to create a thousand different things to avoid. However, anything that's an idol,
01:36:55: I remember talking to a friend of mine who struggled giving up cigarettes, for example. I don't think, personally, that cigarettes and this might get me in trouble.
01:37:04: Any of themselves are evil. However, it's not the smartest thing to do. So, but like, and it might be damaging to your health, which might be, you know, well, it is a violation of, um, what was it?
01:37:16: I can't remember the commandment off the top of my head. You know, thou shall not murder to preserve your own life. Um, so, but you know, but you could also ban
01:37:24: Coca -Cola because there's junk in Coca -Cola as well. So I just think that you've got to be consistent about it.
01:37:30: Is, is, has it got control over your life? I don't care what it is. If it's cigarettes, if alcohol's got control over your life, that's an idol.
01:37:37: If, um, I don't know, you could think of anything as, you know, sports, um, massive.
01:37:43: Cheese whiz. You know, a huge idol, nobody wants to talk about a sport. Yes, you're right.
01:37:50: And I'll be honest, it's something I struggle with. I spend probably too much time looking at, you know, football news,
01:37:56: I'm a bit of a liberal, cool fan. But, you know, I probably spend too much time in my spare time doing it.
01:38:01: But you see, the thing is, you know, whatever it is, right?
01:38:07: I'm not saying, okay, go, go smoke cigarettes and do all that kind of thing. It's not good for your health.
01:38:12: It's not smart. You know, you know, but can I say this, you know, because they, they created all these temperance movements in the 19th century out of the revivalist movement.
01:38:22: And they were like, oh, we're going to ban coffee. We're going to ban tea. And, and seriously, it became just a list society.
01:38:30: I, I just would encourage people to avoid that, but try and go from the positive angle of that, if that makes sense.
01:38:36: I'm not saying we don't deal with it. Somebody's addicted to smoking, quit. You know, that's the story.
01:38:42: But I, you know, for the person I, I've read and I believe some of these people exist,
01:38:48: I'm, I'm not sure, but if, if it's possible to enjoy a pipe and you're not getting whatever on it.
01:38:55: It depends on what you're putting it in, I guess. Enjoy the flavor of it. I don't think that there's anything that's wrong.
01:39:00: If, as long as it's not really affecting your health and all that, again, if you want to be consistent with a ban,
01:39:06: Coca -Cola, because the junk in there, I, you know what I mean? Right, right. And of course the, the appearance of evil.
01:39:14: I mean, we don't want to make people stumble. We don't want people to unnecessarily question our
01:39:20: Christianity. For instance, my pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle has told me that he would never drink even a glass of wine in public.
01:39:31: Not that he has a belief in a strict prohibition against alcohol, but he doesn't want to unnecessarily give people who don't have a deep enough understanding of that issue to immediately question whether or not he's a
01:39:45: Christian. And I know that that is a very real thing, and that could go with smoking cigarettes and so on.
01:39:53: There's certain things that perhaps are better in the privacy of your home when you're surrounded by people who are like -minded or whatever.
01:40:00: I think Paul did things like that as well with me and things like that. You know, he said, I'm going to, yes,
01:40:05: I can do these things, but I'm going to forgo it for the cause of Christ. You know, like, I'll become all things to all men.
01:40:11: Not, not saying that I will change the message, but I'm not going to put an unnecessary stumbling block in front of people.
01:40:18: If I have to forego some liberty that I can legally partake of in order to win a person to Christ, so be it.
01:40:25: I don't think we should go, oh, look at me, I'm so fantastic, I'm so free. You got to be careful with that.
01:40:32: Yeah, and there's also a difference between somebody who occasionally, in a celebratory fashion or in a, who just very moderately smokes a cigar and somebody who's always got a cigarette hanging out of their mouth.
01:40:46: You know, I mean, there are differences of the appearance that you're giving to the world with that kind of thing.
01:40:53: I think there has to be a consistency, and I say whatever, you have to be consistent about it.
