February 7, 2018 Show with Interviews from the 2018 G3 Conference Part 4: Justin Peters, Andrew Rappaport, PLUS Kofi Adu-Boahen

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this seventh day of February 2018, and I am going to be airing once again more interviews that I conducted on site at the recent

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G3 conference, that is the G3 conference 2018, which was held the 18th of January through the 20th.

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It actually was launched on January 17th with a debate that Dr.

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James R. White conducted with a Muslim apologist, and then the official conference began on Thursday the 18th of January.

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This first interview that I am going to be playing for you is going to be with a very important individual in the body of Christ who

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I have grown to love and very much enjoy interviewing,

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Justin Peters of Justin Peters Ministries, and without further ado, here is my

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G3 conference interview with Justin Peters. This is Chris Arnzen again on site at the

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G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. I am so delighted that I finally have the opportunity again after waiting quite a while to have

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Justin Peters do an on -site interview with me. I have interviewed Justin prior to this, but this may be the first face -to -face interview we have had, although I am starting to wonder, when you were speaking at the

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CenterReach Bible Church on Long Island, did you come into the studio for an interview with me? Oh yes,

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I remember that. You did come into the studio? Because I did interview you for that. I think I did, yeah. So this would be our second face -to -face.

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But we have had other phone interviews as well. Well, Justin Peters is the founder of Justin Peters Ministries.

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Obviously, nobody else would be the founder of Justin Peters Ministries. Tell us about Justin Peters Ministries. Well, Chris, my first love is expositional preaching and teaching

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God's Word verse by verse. I have a real interest in and concern for and dedication to rightly dividing

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God's Word of truth. What I am most known for is my work on the

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Word of Faith Movement, the New Apostolic Reformation, the Health and Wealth Prosperity Gospel. That is what

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I am most known for. I have kind of been typecasting that. People think that is all I am interested in, and all I do is watch

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TBN 24 -7. I really do not, but that is most of the invitations

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I get to go and preach and teach domestically, internationally deal with that. I have a seminar entitled

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Clouds Without Water that deals with this issue. Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson, Todd White, Creflo Dollar, Jesse Duplantis, Joel Osteen, all the people you see on TV.

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I have taken video clips of all these individuals, and I let people see and hear for themselves what they are actually teaching, and then point by point correct it from Scripture, because there is a tremendous amount of heresy in this movement.

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It is not just differences on minor points. They have a different God. They have a different Jesus.

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They have a different gospel. The signs and wonders part of it is just some of the bad low -hanging fruit, as I tell people, that comes from a rotten theological tree that is rotten at its core.

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That is what I am known for. It is what keeps me busy, but it is not my only interest.

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And of course, I am assuming you would believe that there are a remnant of genuinely born -again individuals who are somehow wrapped up in that, but have not caved in to the entire theological package of the

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Word of Faith movement. For instance, you are now a close friend of Kosti Hinn, the nephew of Benny Hinn.

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Yes. And he has become an outspoken opponent of his uncle's theology and practices, which he believes are not only heretical, but involved in charlatan activities, at least a great number of the things that he has claimed and so on.

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Yes. But he still, from what I remember of my own interview with him, he still believes that he was a born -again believer before he actually fully departed from that whole circus, if you will.

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Yes. The way I would describe it, what happened to Kosti, what happened in my own testimony, see, when someone gets saved, that is not a goat turning into a sheep.

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Goats do not turn into sheep. Sheep do not turn into goats. Because the goats do not ever hear Jesus' voice. That is right.

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You do not believe because you are not of my flock. You are not of my sheep. So he was always a sheep, but he was a lost sheep, and he was unconverted.

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So he had these pockets of truth, but he could not connect the dots. But once those dots connected for him about five years, five, six years, maybe about six years ago now, he totally left that movement, as you would expect a believer to do.

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And another mutual friend of Kosti's and mine, Pastor John Sampson of King's Church in Tempe, Arizona, or it is actually a different city in Arizona, not

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Tempe, and it has flown out of my head. But he believes that he was a true

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Christian while still not only a pastor in that movement but a talk show host.

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But he also says that he did not buy the whole theological package. He did not buy their teaching that Jesus became a demon on Calvary, those kinds of more alarming things.

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There are some Christians scattered in this movement, but they either do not understand what their movement actually teaches, or they are very young Christians.

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They are very young, new in the faith. So you cannot believe

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Word of Faith doctrine. You cannot understand it and believe it and embrace it and be a believer.

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You just cannot. I tell people the Holy Spirit is not a weakling. If He is strong enough to save us,

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He is strong enough to deliver us out of deception. But there are some people in this movement that do not really understand what they are teaching.

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They are young believers. You cannot be a mature Christian and be in this movement.

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You cannot. By definition, you cannot be. If you were a mature Christian, you would not be in the movement. But there are some young believers.

