Dangerous Doctrines – Is Tony Miano in a Cult? – Part 3 with Ken Cook

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

Okay, and we are live. And this is not Pastor Andrew Rappaport. This is not

Andrew. This is Justin Pierce, Pastor, Grace Reformed Baptist Church.

And we have been having some incredible shows here lately.

I'll tell you, this has been some very, very eye -opening and very large, very incredible shows that we've been having.

It's been, some of it has been very heartbreaking, in my opinion. I have been just, to be honest,

I've been in tears at times as we've been going through some of these discussions. And it has been a lot to take in, a lot to deal with, as we have just had the many different people on that have given their accounts of all the things that have gone on with the church that,

I can't remember the name of the church, Grace Fellowship Church. I'm probably getting the name wrong.

But we have a show tonight where we're going to try to sit down and we're going to try to discuss what we heard last week.

We heard some very disturbing things and some heartbreaking issues that we have, we just felt like we wanted to talk to everybody about.

I want to introduce, just before we start out, I want to take a moment and I want to have you listen to something from Pastor Andrew Rappaport.

I tell you, it was heartbreaking, but I do think that everyone needs to hear this.

And it is a bombshell of an issue. It's a bombshell of the discussion. And we want to open this up so everyone can hear this.

Give me just a second here. Well, apparently we can't hear that.

So I'm going to change up and do something a little different. I apologize for that.

Give me just a second. I am illiterate when it comes to doing a lot of this stuff.

I thought I had it set up for everybody. Let's see. Tell you what, what

I'm going to do is we'll back up and punt. I'll pull that one out in just a moment. I'm going to back up and punt just a little bit because I do have some questions.

I have Kevin has been gracious enough, Kevin John, he has been gracious enough to, to write out a list of questions that I believe that Mike Reed needs to answer.

He hasn't answered these questions yet. And we have some questions that I do believe that, that he needs to answer and, and to, to bring to light.

And if he wants to come on the show, if he wants to, to do whatever, to come on, it would be, it would be a great thing if he would come on and just, just give a discussion of this and give an answer.

So without further ado, the questions go like this, talking to Mike Reed, do you meet with women alone on a regular basis?

Do you ask for details about spousal intimacy? Have you ever said to not trust the elder is to not trust

God? Have you ever said whatever the elder would counsel you to your life is perfect?

Have you ever said that GFC is the only true church in the

Quad Cities? Have you, do you believe the elders have nearly unlimited, unlimited authority in the lives of their congregations or the congregants?

Have you ever said if someone owns a gun is in the military or police, they have premeditated murder in their hearts?

That's a big one. That's rough. Do you, do you share details about counseling sessions with other members?

Did you ever imply that men and women should be able to kiss someone on the lips that is not his or her own spouse?

That's another, that's incredible. Have you ever shared details of your own sexual intimacy with any of the people in your counseling sessions with members of the opposite sex?

Do you believe you are infallible against sexual immorality?

Have you ever said that? By name, what specific pastors, theologians, and or teachers have condemned alone in counseling sessions?

And I have added a question number 13 to this. Mike Reed, have you ever said there are only five churches in the

United States that are capable of authorizing and sending evangelists out in the streets?

So with that, I am going to ask brother Ken, brother Ken Cook. How are you doing brother?

I'm doing very well. I'm sorry that you have to be here.

And I wanted to introduce everybody to brother Ken Cook. He's I'll tell you that he and I've had some discussions here in just past a day or so.

And, and I, I mean, this is really the first time Ken and I have ever really had discussions about anything.

And I think I have a brother that is like -minded with me and brother

Ken, I just introduce yourself if you would. And, and as you do one thing

I want to want to say to everyone is that the reason that we're dealing with this is there is something going on in the body of Christ that we need to talk about.

And it, it permeates in so many different ways. It's the landmarkism, the landmark idea.

It's a doctrine that Ken's going to explain to you. For those that don't know.

And the reason why it's so important is it can, it can be a minor issue or it can be a cultic issue.

I mean, it can go from one to another. It can be so overwhelming and so all -consuming that everything about what you believe is, is, is incorporated and mixed into your entire doctrinal and philosophical, psychological and theological belief system that you are the exclusive and only one that has the truth.

And that's that landmark idea. And it can go from one to another. And I'm going to have a brother Ken talk about it from karm .org

and introduce himself. Go ahead, bro. Yeah. So my name is Ken Cook. I think a lot of y 'all know me.

I worked at karm for more than a decade. I tell people

I went to the seminary of Matt Slick. And so I've grown up really for the past 15 years doing apologetics with Matt and learning apologetics from Matt and others, but mostly from Matt.

And so as I started listening to this issue of Grace Church, Grace Fellowship Church there in Davenport, the first thing that hit me was this idea of landmarkism.

Now, landmarkism is a relatively novel Baptist idea. It started around the 1850s, 1851, 52, 53, that timeframe is the typical attribution.

And the idea is that each church is kind of its own island, if you will.

And each church has its own authority, and there is not interconnectedness of authority.

There is not a denominational structure. And a lot of what you see from non -denominationalism is a result of many things in the mid -1800s, but landmarkism certainly plays a part in that as does the restoration movement and some other things as well.

And so when we hear some of this teaching and some of these things that are coming out of Grace Church, I can't help but notice the parallel to some of the ideas of landmarkism.

Now, one of the big things is landmarkism was created primarily to stem the tide of liberalism.

They wanted to prevent Baptists from being preached to by Presbyterians and Lutherans, really, at the end of the day.

And they wanted to have the local church be the authority because as we now see in our world, denominations can often go off the rails,

PCUSA, PCA, even

Southern Baptists, which this movement came from. The Southern Baptist Convention is not the

Southern Baptist Convention from when I was a child. And so landmarkism seeks to provide protection by bringing authority solely to the local church and the local body of elders.

In and of itself, that's not necessarily bad, but some of the doctrines that came out of this are bad.

When I was first introduced to landmarkism, it was actually by a brother that a lot of y 'all may know. I won't mention his name because he believes it.

And he said to me, yeah, if the Apostle Paul came to my church, I wouldn't serve him communion.

He's got to go to his own church for that. And it's this isolationist idea.

And I think that that is one of the aspects that may be in play here is that we have a

Baptist church that is kind of a rule unto itself. And that's,

I think, one of the big things, Justin, that I see at play and that I've heard very similar things out of the landmark movement over and over and over that we're now hearing from Grace Fellowship Church.

Yeah. One thing I want to point out for everybody that's going to ask the question, what kind of skin do you have in this game?

What kind of knit do you have to pick when it comes to this issue? Are you just going after them because it's

Tony or because you've got something against Mike Reed, or maybe you have something against one of the other people here?

That's going to be asked. And that's a legitimate question. It's a fair question. It is.

And it is and it isn't. And so let me start off with this. How many times have we heard people who deal with apologetics and Mormonism maligned because they're an ex -Mormon?

Yeah. Right? It's an easy attack. It's a cheap attack.

It's a genetic fallacy, and it's utterly meaningless. That said, let me tell you my background with Grace Fellowship Church.

I have no background. That's right. I've never met Mike Reed. Outside of Tony Miano, I know no one who attends the church.

That said, I know Tony Miano very well. Okay? CARM and Living Waters used to do a lot of work together.

They would pass folks back and forth constantly. They would work together on projects, et cetera. That's where I first met

Tony. When Tony left Living Waters, I worked to actively recruit him to come work at CARM and to join the team there because, one, he was a great evangelist.

And CARM, as many of you know, is an evangelistic ministry to this day, right?

We're not ivory tower academics, if you will. Now, my role at CARM has significantly changed over the couple of years.

I do a little bit of consulting occasionally now and again, but I'm not on staff anymore like I used to.

I'm not on the board any longer like I once was, but I still have a lot of love in my heart for them.

When Tony first started Crossing Counters Ministries, it was I who built that website.

It was I who purchased that domain. It was, to this day, the logos that he has are the logos that my company, my staff,

I paid them to put together. It was I, along with Chris Harnholz and Richard Story, who were on his radio show, his podcast.

It was I who connected him to Matt. It was I who went to Tony and said, hey,

Tony, Reuben Israel shows up first on Google when someone searches for street preaching. We got to do something about that, man.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. We had a lot of good times together working in ministry, preaching together.

There's a video out there from Boise State where I'm filming and Tony's talking to this guy and he asked him, if you had three minutes left to live, what would you say?

And the guy bursts out the Shahada, okay, because he's Muslim. And Tony looks at the guy and he goes, so I guess you're a

Muslim then, right? It was hilarious. It was one of those moments where you just went to see you get caught off guard.

I was the one who came to Tony and said, hey, why don't we enter you in the contest to win the Mustached Man of the

Year Award? We came in second place. He has a good mustache, right?

All this to say, up until October of this year when he asked me to give it to him, and I did,

I paid for the domain crossencountersmid .com.

Yeah. Okay. I've said this to him recently via text.

I have no malice that I am aware of. I have no issue. I have no contention with Tony as a man.

There's no issue that I am aware of between he and I. In fact, when Andrew first came to me and said, hey,

I want you to look at this, I said, no. And I said, I don't think so, Andrew. I can't believe it.

I can't believe there could be an issue there. We all know Tony. We know his manner of life. And he asked that I would just look at the facts.

Doing apologetics for basically my entire adult life, I can go look at the facts. Yeah. And I think what you'll see, and I think what's been put together, especially by Anthony, is meeting the biblical standard of witnesses.

We're not relying, I've not, the show that was done last week, we're not relying upon hearsay.

We're not relying upon second and third hand testimony. We're not looking at or requesting myths and legends.

We're talking to real people who are really there, who really saw these things, who really participated in these things.

And the Bible says we're not to submit a charge against Nelder without two or three witnesses.

Exactly. And I take that very seriously. Last week, we had six witnesses.

Exactly. Six. And so I know that there's brothers out there who don't want to touch this issue with a 10 -foot pole.

I have nothing to gain by touching this issue. I have everything to lose. Yeah. Except how many of us who are apologists, who are evangelists, who are pastors, owe the truth that God calls us to examine a charge against Nelder.

And that's what we're levering. Make no mistake. There is a leveled charge that Mike Reed is unfit to be a pastor.

That is what we're saying. I agree. The evidence from witnesses that we are seeing, because I want to be really clear on one other thing.

At no point in any of my research have I heard a denial of the essentials, right?

Of the essentials of the faith. We have at no point that I can recognize, and I've not listened to everything, but I've listened to a lot of things.

I've looked at a lot of sermons and a lot of sermon notes. I at no point have seen a denial of the essentials.

And I want you all to know that I got no ax to grind. If anything,

I have a lot of reason to be suspicious. And just to be as clear as possible, that's what

I am. I'm suspicious, but the witnesses have led me to a conclusion. I've heard a few people say, you have an ax to grind, not you, but talking

Anthony or Andrew or myself or Kevin or anyone else. And what

I want everybody to understand is, personally, the reason I've tried to stay as much out of this is because I don't have an ax to grind, and I wanted to hear the details.

I wanted to hear the information. It was my heart not to label a charge, because as a pastor,

I take this very seriously. I take it so seriously that it makes me break down and cry.

And I'm going to try every bit as much as I can not to break down. I'm just going to tell you, the offense is not against me.

It's against our Lord Jesus Christ and his church and against his bride.

And what I want to make clear is, I don't know that I've heard anyone say, and if they did,

I missed it, that anyone there is not saved. I can't pronounce from this distance, not knowing them personally and seeing them, their salvation or not, even though we have seen a lot that causes a lot of trouble.

But it's like I've told people before, if Paul, the apostle, can call the

Corinthian church his brothers, there's a lot that we need to be very careful of, shouting out anathemas and calling people unsaved.

We have to be very careful of that. And I'll leave that for God and for his bride and for the people at the church.

What I will say is this, everything we heard last week is, there's no question in my mind that we're dealing with a cult.

We're dealing with cultic teaching, and that's why we're talking about this.

People can get pulled into cultic doctrines, culture and teaching, cult leaders so quickly.