01:40:59: And I remember talking to my friend a couple years ago, he said, do you think smoking's sinful? I said, inherently, you know,
01:41:06: I think we should preserve our health as much as possible. I think there's a general principle of that, so we can serve the Lord, and he was kind of nodding his head and said, okay, yeah.
01:41:14: And, you know, and I think for what I know, a number of Puritans who smoke pipes, it's not that, you know, go ahead and do it or anything, but how would
01:41:23: I put it? It's like we've got to be careful. It's very easy to, you know, the swing of the pendulum between complete lawlessness, you don't want that either, to legalism.
01:41:34: Right. And I don't know if you know this person, but we've got a listener in Dublin, Ireland, who sent us a question.
01:41:41: I'm going to give his full name, just in case you know who he is. I don't typically give a full name, but Benjamin McIntyre from Dublin, Ireland.
01:41:49: Oh, yes, I do. Okay. He asks, what is your counsel to those in the faith who struggle with addiction, be it alcohol, drugs, pornography?
01:41:59: I know you have already dealt with this to some degree, and can you explain sanctification versus unrepentance?
01:42:09: Okay. Well, okay. Great question. Can you remind me of the first one again, counsel to those?
01:42:15: With any kind of addiction, whether it be alcohol, drugs, or even pornography. Just get as far away from it as possible, and as possible.
01:42:24: You can't become a monk. You can't disappear from the world. You're going to see things, but as much as possible, if you know, like, you know, sometimes people will see the stumbling as getting a little bit inebriated.
01:42:37: Maybe the stumbling is emptying the bottle. Don't have it in your house, then.
01:42:44: You know, these things are Christian liberties, but if it's bringing you into bondage, then it's not liberty at all.
01:42:52: It's not. So just with the pornography thing, you might have to just not go on the internet.
01:42:59: You know, Facebook is atrocious at times. You might have to not go.
01:43:05: I mean, you might have to not go to maybe the supermarket. Maybe it's really sunny weather, and you know that women are not going to dress appropriately.
01:43:14: You know, and you have to avoid a certain area of the shopping center we call it here at the mall.
01:43:21: Pray about it, but it's not going to be exactly the same for every single person. Some people need to go shopping every now and again.
01:43:30: Well, whatever you have to do, do all things for the glory of God. Whatever you're doing, say,
01:43:35: I'm going to do this so that I can be closer to my God. That has to be the goal.
01:43:41: Again, I mean, if this would help us in our sanctification, the
01:43:47: Bible would have a list of things not to do and to do. Right. But it wouldn't help,
01:43:53: I don't think. And I think that it's obviously intelligent for a season, and that may differ from person to person also, depending upon their ability to completely break free of these addictions.
01:44:13: But you may need to have a season where you have complete isolation from those with whom you enjoyed that particular sin.
01:44:23: Obviously, it would be very foolish for somebody who was a habitual drunkard after coming to Christ, going right back to the bar to evangelize his friends or something.
01:44:36: Exactly. Whatever the situation is. I remember, for example, even with me,
01:44:43: I struggled for a few months after I saved with pornography and things I had lost, because I lived in an incredibly immoral lifestyle before I was saved.
01:44:52: And I remember, I mean, there was a couple of months later, it was about, I don't think it was a good idea, regardless, but there was kind of a
01:45:01: Christian ball I was attending, and it was the first half with Grace. And I remember the dance music was kicked off, it was run by Christians.
01:45:10: And, you know, men and women were kind of dancing inappropriately. And I was like, I have to get out of here.
01:45:15: And I just ran out of there. I just, and they could tell I was upset. But in such a situation, you just have to flee.
01:45:21: You can't debate with this. You can't say why. You just have, there's times when you just have to run. You have to do what
01:45:27: Joseph did and run. And Benjamin's second question was, can you explain sanctification versus unrepentance?
01:45:39: Sure. From the outside, it can be almost impossible sometimes to tell. How many people knew that Judas was an unrepentant apostate?
01:45:48: So we can do things in an outward way for various different reasons, and we should try not to go, that person saved, that person's lost.
01:45:57: And I know personally that that's not what you're getting at. But what's the difference? One will produce fruit.