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It is safe to say that the vast majority of people in this movement are not

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Christians. They may be lost sheep that have not yet gone to the shepherd,

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John 10 .27. But there are not many

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Christians in this movement. I think you could make this similar comparison to Roman Catholicism.

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There are Roman Catholics who are not really Roman Catholics because they do not abide by or believe in the dogma in regard to salvation and justification that the

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Church of Rome teaches. And that either is because they do not even know what the Church of Rome teaches and they have heard the truth elsewhere or they are,

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I have met some people that for some reason think that they are going to be another Martin Luther and they remain in the

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Roman Catholic Church thinking they are going to be some kind of a good influence. But they are still partaking in idolatrous practices.

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And if they are taking the Mass and so on, you cannot do that. But since we have discussed the

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Word of God, what are the other movements and things that Christians need to be alarmed about that are creeping in or have already crept into not only mainstream evangelicalism but even perhaps

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Reformed circles that perhaps are coming from a different angle than the

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Word of Faith movement that you are most known for opposing? Well, that is a good question.

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I think one of the things that we need to be aware of is this softer version of the

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Word of Faith movement. Maybe not the Benny Hens and the Kenneth Copelands, but a softer version of that like the

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Joyce Myers, the Joel Osteens. Also, I believe that even most non -charismatic churches are functionally charismatic.

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And by that I mean most evangelicals today think that God speaks to them in a direct, quotable sense outside of Scripture.

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And I think that was really popularized by Experiencing God with Henry Blackaby. He's the one that really introduced...

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Really? Yeah. I think he was the tip of the spear for introducing charismatic theology to non -charismatic churches.

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Yeah, I think that this will come home to some of our listeners because they may have heard this or unfortunately even said things like this.

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But to give an example, I know people who are artists or writers.

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And like for instance, I've met people who have written songs. And I looked at the song, the words look biblically accurate, and I like the melody.

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That's a beautiful song. You're really talented. Don't. No. This is from the

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Lord. Right, right. It's a false humility that is actually exalting what they've done as being like direct revelation.

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Exactly. That God chose that person as a vessel to bring us this song. Yeah, exactly. So you got to be careful, very careful about that kind of thing.

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Yes, you do. I hear that all the time. I get people that send me stuff all the time. They say whether it's a poem or a story or something,

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God gave me this. I was like, well, you got to be very careful what you're saying there.

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It's the Sarah Young mentality, Jesus calling, that devotional book.

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She writes in the first person for Jesus. All of those devotionals are written in the first person for Jesus.

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And she claims that Jesus speaks to her and she writes down what he says.

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Well, if that's what she's doing, then she's writing scripture. So we have to be very careful with things like that.

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I mean, Jesus Calling is not a good devotional book. It's something to be avoided and marked.

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But a lot of people claim this. It's the Sarah Young mentality.

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It's, well, God gave me this. God gave me this poem. Well, no, because if God really gave it to you, if this was really coming from God, then you would be writing scripture.

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So you have to be very, very careful. I have no problem with saying that God guides our thinking, informed by scripture.

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Of course, he does. The Holy Spirit can bring people to our remembrance or that kind of terminology.

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God gave me a burden for you or something like that. But when people say, God spoke to me and he said, quote, da, da, da, da, da, then you've entered some very, very deep waters.

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And if that is true, theoretically, then whatever God says to you should be just as authoritative as John 3, 16 or anything in the

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Bible. So we've got an open canon of scripture. And so this softer version, not so much the hard prosperity stuff that you see in other circles, but this softer charismatic kind of stuff that it has got a tremendous foothold into non -charismatic evangelical churches.

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So I think it's something we've...the battle today is not so much over the inerrancy of scripture, although those battles still rage here and there.

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But at least in theory as evangelicals, we've won that battle. But the battle where the war is being fought today is sufficiency.

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Is the Bible sufficient? And we're losing that battle, big time losing that battle.

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And I think we should point out for people hearing you for the first time, obviously, you have a physical condition that makes you perhaps even more concerned about this issue than the average person might be.

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Why don't you tell our listeners about that? I hate to constantly bring up something that might give people the wrong impression that that's the only thing that I think of when

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I think of Justin Peters. But it is something that the Lord has in His sovereignty and His providence used in your life to, in some ways, be more powerful in what you have to say about certain things than your average even pastor might have to say.

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Yeah. Well, I was born with cerebral palsy. I walk with crutches. And when

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I was a teenager, a neighbor of mine came up to me and he said, Justin, God has spoken to me. He's told me He's going to heal you as long as you have enough faith.

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And at age 16, I wanted to be healed. I wanted to walk. I wanted to run and jump and play with all the, you know, do all the things that the other little boys and girls would do.

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So I really latched on to this. I thought I heard God speak to me. I thought

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I had all the faith and went to see a couple of faith healers, Nora Lamb, who died in 2003,

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I believe it was. But anyway, I went to see Nora Lamb. This was back in 1989. I was 16 years old and fully expecting to be healed.

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And of course, I wasn't healed. That was my first exposure to this movement.

