Justin Peters on Joshua Harris | Apologetics Live 0041

Striving for Eternity Videos

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:13

This is Apologetics Live, with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport, part of the

00:24

Christian Podcast Community. Alright, we are live.

00:42

Apologetics Live, glad you are with us. And we are on a new platform, so we're gonna see how this works out.

00:50

I hope it will work out well. And I am joined by a dear friend, many of you may know him.

00:58

It is Justin Peters. Many of you may know of him with justinpeters .org.

01:06

And it is a good website to check out. So, go there.

01:12

He is, I would say, probably the leading expert when it comes to issues of Word of Faith and things like that.

01:19

So, we'll get into some of that. But Apologetics Live is a ministry of striving for eternity.

01:25

And I will start by letting you know, where's Matt Slick? This is what some are asking.

01:31

Let you know, Matt is his, I think I mentioned this the last time we recorded, but Matt is his wife's brother has passed away.

01:43

And that is kind of taking a toll on the family. And Matt is taking time to take care of his wife, which is what he should be doing.

01:55

And so, that's where he's at. He's gonna take a couple of weeks off. And although if he takes too far off, he's also gonna be moving to Arizona.

02:08

And so, that will probably take a little bit of time. And so, we may not have

02:13

Matt for a little bit as he just adjusts to life. That sometimes happens.

02:19

So, Justin, I figured I'd have you come in as we start off. You and I are gonna be recording later on tonight with Jim Osmond, who is your pastor.

02:30

And we're gonna talk about Joshua Harris. But I figured it'd be a good thing to start off with tonight.

02:36

We could chat about this a bit. For folks who don't know, Joshua Harris was someone who wrote a well -known book,

02:46

I Kissed Dating Goodbye, built a platform. And after that, he basically recently has announced he is no longer a

02:55

Christian. And so, Justin, right off the bat, I think you and I both go to the same exact verse when someone says they're no longer a

03:04

Christian. What is it we think of when we have someone that claims they're no longer a

03:09

Christian? They never were to begin with. Andrew, the

03:16

Bible just gives too much clear testimony that those who are truly regenerate, who have passed from death to life, are in Christ.

03:26

They are held by Christ. They are held in the hands of Christ.

03:32

They are held in the Father's hand. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit. And Jesus does not lose any of his own.

03:42

I'm paraphrasing a number of passages there. But he never was a Christian to begin with.

03:48

What is so shocking about this, I guess, is not so much that he's had this long, quote -unquote, ministry, but he actually calls himself an apostate.

04:03

He says of himself that he has fallen away.

04:11

The biblical term for that, the theological term for that is he has apostatized. He has fallen away from the faith.

04:18

And he knows that. He knows what it is. He was a pastor for 20 or so years, written a number of books.

04:25

And so he knows what he's done. And he embraces that, tragically.

04:31

And in God's providence, Jim Osman, as you said, he has been past.

04:40

He has been preaching, excuse me, through Hebrews chapter 6 for the last number of weeks. And he has gone very much in depth in Hebrews chapter 6.

04:50

And Joshua Harris is a tragic yet timely example, in a tragic way, of Hebrews 6.

05:01

This is someone who has, he meets all the biblical criteria that we see listed there in Hebrews 6.

05:10

And he has flat out walked away. So this is 1 John 2 .19.

05:16

They departed from us because they were never of us. He was never a

05:22

Christian. He was never born again. He was never regenerate. He was a false professor of Christ.

05:28

He was someone who just warmed his hands by the fire. He tasted of the heavenly gift.

05:36

He partook of Christian things. He professed to be a Christian, but he never was regenerate.

05:44

And it's a profoundly, profoundly dangerous place to be, where he is right now.

05:51

But we have to conclusively say that at this point, he is not a believer.

06:01

Well, yeah, because that is what we would see in 1 John 2 .19.

06:07

He went out from among us because he was not of us. And he went out from among us to display or expose that he was never of us.

06:15

That's hard for some people to hear because he had such a platform. And, you know,

06:22

I think it was fitting that, you know, Pastor Jim was going through Hebrews 6, right, as this is being announced.

06:31

And I think that a thing that—and we'll get into this in more detail when you and I record with Jim later tonight for the podcast, the

06:39

Rap Report podcast. That'll drop on Sunday. But one of the things he mentioned, which really caught me, and you brought it to my attention, was he referred to a tsunami of apostasy.

06:49

And we're going to get into that on the podcast because I think that's an interesting phrase he used. And I really—that's what

06:55

I expect will happen. I mean, I think there's going to be a lot of people who are hypocrites.

07:01

They're pretending they're in the church. They're not really of the church. And they're going to—you know, they're going to see

07:10

Joshua Harris start making some money, and they're going to want their hands on that money. And I think that's what's going to happen.

07:17

You're going to see—this is only one of many, I think, that we're going to see. I agree.

07:23

In fact, we've seen two rather high -profile examples of apostasy, one with Joshua Harris, the other one not as well -known, but a songwriter for Hillsong, Marty Sampson, I believe is his name.

07:39

He also has apostatized very publicly. He apparently wrote this song—I don't know what it's called, something with oceans in it anyway.

07:52

But he was a writer for Hillsong, fairly popular,

07:58

I suppose. Hillsong is enormously popular, but he has also renounced the faith.

08:03

And I think you're exactly right. Jim is exactly right. This is going to continue. This should not surprise us, because the

08:12

Bible says this will happen. It tells us these things will happen.

08:17

So, yes, they grieve us. Yes, I can certainly see how it would shake the faith of some.

08:23

But it need not do that. It need not cause us to—our faith in Christ or Scripture to be shaken at all, because we should expect this.

08:34

The Bible tells us this will happen. And it also tells us—and my apologies to all of our post -millennial friends out there—that things aren't going to get better.

08:43

They're going to get worse. Man will go from bad to worse. It's not going to get better.

08:49

The spiritual climate, as time goes on, is not going to get better. It's going to get worse. We're going to see this more and more.

08:55

And we will probably see more very high -profile examples of it.

09:01

So don't lose heart, Christian. This tells us that these things will happen.

09:06

We grieve, but we shouldn't be surprised when they do. Yeah, and this is,

09:13

I think, something we'll get into in our podcast when we get to doing that. But I do think that we're going to get into an interesting question.

09:22

What do we do with folks like this? Can we read their books anymore? I mean, do we just reject the books?

09:31

You mentioned Marty. Do we reject all his music? Well, okay, wait, let me back up.

09:37

Yes. We reject his music for a different reason. You reject his music because of where it's coming from.

09:44

Yeah. I'm not dressed. Go ahead. Yeah. No, I was kind of setting that up for you.

09:53

Yeah. So, I mean, we have a couple people coming in.

10:00

And by the way, I should mention, we're on a new platform. This is called StreamYard. For folks who are regulars to Apologetics Live, especially if you're used to watching it, this will look a little different.

10:13

And you'll see that there's a different structure to this, and we're still kind of learning it.

10:20

But one of the nice things is that as comments come in, they can be shown on screen.

10:28

So, you get to see some of your comments for those who are commenting on YouTube. And so,

10:34

I guess this comment that came up is referring back to the Hillsong. Should have rejected it because it's not biblical.

10:41

Yes, that would be true. But with the new technology, we still have the same website.

10:49

So, if you want to join, you can still go to apologeticslive .com. One thing

10:55

I don't know with StreamYard is I don't know how many people are allowed to be in here. That I haven't figured out.

11:02

So, we're going to have to just watch it and see when we hit a max or something. Right now, we have six people in.

11:09

And so, I have to bring them in one at a time. So, this is a nice replacement.

11:17

Now, for folks who want to join, I will say this because Justin and I were testing this out last night.

11:24

And so, one of the things with this technology is right now, you need

11:29

Chrome or a newer version of Firefox. So, one of those two will work.

11:36

But for folks who are trying to get in on some of the other platforms, other browsers, it may or may not work.

11:45

We are testing with phones. It seems to work on the phone with Safari, but not on a computer, on a

11:53

Mac with Safari. I don't know why. So, just so you know. And all you have to do to join is come in, hit the button to join.

12:01

And then what you do is just click. Your browser pops up and asks permission for your camera and your mic to be used.

12:11

And when you say yes, you should come into, I think they called it backstage is what that's called.

12:18

That you're in the backstage or something like that. So, we're going to play with it.

12:24

This is the first week. You know, Matt was going to try to do some shows while I was traveling.

12:31

And I think that it was a question of, okay, how's this going to work?

12:38

No one wants to be the first one to try new technology, especially Justin. I'm logically challenged.

12:48

You are challenged when it comes to technology, yes. So, okay, this is a typical day with Justin and I.

12:58

I'm going to embarrass him. He's going to laugh. Justin, what is it that I'm always doing when you go to put your phone into your basket?

13:06

Turning it off for me. Justin has this habit. He doesn't actually shut his phone off.

13:11

He just puts it in the basket. And I've actually seen. I know why when I text Justin, he goes, I didn't see it.

13:17

It's because when he picks up his phone, he actually hits the button, opens up a text message, doesn't know, and it hits the home button.

13:24

And it's marked as red. So, I bust on him.

13:36

So, I have a thing that we could do, Justin. We should let folks know.

13:43

When you and I were in the Philippines, you were having some health issues. And you are doing much better.

13:52

You've recently gone to a doctor and all the strength in your arm has returned. And I told you,

13:59

I think it's one of two things. And so, I'll let folks know. I think it's either the fact that I was with you on the plane and I was praying.

14:09

I was laying hands on you and praying for your neck and your muscle strength to come back.

14:16

So, either it is that I am like the world -class faith healer because,

14:21

I mean, if I could heal Justin Peters. I mean, Benny Hinn has nothing on that. He can't claim that.

14:26

I mean, the fact that you still use the crutches doesn't matter. I didn't pray for your legs.

14:32

I only prayed for your neck. So, that's that. Pray for my legs.

14:41

That would be like, you know, then I would be a false teacher or false prophet if I pray for your legs.

14:47

I'd be like Benny Hinn. So, we don't want to go too far. So, it's either that I'm going to start my ministry as a faith healer claiming

14:54

I healed Justin Peters. Or the other conclusion that we had was maybe that I made you so sick in the

15:01

Philippines with you having to be stuck next to me all the time and with me that it actually affected your neck and that all the strength went out.

15:09

It's one of those two. And I came up with a way, Justin. I came up with a creative way to let our audience decide who's right.

15:18

So, if folks think that I'm right, that I am the world -class faith healer of Justin Peters, they could give a donation at strivingforeternity .org

15:29

to donate to Striving for Eternity to say that I'm right, that I'm a faith healer.

15:35

However, if you think that it's that Justin just was sick and tired of me, well, then go donate to him.

15:42

Oh, check out that page. JustinIWin .com. If you go to JustinIWin .com and donate to Justin Peters, we'll know that you actually think that he was just sick of me and couldn't take it anymore.

15:57

So, that was my creative way of coming up with a way for folks to let us know who won.

16:02

And folks could tell us in the chat as well who they think won. And we'll put some comments up as people come in and do so.

16:11

But I think I should start my career as a faith healer. I really do. Well, you would have a better track record than Benny Hinn thus far,

16:19

I suppose. Well, I think his track record is what? Zero out of 100 %?

16:26

Yeah. He's got a perfect record. He's got a perfect record of not healing anyone.

16:37

Yeah. So, yeah. So, I think that, and I like with this comment, someone said, like someone said, why don't they all, why don't all these miracle faith healers go into the hospitals and empty them out?

16:53

And that's an argument that I've always made. Okay, this is a comment someone made. So, Justin, what is the argument that you hear when you give this argument to folks?