01:46:03: One will, the person who's truly been regenerated will grow, will, there will be a struggle.
01:46:10: The end of Romans chapter 7 talks about this struggle within the saved believer. And there's kind of the old man and the new man.
01:46:20: The fact that you're struggling, if there's somebody, a new believer out there, the fact that you're struggling is a sign, is a good sign that you're saved.
01:46:27: You know, not that you're, you know, I have so much sin in my life. The thing about it is, the unrepentant sinner won't see the sin in their life.
01:46:35: Hebrews chapter 12 verses 5 to 8 talks about that the Father, if whom he loves, he will chasten.
01:46:42: So when you sin, do you feel horrible? And not because you've been caught by somebody, or not because you don't feel religious or important because you've disappointed your
01:46:52: Father in heaven. The massive difference. You're not as worried about the penalty of the judgment, but how to put, you're broken hearted that you have disappointed your
01:47:02: Father. I mean, you know, like if you're raising your children, you can't just raise them with a rod.
01:47:09: You've got to show them love. You've got to show them, and then when they disappoint you, it's sometimes worse for the child than saving, you know, physically disciplined or anything like that.
01:47:22: It's much worse than, oh, Daddy, I've disappointed you. And it's that kind of fatherly love.
01:47:28: How do you, and assurance is something you grow in. You know, you have to make your calling in election.
01:47:34: Sure, Peter tells us, we're supposed to examine ourselves, Paul says to the
01:47:39: Corinthians, to see if we be in the faith. It's not this kind of, well, you've made your decision and never doubt it again.
01:47:46: I think I'll scream if I ever hear that again. But, you know, you grow in assurance. I have seen people apostatized in ways that have broken my heart.
01:47:57: Even in the short time, last seven years I've been saved, you know, people have later on denied Trinity, or people have gone back into the
01:48:04: New Age in a more ferocious way, and looked on the outside like they were wonderfully born again.
01:48:11: The thing is, will they persevere until the end? That person shall be saved. Not because they persevere until the end, but this is what a saved
01:48:20: Christian looks like. We also have to realize that sometimes people will be in the visible
01:48:26: Church right until the end, and may never be truly born again.
01:48:33: That's why I love the way the Westminster Confession of Faith, getting my plug out there, Westminster Confession of Faith puts it.
01:48:39: You know, the Church of a mixed nature, you know, there's going to be unbelievers, there's going to be tares among the wheat, there's going to be...
01:48:46: I think that takes the pressure off that we have to have everybody is saved, but everybody in the visible
01:48:52: Church must have a credible, a credible Confession of Faith. But it's...
01:48:58: and that's... You know, a true believer will love
01:49:04: God, and if you love God, you will loathe yourself over your sin, you will...
01:49:10: but you will have joy in the Lord, and other things won't be as interesting to you, and you'll grow in that.
01:49:17: Now, and people have that to varying degrees. The unrepentant person, though, who's being religious,
01:49:24: I think it's a bit more obvious if a person just rejects it and leaves the fold completely. But if they're unrepentant, they will do things not because they love
01:49:34: God, but because they want to be liked by people around them.
01:49:41: Be very careful of that, that you're not doing it to be, you know, to be seen as great before men, to be religious before men.
01:49:49: Amen. And we do have another question from Jeff in Clinton Township, uh, who asks a basically a question on the same issue that we were addressing before.
01:50:05: And Jeff, you'll be interested to know that I called in, uh, probably somewhere in the late 1980s,
01:50:13: I called into the White Horse Inn radio program with the same question that you had when they were discussing
01:50:20: Christian liberty. And I actually, uh, called in at this point, uh, prior to embracing the idea that Christians had the liberty to moderately, uh, consume wine and alcoholic beverages as long as it did not lead to drunkenness.
01:50:40: And I asked them the same question that you are asking, Jeff. Jeff asks, what about pot or marijuana once in a while, since it's legal in some areas?
01:50:51: If you could comment on that, Paul. Well, pornography is also legal. So I, the problem with pot is you get high straight away.