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I didn't know it was a movement. You know, I didn't know any of that stuff. I didn't know until years later when I was in seminary,

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I started to study this movement. And I began to realize how heretical it really is. But that was my first exposure to it.

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And some have made the charge against me. They'll say, well, the reason Justin does these seminars and he teaches against it is because he's bitter that he wasn't healed when he was a teenager.

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And I hear that a lot. But I think I can honestly say with a crystal clear conscience, nothing could be further from the truth.

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It wasn't a good thing that I went to see faith healers. That was not a good thing. But God in his providence used that to set me on the path that I'm on today.

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So Romans 828 kind of thing. And so that was my first exposure to it.

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And years later, I started to study it at a more theological level and began to see how heretical the movement really is.

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So I guess in a sense, yeah, I've been to see faith healers. I've been on both sides of that aisle, by the way.

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I've been hoping for healing. But since then, after I began to study this movement, then

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I started going to Benny Hinn crusades for the purposes of research. And I've been to 17

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Benny Hinn crusades. I've been to Kenneth Copeland meetings, George Meyer. I've been to Joel Osteen church. And I go for research.

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I go to study. I go to take notes. I go to observe. I see how they do what they do. I see the emotional manipulation.

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I see the chicanery. I see the fraud. And I talk to people.

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And I witness to people. And I talk to as many of them as I can to try to pluck some from the fire, so to speak.

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So yeah, been in there, been in the trenches. Have you ever had the opportunity, or have you even sought one, to sit across from somebody, perhaps as closely as you're sitting from me, who is one of the leading individuals promoting the word of faith theresy, or perhaps not one of the leaders, but somebody who has been fully convinced that it is true and real, where you're actually interacting with them on a close basis and so on?

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I'm just not aware of that part of your ministry. I have had a couple of opportunities to briefly talk with two of them, but not for a lack of trying, that I haven't talked to more.

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I've made those overtures, tried to talk to them, but they're completely inaccessible. I'd have a better chance of walking up to the

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President of the United States than I would to walking up to Benny Hinn. You only have access to these people unless you're a big donor.

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Unless you're one of their big donors, then you've got no access to them. They're not going to talk to you. But I have managed to talk briefly to Joel Osteen at his church.

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In his church? In his church, yes. On the platform? No, not on the platform. After the service was over, he'll go out, and if you're a visitor, he'll come out and he'll meet you, and he'll shake your hand.

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And so I got in line to do that. And he comes across as a nice guy.

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That's what's so disarming about him. He seems like he's such a nice guy, and he smiles all the time. But he came up to me, and he said, nice to have you here today.

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And I said, Mr. Osteen, may I say something to you? And he said, yes. And I said, you're not doing anyone any favors by not preaching on sin.

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I said, you can't preach the gospel if you don't preach about sin. And he'll tell you I don't preach on sin.

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I'm very open about that. And he said, well, that's just not how we do it here. He said, we had,

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I think he said 30 ,000 people baptized last year, which seems like an absurdly high number.

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But anyway, so he rattled off the statistics, how many thousands of people they baptized in just the last year.

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And I said, but if you're not preaching on sin, if they don't understand the wrath of God, they cannot possibly understand the mercy of God.

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The mercy of God makes no sense until you first understand his wrath. And it's like, as soon as he realized

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I knew what I was talking about, he didn't have anything else to say. He just... The smile vanished?

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The smile vanished, and he went to the next person. So that was one. One time

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I got to briefly do basically the same thing with Jesse Duplantis at one of his conferences.

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After it was over, he was signing books, and he was about like me to you right now. And I bought one of his books just to get up to his table so he could sign it so I could talk to him.

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And Jesse Duplantis, whenever he reads, he wears eyeglasses. And so, of course, he teaches us always

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God's will to be healed. And so I came up and I said, I gave him the book so he could sign it.

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I just bought it for research and so I can have access to him. But anyway, I said, Mr. Duplantis, may

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I ask you something? And he said, go ahead. I said, I notice you're wearing glasses. He said, yes.

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I said, but you teach it's always God's will for a person to be healed. So why is it that you wear eyeglasses?

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He said, oh, I'm not sick. He said, that's just my body wearing out. And I said, well, no, because the reason we get sick is that, you know, it's the same reason that, you know, we die.

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Sickness is a result of the curse of the fall. Poor eyesight is a form of sickness.

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Exactly. And he said, no, no, it's just my body wearing out. And it's just like Joel Osey, once he kind of realized

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I knew what I was talking about, he didn't want to have anything else to do with me. And he motioned me on.

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And so, very brief, but not for lack of trying. These people are inaccessible, totally inaccessible.

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Well, we're going to continue with Justin Peter's interview.

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When we return from our first station break, we hope you are enjoying

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Justin's interview as much as I enjoyed conducting it. But don't go away,

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God willing, we will be right back after these messages from our sponsors with more of Justin Peter's interview that was conducted on site at the

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Well, now we are going to continue with our on -site interview that we conducted with Justin Peters at the recent

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G3 conference. So I hope you continue to enjoy this interview.