17:07

Which argument? Why don't they empty out the hospitals? Why don't they? Well, no, what they would say is that, you know, they call the sick to them and worship in the hospital.

17:23

You're not really worshipping. I mean, they would have some ridiculous argument like that.

17:29

But, I mean, it's nonsensical. It makes no sense. I have an open challenge. I would challenge any of these people who claim to have the gift of healing.

17:39

Todd White comes to my mind at the forefront. He claims to be able to go up to people at random on the street and lengthen their legs.

17:49

Well, if you can do that, if you can heal people at will at random on the street, then surely you can go into a hospital.

17:57

And the first hospital I would recommend him going to would be St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and heal those sick kids of cancer.

18:07

Heal them from their cancer. If you can lengthen a leg, surely you can command cancer cells to die.

18:15

So why doesn't he do that? The reason he doesn't is because he's a fraud.

18:21

He's a charlatan. He is a greasy snake oil salesman. He can't do this.

18:26

What you see Todd White doing on the streets is nothing more than psychological manipulation.

18:33

Any two -bit huckster can do the same thing, just manipulating people. There's nothing organic about it at all.

18:42

These people are outright frauds. But if they could heal people by command, the first place they ought to go is

18:49

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and heal those kids dying of cancer. That's where they ought to go.

18:56

But they won't do it. And the reason they won't is because they can't control the atmosphere in a hospital.

19:05

They can't generate an organic healing. All they can do is they can produce psychological healings, psychosomatic mind over body.

19:16

Oh yeah, I feel like the pain in my shoulder. Yeah, my shoulder feels a little bit better right now.

19:22

Yeah, I feel better. As I said, any two -bit huckster can do this.

19:27

It's been proven. There's a video on YouTube called Miracles for Sale produced by a guy named

19:34

Darren Brown. He is an atheist or he professes to be an atheist.

19:41

But he shows how this is done. It's just a trick. So, yeah, Todd White's charlatan, but he is a charlatan.

19:50

So, anyway, I guess. You know, it looks like, Justin, as we look at the comments, it looks like a lot of people think that you are the winner.

19:59

And if you look in there, that's a friend of ours from the Philippines there, Jackson, a recently married

20:04

Jackson. Hey, Jackson. And I guess he's watching in the Philippines and just likes to say,

20:11

LOL, hashtag Justin, I win. Man, Jackson's a great guy.

20:16

I'm so glad he's. So we have someone from the Philippines and from Australia watching this. Yeah, yeah.

20:23

Jackson, if you can hear me, brother, God bless you, man. I'm so happy for you and your sweet wife.

20:29

Jackson's a great guy. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. And he was the one that came up with the idea of instead of saying one, two, three, like cheese or Jesus, when we took the picture, he had everyone say,

20:40

Justin, I win, which I just love. I loved everybody's posed for a picture and said, Justin, I win.

20:45

That was great. I should say I should say so we can fill in some gaps here.

20:53

I did have a problem. In fact, as you know, Andrew, they did. I lost all the strength in my left arm in a downward motion.

21:02

I could do the curling motion as you would a dumbbell, but I could not do the opposite.

21:07

I cannot push down with my arm. Long story short, they did a

21:13

MRI for me for free because people in the Philippines are so sweet. They did it for me for free.

21:18

And it showed two bulging discs, badly bulging discs. And one of them was pressing on my spinal column, spinal cord and cut off the signal to my triceps in my left arm.

21:33

And so I lost the use of that. Had no feeling in my fingers in my left hand. And long story short,

21:39

I was scheduled for surgery. I was supposed to have surgery last week, August the 8th.

21:46

And but a couple of weeks before my surgery was scheduled, all of a sudden

21:51

I regained the use of my arm and the feeling in my fingers came back.

21:57

And so I called the surgeon. I said, I don't know what to make of this, but I've regained the use of my arm and my feeling is back in my fingers.

22:07

And I'm 100 percent. And I am. I feel my arm's full strength. And so I went to see the doctor the day before yesterday, and he told me that if I don't have symptoms, then we're not going to do surgery.

22:21

And so I don't know. I'm really grateful for that because who wants to have surgery? I sure didn't want to have it.

22:27

So I may have to have it later. It may just be that the disc has moved a little bit and it's kind of relieved the pressure.

22:34

It may just be a temporary thing. I don't know. I'd kind of like to have another MRI just to see what's going on with those discs.

22:41

Typically, they don't go back into place on their own. So anyway, until the symptoms come back,

22:49

I'm not going to have surgery. So very grateful for that. Yeah. And before we go to the first, we got about nine of us in here right now.

22:59

So we're going to hopefully get some good questions. But Atomic Apologetics asks, is it just as hard to buy

23:06

Justin dinner as it is to buy Matt slick? Well, actually, Justin, you've bought me dinner before because I'm not going to fight with a guy that beats me up with crutches.

23:22

No, I submitted. I let you buy me dinner. I won't do that for Matt. So the first one

23:30

I want to bring in and Justin, this will probably be more of a discussion between Jeff and I.

23:36

But I'm bringing Jeff in. And Jeff is someone who online was saying that I was making a logical fallacy or making some illogical statement.

23:49

And so I don't see him on camera. I don't hear him yet.

23:55

So I'll explain what he was saying was the fallacy while we wait for him.

24:01

Maybe he's trying to connect. But basically, on the last show, I had mentioned that there was,

24:08

I believe, an objective way to basically be able to evaluate which religions are manmade and which religions are divine.

24:20

And the way that I objectively evaluate that is to say that man will add to what they add their own works.

24:29

And in doing so, I believe that what they're doing is, you know, we're seeing that they are going to be creating a manmade religion.

24:42

And so objective way to evaluate any world religion is to look at whether it adds human effort to getting right with God.

24:50

And we could objectively look at that and be able to evaluate it. Now, I think that we had some confusion between Jeff and I.

24:57

I'm going to try to give benefit of the doubt as much as possible. And I think that he was.

25:07

Well, I think he was confusing the argument and basically trying to say that he was flipping the argument around.

25:17

And Jeff, if you I saw that you muted yourself. Try unmuting yourself and see.

25:23

I could. I can. Okay. Unmuted. You try speaking, Jeff. Okay.

25:31

I don't know if he needs to check his settings to see. There's a little gear at the bottom,

25:38

Jeff. You can see what microphone you're using and camera and see if that helps.

25:45

But what Jeff was basically doing was he flipped the argument around and said that I was being making a logical fallacy because his argument was that I was saying that basically that man cannot create a grace alone.

26:07

And I never made that claim when the claim was that man will always add to in a false religion will always add his own efforts.

26:19

He's always saying he doesn't see that. So at the bottom, if you're on a browser, Jeff, on a browser, it should be at the bottom of the page.

26:31

Okay, he's going to jump out and jump in and see if that fixes it. So we hope that that will. If you're on a phone,

26:37

I don't remember where it is on the phone. You might have to tap the screen. If anyone's on a phone, maybe they can figure that out.

26:46

You're on an iOS device. John is in here and he may be able to put

26:51

John. If you remember how to do it on the phone, we tested this out. I just don't remember it.

26:57

I'm going to have to, like, memorize where it is on the phone. So while John helps him get in here so he could explain better his position, my actual argument that I say that he has to do is to show to prove that it's a logical would be to show that this is not objective, because that's my argument.

27:24

The argument I'm making is this is an objective standard. It's an objective way to looking at it. And so I think it is objective because it's not subjective.

27:34

It's not something I decide now to his argument. He may make and I'm trying to set it up while he gets in here, which may not be so good.

27:44

But to the argument that I think he's going to make is can man create a soteriology that is grace based?

27:55

I think that. Yes. I think that a person can say, well, hey, if a divine religion is going to have grace alone,

28:03

I'll create one. But note, that's not my argument, because my argument is that man will add his human efforts.

28:10

So anything that has human efforts is going to be man made.

28:16

That's my argument. So that would be that would be the difference there.

28:26

But Jeff still is not in. So that makes for dead air, which we don't want.

28:33

So I'm going to leave you in here, Jeff. Once you get once you get it figured out, what I'll do is I'm going to add Eric from he was in the signal.

28:47

Hold on. Eric is playing something. Eric, I think. OK, so I added him in.

28:52

He's now muted. So, Eric, if if you want to unmute yourself whenever you're not playing the audio. One of the things with this is we can't do so much like we used to do or not easily.

29:04

The technology with we hang out. So that's

29:09

Eric. But he's playing. But a couple of weeks before my surgery was scheduled, all of a sudden

29:15

I regained. OK, I'm going to mute you, Eric. And the feeling in my fingers.

29:24

That's me. So one of the things with this is I can either do this big on me.

29:31

I could kind of do this with the four of us that are in here. So this doesn't work the same way as Google Hangouts, unfortunately, where the person who's speaking is the one that you end up seeing, which was a nice feature.

29:46

So. Oh, well. So we're waiting for Eric to either stop playing the audio and then unmute himself or for Jeff to figure his stuff out.

29:58

I don't know. I'm really grateful for that because he wants to have surgery. I sure did. So I may have to.

30:06

I'm going to put both of you guys in the backstage. And I'll add and you guys just put a comment when you get it figured out, and then

30:17

I'm going to add in traditional Catholic here, Justin. So, you know, traditional

30:23

Catholic, you can unmute yourself when you're ready. And I'm going from memory. I think your name is

30:29

Peter. It's James. James. No, not Peter. That's the first pope. Peter is the first pope.

30:34

But no, my name is James. No, he wasn't. But yeah, I couldn't remember. So. So let me bring

30:45

Justin up to speed with with you, just so he understands your some of your positions for any questions you have for.

30:52

So, Justin, traditional Catholic is he actually wouldn't say.

30:59

Oh, so that the. Hello.

31:10

OK. I'm not sure what's going on. Andrew doesn't seem to be here anymore. And so there's

31:16

Andrew again. Yes. So that was interesting. It said the room was full. And I guess

31:22

I got booted. That's not so good. It says someone's trying to join.

31:28

It can only hold 10 people. Please ask someone to leave if you'd like to have a new person. So. So now we know how many people they can hold.

31:35

Same as Google Hangouts, just 10 people. So good to know.

31:42

And so. So as I was saying, Justin, traditional Catholic is not a basically he doesn't accept anything.

31:50

And correct me if I'm wrong, James. He really wouldn't accept anything after really

31:57

Vatican two. Is that would that be correct? Correct. Anything after Vatican two council of 1960s.

32:03

I believe that Rome has departed from the one true holy Catholic traditional Catholic faith and that Francis is not a true any any of the post

32:11

Vatican to papal claimants are not true popes. They're essentially Protestants like yourselves.

32:18

Protestants. OK. I didn't know that part. So you would think that the current pope that the

32:24

Catholic Church has identified is Protestant. Well, you just said that the

32:32

Catholic Church has identified the current Francis as being pope. That's incorrect because the holy

32:37

Catholic Church stands on certain dogmas and Rome rejects those dogmas. And anyone that rejects the dogmas of the holy

32:45

Catholic Church or Protestants, they protest against the teachings of the Catholic Church. The very definition of Protestant is someone that protests against the teachings of the one true church

32:55

Jesus established 2000 years ago. Hmm. So, well,

33:02

OK, I know you may have you have a court. You probably came in with a question for Justin and I. Can I ask you a question before you get to it?

33:09

Sure. Go ahead. Well, actually, I just did. So I'll ask you a second question. OK. So if the

33:18

Catholic Church is since Vatican II is no longer like, how would you identify they're no longer

33:27

Catholic if it's the Catholic Church, the magisterium who have that authority? There's still bishops that still hold the one true

33:38

Catholic faith that are not in union with with the Vatican II sect, such as the line of the

33:45

Bishop Thuke. So there's numerous bishops that still hold that. And therefore, there's numerous priests that still hold that to the true one true holy

33:53

Catholic faith. So they're not all in line with they're not all part of the diocese of the Vatican II sect.

