Conversations with "Church of Christ" EXILES w/ Lee Anne Ferguson on her book: "Christ Rescued Me!"

The Apologetic Dog

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:24

Well, hello and welcome to The Apologetic Dog, where it's our heart's desire to contend for the gospel of grace and we do that by standing on God's truth.

00:35

You like that over there in the side? You know, not only is

00:41

John 17, 17 such a beautiful verse that says Jesus said,

00:46

Father sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. And so for us to understand truth, in order for us to have knowledge, to understand the gospel and how to have our sins forgiven, is we need

00:58

God's Word. And so we stand on God's Word and we avoid pagan philosophies. We stand on God's Word and avoid contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

01:10

And so that's my heart's desire at The Apologetic Dog. I also serve as a pastor and elder at 12 -5

01:15

Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. So if you're in the Northeast Arkansas area, we would love for you to come check out 12 -5

01:22

Church and come check out our fellowship. I'd love to meet you. And so I have an announcement that I would love to share with you all today.

01:32

Coming up, April 5th, I believe, at 6 p .m. I will be engaging in a debate with Mike Hysaw.

01:40

And so not too long ago, Mike messaged me and he said, hey, saw you on Cultish, saw that you like to do debates.

01:48

How about debating baptism? And I said, let's do it. And so this has kind of been a debate that we've been planning for a while, just trying to get our schedules to line up.

01:59

And so we're finally able to nail down a time, April 5th at 6 p .m. at 12 -5

02:05

Church. This will be live and in person, but it'll also be live streamed here at The Apologetic Dog.

02:10

And so you don't want to miss that. We're going to be getting into the nuances of what is the function of baptism?

02:17

Is that the moment when our sins are washed away and we are forgiven? And are we declared right and justified before God?

02:26

Or is it by faith? And so we will be getting into that. So please look forward to that.

02:32

If you have enjoyed the content of The Apologetic Dog, please like and subscribe.

02:39

And please share the content. When you do these things, it actually helps the ministry and the algorithm push this content to a broader audience.

02:49

And so I'd really appreciate that. All right, and today I have a very, very special guest with me.

02:57

Miss Leanne, how are you doing? This is the great

03:02

Leanne Ferguson. But we say great only because God's grace abounds much.

03:09

Isn't that right, Miss Leanne? I'm a great example of a rich that's been saved by God's grace.

03:15

Absolutely. Amen. So you're Leanne Ferguson. Tell us a little bit about yourself and where people can find more information about you.

03:25

I'm a very private person normally, but I've been talked into this.

03:32

I've been encouraged to go this route. And I've prayed about it.

03:39

And this is where God's led me for now. And the consequences are in God's hands.

03:47

So here I am and I'm still alive. God's brought me through a lot of hard things.

03:56

And like I told Jeremiah, I haven't got everything figured out yet. But I'm learning along the way.

04:05

And I just pray there's something that God could give me to say or do that would help others.

04:14

Because I love him. I love his people. And I have a blog.

04:22

It's called Christrescuedme .com if anybody wants to contact me.

04:28

I've never been on Facebook. I don't even own a smartphone. I know that's weird, but I don't think

04:37

I could have wrote the book if I'd have had any distractions. Now, God could change my direction.

04:47

Jeremiah's been trying to talk me into Facebook. I told him I pray about it. You know, if people can give me a good counter argument to with love

04:56

Jillian and her blog. She came out of Facebook. She has a wonderful testimony.

05:03

If other people can give me good counter arguments to her reasons for leaving

05:09

Facebook, I'll take it into serious consideration. I know God can use things like that.

05:16

And we love Jillian, by the way. We have corresponded and she's been a huge encouragement for many people coming out of the

05:26

Church of Christ world. And so we still interact through email and things like that. Now, Ms.

05:31

Lianne, you mentioned that you wrote a book. And so this is the book, Christ Rescued Me from the

05:39

Church of Christ. So tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book.

05:45

Some of the providential reasons that God laid on your heart to do this. Yes. The doctrines of grace to me are not just doctrines.

06:00

God has had me to live them out. I've had to live out everything I've written about.

06:06

It's, you know, I know some people go into countercult ministries because they think that's where the views are, the likes, the praises.

06:16

But they don't have a heart for the doctrines of grace.

06:22

But God had me to live them out before I could even write about them.

06:29

And so when God began showing me his truth,

06:36

I'm like, okay, this is really hard to understand. I was reading 1600 language,

06:41

John Bunyan, you know. Yeah. This is really hard to understand. And I thought to myself, if only

06:50

I could put this in a way that people today can understand this truth, then surely that's all they need.

06:58

You know, I would really think about my family and think, wow, this is all they really need.

07:04

They need to know this. They didn't know. And I thought, if I can just put it simple and I started slow.

07:12

I started writing articles and I was not a cage stager because it was very incremental.

07:21

It was very incremental. In fact, I didn't come out to my family, everything that was going on with me until much later because I knew they could only handle so much at a time.

07:37

And truthfully, I don't think they really took me that seriously until I did publish the book.

07:45

And then they really, they took it more seriously, I think.

07:51

But yeah, my goal was for them to know the truth, for every

07:56

Church of Christ person to know the truth in a way that they could grasp it quicker than what

08:03

I had to go through. I had to go through years of just searching and begging

08:11

God and praying. I went through suffering, sickness. And I thought, if I can get this across to people in a way that's quicker and so that they don't have to go through all that I've went through, then

08:25

I will have accomplished my goal because, you know, we're running out of time.

08:30

And I just want people to be able to grasp it quicker.

08:38

You know, Jesus' parable about those that came in at the last minute and got paid the same amount.

08:45

Yeah. Well, they don't have to go through everything I went through to be saved. They don't have to go through all the torment.

08:54

I was so deep in the Church of Christ. I had to dig my way out, but that's what

09:01

God chose for me. But that doesn't mean everybody else has to go through that much suffering. God has made a way for people to understand it quicker and more simple.

09:12

And in today's English, you don't have to dig through the 1600 writings.

09:19

That's what I had to do, and it was hard. You know, I never considered myself that smart, but it was like searching for treasure, just gold nuggets.

09:30

And I've just started another John Bunyan book recently about the

09:36

Pharisee and the publican. It's excellent. Yeah, that's one of the things that got me to really write.

09:48

And I was trying to put it in language where people could understand it. Yes, ma 'am. Well, you've heard maybe a little bit of my testimonials and apologetic heart.

09:59

In Jonesboro, Arkansas, Northeast Arkansas, I've been evangelizing the Church of Christ because I really believe they are holding to a false gospel that cannot save.

10:11

And the most loving thing that I could do is show them the truth. And in Jonesboro, Arkansas, you really just have

10:18

Church of Christ and Southern Baptist churches at large. And so it was about a decade ago where I really started sharing my faith more, sharing the gospel with people.

10:28

And a lot of friends, people I was meeting in the community, were Church of Christ. And as we started really getting down into verses that articulate the gospel well, such as John 3, 16, verses like that, and then also

10:42

Acts 2, 38 would get brought up. And our understanding of these verses really became apparent that we're not on the same page.

10:49

We have a lot of the same terminology. We have a lot of that. We use a lot of the same biblical words, but we mean entirely different things by that.

