February 15, 2019 Show with Pete Orta on “Confessions of a Renowned Christian Recording Artist Who Was Not a Christian” Part 1

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the.

Rest of humanity who are living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 15th day of

February 2019.

I want to thank all of the hundreds of you who sent in

very warm and kind birthday greetings.

I turned 57 yesterday, for those of you who are unaware, and I am truly grateful to God for

all of you who truly made yesterday a more special day for me by sending me those

greetings.

And I look forward to many more of you starting to send in your

questions daily to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for our guests.

I have so many people who listen to this show who never ever ever send in questions, and I would love for you

to begin doing that on a fairly regular basis.

And today is a good day to start, an excellent day to start, because today we have a man on the

show that I have been wanting to interview for nearly a decade.

I, as many of you know, started Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in 2005, and

after the unexpected and very sad passing of my wife Julie after nearly 20

years of marriage, who went into eternal glory in

2011, I went on hiatus for four years.

And not long before relaunching the show,

I contacted, I don't even remember how it happened, I don't even remember how I got his phone number, but I contacted

Pete Orta, the lead guitarist from 1996 to 2000 for the

renowned Christian rock group and Gospel Hall of Fame inductees, Petra.

And we had this long conversation that is going to be the key subject of our discussion

today, and I knew that once I relaunched Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I wanted to get

Pete on the program.

And I relaunched in 2015, and for some reason

the interview did not take place until today, and I'm so thrilled to have today

Pete Orta.

Not only was he the former lead guitarist for Petra, but he is winner of a gold record,

a Dove Award nominee for three Grammys, and a Grammy winner for Gospel Rock

Album of the Year for the award -winning album Double Take.

He was a contributor of production techniques to the

soundtrack for the film Left Behind, World at War, and subsequent to a genuine

rebirth in Christ, Jesus is now pastoring Cottonwood Creek Church in Denison,

Texas.

Today we are going to be addressing confessions of a renowned Christian recording artist who was not a Christian.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens.

Iron Radio, Pete Orta.

Hey Chris, how are you man?

I'm glad to be here.

Oh, I am thrilled that you're here, Pete.

And you know something?

I can't believe you found out that much about me.

I forgot all that stuff.

Yeah, well there's a lot more I could have mentioned, but then the show would be over and we wouldn't even have time to speak with you.

I thought you were talking about my other bandmates.

Well, before we even start, I'm going to give our audience just a bit of

a taste of one of your albums.

This was your first solo album after you left the group Petra

and you recorded an album Born Again, and I am going to play part of this

song that has the same title, Born Again.

So this will give our listeners who are not aware of Petra or of your music career, that might give them a little

idea of your talents.

So don't go away.

We'll be right back.

We're going to play a little bit of the song Born Again by Pete Orta.

Well,

that

was Born Again by Pete Orta.

And as Pete will begin to describe momentarily,.

When he recorded that solo album as a Christian recording artist, he is utterly convinced that he was

not born again, as the title would suggest.

But Pete, first of all, give us something about your upbringing.

And I'm going to immediately give our listeners now the email address where they can send in questions

to join us on the air so that they can have their own curiosity satisfied

about many issues regarding your life and career and your faith.

The email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA,

and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And we look forward to hearing from you with your own questions.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Pete, if you could give us something about, a summary about your upbringing, what kind of

religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and how you

became a musician so talented that a group as

world -renowned and as popular as Petra would invite

you to be their lead guitarist.

Tell us.

About how this all came into place.

Oh, man.

Well, as I'm listening to those lyrics once again, by the way, I didn't write the

song.

Some friends of mine did.

You know, dirty, messed up, little crazy kid running away, you

know, into like a bottomless pit, I think, and everybody wanted to be the one to save me, which is not true as

far as everybody wanted to be the one to save me, but as far as being

messed up, man, I grew up in a kind of a different,

and, you know, rough environment,

my home environment, quite a bit, and my

mother and I, we've got quite a history, and I think that's probably her story to tell, but

it was pretty extreme.

Made amends, and my mom, the abuse and

the stress

in our relationship that I actually lost my gallbladder because of it,

just the amount of stress, and that I had since I was 11.

I will spare everybody the details, but those were details that my wife,

so she would, you know, where I was coming from in the kind of,

kind of my, maybe my little quarter as we got deeper into our

relationship, single mom, and I started

off in, man, I wish I could elaborate, but

I ended up

buying

me a guitar that allowed anything in my room, but

it was it.

This was something that was never stripped from me because it was a gift, and it was in the closet, and I actually taught

myself how to play, and it wasn't, my parents didn't even know the extent of it

until I was actually playing in an auditorium of 3 ,000 people, and they showed up, and they were like,

what he's done, so in his room all these years in private,

and they, you know, they knew I played.

They'd kind of hear banging around in there and stuff like that.

I just didn't believe, they didn't realize the extent of it.

I never made a big deal about it.

I didn't want it a private thing that I

just kept on the DL.

I tried to really make it on my own.

It was way too soon.

It just, it had to happen.

I just, I couldn't take anymore,

and it was a

two -way, and

I think he was, I think he, we were, anyway, there was, it was a weird arrangement on his

place, and who he was, and

playing, and it was kind of like just

my little safe haven, you know, it was very therapeutic for me,

and there was the point.

Six months into rooming with him, I got a call from an attorney that said, I think you bought a

guitar used, and that guitar is stolen.

It's mine.

I was freaking out over it, and I was like, oh my goodness.

Well, I didn't steal it.

I traded it in for some speakers, and they were these one guys, and this, and this, and that, and I said, hey man, I'll send it

back to you, so I did, and I mailed it back to him.

He was kind enough to, so I think he shot me a check for 500 bucks.

It was a Steinberger guitar at the time, and so I was in,

I was in a tough situation.

I had never been without a guitar, like, almost 500 bucks.

Of course, I was already at the level of a player that a $500 guitar was not going to do.

I really needed a piece of gear, so

I went to a music store.

I filled out a credit app.

I talked with the owners of a music store, and I said, hey listen, I'd like to

replace this guitar, and I sold it for like 2 ,500 bucks,

and I put it on, they let me take it with me, and I made payments.

Before I signed the paperwork, I knew I was going to have to give up rent and have

this guitar and keep where I was renting, and so

I decided to live in my car and take the guitar, and I was

probably homeless for about a year and a half, maybe two years, and I kept all my

stuff in the back seat, and if

I could just give a quick snapshot of it, but as far as how I developed, man, I was

very introverted.

I was very protective of myself and my thoughts, and there

wasn't a lot of trust there.

I had an extreme amount of discipline, and I had a

deep awareness of who I was and how much growth I needed,

and I also, there was a lot of the world that I never got to experience because of the amount of hours,

days, months, and years that I had.

I was very deprived.