I tell you, I've talked to you guys about David Koresh. I've talked to you about Jim Jones. And what you don't understand, or probably don't, you might, but if you look it up, these guys were very charismatic and they were able to pull people in to get them to do things they would never do, like drink

Kool -Aid. That's where we get the term from, don't drink the Kool -Aid. Right? That's where we get this term from.

And it's because the doctrine sounds so good, but there's another way that it happens.

It happens because these men know how to prey on strong militant leadership, on people that are able to stand, weather the storm, that are very strong, very boisterous and militant, military type personalities.

And it is my belief that Jim Jones and that David Koresh, if you will go look at what they did, they brought in military, fire,

EMS, militant type people from all kinds of different walks of life, even police officers and whatnot.

They brought them in and gave them kind of a mandate to be the warriors.

And they were to protect and they were to lead the charge and lead the way. And this is what cult leaders do is they surround themselves with militant men and women who will fight the fight for them and will hold everyone accountable.

Jim Jones had it locked down so well that the people that were going out to Jonestown that tried to run away, these militant men were surrounding the camps and they killed them all.

They shot everyone. There was only a few that got away. David Koresh, he had so indoctrinated and trained the people that when you see the fight coming, you will know that I am the

Messiah and you will know the truth and you will be ready to fight. And there were some that were skeptical right up until ATF and FBI and they started raiding in and he said, see, it's happening.

You see, it's happening. And they jumped in full bore, guns blazing, willing to die for this cult.

And I'll tell you what we're trying to do. And this is not call anybody unsaved.

We're trying to say, get out from underneath this. This is false. This is terrible.

This is wicked. It's bad and it's going to hurt people. It's going to hurt people.

And it already has. It has. It has a lot. We've been talking about it. Yeah, we definitely have been talking about it.

I want to try one more time if I can to pull up Anthony, Andrew Rappaport, because he has something that he wanted to say that he wanted to point out.

And I want to try to pull this up one more time if I can. So Ken, while I'm doing that, maybe you could discuss a little bit about the cultic things that are going on with the landmarkism.

Yeah. So one of the other big pieces that we saw the landmark movement, which by and large,

I would say is largely dead nowadays. It's certainly not what it was, was the tendency to isolate and the tendency to put all of one's trust in a specific set of local leadership.

And I think that's a piece that as I've seen what's gone on here, that's a piece that concerns me.

And again, that's not to say that this is unchristian per se. It's not to say that.

Yeah. One of the questions I was talking with Matt about this, not a lot of people know this, but maybe

I'll do. Matt pulled all of Tony's articles off and one of the stances of karma is you only have trustworthy teachers on there.

And so he pulled all of Tony's stuff off. And one of the questions that as I was explaining some of my conclusions to him that he asked me was, is this a

Christian or a non -Christian cult? And I said, you know,

Matt, once again, there's no evidence that any of the essentials of the faith are being rejected, right?

At least, I mean, down to their website where they've got the London Baptist Confession. Now, I don't think they meaningfully hold to the

London Baptist Confession, but they have it there. And that's one of those interesting pieces.

And so at least my current conclusion is this, is that we have the social aspects of a cult.

We have the social controls of a cult. We do not have the non -Christian cultic aspects in play today, or more specifically, we don't have evidence of that.

There may be private things occurring that we're unaware of, but the things that we are aware of,

I think firmly, and we're going to go through some of the audio today, firmly put this into the camp of a cult from a social perspective.

Still not, audio's not working for you, is it? I'm trying to get there. I hate this. Oh, that's awful.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You have to give me just a second. I'm letting you ramble for a minute. I apologize for that, but I'm trying to get there.

And so I was thinking maybe we could bring Kevin in. Yes, Kevin, come in, brother.

If I hit play and you guys can hear this, let me know and we'll just keep going. Okay. How are you doing tonight,

Kevin? I'm good, Ken. Thanks. I'd like to say it's great to be here again.

It's good to see you guys. I appreciate all you've done. I appreciate your concern for those that have left

GFC, and I appreciate your concern for the Universal Church abroad as these things should be exposed because you articulated that well.

Ken, you were very quick to respond. They have hurt people. You know, the six witnesses were a small sampling of the numbers of people that have been hurt by Grace Fellowship Church under Mike Reed's leadership and ministry.

And there's a lot more. And there's so many that have down through the years, they've put it behind them.

I couldn't get them on here because they've buried those memories.

They don't want to stir that stuff up anymore. And, you know, we're able to get a lot of people that are willing to come forward.

There's so many more. And, you know, it's a dirty track record.

It's a long 12 -year track record of hurt. Well, let's go ahead and try this.

Let me try real quick and I'll see if everybody just let me know. If it doesn't work, we'll stop and I'll do something else.

No? Nope. I apologize. It's all right. I'm awful at it there.

That's all right. There we go. I gave it a shot. So we'll see. I want to maybe just share one of the books that, you know,

I know we've talked about here and it's been very meaningful in my life. I'm just about finished with Recovering from Churches That Abuse.

It took me a long time. I also, I'm just going to back up a little bit. You know, we left

Grace Fellowship in February, early February. I think it was the 7th or 8th of February, 2018.

That was our last Sunday. That was our last Sunday there. So I never spoke out and named them until over two years later, nearly two years and some months.

The reason I didn't speak out earlier was because for one, we were trying to get our heads straight.

We wanted to understand what we had been through. We wanted to educate ourselves. And one of the books that really helped me see a lot, and I just had to write blog posts on it.

And I wrote a five series posts on the book, Churches That Abuse, not Recovering from, which

I'm reading now, but Churches That Abuse. And it was so phenomenal. It was, it hit every element of the church.

And can I just read just a tiny little bit of this introduction? Because I think it's, it really speaks to what we're here to talk about tonight.

As long as you pay them the royalties. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is, he says this, the perversion of power that we see in abusive churches disrupts and divides families, fosters an unhealthy dependence of members on the leadership and creates ultimately spiritual confusion in the lives of victims.

That so succinctly describes what happens there. If you ask any family that has a family member inside of there, if it has disrupted and divided their family, 100 % will say they have.

Does it foster an unhealthy relationship on Mike Reed himself? 100%, absolutely it does.

And does it create a spiritual confusion? Absolutely, 100 % it does.

And there's just more here. I'll maybe share more of this later on, but I just wanted to start with that to say, this is what this place does.

It hurts people. And the last time I read my Bible, I thought shepherds were supposed to help people.

Yeah. Amen. I'll agree with that. It's definitely a concern, something that we definitely need to consider.

So as we're diving into the issues, let's see,

I want to try to play some of these clips from last week because we had a marathon event last week of just incredible proportions.

What was it? Three hours and 35 minutes or 45 minutes of people coming on and giving an attestation of things that had gone on within the church that affected them.

And we had so many people talking about these issues. The one thing that I want to start out with, and Ken, maybe you can jump in with this as well.

The one thing I want to start out with before we get into any of the clips is

Kevin, you were there for nine years. You were there and what was your capacity within the church, if you don't mind?

Yes. My last four years there, I served in the role as a deacon in the church.

I left, when we left, I was actively serving as a deacon in good standing.

I had never been under any kind of church discipline, never had any issues.

So that's where I was. Okay. So you agreed to the doctrines, to the teachings, to the things that were going on at the church.

And so I want to make it clear to everyone so that we have the foundation.

You're not walking out saying, look, and you and I have talked about this. I'm as pure as wind -driven snow.

I did nothing wrong. As soon as I saw the bad stuff, I saw the bad stuff and I jumped ship.

You're not saying that. You're saying that you had been so convinced. And if I'm putting words in your mouth, please tell me to shut up.

But you were so convinced that this was the right church in the right way. This was the correct doctrine.

These were the things that were supposed to be happening inside of a biblical church that you had aligned with it and were part of it.

Am I right? Yeah, that's pretty accurate. I think the way to say it, the way that I tell people is,

I grew up in a church. My mom and dad were faithful members and continue to be faithful attenders of church and active in their faith.

So we grew up in the church. It was more of a free will denominational type situation.

When Mike Reed came to Grace Fellowship Church, we began to hear preaching that was different than what we'd heard.

It more stressed sin. Maybe from my perspective at that time, it was very exegetical.

I wouldn't call it that now. I think that there's a lot of issues with how he exegetes scripture. But I've learned that over the last number of years.

As we heard this kind of stuff, we became convinced.

I would say that I came to salvation and faith there. I don't think it's just because of him.

I think it's that the word of God convicted me of my sin that I was living in. So there's that.

It took me several years to really know if I could trust him or buy into it all the way.

Then eventually I said, okay. Then we were really faithful for quite a number of years.

Then before I really began seeing the issues, my wife had begun seeing some of the issues that were going on in the church.

As my eyes began to be opened, it's interesting because churches that abuse talk about that too, how one day we start getting these senses, these things that come up.

The Holy Spirit guides us and helps us discern things. As I grew in these discernments and certain things happened along the way, books

I was reading, people that I was encountering or people that would come to the church, these things began to open my eyes.

As my eyes began to be opened, I began to go to Mike and have discussions with him about some of the issues and the concerns that I had.

I think he wouldn't pat me on the head and say, you're doing good,

Kev. Move along. He'd listen to me, but yet I never really sensed there was going to ever be any change.

Then it came to that point. I just knew there wasn't based on some discussions, some things that had happened, some things that he was saying from the pulpit that were addressing my conversations with him to the whole congregation without them really knowing it.

Of course, I knew it. When we did leave, we were really convicted how we knew that we had been a part of this.

The same thing that happened to us after leaving, we had done to countless people that left before us.

What should a Christian do in those situations? A Christian should go to those people, talk to them, seek their forgiveness, and reconcile to them.

That's what we did. My wife and I set out to do that. There were some things that were grievous that we were very ashamed of and are still today ashamed of doing those things that we went to them.

I mean, Matthew 6, if you know that your brother has sinned, lay your gift at the altar and go be reconciled to your brother.

I even used that verse with Mike when we left.

He reached out sort of trying to reconcile, but really what he was trying to do, in my opinion, was draw me back in, do enough to get me back so it would be an okay relationship.

But we did it. I mean, I'm not putting myself on a pedestal by any means. We were ashamed of ourself.

We're still ashamed of ourselves for participating in so many of those things for so many years, but we sought out as best we could.

I went to my parents and I asked them to forgive me for the way that I had treated them. So many people we did that with because that's what

Christians should do, I believe. It's just what we ought to do.

Yeah, exactly. That's one thing

I wanted to make sure that we're talking about and addressing. This is not you coming out saying, I've got a vendetta.

This is many people coming out and some were victimizers and some were victims and all were victims.

Let's say it that way. You and everyone else, but some had part in victimizing others.

I actually heard some other testimonies about ladies and other gentlemen going to one another and I saw it personally on the after show.

Ladies and gentlemen going to one another and seeking reconciliation and forgiveness. That's the whole heart of this.

For those people that want to say you're just trying to bludgeon somebody, I want to make it clear. This is all about reconciliation.

When you bring somebody under church discipline or you excommunicate them, the entire purpose when you treat them as a

Gentile, the scripture says, and you cast them out. How do you treat Gentiles, Ken, when you get undrinking that?

I treat them well. What do you do to them? If you think they're

Gentiles and not saved, what do you do? You're kind and you share the gospel with them. You go to them and you gospel them.

You love them. You show them grace and mercy. You show them humility. You show them their sin.

You show them their sin and you talk to them about these things and you're graceful with them and you want to love them back to repentance, to be reconciled first with God and then with man.

That's what the scripture tells us. That's what we are called to do as the body of Christ.

We plead with you. We beg you be reconciled with God, the scripture tells us.

That's what we're to do is to beg others to be reconciled with God and that reconciliation by necessity brings out peace and reconciliation with one another.

That's the call. That's what we're trying to do. I think that's the big thing here, right?

I don't think any of our conversation that you and I have had, we're not looking to hurt anybody.

We're not looking to damage reputations. Rather, we're trying to say, look,

I think there's a problem here that needs to be addressed and this is a very serious issue.

How is it that we can protect the young ones in the faith who might go to this church?

One of the things that I heard last week that surprisingly just killed my spirit was listening to Chris say, well,

I had some red flags, but because Tony was there, I just let him go.