34:01

So there is no pope anymore, right? So the the the the the essential at this present time.

34:09

Well, numerous times throughout the Catholic Church's 2000 year history, there there's been interims interregnums where there hasn't been a sitting pope.

34:17

And we're simply in one of those periods right now. Now, personally, I believe that the signs that I believe we see around us,

34:26

I believe that Jesus will be returning soon. And we have numerous saints in the past history of the church saying that Satan would go ahead and cause an apostasy to take place at the highest levels.

34:44

And that's what we saw at Vatican II. We saw an apostasy take place at that point, officially take place, whereby these individuals, they claim to be the

34:55

Catholic Church representative of the Catholic Church, but they're not. And we also see Jesus saying that when he returns, there's practically going to be hardly anyone holding the one true faith when he returns.

35:06

So that would mean that all these billions of Catholics on Earth are not holding the one true faith.

35:11

They're holding the false Vatican II, false religions of faith. And so only the remnant of the very small remnant of traditional

35:21

Catholics that are left are holding the one true faith. So, yeah, I guess and I'll just make this comment, then we could go to your question.

35:28

But I guess where I got where I'm puzzled with that is that the

35:33

Catholic Church claims its own authority and they're the ones that can interpret God's word and everything else.

35:40

How could how could individual Catholics, even if they're bishops, go against the church, the magisterium?

35:48

You keep confusing the Vatican II sect with the magisterium. For example, the

35:54

Orthodox, they have they have apostolic succession as well, but their bishops and priests are not within the church that Jesus established because they separated themselves from that church 1000 years ago.

36:06

So they're in the same predicament as the Vatican II sect. They have true priests and true bishops, but those bishops and priests have no authority, jurisdiction and office within the church that Jesus established because they are heretics outside the church.

36:22

So Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict, who is known for being a stickler for doctrine there, you would say they were not they're not true

36:33

Catholics. They're absolutely not sticklers for doctrine. I mean, if you go to VaticanCatholic .com

36:39

or the YouTube channel Vatican Catholic, you'll see what you'll see. For example,

36:45

John Paul II, he had that a sissy gathering twice, whereby he's engaging in worship with many different false pagan religions.

36:54

He's even receiving blessings from these false pagan gods, and he contradicted numerous infallible

37:02

Catholic traditional teachings. And he's in line with Vatican II, which also contradicts numerous infallible

37:09

Catholic teachings. For example, they claim that Muslims worship the one true God. I'm sure you would agree that the

37:15

Muslims do not worship the one true God. So John Paul II repeated that, which is exactly what

37:21

Vatican II says and what the new catechism, 1983 catechism from the Vatican II false religion teaches.

37:30

And it's not just that, they believe in it, they've been pushing evolution, you know, they wouldn't even invite anybody that believes in intelligent design in their conference.

37:39

So they're just a wicked Protestant religion. Okay, so your question for us tonight,

37:49

James, what do you got for us? Yeah, well, the thing is, what true traditional

37:55

Catholicism teaches, which is the truth, biblical truth, is that an individual, once they're justified, they can go ahead and lose their justification if they go ahead and they commit serious sins.

38:07

And you said, Justin Peters, and I'm guessing you, Andrew, as well, I think you also believe in one saved, always saved, or the eternal security doctrine, false unbiblical doctrine.

38:17

So my question to you is this, and I've asked many Protestants. You mean the one found in the Bible is unbiblical?

38:24

Well, let's go to the Bible, because in Galatians 5, 19 through 21, we see right there that it's speaking to individuals in the church.

38:39

And he's warning them not to commit certain sins. And he says, if you commit these sins, you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

38:48

Obviously, if you don't get into heaven, you're going to the other place. And you don't want to go there. So that right there refutes the idea that once saved, always saved, once justified, always justified.

39:02

You have to persevere till the end of your death. And if you die an unrepentant sin, obviously, you're not going to go to heaven.

39:10

So, James, we have to go back and do a thing that we've done, you and I've done before.

39:16

And that's look at the context. You jumped in the middle of a part. And in verse 16 gives us the clue where it says, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

39:31

So those who walk by the spirit, those who are saved are not going to do those things.

39:36

So people who are doing those things are not those who are saved. There's those who are in the church as false converts, like Joshua Harris, who we just mentioned.

39:48

They would. I mean, Josh Harris would fit in that category. OK, so would you say

39:53

Matt Slick is in the church? Yeah. OK, well, do you remember my first conversation when

40:02

I think was the first Apologetics Live broadcast that you had? And I was speaking to both you and Matt, but mainly

40:10

Matt. And remember, he said that he can't remember any time in which he has not been sinning.

40:16

In fact, he says that he sins every single minute of his life. And he can't remember not sinning at any time within his lifetime.

40:26

So do you? And I pressed him on it. Remember, I pressed him on it. Do you sin at all, James? Well, everyone is sinners.

40:34

The only two people that were above the age of reason. The only two. I'm answering right now.

40:40

Do you want to let me answer? Or I'm trying to answer. No, because the only two persons. You give very long answers that use up all the time.

40:47

And you never actually get around to answering direct questions because you didn't answer a question. It was a yes or no.

40:52

And I do this to you all the time. I mean, I'm included. I mean, obviously, I'm included in everybody.

40:58

But I want to go ahead and tell you that. The only two persons that. The only two. Let's break this down.

41:04

You're trying to do this. What you did with Matt is say to me what someone else believes.

41:11

You told Matt what he believes. You're saying Matt. You're basically saying Matt's not saved because he says he sins.

41:19

Are you saved? Are you by your own argument? Would you be having eternal life?

41:29

I know that I can have eternal life and that I will have an eternal life. If I die in unrepentant, if I die, not being in unrepentant sin.

41:38

And that's the point of Paul is making in Galatians five when he's speaking to believers in the church.

41:44

And so you said just now that believers in the church wouldn't commit those sins.

41:49

So that's why I pointed out Matt Slick admitting that he sins practically every minute of his life. And you're admitting yourself that you're a sinner.

41:56

And I guess Jeff Peters is a sinner. Therefore, you do commit these sins. What you said earlier was false.

42:05

Believers in the church do not commit those sins. James, am I going to have to be muting you again to get you to be saved?

42:13

Well, I was just correcting you, but you can go ahead. You're not correcting me. When you speak of yourself, you refer to unrepentant sin.

42:19

When you speak of Matt, Justin, and I, you speak of sin. You didn't understand what

42:27

I said. I said when I die, if I die in unrepentant sin, I will not go to heaven.

42:34

So therefore, what I'm telling you is that if you, myself, or anyone dies in unrepentant sin, they will not go to heaven.

42:44

Hold on. Okay, go ahead. You're taking a verse that's not mentioning death.

42:50

It's mentioning a pattern of life of how you walk, whether you're walking in unrepentant sin.

42:56

And you're trying to apply that to death. And therefore, this verse does not support what you claim it supports.

43:05

Okay? Well, yeah, it is speaking about death. Absolutely. He brings up about you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

43:11

So it is speaking about the afterlife. Yeah, but that's context. This is a hard thing for you,

43:18

James. Context. The context it says in verse 16, but I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

43:29

Okay, does God like a demon that enters into a person and makes them do things?

43:34

Do you believe we're puppets and God is just a puppeteer and he's going ahead and controlling us with a string?

43:42

No. Okay, so therefore, God does not force us to walk in the spirit.

43:48

It's by choice. And if we choose not to walk in the spirit, therefore, what will happen is if we make that choice and we commit these sins, which you just said you do, is

43:59

God making you commit those sins? Is God making Justin Peters or Matt Slick or myself commit these sins?

44:06

Obviously not. So you're doing it by choice. And Paul is warning individuals that if they commit those sins, they will not get into heaven.

44:16

How clear can that be? Yeah. Well, it's clear that if we look at context, that it doesn't support your argument because it's talking about pattern of life.

44:26

So where does it say that? Wait, hold on. You just said it's talking about pattern of life.

44:32

Where does it say that anywhere that is saying pattern of life? Well, what is what is the word walk by that when it says walk by the spirit?

44:39

What does that mean? It says it means you're not to commit any sins. You're supposed to walk by the spirit.

44:45

Therefore, he says, if you commit any of these sins, he's not saying anything about pattern of life there.

44:50

You're just throwing that in there. There's nothing in the Bible that says pattern of life.

44:55

That's right. Therefore, you're using eisegesis. Terrible eisegesis at that. That's right.

45:00

The word walk in Greek means behavior. So you don't commit sin.

45:08

Do not commit a sin. That's a bad behavior. OK, we're going to go back to muting you to finish sentences if you're going to continue this.

45:18

OK, so can I jump in? Yeah, go for it.

45:24

James has as Roman Catholics would and no offense to James and just because I'm familiar with a fundamental misunderstanding of what repentance is.

45:37

Repentance is not just a cessation of certain behaviors in and of themselves.

45:43

The word repentance means a change in mind, but it's much more than that because the context demands that it's not just a change in mind.

45:53

It's a change in affections. It's a change in our desires that results in tangible fruit.

45:58

And so it's been granted. Repentance and genuine repentance is in and of itself granted by God.

46:06

We can't repent. God grants. God grants repentance. Chapter five.

46:14

Chapter two. God grants repentance. Our affections are changed.

46:20

Desires are changed. And as Christians, as genuine, regenerate,

46:25

Holy Spirit indwelt believers, genuine Christians can and do stumble, but they do not.

46:35

They do not enjoy sin. They do not relish sin. They do not look for opportunities to sin.

46:42

When a Christian sins, it grieves them. There's a godly smoke over sin.

46:48

Second Corinthians chapter seven verses six, seven, eight, 19 and 11 deals with a godly sorrow over sin.

46:57

And first, when it says if we confess, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness.

47:05

That is not speaking there of a judicial forgiveness.

47:10

That is a relational forgiveness because that was written to believers. That was written to a church.

47:15

So this is talking about a stumbling into sin, not a swimming in it.

47:21

And what Paul is speaking about in Galatians chapter five. And I would throw in first Corinthians five because he reiterates much of these same sins.

47:31

He says the same thing. Do you not know that neither fornicators or adulterers or effeminate homosexuals, drunken swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God?

47:43

Well, he is talking about people who who do this as a habitual pattern in their lives because they're degenerate.

47:54

They love that. They love their sin. They hate the light. They love the darkness, hate the light.

48:00

So they indulge in this. They enjoy it. And so someone who is whose life is marked by habitual, unrepentant sin and enjoying these things.

48:14

That's not someone who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. So a Christian, a genuine

48:20

Christian, may stumble into sin. And that's why 1 Corinthians 9 is there. But a genuine

48:26

Christian does not swim in it. And as a Catholic, you and I have a fundamental difference in our view of justification, our view of grace, our view of the atonement on the cross.

48:42

Fundamentally different, fundamentally different view of repentance. So you've got to understand, as Andrew was saying,

48:50

Galatians 5 and 1 Corinthians 5, throw that in there too. You've got to understand that. Paul is saying that people who practice these things as a habitual lifestyle and enjoy these things.

49:02

Those people will inherit eternal life because those are not Christians. Christian, to sum up, a

49:08

Christian may stumble into sin. But when he does, it grieves him. 2 Corinthians 7, godly sorrow grieves over that sin.

49:18

Andrew or James or whoever. Yeah, no, I agree with you.

49:24

I think the issue is, and this is James where we have the fundamental difference between your position and ours.