10:59

And so as I started learning these things and, you know, God put

11:04

Trey Fisher in my life and we've done a lot of shared content together. We've really considered the

11:10

Church of Christ as our Nineveh, meaning that you don't really sign up for these endeavors, but you do it out of love.

11:18

And so we share that same love. And that's another reason I decided to come on. That's another reason

11:24

I decided to go ahead and come on, because I believe in what you all are doing. I think you've done an excellent job.

11:32

You know, Trey, he's had to deal with GBN, Aaron Gallagher.

11:39

I've had dealings with them. Of course, I'm shadow banned from that channel.

11:45

And there's a reason for that. I started asking them about the thief on the cross, and that's the

11:51

Achilles heel of the Church of Christ. I found it. I searched for years for how, you know, what is it that reveals the contrast of Church of Christ, the darkness compared to God's truth?

12:09

And it was right there at the cross. Jesus clearly revealed to us at the cross how he saved sinners.

12:17

And we all have a common salvation with that thief on the cross. And they do not like to hear that.

12:24

Right. Well, in my interactions is, well, Jesus made a promise before he died.

12:29

And a lot of my debates do not revolve around the thief on the cross, just because I'm saying he is justified by faith, by grace, through faith.

12:40

Apart from works, just like everyone old and New Testament. So I'm 100 percent agreement with you is saying we can look to the thief on the cross like we can look to Abraham, someone that shows faith and unwavering promises of God.

12:55

And if we do shine the light on the thief on the cross, then, yeah, he died in the new covenant.

13:02

You know what I mean? And so there's no escaping the death of the testator ratified in his blood.

13:08

He died or he was in the new covenant after Christ died. So I believe you're right.

13:14

I think that is the Achilles heel to show the paradigm of how salvation has always been by grace through faith.

13:24

So with that, Miss Leanne, I really want to dive a little bit into your book.

13:30

And, you know, me and you have said this before or I've told you this. But when I was reading your book,

13:35

I couldn't put it down. And I thought it's as though Miss me, me and Miss Leanne share a brain because you're bringing up so many of the same things that I bring up in debates that I bring up with Trey, who came out of the

13:49

Church of Christ as well. And I've appreciated your work so much. And I think you hit your goal of trying to bring clarity to these really complex issues that aren't really complex when we understand verses in context.

14:03

And so your book is broken up into five parts. And so the first part is, if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

14:13

And so do you care to tell us a little bit more what you mean by that part of the book? Yeah, when

14:21

I was in the Church of Christ, I was always busy trying to justify myself through my performance.

14:27

And it never worked out, thank God. He never allowed me to rest easy in that completely.

14:39

But, you know, the whole gist was be good. You know, we can never be good enough to earn

14:48

God's grace. We can never be good enough in and of ourselves to earn

14:57

God's acceptance. And I know Church of Christ, they say, of course, you can't earn it.

15:03

But what they really mean is you can't earn the opportunity that Jesus paved the way for.

15:11

You know, Jesus paved the way and then you do the rest. But no, he did it all.

15:19

He finished it all on the cross. I never could wrap my mind around what

15:26

Jesus did on the cross because I wasn't told. We were not told what actually occurred at the cross.

15:34

Jesus actually accomplished salvation. He accomplished the father's will.

15:41

It is done. It's not what we do. Now, that doesn't mean a license to sin,

15:48

OK, but they'll take it that way. And but there's those that will listen in the

15:59

Church of Christ. I've met those who will listen. I've met I've ran into some

16:05

Church of Christ preachers who have actually ordered the book, read it and said they gained some perspective and it really helped them to see what needs to change in the

16:18

Church of Christ. Now, that is rare. And they they confess that they were not your typical

16:24

Church of Christ preacher and they are not, but they are in there.

16:29

And I truly believe there are true God's sheep are in this cult.

16:35

And yes, it is a cult, but God's sheep are still in there and they're they're the ones

16:42

Christ will rescue you. He's not going to let you fall away.

16:50

He died on the cross for you and he will rescue you.

16:56

I'm living proof that you can come out of this cult. It is a cult of bondage.

17:04

But it's a natural religion of man, right? It's just the natural way to look at things because you're under a covenant of works.

17:14

We're born into sin, so we're still under that covenant of works. And Dr.

17:22

Jeff Johnson really helped me understand that part a little better. That's what

17:27

I'm talking about. Yeah. Now, you said something that I want to chime in real quick on because my interactions with the

17:34

Church of Christ is they really highlight the term obedience. You got to obey the gospel, Jeremiah, and we don't deny that.

17:41

But you got to scale the language barrier, which you spoke about in your book a lot, because obey can't be a code word for smuggling in works with faith to justify us before God.

17:56

And exploring the semantic domain of the word obedience and obey is, going back to Romans 6, is obey from the heart.

18:04

Obedience from the heart is faith in Jesus Christ. And usually when

18:10

I bring that out, Ms. Leanne, I have a lot of Church Christists look at me like, I don't know what to do. You throw me off the script because you're affirming the word obey, but you're putting it in the category of the heart level, right?

18:22

Firm trust in the Savior. And we're saying that's doing the will of the

18:27

Father, believing in Jesus. And like you said, it's not a licentious gospel where you can pray a prayer and then go live your life however you want.

18:36

If you've been changed by the grace of God, well, now you desire to live an obedient life of good works to the glory of God.

18:45

We are just saying that the works that you do do not justify you or are a part of your regeneration before God.

18:54

All of these things are a natural outpouring, sanctifying works, as I tell them, from a changed heart, someone who has been justified by faith.

19:03

Our works will never be good enough, even after God saves us. We thought

19:11

Christians are still capable of sin and falling into sin.

19:19

And if you don't understand what Jesus accomplished on the cross, the devil is really going to put you through the wringer over that.

19:27

You know, I've been through that. When I was in the church of Christ, the devil really would come at me with a fear of hell, you know, because I knew that's what

19:41

I deserved. But after God saved me, he came at me from a different angle, and that's what my second book was going to be about.

19:52

Jesus delivered me from deliverance ministries, but I couldn't finish it because, well,

20:00

I ran into some roadblocks. I don't have closure about some things yet, but the devil came at me from a different direction after he saved me.

20:09

And this is one of the pitfalls, and I don't know if I made it clear enough in this book, but I do mean to clarify that a little more in a second book.

20:22

God allows us to go through trials and tribulations. My four boys, their teenage years was almost the death of me, but I lived through it,

20:34

I've lived through it so far. But yeah, so the devil came at me from the angle of, hey, you're saved.

20:45

You can jump off of a cliff now and you'll still get to heaven. You know, he did that to Jesus. And I had to overcome that, and that was only by continuing to just look to Christ.

21:02

And I'm like, why would I do something like that? My life is in his hands, not my own.

21:10

So, you know, if I fall off a cliff, then God's the one that would have to take me off the cliff,

21:15

I'm not going to do it. And God showed me, why would you even think that way when

21:23

Jesus could come back this afternoon? I got so depressed.

21:31

I was having trouble with my oldest son and my brother. I had them in the deliverance ministries.

21:38

I was really hoping, you know, but see, I went into the deliverance ministries after I left the church of Christ because I didn't know any better.

21:49

I didn't, not to say there's not some truth there.