So how did this purchase of a guitar that was stolen that you had to

return eventually lead to you becoming so talented that you got the ear of Petra?

Man, I'm going to tell you what.

I didn't know it at the time, and it was probably a good thing.

It prolonged my humility probably longer than it should have, but I was probably at a pro level by the

time I was 16 years old.

I mean, there was no

difference between me being a 16 -year -old and then the top what I could do on a guitar.

As a matter of fact, I had to learn how to slow down and choose my notes wisely and learn how

to phrase and be seasoned and that kind of thing.

I was gaining a lot of attention just even locally in Lubbock, Texas.

I lived in Lubbock, Texas at the time, which there are still some amazing musicians that have come out of there and that are

still there as

a kid, especially when I was 15, 16, and as I grew older.

I worked with a guy at a music store, the same one that allowed me to make these payments.

I ended up getting a job.

I was a sales communicator.

It really came out of my shell.

Then I got to use the technical side of me to sell the instruments and then point out different points of

this and that and the advantages and disadvantages.

There was a guy that worked in the keyboard department, and we got to become really good friends.

He went out on vacation one year.

He comes back, and he was talking with me.

He said, man, dude, I think God's calling me to Nashville.

You got to understand, I went to some churches when I was young.

I had kind of an American belief that there was a God.

It wasn't really popular to be.

You didn't hear a lot about atheism or agnostics or deists or anything like that.

When I was growing up as a kid, born in 1971, people believed in a God, some sort of God.

They followed God.

They were supposedly religious or not religious, but I was raised

with a talk

like this.

I'm in the Bible belt.

He goes, man, I don't know what I should do.

I said, man, he goes, what should I do if I feel this?

God's calling me over there.

I said, you need an explicit word.

Get the explicit out of here.

He just kind of laughed at

that.

I think he would admit now, his name's Russ Lloyd.

I think he would admit now, he wasn't really that great of a keyboard player.

He loved it.

He didn't end up making it, but he had this amazing, just

magical personality and everybody loves him to this day.

He ended up working for a booking agency, which was Greg Oliver Booking Agency.

I think they're still going today.

He started getting in the mix and he was calling me up at the music store.

They would be like, Pete, guitar, line one.

So I'd ask Pete and guitars, how can I help you?

Hey, Pete, this is Russell.

Yeah, what's up?

And he's like, man, you got to come over here.

You got to get over here.

You've got to move here.

There's opportunity.

I'm like, dude, what are you talking about?

He kept bothering me.

After a while, I would just hang up on him.

I would call you, hey, Pete, this is Russ.

Click.

I'm at work.

I didn't really know what he was talking about.

You got to understand that we had MTV growing up.

I saw probably the very first episode on, but there wasn't this stardom, this thing like you see

on Instagram, trying to be famous and taking

pictures and selfies and this and this.

That wasn't our culture.

So this didn't make sense.

It wasn't like, oh, I got to jump on this opportunity.

It didn't click.

So he ended up calling my wife, by the way, that's how you get me to do anything.

And he, she, he explained to her that I was just going to rot away.

You know, I mean, my talent was going to go to just waste.

That's what he felt and not

derogatory to anybody of my buddies that are still in love, but really hammering away at it.

But that's what he felt.

That's the language he was using.

And so my wife was the one that was, she got on the mission.

And so what had happened was there was this audition that was coming up that my

friend found out about.

He goes, man, we've got this guy.

He just came up with a, with a solo record and he's looking for a band.

You can do it, man.

Like you can go in and do this tour and play for a living.

That did interest me.

I mean, to play for a living, my big goal was to make 30 grand a year working the Texas circuit because Texas

guitar players, that's, that's, uh, there's a lot of pride in that and you can work full time, actually make a whole lot more, but that

was kind of goal number one.

So, you know, it was for the Christian industry and I thought, well, you know, we're talking about, there's not gonna be a lot, you know, I'm not gonna be using

any drugs, cocaine, that kind of stuff going on.

And I bet it, you know, Christian people are pretty cool people.

And, uh, there's not a lot of drama there.

And a lot, most of my friends, and I consider myself a Christian, you know, I mean, I believe in God.

And, um, so I, um, I, I said, okay, listen, I told

my wife, I will do this audition, whatever it may be.

It's going to be on our vacation.

We're going to make a vacation about it.

That way.

It's just not all about this thing.

I think I had a fear of failure.

Um, and I said, but the main reason is that I'm going to go to the

club and I'm going to Graceland because I'm a huge Elvis

fan, Bill Black and, and, and, you know, DJ Fontana.

And, uh, so I, I, uh, I made that deal and I went, I ended up doing

this audition, man, I'm talking about like it was, I was just raw.

I had no idea what CCM was nothing.

I went in raw, dragging my left paw on the concrete.

I was moving my bags in.

People were just like, who, who is this guy?

John Schlitt tells me, he goes, man, when I saw you dragging your left paw on the concrete,

he goes, this guy is going to be it or not.

There's no going to be no in between.

And I learned the parts.

I ended up, um, uh, he said, Hey man.

So, you know, what, what part do you want to do?

I said, I can do both at the same time.

I said, I can just take the main parts of each guitar part.

You know, there's two or three guitar parts and I can actually make it work, but I don't know.

You can save money by not having another guitar.

He just laughed.

And so I picked out, you know, he gave me the, he gave me a good, some good parts and I ended up playing and

just, uh, killing it, killing it.

Now you gotta understand, I have no idea how good I am at

Spam.

You know, you, you wait till you get in with the bigger fish and you really find out, dude, I was, um, I was there.

I was already, um, I went to, uh, they said they would get back with

I went to Elvis's place and I'm freaking out over all that stuff and just made it a great vacation.

And before we left the day before we left, I got a call over and, um, got offered

the gig.

Wow.

So it was with this guy named John Schlitt and it was for him.

Perfect,

perfect album for me to come in on.

And, uh, and so it was, it was cool, man.

And, and so I had to make a decision.

So I went back to my music store.

Uh, I told my bosses, I said, remember when you hired me?

And I said, this is only going to be temporary because I was going to go professional at some point.

Well, I'm doing it now.

And, uh, they didn't believe me.

Of course they just smirked and thought it was cute, but it, it happened.

And I said, I'm going to, I'm being, I'm moving at this point.

So my wife and I put our somebody else

and we loaded up a Jeep, golden Jeep chair.

And we stayed with my buddy that worked at Greg Oliver for about 30 days until we found a place.

We bought a house.

We went all in crazy kids.

And, um, she got a job, uh, you know, getting a, uh,

working this tour.

And of course the tour started falling apart.

I'm not experienced in any of this, but we did a few dates, but it just didn't take off.

I didn't know the band.

I had no idea.

And I just knew this guy named John was, was needing this band.