49:34

Well, may I respond? Sure. Okay. Well, you're saying things that's not in the

49:40

Bible. Andrew, you said it's persistent. And Justin, you said it's habitual. But again, there's nowhere where it says that in the

49:48

Bible. It says, if you commit any of these sins, you will not enter into the kingdom of God.

49:58

So, for example, let's say someone, and you said that these individuals are not true

50:03

Christians or something like that. Well, Paul is speaking to believers in the church, so they're true

50:09

Christians. He's warning them that if they commit these things, that they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

50:14

So, he's speaking to true Christians in the church, telling them this, which proves that they can lose their grace if they commit these sins.

50:23

Which again... You're reading your theology into this, and that's your problem.

50:29

I can show you in Scripture. I mean, I can prove it from Scripture. But you're not looking at the context. You're not looking at what the words...

50:35

Well, let's look at the context. Okay, well, let's look at the beginning of Galatians.

50:42

It says right there that he's speaking to individuals that have received freedom in Christ.

50:48

Well, let's look at the verse that you said, right? So, in verse 19, it doesn't say, if you do any of these things, these individual sins, what does it say?

51:00

Now, the works of the flesh are evident. So, the comparison is the works of the

51:06

Spirit versus the works of the flesh. That's the comparison we have here in Galatians 5, same as that Justin brought up in the

51:14

Corinthians passage. But what you have is comparison here, because right after this, he's going to give the fruit of the

51:20

Spirit. And so... No, I agree with you. I agree with you, but that doesn't refute the position that I'm taking.

51:28

Yeah, I know. But the point is that what you're taking is out of context. Okay? Well, no, if you look in the very beginning of Galatians, it shows that he's speaking to Christians.

51:39

And you're saying Christians cannot lose their grace, lose their justification because of grave sin.

51:45

Whether it's one sin or whatever, you're saying that they cannot. Well, Paul is saying they can. No. Actually, if you were to look at the word, you're saying that...

51:56

You're complaining about us saying that it's a pattern of life or habitual or a practice.

52:03

And yet, that's exactly what the word, paraso, means. To do, the word do there that you want to make a focus on, means a practice.

52:14

It's to perform a deed. Right, but listen to my...

52:19

You're creating a straw man, is what I'm saying. Because your position, your original position, is that you believe in one saved, always saved, whereby

52:27

Christians cannot lose their salvation. Well, Paul is speaking to Christians. That's what

52:32

I'm telling you. He's speaking to Christians. And he's telling them they can lose their salvation. He's speaking to a church.

52:39

And the church is, as KT says, the church is not filled with believers.

52:46

We just started this show with a great example of someone who was in the church, pastored a church, and was not a believer.

52:53

He wasn't saved. Okay, but that's why I'm telling you, he starts off Galatians 5, speaking to individuals.

53:01

But I'm responding because you're saying he's not speaking to believers, and I'm going to show you that he is speaking to believers.

53:07

From the Bible, it shows that he is speaking to believers. Because in the very beginning...

53:13

So, you argued a verse. You ignored the context. You're now ignoring the words, what they actually mean in the

53:20

Greek. So, the fact is, I don't believe that this is saying something because I believe in one saved, always saved, which

53:28

I didn't say I believe. But the reason I believe... You don't believe in one saved, always saved,

53:34

Andrew? No. See, I believe God is the author of salvation, not a church and not men.

53:41

This is where the difference is. If God saves a person, God is not going to be an

53:46

Indian giver and take back salvation. So, the salvation was paid at the cross.

53:52

Therefore, every single sin we ever commit is future to the payment.

53:59

So, you do believe in one saved, always saved. No. You know, this is...

54:04

Okay, James. The fact that you have to put words in people's mouth to try to say what they are saying.

54:12

And they continue to correct you. You do this with Matt. And he continues to correct you.

54:18

And you keep doing it. Shows that you're not actually interested in truth. What do you believe?

54:24

I believe that God is the author of salvation, not a church and not people. Therefore, man doesn't save himself.

54:32

And a church can't save them. Okay? Your position would have to be relying on one of those two.

54:39

Because if a person... If God saves a person, is God taking that salvation away?

54:46

He says he won't. So, someone must be stronger than God to take it away from him.

54:52

The reality is it's the source of salvation. Why don't... Why is it that once God regenerates us, changes our nature, he doesn't change us back?

55:04

Because God says he saved us at the cross. I mean, that's when the payment was made.

55:10

So, there's no sin I'm ever going to commit that God didn't know about. That God somehow was like, oops, didn't see that one coming.

55:19

God knows every sin that's even future to me right now. I don't know

55:24

I'm going to commit. He does. And we're all paid at the cross. But you, because you're

55:30

Roman Catholic, and no offense to you, we've had the... You know, we don't... I don't think for folks who are watching, you and I...

55:37

It's not a heated... Like we're fighting and things like that. I think that you and I both get excited about what we believe.

55:47

But... And that's not a bad thing. But the thing that I want you to realize is your position is based off of a teaching that you're reading into this text.

55:58

Okay? Something the text doesn't say. Now, you're accusing me of that. Okay? So, the issue is an issue of does

56:09

God save us or do we or a church saves us? Who is the ultimate agent in salvation?

56:21

Well, we see in Ephesians that God saves us through his church because he says that his blood only sanctifies those that's in his church.

56:28

So, the question is, who's in his church? And then we see that those who are not in his church are the heretics.

56:35

And the Bible makes clear that heretics cannot receive salvation. So, anybody that rejects the teachings of his church is outside of his church.

56:44

And that's why Protestants, for example, Protestants, as I told you before, Protestants like yourselves, you reject the teachings of the one true church that Jesus established 2 ,000 years ago, which therefore puts you in the position of heretics.

56:58

Well, no, actually, I disagree because your church, your Catholic church didn't exist until at least about 700 to 1 ,000

57:07

AD. I mean, you could argue it's really started in its current form with Pope Innocence, which means

57:14

Islam is technically older than the Roman Catholic Church the way it is today. So, it doesn't go back.

57:21

That's just utterly ridiculous. That's just ridiculous. I know because you guys make up history to say that the popes go all the way back to Peter, but it doesn't.

57:31

St. Ignatius of Antioch claimed to be a Catholic in 110 AD. It really shouldn't be a problem for you when you think about it because you don't believe the current pope is

57:41

Catholic. So, why would there have to be popes in between Peter to have that apostolic succession?

57:51

You've already lost the apostolic succession ever since Vatican II. Okay, but it's a diversion from the one saved, always saved topic, and I'm trying to get back to the context because you wanted to discuss the context.

58:03

So, I'm trying to show the context from Galatians 5 and from Galatians in general, which shows that he is speaking to Christians in the church.

58:12

He's not speaking to nonbelievers. Okay, can I go ahead and give you the scriptures which proves it?

58:19

Or are you going to censor me from doing that? Okay, give us the verse in the immediate context. Okay, there's at least nine passages in Galatians that indicate that he's addressing true believers.

58:31

And here's three of them. In Galatians 4 .6, it says, And because you are sons,

58:38

God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts. Okay, hold up, hold up.

58:45

So, you're saying that because in one passage he may be saying something specifically to believers, that means he's always speaking only to believers.

58:54

Well, I'm willing to give you numerous passages. Okay, I'm just, you're going to see that with each one of them,

59:00

I can ignore that and show you that it doesn't matter because the immediate context disagrees with you.

59:06

And we interpret from immediate context. In fact, the real problem you have is you can't even interpret.

59:13

I mean, what you're doing is a violation of your own church. You don't have a right to give me private interpretation.

59:19

Who is Paul speaking to in Galatians 4 .6? I would say he's speaking to the church assembled in Ephesus.

59:31

So, he's not speaking to only believers? So, are unbelievers sons of God?

59:38

Well, he's probably not speaking to the unbelievers in that passage, huh? Okay, thank you, because just now you were trying to claim that he was speaking to both.

59:47

So, we know in Galatians 4 .6. Listen, you can't jump to one and say, well, we're going to apply that context to what he's saying in chapter five.

59:56

In chapter five, he makes it clear that there's two things being compared. Go for it,

01:00:01

Justin. There's so many questions.

01:00:07

I would love, James, to take you to John chapter six and some of Jesus' statements dealing with eternal security.

01:00:16

John chapter 17, I would love to take you there. But one of the things that's being lost here is that, and James, you're probably not even going to understand this because it's foreign to your doctrinal framework.

01:00:32

But one of the things that is fundamentally true about every true church is that amongst any given

01:00:41

Bible -believing, Bible -preaching, teaching church, and I would obviously exclude all

01:00:46

Roman Catholic churches from that, but in any true church, you are going to have a mixture of genuine believers, regenerate believers.

01:00:59

You're going to have, hopefully, mostly those in any given congregation. But you're going to also have some false professors.

01:01:06

You're going to have some people who think they're Christians but really aren't because they prayed some sinner's prayer and walked the aisle, got baptized.

01:01:16

I teach kids all that stuff. You're going to have some people in there that think they're Christians, but they're really not.

01:01:22

And then you're going to have people who claim to be Christians, and they know that they're not. You're going to have tares among the wheat.

01:01:28

And so these warning passages, and they're fresh on my mind because I've been hearing my pastor preach on them.

01:01:36

These warning passages that you see a lot of in Hebrews, and not to chase a rabbit here, but honestly, for the life of me, and I don't say this to insult you, honestly,

01:01:47

I have no idea what the Roman Catholic church or Roman Catholics do with the book of Hebrews.

01:01:56

I am mystified by what Roman Catholics do with the book of Hebrews.

01:02:03

But at any rate, these warning passages will have their intended effect upon the person hearing it, depending on which group he's in.

01:02:15

We believe in something called the infallibility of God's word, that God's word will have its intended effect.

01:02:21

God's word does not return to him void. And so these warning passages will have their effect on the people hearing it, whichever group they're in.

01:02:30

Now, I can look out at a church of 200 people, and I can have confidence that probably, assuming it's a good church, it teaches

01:02:38

God's word, that most of the people there would be genuine Christians. But there would be a number of them who are false professors.

01:02:46

Some people there would be, they think they're Christians, they're really not. There'll be some people there sitting, and they claim to be

01:02:52

Christians, and they know they're not. And so these warning passages will have their intended effect upon everybody, whichever group that person is a part of within that congregation.

01:03:05

Well, Justin, I'm glad you said that, because I've always asked

01:03:10

Protestants, and maybe you can give the answer, because no other Protestant has been able to do so. Not Matt Slick. No other

01:03:17

Protestant person I've ever spoken to can answer this question. They always claim that a true believer will always repent of whatever sins they commit after they come to Christ.

01:03:30

And you just said that these warning messages by Jesus and the apostles will convict a person, whereby that person will go ahead and come to Christ.

01:03:40

No, that's not what I said. And repent. So the person will not repent if the warning messages will not cause the person to repent?

01:03:50

It depends on which group you're in. And again, when I say you're not going to understand this as a

01:03:56

Roman Catholic, I don't say that to be arrogant, as Amateur Exegete just claimed. I say this because, as a

01:04:04

Roman Catholic, you and I have fundamentally different understandings of justification, fundamentally different understandings of the origin of salvation, whether it comes from man or from God.

01:04:16

I hold to the doctrine of election. I hold to a monergistic view of salvation, that God calls and elects, well, he elects, excuse me, he elects, predestinates from eternity past.

01:04:30

He calls, and those who belong to him, who he has foreknown for the foundation of the world, will come to him.

01:04:39

Okay, so would you say that anyone that has found freedom in Christ, and is called the faithful, and is called the brethren, are a part of the elect when

01:04:48

Paul calls them this? Are they believers in Christ? When he calls people brethren, he is addressing believers.

01:05:00

He's addressing groups of people, but also within, say, the audience of Hebrews, a perfect example.