21:55

Yes, Jesus does deliver us. But I went into the word of faith movement and that's the route the devil went.

22:07

So that was one of the pitfalls that you'll run into once you realize you are saved and you're secure in Christ and what he did on the cross.

22:19

You know, but when we were in the church of Christ, it was all about, well,

22:26

Jesus did this so that you can now do this to save yourself. They won't always come out and say it like that.

22:35

You had a section, you had a chapter called Proud to be Humble in the book.

22:42

And the way that I understood what you're saying is there's lip service to saying Jesus did everything, but you have to humble yourself in this.

22:52

Like you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you have to do X, Y, and Z. Once again, shoehorning the word in works, right?

23:00

Just cloaked under the term obedience or doing. And, you know, you have a section in your book called essentially scaling the language barrier, you know, understanding the terminology.

23:10

I don't remember if that was one of the appendix or not, but that is so crucial with engaging with the church of Christ.

23:16

I kind of have a list of definitions. What's your thoughts on this? We need a clear definition of justification and sanctification, right?

23:27

They are related, but they must be distinguished. And then same idea with faith in works.

23:33

And this kind of goes back to James chapter two and understanding kind of the context there, but faith and works are not the same thing.

23:42

We might can make a case how you can't separate those, but they are to be distinguished, you know what

23:48

I mean? And so those are four key definitions along with the term obey or obedience and the word baptism itself.

23:57

What that means as a, they don't like me saying this church gospel, but it's a ceremony.

24:02

It signifies a relationship, one that has, they have with God. That's embedded in the word baptizo.

24:10

And so what I want to continue the conversation is you were talking about how God kind of took you through the ringer as you were stepping into these other ministries, so -called.

24:22

Is this part two in your book where you were talking about God's awe -inspiring providences and divine appointments?

24:29

Oh, wow. Well, before I go there, I wanted to bring up the justification issue.

24:36

Absolutely. Within the church of Christ, um, Trey Fisher did a good job of, uh, bringing a lot of things out when he was talking to Aaron Gallagher, uh, and Aaron Gallagher brought up John three and he was trying to say that John Calvin believed in baptismal regeneration.

25:00

Now you brought up a good point too, Jeremiah, when you said they technically they don't even believe that they believe in baptismal justification.

25:12

Um, now Aaron Gallagher took some things out of context because some, some, a whole set of John Calvin books landed in my hands.

25:23

My husband came home one day and he said, you won't believe what I found at a yard sale.

25:29

And it was at a church of Christ ladies yard sale. Was it the institutes?

25:34

A whole set of John Calvin's, uh, Bible commentary. And I found this here,

25:41

Romans chapter four, page 91, uh, in John Calvin's, um, commentary on Romans, it says, we deny therefore that men are justified by baptism since they are justified by the same faith as that of Abraham.

26:01

And even in his commentary here on John chapter three, he says,

26:10

God used the word spirit and water to mean the same thing, you know, because the church of Christ says that means baptism.

26:20

Okay. So I wanted to make that clear. And yet there is, they confuse the difference between justification and sanctification.

26:31

And it's, it's a fatal flaw in the church of Christ to confuse those two.

26:38

And that's exactly what Rome does. And I wanted to make that point clear in the book that that movement, the restoration movement is falling into Rome.

26:50

There is a mass Exodus from the churches of Christ into Rome, because that's the logical conclusion of, of their doctrines.

27:00

You made that very clear in the book. And when I read it, once again, I was like, ah, me and Ms. Leanne, we're, we're on the same page because I've been telling people the church of Christ is

27:09

Roman Catholic light, less sacraments, no Pope, um, very ahistorical, that's, that's one distinction.

27:18

But when you start exploring the historicity and you find Alexander Campbell, you start realizing, oh man, this has a history that's deviated from the gospel it saves, but in principle, it's, it's the same damaged goods from the

27:33

Roman Catholic church that you have to pull your, the difference is Roman Catholicism is a full or systematic theology.

27:41

Uh, they, the Roman Catholics don't deny original sin because they understand, um, what

27:46

Romans five and all these things, but they have to figure out and they've had nothing but time to figure out how to explain these things away as where the

27:54

Campbellite movement, the church of Christ as we know them now, um, it's, it's not that old of a movement.

28:01

So you, you can see some of the gaping holes in the theology itself, but you kind of, you know, hit the nail on the head as saying, this is just kind of a spinoff of the

28:10

Roman Catholic church. Yes. Yes. Um, I'm glad you also brought clarity with John Calvin.

28:18

This is where we don't follow a man, John Calvin, but he is a theologian, just like theologians, hopefully that are preaching from the pulpits and we're, we're testing all things and holding fast to that, which is good.

28:30

He was searching for the truth too, just like we search for the truth. Yes. And I tell people, nobody has the monopoly on God's truth, not

28:39

John Calvin, not anybody except God himself. Yeah. And I tell people, yes,

28:46

I read John Calvin, but I, I, these days I almost read John Calvin to show people where I disagree with John Calvin.

28:54

Uh, not that I've placed him in some high preeminence, but he was blessed by the Holy Spirit, um, explaining truth in his day.

29:03

And there's really nothing new under the sun. So all generations, I remember Dr. White has said this many times, but every generation has to fight, fight the same theological battles.

29:12

You know what I mean? And so, uh, maybe this is a good time to kind of transition to part two in your book, uh, but how

29:19

God worked providentially in your life. And so you were already kind of touching on that, but one chapter you talk about painful persecutions that you had to go through.

29:29

Mm -hmm. Um, yeah, that has been very difficult, but I have to say that my worst enemy is myself.

29:45

Well, the worst enemy is sin, our own sin and other people's sin against us.

29:54

And the, the solution is in Christ.

30:01

When you look to him and, and how he forgave us of our sins, it helps us to forgive those who persecute us.

30:11

And I know it's hard when you're coming out of a cult, uh, and, and you want to talk about it.

30:20

You want to bring other people to the truth. You're going to be accused of bitterness. Okay.

30:27

Um, in Ruth chapter one, I think verse 20 or 21, uh,

30:36

Naomi said, no longer call me Naomi, call me Mara, which means bitterness because she said

30:42

God had dealt with her bitterly. And, and Naomi said the almighty, right?

30:48

She understood the almighty sovereign hand of God. She was just concluding bitterly rather than rejoicing.

30:56

Yeah. Sorry. If you can look at persecution as a blessing from God, uh, yes, it is bitter.

31:05

It's bitter. Um, and it has the potential of making us feel better inside, but keeping it pent up and not talking about it and going silent is not the answer.

31:20

You got to get out there. You got to talk about it. Don't be afraid, you know, you'll be accused.

31:26

Oh, you're dishonoring your family. Uh, really, is anybody really going to say that ex -Muslims, let's just hypothetically, an ex -Muslim woman has to leave her

31:44

Muslim family because of persecution, because it can get that severe.

31:50

It can get deadly, you know, their lives can be threatened.

31:56

Is any honest Christian ever going to accuse them of dishonoring their family if they come out and they have to protect that they have to draw, um, healthy boundaries, okay, but you also have to know your family's boundaries, you know.

32:20

Um, Paul told Timothy, he said, um, there will come a time when they will not endure sound doctrine.