And so we did, I think we toured around in this milk truck with the AC taken out.

It was really weird.

You had to use the bathroom opening the door.

They were going up the high electrical wires hanging from the roof.

It was just bizarre.

Thanks, Todd White from, uh, Mike Kyle management at the time, but they just did everything to,

to, to make it go.

It ended up falling apart and John felt awful that I had pretty much cut bait run

and set up camp.

I ended up getting a job at journey's shoe store in a cool Springs mall,

trying to figure out how am I going to make a living here?

And we just bought a house.

John came up to me and he said, Hey buddy, um,

he was another band.

He goes, but, um, we need a guitar tech.

Have you ever guitar tech?

I'm like, what's guitar tech?

He goes, well, you're going to do this and do that and do this and do that.

I said, dude, I worked at a guitar shop.

Like since I was a kid.

Sure.

I know how to do all that.

I can repair this, repair that, rewire this and rewire that and intimate this and do that.

And yeah, no problem.

So I went out at this time.

I've got to explain.

Bob Hartman had already retired at the time.

And there was an interim pastor.

I mean, interim musician, a guitar player at the time.

And I walked the hawk and to his defense, I will say this mentioning names, but

everybody can guess I'm sure.

Um, we were all young and we were

all punk

completely.

I was not accustomed to riding the bunk.

So I kind of fell asleep in the front lounge of the tour bus.

Well, the guitar player at the time was giving me a hard time, not Bob Hartman, giving me a hard time and

physically starting to bully me and really kind of making a mockery out of me

and banging up against me while I was asleep against this partition.

People were laughing.

I woke up and I already had enough of the dude took off my baseball hat, slapped him with

it and said, touch me again.

I'm going to break your jaw.

True story.

Otherwise I wouldn't even go here.

I was so irritated.

I went back to my bunk, closed the curtain and I thought, I just lost my,

this is going to be a great one to end up

setting up guitar world and restring and everything.

And I usually would just get the guitars and just go check, check, chunk, chunk, chunk.

All right, we're on.

I had checked the guitar and

I'm like, you know

what?

Five minute guitar solo that would be hard for anybody to live up to.

I mean, I let, I let 20 something years just on leash

was looking at him part of the time and I just killed it.

And I handed him the guitar and Jeff Gallop, our sound guy, said over

the PA, he said, he covered his mouth.

I remember we'll talk back and go, did anybody just

there?

I ended up going back.

I have no idea that even Petra, John, Bob, they probably don't even know this part of it, but I ended up going back

home and we were off for a couple of weeks and I got a call back in and I thought, oh, here it is.

Let me get reprimanded for it.

Just take it like a man.

So I showed up and I

think some people saw my point of view and there were some issues that were being

handled private.

Before the end of the meeting, John looked at me and said, I'm offering you.

Wow.

Well, we're going to pick

up right where.

We left off there when we return from our first break.

And once again, if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous.

If your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

We will be right back with Pete Orta after these.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours, with about 90 minutes to go, is Pete Orta,

former lead guitarist for the award -winning Christian rock group

Petra.

We are discussing confessions of a renowned Christian recording artist who was not a Christian, if you'd like to join us on the

air.

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

By the way, I don't know how clearly on your end my advertisements come through, Pete, but I have

a trivia question.

Do you know who the guitarist was for that last ad for World magazine?

I don't.

Have you ever heard of, at least he's a legend in my mind, Ronnie Montrose?

Of course.

Are you kidding?

That was him?

Yes, that was Ronnie Montrose.

He didn't do this specifically for my show.

He was already long gone.

He actually, I don't know if you're aware, he passed away.

He committed suicide, unfortunately.

But Gamma, growing up as a teenager, was one of my very favorite

rock groups, which is a short -lived rock group.

Ronnie Montrose wasn't short -lived, but the group was.

That was one of my favorite songs off of their first album.

But anyway, that is a...

But we got to the point when you were invited to be the lead guitarist

for Petra.

What year was this?

Oh my goodness, my wife remembers dates more than I do.

It was late 90s.

1996, perhaps?

Yeah, somewhere around there, yes.

Okay, now the one thing that I'm curious about, Petra is a

Christian band.

In fact, the name, I believe, comes from Jesus' declaration to

Peter,.

Peter the Rock.

Am I correct on that?

Yes.

He said, so Peter wouldn't get arrogant.

You're the Petros.

You're the little pebble, but I am the Petra.

Right, right, right.

And so,.

Did they ask you anything about your faith?

I mean, they were blown away by your talent, but did they ask you at all anything about what you

believed about Jesus Christ, his death on Calvary, his virgin birth, his

sinless life, his bodily resurrection?

Anything.

About your understanding of the Word of God at all?

Well, I definitely don't want to

say that they were irresponsible.

I don't think that was it.

I think there's a lot assumed if you were trying out for a Christian band, that you are a Christian.

I'm sure of it that I was.

You know, that understanding to a non -believer that has grown up in the Bible belt is,

the question that you're asked is, do you believe in God?

And I do.

As a matter of fact, I would have said yes to everything that the devil believes in.

Right.

Do you believe in God?

Yes.

And in the South,.

It's almost like asking somebody, are you an American?

Let's say, are you a Christian?

Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of assumed, and you know what, to Petra's defense and the CCM

industry's defense, most of these people are coming from churches.

Most of them are pastor's kids.

The bass player, Lonnie Chapin, that I played with was a preacher's kid.

So, you know, most of these people had grown up in it and just kind of assumed.

You know, I don't think there was anything developed, and maybe still not now, for

those that are coming from a completely different worldview.

That process probably at some

point needs to be developed.

And before we go on to.

Another question, I just want to make sure that you had fully developed that part of the story to your own

satisfaction in regard to you were invited to play for Petra.

Did you want to add.

Anything to that?

Yeah, I mean, as far as Bob, you know, John Lowry,

you know, John Schlitt, you know, these guys that

were a part of especially Petra during, you know, its peak, its heyday, you know,

those guys, I'm speaking just for me individually, where I was at, those guys are

believers.

Those guys were sincere.

I think that things could have been done and asked and recognized.

You know, I think that I've done, I did some things while I was in Petra that nobody, you know, not to put

people back on the hook, nobody ever asked, dude, are you even saved?

I mean, some of my conduct was so outrageous.

And, you know, there's a beautiful thing that happens in Nashville, in the industry,

that I wish that would happen in the church, but there's also some repercussions from it as well.

We have this amazing thing, this kind of camaraderie between artists and label mates that,

you know, we are under the microscope everywhere we go.

When we come into town, you know, there's this kind of private circle.

You know, I remember my wife and I one time going shopping for food and we were down this aisle and nobody else

was on the aisle except Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

And we were there just shopping and we're like, hey, how's it going?

And, hey, how's it going?