33:51

When I was peeking into your breakout session, I was so hoping to be in the audience for it, but there was standing room only, and I noticed that by me standing where I was standing, the doors were open, and there were people who were being annoyed by the noise outside, so I had to leave, unfortunately.

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I didn't have to, but I chose to leave because I didn't want to annoy people. But you were playing a fascinating clip of Creflo Dollar, and I couldn't help but chuckle about the insanity of the logic that he thought that he had by saying that if animals give birth or produce offspring of their same kind, then of course

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God produced us. I don't know why he was using that phrase anyway.

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Produced us? What do you mean produced us? It sounds more of a Mormon concept than a biblical one, but if God produced us, then we are really just as much

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God as he is just in the flesh body. Well, God produced the animals.

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He made them. He created them. Why aren't they a deity as well?

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Really, he thinks that he comes up with these startling novelties that are so brilliant or insightful when they're really laughably absurd.

35:25

Not only is the theology bad, but it's bad logic.

35:32

It's just nonsensical. Sometimes I wonder if these people listen to themselves. It's like Gloria Copeland.

35:39

I have a clip of her, Gloria Copeland, saying that she can control the weather, but then in the same breath, she says, but we don't fly in bad weather.

35:48

Well, why not? If you can control it, fly through whatever you want to fly through. Just talk to the storm before you get to it and change it and keep on flying.

35:56

I tell people, aside from the theology, just a little common sense goes a long way in clearing a lot of this stuff up.

36:04

Now, one person that I don't know too much about that I want to ask you about because somebody very close to me in my family has become very enamored, extremely enamored with Joseph Prince.

36:20

It really surprised me when I found out about this family member's attraction to Joseph Prince's preaching and his teaching because this person has always been, from his history, very skeptical about weird things going on in the name of Christianity and even his choice of clothing and his physical presence.

36:52

He's like Michael Jackson. Yeah, or Prince, ironically the name there. Is he as overtly involved in some of the main startling heresies of the

37:08

Word of Faith movement? Does he even claim to have the ability to heal and things like that?

37:14

How is he different and how is he the same from this movement? Yeah, that's a great question. Joseph Prince is one of these guys that flies in under the radar with a lot of people, whereas a lot of people that would pick up on a

37:25

Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland, not so much on Joseph Prince. But he is just as much Word of Faith as is

37:31

Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland. He is friends with Benny Hinn. He will tell you he's

37:39

Word of Faith. He actually says that. Oh yeah, he says that. In fact, to quote him, he says, I've been

37:45

Haganized and Capsulized, referring to Kenneth Hagan and Charles Capps. I've been Haganized, Capsulized.

37:51

So, I mean, he's Word of Faith, lock, stock, and barrel. Absolutely. He's slick. He's articulate.

37:59

He's more intelligent than most of them. And he's more focused on teaching rather than flamboyant manifestations of things.

38:07

Yeah, he's not a healer like Benny Hinn. He doesn't have people up on the stage and platform, and he's not knocking them over.

38:13

But he doesn't have gold falling from the ceiling. Right. He doesn't. Not that kind of stuff. But the theology is the same.

38:20

His basic underlying theological foundation is the same. The thing that seemed to be coming from this close relative of mine, who was coming out of an

38:35

Arminian background, although he would never have used that phrase. In fact, he was very instrumental in me coming to Christ along with a woman who's a friend of mine.

38:49

But my brother was a part of the evangelism process that God was using to chip away at my heart when

38:57

I was a teenager and then in my early 20s. But the thing that disturbed me or was very saddening to me was that he was seemingly coming closer and closer to see the beauty of reform theology and started to devour

39:19

R .C. Sproul's literature. He was actually listening regularly or fairly regularly to my own program.

39:29

When I used to have a call -in show before it became an email show where listeners sent in emails rather than calling, he would call in a lot and he would ask very poignant and insightful questions.

39:45

But with Joseph Prince, he seems to have come to the conclusion that, wow,

39:52

I was falling in love with grace with you guys, but he really knows grace.

39:59

He really knows that everything belongs to the praise and thanksgiving to God alone.

40:10

You guys are just like in the minor leagues when it comes to grace.

40:16

Joseph Prince has really championed grace. He's really figured it out. How do you respond to that?

40:22

It's not biblical grace that he's teaching. It's cheap grace. It's easy believism.

40:29

It is antinomian grace, basically. Against the law.

40:37

You can live however you want to live. Now, he won't come out and say that in so many words, but he takes grace to an unbiblical end and says that you never have to...

40:52

Oh, in fact, for example, 1 John 1 .9, I've heard him teach on that.

40:58

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

41:04

He says that that applies to lost people. Well, no.

41:10

When you read that in context, that was written to believers. He says a Christian should never have to confess sin.

41:18

Well, yeah, we do because that was written to believers. Now, judicially, we don't have to be...