32:29

You do all you can to reach them, but you got to know their boundaries. You don't want to push it to the point to where you get reeled in and become bitter.

32:42

You have to distance yourself sometimes, uh, and, and in that distance, you just look to Christ and you, you won't be tempted, but to become bitter.

32:57

Um, so yeah, you got to set boundaries. There are biblical boundaries you have to set with them, you know, this far and no further.

33:07

But you also have to know their boundaries. And, um, I incrementally gave my family the gospel, um, just little pieces at a time, and, um, there came a point where some don't want to hear it anymore.

33:28

And you have to respect that. And I do respect that. And that's how you can honor them. You respect their boundaries.

33:36

Um, and you understand where they're coming from and you forgive them. You know,

33:41

I understand how they feel. If I was still in the church of Christ and somebody in the family came out with my book,

33:49

I'd be furious. Um, I would have, uh, really stood against them.

33:55

I would have probably slandered them, uh, because I believe that I was standing for the

34:01

Lord's church. I'm sorry, but the church of Christ is not the Lord's church.

34:07

It is a cult. Hey, Leanne, Romans 16, 16 says the church is oppressed. Of course.

34:16

What I've said to that response is that's talking about the nature of the

34:21

Lord's church. That doesn't mean you have to put the church of Christ on a sign outside the church, that's, that's telling us the nature of what the church is, not what to call the church per se, because as we look through the rest of the new test

34:35

Testament, we see the church of Corinth, the church of Philadelphia, and we don't see within the name church of Christ.

34:43

And so that's just telling us the nature of the bride of Christ. God's church is his people.

34:51

We make up the church. We are the body of Christ. It's the mystical body of Christ. And you know, sometimes, sometimes

34:58

God's people have to go underground. There's Proverbs that talk about that. The wise man hides himself from evil.

35:06

And yet we are, we are living in evil times and there's times we have to try to fly under the radar, but you know, the urgency that I have sensed from you all with this exile group that you have is one reason that I've decided to go this public, it's not like me, but the times call for it.

35:35

And remember Paul Washer, his warning, you know, they're going to come after Christians, they're going to take everything we have, but as long as you have

35:47

Christ, you have everything. Even if you end up homeless, you've got everything. And I have a heart for the homeless.

35:54

You know, I have a heart for the low dog. Um, they're the ones that are more likely to listen to it.

36:07

Jesus went against the religious people. They were the religious

36:12

Pharisees. You know, I encounter them daily and it's not fun.

36:19

The persecution is painful. Um, it, but you don't have to let them get to you like that.

36:30

If, if you look at it as a blessing, because there's things that they say you always have to take into consideration, are they saying anything that could be true about myself?

36:42

Jesus said, agree with your adversary quickly. You know, I've told family members, you're right.

36:48

I'm not good, you know, but my Savior is. Yeah. Um, Charles Spurgeon said, you know, as people were hurling, you know, insults at him, he's like, you don't understand

36:58

I'm worse than what you are accusing me of, like, that is so true. Like I'm a wretch.

37:04

Like you said, now I've been saved and delivered by an amazing grace that I can't wait to share.

37:10

We're like beggars, right? We, we have found true bread and we're trying to share that with other people.

37:16

And so Ms. Leanne, that's, I can see that in your heart and you are a blessing to the church by God's grace and we will remind people of them and so hearing, reading your book on the persecutions,

37:28

I identified a lot with it. Now, um, I believe, was that the section of your book where you also went through other hardships just with your boys and you know, the, the things in marriage,

37:40

I remember just reading that in your book thinking, Ooh, I thought I had it bad going through some of the persecutions that I've went in the

37:46

Southern Baptist world and encountering Church of Christ out in my community. I'm like, this lady is on a different level.

37:53

So it grabbed my heart because I just thought, praise God that we were talking about the

37:58

Church of Christ. The church are the called out ones by grace. You know what

38:03

I mean? And God's grace is sufficient as we, as we continue to talk about these things and remind people of solely

38:11

Deo Gloria to the glory of God alone. And he called us by his amazing grace. I want to transition if you're okay to part three in your book.

38:18

Now, this is probably one of my favorite parts just because, you know,

38:23

I'm the apologetic dog. And so I'm having to think apologetically, especially because this is why

38:29

I try to tell people theological triage, not everything is a gospel issue. You got to believe in the right

38:35

Jesus and you have to receive the right Jesus the way that he prescribed and told us to. And so what, the reason why the

38:43

Church of Christ are a cult is because they have deviated from the gospel of grace. They have committed the

38:48

Galatian one heresy. You know, they'll, they'll talk, they'll give lip service to believing in Jesus.

38:54

I've noticed in the Church of Christ world, there's not a lot of talk about the Trinity. Many Church of Christ are more of the

38:59

KJV, New King James. I think some of the verbiage kind of tries to push their doctrine a little bit more.

39:06

But the reason why this, this part three is so important,

39:12

I think, is believing a false gospel leads to eternal damnation.

39:17

So this really, I circled this in my copy of the book, not, not literally, Ms. Book, that you gave me.

39:25

It's so awesome. Oh, I don't, I would, I would be honored if you would dog ear it, dog ear it.

39:32

Yes, yes, yes. Highlight it, you know. Now, I do want to kind of...

39:38

I love the books that have that, you know, because I love these Calvin commentaries. They've got dog ears all through them.

39:45

Somebody, yeah, hopefully it was the Church of Christ lady that really read them. Yeah. Well, like I said,

39:51

I really interact with books. I tell people, you know, if you're just, if you're just reading and you're not remembering and retaining, it's as though you've not read it, if you can't recall it.

40:01

So you have to figure out the best way that you learn. And even my Bible, I mark it up. I read deep in prayer.

40:07

I want to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. And so I just have to memorize. I have to be able to almost see it in my mind.

40:15

And in works like yours, these are works of the saints that have poured into God's word, gifted by God's grace through the

40:23

Spirit. And so I just can't help but to interact with the material that I read. And you may laugh at this, but the reason why

40:30

I loved also reading your book on PDF is because I have

40:36

Bible software that will allow me to listen to books and I crank them up to times six and times eight.

40:43

And I like to listen to what I'm also following along reading. So thank you for that.

40:49

And so, like I said, part three is you're really able to pinpoint the gospel, the gospel of grace.

40:55

And so I kind of want to walk through these. But chapter 17 was the water gospel. So what kind of prompted you to kind of name chapter 17 the water gospel?

41:05

Oh, wow. You know, it's their new terms of salvation.

41:17

That's what they call the New Testament law, right? And they have certain verses that they go by.

41:26

They are a few isolated proof texts that they go by.

41:31

Let's see. I've got a list here. Matthew 28, 19. Mark 16, 16.

41:40

Oh, yeah. John 3, 5. Acts 2, 38.

41:46

I remember Trey. My husband got so tickled, he spit milk across the kitchen when he heard

41:53

Trey say to Aaron Gallagher, Hey, Aaron, have you ever seen this verse? Acts 2, 38.

42:00

Oh, my goodness. That was classic Trey. Trey has the best one liners in the world that just his one liners need to be on T -shirts.

42:09

And Acts 22, 16. Romans 6, verse 3 through 4.

42:17

Galatians 3, 27. Colossians 2, 12. Titus 3, 5.