And, you know, there's this thing in certain areas of the United States, LA, you know,

Hollywood or Nashville or Atlanta, where, you know, you'll see these people and you just allow them to live their

life.

And there's a beauty in it where you allow people to develop and you allow people to grow and there's

not, you know, this type of gossip and trashing and, you know, going to the tabloids.

I mean, the Christian church, as far as when it comes to that aspect of it,

man, they do respect where people are at and everybody there is not judgmental.

You know, at the same time, you know, there's kind of not any church discipline that goes on as far as

within the industry.

You know, if you're doing something that's going to cost you sales, you know, it's going

to cost you.

You know, I wish that somebody would have come along beside me and questioned me,

side me, and rebuked me biblically, not just, hey, man, you know, you're acting like an

idiot, but did you know that this is, like, against God's character?

Do you know it's against his holiness?

I mean, does this bother you?

Do you have a conscience?

What do.

You do with your guilt, Orda?

Nothing like that.

Now, not to glamorize your sin, because I know that, unfortunately, many

Christian outlets or platforms where people are giving their testimonies, they actually love to titillate the

imagination of people by giving a glamorized version of their hellish past, but can you give us an

idea of what you're talking about when you say that you were.

Acting outlandishly?

I'll give, man...

You don't have to if you don't want to.

I want this just to represent me, because I'm going to tell you, this does not reflect the other guys.

Matter of fact, I'll give you one where I was a little bit reprimanded.

I got called in by the label one time, and they had called Hartman, and they'd called Schlitt in, and they

were very concerned, because somebody spotted me in Europe somewhere.

I don't know if I was

in Norway.

When I was doing the money exchange, I was exchanging my money or something like that, and I was so drunk, I pulled out this

wad of whatever, euro, whatever, about three, four hundred bucks, and I was going to exchange it for U .S.

dollars.

I was coming back into the country, wasted,

that I left it there.

I didn't even do the exchange.

Just stuff like that, I acted even worse when I got off the

road.

I did some things with other Christian artists that just were crazy.

You're just...

I was young.

I will say this, that I appreciate it even now, now that I'm looking back, that Petra provided so

much grace for me and so much understanding that I actually didn't rebel against Christianity

and against the cross when it was presented to me.

When it was my time, through God's sovereignty, when it was my time, I remember them being so

gracious and forgiving and understanding that I was young and an idiot and people make mistakes.

I think they brushed things off to that, not brushing it off.

I don't want to make them sound irresponsible.

They reprimanded.

I mean, they called me in and I had to answer for those things.

I was very apologetic and I understood to an extent that I shouldn't be like that and definitely in

public.

I could make the band look bad and I could really ruin the reputation of the band.

There's all kinds of other flaws to them, but I was just too foolish to even understand the

depth of my mistakes, but just things like that.

That's a minor one, by the way, so if you hear people emailing you worse things,

I won't fight it.

I'll just say, yeah, probably.

Well, I know how important reprimands,

rebukes, chastisements from brothers in Christ can be because at one point

after 18 years of sobriety, after becoming a Christian, I had become a

raving drunk again.

If it were not for the love of fellow Christians who pulled me aside

and in love, but with urgency,

rebuked me.

Also, I was put under church discipline.

If that had not happened, I don't think I'd even be sitting here with a beating heart and air in my lungs having

this interview with you.

People got to really remember how important that is because people

think it's more loving to overlook that, but it's not.

To not call that to the attention of a brother, you're more

concerned over hurting their feelings or even more concerned over having your friendship that

you value having that interrupted or something than you are over the person's not only physical life, but their

eternal soul.

Yeah, and you know, when I look at all that and I look at my behavior, which was destroying my marriage, we were on the

eve of divorce, and you know, things

were falling apart.

I developed a strong deistic belief that God is

not involved because he's, you know, prayers don't work.

People are dying of cancer, and they're believers, and they're praying.

Their family's praying.

Their church is praying.

They're not being healed.

I hear of atheists going into remission.

It's like, hey, I used to tell my wife, he's not involved.

I mean, he just made the earth.

He spun it on its axis, and it's like, good luck.

And it used to really disturb her because my wife has been a Christian since a young age, and so we were at

odds there.

My behavior was about everything you could possibly imagine, and you know

what?

I had no guilt over it.

I really didn't.

Everything was justified in my mind, and it's, you know, now that I know what I know, and I pastor a church, and

right now we're working through Romans, and we're on chapter two,

just because I wasn't getting an immediate punishment or discipline or wrath

from God was okay.

But you feel okay because you're not being reprimanded right away.

You're not receiving the full consequence right away, and I was just storing up wrath for myself.

Salvation, you know, the first thing simultaneously is you're aware of your sin and how

holy God is, and that had never happened to me.

Now, when you say you began to believe as a deist, first of all, let me

define that for our audience who don't know what that is.

A deist basically believes that God is impersonal, and the

classic analogy of this would be that God created the world and wound it up like an

alarm clock and then just let it alone, but is that an accurate description in your opinion?

Yeah, that's perfect,.

And did you know who helped me develop that?

Who?

The church.

Wow, which church?

All of them combined.

As I toured the world, and I got to talk to believers, and I got to hear this

discombobulated hodgepodge of theology.

I'm talking from South Korea to Africa, all the way to every state in the U

.S.

I'm a real logical guy.

I'm finding all the contradictions in

everybody's belief, and I'm just thinking, yeah, I can understand there's an intelligent designer,

but everything that you guys believe in, you guys are contradicting each other all over the world.

Wow.

Now, when you say also when you became a deist, you were not a card -carrying member of the deist

theological society.

You didn't even really know what that was, am I correct?

You later found out that that reflected deism, what you were believing.

Yes, I didn't hold on to it.

Like I said, it's not like what it is today.

You know, I didn't know.

That's where I landed.

Right, and I remember in our discussions before the interview that you had

also, unfortunately, been deceived into something that is actually perhaps

the polar opposite of deism, the word of faith movement.

Yeah.

How did that happen?

When and how did that happen?

Well, my wife was born, and I had some degree of it,

and I got introduced to it when I was a teenager, and I kind of

started believing into that because, man, I did the accept Jesus in your heart

type of thing, you know, the Charles Spinney type deal, and I said, well, you know, hey, Jesus, you know, my

life is horrible.

I grew up in a home like this, and yeah, I mean, if you can change my

life, then do it.

So, he changed my life, I thought.

I went from homeless to

American dream, talk to people and say, hey, man, you know, you want my

version of Christianity?

It's amazing.

So, man, of course, thousands of hands can go up.

So, I had this kind of word of faith type of thing.

When that fell apart, I really, what dismantled that wasn't theology.

What dismantled that is I.

Didn't have the result after a while to back that theory up.

No, no, was that before your deism,.

The word of faith?