01:05:09

There will be people who will hear his letter or read his letter, hear his letter more likely, that will claim to be

01:05:16

Christians, but they're not truly regenerate. They're just warming their hands by the fire, so to speak.

01:05:23

They're not truly regenerate. Okay, so can you give an explicit verse anywhere in Scripture where it does say that individuals that commit these sins, if they hear this warning from Paul, they'll go ahead and repent of these sins before the end of their life?

01:05:43

Well, yeah, I mean, those who belong to Christ, who have been preordained unto salvation, elected—

01:05:51

Well, just give me an explicit verse. That's what I'm asking for, because I've asked many Protestant pastors, ministers, and none of them can give me an explicit verse.

01:05:59

Okay, I'll give you a number of them. Let's go to John chapter 6. Well, hold on. I want to—you could go there, and after you go here,

01:06:08

Justin, we're going to move on. But just so people who are listening don't—because

01:06:14

James does this a lot. He says, no one can give me a verse. He's been given the verses plenty of times.

01:06:20

Matt's given him the verses. Matt's never given me any verses to answer that question. He's done it on here.

01:06:26

I've done it. We give you the verses. You ignore it and say, no one's given me a verse. If you've done it, then do it.

01:06:32

You said you've done it, then give it right now. Well, I've given you Romans chapter 9. I've given you that.

01:06:38

It doesn't say that anyone that has repented will repent of that sin before the end of their life.

01:06:46

Yeah, because you do the same thing that the Muslims do. You word it a very specific way and say it has to say it exactly this way, ignoring what happens.

01:06:54

Well, if you're going to make that claim, you need to give an explicit verse to back up your claim. Let's go to John chapter 6 and look at verses 37 through 35.

01:07:01

John chapter 6 doesn't say it. It certainly does. Not in the exact verbiage that you're using, but it certainly does teach that.

01:07:10

John chapter 6 teaches the Holy Eucharist, but it doesn't teach that anybody that commits a sin will go ahead and repent of that sin before the end of their life.

01:07:18

Now, there may be some that will, but not everyone. Okay, so we're going to let Justin finish.

01:07:24

That's why I've muted James. We're going to go to Justin, go to chapter 6 of John.

01:07:31

We'll go through this, and you're seeing, folks, exactly what

01:07:37

James does. He's given the verse, and he just says, it doesn't say that. And then he says no one's given him the verse, so he ignores it.

01:07:44

But go ahead. Okay. John 6 verse 37. All that the

01:07:49

Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me

01:07:57

I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

01:08:05

This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me.

01:08:11

This is election from before the foundation of the world, Ephesians chapter 1, Romans chapter 9.

01:08:18

This is the will of him who sent me, that all that he has given me I lose none, but raise it up on the last day.

01:08:26

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life.

01:08:33

And I myself will raise him up on the last day. Christians are people who have been given by the

01:08:42

Father to the Son as a love gift from eternity past. And all that the

01:08:49

Father gives Christ will come to him. And this same theme is repeated over and over in John chapter 17.

01:08:59

Read the high priestly prayer. It's all throughout John chapter 17. All that the

01:09:05

Father gives me, not might come to me, will come to me, and I will certainly not cast out.

01:09:13

This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing, none.

01:09:22

And I will raise it up on the last day. I mean, you don't have to be a

01:09:28

Greek scholar to see the plain meaning of that. Go to John chapter 10, verses 20.

01:09:34

In fact, since I haven't really talked a whole lot in this, let's go to John chapter 10.

01:09:42

John chapter 10, verse 26.

01:09:50

But you do not believe me. Why? Because you're not of my sheep. There's a lecture. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them.

01:10:01

I give eternal life to them. And they will never perish, and no one, never perish.

01:10:08

Notice that, never perish. Never. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

01:10:14

My Father who has given them to me, there it is again. We are given to Christ by the

01:10:19

Father as a love gift from the Father to the Son, is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the

01:10:26

Father's, excuse me, no one will snatch them out of my hand. So we are held in the hand of Christ.

01:10:33

My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

01:10:38

So we are literally held in the hand of Christ. Why? Because the

01:10:44

Father has given us to Christ. He holds us in his hand. No one can snatch us out of his hand.

01:10:49

And as if that were not strong enough, and it is, but as if it were not, then he metaphorically wraps the

01:10:57

Father's hand around that of his own. And ain't no one getting out of that.

01:11:05

So, I mean, that's just a bird's eye view just from the gospel of John. And we haven't even gotten to John chapter 17.

01:11:13

We could go there too. Yeah. So, okay, I'm going to, we're going to move on and add, hopefully,

01:11:22

Jeff. Jeff, is your mic working? Meanwhile, the whole time

01:11:30

I've been offline talking with Jeff, trying to get to see if it's working. And we're hoping it is.

01:11:37

He's got a Bluetooth headset. He's saying, I bet if I had earbuds, maybe just take the

01:11:44

Bluetooth off altogether. If you're using a phone, see if that just works like that without anything.

01:11:55

So while we're waiting, we try to get Jeff in. I'm going to give Jeff some kudos because there's been a whole bunch of people on Apologetics Live who were making claims about me and Jeff showed up.

01:12:08

And so I will give credit where credit is due. Out of all the people, I thought Jeff would be the one that would show up.

01:12:15

I knew, oh, what was his name? I should go look this up. Where was it?

01:12:21

Jeff commented in that actual post. James Moody. I figured he wouldn't show up.

01:12:28

He accused me of lying, Justin. So this guy,

01:12:34

James Moody, said that I was lying. And I should read the actual email.

01:12:40

So here's the email. The email that came in to the ministry was about a

01:12:46

Jewish person who wanted to debate. And he was challenging me to a debate.

01:12:53

And it was an interesting one nonetheless. But I contacted the guy twice via email and tried to set up a debate.

01:13:04

He said, willing to debate the topic of Judaism versus Christianity. He gives a phone number to call.

01:13:11

It's an 1 -800 number. And when you call it, it just says, leave your number after the— no, actually not even after the beep, hit the pound.

01:13:21

So maybe it's a pager. So there was no way to leave a message. But I did call.

01:13:28

Maybe we could do it here on the show. So he gives me the 800 number to call to discuss the details.

01:13:34

So I've emailed him twice. I've called this number that he gave me. But James says that I'm a liar because I never actually contacted him, supposedly.

01:13:43

Actually, no. He said I wasn't going to call him was his claim. The exact wording that I said is

01:13:50

I was going to call after I got back from travel, which was this week.

01:13:56

I just got back from New York City. Jeff is saying, I'm yelling at my phone.

01:14:04

His Bluetooth is off. He's yelling at his phone. And unfortunately, we can't hear him. Jeff, try to get in on a

01:14:11

Chrome browser, maybe, or see if that'll work. So he's going to try that.

01:14:19

Good. So we'll see if we can get him back in. So while we wait for him, let's see who is in here first.

01:14:26

I think Kyle. I will add Kyle in. Kyle, you can unmute yourself and ask whatever question you may have for Justin or I.

01:14:38

Are you there? I can unmute you. Maybe. Let's see. I can't unmute you because you chose to mute yourself.

01:14:45

Ah, that's interesting. So now we see how this works. So, Kyle, are you there? This makes for great radio.

01:14:52

It's not really radio. Okay, Kyle, let me know when you come back. He probably walked away.

01:14:58

Chad, we'll add you in if you want to unmute yourself. Let's see if I can unmute you. I can't unmute you either.

01:15:04

So, Chad, are you there? Calling Chad. All right.

01:15:12

If anyone else wants to join, looks like Kyle is there.

01:15:18

He just popped up in his screen. Kyle, if you want to unmute yourself. Hello. There we go.

01:15:27

How are you? Great. How are you? Better than I deserve. I really didn't have any question.

01:15:37

I just joined the chat. I wanted to see what you guys had to say.

01:15:42

But I guess thank you guys for what you're doing. Justin, I appreciate following you over the years and gained a lot of wisdom through your teaching and video.

01:15:53

So thank you. Thank you, Kyle. I appreciate that, brother. Thank you. Very encouraging. Thank you.

01:15:58

Andrew, thank you as well. See, I'm just ‑‑ see, I am Robin to his Batman. See? Okay?

01:16:04

It's, Justin, you're the best. You too, Andrew. It's okay. I'm getting ‑‑

01:16:11

I'm used to this. That's all, Andrew. It's just a southern accent. I will be

01:16:17

Robin to your Batman any day. Hey, real quick.

01:16:23

Someone put into the comments they saw me on vocab Malone's live stream from New York.

01:16:30

Justin, do you know who vocab Malone is? Vocab Malone? I do know.

01:16:36

He is one of the experts on black Hebrew Israelites. He was in New York at Union Square looking for black

01:16:41

Hebrew Israelites while I was there. And for humbled Clay Homestead, I'll let you in on a little secret.

01:16:48

If you like vocab, he'll be here next week. The plan is that he'll be joining us next week.

01:16:56

So ‑‑ And thanks to the ‑‑ for those of you who just sent encouraging messages that I saw kind of flash up there.

01:17:02

I don't know how to respond. You mean like that one? And then this one?

01:17:08

Everyone loves Justin. Yeah, well, I love you guys, too. So, Kyle, you didn't have any questions?

01:17:21

Oh, no, nothing at the moment. Just if you ever make it to the

01:17:27

Twin Cities, have you ever heard of Faith Bible Church? Just curious. In the

01:17:33

Twin Cities. Faith Bible Church, yeah, it's a newer church, church startup.

01:17:40

If you're ever in town, we'd love to have you. Come. I've been to the Twin Cities before.

01:17:46

It's been, oh, probably a decade ago, actually. But, yeah, I would love to come back.

01:17:52

I sure would. I've not been to Faith Bible, but if you all extend an invitation. I was going to say,

01:17:58

Kyle, you know the easiest way to get Justin to come and speak at your church? Get your church to invite him.

01:18:06

And here's where you go. Just go to justinpeters .org. There you go is the website.

01:18:12

And you could say, hey, Justin, come on out. Yeah. That'd be great.

01:18:19

Yeah. We would need to look at next year. But, yeah, I would be honored to come.

01:18:26

Someone's showing some love my way. Yeah, there you go. Andrew, people like you too, man.

01:18:32

Nah. Sure they do. That's all I got.

01:18:38

Thank you for your time. Somebody else wants to take the stage. All right. Well, thank you.

01:18:43

I'll put you back in the backstage, I guess they call it. I'll see if Chad is here.

01:18:48

We'll see. Chad, if not, Cody sent some questions I could ask. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, thank you for taking my question.

01:18:58

I come from a Pentecostal background. I actually just read

01:19:03

John MacArthur's book, Strange Fire. So what advice do you have for somebody coming out of that?

01:19:13

Just recently having trouble finding a good church.

01:19:19

Do you recommend staying put until you find one?

01:19:26

Or is it, in your view, is it worse to stay in the Pentecostal movement or not?

01:19:37

Andrew, who wants? No, go for it. Yeah, it's

01:19:42

Chad, right? Chad, am I looking at? Yeah. Chad, honestly, brother, I would say leave.

01:19:51

Yeah, go ahead and leave. God is spirit, must be worshiped in spirit and in truth.

01:19:58

And so if you're in a church that's teaching erroneous doctrine, then it's not a true church.

01:20:06

If the leader of the church, the pastor, elder, whatever they're called, in that particular church, if they're not biblically qualified, if they're not able to teach, able to teach sound doctrine, refute those who contradict, then they're not qualified to be in the position they're in, which means that you don't really have a church.

01:20:26

So I would say go ahead and leave and then find a good doctrinally sound church just as quickly as possible.