I just want to say something to some of my brothers here.

Realize that if you're allowing our brother Tony to use his reputation to further the damage here, your reputation is what's enabling that.

If you want to buy Tony's stuff off of CARM, that's it.

Right there. That's good, Ken. I've heard some, read some, been made aware of certain things that have been said that Tony is being slandered or whatever the case may be.

Some people have really thought it kind of a joke. My response to those people is, come and talk to some of these people that have gone through this and then you tell me how much of a joke this is.

Absolutely. If it was your wife or if it was your children and they were being put into these situations and they were being treated like this, would you still think it's a joke?

Because you think Tony's got some kind of a name that people recognize? Maybe you know

Tony or maybe you don't. Maybe you're just aware of him or his reputation or whatever the case may be.

Call yourself a Christian, you owe yourself a little bit more than to just make a comment like that.

Exactly. I would absolutely agree with that. It's, we're dealing with souls.

We're dealing with people's souls. We're dealing with, not only that, but we're dealing with the life of biblical

Christians, of the body of Christ. And that's something we don't mess with lightly.

That's something we don't play around with lightly. And the reason is, is we can so damage and harm even believing

Christians that they can become ineffective to the glory of God, ineffective to the body of Christ.

They can become so distraught and so hurt that they can even turn away and blame

God for the things that we have done as Christians, as pastors, as elders, as leaders.

That's why we are called, ladies and gentlemen, as the body of Christ, especially for you, the elders, you pastors.

That's why you're called to be above reproach and gracious and gentle and the things we're going to talk about tonight.

We're now 46 minutes in and let's get started on this as we start discussing the issues.

Hopefully as I hit play, it will play. We can only hope that it'll work right.

Let's see if it does. If everybody can hear it, praise God, let me know. If not,

I'll back it up. Hey guys, you just maybe give some of your testimony here as to how you came to GFC, what happened that caused you concerns and, you know, where do you stand today on the topic or anything else that Ken or Andrew may want to ask you guys.

And also, if you see the practices that were, that Ken or I brought up, if you can explain those as well.

So Chris, why don't you go first? Okay, so as far as repeated indoctrination,

I think that was one point that Ken brought up. You know, I heard Mike, you know, drill the same, beat the same drum repeatedly on, you know, willful sin or premeditated sin.

If you have premeditated sin or willful sin, you know, you're not a Christian. You'd even go so far to say that.

You know, the scriptures to support that would be Hebrews 10, 26, you know, for if we go on sinning willfully, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.

I think I'm quoting that pretty closely and, you know, Scripture twisting would be a big thing.

So did you catch that? Everybody hear that pretty well? I think what

I heard, if I'm not mistaken, I think what I heard is that if you have sin in your life,

Hebrews 10, 26, and you go on sinning willfully, you're not a Christian. You are an unbeliever.

You're not saved. And so Ken, you and I had actually talked about this.

I want us to discuss Hebrews 10, 26, if you don't mind.

Let's we are the church. We are the body of Christ. I'm the pastor. If you are living in sin and you have sin in your life, willful sin, then you're not a

Christian. You need to repent. You need to come to Christ and get saved. And by the way, Hebrews 10, 26 is my biblical authority on this.

So can we go ahead and look at that? Yeah, I I when I when

I look at at Hebrews 10. First, let's not divorce

Hebrews 10 from the rest of Hebrews, shall we? You know, one, the book of Hebrews in total, you know, and I mean, there are a couple of different views on this text.

I would tend to agree with James White on his exegesis here.

This text is not saying if you're a Christian and Christ has covered your sin and you have been justified, that you can somehow fall out of a state of grace.

Amen. That's Romanism. That's Roman. That is not the picture of Christianity where we see in the golden chain that justification leads to sanctification, leads to glorification.

Right? Those he justified, he will sanctify and he will glorify. Right? And so on one hand,

I think that this idea of, well, if you're a Christian and you have this, then I wonder how much of this is an excuse for Mike because of his affairs to justify himself as I wasn't a

Christian then, I am now, therefore I'm still qualified for the ministry. I agree. In my opinion, if you were married at any point and then divorced at some point, you're not qualified for ministry at any point, regardless of when your conversion was.

You can agree or disagree with me, and I'm fine with that. But that piece,

I think, is critical because he's in a relatively conservative, reformed church, and he has to convince people that he's qualified to preach.

Yeah, that's very accurate, Ken. That's actually scary accurate because he does.

He works hard at convincing people that he's qualified. That passage that was just discussed, one of the issues,

Chuck Scott, who's become a good friend of mine, was on the program with Anthony, I think, one time.

And that was, Chuck is a chaplain in the military and has been a pastor of a church.

And when he was there, when Mike preached through that passage, and he confronted him about it.

And it's really one of the things that sent Chuck and his wife, Shelby, out of the church was how

Mike was abusing that passage and not even taking into the context that we're really talking here about Hebrew people who were going to go back to the law, that this is what we're talking about in that section.

Right. So let's look at, I've pulled this up because I think this is very important, that we start right out the gate.

Hebrews 10, 24. Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works.

I have heard a multitude of people say that this was used as a bludgeon for attacking people basically on their sin.

Let us consider how to stir up, that is to beat somebody like a horse, to be after them like a horse with a whip, because we all know that we show love by beating somebody up.

We show love and good works. Now here's the problem with that. This passage is about the

Hebrew people who were not loving to the multitudes of people.

And for those who came into the body of Christ to put away the old law and the legalism that they were under, and to be stirred up with the emotion, with the loving intent, were to stir up one another to love.

We can already stir up people to law all day long. Look, I can stir up people to law, and let's prove the point.

Not neglecting the meeting together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

In other words, people have stopped coming together as a habit of meeting to worship

God, because they never were truly worshiping God. And now that we are believers, it is the habit of us to encourage, not discourage, to stir up love, not angst and animosity, to good works out of grace and mercy and love, which we have received.

And the point is, we do this all the more as we see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for us.

So that tells us right there that we can lose our salvation, doesn't it, Ken? No. No, it doesn't.

Not at all. So there's a really great commentary series that I love called the

Baptist Commentary Series. And I'd just like to read a little bit out of this. And I may pick up some

John Gill here briefly for y 'all as well. We like John. If y 'all don't know John Gill, you've got to get to know

John Gill. And you can pull him up for free on johngillcommentaries .com.

You can pull him up for free. You need to read that. Just breathe that in. Go ahead.

So one of the things, what people don't know this, John Gill was actually the pastor of the same church as Spurgeon.

Yes. And what a blessing those people had, let me tell you.

This is what it says, speaking of verse 26, which is not to be understood of a single act of sin, but rather a course of sinning, nor sins of infirmity through temptation, or even grosser acts of sins, but voluntary ones, and not of all voluntary ones, or in which the will is engaged and concerned, but of such which are done on set purpose, resolutely and obstinately, not of immoral practices, but of corrupt principles, and acting according to them, it intends a total apostasy from the truth.

Fundamentally, this text is talking about Jews abandoning

Christianity for Judaism. Exactly. And the point here, if you look at it, verse 28, anyone who sets aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

And here's what you're saying, Ken, and here's the point that is being so maligned by Mike Reed.

This is talking about those who have laid aside Moses, ran after Christ for a while, then under a series of events, stopped running after Christ.

Maybe they were offended or whatever else took place, and they decided to go back to the law. They've already laid aside the law.

They've laid aside Moses. There is no reconciliation for them. There is nothing for them.

What are they going to go back to? What are you going back to? Exactly. And I think one of the things that I just want to point out here is when he says there's no further sacrifice for sins left for us,

I think a lot of times people interpret that text as saying Christ's blood is no longer efficacious for you.

I disagree with that reading. I actually believe that this is a direct picture of blood sacrifice under the

Mosaic law. Exactly. This is not a picture of Christ's blood now being ineffectual for you.

Yes. And you think about—go ahead. I'm sorry. Look, this is not the easiest of texts, but frankly, any

Baptist pastor who holds to the London Baptist Confession ought to know better. That's right.

Exactly, Ken. Very good. No excuse. This has been a reformed issue for more than 300 years that we have dealt with this text.

You know what? I was going to say as you read that Gill commentary, what I would sadly say is that actually kind of applies to Mike himself, where he has continued to stay hardened in his sin over this issue of people leaving the church, and these grievous sins may actually apply onto him, and he is unwilling to recognize his own sin.

Now, I'm not saying that doesn't make him saved, but if he is saved, when do you come to recognize your sin?

How many different people have to point this out to you? You know,

I don't want to sound like Paul Washer too much, but the depths of your sinfulness are deep.

The depths of my sinfulness are deep, and as was rightly pointed out by Mike himself, though not applied to himself or his fellow elders, the heart is deceitfully wicked, and our ability for self -deception knows no bounds.

Amen. And you know, if you think about it, you have verse 29 says, how much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the

Son of God? And if you go listen to R .C. Sproul, he's in heaven, but if you go listen to R .C.

Sproul in his discussion on this, on Hebrews, he has the same thing we're talking about, but as he adds this, he says those that were under the law, they don't have a sacrifice.

They don't have a sacrifice, and they've left the Old Testament sacrifice. They've went to Christ in some degree, and then they seek to go back to the law again and put a burden of guilt on the law, and because they've trampled underfoot the

Son of God, how much worse is it going to be for them when they stand before a holy

God? This is not talking about you losing your salvation, Southern Baptist or Baptist or Presbyterian or anyone else.

This is not talking about you losing your salvation. This is talking about those that never had it. They started out, they rejected the

Messiah, they rejected Christ, they had went after Him to some degree, and yet they wanted to go back to the law, and there was nothing for them there.

What are they going to go back to? Yeah, so just the very name of the book indicates who this is directed toward, and you know,

I sadly want to say that Mike has really built a ministry around this section of text right here, considering one another, stirring one another up, stirring up sin in one another, pointing out their sin, and then holds the big hammer of you might lose your salvation over them, the church keeps you saved, and over the top of it all with Hebrews 13, 17, obey your rulers, submit to them, it's profitable for you.

Yeah, one thing that we need to point out in this is 1 John. Ken, we had talked about this to some degree.

What is 1 John saying? Is 1 John saying that if you can cross the

T's and dot the I's on all of the questions, all of the list of questions that John has here, that you can know that you have eternal life or you know that you're not saved?

Well, wait a minute. What's he saying? If you've kept all the rules, you know that you're saved? Is that what he's saying?

No. No. Actually, brothers and sisters, listen to me. This passage in John tells us out of the gate in verse 7, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

Listen to the verse. Write it down. Underline it. Underscore it. Put it in your Bibles and believe it.

And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

We, look, amen, praise the Lord, hallelujah. You know, if you can't say amen, say ouch.

Thank you, vody balkum. Listen to me. Every person, listen to this. You are a sinner.

You willfully sin. So does that mean in Hebrews that since you've willfully sinned, that you're going to hell, you've lost your salvation?

No, that means you're under the blood of Christ. This verse, John is a litmus test for you to kind of examine yourself, to test yourself, to know that you're in faith.

But the purpose that John said he wrote this was so that you may know I'm going to preach so that you may know that you're in the faith.

Indoctrination in churches that are landmark type churches, they don't want you to know and have assurance of your salvation.

They want you to question it. So they take this passages like this and they say, have you ever willfully sinned?

You know what? If you have, I don't think you're a Christian. You know what? I used to sin, but I'm a

Christian and I'm your leader now, but you've willfully sinned. What do you think?

It just struck me as comical how much you sounded like Jesse Murrell. Oh, we love

Jesse, don't we? It just like, guys, the usage of this text, if it's consistently applied,

Mike, you're arguing for Jesse. Tony, you're arguing for Jesse and Brother Jed and Reuben Israel, you agree with them because you're using their application of the text.

That's right. That's exactly right. How have we come full circle on this,

Tony? Amen. Come on now, you know better than this. Well, there is always this element of this

Christian perfectionism in the life of Mike, because they're always pushing for more holiness.

We've got to be more holy. Listen again to what churches that abuse say. This will be short.