That was before, yes, and because of the failing of the word of faith

doctrines and beliefs, because they do not work, you know,

I was like, well, there's, you know, I'm denying that because this

has to be where God lands, and, you know, that's, of course, deism.

He's not involved.

All this is just hokey and weird, and so it just kind of hardened my heart even more towards God,

and, you know, and so both theologies, you know, word of faith,

you know, blab it and grab it.

I lived that and grabbed it, and deism, both bad

theology.

From other believers.

So, and forgive me for having you repeat things that you may have already made clear that slipped by my mind

somehow.

I'm getting older.

I just turned 57 yesterday, and my mind is really going fast, but anyway,

when you were accepted into or invited into the group

Petra to be their lead guitarist, where was your mind at regarding Christ and his gospel

then?

Were you just like a nominal Christian who thought, yeah, I'm

a Christian because I'm a pretty good guy.

I haven't murdered anybody yet, that kind of a thing, or was there any deeper theological understanding that

even if it was wrong, any deeper theological?

No.

I just wanted to rock.

I'm sorry, say that again.

I just wanted to rock.

The only time I ever thought anything like that is I knew what industry I was in, so I could take any

book of the Bible and find this.

I mean, yeah, I could do with the cross.

I just had no regard.

I didn't even think.

About.

I had no relationship, nothing with God.

Wow.

So then you became the Word of Faith believer, and your wife already had that belief that she was

raised in, and then you became the deist, and we're going to be picking up right there when we

return from our midway break.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you're just listening for the first time, the midway break is

a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, uses this

longer period of time in the middle of our show to localize Iron Trip and Zion Radio to Lake City,

Florida by airing their own public service announcements and commercial breaks.

So please be patient as we take this longer break, and also use it

to the best of your ability.

Use the time wisely by writing down the information provided by our advertisers.

This way, you can more frequently and more successfully patronize our advertisers, and keep in mind,

the more frequently you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they are going to continue advertising on

Iron Trip and Zion, and that means we are going to more likely remain on the air

longer because of that, because we rely on our advertisers' financial backing in order to

exist.

So please patronize the advertisers as much as you can and as

heavily as you can so that they remain in existence and that they keep us in existence

through their financial support, but also write down questions for Pete Orta at chrisarnson at

gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please, as always, give us your first name, city and state, and

country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal

and private matter, and don't go away.

God willing, we are going to be right back right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Before we return to Pete Orta, I just have a couple of announcements to make.

I am going to be attending, God willing, the East Coast Ministers Conference being held by Banner of Truth

in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

And I am so excited about this conference from May 28th through the 30th.

And the speakers include Jeff Kingswood, Terry Johnson, David Vaughan,

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who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late R .C. Sproul and Ligonier

Ministries, Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas.

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by Reformed Christians, Reformed expositors, so that we

can get a truly sound biblical understanding of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

And if you want to join me there at the Banner of Truth Conference, go to BannerofTruth .org,

BannerofTruth .org, click Events, and then click on East Coast Ministers Conference.

They also have a West Coast Ministers Conference for those of my listeners who live on the West Coast.

You can click that if you live closer to that conference and prefer attending that one.

But I will be at, God willing, the East Coast Ministers Conference, May 28th through

the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

That's BannerofTruth .org, BannerofTruth .org.

Last but not least, if you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, you look forward to the guests

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If you need help finding a church near you that is biblically faithful, send me an email to chrisarnsen at

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We are now back with our interview with Pete Orta, former lead guitarist for the world -renowned

Christian rock band Petra.

We are discussing confessions of a renowned Christian recording artist who was not a Christian.

Thankfully, praise be to God, he is today and he's also a pastor of Cottonwood Creek Church

in Denison, Texas.

And if you would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at

gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

By the way, I want to make sure that I plug Pete's website, peteorta .com, p -e -t -o -r -t

-a .com, and I hopefully will be remembering to repeat that later on.

That will give you a lot more information about Pete than we have time to tell you today during our

interview.

We do have a listener who has a question for Pete, and I just had

it in front of me, and where is it?

It disappeared.

Oh, here it is.

We have Kendra in North Brantford, Connecticut, and Kendra

asks, was it hard for Pete to keep playing for Christians in concerts when he

really didn't know Jesus?

Did he feel convicted or just numb to it all?

Very good question.

I was wondering that myself.

I would even ask, did you feel like a charlatan at all?

Did you feel like you were.

Putting on an act?

No, because I wasn't.

You were deceived yourself.

Yeah, and that was very what you saw is what you got, and

looking at it is, number one, I became kind of hard -hearted towards Christians because, like I said, I was

hearing all kinds of different theologies, all kinds of beliefs, and just thought they were

just, you know, buffoonish players.

Some of us are.

I believe in de -evolution.

No, but you know, when I was playing, I just thought these poor,

deprived kids that cannot hear, and Led Zeppelin

and Jimi Hendrix, just thought, you know what, I'm going to give them what they've missed out

on, and you know, I would throw my guitars, smash them, light them on fire, jump off the

stage, and I would just give them a show, and I just thought, I just remember thinking, you know,

these kids, they never got to experience.

Any of this stuff.

I'm going to bring it to them.

By the way, I just want to let you know, the one and only time I picked up a guitar and played it, someone else smashed it and set it

on fire.

I'm only kidding.

It might have been me.

I've never played a guitar, but my brother Andy, as I've mentioned on this show, in fact, I've mentioned it to you, he was

the best guitar, most gifted guitar player, electric guitar player I've ever heard in my life, and sadly is now in a nursing home,

paralyzed on his left side after a stroke at the age of 72.

So pray for Andy.

Most of all, pray that he is truly filled with the Holy Spirit and brought to biblical repentance and becomes a

genuine Christian, but I'm sorry.

I want to piggyback.

Off of that, so kind of to answer her question, you know, it's only those that,

you know, if I was a believer that was backslidden, I might have felt that guilt,

but it was pure blindness.

You know, the scariest thing is to not recognize the guilt that you carry.

Yeah, that is so true, and in fact, I want to bring that up in a minute in regard to Lordship

Salvation, something that you and I very strongly believe.

Thank you, Kendra, and keep listening in Connecticut to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and keep spreading the word about the

program in Connecticut and beyond.

Oh, and in fact, Kendra, since you are a first -time questioner

in Iron Trip and Zion's audience, you have received a free New American Standard Bible, so please

mail us, email us, I should say, your full mailing address there in Connecticut, and we will have it

mailed to you by cvbbs .com.

Compliments of our friends who publish the New American Standard Bible and also our friends at cvbbs .com who mail

out all of our winners, their Bibles and books and CDs and DVDs and other things they win at no expense

to our listeners or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Thanks, Kendra.

You came to the point in your discussion about

becoming the deist after being disappointed by the Word of Faith heresy.