41:25

It's not like if you sin, you lose your salvation. But the confession and forgiveness spoken of in 1

41:34

John 1 .9, it's not a judicial forgiveness, it's a relational forgiveness. That when we as Christians sin, and we do, hopefully there's a decreasing pattern of that.

41:43

There should be in our lives. But when we do, we go to the Lord, we confess it, and ask Him to forgive us, and that relationship is restored.

41:52

1 John 1 .9 is not an evangelistic passage. But that's just one example of how he takes that and says a

41:59

Christian should have no awareness of sin, no consciousness of sin, don't need to confess sin, don't need to worry about sin.

42:06

Well, that's just not true. What do you do with Romans 7? So, it's a cheap grace.

42:13

It's a cheap grace. And Matthew 7. Those that are startled on the day of judgment.

42:20

In fact, they were even performing miracles and doing things, and Jesus never said to them, you were not performing miracles.

42:27

That's right. He didn't say, no, you didn't. That's right. And even those people were cast into hell in that passage.

42:35

Yeah, what you were saying about the not asking forgiveness after you're a

42:42

Christian, it reminded me of Bob George. Do you remember Bob George? He had a program, a national radio program, and I think it still exists, but I think it's a lot smaller than it used to be because of an arrest that he was involved in.

42:59

He was arrested, actually, in the raid of a brothel, and he was in, it was like an

43:05

FBI sting or something like that. But his program is called

43:11

People to People, and he used to tell people that it was wrong. He would tell Christians it was wrong to even recite the

43:17

Lord's Prayer because of the fact that, oh no, that's in a different dispensation.

43:25

You know, Jesus was under law, but now, since the cross, all has been forgiven, and the only time that you ever need to confess sin is that moment you first initially come to Christ.

43:39

Never say it again. Never ask for forgiveness again. And he seems to, in an extremely heretical sense, wipe out the fact that God as a father still chastises his children, even though he's not going to be pouring his wrath on us as Christians, as a judge.

44:03

He, as a father, does expect us to ask him for forgiveness, and he, even in an earthly sense, has to forgive us and withhold or remove chastisement from us.

44:16

Yeah. Right. Hebrews 12, you know, God's discipline on us.

44:22

That's two believers. It's the same way if you're a parent, if you're a father, and your son or your daughter does something that, contrary to what you told them to do or they lied to you or whatever, you catch them, you don't kick them out of the house.

44:41

You know, you don't say, you're no longer my child, but you do discipline them for their own good, and then once they realize what they've done and they're sorry over it, they ask your forgiveness, and the relationship is restored.

44:55

That's what 1 John 1 is talking about. But yeah, it's this antinomian stuff.

45:02

Once you get saved, you can live however you want to live. That's cheap grace, and Joseph Prince teaches this stuff, and unfortunately, it's infected most of evangelicalism as a whole.

45:15

Yes, and perhaps another person who I've had, especially women, rebuke me for being overly harsh in my criticism against her, who will insist that she is not cut from the same cloth as people like Kenneth Hagan and Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn.

45:43

That would be someone you mentioned, I think, briefly before, Joyce Meyer. I've been very surprised to be at events where the dominant makeup of the audience would be

45:59

Reformed Baptists or Calvinists or people from non -charismatic backgrounds, and you see the ladies toting the

46:05

Joyce Meyer books under their arms. Tell us something more about her that we should be aware of.

46:11

In fact, much to my dismay, I want to be careful not to be overly judgmental, but somebody who

46:20

I have appreciated, who I've interviewed on my program, whose face is on my banner with his commendation for my program, but Ravi Zacharias appeared on her show, and it was startling to me.

46:39

And, of course, Ravi has done a couple of other things with speaking to Mormons, and it seemed to be devoid of any open criticism of the severity of their heresy.

46:50

But who is Joyce Meyer, and how is she the same, and how is she different from the

46:56

Word of Faith movement leaders? Yeah, she's only different in the sense that she's not quite as flamboyant as some of the others, but she is hook, line, and sinker

47:08

Word of Faith. She is friends with Benny Hinn. She is friends with Kenneth Copeland, and Kenneth Copeland is one of the absolute darkest individuals that I've ever come across.

47:19

Oh, yeah. I mean, you just look at his eyes. I mean, just looking at him, you know. I hear that from people all the time, and I agree with him.

47:27

She heartily endorses him. How do you endorse somebody like Kenneth Copeland? Well, the only way you can is if you are cut from the same cloth, and she is.

47:36

She is prosperity, health and wealth, guaranteed healing, guaranteed finances, wealth.

47:43

She teaches positive confession, that you can speak things into existence. You can create your own reality by the words that you speak.

47:49

She is friends with Joyce. I mean, not Joyce. Of course, she's friends with Joyce Meyer. Yeah, it's real good.

47:55

She knows Joyce Meyer real well. She is friends with Joel Osteen. She preaches at his church.