01:20:34

Where do you live, Chad? Outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I'm in a small town. I've been on a couple of websites looking at some of those to try to find some churches.

01:20:44

Have you been to TMS .edu? I don't think so.

01:20:50

I'll write that one down. Yeah. TMS stands for the Master's Seminary.

01:20:57

TMS .edu. OK. And I think it's under the Resources tab. OK. We'll check that one out.

01:21:05

How far are you from Pittsburgh? Not far, you said? About an hour in. OK. I'll put my email in the chat.

01:21:14

You can see the chat? Yep. OK. Just send me an email. I know someone in Pittsburgh.

01:21:21

And also, I was wondering if any of you guys are—I'm attending the G3 conference.

01:21:27

Any of you guys going to that? Well, Justin, what was it you were asking me earlier today?

01:21:33

Yeah, I was asking if you were going. I'm not speaking at it, but I think Andrew and I are going to try to go and hopefully have a desk or a table or a booth or something there.

01:21:46

I'd love to meet you. Yeah, sure. I'd love to meet you. Yeah. That'd be great.

01:21:52

He's easy to spot. He's the guy that doesn't want to walk around. He just scoots around on his scooter.

01:22:00

Boy, I'm not really crippled. I just do it for sympathy. Yeah. Thank you, guys.

01:22:07

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Let me go to some—we got a Super Chat. And I know you probably don't know what a

01:22:13

Super Chat is, Justin, but that's where someone donates money through YouTube.

01:22:19

And so, Justin Manning says, gave $2. We like you too, Andrew. God bless.

01:22:26

So, he wanted to make sure I read that by giving the $2. Super Chats, as I often tell people, this goes to—that goes to karm .org.

01:22:35

The way we've—the arrangement we have is we use Karm's YouTube channel because they can monetize.

01:22:44

And therefore, the money that's donated in Super Chats goes to karm .org, Not Striving for Eternity.

01:22:50

And we're the ones that actually put on the show. So, if you want to donate to Striving for Eternity, you can go to strivingforeternity .org/.donate.

01:23:00

And I'll put a pitch out. For those who don't listen to my daily two -minute podcast, we are in need of donations.

01:23:10

We have one of our—well, our largest donor is retiring. And so, he will be cutting off his donations at the end of the year.

01:23:21

So, that's kind of a bummer for us. But he is—he's really allowed us to do a lot for the kingdom of God through his donations.

01:23:31

Been able to go into a lot of churches that we wouldn't be able to get into any other way because the churches themselves couldn't afford to bring in a conference or speakers.

01:23:44

And so, that's allowed us to do that. And so, what we're looking for is 100 people that would be willing to donate $25 a month.

01:23:53

Just a $25. That's basically like one cup of Starbucks coffee. You know, just give up one cup of Starbucks coffee.

01:24:00

And, Justin, you like Starbucks. Give up that Starbucks and it'll probably save you $25. Yeah. But if folks could do that, we would greatly appreciate it.

01:24:13

We're needing to be able to continue doing the ministry we do. That's the way we do this.

01:24:20

So, the donations through the Super Chats go to CARM. All the monetizing of the videos goes to CARM.

01:24:27

And that's the way we've done this so they can generate some funds as well. And the way we do it is by asking you to go to strivingforeternity .org

01:24:36

slash donate. And from there, we ask that if you'd consider giving a monthly donation.

01:24:42

Now, if you do give a donation, what ends up happening is we give you books.

01:24:48

After a couple of months, we ship out some free books for you. So, that way you can get some free gifts.

01:24:57

And, you know, different books for different levels. I think that's all in the Patreon that explains that.

01:25:03

And so, what we end up seeing is we need help. I don't often do appeals where we need help, but we are in need.

01:25:16

We have until the end of the year to try to make up for that.

01:25:22

And if not, it may affect how many churches we can go into and be able to, you know, basically be able to go where they're not paying for us to get there.

01:25:33

And I don't, you know, both Justin and I flew to the Philippines. And neither one of us talked about money with the church.

01:25:44

We, I mean, the tickets were about $2 ,400, I think, for flights out there.

01:25:50

And Philippines churches didn't cover that. That's something that both Justin and I, both, we don't have speaking fees.

01:25:59

We, you know, don't do it that way. And so, we trust God and God provided.

01:26:05

People gave money so that we would be able to go there.

01:26:12

And that was, you know, that was a blessing. But without some of the donors, we might not be able to do that.

01:26:19

So, all right. Jeff is going to try to come in next week. Maybe during the week,

01:26:25

Jeff and I can work offline. So, I will read Cody's email or question that he sent me,

01:26:31

Justin. So, sorry, I'm going to look that way because that's where the screen is. But here's his question.

01:26:40

He's got two of them. And so, he says, question one. I have a young Native American friend asking if it is wrong for him to participate in dances with his tribe, does at different venues, that just showcase

01:26:59

Native American heritage and tradition. Most of the dances were to partition a deity, rain dances, or some kind of thanksgiving to a deity for successful hunt or asking for a successful hunt.

01:27:14

I personally likened it to yoga, that they are pagan ceremonies a

01:27:21

Christian shouldn't be part of. What do you two say? So, Justin, what do you think?

01:27:27

You know, he's a Native American that wants to do Native American dances that used to have the meaning of it being to a deity.

01:27:35

Can he practice that today in different situations? Yeah, I would say that would be problematic.

01:27:44

If these dances are in some way connected to spiritual, they have spiritual overtones connected to pagan deities, you know, the rain god or the, you know, whatever, the crop god.

01:27:58

If there is a connection to that, yes, that would be wrong. And it's not that these gods, little g, of course, it's not that these gods are real, they're not.

01:28:11

But they are connected to pagan notions of gods or pagan gods.

01:28:18

And I think you see that principle laid out by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10.

01:28:24

You know, I think it's a very good parallel right here. Read 1 Corinthians 10,

01:28:30

I guess beginning about verse 14. Paul says, well, verse 19,

01:28:38

What do I mean then that a thing sacrificed to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? So he's saying, no, these idols aren't real.

01:28:45

There's, you know, no, but I say that the things which Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

01:28:54

So it's not that these gods are real, but anything that raises itself up as a deity is demonically inspired.

01:29:05

So the god may not be real, but there actually are demons behind these pagan notions. So, yeah, if there is a connection there in some spiritual sense,

01:29:14

I would say do not do it. As a believer, don't do it. Now, if it's purely cultural, like,

01:29:24

I don't know, let me think of an example. I don't know, like a square dance at a bluegrass festival.

01:29:31

You know, that would be kind of a cultural thing or a river dance, I guess, from Ireland. You know, something that's just, you know, cultural.

01:29:40

It's not connected to any kind of a spiritual sense. Then I don't think there would be a problem.

01:29:46

But if there is that connection, then, yeah, I would say don't do it. Yeah, I guess

01:29:53

I would. I think that I agree with you. You know, I liken it to, and you know that I have the background in martial arts.

01:30:01

In the early years of martial arts, it was very much tied to, at least some of them, were very tied to a religious type of thing.

01:30:17

And I think that when we have that, when it has that connection to whatever, you know, that spiritual idea, then

01:30:32

I think we have to be a little bit more concerned. But the karate started shifting and changing.

01:30:39

And nowadays people just see it as exercise or self -defense or, you know, just good to, you know, just,

01:30:48

I guess, really one of those. And so it doesn't have that spiritual component associated with it anymore.

01:30:55

I think some of the issue, Cody, you mentioned the yoga. And yoga, I think, still has that spiritual connection that karate lost.

01:31:07

Brazilian jiu -jitsu never had it, just saying. It's not a spiritual component to that. But what we end up seeing is that, you know, if it has that notion that there is a spiritual component to it,

01:31:26

I think that then we have to identify it and say, maybe stay away.

01:31:32

So that's how I would say. I think maybe some of this Native American dancing may be fine because people don't realize it's to a deity and it's lost that spiritual connection it used to have.

01:31:46

And now it's just something people see as a traditional dance of Native Americans. So I wouldn't really be able to give a hundred percent answer only because I'm not familiar enough with the culture to know if it has that spiritual side to it.

01:32:07

So it really would be a question for your friend to see how much of the people who are watching that dance or doing the dance think that there's a spiritual connection to it.

01:32:18

And if no one sees that there's any spiritual connection, maybe it's okay. But I would be,

01:32:24

I'd be careful. And so his second question,

01:32:30

Justin, Cody's second question was, what is a Christian to do with a loved one on life support or in a coma or in a coma told by doctors they will never come out of it?

01:32:46

I don't believe we have the right to take the life by pulling the plug.

01:32:54

And there's way too many stories of people coming out of these conditions.

01:33:01

So what do you think about that one, Justin? Well, I've told

01:33:08

Kathy, my wife, that if I were, if I ever am on life support and I'm just being kept alive by machines and that goes on,

01:33:19

I mean, I don't want to stay there. You know, I just take me off life support.

01:33:25

And if God wants me to live, I will. And if not, then

01:33:31

I'll go to heaven. So, yeah, I guess that's a decision that is just left up to the family members.

01:33:40

Me personally, I would not want to be kept alive on a breathing machine.

01:33:45

Now, if there was some reasonable hope for maybe me to recover, that's one thing.

01:33:51

But if it's, you know, if it's all the doctors pretty much agree that it's just he's just going to be on life support indefinitely.

01:34:00

And that's the only thing keeping him alive. And he's not aware. You know, I'd rather go to heaven. So it's just a family decision.

01:34:10

So I don't want to I don't want to put my hands on the if that's something that's going on in your family now.

01:34:15

I don't want to I don't want to influence that other than just say if, you know, pray for the family members recovery.

01:34:25

And if if that does not appear to be happening and he's just being artificially kept alive, then if it were me there,

01:34:34

I would want you to I would want you to just let me go. But that's something that you have to decide amongst your family members.

01:34:44

I think, you know, my wife and I've talked about this as well, and I think that what

01:34:49

I notice is I think I would have a differing view depending who the family member is.

01:34:55

In other words, if it's if it's someone who is saved. I think let him, you know, let him go.

01:35:05

Remember, first off, one of the things we have to remember, I think that when we look at the premise of the question.

01:35:12

It is about the fact of their being artificially kept alive by technology.

01:35:19

And is it taking of the life to let nature take its course?

01:35:25

In other words, the machine is what's keeping them alive. Are you actually killing them by unplugging them?

01:35:31

Well, yes and no. I mean, it's it's not exactly the same only because had them they not been on the machine, they wouldn't be alive.

01:35:41

The machine is keeping them alive. And so part of the thing that you have to work through,

01:35:47

I think, is the question of. Is this device that's keeping them alive?

01:35:55

Is it is it killing them by taking it off? Or is that natural circle, you know, just nature taking its course?

01:36:01

Now, if they're an unbeliever, personally, I've said to my wife that if someone comes as an unbelievers on.

01:36:08

I think I would be more likely to want to see them stay alive as long as possible so that they could repent.

01:36:20

That would be my position. But if it's someone who's a believer, hey,

01:36:26

I mean, we'll see him in heaven and heaven's way better. Let him let him go be with Christ.

01:36:32

I mean, that would be my position. So I'm just added in Vincent Vincent, if you want to unmute yourself now,

01:36:43

I know you're going to get this working because you helped me test this out. So how are y 'all, gentlemen? God bless.

01:36:50

Doing well, Vincent. How about yourself? Oh, I am very glad that tomorrow is Friday.

01:36:55

That's all I can say. I hear you. So you have any any questions for us,

01:37:03

Vincent, or probably for for Justin? Well, I only come in at the so I don't really know what y 'all are on at the moment.

01:37:09

So. Well, let's see, we were talking about Joshua Harris leaving the supposedly leaving the faith, which he really didn't do.