So, obviously, from the chronology of what I already know about you, since you say that you were

lost, you were not born again even after you left Petra and performing and recording as a

solo artist, and you had the album Born Again, and how many other albums as a solo artist did you have?

Man, that was just that one.

Oh, okay, but you have claimed to me that, and I believe perhaps even already on the

show, that you were not born again when you recorded Born Again.

No.

So when.

Did that miracle of the heart happen?

A point that I really, looking back, I

can see.

I mean, I'd retreat all the way up to playing in the groups and going

into just even, you know, there was

hardly everything I touched turned a goal, it seems like.

I mean, everything worked.

I had a great work ethic.

I was a self -paid man, and then there was a big, huge season where the Lord

just in His, just ordained that nothing of any

type of success.

I ended up moving back to Texas.

I ended up going to LA for a little bit and then moving to Texas, and I was just trying to change my atmosphere.

I was trying to change where I was at.

Maybe it was just dried up here.

They better try somewhere else, and so I did, and it just got worse.

My sin got worse, more gross, humiliating.

The Lord did that.

He removed so that my sin would be

revealed and my guilt would be revealed because when you are on your way up the mountain, you know,

nobody can tell you anything.

I even meet men like that today that are just at the height of their success, and they've just got the worst

theology.

Matter of fact, some of it is so bad I just doubt they're even saved, and you

can't hardly tell them anything.

So there is, you know, on your way down, what goes up must come down.

The Lord used that opportunity for me to start questioning myself, start questioning my ideas, my beliefs, and it came

to a point where I could no longer intellectually fix anything in

my life.

I ended

up just being, and

I started feeling guilt over my sin.

The Lord started, you know, He revealed some things in my, you know, just kind of the blinders came off,

and I started feeling this guilt over things that I've never felt guilt over, and it

was tormenting, and life was just tormenting.

I just wanted to die, and I remember feeling like I wanted to die.

I'm not suicidal, but it's wild looking back.

That was the proper feeling.

Something needed to die.

I did need to die a spiritual death, and I remember going to this

past my own Bible, because the

first thing you have to do is admit you know nothing about this book.

It was easy for me to do, and I cried on the

bedroom floor, man, and I just broke before the Lord.

I did.

I broke like a baby.

I mean, no shame at all.

I had nothing left, and just I didn't know what else to do.

I gave up.

I told the Lord I didn't want to live anymore.

I told Him I couldn't do this anymore, and I didn't repent of really drugs or alcohol, or I mean, you know,

I've done all that kind of stuff, but I repented for being a self -made man, and it was

at that point that I realized how self -made I was, and the Lord allowed through sin

the acknowledgement of my sin and the awareness of my sin to see who I truly was.

I just called out for Him to save me.

My wife was seeing the pastor's wife at that time,

and on her issues, we both,

and by default, our marriage has never been better.

I mean, ever since that moment, and we didn't even try to fix our marriage, we just went to the cross.

They just really were big instruments in my life, and I lived in Austin at the time.

I didn't live in San Antonio, so it was quite a jot, but...

You can't mention who the pastor was?

Yes.

His name was Freddy Garcia.

He wrote The Outcry in the Barrio there in San Antonio.

I

started digging in.

I started, I was told to make my wife and my kids, I only had two at the time,

my first disciples.

And everything I learned, I would repeat to them, and I was told, you need

to get off the stage.

You don't have any business doing music, you have no business in the studio, you have no business playing concerts, playing shows.

And I had to just become a layman, and I opened up a small marketing firm, and we did

websites and design and packaging and all that kind of stuff, and I was obedient to it, and I just stayed.

I just kind of just fell off the mat.

Now, what was the initial reaction to that kind of truthful but harsh

language?

Was your reaction, hey, that sounds like a correct thing to do, or were you highly offended,.

Or how did you react to that?

Man, I'm not an emotional -driven person, and it was logical.

I mean, I lived by this phrase that I heard once, never take advice.

From somebody that doesn't have the results you desire.

Wow, that's a good slogan.

I don't think.

I've ever heard of that before.

Yeah, and I didn't have the results, and I knew I didn't, and I knew they did, and that it was a piece.

It was a knowing.

It was a life that I didn't know, and they didn't have anything.

You know, they had nothing.

They didn't experience anything that I've experienced in life, and yet they had more.

And so I just, I didn't care for a life change.

I didn't ask God to change my situation.

I didn't ask him to remove my pain.

I asked him to save me.

I couldn't take life anymore, and boy, he did, and I was so grateful to

that.

It was all gratitude.

I didn't feel like I owed God, but grateful to that, that I, in my prayer life, in

my studio, when I shut it down, I have

learned how to rewire them.

I've learned about amps, and 6L6s, and

the preamps, and I learned about Pro Tools.

I learned about rivet mics.

I learned about all kinds of things with touring, and marketing, and doing live shows, and recording, and I

mean, just to every extent, geeked out, and I said, Lord, I did it all for myself.

I am so grateful for you saving my soul.

I am going to learn the Bible more, to such an extent, than I did music.

Praise God.

Yeah, man.

So what I did is I, like I did with music, you know, I was a big fan of Van Halen, and I would read,

you know, what size strings he would use, and his fretboard length, and how he put together a Frankenstein guitar,

and then I started reading, like, his influences were, like, Alan Holdsworth, and things like that, and then Eric Clapton,

and all the bands he used to be a part of, you know, Eric and the Dominoes, and Cream, and he played with Jimmy

Page, and Jeff Beck, and you know, and oh, he listened to Robert Johnson,

and man, how he recorded that record, Robert Johnson did in, like, 1938 or 36, something like that, in San Antonio,

Texas, and I just became a music historian.

I wanted just to eat and breathe, you know, how music happened, and how Leo Fender got started, and

Les Paul, and how Jim Marshall created this certain amp that Jimi Hendrix got ahold of, and didn't think it was defaulted, just

because it distorted, and all of that, the British invasion, and everything, I went in, I did theology the same

way.

I started off with a Bible book for dummies, and I learned about

the papyrus paper, and the different berries that they wrote, and then my faith was a little shaken, because I found out there were, like,

two Bibles, and I was like, what?

And I started, my deism was like, okay, this is a

little study, oh, that's the Septuagint, and this is the Masoretic, and the Dead Sea Scrolls fall

into that, and give the Septuagint a little bit more authority, and this, and this, and that, and I started just geeking out.

Church history, Christian apologetics, I mean, hermeneutics, biblical hermeneutics,

homiletics, I mean, you name it, I just dove in like a

beast, and it was all out of, it was all...

Praise God.

And I'm also so thankful.

For that Christian pastor who was so open, and honest, and bold with you

about getting off the stage, because you needed to get your life in order, you needed to understand the Bible,

you needed to understand the faith that you pretended to represent on stage, and he did so

because he was more concerned about your soul, than about your feelings, or about his friendship with you,.