Abusive churches, past and present, are first and foremost characterized by strong control -oriented leadership.

These leaders use guilt, fear, and intimidation to manipulate members and keep them in line.

Followers are led to think that there is no other church quite like theirs and that God has singled them out for special purposes.

Amen. Amen. So let's go ahead and hit this because we kind of got to get a move on. We cannot make it to Anthony time.

Well, I think we're going to try not to, guys. We're going to try to go as fast as we can. Let's go through these.

I don't know how far we're going to get. So let's go ahead and hit play and see where we're at.

Go ahead. Your audio's out.

My audio's out. I'm sorry. Hold on. Let me try it again. Let's see. Okay, that's what it was.

I see if this works. Is that it? I've got people from the church in Davenport, Iowa that are up here in Portland at a conference, and they're on the streets.

They do evangelism and all that. You ought to go check this place out. And I kind of knew Mike. So my wife and I, we decided to go check it out.

And we got in there, and my wife came over to me and said,

Mike tried to kiss me on the lip. I turned my mouth, and he got me on the cheek.

And I just like— Okay, what?

I asked you to play this clip for one reason. I know some churches, some good churches, some godly brothers who practice

Holy Kissing. I don't know if you've heard of it. Amongst Brothers.

On the cheek, etc. I've been to these churches, and you know what happened? Not a single man kissed me.

And I cannot imagine a scenario in which one of those men would come up and out of nowhere—keep in mind, the context of this was this was the first time they had visited the church.

Out of nowhere, he's trying to kiss her on the mouth. Yeah. What in the world are you doing, man?

Right? It doesn't make—it does not make any sense whatsoever outside of the man has started to believe his own hype.

Because even—look, let's say that you genuinely believe that Holy Kissing is the appropriate greeting in the church.

Great. Fine. Okay? You're not a heretic, per se, because you believe this.

Right? Yeah. We're not damning anyone to hell because they believe this. I want to be really clear on that.

Amen. But the impropriety of walking up to a first -time visitor and trying to kiss her on the mouth is a whole other different thing.

You know, the thing that I see here in this is, you know, we talked about this as a police officer, you know, a former officer.

And this is what blows my mind with Tony, okay? I was a police officer for eight years in law enforcement.

I was in corrections. I was in law enforcement as well. All the same, you know, whether you know that or not, you're—your same certifications in most cases—not all cases, but, you know, there's more when you're on the road.

But you still—you have the training and you have the wherewithal to deal with law enforcement issues and the mental scruples to be able to handle understanding when something's right or wrong, when something is violating a law.

Now, I didn't get all the detail. You know, was it forced?

Did he grab her by the face? Did he force himself on her? Or was it just, you know, reaching and trying to give a quick kiss or whatever?

There's a difference, you know, in between states on sexual assault or sexual battery and things like that, depending on where you're at.

And so, it really has to be—you have to be careful about it.

But the reason that we tell people in the church, well, first of all, I don't want you to get caught in adultery or involved in lust or adultery.

But secondly, you know, the side issue is the governmental issue. I want to be above reproach. I don't want anybody to be able to lay a charge of impropriety or sin against anybody in the church.

And we have the rule of twos in our church. The rule of twos is there is never any one person alone with another person, male or female, because of the cultural agenda.

Male or female, there's never one and one person alone together in any context and any reason.

There's always audio -video evidence. You know, if you're doing counseling, there's leave the doors open, have people that are watching, have, you know, at least another witness there, always having witnesses because you can shut a door and for 30 seconds and somebody can say, oh, so -and -so touched me or did something wrong.

But this wasn't the case. This was right out in the open, from what I could hear, from what

I understood. This was right in the midst of the church congregation. And this was

Mike attempting to kiss Stephen's wife on the lips. And whether or not that would qualify as sexual assault or sexual battery depends on the various circumstances.

However, it is inappropriate. It would be leading the world to see your conduct as being inappropriate.

And I would strongly advise against it. And I would say it's very dangerous.

At the very least, it's dangerous to be involved with that type of action because it can lead down so many of the avenues when you see a pastor behaving this way.

If he's behaving this way in public, what's he doing in private? Because it's always, you know, sin begets sin.

A little leaven leavens the whole lump. And it always builds upon itself. You always have to wonder what is a pastor's doctrinal teaching?

What are they teaching? And where are they leading? And over a period of time, you'll start seeing, in this case, a kiss on the lips, a kiss on the cheek, a discussion about impropriety, a discussion about sexual issues going on over and over and over again.

As we go talking through these clips, we'll see that. Yeah. You know, with this situation, most of the people in the church at first were like, what are we doing here?

This just seems so stupid. And, you know, kind of gained a little traction,

I suppose, as time went on. One guy confessed sin of,

I wouldn't say he was aroused, but he, you know, one of the women kissed him and on the cheek,

I think, and it stirred him up, if you will, a little bit. Yeah.

So, you know, it's a natural byproduct. You know, I know we have Rhonda backstage. Maybe she could give a little female perspective on that real quick.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Real quick. I want to try to pull this one on here. Hello, Rhonda.

If you could just, I know you've been listening backstage. Like I said, we're going to kind of bring you in and out if you don't mind.

And just wanted to touch base with you. Did you see that type of activity going on?

Or maybe you saw that? You are muted. You're going to have to unmute yourself,

I think. I don't recall seeing anyone try to kiss another member on the lips.

I did witness cheek kissing amongst members, but I never saw anyone try to kiss someone on the lips.

So I can't speak to that. The cheek kissing did happen. Okay. Okay. Well, that's good.

I'm just, I mean, I'm glad that you didn't get to see, you know, those types of practices. Right. You know,

I don't want to see them. Right. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and if you don't mind,

I'm going to put you back in the back and let's go ahead and go through some more of these things. Thank you so much.

Okay. Let's see. Back to, here we go.

Let's see what else we hear. Oh, you know, you're just like, okay, whatever.

I mean, it's like, that's really weird, you know? And then we, you know, we were looking at these testimonies, people would get up and this one guy got up, they would stand up in front of the whole congregation and they would tell all these stories about this guy

I remember got up and was going on and on about all these lustful thoughts he had. And he had his family there, all these thoughts he had for these women over the whole week.

And he was really struggling with it. And then the next week there was some woman that got up and confessed that she's been thinking about Mike Reed all week and, you know, and everyone.

Please, please, please tell me. Everybody, you do see where the problem is here, right?

I mean, when you start trying to get people to discuss their sensual issues, their sexual immorality issues in the context of trying to, you know, encourage or trying to work with people to bring these things out publicly, we are giving people over to a lustful mind.

And we're supposed to stop that. We're supposed to call out people to purity, you know, to love and good works.

We're supposed to call people over to purely not public confessions of sexual sin, lusting over one another.

And as we're seeing, it's building. You know, I'm going to tell you, this is an explicit violation of Ephesians 5, 3 to 8 and 11 to 14.

It is explicit. And I want to read that, read that as I pull it up.

Ephesians 5, 4 says, Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which is out of place.

Guys, this is the body of Christ. We're here to glorify God and exalt God and to, you know, to bring one another up and to elevate the body of Christ.

We see, let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which is out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Therefore, do not become partners with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are the light in the

Lord. Walk as children in the light. For the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.

And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

For it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret. Now, look, guys, you can say, you know, well, he was trying to help the people.

Not according to this passage, not according to this. And I'm sorry, but that is absolutely it's it's immoral.

It's wrong. You do not try to lead people into public confession and an outbursting, outbursting of their sin.

Sin, when it's exposed, needs to be as vague as it has to be to get the point across.

OK, we don't brag about it because we all are made in the image of God as sexual creatures and we can all be stirred up in the flesh if we are not careful and we are not defending and fighting against those things.

Yeah, absolutely. Anybody want to say anything about that? I'm sorry. I just covered it, brother.

You covered it. I think that's the thing, right, is I mean,

I want you to imagine somebody had a a fantasy of of of murder, of killing somebody that they that they despised.

Is the idea really like that that person should get up and walk everyone through exactly what they were thinking or wanting to do?

I mean, I mean, the scriptures are clear. There are such wicked things that they not be mentioned.

And I'll point to Paul refers to his likely his own wickedness as a thorn in his flesh.

Yeah. Right. He doesn't tell us even what the sin is. Yeah. And praise

God that he didn't. Amen. Because how many men would justify themselves and say, oh, I'm just like Paul.

Right. So I'm going to I'm going to play through the next section and we're going to just pause and talk about a couple of things just real quickly.

And let's see. There. And she was having all these weird thoughts, you know, sexual thoughts.

And my wife was like, you know, she was out of there. And I'm trying to give

Mike the benefit of the doubt. You know, I kind of knew him. I mean, I know his folks. You know,

I hope best for somebody. But it's all weird. And and so I try.

I went to a Bible study on Saturday, just to try to I don't know, just see what's going on.

And and afterwards, I told Mike, I said, you know what,

I might not be back for a couple of weeks. I'm going to go over to I'm going to go candidate the open air campaigners.

And he looked at me and he goes, well, you've got to get that okayed with me before you ever agree to go on with them.

And I thought it was the same kind of thing, like, whatever. You know, I don't even know what he's talking about.

I don't even you know, I went to his church twice. I don't you know, I don't know this guy anything. And so afterwards,

I called up Elder Nick, Elder Nick. And I said, you know,

I'm thinking about maybe trying to join with you guys, try to support you at some level and maybe come to a

Bible study here and there. And he and this is the thing. This is the thing that just did it for me.

My wife was already out of their thing there for me. Nick says, Oh, no, you can never you come to church.

You we have church on Sunday morning. We have church on Sunday night. We have Bible study on Saturday.

We have a service on Wednesday. And there was something else. He goes, you will never, ever have any excuse ever to miss a single one of those.

Now, think about what we're hearing is I'm just shocked.

First thing I hear is that you cannot witness to people unless it's approved by my creed.

You cannot share the gospel with people. You cannot go out and do any of that unless it is specifically approved by my creed.

Now, now, I like what Angie said, holding you hostage. I agree with that.

But listen, listen to the specifics here. Not that you're a member and they want to help guide you and to teach you to do things biblically and right and that they want to help you.

But you cannot go out in any context if you have any association with Mike.

This man's not a member. This man's not even a member. He has no affiliation with this church.

And he's going to go to another group of Christians, which we get together with Christians all the time to share the gospel with people.

Right. So this man's not even a member. Yeah, I think that's the whole point here, right, is it shows that that for some reason there's a belief that he has unlimited control over you once you step dark in the doors of his church.

Yeah. And you think Elder Nick there said there's no excuse to ever miss the church for any reason.

And what they've done is they've butchered Hebrews. Do not forsake the fellowshipping of yourselves against, you know, one with another.

All the more as you see the day of the Lord appearing. You think what it's saying here is we have a church.

And if you ever miss you're under church discipline because this passage says, don't forsake the fellowshipping of yourselves together.

Never mind the context that, you know, many of the churches all throughout history have only been able to meet just a few times and months and months because they were under such deep persecution.

But the thing I'm seeing here is what added to the consternation for me is the next part of this discussion that went on.

You know, I talked to him on the phone. It's like we moved back from Colorado. So we could be around our family.

So I moved back from Colorado so I could be around my family. I've been here for two weeks, two days, really.

And I want you to hear this. And we're probably spending some time with them.

We're going to miss some stuff. And he goes, your biological family means nothing to you compared to your church family here.

And you will never, ever miss anything here.

Oh, OK. Let me ask

Rhonda. I'm going to ask Rhonda to come back in. And I want to get I want to get to make sure

I unmuted Rhonda. Oh, Rhonda, you're going to unmute yourself. Got it. OK. Rhonda and Kevin, I want to ask a question here.

Did you ever experience any of the leadership telling you that you were not allowed to miss church and or berating anyone in the way that this is being talked about?

I mean, I'm not saying I doubt his testimony, but I'm just saying just to lend some validity to it.

Has this ever happened in front of you guys or with your families or anything like this? So in the email that I sent in last week with my notes, so our family, my family, specifically my biological parents, live a little over an hour away.

And if we were going to gather between Sunday morning service and Sunday evening service, we drove an hour.