01:50:59: Right. And I don't from experience. So there's no kind of, it's, there's such a thing as, you know, there's health benefits to moderate drinking of alcohol.
01:51:09: It kills bacteria in the stomach. It's good for your heart. Um, it's known as the
01:51:15: French paradox in France, you know, the health benefits of it. Um, you know, like Paul says to Timothy, drink a little wine for thy stomach's sake.
01:51:24: But there's no such thing. I can't feed anywhere as, you know, I'll get a little buzzed every now and again.
01:51:31: There's no kind of, right. I can enjoy a glass of wine and I've never anywhere near drunk.
01:51:38: Um, the thing is, if you have even hit a pot, you're straight away, you're buzzed. So that's the, that's the sole reason for smoking pot.
01:51:46: It's, uh, you know, to, to bring yourself into some level of altered consciousness.
01:51:53: Well, I don't know. I'll be honest. I don't know about the medical marijuana thing. Uh, I mean, I really don't know.
01:51:59: I wouldn't want to comment on necessarily in ignorance, but I can't see, I can't see the same, you know,
01:52:04: I know people say, oh, it's a legal high and all this, but the Bible in moderation used in the right way actually commends,
01:52:11: I can't remember the exact verses off the top of my head, but you know, drinking in moderation. And it's, you see, even in Ireland, we say, you know, what, what's your poison?
01:52:19: I said, we treat alcohol as a poison, but it's not if, if used in moderation, because it can have health benefits if used wisely.
01:52:29: And, uh, pharmakeia, uh, which is where we get the word pharmacy, uh, is specifically, uh, condemned in the
01:52:38: Bible and is connected with sorcery and that kind of a thing. So I would also suggest that, uh, when we do look at some of these, uh, contemporary issues, and I'm going to bring up the one on medical marijuana without going into too much detail.
01:52:53: Well, you can't go into too much detail because we've got seven minutes left. Many times there is a whole other side of that, that is left out of the discussion that is important information for the discussion.
01:53:05: Right. And of course, if somebody is in a, in a hospital in agonizing pain, or even at home with a terminal illness, there are drugs that they take that, that Christians would not even oppose.
01:53:17: Like, for example, medical marijuana, it isn't, it isn't a legal high. It isn't a high at all.
01:53:22: It's using a medicinal property of marijuana. Right, right, right, right. Exactly. So, I mean, we can't be superstitious about these things either, but that, that you have to be very careful about giving people the false idea that because of that exception, they can run rampant with, uh, abusing, uh, that issue.
01:53:42: But I think Paul really hit the nail on the head when he said that, you know, anything in moderation, really. Um, you know, all things are lawful, not all things are expedient.
01:53:51: Well, when you say anything in moderation, are you saying something that immediately gets you high? No, that, well, there, that gets back to your whole use of the word pharmakeia.
01:54:01: You know, people drink alcohol for the taste and, and... Whereas they don't do that with pot.
01:54:08: Okay, so you're agreeing with us, Buzz. Yes. By the way, Buzz, why did you, why do you have that nickname? Oh, I could tell you the old
01:54:16: English name, Busby. Have you ever heard that one over there, Paul? Yes, that's actually why they call him
01:54:21: Buzz, Paul. You can, you don't have to be too nervous about Buzz's nickname. Okay, yeah, I didn't think it was connected yet.
01:54:29: One thing that I've been dying to ask you, and we're running out of time rapidly, but who gave you the stronger objection and more negative reaction?
01:54:39: Your Roman Catholic family for leaving Rome or your drunken, heavy metalhead friends for you abandoning that lifestyle?
01:54:50: Uh, there's a mixed reaction, mostly the metalhead, because, like, I had left Rome Catholicism already, and whenever I was there was, you know, it was
01:54:59: Christmases and things like that, so I had been a professing atheist, dabbling in Satanism for quite a long time before that, so I kind of left, you know,
01:55:08: I kind of been away from that for a long time, but I remember, yeah, there was a couple of people who really, not really, didn't really verbalize it too much.