42:26

First Peter 3, 21. These are their main proof texts. Okay.

42:32

And this makes up what they call their new terms of salvation or different terms.

42:38

And again, that's one reason they have a problem when it comes to the thief on the cross, because Hebrews 4, 2 and its parallel passages,

42:54

Isaiah 53, 1, John 12, 38, Romans 3, 30, Romans 10, 16, and Galatians 3, 6 through 8, make it clear that the gospel has always been the same.

43:05

It's never changed. New Testament ordinances, including baptism, never changed the eternal plan of redemption, but they are making the case that there is a new way to be saved, a new gospel.

43:23

Basically, it's a different gospel. It's in Galatians 1, as you were saying, you know, any gospel that's different than God's gospel of grace, it's accursed.

43:37

God has placed it under a divine curse. And so if you're believing a false gospel, that is very scary.

43:48

It's dangerous ground. Now, that's not to say that some people, that's not to say every

44:00

Armenian is not saved. It depends on what they believe in their heart. Right.

44:06

And sometimes their heart's better than what's in their feelings. Well, I've said also, tell me what you think about this,

44:15

Ms. Leanne. I've said, you know, God saves people in spite of their bad theology, and to your point...

44:22

There's people in the Church of Christ that can look beyond that fake baptismal regeneration formula, and they can grasp the gospel, but I truly believe

44:34

Christ will lead them out of there, because you cannot continue to sit under this teaching in good conscience.

44:42

It's very dangerous. And that's why we're laboring to write books and do podcasts and YouTube videos is because we think the truth matters.

44:53

And we serve a sovereign, triune God who is going to save his people to the uttermost and cannot fail.

45:00

And I don't know if you can see this on your screen, but I want to read just that brief passage we're talking about from Galatians 1, where the title says,

45:07

No Other Gospel. So I want people to hear us say clearly that we believe the

45:13

Church of Christ believes in a false gospel. And here's why. Paul says,

45:18

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him, Jesus Christ, who called you in the grace of Christ, and are turning to a different gospel.

45:29

Not that there is one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

45:38

Okay, so I just want to pause here, is this is a gospel of grace that we're talking about, the grace of Christ.

45:48

And people are deserting this gospel of Christ. And Paul goes on to say, But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preach to you, let him be accursed.

46:01

And so that right there, going back to verse 6, deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ, his finished work.

46:12

And so Ms. Leanne, talking about this, as we look more into Galatians, chapter 2 talks about we're justified by his grace.

46:22

We're justified by faith apart from works of the law. And then with, and I believe that's Galatians 2 .16,

46:29

the Church of Christ will come back and say, See, not the works of the law. And I'm saying, yes, that's the negative clause in the verse.

46:35

That doesn't mean you get to replace that with a different kind of work of baptism, because the positive affirmation of being justified by faith is the same thing we read in the gospel accounts.

46:50

We read this in Genesis 15 .6, the positive way of how everyone, Old Testament, New Testament saints, we are justified by faith.

47:00

And then you can say, not by works of the law, not by human merit, not by works of the flesh, anything else you want to put in that negative placeholder does not therefore get mixed in with us being justified by faith.

47:14

And I've watched a little bit of Aaron Gallagher, and as I was prepping Trey, I was like, By the way, Trey, tell

47:19

Gallagher I'm ready to go to war, right? Cross swords and go to town, because I've been studying

47:27

Gallagher, and I'm sure we will get our time to do that. But there's a redefining of what faith is.

47:33

It's the same thing that Roman Catholics do. They redefine faith. They make a false distinction, yes, they make a false distinction between works of the law and works of obedient faith.

47:43

Yep, and you cover that in your book. The Church of Christ as a whole rejects the only way to be justified before God.

47:52

Yep, and that's weird. It's dangerous, and this is... So are you familiar with Keith Foskey on social...

48:01

So he's a gentleman that's gaining more and more recognition just for his content,

48:07

Reform Baptist. He spoke at the Why Calvinism conference with me, and he had me on. He's going to release this interview hopefully next week or so, but he had me on to say,

48:16

Jeremiah, help me out with something. He says, I'm familiar with the Church of Christ, and I understand that they are a cult, but he said,

48:22

Why do we not see Lutherans as being a part of a cult the same way?

48:28

And I told him, Look, I've debated Lutherans and Church of Christ as very good questions, and for one,

48:34

I will say it's case by case, you know what I mean? But what Lutherans historically have done is they've not committed the fallacy of making baptism justificatory, or that is the mechanism in what declares us right before God, literally our sins being remitted in baptism.

48:53

Rather, the Lutherans, even though they hold to a kind of baptismal regeneration, which

48:58

I say is dangerous to hold to, they will affirm wholeheartedly with Martin Luther that we are justified by faith alone.

49:06

And so you can't deny Galatians 1 style, you can't deny the only gospel that can truly save, which is sola fide, justification by faith alone.

49:15

Now, I don't think you can hold to baptismal regeneration consistently with justification by faith alone, and that's kind of the pickle that Lutherans are in is

49:27

I don't think they're being consistent, but they are affirming and hearkening to the only gospel that can truly save, and they are trying to work out baptismal regeneration, which

49:39

I think is not biblical and is dangerous, to say the least. So did you want to weigh in on that?

49:44

The Church of Christ is a cult, just like Mormonism's a cult.

49:51

Yeah. You know, I know Arizona is full of Mormons, OK, but here in the

49:57

Bible Belt, we are infested with churches of Christ. And throughout the centuries, you know,

50:06

Mormons have got a lot of attention as a cult, the SDAs, the

50:12

JWs, even Oneness Pentecostals. But there is a gap here where people,

50:22

I don't know, there's some kind of really I want to say there is a demonic stronghold in the

50:33

Church of Christ system that helps them to fly under the radar more than any other cult, and I don't understand it completely.

50:43

I am still trying to wrap my mind around this. I do know that Alexander Campbell wrote in on the

50:49

Coattails of Baptists, and yes, they will appeal to the

50:55

Lutherans that are not completely Reformed, or they will appeal to Anglicans.

51:02

They will appeal to others that believe in baptismal regeneration. And somehow that slips them into the door of Christendom, and they have come in by stealth.

51:17

I still don't completely understand it. I don't think I was ever that slick when

51:22

I was in the Church of Christ. I was a Pharisee of Pharisees. Okay, don't get me wrong.

51:28

I was terrible. But they have a slick way of flying under the radar that cannot be stressed enough, and I am calling out to all

51:42

Reformed people, men and women, hey, this is serious, and we are infested, and I understand

51:54

Arizona is full of Mormons. You want to focus on that more, but there needs to be more emphasis on this particular cult, and I do have a personal investment.

52:07

I have family that's still in this. You know, if you don't have any personal investment in your ministry, you're not going to have as much passion.

52:16

We can't be lukewarm here. I have people that I love that are still trapped in bondage to this cult.

52:29

So, but I have to say, I springboard off the

52:34

Church of Christ in my book, okay, because that's the false religion I'm most familiar with.

52:45

However, I don't have a bone to pick just with the Church of Christ. I have a heart for them, but I have a bone to pick with any false religion, and that's why my book will offend every false religion in the world, not just the

53:05

Church of Christ. So please, Church of Christ people, don't take it personal. It's not just about you.