We had about an hour and a half that we could stay, maybe two hours if we were lucky. And then we had to leave to come back to Sunday night service, because if we weren't there, we would have had to answer to it.

What does that mean? We would have been asked why we would why we would miss and we would have been reminded that to sacrifice time with the church family in order to spend time with our biological family is not what's okay.

Is it sin? I don't know if they would have told us it was sin, but certainly

I was convinced that I had to submit to that and miss family gatherings or or be very brief at family gatherings, because I was convinced that I couldn't miss a church gathering in order to do so.

So we're talking, are we talking church discipline? Has that ever, has anybody ever been church disciplined for not attending church services?

Not that I recall. It would have just been a private discussion. You would have you would have been questioned.

You would have been, it would have been made clear to you that you're in trouble, you know, if that makes sense.

So more of an authoritarian type. Yes, from my experience. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you for that.

I really appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure that that was clear, because it obviously affected

Stephen a lot. And the issue that that I'm hearing is from Elder Nick, whoever that is.

I don't know him. Nick Roland. Nick Roland. Okay. And it did affect my relationships with my family much.

Well, sure it did. You know, as a person who has a family that's not

Christians, not believers, that there's a lot of professions of faith, but there is no life of the faith.

For a lot of my extended family, you know, my biggest heartbreak is that I can't go see them because of a lot of the things that go on.

A lot of the wickedness is a lot of the things, you know, and I want to go see them.

I would encourage people to go be the gospel witness, go be salt and light, if you can, you know, to go show them the love of Christ and whatnot.

That's what I would counsel. Yeah, we want you here as much as possible, but we're to train in doctrine and then tell you to go out to the world, including your family.

They'll hate you. They'll hate you, not because they're not going to hate you because you're so hateful, but because of the love that's in you, they will see your good works and hopefully they will come to glorify your father in heaven.

You know, that's the passage that tells us that we're to be so loving. Let me say it in a way you probably heard it said that you're so heavenly minded that you know earthly good.

Well, the only earthly good people are those that are heavily minded. So go to your family and glorify

God by lifting up Christ and exalting what Christ has done in your life.

Well, if you guys remember what I read from churches that abuse about the division and family, this was a big part of it because you couldn't be involved with your families because they always had you so busy with church stuff.

Now, while we were sitting here and this topic came up, I got two different text messages from two different people. One said, if I missed,

I was accused of Proverbs 18 .1, which says, a fool rages against sound wisdom by isolating himself.

So you are clubbed over the head with that scripture that you were isolating and that you were, you know, that you were, you know, using that to be rebuked.

The other message was that some people one time had wanted to go listen to a specific speaker that they knew that was at another church across town.

And they went to that. Well, one of the elders came to find out about it and, you know, he was enraged is probably maybe the right phrase.

I don't know. Maybe an overstatement, understatement, who knows. People, you would get in trouble if you tried to sneak out early.

I remember our last night there, Sunday night, we had determined it was our last night.

After the Sunday evening service, they had dinner. They had a fellowship meal.

Well, we, after church, we hit the door and we got confronted by somebody as we were leaving saying, why are you guys leaving?

So, you know, being there, keeping you busy, keeping you all the time tied into the church is a very important element and it's a cultish behavior.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Ron, I'm going to put you back in the back real quick.

I'm echoing for some reason. I think we're good.

Let's see. Let's get back to our show at hand. So, before I do that,

Ken, did you not say that you saw a video or listened to a sermon from Elder Nick on an issue that struck right out to you?

I want to ask you to speak to that real quick before. I want to, once I have that queued up,

I'd like to play it. I don't know that that'll be this week necessarily. How about we state it?

Can you put it in the private chat? In a minute, if you can do that,

I'll try to pull it right up. Okay. Let me see if I can find it. Okay. What I'll do is

I'll just hit play. When you find that, let me know so that we can keep the ball rolling.

Okay. Well, that did it for me. We were out after that. So that was really my church experience.

But I did continue. Let me fast forward this just a minute. Okay. Here we go.

You have like one or two stories that do that, then we'll go to Chris. Well, anyway, well, you know, Robert Grace, you know, he told me about this guy in the church, these people in the church, and I kind of sort of kept up a relationship sort of with a couple of them.

One of them was Donnie. And I would go back and forth with Donnie on text here and there and all this and that.

Well, I don't know how long it was, maybe a few months or whatever after that. Or, you know, Robert Gray, he stops and stays with us all the time.

And he stopped here in Quad Cities to stay with us for a week. And so I kept texting

Donnie. It's like, Robert Gray's here, dude. You know him. You just saw him at a conference. He's a great guy.

You know, wouldn't you want to just pop in and, you know, we can fellowship and whatever and that. And he always had some excuse.

No, no, no. And so the last day that Robert was there, I called

Donnie up and I said, Donnie, this is Robert's last day. It's his birthday. And he's leaving.

And, you know, if you don't want to come over, that's fine. He goes, OK, well, I'll come over. So he came over. We hung out for a couple of hours. It was all good.

Took a picture, put it up on Facebook. The next day, I get a call from Donnie and he is freaked out because he said, you know what?

I was told that I never had anything to do with these people ever, ever. And he goes,

Mike found out because they're going to take away my phone and they're going to take me off Facebook.

And he said, I won't be able to talk to you anymore. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Perfect. Perfect. Did you hear that? Wait, wait. Yeah, wait, wait, wait.

Ken, please just preach, man. When I heard this last week,

I think my jaw fell open and stayed that way for a while. When we're looking at social culture behaviors, the restriction of access to media, to your own, that you own, to the outside world, that level of isolation.

It's ironic that they would, Kevin, as you said, accuse people of isolation when they are actually the ones doing the isolation.

Yeah. I mean, what is there to be upset about? About going and seeing people, any people, whether they're

Christians or not. I mean, I think one of the worst things the church can do is gather in a holy huddle and just hang out with each other and never be salt and light in the world.

Right. But only stay within their own walls. This is a meaningful, present criticism of the

American church. And yet, this poor boy is being terrified, for lack of a better term, and abused.

And as we will see in a moment, robbed. Yeah. And I mean robbery in the legal sense.

Yes. I don't know if you can fast forward to the next clip, but...

Just one second on that. I apologize. I actually wanted to pull this up. 1 Peter 5.

Okay. So that no one can say that we are being unbiblical and ungracious here.

The scripture tells us in 1 Peter 5, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight.

And that's all it says. It doesn't say anything else, does it? Just that you got oversight.

Isn't there a little phrase there? Not under compulsion. Oh yeah. Not under compulsion.

We don't strong harm and heavy hand, and we don't threaten and abuse.

We want to willingly to glorify God. Now, that's what it says. But willingly, as God would have you, you're doing this as a representative of God.

And if you're doing this as representative of God, you are going to undergo a judgment that is mind boggling.

For every word that you have said and everything that you've done, and how you've treated the people of God.

I said this a couple of weeks ago. Listen to this and write this down if you will.

You know the pastors, the people of God, the elders, and how they love

God and how much they love God by how much they love the people that God loves.

You know them by how much they love God by how much they love the people that God loves.

This here says not for shameful game, but eagerly.

It's our drive not to be domineering over those that God has charged us to lead.

And by the way, for anybody that gets upset about this, pastors are supposed to be in leadership. Elders are supposed to be in leadership.

They're supposed to tell you, thus saith the Lord. They're supposed to warn you about your sin. They're supposed to tell you about righteousness.

They're supposed to tell you about living holy, not to beat you as a club over the head, but of the grace of God in their lives and in your life that God, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, by the power of his word, can lead you to want to love righteousness and hate wickedness.

As but being examples to the flock. As that passage ends, not domineering, not under compulsion, not as one wants shameful gain, to want to have the evangelist to love you and to have the big names to cheer over.

Not as that, but as an example to the flock, because you love God and the proof is how much you love

God's people. Amen. Yes. I don't understand.

I guess I went on a little bit of a spree earlier just saying how

Mike has hurt so many people. I don't know how he justifies that in his own mind as to appropriate behavior for a shepherd.

I guess somehow he feels or believes that every one of these people have left in some kind of a sin.

So therefore he's justified in the shunning and the excommunications and just the way they get treated by everybody that leaves.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to go ahead and get - The world's greatest open air evangelist. Now he just said,

Andrew Rappaport just said that Robert Gray is probably the world's greatest open air evangelist.

I love Robert. He's been in our home. We call him Uncle Robert here because my kids from the time they were little were raised around Robert when he comes around and he is so precious.

Listen to this. What is the rationale?

First off, the fact that they think they have the authority to say they're going to take away someone's phone or take away their social media.

How old was Donnie? Well, I don't know. Donnie's probably in his 20s.

I mean, he's a good kid. Okay. 20s. And these are not his parents. Is that true?

I mean, any of them his parents, they're saying this? He was very upset. And the thing is,

I texted him back soon after that and said, Donnie, you know, we're starting to go to a church here in Bettendorf.

And, you know, dude, if you come, we'll love on you and we'll, you know, it'll be great.

And I get this thing back from Mike. He must have already had his phone and said, who is this? Do not ever, ever talk to Donnie ever again.

Did I just hear what I thought I heard, Ken? Yeah. In case you missed it.

Let me, let me maybe back up just a second here. Oh, no, no. And so the last day that Robert was there,

I called Donnie up and I said, Donnie, this is Robert's last day. It's his birthday. And he's leaving.

And, you know, if you don't want to come over, that's fine. He goes, okay, well, I'll come over. So he came over and we hung out for a couple hours. It was all good.

Took a picture, put it up on Facebook. The next day I get a call from Donnie and he is freaked out because he said, you know what?

I was told that I should never have anything to do with you people ever, ever. And he goes,

Mike found out. He goes, they're going to take away my phone and they're going to take me off Facebook.

And he says, I won't be able to talk to you anymore. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. So your friend,

Donnie was told by Mike that because he was hanging out with, with, you know,

Robert Gray, who, in my opinion, is the world's greatest open air evangelist.

Now, what is the rationale that, first off, the fact that they think they have the authority to say they're going to take away someone's phone or get or take away their social media?

How old was Donnie? Well, I don't know. Donnie's probably in his twenties.

He's a good kid. Okay. Twenties. And these are not his parents.

Is that true? I mean, any of them, his parents, they're saying this? He was very upset.

And the thing is, I texted him back soon after that and said,

Donnie, you know, we're starting to go to a church here in Bettendorf. And, you know, dude, if you come, we'll be, we'll love on you.

And we'll, you know, it'll be great. And I get this thing back from Mike. He must've already had his phone and said, who is this?

Do not ever, ever talk to Donnie ever again. And I mean,

I'm in shock that I'm hearing what I'm hearing and people aren't going, um, that's criminal.

Um, this is strong arm theft. This is, this is, uh, I mean, by intimidation, uh, this is the definition of, of, of, of not just robbery, but threat threats and intimidation to take someone's phone.

I'm going to take your phone away. And this man is wanting to talk to him and say, look, I want to bring you over to a church because I love you, brother.

And the, the next response is how dare you? Uh, Mike Reed has the phone.

That's theft. Yeah. By the way, Donnie is now married to Tony's daughter,

Michelle. Well, no wonder he doesn't want to say a word about any of this. No wonder he doesn't want to call it out guys.

I'm sorry, but this is insanity. This is a, uh, this is awful.

If I'm telling you, you know what, what it, what it makes me, reminds me of in third

John nine, um, there's a, an issue of a man. Um, somebody pull this up.

The often quoted third John. Yeah. My wife, my wife just texted me and said, after all this happened,

I remember it very well. I literally was on the phone with Donnie called me when he was at Steve's house with Robert gray and, and gave

Robert the phone and asked me to wish him a happy birthday and this kind of stuff.

And I remember, and then I think Mike even called me because man, I'm like, what am

I in trouble for something here? I don't know what I did, but, um, I remember this so clearly in ironically, the church that Steve was talking about in Bettendorf, Jen and I ended up becoming members at that church.

It was, it was a, a wonderful church. The pastor there is just a wonderful, godly man.

We're so thankful to, to have gone there. Oh, I'm sorry.