And I just praise God for that.

I know, even to this day, I mean, there,

there, he was, he did, in matter of fact, I mean,

this week has been the first week I think I've ever come out since then, it's been years.

I've been obedient to that, and I run a small, you know, homeless ministry,

I just wait on God's timing on things, and I'm out there that

doesn't want to be a rock star.

Well, I want you to talk more about that ministry after our final break coming up, that

ministry for homeless young men that you have, and also I want to find out how,

where, and when you discovered the precious doctrines of Reformed Theology, also known as

Calvinism, and the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, and we'll discuss that during our final half hour of the

program.

We are going to our final break right now, if anybody wants to join us with a question for Pete Orta, please do it now or

forever hold your peace, because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com, ChrisArnson at gmail .com, don't go away, we'll be right back after these

messages from our sponsors.

Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of.

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I accepted this call to teach at the seminary because I'm firmly convinced that the people of

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Particular.

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Thank you.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

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He who never quotes will never be quoted.

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Linbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in

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Our church is.

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Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?

Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

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About FirstLoveRadio .org.

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnton, if you just tuned us in.

Our guest.

Today for the full two hours with about 20 minutes to go is Pete Orta, former lead guitarist

for the award -winning Christian rock group Petra, and we are discussing

confessions of a renowned Christian recording artist who was not a Christian.

And thankfully, praise be to the glory and mercy and grace of God, Pete is not only a Christian today,

he is a very theologically sound Christian and also a pastor of the Cottonwood Creek Church

in Denison, Texas.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArnton at gmail .com.

ChrisArnton at gmail .com and please do it quickly because we're running out of time very rapidly.

We have Lou from Sharpsburg, Georgia who has a question for you.

Lou asks, what kind of Christian music do you like to listen to now and

also who are some of your favorite Christian artists past and present?

Oh, put me on the spot.

You know, I don't really keep up with CCM anymore.

Like anything that anybody has done as far as some of the old hymns

gravitate towards, you know, that kind of music.

If I listen to music, the

next question, my favorite artist.

Yes.

That's that's that's a tough question for somebody that like they're my peers, you know.

Right.

I'm like friends and almost family to Nick

Gonzalez, you know, from Salvador and Jackie Velasquez.

I mean, I've been family for many, many years.

I think a lot of these people are just dear to me and I love

back and pick one.

I don't know his theology, but man, Keith Green, just his story and his

dedication just struck me, you know, how raw he was and how sincere he was about bringing God

glory.

So, you know, a good answer, but.

Well, it's a truthful answer.

Yeah, it's a truthful answer.

By the way, I had a providential meeting at dinner.

I went to dinner.

I was in Birmingham, Alabama a few weeks ago for the first time in my life only for one night.

I went to a nice restaurant rather than to a fast food one since I was only going to be in Birmingham one night

and I went to a place called Chez Fon Fon and I prayed before walking through the

door.

Lord, please let me sit next to somebody who is interesting and who will be open to talk with me so I can

share something about my faith.

And sure enough, when I go in there, a couple said to me that there's an open seat right here.

They directed me to a seat.

I asked them their names.

The wife leaned over and said, my husband is a very famous guitarist named Jay Johnson

who performs with a group called Skinny Molly.

It's comprised of members from Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet.

And his father is a world -famous blues guitarist, Jimmy Johnson, who performed

and recorded with Ella Fitzgerald and Wilson Pickett.

So I had a very interesting night that night.

Yeah.

Now we got to know where you discovered the doctrines of

Sovereign Grace.

Those stories usually are.

Yes, well, you know, as I am going back through,

like I said, I found some modern preachers that I liked at the time and then

you start to... if anybody, if I couldn't find a history of somebody's teaching, if they didn't like,

well, my favorite pastor is, or these are the guys that I pulled from, then you were checked off the list.

You know, I was, you were blotted off.

So, you know, I had to, you had to have some history.

Just like I've met Christian artists that I was like, man, you know, let me ask you, man, you're a bass

player, like who are some of your influences?

They were like, uh, Michael W. Smith.

Like, dude, Michael W. Smith doesn't play bass.

Where are your influences?

They were blotted off my list.

Incredible musicians.

And you performed with Michael W. Smith, or were recorded with him, didn't you?

Yeah, I mean, there's a picture.

I got a picture somewhere.

I've got Michael W. Smith's got me in a headlock.

So for real, yeah,

he's, I start going back and I

start digging into who's digging into who's digging in, and I stumble across this guy

named Spurgeon, and I start to read about him, and then I start to read now, and then I'm like,

well, who are his, I mean, where does it stop?

And I was trying to track down the remnant of theology all the way to

the Apostles.

I really was.

And so I started going there, and then I found out that what educated him was the Puritans.

I started ordering books on the Puritans, and Richard Baxter, and I

mean, you just, you name it.

Owens, and all of those guys, and then you find out about Augustine.

I thought that I formed theology.

I didn't know any of the, you know, James White, or

Votie Bockham, or any of the,

you know, St. Clair Ferguson, and I mean, I'm missing so many of the greats that we have

here today with us still, but I didn't know that that existed.

So what it was, and then once I found the buzzword,

then you can use Google to kind of find, you know, where your tribe is from, and you know, how it all

happened, and then I started studying the Synod of Dort, and all that kind of stuff, and Plagius, and blah blah blah,

and you know, I have this saying that I've always said, you know, if you know your history, you'll know your heresy.

Yeah, that's right.

So, yeah.

And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that this month, or next month, is

the 400th anniversary of the Canons of Dort, if I'm not mistaken.

My goodness, man.

But anyway, let's see, we have

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks, there is a

conflict and dispute in the Church over musical instrumentation.

Do you believe that electric guitars are appropriate for worship that is honoring to

God and is not.

Man -centered or performance -centered?

Yeah, I think that we need to separate the music from the lyrics.

I had an exchanger

that is where Spurgeon...

Peter Masters.

Yes, probably him.

I got in contact with him, and he sent me a book that was completely dismantling any of modern instrumentation,

and I understand that his point was how we have just become a rock concert

and a talent show, and I get it.

I mean, I'm from Nashville.

I mean, I understand people's point in that, but my point to him was

like, well, when does it stop?

Because the music that he plays, and a lot of these people that are anti -whatever,

that, you know, this isn't the same style that Jesus sung.

I mean, we're down to 12 notes.

I mean, we should use the Middle Eastern note scale.

I mean, we should use their instruments.

At some point, it has become modern, and even if you like the classical old

sound, that was pop music back then.

You know, Beethoven and Mozart and, you know, those guys were...that was the modern

era and the music that they were listening to.

So I think that we're really just majoring in the minors here.