53:12

It's about any false religion that has a different gospel, and just because I springboard off of you, please don't take it personal.

53:23

I love my people. I identify with my people. I try not to empathize with them too much because I don't want to fall back into that.

53:34

I have to be careful. I'm not one of those that can just go back into a

53:40

Church of Christ and pretend everything's okay. I can never do that again.

53:47

It would hurt me. It would harm me. It's spiritually abusive. God has brought me too far for me to ever do that again, but when you're on the outside looking in, you can see things.

54:04

But when you stay in there, you can't see things as clearly.

54:10

I encourage people to come away from that at least long enough to look at it from a distance objectively because when you're in it, you're more subjective.

54:21

You've got family in there. You miss a Sunday. Hey, you're going to get reprimanded.

54:30

Don't be scared. Don't be afraid. Take a step back.

54:36

You may need to tell them I need to take a vacation for a while and observe from a distance and find

54:46

God's perspective on this religion. It's all in the

54:51

Bible. He will give you a biblical perspective that you've got to seek him for you. All you have to do is ask.

54:59

Jesus said, you have not because you ask not. Just ask him, Lord, show me. What's wrong in this?

55:05

You don't have to take my word for it. Look, you don't have to take my word for anything that I've written.

55:12

You follow God's lead. He will lead you in the right direction and he'll show you.

55:18

And look, if he gives you the grace to stay in that to affect change, wow, good for you, you know.

55:27

But most of us, we got we got to get out. I mean, it's well, you're making it, you know, once the leaders know that, you know what, you know, they can get very abusive and it can it can get dangerous to to your point.

55:43

It's biblical to be a part of a healthy church, which presupposes that it's an actual church preaching the right gospel.

55:50

So it's biblical to, you know, evangelize not only cults and those that are outside of the kingdom, but we are called to be in a church that is feeding us sound doctrine.

56:05

And like you said, I know providentially people have different testimonies of how long they were in the church of Christ and how

56:13

God saved him out. But to your point, if someone is in the church of Christ and they know it's wrong,

56:19

God's word is saying, look, you are called to be a part of an actual ecclesia that Christ is building.

56:26

And like you said, there's the proper distinctions of the universal church of all time and the local gatherings.

56:32

And so we are called to be a part of that body where we bring our giftings that are truly spirit wrought.

56:40

And so I appreciate you, Miss Leanne, just encouraging people to be prayerful. James 5 .1

56:46

talks about if anyone lacks wisdom, I'm over here saying that's me. Ask God and he'll give to you liberally and without reproach.

56:56

And we know the wisdom will correspond with his word. We're called to be noble Bereans. And so thank you again for letting people know that this isn't just we're fixating on the church of Christ, but it's all false religions that distort the gospel of grace.

57:13

And I'm like you, this is just the one that maybe I'm most familiar with, because as I was looking online with apologetics,

57:21

I noticed the church of Christ apologetics was lacking. And as I interacted with Trey and seeing that in my hometown, this is, you know, the largest cult that people are unaware of, like it slipped under Walter Martin's gaze, you know, the kingdom of the cults, that and Seventh -day

57:40

Adventist. And it goes back to your second point real quick before I forget.

57:47

Walter Martin, yeah, how did Walter Martin, how did this miss his radar?

57:53

Well, look, the SDA kind of tricked him up to there. Yep, 100 percent right.

58:00

But you know, the truth always comes out in the wash. Yeah, well, I think the reason is, it goes back to your appendix number two in the book, breaking through the

58:10

COC's heretical language barrier. I think that's the key, is the reason why

58:16

I think the church of Christ are more dangerous than the Mormons is because they believe in the 66 books of the Protestant canon.

58:22

They use all the same lingo that we use. And so an outsider perspective looking in, oh, they seem just like another quote unquote denomination.

58:31

Until you use that word with the church of Christ, then they're going to be like, we're not a denomination, we're the one true church. But I think that's where the problem lies, is they use the same lingo, the same

58:40

Christianese. And to the church of Christ credit, they know a handful of verses really well that are going to trip up your everyday

58:47

Southern Baptists that only know John 316. So with that being said,

58:53

Miss Leanne, part four of your book you you call How God Really Saves.

59:00

And so I love this part because it's starting to vindicate God in his absolute sovereignty.

59:06

Your chapters are God saves by giving. Chapter 22, God's perfect redeeming love.

59:12

You even go down the route of God's foreknowledge and predestination, right?

59:17

That'll make church of Christ skin crawl when you start talking about things like predestination. And then chapter 24, the true nature of the atonement of Christ.

59:27

Now, us being Reformed, especially Reformed Baptists, these are beautiful truths that we love to talk about, the

59:33

Trinitarian harmony of the gospel. But yeah, did you want to speak to that a little bit, how God really saves?

59:41

Oh, wow. Yes. And you know, truth shines brightest against the backdrop of darkness.

59:50

I know what it's like to be lost and religious, and it's the worst predicament to be in.

01:00:00

You can be lost and be religious. It's not about religion.

01:00:06

Well, I mean, you can call Christianity religion, but true Christianity is the only religion, the only belief system that believes in God's grace alone for salvation through faith alone and Christ alone to God's glory alone.

01:00:25

It is the only religion in the world that believes that. And, you know, people that have a problem with God's predestination,

01:00:35

I understand. That used to scare me to death. I go over that in chapter seven.

01:00:42

I won't go into depth right here. It is so emotional. I might get emotional because to this day, when

01:00:49

I read that, I get emotional because I have flashbacks.

01:00:55

But here's the thing, you know, people, when they say, I could never be a Calvinist or I could never believe that God chooses his own.

01:01:04

Do you not believe in God's foreknowledge? You know, and usually they'll have to acknowledge, well, yeah, of course

01:01:11

God knows all things. Well, look, if God knows all things, then he knew people's eternal destiny before he created them, but he created them anyway.

01:01:23

And so are you going to say God's unfair for creating you? Would you have preferred not to have been created?

01:01:29

Because look, you have no other choice. You have to face God one way or another, and it has to be on his terms, not our terms, not the

01:01:39

Church of Christ's new terms of salvation. It's only by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to his glory alone.

01:01:50

And if we take, you know, he doesn't expect us to be able in our fallen state to fulfill his commands.

01:02:01

But that doesn't mean we're not still responsible. But guess what? Jesus paid the price.

01:02:07

Amen. He did it for us. His perfect righteousness is the only righteousness that God will accept for salvation.

01:02:18

And he paid the penalty. We've all broken God's law.

01:02:25

The Bible says that if you've failed in just one point, you've broken all of them.

01:02:32

Well, you know, I asked Church of Christ people quite often, you know,

01:02:38

God calls for 100 percent obedience. How are you doing? He calls for 100 percent perfection in that obedience.

01:02:48

How are you doing? Well, they'll just say, I'm doing the best I can. Sorry, but that's not good enough.

01:02:56

Christ and his righteousness is the only righteousness that's good enough.

01:03:02

And you just look to him. You trust him and his righteousness.

01:03:08

It is sufficient. His grace is enough and his power is made perfect in weakness or else

01:03:17

I wouldn't be sitting here right now because I'm a very weak person. I'm not strong.