But my wife just texted me. I lost my train of thought. The, um, she said,

Donnie was made to get up well made or felt compelled, whatever, to get up in front of the congregation and to confess the sin of being wise in his own eyes over all of this.

This is, uh,

I I'm thinking this is not just indoctrination guys. This is enslavement.

You're bringing someone mentally, not just not a physical, but a mental enslavement to absolute submission and obedience.

And third John nine tells us about diatrophies, um, diatrophies.

I've written this to you to some, uh, I have written something to the church, but diatrophies who loves to put himself first does not acknowledge our authority talking about the authority of the body of Christ, of the, the apostles specifically, but the body of Christ as a whole.

Uh, so if I come, I will bring what he is doing. I'll bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us and not content with that.

He refuses to welcome the brothers and he also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

Beloved do not imitate evil, but imitate good.

Don't be like him. Okay. He will not let diatrophies will not let anyone, uh, welcome and love on others who are true

Christians, who, uh, are part of the body of Christ, unless they have fully submitted to him, 100%, he won't let them.

And he refuses to allow them to be in the church. And, uh, can joke the often quoted and, you know, agreed.

It's my, you know, most people don't even know third John is there. I've quoted that countless times in recounting this can, because it is just, it is laser focused.

That is spot on. That is exactly. I love the translation. I think it's the new King James that says he desires the preeminence preeminence preeminence, because when

Mike walks into a room, it won't take long for everybody to know who he is.

Yeah. And you have to think about this diatrophies shows up in so many different ways, men and women that they are going to have the position.

And if they don't have it, they are absolutely going to beat you down. They're going to make sure that, that you regret not giving them that, that authority in that position.

Um, they are going to, you're going to submit to them one way or another. And, um, and I'll tell you what

I'm seeing and hearing is that diatrophy spirit. It's, um, um, it's the heavy handedness, the, uh, it's isolationism, it's legalism, it's

Pharisee ism. It's, uh, um, it's a call to, um, well,

I hate to keep saying the word landmark ism, but, but it really is this call to, um, to, um, the exclusivity of one church over the body of Christ.

Um, there is no authority except for this man and those who submit to him.

And that's where you need to really, uh, guys, this is why apologetics is done.

So, you know, your Bible so that you can defend the faith. I've seen so many comments on here that have talked about Roman Catholicism, um,

Mormonism, Jehovah's witnesses, uh, uh, the LDS church, the, um, um,

Seventh -day Adventist and all these other cults that are, uh, pseudo Christian cults that are all about the same thing, you know, and, and guys it's true.

These pseudo -Christian cults, they are destroying people and, uh, taking people hostage.

Um, let's go ahead and do, uh, let's see, let me jump forward here to, um, um,

Ken, I'm gonna skip, uh, I and go to Jay. We're an hour and 48 minutes in it.

We're going to go for a little bit. We're got, we gotta be in here for a little while, but, um, um, did we already mentioned that, uh,

Tony Miano giving credibility to, to Mike and, and, uh, um, but I want to make sure that, uh, we dig into some of this, uh, the, the, um, one hour mark.

Uh, let's dig into some of this a little bit here. So Chris, there's my dog.

I apologize. Um, he's lovely. Hi, Thor. You're okay, buddy.

I'm sorry for them. They're missing the truth. I hope more people will do is the one person who called me this week does and, and, you know, repent from trying to ignore it and realize, you know what people warned me and we gotta do something.

Chris, let me, let me ask you your experience down there with, with Mike Reed. Um, and what you saw, the things that, that you saw that would fit into these definitions of a cult.

Yeah, well, I'm, um, if I could just speak towards my testimony, that might help me get into it more.

But I, I first heard about GFC through Tony Miano. Um, I respected Tony. I listened to his preaching videos on, on the street.

Um, I read his newsletters and I read about how his, um, his experience at GFC and seeing how it was just about an hour and a half away from me, you know,

I was hoping that Tony would come back to Iowa and I might be able to join him again. And, uh, that's when

Nick Rollin, um, responded to me on Twitter. Um, when I said something to Tony on Twitter and he said, you know, you can come join us anytime you want.

And I thought, you know, it's just a hop, skip and a jump away. So I'll, I'll go, I'll go join them. Right. And, um, yeah, that was in December of 2015.

And, uh, I just remember listening to, uh, the sermon there, Mike and, um, you know, everyone was asking me, you know, what do you think about the sermon?

What do you think about the sermon? You know, and is it anything like you ever heard at anywhere else? And, uh,

I just, uh, to me that initially that seemed to kind of prideful or it, and I wasn't exactly, um, sure what to think of it, you know, um, having, having seen

Tony Miano say good things about it, you know, immediately landed, landed Mike and the rest of the

GFC credibility in my eyes. Um, so I wasn't ready to immediately write off any, any red or yellow flags that I saw.

Um, so I kept on, I kept on visiting them and, and checking them out.

And, um, I think real quick, I just want to pause this just for a minute.

Did you notice the reason why he just laid aside the red flags? Do we see the reason why he, um, decided not to pursue his initial mindset, his thought on, uh,

I think there's a problem here because he had Tony Miano who he idolized, who he respected at the very least, um, lending credibility.

And guys, uh, Ken said this and we got to make sure everybody hears it. When you lay out and lend credit to people that are, um, stirring up strife, causing division, causing problems in the body of Christ, when you lend your name and your credibility,

I don't care how famous and how big you are. You are causing, um, causing people to lower their guard and whatever doctrine, whatever problems that are, are, are that come up, you're part of that, you know, and I don't care how big you are.

I don't care how big your name you have. You're part of that. And you need to be very careful about, you know, um, laying your hands on someone and affirming them.

You know, that's one of the reasons the scripture tells us not to lay hands too quickly on any person, uh, you know, in the ministry, lest they become puffed up and, uh, they become like the devil and become puffed up.

Amen. It was a few weeks later, actually went to Mike Reed's house. He invited me over to stay at his house, um,

Saturday night and then go to Sunday morning service the next day. But I stayed with Mike Reed, um, and his family.

And when I came over, the first thing they were watching was videos of his wife in gymnastics.

Um, I was just like, okay, yeah, that's not really what I came here to see or watch.

And I remember Mike making a comment about how, you know, how good his wife looked back in that day in those, in her gymnastics outfit.

And I was like, okay, that's great. Not really what I came here to watch or talk about.

Um, and, but eventually we got to sit down at his dining room table, just Mike and Mike and I, and, uh, he wanted to hear my testimony and, you know,

I have no problem in sharing that. So I shared my testimony with them, talked about, um, my addiction to pornography and, um, and once I, once I brought that up, he wanted to dig into that more.

He wanted to dig more into my sexual sin. And, and this isn't really something

I'm not going to go too deep into, but just to give a brief synopsis of it, you know, he just wanted to know about my sexual sin and, uh, he justified it by, you know, trying to say, you know,

I want to know more about it so that I can help you. Right. And, um, you know,

I, I kind of thought that sounds okay in the moment and hindsight, uh, definitely not okay.

Um, but yeah, he just kept on, kept on prodding into that.

And then he went to tell me his testimony and he went to talk, talk about his, um, affairs that he, his, his adulterous life he had before his, um, supposed conversion to Christianity.

And, uh, and then he, he almost seemed to brag about how he had done the real thing over just, just looking at pornography or watching, watching the act.

He actually had done the act and it almost seemed like he was bragging about it to me. Um, so you can take it for whatever, you know, however depth you want to take that at.

Um, but there seems to be, you know, not just one, but many, many occurrences where there are, um, you know, kind of giving a, um, um, a open affirmation that,

Hey, I've been, uh, been promiscuous and, and, and I've done these things and whatnot.

Now, I don't know exactly, um, where, where you want to land on that issue.

Do you, do you speak specifically on these things and whatnot, but the scripture is very clear that we need to be very careful about this.

Um, I want to, I want to address this, uh, uh, the, the, the statement that he made saying that Mike had, um, had, um, uh, how do

I want to say this? That Mike had been, um, almost bragging almost, you know, almost to the point of bragging about that, uh, about what he had been involved with in his former life.

And I think, Ken, you, you hit the nail on the head when you said that, um, it seemed almost as if, um, he was justifying the former life and saying, well,

I did this in the past, so I'm still qualified. Um, you want to speak to that real quick? Um, yeah, well, so one,

I, I, I know that it is a, um, somewhat common joke and I don't mean this in a core sense, uh, that, that I've heard of who's the worst sinner, right?

Todd Friel popularized this back in the day. Yep. I, I think that like, like even if even almost everything that I've listened to or many,

I'll say many of the things that I've listened to, I have heard this same statement from Mike over and over and over, even, even at the defrocking of Kalbolkema, which is online and you can go listen to Mike says it there.

He says it in a lot of places, right? And he says it in a very similar way.

And I didn't, I didn't just look on the internet. I did the real thing. Yeah. And, and on one hand,

I see the pastoral value of, of expounding how great of a sinner you are or were and how powerful

God is to change your heart. On the other hand,

I've, I know, I know no pastor. I know no apologist. I know no evangelist who, who in discussing, uh, where they have come from and what

Christ saved them from, that I could ever describe them as bragging as we just heard.

One thing I want to point out what you just said. Um, I mean, I, I, I like everyone else,

I think, and I'm not trying to blanket it out, but I have had sin in my past that I would never speak of.

Um, but here's the reason as a pastor, this is so abhorrent to me.

I don't want to encourage someone else to live in sin. I don't want someone else to be encouraged by my sin.

And, and I especially don't want my children or the children that I am around to say,

Hey, I'm not a Christian. So I can sin. And when I get saved, it'll be okay too. Okay.

Because the reality is we all come with baggage and sinfulness, but we do not express it.

We are as vague as we need to be to get the point across. And then we put it under the blood of Christ.

And we plead that Christ will cleanse our minds and our tongues from the things that we say and think.

And I'm saying that because I want you to, to, to bolster what you just said,

Ken. Um, uh, I hope the audio works and if it doesn't just tell me it not hear it.

Apparently groove music is not the way to go. Did you hear that?

Please tell me that. No, we could hear vaguely in the background, but no.

Okay. Well, I apologize for that. That was a discussion that was had between Tony and, and Mike Reed about his past experiences and, and whatnot.

And I, I, one of the, one of the things Mike's sort of doctrine of soteriology,

I would say is that you have to have this certain kind of a testimony that he'll buy.

Like you have to have lots of mourning and weeping and, and wailing over your sin and that kind of a thing because, you know, otherwise it's just, you know, it's not credible.

So he's got this, you know, real elaborate salvation story of how he, you know, fell on the floor and cried and, and all this and that.

And I'm not saying that doesn't happen or it didn't happen for him, but unless you meet that sort of a standard, you're probably really actually not saved.

Yeah. Let's, let's jump. We're going to, we're going to try to move things along here and try to get out of Anthony Silvestro time.

Let's go as quick as we can and look at two issues that I want to, I want to make sure that we talk about.

Angie points out the emotionalism, the experientialism that's going on here. But listen to this, listen to this real quick.

Stunned, you know, and then he started talking about, you know, there's only five churches in the

United States that are capable of authorizing and sending evangelists out on the street.

Five? Yeah. One was Jeff Kirkland's church in St. Louis. The other one was one in Baltimore.

One was Chuck O 'Neill's church. The other one was Grace Community and his. Ken, do you go to those churches by chance?

I've been to Chuck's church. Okay. So you're not qualified to be speaking? No, no.

I've preached. Well, does it count? I've preached in Chuck's pulpit. Does that, I mean, that's got to count for something. Maybe, maybe.

I doubt Chuck's church qualifies any longer. I'm just curious.

I don't think that Grace and Chuck are on board with this anymore.

Does that mean, you know, half of the true churches in the United States are gone? Well, and my question would be, is he trying to use them to bolster his credibility?

Yes. Undoubtedly. You know, I mean, I'm in it with five big name churches.

And by the way, we didn't play it, but at the 116 mark, he says that they're the only real church in the

Quad Cities. Yes. Brothers and sisters, that's awful.