01:37:19

We talked about we talked with a Roman Catholic traditional

01:37:24

Catholic. So you know how that went. That went just as usual. Y 'all see that other singer's response from Skillet to the all these.

01:37:36

Yeah. And all dropping away. I thought that was an interesting reply. Yeah, it was.

01:37:41

It was. It was pretty good. I kind of I didn't read it in depth, but it was. I've heard of Skillet.

01:37:47

I don't know anything about music. Yeah. Yeah. Not not exactly my kind of music either, but he makes a lot of good points.

01:37:56

Yeah, he did. And and I guess in a way, I was kind of I'd say this, but pleasantly surprised that he did, because I don't.

01:38:04

Sorry, but, you know, I've seen too much from contemporary Christian music to have to go into a situation like that and give them the benefit of the doubt.

01:38:16

But unfortunately, most not all, but most of these guys are pretty weak theologically.

01:38:23

But anyway, but yeah, I was from what I read, I thought I thought it was pretty good. So let me see.

01:38:33

We had a question in here. I don't know if you're going to want to answer. I'll be happy to.

01:38:41

And someone's asking, although I think they called you Justine. So I added an

01:38:48

E in there. So how are you identifying today there today, Justine?

01:38:56

Today is I woke up feeling like a man, like every other single day of my life.

01:39:01

It's I'm on a roll. What can I say? I'm just on a roll. Well, maybe tomorrow you'll feel like Justine.

01:39:07

OK, so the question is, what are your thoughts on discernment ministries, especially

01:39:15

Service Christi? Now, you could just speak on discernment ministries if you want.

01:39:23

I'll be happy to talk about Joshua, Service Christi. Yeah, I'll be happy to let you talk about Joshua.

01:39:31

I'll say a little bit about him. Long story short, he first contacted me five or so years ago.

01:39:40

And initially he seemed actually nice and teachable and humble.

01:39:46

But the more I talked to him, he got increasingly belligerent and increasingly off the rails.

01:39:54

I mean, just like to the point where he thinks pastors are unbiblical. Preaching is unbiblical.

01:40:00

I mean, it's just looney tunes. And so anyway, some of you probably know, but he he called me trying to get me to condemn

01:40:10

John MacArthur. And unbeknownst to me, he's recording the phone call, puts it up on YouTube.

01:40:17

And, you know, I said nothing in that conversation that I'm ashamed of.

01:40:23

And it's funny because a month or two ago I was I went and looked at it and I was reading the comments in the in the

01:40:29

YouTube, in the comments section on that YouTube video that he and literally all of them that I saw.

01:40:34

I'm sure there's some that are not complimentary towards me, but all the ones that I read and I read a number of them were in my favor.

01:40:43

So my my flesh is like I'm tempted to email

01:40:48

Joshua and say, you know, thanks, Joshua. I appreciate you putting that up there. You know, but he's a he's one of these guys that thinks that everybody on the planet is lost except him.

01:41:03

And he is a hyper, hyper separatist. He is he's angry.

01:41:10

And here's the main thing. Here's the deal with Joshua. He's got no church.

01:41:15

He's not a member of a church. And all of my critics, without exception, the loudest and most vocal and angriest.

01:41:27

Of the critics that I get, one thing they all have in common, none of them are members of churches.

01:41:35

Well, and this is one of the things, as you know, I actually know Joshua personally. He my first encounter with him was in New York City, where he did.

01:41:47

He came to New York City to do evangelism. He doesn't know the laws in New York.

01:41:54

So in New York, women are allowed to be topless. It's something I can't stand. And basically,

01:42:01

I know that when we do the open air, you know, they want to come over and display themselves.

01:42:07

And, you know, so I had already talked to her, basically called her out on her sin, told her to stay away from us.

01:42:16

And we will just basically ignore and not be calling her out. But he did.

01:42:22

He came up. He kept calling around. He kept calling the police because he thought it was wrong. She was topless. And he's calling me an unbeliever because I won't condemn her, not realizing

01:42:31

I've already talked to her. But he doesn't take that into account. And what ended up happening is he ended up just, you know, basically what the police did is they came and they only wanted to know who kept calling.

01:42:46

And they basically turned my microphone off because they assumed it was it was me or someone.

01:42:54

And, you know, he's he's a very effeminate guy. He works as a like in a like a hair cutter or something like that.

01:43:04

So he manages like a hair salon. He's in New York. He didn't have a church. He's never had a church that I know of.

01:43:11

He doesn't think pastors are biblical, as you said. One of his arguments, huh?

01:43:17

Sorry, he's a hairdresser. He manages like he was a hairdresser, I think, but he manages like a hair salon.

01:43:23

At least that's what he did in New York. Strike. OK, yeah.

01:43:29

He but, you know, we had we had I took him out to dinner when

01:43:35

I met him. We talked. I saw immediately no church attendance.

01:43:41

He feels he's he's the only one that can really do discernment and everyone else has problems that, you know, he can spot in everybody.

01:43:50

The real interesting thing is he has the this degrees of of connection.

01:43:56

So if John MacArthur is speaks at a conference or friends with or whatever, with with Piper and Piper has been at a conference with TJ Jakes, that makes

01:44:09

MacArthur a heretic. In which case I said to him, well, you and I've gone to dinner and to know each other and I've been with MacArthur, so that makes you a heretic.

01:44:21

Right. Somehow it doesn't work the same way when you when it's applied that way.

01:44:27

Right. And that's the thing I always find with these people. It's they have a double standard. And that's what he has.

01:44:34

I mean, look, he's picking apart people and someone saying, Joshua, who it's the it's the guy service

01:44:40

Christie online. And by the way, I should mention I mentioned in chat, but Bill Bill was upset that someone was thinking that I was busting on Bill for calling you just Justine.

01:44:51

I was just busting on Justin because I like to do that. You know, I'm it's kind of a habit, part time hobby of mine to give

01:45:00

Justin a hard time. So it has nothing to do with your your typing too quick.

01:45:07

But service Christie is. Is, you know, he's he's got problems and the problems are he can't discern.

01:45:19

Himself. That's the real issue. Scripture is really clear what he should be doing. It should be he should be attending a church.

01:45:26

And that's an issue. Anyone who doesn't attend church and they want to do discernment.

01:45:33

That's a real problem. Okay. I mean, just just that should be the first question you ask anybody, because a guy who claims that they're doing discernment and they've so discerned themselves out of church.

01:45:48

What he's doing is trying to build a platform for himself. Yeah. And so that's what he's doing.

01:45:56

He's trying to go out and he wants to build all these connections of people so he can call everyone else a heretic and they're all wrong.

01:46:03

And he's right. And it's a lot of clickbait. It's a lot of, oh, look, everyone wants to know how

01:46:10

John MacArthur is a heretic and Justin Peters is a heretic and everyone else is a heretic. You know,

01:46:16

Justin, you and I have talked about this. One of the biggest problems we see in discernment ministries is that they're not discerning, especially about themselves.

01:46:27

Yeah, about themselves. Yeah. And there's very little accountability.

01:46:33

And, you know, not all discernment ministries, not at all. But some of them are this way.

01:46:39

I would say you, Todd Friel, some of the best.

01:46:44

I mean, your ministry is a discernment ministry. But I think you do it, you guys do it where there's a line you guys won't cross, but you guys are also tied to a local church.

01:46:57

Very much so. And yet you and I know some people who say they do discernment ministries.

01:47:05

Joshua is not the only one, but we know others who, you know, don't, they don't attend a church.

01:47:15

Yeah. There's no accountability in their life. I know some who claim they do and actually don't.

01:47:22

Yes. Yeah. There's some who, I know some who claim that, you know, on Sunday they'll go online and do church, you know, because they're out there online putting videos out or something, or, you know, they're having church in their house with their family.

01:47:43

Yeah. But the reality is, you know, when you see someone that says they're doing discernment ministries and they don't have a church attendance, they don't have accountability in their life.

01:47:57

That's where we see problems. Yep. Yeah, that's right. And I would just say too, just to tag on to that,

01:48:06

I strive for my guiding principle, Andrew, and anybody who's watching in the discernment that I do,

01:48:14

I strive for Jude. Jude verses two through three to kind of be my guiding principle.

01:48:22

And not to exposit this fully here because we don't have time, but basically if you read Jude verses two through three,

01:48:29

Jude says, Beloved, I would, in other words, I wanted to write to you about our common salvation.

01:48:35

That's what he wanted to do. I wanted to write to you about the gospel, but I felt it needful, necessary to write to you, to exhort you to earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints for certain men have crept in unawares, unnoticed.

01:48:52

So in other words, what Jude was saying to his readers, brothers, I would love nothing more than to write to you about the gospel.

01:49:00

I would love nothing more than to write to you about our common salvation. That's what I want to do, but it was necessary for me to do this.

01:49:07

It's necessary for me to write to you, to warn you about these false teachers. So warning people about false teachers is good.

01:49:15

It is necessary. 26 of the 27 books in the New Testament do warn us about false teachers, but it is a task that even though it is necessary and even though we're commanded to do it, it is a task that should grieve us that it is necessary to do in the first place.

01:49:34

Does that make sense? Yeah, you know, and I'm trying to look up in Philippians when I, when I preached through that book, um, you know, there was a spot where what

01:49:43

Paul says in Philippians is he's actually says to them, uh, basically when you, when you are having to confront false teachers, you should deal with tears.

01:49:55

And that's, that's what I don't see with a lot of these people who want to do discernment ministries.

01:50:01

They want to make a name for themselves more than their concern for the lost. Uh, I mean, that's the thing when you get a guy like Joshua, like service,

01:50:11

Christie, you know, he, the issue I said with him is, you know, he thinks that, you know, I'm not, you know,

01:50:17

I'm not saved or I'm guilty of being a heretic because of my associations. Well, then you should be sharing the gospel with me.

01:50:24

You see, and that's not what he's doing. That tells me he's not concerned about my soul. You know, see,

01:50:30

I'm concerned with where he's going to spend eternity because I look at his behavior. I look that he's the back to what we're talking about in Galatians five, the walk of his life.

01:50:40

He doesn't seem to have a concern for these people that he's discerning about and putting discernment in air quotes there.

01:50:48

The, the issue there that I see is he's just, he's just, it's like, he's gleeful when he finds something he can call people out on.

01:50:58

And that's not the way we're supposed to behave. Exactly. I mean, with some of these guys and he would be a penultimate example.

01:51:05

Some of these guys, it's like they would be disappointed if they woke up one morning and there was nobody to go after.

01:51:11

And if you ever get to that point, and this is something I guard myself against, but if you ever get to the point where you would be disappointed, if there's not somebody to go after and warn people about, then you're in a very dangerous place, very dangerous place.

01:51:28

I think, I think the thing you end up seeing with most discernment ministries, a lot of them, at least, what you end up seeing is they come in and what they do is they are, they come in maybe even with a really, really good thing.

01:51:46

Maybe they, they blow this a story and, and expose something that needs to be exposed and they get a name for themselves.

01:51:54

And then maybe they break another story and it's like, wow. But then they got to keep it going. Once they build that platform, it's like they want to keep that going.

01:52:02

They want, they want that to, to, so it's, so then you have to start cutting corners because you have to find, okay, how do we, how do we do this?

01:52:11

Where it's, you know, we got to keep finding someone to expose. So we kind of cut corners and, and they, you know, they kind of said this and they really didn't mean this, but we'll make it sound like they did type of thing.

01:52:23

And, and then eventually they start making things up. I mean, it happens so many times that they'll eventually make, make things up because they got to keep it going.

01:52:32

They got to keep that platform building. Yeah. They'll have clickbait. They'll have all those sorts of things. That's not pleasing to God and, and they'll feel spiritual about it, but I don't think it's biblical.