01:03:23

And, you know, Apostle Paul, he said, I came to you with much trembling and contemptible speech.

01:03:30

I'm not a good speaker and I'm shaky. But but God's power is made perfect in weak people.

01:03:42

Jesus died for the ungodly. He didn't he didn't come to save those who are righteous in and of themselves.

01:03:52

He came to save sinners. We're all guilty before God until he pronounces us not guilty based on the perfect righteousness of Christ.

01:04:08

And I thank God for that, because if it wasn't for what

01:04:14

Jesus did. There would be no hope for any of us. And even after he saves us, we can never be good enough.

01:04:26

You know, I told my husband one time, it's ironic that I sometimes

01:04:32

I find myself trying to perfect a book that's against perfectionism.

01:04:38

But already, you know, I can never write this book good enough.

01:04:43

I have found I found typos. I think the first couple of years after I published it,

01:04:49

I had to. But I'm like, I'm in good company because I found typos in Dr.

01:04:55

White's books and all this. I'm in good company. None of us are ever going to be perfect.

01:05:03

And thank God he sets us free from perfectionism. It's not based on our performance.

01:05:10

But look, our flesh still gets in the way. I still have, I think we all still have

01:05:17

Arminian tendencies because it's the natural way of the flesh.

01:05:28

Right. But Jesus delivers us from that, you know, and I know this interview is probably not perfect either.

01:05:37

Oh, well, you struck a chord with me. So I'm a preacher. And early on my preaching,

01:05:42

I was constantly stressed out. And an older gentleman, wise in the in the faith, just said,

01:05:51

Jeremiah, it's not about perfecting the, you know, the sermon. Right. Start thinking more about the people and just giving them

01:05:59

God's truth. And so I identify with, you know, a perfectionist mindset and realizing, Jeremiah, you're going to make mistakes preaching.

01:06:06

You're going to invent new weird words that people look at you and you're like, oh, whoops, I combined three words together there.

01:06:11

And it's OK, right? God works through jars of clay, right? Realizing that we are nothing.

01:06:18

It's all God all the time. And so when you cover these doctrines in your book about God's foreknowledge and predestination, did you happen to see my debates with A .K.

01:06:30

Richardson on libertarian free will? And I debated a Lutheran on the doctrines of predestination.

01:06:37

A .K., was he the Church of Christ guy? Yeah, he's told me to leave that on the

01:06:42

DL. And I told him I'll try as much as I can. But here's the thing about A .K. He's a really nice guy.

01:06:53

He's coming along. A .K. is a critical thinker, and he doesn't argue the same way of Church of Christ.

01:07:00

Number one, I don't mind saying this, but he doesn't condemn the Reformed Baptist. He does not take the one true

01:07:06

Church of Christ mindset of they're the only ones going to heaven. And, you know, he's he's come to Twelve Five Church and he listened to Dr.

01:07:14

White teach on justification by faith alone, where A .K., and I've tried to witness to him and talk with him a little bit.

01:07:21

The problem with him is he believes faith also includes works. He's just said, you know, when you look at Hebrews chapter 11 about by faith, the walls of Jericho fell down.

01:07:32

I'm just like, dude, that is faith working itself out. And that's OK. That's not the faith that justifies.

01:07:38

But this is talking about faith working in sanctification. And, you know, we talk about the woman reaching out, grabbing the the the hem of Christ's garment.

01:07:48

I'm like, yes, that's an effectual grace at work in someone's heart. And she wasn't declared right the moment she did that.

01:07:56

But this is a picture of Jesus heals the faithful, right? If he can if he can heal someone based on their faith working out, this shows that he actually can forgive someone's sin based on a grace that is a gift from God.

01:08:12

So that's the issue with with A .K. And he knows I love him dearly. And I know he wants to have me back on his channel to I know he wants to argue

01:08:19

Calvinism with me. And I'm like, we can do it. We can do it in a loving way. What really impressed me with A .K. is that he really tried to think through what you were saying.

01:08:29

Yeah. And most of what I encounter on a daily basis, they don't want to do that.

01:08:35

But there are there are some diamonds in the rough. So don't get discouraged. Don't ever get discouraged.

01:08:44

Anybody who encounters these Church of Christ leaders every day, please don't get discouraged.

01:08:50

A lot of them are just fearful. Yeah. You know, they're afraid and they're afraid to let go, especially of the baptismal regeneration doctrine, because they believe that's when they were saved.

01:09:03

Right. And so to them, it feels like death to let that go. And I have to testify to the fact that that was probably one of the last thing that God helped me to overcome.

01:09:16

I go over it in the book about how I got rebaptized biblically.

01:09:24

But I was shaken when I went out, you know, because everything goes through an ex -Church of Christ person's mind.

01:09:32

Like if I renounce that Church of Christ baptismal formula, you know, they're they're led to believe they'll go to hell if they do that.

01:09:41

They're in horrible bondage. It's a stronghold.

01:09:46

And that's why we focus on it so much. It's hard for them to let it go.

01:09:55

You can only look to Christ to be able to do that. And away from your baptism, even away from your rebaptism, you can't be thinking of it the same way.

01:10:09

You know, their emphasis is just I try to talk about Jesus with Church of Christ people and they they just want to talk about baptism, baptism, baptism, you know, it's all about Christ.

01:10:23

And they believe that that Christ is found in baptism.

01:10:31

You know, I was given this list by Church of Christ people of everything that saves us.

01:10:40

Every they've got lists of everything that saves us. And they believe it all culminates in baptism.

01:10:49

The watery graves of baptism is where you access the blood, right? That's the that's the phraseology

01:10:57

I've encountered with Church of Christ. That's where you make contact with the blood. I go over that in the book to the verses they go by.

01:11:05

They usually don't quote Romans chapter three, though, that mentions the blood in connection by faith in the finished propitiation of Christ.

01:11:15

Yes, there are a lot of Church of Christ members that are extremely hostile against the true gospel.

01:11:23

I have met a few open minded ones, though, and it's very encouraging when you do meet those.

01:11:32

Absolutely. Well, like you said, we trust God that his sheep will hear his voice with the true gospel.

01:11:40

And so our labors are never in vain. Right. God's word never returns void.

01:11:45

And so what you and I are doing, sowing seeds, sowing seeds. And we trust that God will give the increase.

01:11:51

And so as we begin to kind of wind down talking about your book, your part five says compelling conclusions.

01:11:58

And so as I was looking through this is you kind of circle back to the all sufficiency of Scripture and the authority of Scripture and how

01:12:07

God is sovereign. Right. If we were going to be consistent with like this libertarian free will, open theism is the only option.

01:12:15

So it totally distorts who God is, not knowing the future, all to rescue libertarian free will that is man made and is rooted in man's efforts to save.

01:12:26

And that's why the Church of Christ, you know, want to preach free will so much. And what

01:12:31

I've noticed is that they will try to affirm for knowledge and over. And to your credit,

01:12:37

I just say, well, let's let's think about the logical entailments of a mere foreknowledge view, because once God speaks the earth into existence, the entire world, then at the moment of any of your choices, it cannot contradict what

01:12:52

God has eternally known. And so there is no in real time being able to choose a or not a.

01:12:59

It's all locked in one direction. And so obviously foreknowledge is infallible.