There's so much here. I tell you, we could do another show on these issues, but Ken, you said we needed to jump down here.

We've got Rhonda in the back, and I think if you go to that last time stamp that I sent you, there's a big thing here, and I didn't get to comment on it last time, and I really love the 241 .55.

Okay. Yeah. Let me put that on there, and then let me pull that up, and then I'm going to have Rhonda come in as well.

Rhonda has been so good about being here, and she hasn't beat me up for keeping her in the background.

So let's see. What was that number again? 241 .55.

Okay. And there is so much that we're skipping over, guys. We're jumping an hour.

Okay. That's close enough. As close as I can get it. Okay. Let's see. Here we go. So the reason why

I keep bringing this up, folks, is because I know there's so many people going, but I love Tony, but I love Tony, but I love

Tony. Listen to last week. What's that? I think it may be earlier.

It was Rhonda talking, not Andrew. No. Well, on the podcast version, it's 241.

I don't know if the video is slightly longer. Yeah, it may be. Let's see.

We can just bring Rhonda in, and we can just talk about it again. Okay. Rhonda, jump in.

I apologize. I wasn't here last week, and so I apologize to have to bring this up to you again.

But I think this is a big piece for people to hear and to really understand. I was pretty unconvinced when

Andrew asked me to listen to stuff, and I listened to probably four or five hours. I was like, okay, it's weird, but I'm not so on board.

And then I listened to your wife, Jen, Kevin, and that really changed things for me.

And what's odd to me is, Rhonda, I heard almost the exact same thing from you, which is when it came to intimacy, and feel free to expound upon this, that there was a practice that Mike would engage in in meeting with just you that would require for you to dictate things to him and for him to dictate things to you.

And I think that this is one of the pieces that for me is moving from, hey, there's some bad things here, to this is the big piece of abuse that cannot be ignored, is it's not just you and Jen.

It's every woman in this church. Right. And so do you want to briefly kind of discuss how this worked and,

I mean, just the level of impact that it has upon you and has continued to have upon you?

So often in meetings with Mike, he would bring up questions of intimacy, a common question was asking if my husband was satiated.

We were told that our husbands were to be satiated because that would keep them from lustful thoughts or other temptations to sexually sin.

And so it was our responsibility to ensure that our husbands were satiated. We were asked how often.

I remember him telling me what he perceived to be the most biblical position.

And then even, I've mentioned the woman who I would call the

Titus II woman of the church, influencing me in particular,

I can't speak to other women, but influencing me by on pleasing my husband during that certain time of the month.

Just things like that. It was just very common practice to have these conversations and to ask questions and to give suggestions.

I know, like Ted mentioned, he and his wife were given assignments at prescribed frequency, if you will, and they were to report back.

And so it was just all very common that this was part of the conversation. Let me just start with saying the level of control there is biblically unacceptable.

It's biblically indefensible. Moreover, it seems to put you in this position of if you don't do it, from what you've said earlier, if you don't do it, now you're in sin because you're not obeying your elders.

Yeah. And now it's unprofitable for you. Right. So now it's unprofitable because you're not obeying whatever they choose to tell you.

Right. And keep in mind, none of this is in scripture. None of this is normalized by the scriptures because this is the textbook case study for abuse in the church.

Yeah. Amen. Amen. And I think the thing that troubles me the most with all of this is that then it's defended and becomes commonplace.

And now there's social pressure to engage in this activity. Right. Amen.

Well, I think - Go ahead. Sorry. I'll add this in because I think it's super relevant.

The level of discussions that would be had, there was nothing off limits.

And one of the testimonies, one of my blog posts was called

Testimonies and the Truths They Tell. So I asked a number of people to provide written testimonies.

Rhonda was one of them. There were several others. I want to read this part, okay? This was in a meeting with Mike, and this is a woman.

It says, a meeting to discuss my membership with the church was scheduled and I was told that my husband was not allowed to attend.

It was held in the basement office, three men and me, no women present. I was uncomfortable with that and mentioned it to Mike.

He brushed off my concerns as unreasonable and unnecessary. During that meeting, the validity of my faith was questioned.

My military service berated as sinful. And I was told that spousal rape that had occurred with my previous husband was not possible.

Whoa, what? I'm sorry. Can you say that again? I was told that spousal rape that had occurred with my previous husband was not possible.

You've got to warn us beforehand. Yeah. Before you're going to give something like that.

You told me. Don't forget the little things, you know. Listen, when

I first heard this, I was flabbergasted and shocked as you guys are right now.

And this woman just messaged me and she said, tell my story, please. Okay, let me start at the beginning.

Rhonda, it's not your responsibility as to whether your husband sins or not. Okay, yeah.

Can we start with the fact that this is Islam 101? In Islam, women are raped and it's their fault because they tempted men.

That's Islam 101. That is backwards thinking 101. The scriptures say that each of us are responsible for our own sin and no amount of satiation or otherwise makes you responsible or makes anyone responsible for someone else's sin.

What other blasphemy? And I mean that in the truest sense. It's blasphemy to teach that if you don't do something, that you're somehow causing them to sin.

You know, we used to teach this thing called sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

Okay, we don't teach that in America anymore. We now teach victimization. Okay, victimhood. Everybody's your enemy.

You're the victim of everything. And what he's doing is saying that your husband is the victim because you didn't please him on XYZ day.

Do it in this certain way that he's prescribed. Kevin, did that ever go the other way?

Yeah, go ahead. Well, it's a male -dominated culture.

I know it is, but that's my point. The scriptures, when it addresses this issue, the scriptures say that it's robbing one another.

It doesn't say, wives, you need to do this for your husband's sake. It actually says that either spouse can rob the other.

Yeah, it goes both ways. It goes both ways. Did Mike Reed ever have this go both ways? Were you ever held accountable in the same way that your wife was?

Certainly not, no. We had a person come on to the council, and he wanted to start spouting out how, according to 1

Corinthians 7, the wife is supposed to please her husband so that he doesn't sin, and because she didn't do that, it's okay for him to be in pornography and everything else.

And here's the problem. First of all, it's completely unbiblical, absolutely unbiblical.

Mike Reed and what he's teaching is unbiblical, and it's wicked and vile. Ephesians 5 says, in verse 21, says that we're submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, not that we're lording over one another because that's the way

God does for us, not that we're commanding over one another, but that we submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

It's not a command, Mike Reed, when you hear this, you can't use that passage to demand that your wife submit and the husband submit.

It is what we do as Christians. We lovingly learn to submit to one another in the body of Christ, not as the church, but as husband and wife.

And there is a role of husband and wife and authority, and it's separate from the role that pastors have.

Just want to make sure all of those caveats are clear so that when the false teaching comes in that says

Pastor Justin said this, no, I didn't. What I'm saying is, is the Bible says that as a husband and wife, we submit to one another and we're to esteem each other as more important than ourselves, right?

Husband and wife. And then we see the, uh, the apostle

Paul says, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife.

Isn't it? Even as Christ has had the church, um, Mike Reed needs to read that his, um, his body and his himself is himself the savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit, should submit to their, to in every way to their own husbands.

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor.

Uh, husband, your job is to present your wife to God in that splint splint, uh, the, the, the way of splendor that way you're to do everything to try to elevate her and lift her up and nurture her and lead her to godliness, lead her to holiness.

The way Christ did for you, the way Christ does for you, you don't berate her and put her down and treat her like a sexual object.

And by the way, just so you know it, just so I can say it as clear as day, I want to make sure it's clear.

As Ken said, you wives are not responsible and husbands, you're not responsible for the sexual thoughts and the sexual sins, sin of your wife.

And just because they can't control their emotions, that doesn't mean that you need to jump in there and be a part of their sexual wickedness.

You look, look, the reason that we so often want to be engaged in sexual desire is because we have been made in the image of God.

We have glands, we have hormones, but the Bible tells us we're not animals. We're made in the image of God, in his likeness.

And we are the ones that are supposed to be able to control ourselves and not give in to every base urge.

Otherwise we, why don't, why don't we act like the lions? Why don't we act like all the other animals and go out and just dominate and take over?

You know, that's the atheist argument. And this atheistic argument says, you know, husbands are to dominate and husbands are to do these things.

Christians don't say that. Where do we find our complete satisfaction, Ken? Kevin?

In Christ. It's in Christ. Look, my satisfaction is not in my wife.

It's in Jesus Christ. Even if she does everything wrong, I'm to love her and to bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the

Lord into the body of Christ, even if she does everything wrong. Do you know why 1

Corinthians 7, it says, for, for you that are married to unbelievers, don't divorce them, but show them the light, show them the truth, live as in peace with them so that perhaps they will see the way you live your life, chaste and holy, and they will come to Christ.

There's a person that's not at all trying to fulfill holiness and, and, and do anything that God would have done.

And you're told not to leave them, but to show them godliness. Yeah. Look, I know

I've rambled and I don't, I really don't care that I did. This is upsetting.

This is disgusting. And this is wicked. Rhonda and everyone else, please listen to this. You are never going to make your husband perfectly satisfied.

A man can't perfectly satisfy his wife. It must be

Christ who has our complete satisfaction. He is the, the, the lover of our soul.

He is the one that's to bring us together to, to, to bring us to holiness and complete satisfaction.

And by the way, if he can't be that now, how's he going to be that for all eternity? Amen. And so, so I think that that's one of the things that, that I think we just need to realize is, is the level of abuse here is, is not mild.

It is all encompassing. Yeah. And I think that's the thing that, that this isn't just a few weird teachings.

This is every aspect of your life is under control of these elders and they are dictating how you live.

And, and Kevin, you had said previously that the term you used a lot was legalism.

Yeah. And, and I actually, the more I thought about this, I actually think that's the correct term.

And here's why. There's another term called personal legalism.

I don't know if you're familiar with this term. And it's, it's this idea that there are certain things that we are individually convinced of and convicted of as proper, as right.

Right? Paul uses the example of meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 14.

He says, look, don't eat it. If someone's convinced, right? If you're convinced that it's sinful, then it is, right?

To the one who eats it's sin. And I think what I have heard over and over and over is that Mike Reed's preferences, his personal legalisms are applied to everyone.

Yeah. And now become corporate legalisms and actual legalism.

Yeah. That's very accurate, Ken. You're in sin if you're not doing what he likes in the way he does it.

And there's no room for the spirit to teach you because it's his job to teach you. Yeah.

And go ahead. I was just going to say, I have a note of something that was said once was that the idea of individual individualistic

Christianity was not biblical. And I, depending on what that means.

Right. Right. But it was being applied to this very kind of, you couldn't make those decisions for yourself because you were expected to follow what he had decided.

It's not for him to decide. Mike, it's not for you to decide. It was, you know,

Chuck wrote in his letter that, you know, unity is not the same as uniformity.

Yes. He wants everybody to wear, you know, uniforms and, you know, look like, and, you know, every man had to dress the same way or, you know, have a beard if you could grow a beard or, you know.

White shirt, black slacks, funky tie. You know. Well, certainly our lives needed to look the same.

Yeah. More so that. Certainly our lives needed to look exactly the same.

And if they didn't, you stuck out. Yeah. So there's one last thing that I'd like to ask both of you is, and I think we've kind of danced around this piece a little bit, and I kind of got this from all of the testimonies last week, and I apologize that I wasn't here to ask this last week.

It seems like there is an equation of everyone who is a member of GFC is a

Christian and only Christians can be members. Is that accurate?

Is that the case that everybody who's admitted to membership is said to be a

Christian? And then if they believe you're not for some reason, then your membership is revoked? A hundred percent.

Yeah. Now the goal is, you know, to filter them out before they get in the church as members, right?

So we got to put them through the paces. We put them through a number of interviews with the elders, make sure their testimony meets the standard of the elders, that it's a credible testimony, that there has truly indeed been what appears to be a change of life, an old person, and now you're a new creation.

And so there are certain parameters that you must, and it's very rigid. There's a lot of people that are gone that like Ted Black, continue to profess faith, continue to be in the local church.

Of course, that's never any guarantees, right? None of us know that, but they certainly continue to appear to be

Christian that, you know, they get it wrong most of the time.