48:03

Regularly, you'll see Joyce Meyer teaching at Joel Osteen's church, Lakewood.

48:09

How do you not see that Kenneth Copeland is a false teacher? How do you not see that Joel Osteen is a false teacher?

48:17

And you're not only associating with them, you're endorsing them and promoting them.

48:23

So, yeah. I mean, Joyce Meyer, she's a false teacher. Absolutely.

48:30

So, the actual meat of what she's saying is really little different.

48:36

It's just a matter of a much more low -key level of flamboyance, and not really focused on supernatural phenomenon.

48:48

Yeah, not so much that. And a lot of what she says is kind of down -to -earth, common sense kind of advice.

48:58

Proverbial. Yeah. And it's not that everything she teaches is wrong, but that's what makes false teachers so dangerous, is that not everything that false teachers teach is false.

49:08

I've heard Benny Hinn present the gospel as well as just about any Baptist I've ever heard present the gospel.

49:15

He's still a false teacher. He meets every biblical criterion as how to discern a false teacher.

49:21

So, it's that truth that's mixed with error that's so very dangerous. Islam is not…

49:28

There's never going to be a born -again, genuine Holy Spirit -indwelt

49:33

Christian who will hear an imam preach or whatever and think, wow, that's pretty compelling.

49:40

I think I'm going to follow Muhammad now. That's not going to happen. Read John chapter 10.

49:46

It's not going to happen, period. But a genuine

49:51

Christian, a young Christian, young in the faith, absolutely can be led astray by someone like Joyce Meyer or Kenneth Copeland or Joseph Prince.

50:01

At least temporarily. At least temporarily. Right. Not indefinitely. And it could do a lot of damage in their lives.

50:06

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, yeah. How much damage can be done in a very short amount of time? A lot.

50:12

So, I mean, we're at this conference. I can't tell you how many people I have talked to and they have told me their stories, their testimonies about how they were in this movement, and it just devastated them.

50:22

Just before I came over here to you, I just got through talking with a young man who was absolutely devastated by this movement, and he was led astray by, for a season, as a young believer.

50:37

And who else should we be aware of that perhaps aren't as famous or infamous as those that you've already brought up?

50:49

People who might have even more of a subtle approach, who are polluting the airwaves in one form or another by TV or radio that you might want to alarm our audience about today.

51:02

Uh, yes. Andrew Womack would be another one out in Colorado. Andrew Womack is...

51:08

Yes. I remember that name because he used to... I think he originated out of New Jersey or something.

51:14

But I remember I worked for a major Christian network for 15 years and he had a regular program on there.

51:22

Yeah. Yeah. Andrew Womack is one. Jonathan Kahn is one.

51:28

Yes. He's another one. Harry Stone. By the way, I am a very close friend.

51:34

You might be very happy to hear... You will certainly be very happy to hear this.

51:40

One of Jonathan Kahn's former elders, who is a very close friend of mine, is a Reformed Baptist pastor.

51:46

Really? And a total cessationist. He used to be one of the elders at Jonathan Kahn's Messianic Church.

51:52

Oh, really? Yeah. Joe LoSardo. He's the pastor of Bread of Life Fellowship, north -held in New Jersey, solidly

51:58

Reformed and Calvinistic. Really? Oh, yeah. Dear brother. And he obviously is very opposed to...

52:06

That's why he left. He became a Reformed believer and could no longer tolerate what was going on around him.

52:16

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Well, there you go. There you go. But yeah, Jonathan Kahn would be another one.

52:22

Perry Stone is another one. We've got Marilyn Hickey. Then you've got the whole...

52:29

You've got the Bill Johnsons. You've got the Heidi Baker and the Patricia Keynes and those kind of people.

52:37

Those are all false teachers, more of the New Apostolic Reformation branch of it. Let me think.

52:48

There's a Dorinda. There's a there's a number of them. Yeah, almost.

52:54

Here's a good rule of thumb. If they're on Christian television, you have every reason to be dubious.

53:02

That doesn't mean that everybody else is. Not everyone. I mean, but the default position, if you see somebody that has their own

53:09

Christian television show, your default position. I'm going to be very skeptical about this person.

53:16

Well, we are going to pick up where we left off with Justin Peters when we return from our midway break.

53:25

There's one more segment of the Justin Peters interview, and then we have a couple of more interviews yet to be aired.

53:33

And I look forward to airing each and every one of them. So don't go away. God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors with more of the

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Here's a good roll phone. If they're on Christian television, you have every reason to be dubious.

01:08:03

This doesn't mean that everybody on Christian television. Not everyone. I mean, but the default position if you see somebody that has their own

01:08:10

Christian television show, your default position, I'm going to be very skeptical about this person.

01:08:15

There are a few, a very few exceptions. John MacArthur. Yeah, like he's on NRB but you won't find

01:08:21

John MacArthur on TBN. Although he did participate in an interview. One interview on TBN with, why is his name flying out of my head?