01:13:05

Yep. His foreknowledge is infallible or else it wouldn't be foreknowledge.

01:13:10

He wouldn't be God if his foreknowledge wasn't infallible. But when you believe in the

01:13:17

Armenian doctrine of free will of man, then you're believing you can trick his foreknowledge.

01:13:27

Right. You may not realize you're believing that. I've heard the implications when people are believing, you know, we do have free agency within the confines of of God's decrees.

01:13:40

There's a difference. There's the Armenian usage of free will. And then there's the Reformed Baptist perspective, which is the biblical perspective of free agency.

01:13:53

You know, the only one that makes sense biblically is, you know, you have to believe in God's infallible foreknowledge.

01:14:05

And I know I understand it's hard to come to terms with the fact that we're not

01:14:13

God. Yep. And God didn't make other gods.

01:14:21

He made humans changeable. The only time we'll be completely unchangeable is when we're in a glorified state.

01:14:31

And thank God, you know, he has showed the whole world free will is not a good thing. Not that. Free will to choose evil is not a good thing.

01:14:40

Yeah. You know, it doesn't make you a robot because we're not inanimate objects.

01:14:45

So to compare that to something robotic is ridiculous. You're actually going to become robotic if you deny the biblical doctrines of God's foreknowledge,

01:15:01

God's grace and his predestination, because he knows best. We don't.

01:15:07

And it's hard when you want to reach people that you love and they don't accept the truth.

01:15:12

Everything goes through your mind. I know what it's like to lose people that you love, but you have to love

01:15:23

God more. And I've I've lost people that I love,

01:15:31

I've lost friends because of following Christ and his truth.

01:15:39

But he is the truth. He's the only way back to the father and the only way to truly love other people is to love

01:15:49

God and his truth as hard as it is. And yes, it doesn't come naturally.

01:15:59

It's a supernatural work of God's grace. And that's the beauty of it.

01:16:09

Well, Miss Leanne, thank you so much for coming on and telling us more about your book and kind of what

01:16:15

God has laid on your heart. And you have two appendices, I think is how you say it, where you really give a deep exegesis of Acts 238, which you got to, right?

01:16:27

That's kind of the the forerunning proof text of Church of Christ. And we need to be able to give a good answer, right, to look at the immediate context there and how

01:16:36

Peter is not imploring this this works righteousness mentality of repentance, coordinating conjunction, baptism.

01:16:45

And so, yeah, we're actually declared right by faith plus works. But no, you go into the depth.

01:16:51

And I remember thinking, oh, I'm going to definitely go back to the appendix one of this.

01:16:57

And your appendix two, to me, made a lot of sense of saying it's basically what Walter Martin said in his Kingdom of the

01:17:02

Cults is scaling the language barrier. What are the right definitions of terms?

01:17:07

How do we prove that? And how do we be consistent in light of that with proof text and context and so forth?

01:17:14

And so I just want to once again tell everybody that's watching, please check out

01:17:19

Christ Rescued Me from the Church of Christ. Miss Leanne's heart is incredible, seeing how

01:17:26

God has providentially worked with her, using her in the persecutions and the pains and the suffering.

01:17:32

Your labors were not in vain, right? The things that you went through, Miss Leanne, were not an accident, but it's all working together for our good and His glory.

01:17:41

There's one thing I almost forgot to mention. When you brought up Walter Martin, I was reminded he was off on one of the points.

01:17:54

I think he was a four -pointer in the Doctrines of Grace. OK, that's one thing that can be a person's downfall, especially if you're trying to go up against the

01:18:05

Church of Christ. You're not going to be completely equipped to go against this cult if you're not solid in the

01:18:17

Doctrines of Grace. If you're off on just one point of biblical doctrine, they will get you there.

01:18:29

God has to equip you with the full view of all of the

01:18:35

Doctrines of Grace, or else they'll find a kink in your armor.

01:18:42

They will. They'll search it out. They're good, though, at showing people where they need to be brushed up on this.

01:18:53

Paul Day has done a great job. I really appreciate his work.

01:18:59

Spirusky Lady, thanks for your encouragement. Sparky. You know, Billy Waters.

01:19:08

There's others. Jeffrey Rice, wow, what a cool dude, you know.

01:19:15

And AK's coming along, I think. Hey, we pray for AK, and he knows that I mean this with great love, and he has even told me personally he can affirm justification by faith alone in some sense.

01:19:30

We got to work on that definition of what faith is, but I look at AK as distinct from the rest of the

01:19:36

Church of Christ, and he knows I think that, and I told him, hey, one of these days, let's have an exegetical debate.

01:19:42

That's kind of speaking more his language, which I'm great to hear that because most Church of Christ want to just talk about Acts 238, not the context in which that's couched in.

01:19:52

And so AK is built different, and we continue to pray for him, like you said. Yeah, yeah,

01:19:58

I have a heart for my Church of Christ people. Yeah, I love you, and please don't hate me, but God can give you the ability to love me and tolerate me, even though I have made that exodus, but this is where God has led me, and I thank

01:20:24

God for it, and to Him be the glory. So if they still have a problem with it, they can go to God with it, and He will deal with it.

01:20:34

It's all in His hands. You don't have to come after me.

01:20:40

I'm just the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger. Well, Ms.

01:20:47

Leanne, we'll have to have you back on. I know Trey was disappointed he wasn't able to be a part of this conversation. I said, don't worry, we'll have

01:20:53

Ms. Leanne back on. She's got some new equipment over there, and so I would love to have you back on in the near future, just as we see fit, talking about certain doctrines and to be able to continue to recommend people to check out your work.

01:21:09

And so thank you so much for taking this time out of your busy schedule to be able to come on the apologetic dog.

01:21:15

Yeah, I'm running with the big dogs now. That's right. Well, maybe the beagles, the beagles, but we can't put a beard on a beagle, so we had to go the pit bull route.

01:21:31

Well, Ms. Leanne, thank you so much again. Like I said, we'll just have to have you on again before too long. Yeah, sounds great.

01:21:38

Thanks, Jeremiah, and thank you for the work that you've been doing in the Lord. I thank God for it.

01:21:44

Amen. And Trey, too. Thank you, Trey. The fishbone. All right, Ms. Leanne, you take care.

01:21:51

Thanks. Well, thank you for tuning in to the apologetic dog.

01:21:56

I had such a wonderful time interviewing Ms. Leanne Ferguson, just hearing her heart and definitely how

01:22:04

God laid on her heart to be able to write this book, Christ Rescued Me, and she gets into the nuances of the legalism that she was saved out of with the so -called

01:22:15

Church of Christ, and so definitely check out that book. Lastly, just if you have benefited at all from the apologetic dog,

01:22:22

I want to encourage you again to just please like and subscribe. I look forward to seeing you all again.

01:22:29

Until next time, check out some grandma's church. So again, one body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the

01:22:38

Church of Christ. I mean, if you just had some a little bit of common sense, you think he drove by these denominations where it says

01:22:44

Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Life Church. I mean, he drove an hour, 20 minutes here and they act like they give

01:22:53

God the glory and Jesus. Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Presbyterian Church, Church of Christ.

01:23:00

Same thing again. They deny redemption. Man, if you just had some a little bit of common sense.