Let's just say that. Well, and so this is what I don't understand is, if that's really the case, how have they so misjudged so many people who've left the church?

And how have they had to excommunicate so many people if they're so often wrong?

Or is it that these people are losing their salvation? The excommunication comes because it's determined that by leaving, we are in unrepentant sin.

And because we've left, we're in unrepentant sin and we must be excommunicated. But that then means, like in the case of Ted, that we've judged you to be an unsaved man.

Yeah. They make the judgments. A friend just messaged me, not enough evidence in Mike's eyes and no way to membership.

That was their testimony. We didn't have enough evidence to prove we were Christians. Therefore, they never became members and they praise

God for it because, you know, and my wife texted me and said, membership has its privileges.

I mean, I think Mike did a whole sermon on that membership or Nick did. Membership has its privileges.

It was like the old American Express commercial based on that. You know, like I think

Rhonda, you mentioned it earlier, that one lady, Diane, they were going to come over to her place and fix some things on her.

I think she lived in a trailer. And then all of a sudden she was out and they refused to do that.

Because if you were a member, you got ministered to. If you weren't in that regard, you didn't.

I believe Ted said the same thing. Did he not? He did. Where he was because they determined he wasn't a

Christian, that he couldn't be a member and they were not going to help him in any way.

So much for the second commandment. That's OK. So much for the second commandment. I mean, if we're going to live by law, let's live by all of it.

Yeah. You know, what happened to the love and the light of Christ and let your light so shine before them that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

You know, by this all men will know that you're my disciples, that you have animosity and resentment and judgmentalism towards one another.

I think that's the passage. Don't fail to do good to all, but especially to those of the household of faith, not exclusively to the household of faith, but especially so you ought to do good to others as well.

Right. And one of the things I wanted to mention, you know, back to what you were saying, Ken, when we got our excommunication letter, we were told that they would intend to let any church where we might apply know of our excommunication.

So it was kind of like they knew that we were they knew that we would seek a church home.

And then the threat was that maybe we'll contact your new church to let them know of this.

Wow. We're going to beat you. You're going to run off. And then we're going to threaten to beat you some more by not letting you go to another place.

And then if you come back, we'll beat you again for leaving and coming back. It's just like, Hey, you're convincing me, you know?

Well, I think what it is, is there's this, the threat, the intimidation and the threat that you're going to be under us.

And if you're not, we're going to destroy you. Right. I think if I can,

I'm going to try to just play this off my phone because this is Andrew's discussion here. And I want to make sure that I try to get this.

This was so important that it just, it was the bombshell thing that he had talked about, you know,

Ken, Kevin, I believe it was with you. And please tell me if you hear this.

I don't know why you wouldn't, but we've done this whole thing, all of this talk of Churchill Wells for one thing that I want to ask

Kevin. And I told you there is a bombshell. This is the bombshell. When Kevin, you and I talked about this, when you and I discussed this thing and I told you,

I said, this sounds so much like the cult of Wells. And I suggested doing a show like this.

You told me about a conversation. Now, let me first say, I gave some dates, Tony, Matt Slick, myself, we were working to do stuff with the

Churchill Wells. We're actively trying to call this out. All of a sudden, Tony dropped from this.

Matt Slick and I actually had conversations going, what's going on? Tony doesn't want to be involved.

He doesn't want to talk about it. Matt and I were planning to go down to Wells, Texas by ourselves. Originally, it was going to be three of us.

We were still talking to two of us because Tony just dropped off. We never understood why until I had a conversation with you about doing this episode.

Can you please explain to the audience the conversation you were an eyewitness to?

Yeah. I would meet with Mike on a semi -regular basis once a week.

Once every other week, we would have lunch or something to that extent. I suppose I was being considered for eldership in the church at some point in time.

I'm grateful to the Lord for saving me from that. But when Tony moved to Iowa, on one particular occasion,

I had lunch with him, Mike, and I believe Tyler was there as well, who's one of the other elders,

Tyler Volkema. We were sitting at the Hy -Vee. It's a grocery store that has a restaurant.

We were sitting in there and the Churchill Wells came up. Tony was still pretty hot on the trail at that point in time.

Mike said to Tony, you know, I think we have to be really careful because Grace Fellowship could easily be construed as being the same as the

Church of Wells. I'm not going to say this exactly, but there was something to the effect like, you know, it's something maybe that you ought to start thinking about,

Tony, or you should consider. Oftentimes, when Mike would say, you should consider, that meant that we're going to have more discussions about this or it's going to be something that's going to be an ongoing thing.

So although I never heard Mike say to Tony, you need to stop pursuing

Wells, I never heard a thing about Wells out of Tony's mouth after that day. And so I would believe that Mike told

Tony that he needs to stop going after Wells because Grace Fellowship could draw the attention of other people or who knows what he said.

But I guarantee, as Mike mentioned, you know, Mike brought it up in that meeting.

And at that point in time, Tony never pursued Wells anymore. And that would be why we,

Matt and I, realized it was cut off. The danger of that, the thing that blows me away, the bombshell of that is that Mike Reed is fully aware that he and his church has cultic practices.

And Tony should have had alarm bells going off saying, wait, what?

He should have realized right then and there, he is in a church that is the same thing that he spent all this time criticizing and saying to put an end to.

That is what's scary. That is the bombshell. Because that tells us folks,

Mike Reed is fully aware he is cultic. And Tony would be equally as aware that this whole thing, you heard

Tony in his own words over and over and over again, teaching against the very practices he now sits under.

Please pray for Tony Miano. And he not only sits under them, he supports them fully.

He's a cheerleader for them. His ministry is now under the full control of it.

And it's hard to walk back off the ledge that he's on right now. So the final question, we end the show with this.

Dangerous doctrines. Is Tony Miano in a cult? You decide. You know, we do need to wrap up, but I think that the preponderance of evidence has been surpassed.

You know, when you're looking at a legal case, at a legal case, you want to go with the preponderance of the evidence.

You want to make sure that you are being as fair and balanced as possible in every avenue.

And that once you have have established this evidence, the the overwhelming amount of evidence leads everyone to the same conclusion that there is guilt or innocence.

And in this case, brothers and sisters, I want to beg the body of Christ that's at this church.

If you are hearing this, you can get out. Tony, if you're hearing this, this is not people that hate you,

OK? You know Ken and you know me a little bit. We've never had any cross words that I know of.

And as the body of Christ, you can get out of there. You know, it takes it takes, you know, chutzpah.

It takes strength. It takes, you know, the spiritual, you know, strength to stand up and say, you know what,

I was wrong. I was in error. I was in sin. Kevin has openly confessed that he was a part of these things.

And by God's grace, he saw his sin. He saw his error. He's even went to people confessing his sin.

You know, I think about Ted and that conversation that was had yesterday about him losing his family over this.

You know, Rhonda, you talked about your daughter. Guys, there are people hurt by this.

As the body of Christ, the scripture tells us not to be silent on this thing, but to expose it. It's our it's our command to expose it.

And for those of you that are out there supporting because you love the celebrity status that Tony has or had or whatever.

I want to encourage you to please think about this.

You're lending credence to a church that is severely hurting people and causing them to run from Christ.

Please, please, we ask you to listen to what's been going on. We have so much more that we've just decided we needed to stop where we're at and start.

And we want to work on this healing process. We want to call you to repentance for those that are involved with this, that are active in this.

Mike Reed, I think you need to close your church down. I think you need to confess your sin.

I think there's so much evidence here that you have you you need to repent and believe the gospel.

Does anybody have anything they want to add? I've said, you know,

I thought this. I've said it to others. I don't think I've said it publicly, but he has some serious answering to do.

And he can clean this up now on this earth before he stands before God.

I can't imagine the terror that will come upon him if he really, truly thinks somehow in his deceived and warped mind that he's really doing

God's work. He's so wrong. And how many people have to tell him that for him to understand it?

But he's got to do it now because if he dies tomorrow, it's not going to go well for him.

I want to, Ken, do you have anything you want to say in closing? Because we need to close up. This is a terrible situation.

It's a heartbreaking situation. And as the church has rallied in the past to address things like Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses, so those of us in the church need to rally now and address this.

Yes. Most people don't realize this, but Jehovah's Witnesses in America is a dying religion.

And the American church has done an incredible job addressing and, in a meaningful sense, through the power of Christ, defeating that.

However, there are places in this world, specifically in the

Eastern Bloc, where Jehovah's Witnesses are thriving. Realize that Mike Reed has already begun working in Africa.

We need, as the church, to begin now to stand unified against what wickedness we have testimony of more than the scriptural requirement of two to three witnesses.

We have more evidence. We have more witnesses than the Bible requires to submit a charge against an elder.

We must act now before he, like many, many cults before him, exports this around the globe.

And that is my prayer, is that we will end this wickedness, end the deception, end the pain, end the abuse that so many have received at the hands of Grace Fellowship Church in Davenport, and that we do it before they export this to Africa.

Amen. Amen. Ken, thank you so much for coming on here with me and for working with me to do this.

Rhonda and Kevin, Ted, Stephen, everyone that was part of this,

I just want to thank you so much. I pray, I humbly pray for everyone that has been involved with the situation at hand.

As Ken said, we have tried our best to lay out the truth, and I hope you hear our heart that this is done in love.

There is no hate. There is no animosity. Look, we want to see every person come to Christ, but we also want the body of Christ to be, as the

Scripture says, as a pure and chaste virgin, one that is holy. That is our call.

That is our goal. That is our desire. That is Andrew, and that is Anthony's desire. As an apologetics ministry, it is part of our task and duty to do what is hard and to try to explain to people.

The reason is not just because of this one church, but this type of activity goes on in the cults everywhere.

We could talk about Jehovah's Witnesses. We could talk about so many others, and that is what we try to do at Striving for Eternity and Apologetics Alive.

If what we are doing is a blessing to you, and you are able to, we are at the end of the year.

We are going to ask you to please help us, support us, support this ministry. You can go to strivingforeternity .org.

Anything that you would feel comfortable donating, if it is a one -time or if it is a membership donation where you come in, we would so greatly appreciate your help.

Get this message out. We would ask you to join with us and to give us a review on the podcast review.

You can go to lovethepodcast .com backslash apologeticsalive and give us a review.

If you have enjoyed what we are doing and you find value in the hard work that we have put forward, we would ask you to go to YouTube and go to Facebook, go to Twitter.

We are probably going to be on Rumble before too long if we are not already. We are going to be on Parler. Andrew is on Parler.

I am on Parler. Go to parler .com and find Andrew Rappaport.

You can find myself there. Justin Pierce, you can find me there. I would ask you to find

Anthony Silvestro on Parler as well. We are trying to help the body of Christ.

We are trying to lift up and to disciple those that do not know how to biblically stand for the

Word of God. It is not just about the atheists and agnostics. It is also about those that profess to be

Christians and that are not. It is also about those that are under false doctrine and false teaching. It is about those that do not know the way of God, and we need to show them the way of Christ more clearly.

We are coming up on Christmas, and I would ask you not to forget your pastors, not to forget your church, not to forget those that are in leadership in your cities and your towns.

I would ask you to be praying for them, praying for the law enforcement, as they are no doubt being inundated with people that are in misery and in strife and in pain because of this

Christmas season. It always happens that way, but especially with the pandemic and what is going on with the plan and for all the things that are going on.

We are being told that if we mention anything about the election in a negative light and talk about the truth of the things that went on, that we are going to be shut down.

We are going to be losing our platforms and things like that.

We are seeing it. As the body of Christ, we need to support one another. We need your help to get the message out that we are here to glorify

God, and if we've done a good job, please get the message out. Even if you can't, we would ask you to like and to share, subscribe on our different venues, and if you can't do anything financially, at least share with others what we're doing.

Please share these podcasts, the doctrines that are there. Share these podcasts with your friends, your family, your loved ones.

Share these podcasts with people that need the details on what's going on, not just with the

Church of Wells, but with this church that we're dealing with, with Tony and with Mike Reed and whatnot. You can go to strivingforeternity .org

slash the dangerous doctrines of Grace Fellowship Church, and you can find out the information there, and we would ask you to do that as soon as you can.