01:08:31

Kirk Cameron. Yes, that's right. Years ago. Yeah, yeah. A long time ago. Yeah. But he, I've seen that interview and he preached the truth, you know.

01:08:38

They'll never have him back on. People ask me sometimes, would you ever go on TBN and preach?

01:08:43

I say absolutely. I would absolutely go but it would be my first and last time that you would ever see me on TBN because I would call him out as wolves.

01:08:53

There was a very, I thought it was a very humorous interview that you could see on YouTube that Walter Martin had.

01:09:02

I believe it was TBN but it was certainly a charismatic television network. It was the last time he was invited back on.

01:09:08

He made his host very, very uncomfortable. Yeah, I bet. In fact, I think it was the last time the host was on because he was overly accommodating instead of,

01:09:19

I guess because he was forced into the situation of trying to be gracious. Right. But Beth Moore.

01:09:27

Yeah, I have heard even more people from what would be thought of as moderate fundamentalist

01:09:39

Baptist type. I'm not talking about ultra King James only guys, like your typical non -charismatic cessationist

01:09:46

Baptist type of church being enamored with her. Yeah, Beth Moore is another one.

01:09:53

She didn't start off Word of Faith but as the years have gone on, she is partnering with Joyce Meyer.

01:10:01

She and Joyce Meyer are good friends. She lavishes praise on Joyce Meyer, lavishes praise on her. She is running in Word of Faith circles and you listen to what she is teaching and her theology is becoming more and more

01:10:14

Word of Faith. I mean, she is practically Word of Faith now. Some of the stuff

01:10:21

I have on her, I mean I don't watch her a lot but I've seen enough and I have enough. I could play video clips for you and tweets that she has put out that are just bizarre,

01:10:32

I mean just outlandish. And she started out more orthodox? Yeah, that's the problem.

01:10:38

She is getting progressively worse and that's not a good sign. That's not a good sign.

01:10:44

She was better 15 years ago than what she is now but she is hanging around prosperity preachers,

01:10:52

Word of Faith preachers, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Christine Cain. Some of these names

01:10:57

I haven't heard of, I don't know who Christine Cain is for instance. She is out of Hillsong. She is in the States now.

01:11:05

Hillsong in Australia is another prosperity branch church kind of thing.

01:11:10

And I know that they have been very soft on homosexuality. Well, one of the things that we who believe the way we do,

01:11:21

I think we have to be careful and we have to warn others of our own persuasion to be careful not to write off people like that as unsavable.

01:11:33

I think sometimes Christians who are very solid in their own orthodoxy have perhaps unconsciously become

01:11:42

Pharisees and they view someone. I think that what was really like a a splash of cold water in my own face about that is when

01:11:52

I became friends with John Sampson, who I mentioned before, who is a friend of Costi Hinn as well, who used to be a pastor in that movement and he is totally repudiated at all and views it as deadly and damning and has been a very strong voice for reform theology and so on.

01:12:13

So we have to remember, those of us who are Calvinists, that the elect come out of all kinds of backgrounds.

01:12:25

Oh yeah, absolutely. Not only the most pious of pastors but the most perverse of prostitutes.

01:12:31

The elect are among those people and they are called out of it obviously.

01:12:38

They don't remain there. But even amongst people like the Word of Faith heretics that really make us nauseous and get us furious because especially that they are doing these things in the name of Christ.

01:12:51

It makes us so angry. It could blind us to have any compassion. Yeah, that's right.

01:12:58

You're exactly right, Chris. Who would have thought, if you had told me just a few years ago that Benny Hinn's nephew would get saved and become a

01:13:11

Calvinistic, doctrines of grace cessationist, I'd think, what are you smoking?

01:13:21

But God does save his sheep out of this and you never know when the light is going to come on with someone.

01:13:30

Now, some of the hardcore people, teachers that have been teaching this for decades, the

01:13:39

Bible speaks of some of those who have been reserved for this condemnation. I would love nothing more than to see

01:13:48

Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland or Bill Johnson, I'd love nothing more than to see them repent.

01:13:54

But I am not aware of a big name, Word of Faith, prosperity person that has been saved out of this and come out genuinely repented and denounced.

01:14:08

Now, no name people? Yeah, lots of them, lots of them. I'm not aware of any of the big names that that's ever happened to.

01:14:18

Now, there seems to have been a different approach, perhaps it's like a public relations strategy, but a different approach of some of these

01:14:32

Word of Faith people who are no longer pacing back and forth on a stage, shouting and declaring all kinds of bizarre supernatural manifestations.

01:14:45

They're sitting down like you and I with a cup of coffee looking like they're doing the

01:14:51

Today Show, their own version of that. It's like a much more palatable approach to the average

01:15:02

Christian even who would instinctively be perhaps repulsed by a more over -the -top charismatic.

01:15:12

Then they see Kenneth Copeland sitting there with a sweater on and a cup of coffee with his wife, just having a friendly chat with somebody who's giving their tips from a book that they wrote on health and nutrition.