I think that if it is...I think that worship needs to be doctrinally sound, and I think it has to...it

has to be able to be sung.

And if you've got those two things, and, you know, I don't think a guitar should be screaming loud, just like

I don't believe a lady should wear a big old hat that's screaming loud.

It's just...I just think that if it's done modestly and

it doesn't pull away from a time of worship, you know, I say let's go for it.

Matter of fact, I think that there should be more eclectic things.

I mean, I kind of...when I see an electric guitar and a bass and a drum, you know, I'm like, eh, you know, keyboard, eh.

But, you know, you'll kind of see maybe every once in a while at a church service, you know, a cello or, you know, a

trumpet or something different, you know, a cajon or somebody sit on some type of...I

love that.

So it's...I just think we're really starting to...gosh, in us, right?

I mean, we just have it in us to be Jews, no matter what.

I mean, we're just gonna add more laws than need to be.

So, you know, an electric guitar, as long as I think it sounds kind of underneath, kind

of a pad type thing, and if it's something that's got a hook that's featured in the song and it's

necessary...but man, you know, when does it...because I'm going to tell you what,

the American is very different in the way the Middle

Eastern people sing.

If you're going to hold to those...if

you're going to make preferences into doctrines, you might want to...

Yes, I guess the main thing about

musical instrumentation is that you can have musical

instruments that are creating a mood that is not conducive to worship.

I think that that's very true myself, because even composers and

musicians will admit they are trying to create a mood of some kind, whether they are Christian or secular

musicians.

And like, for instance, and you said something very key here,

it has to be conducive to corporate worship.

And a lot of CCM music in our day and age, not only...I have a feeling you would agree with me,

is not only very shallow biblically or theologically, but it's also

not conducive for corporate worship.

It's more conducive for a person or duo or trio to perform.

Yeah, yeah, and you know,.

And they're...because they're signing artists, you know, and I think there are some record companies that do, you know,

they do create music that churches can

use higher than anybody else, and it's just hard to duplicate that.

And, you know, those, you know, I pastor a church here, and we try to pull songs that, you know, that are

kind of, you know, that sound, you know, nice and put together well.

But as far as like, I do think it's unfair, because I am an artist, and I thought, let me jump on the

other side of the fence, because I can, I definitely can paint, you know, musicians

into a corner and show where, you know, they're erring on

some biblical things.

But let me jump on the intellectual, theological bullying that's going on.

The Creator that's creating, coming up with

these concepts, you know, this is a gift, and I hear intellectuals who do not possess this ability

speak in an area that they have no business speaking.

So I think I do.

And when you're saying the Creator, you're not talking about God, you're talking about...

Not by God, the Creator of the song, the musician, the artist, the lyricist.

You know, when you're writing songs, you know, it is an expression of how

you're feeling.

You know, and I think I am an authority on this, that I can sit the intellectuals down if they just sit down for a moment and

hear this out, because when it comes to somebody that's got a talent of painting or drawing or theater or

things like this, when you're writing a song, which I have written, you know, songs since I have been a believer,

you walk around with this song in your heart.

It's hard to explain, but it strikes emotion.

There is this understanding of who God is and what He has done, and it

starts to move you.

And when you pick up an instrument, the emotion is already there.

And you're writing according to this message that you're laying, that

you're putting this music down that is going to fit the lyric.

And if it's moving, it's moving.

I think sometimes we want to untether our emotion from worship, and I

understand, because we don't want to side on the charismatic stuff.

We don't want to go completely to, you know, Hillsong United and go into that

kind of mesmerizing, you know, self -whatever.

I get that, but my goodness,.

How dry do we have to be?

Yes, but on another note, though, I think some of what you're speaking about in regard to the liberty of

an artist, I think that falls more in the realm of a person's individual private

music in regard to what they listen to privately and perhaps when they go to concerts

and so forth.

I think there is a unique category for corporate worship.

Yes, there is.

In fact, I saw a meme that I reposted on Facebook that I just thought was brilliant.

I don't know if you'll agree with this meme or not, but I thought it was not only hilarious but true.

It said, your preferences matter in worship if you are the one being worshipped.

Now, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, because every church has some kind of preference,.

But I think the point was well made.

Yeah, man, I think there's certain styles that, you know, I think it depends on even what part

of the country or what country you're in.

I mean, worship, it doesn't sound in Africa like it's going to sound here, or in

Mexico like it's going to sound in Ireland.

I mean, I think even different parts of the United States is going to be different, and I think that Christians,

that they are, but there is,

we have to abandon a lot of that when we are

bringing songs into the house of the.

Lord.

By the way, Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County wanted to let me know the first meeting of the Synod

of Dort was on November 13, 1618, and the final meeting was on

May 9, 1619.

So the May 9 date was the one I was thinking of, so it's not this month.

It's a couple of months away, actually, for the 400th anniversary of the Synod of Dort, and I want

you, Pete, to briefly describe to our listeners, because I'm going to have you

back if you're willing to return to explain in more detail this wonderful ministry that you

have, but if you could explain briefly to start the ball rolling with this,.

In Triumph, what is this ministry?

In Triumph, about 10 years ago, I felt a call to the

Lord used my voice, right?

I thought, no, I'm not supposed to have feelings, but just

this call, this pull, this knowing, and my wife and I, we went in, and because of my background that I

explained earlier, I wanted to help young people, that from 18

to 24, that just needed help, and needed the Gospel, and needed some guidance,

and so my wife and I started pulling in homeless young people from

the foster care system that exited, that were aging out after the age of 18, 19.

We just, people that were, young people that were homeless, that were drug addicts, that

were dealers, that were prostitutes, prostituting themselves for drugs.

We had all of these people, anywhere from 4 to 14, living

food near pong

table, and we had pulled

out chairs, and I would crack the Bible open, and I would start teaching

Bible, start discipling, teaching the Word of God, and man, I'm telling you what, I have been spit on, I've been

punched, I've almost blacked out a

while to get the system smooth.

It's no longer like that anymore, but it's taken a while, and having to learn how to profile, and doing a lot of other

things to make sure that it's safe for my family and my kids, but they grew up in

this very, very wild, rough environment, and we all had sacrificed so that even one

would come to know Christ.

Amen, and we're going to find out during your next appearance on Iron Trap and Zion Radio, which I hope is as soon as next

week, more about In Triumph, and I also want to make sure that our listeners, once again,

hear your website.

It's PeteOrta .com, P -E -T -E -O -R -T -A .com.

Pete Orta, thank you so much for being our guest today.

Please hold on the line so I can let you know what date I want to interview you for our second interview.

I want to thank everybody who listened.

I want to thank especially those who wrote in questions.

I hope you all have a safe, blessed, and joyful, and God -honoring weekend, and Lord's Day,

and I hope you all remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a

sinner.