01:55:17: The odd person sent me an email here and there. Um, I can't remember how it was, um,
01:55:23: I mean, I remember I did a lot of research into, like, people like Aleister Crowley for a movie
01:55:28: I did years ago, but no longer on the internet, but I remember just, you know, how wicked Aleister Crowley was, but then he went away, former bands, you know, almost picking him up as a kind of an archetype for them to aspire to, um, you know, like a,
01:55:42: I don't know, was he involved in child molestation or something like that, but he was into really weird stuff, um, even kicked out of France at one point, but it's just the whole lifestyle, yeah,
01:55:52: I mean, it's like you've apostatized, but I think a lot of people thought, I'd be back, oh, he's having a meltdown, or he's, like, gone through,
01:56:00: I get, you know, people have been picking me out of ditches, and, you know, I've been, I, you know, that month
01:56:05: I got saved, I hit my lowest point, and I think some people were actually scared for me, so they were kind of like, oh,
01:56:11: I think some of them were like, oh, well, as long as he comes back stronger, but I think they realized six months, eight months later that, no, this is different.
01:56:18: I had a friend of mine, right, who she, she was a good friend of mine for a long, long, long time, and, uh,
01:56:24: I remember her looking at me in the eyes and going, oh, you're just completely different, and I was like, praise the
01:56:31: Lord, yeah, and I am, because I just had a, I had a smile on my face, I had this kind of peace and joy, and I just, you know, it was,
01:56:40: I prayed at that, I prayed that I would be a testimony to her, but it just, um, you know,
01:56:46: I never really looked back. I remember I did go to one metal concert after I got saved in a kind of an attempt to kind of go, you know,
01:56:53: I don't want to go too radical, yes, I'm a Christian, yes, I believe in Jesus, but I don't want to be too whatever, but then
01:56:59: I just realized, you know, with the conversations people were having, I just didn't feel comfortable there. I remember it's like, you know, they were making jokes, lewd jokes, and I was just like, oh man, this is what we used to talk about a few months ago, and it just felt like, oh boy,
01:57:14: I just have to get out of here, and it only went once. Now, did anybody, since you're from Ireland, did anybody associate your departure from Roman Catholicism with a betrayal of your
01:57:27: Irishness, and, of course, because of the long, the centuries -long conflict going on between the
01:57:36: Irish and the British that is more politically motivated than it is religiously, even though it's couched and disguised as religion, being at the core of the battle that has raged, which is obviously a lot less severe than it used to be now, but did anybody associate with you as with being a traitor of any sort?
01:57:59: A little bit. There's more kind of, it was kind of more under, you know, like, not really explicitly said, but you could tell that that's what some people meant, and, you know, one or two people in my family, stuff like that, but it was more, you know, off the cuff.
01:58:14: It wasn't really more said and kind of, like, annoying, but the thing is, you know, it wasn't so much, like,
01:58:22: I mean, I think in Roman Catholicism, at least in the circles I went into, people don't really care what you believe, as long as you're not, well, a
01:58:28: Protestant. You can do whatever you want. You can join any kind of weird cult as you want.
01:58:35: I'm not necessarily like that, but it's just that the word Protestant has been so associated with certain movements, and often people who've never darkened the door of a church in their life, you know, a lot of these paramilitaries in the
01:58:48: Northern Ireland have never been. And a lot of people even tell me that, it's like, these people, they're not
01:58:55: Protestants, they didn't go to church, they're, like, maybe second or third generation, and they made outside Britishness what they were defending, not
01:59:03: Christianity. Right, right. And we are out of time, Paul, and just for those of our listening audience who are unfamiliar with Paul, you can go to his website, magiddofilms .org,
01:59:14: M, as in Michael, E -G -I -D -D -O, that's D as in David, D as in David, O, films .org.
01:59:23: Paul Flynn, it has been such a joy to have you back on the program, and I cannot wait for you to come back again as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron.
01:59:32: Can't wait, I mean, it's brilliant. Thanks so many for having me. I want to thank you so much, look forward to your return, and thank you,
01:59:38: Reverend Buzz Taylor, for being my co -host. My pleasure. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.
01:59:49: look forward to receiving your questions for our guests tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.