01:52:44

I'm going to keep looking. Huh? So not according to Jude. No. And I'm going to keep looking for the verse in Philippians as we add

01:52:52

John. So John is back. So John, if you have any questions for us tonight. Actually, I did have a question concerning.

01:53:00

Thank you very much, John. We're glad that you came in. Oh, sorry. Justin, we got to give

01:53:07

John a hard time because, well, I mean, we just do. I'm okay with that.

01:53:15

So, so John was involved, Justin, in trying to get Matt to buy me lunch. He, he actually, or dinner.

01:53:23

He, he tried. He, he, he actually was involved in, in that. It failed.

01:53:29

It did fail. And I'm glad it failed, but I got to give him a hard time for it.

01:53:34

Yep. One day, one day, Matt will buy you lunch or dinner.

01:53:42

So your question is John. Um, I was listening to, uh, a, um, one of your teaching, uh,

01:53:53

Andrew. Uh, when it came to, you said something about, there's this one

01:53:58

Muslim guy who wrote a document and you called it Q. Where the guy said, um, he, he tried to disprove that Jesus never claimed to be

01:54:13

God in the gospels. And, but the funny thing you mentioned about was the guy in before his chapter one, he actually said something about, um, that this document doesn't really even, we don't even know if this document really even exists.

01:54:35

Um, do you know what I'm talking about? I know exactly what you're talking about. As I pull my book, what do we believe off the shelf?

01:54:41

So I can give you the citation. So, so it's, so Q did not start with, uh, with a

01:54:49

Muslim. Q is something that the liberals, it stands for quillum and it, which means source in German.

01:54:55

And so it is the, I was just trying to figure, get the full title of the book, but it's zealot, the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth.

01:55:03

And it's by Reza Aslan. Now he, he takes the same liberal view that many others would do and say that there was a source document that you have.

01:55:14

Basically Q was the first gospel supposedly. And then Matthew or sorry,

01:55:20

Mark wrote off of Q and then Matthew and Luke basically took what

01:55:27

Mark wrote and expanded it. And then John was a complete, you know, John was where they finally said, okay, look, we have

01:55:35

Jesus as God. So it's, it's like the idea that this embellishment had gone on.

01:55:40

Now, uh, the issue is we don't have any historical evidence that Q ever existed.

01:55:46

They've, they've supposedly reconstructed it because they have, they start with, they start with their conclusion that there was, there must've been a document that Mark got it from.

01:55:57

And so starting with that as a starting point from there, they end up building this whole thing up.

01:56:05

And so what they do is they take the gospels and try to reconstruct what they think this document

01:56:12

Q would have and build it from there. Okay. So Q doesn't exist, but, and so in his book, what he ends up doing is at the very beginning of his book, he ends up saying that, uh, you know, we don't have any historical evidence for Q.

01:56:33

We haven't found it, but then the rest of his book is based on these whole, this whole argument for the gospels, not really being the gospels.

01:56:42

And, you know, because of Q, but you see, there's a problem there. If we don't have historical evidence, we don't have any copies.

01:56:50

We don't have anything that proves Q actually existed. And you build the whole thing saying that the gospels weren't really the gospels.

01:56:58

They were embellishments, but you're doing it based on a fairy tale. It's something that doesn't exist. Okay. There was no

01:57:05

Q. And I believe, I don't know where Justin's at with this. We'll see if Justin and I agree on this one.

01:57:11

I believe Matthew was the first gospel. Okay. People say Mark, because it's the shortest, but I think

01:57:18

Matthew would have been the first gospel because that's the gospel written to the Jewish people. And so that would have been needed earlier being written to Jewish people versus, you know,

01:57:30

Mark or Luke that would have been written more for Gentiles. So that'd be my argument.

01:57:38

How was that spelled? Is it Q, like the letter Q, or is it just? Well, Q is just short for quellum.

01:57:45

And quellum is a Greek, is a German word that means source. And so the idea of it is came out of German liberalism.

01:57:52

And so they believe there was a source document for the gospels that was the real gospel and argued the way they argue is that the real gospel doesn't teach that Jesus is

01:58:05

God. That it would have taught Jesus is just a man. And so that's the argument.

01:58:14

But anytime I have anybody making an argument and they're basing it off of a document that we have no historical evidence that it ever existed.

01:58:23

That's a problem. Yeah. Like Bigfoot. Yeah. Bigfoot exists.

01:58:30

I met him. His name is Ken Cook. If you've ever seen him, he looks like Bigfoot. And meanwhile,

01:58:37

Justin just texted me because he was looking up the document. So here's the verse. Here's the verse

01:58:43

I was looking for earlier. Philippians 3 .18. For many of whom

01:58:49

I have often told you and now tell you, even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

01:59:00

If you're going to do discernment ministries, that's the verse you should have pressed into your mind.

01:59:06

That you're going to do it even with tears when you have to call out enemies of the gospel.

01:59:15

So. All right. I will. So anything else, John? Well, you mentioned earlier about Mark being the first gospel possibly being written.

01:59:24

But you said the reason why some people say that is because it's the shortest. Well, that's not much of an argument.

01:59:31

I always thought that it was the shortest because it was written primarily to the Romans. And how they like to read is quick and to the point.

01:59:42

And that's basically what Mark did. He went ahead and wrote it in a very concise, you know.

01:59:49

Yeah. I don't know if that might be. I don't know if that's why he wrote it and it's shorter.

01:59:56

But the reason that people say Mark was first is because of their starting point that the others embellished.

02:00:02

That there had to be one author, one source that everyone embellished from. And their argument would be that Jesus was not

02:00:11

God in the original. But he later they argued he was God, you know. So basically, you know.

02:00:20

So that's what we end up seeing. And so really where we come down to it is we have to recognize that, you know.

02:00:31

The gospels were all written without. They didn't need any of the others. And here's a quick thing. And we're going to end up wrapping up the show.

02:00:38

Sorry, Eli came in late. But may he'll join in next week. But really think of it this way.

02:00:46

You have the Democrat conventions going on, right.

02:00:51

And they're having their debates. You don't have a single newspaper. You don't have like the New York Times saying, okay, we're going to write the first article.

02:00:59

And then the rest of you work off of what we said. Because what you end up seeing is the Washington Post, the

02:01:05

New York Times, Boston Times. They're all going to have different views of the same thing.

02:01:12

Okay, they're all going to have a different articles after each of the debates. There's some similarities and there's some differences with each one of them.

02:01:20

And why they were all eyewitnesses to the event. And that's the issue. You're speaking when you look at the gospels, you're looking at basically looking at the fact that we have eyewitness accounts of something that happened.

02:01:37

And that's what's going on. Okay. And so we're basically trying to they're trying to say there has to be a telephone game.

02:01:48

It doesn't have to be. It's not the telephone game with newspapers after debates.

02:01:54

It's not. It doesn't work that way. And so these are eyewitness accounts, you know, and they're all reporting.

02:02:00

So with that, we're going to close up because Justin and I have to be have to join

02:02:05

Pastor Jim Osmond to start recording for my Andrew Rapaport's rap report.

02:02:12

Throw in one little tag along thing. You can always throw in anything you want, Batman. Oh, yeah.

02:02:21

And one of the arguments for Q and the gospels is

02:02:27

Mark. Mark's gospel has the fewest resurrection appearances of the other of the amongst the gospels.

02:02:36

John has the most. And they say so. Yes. That's evidence that embellishment and legend, you know, cryptic.

02:02:43

Well, that whole line of argumentation is is thrown on its head when you look at First Corinthians and and Paul records by far the most number of resurrection appearances by Christ.

02:02:59

And those Corinthians was written before any of the gospels. His was the earliest record. And so all that's it's just it's it's it's liberal, you know, scholars up in their ivory towers trying to discredit the gospels, but they use very poor argumentation to do it.

02:03:16

Well, let me give you some. I mean, this is the thing that folks don't know. And John, you'll be familiar with this. You know, as I went through the gospels looking for the references to deity of Christ, both direct and indirect.

02:03:29

And I ran the numbers of all the verses every time Jesus read someone's mind and things like that.

02:03:36

Those are the only God could do. So here's the thing, Matthew. When you look at Matthew, over 45 % of Matthew's gospel refers to Christ as God.

02:03:51

For Mark, it's 46 to 47%. Okay, so they're basically the same.

02:04:01

Luke is 39%. In other words, if you want to say that it was embellished,

02:04:08

Luke is the one that has the least number of direct and indirect references to the deity of Christ.

02:04:14

Now, John overwhelmingly, you know, John is like 67%. But what you end up seeing the pointing those numbers out is to say they try to make this case that Mark being the shortest has the fewest references to the deity of Christ and the others to add it on to it.

02:04:30

Well, the reality is that's not true. The reality is, is that we end up seeing that Mark and Matthew have almost the same percentage wise in the number of verses that they have.

02:04:44

And then Luke actually has the least and no one's arguing that Luke is written first.

02:04:52

So just a thought. All right. So we're going to we're going to close up because I'm looking at this text between Jim and Justin and they're putting memes basically making fun of me for for going long.

02:05:08

So and I'm looking at he's he's got someone with braces at pointing like this.

02:05:14

Justin's having fun. All right. So we're going to have to close up folks. All right.

02:05:21

Take care. Thanks, John. And just again, Justin, I win dot com.

02:05:28

Oh, I like that. Justin, I win. Thank you. Well, we should we should put that up there. There we go.

02:05:33

Justin, I win dot com is where you could donate to Justin Peters and I get the bragging rights. Don't forget in the comments to put hashtag

02:05:40

Justin. I win when you donate to Justin. I would appreciate it. All right. So. So with that, we're out of here till next week.

02:05:47

And for you guys to know next week, we should be joined by vocab Malone.

02:05:53

So if you have some questions about black Hebrew Israelites, that would be a good one for for us to join in.

02:06:04

So please come and check that out again. This is put on when hosted by Striving for Eternity.

02:06:10

If you want to donate to us, go to Striving for Eternity dot org slash donate. We could use your support.

02:06:18

And Justin is going to be podcasting soon. We're waiting for the new website, but we have we're working behind the scenes.

02:06:29

Not just me and someone else. We're working on getting all of his old stuff ready to put on to the new new feed for him to get his podcast back out there.

02:06:39

And so, you know, we will we'll be having that soon.

02:06:45

And Katie is right. Andrew loves to embarrass Justin. You are right there. So thanks for for listening, guys.

02:06:54

I hope that this was helpful for you. For those who get frustrated with our traditional

02:06:59

Catholic friend, understand that he needs to get saved. Understand that that we keep wanting to share the gospel with him and point out the differences that he has in his

02:07:09

Catholic church and the gospel that's by Christ. James, if you're listening, read the book of Hebrews.

02:07:17

Read the book of Hebrews. There you go. And so so someone wants me to invite service.

02:07:29

Christie onto the show would be awesome. Yeah, no, wouldn't. He's he's not the kind of guy that wants to listen and respect anyone else's view.

02:07:40

He just wants to tell you what what he thinks everyone should believe. You look like you're going to say something,

02:07:46

Justin. What? You look like you're going to say something. Oh, that service,

02:07:51

Christie. No, you just you look like you're going to say something. Oh, oh, I was just because I don't know if James is still watching the book of Hebrews.

02:08:01

Hebrews to Roman Catholicism is like kryptonite to Superman. But you're

02:08:08

Batman. All right. OK, so we'll be back.

02:08:13

Folks, if you want to check out more of Justin and I and Pastor Jim Osman, make sure to subscribe to Andrew reports, rap report podcast, because we will have that.

02:08:26

We'll be discussing Joshua Harris and others who have apostatized. That will be what we have this week.