01:15:27

There seems to be this trend that has been going on. One of the names that does that is somebody whose name escapes me right now,

01:15:38

Robeson. Oh, James Robeson. Yeah, he has that kind of approach now. Yeah, James Robeson, Robert Morris, pastor of Gateway Church.

01:15:46

Yeah, he's the same way. He's a Word of Faith. He goes to Robert Morris' church, Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, Dallas -Fort

01:15:54

Worth area. Robert Morris is another one of these guys. He comes across as a nice guy, even -keeled, but he teaches

01:16:01

Word Faith theology. In fact, Todd White, who is the dreadlock -wearing guy that goes around healing people at random on the street supposedly,

01:16:10

Todd White is one of the worst of the worst. He is a member of Robert Morris' church.

01:16:17

So what does that say about that church? Well, I'd like you to summarize right now what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:16:25

And then, of course, I want you to make sure that our listeners know all of your contact information if they want to invite you to speak at their church or some parachurch ministry event or they want to support your ministry financially.

01:16:40

But before you do that, give us what you most want us to remember for this program as well.

01:16:47

Thank you, Chris. Sure. I appreciate this opportunity. What I want to leave people with is study your

01:16:54

Bibles. I mean, it sounds like such a Sunday School answer and such a cop -out, and it's not because the vast majority of professing

01:17:02

Christians are biblically illiterate. They really don't know what's in their

01:17:07

Bibles. If they did, if they knew what was in the Word of God, if they knew how to rightly study God's Word, then they wouldn't be falling prey to all of these false teachers.

01:17:18

So be a good Berean, Acts 17, 11. Search the Scriptures to see if these things are true.

01:17:25

Get a good study Bible, an ESV study Bible or a John MacArthur study

01:17:30

Bible. Learn how to read and interpret Scripture so you can understand it rightly.

01:17:35

If your hermeneutics, the way you interpret the Bible, hermeneutics, if your hermeneutics are wrong, then the conclusions to which you come will also be wrong, and that means you understand

01:17:46

God wrongly. But if we understand rightly how to study Scripture and we do it,

01:17:53

I mean, don't pick up chicken soup for the soul and think you're getting nourished.

01:17:59

You're not. Study the Word of God. Open up God's Word, read it, study it, and I promise you,

01:18:06

I promise you, if you do that, you will grow in discernment and you'll know God. The deeper our knowledge of God, the deeper our love for God.

01:18:15

Amen. And so how can our listeners get a hold of Justin Peters Ministries?

01:18:21

Sure, Chris. I do have a website, justinpeters .org, justinpeters .org,

01:18:27

and all my contact information is there, email, telephone number.

01:18:33

Email me. I'll be glad to get back with him. It may take me a couple days. I don't have a staff. It's just me, my wife, but they can contact me through my website, justinpeters .org,

01:18:43

and do anything I can to help. And I know that since you're here at the G3 Conference, you must be available to speak at various places.

01:18:51

Yes. That's kind of what I do. I travel domestically, internationally, preaching and teaching.

01:18:59

That's it. Well, I thank you so much for taking your time in this hectic atmosphere here at the

01:19:05

G3 Conference to come and speak with us today during this remote interview. I look forward to you coming back on Iron Sherpa's Iron very often in the future.

01:19:14

I'd love to, Chris. Enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Thank you for what you do. Thank you. God bless. What a blessing to the body of Christ Justin Peters truly is.

01:19:22

I look forward to having him back on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio often in the future, as often as God will enable.

01:19:30

And we are going to be returning after a very brief break with Andrew Rappaport's on -site interview at the

01:19:37

G3 Conference. Andrew Rappaport was actually an enormous help to Justin Peters during his time there at the

01:19:46

G3 Conference, and it was a blessing to once again interview my friend

01:19:52

Andrew. And I hope that you are blessed by his interview, which will be coming up very shortly. So don't go away.

01:19:58

God willing, we'll be right back after these brief messages from our sponsors with Andrew Rappaport of Striving for Eternity Ministries.

01:20:07

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01:21:42

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And now, here is our on -site interview at the

01:21:50

G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, with Andrew Rapoport of Striving for Eternity Ministries.

01:21:59

Chris Arnzen here again at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. And I have with me someone that I've known for quite a while.

01:22:08

If you've listened to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for any considerable length of time, you may recognize the name

01:22:14

Andrew Rapoport, who has been a guest on the program. Typically, he's been interviewed by phone, but we have another opportunity to have him interviewed face -to -face.

01:22:24

He is the founder of Striving for Eternity Ministries. He's also a Jewish believer, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Andrew Rapoport.

01:22:34

Well, Chris, thank you very much again. It's always good to see you face -to -face as well. Amen. Praise God. And why don't you let our listeners know, who have not heard you before on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and may be unfamiliar with you, but why don't you let our listeners know about Striving for Eternity Ministries?

01:22:49

Sure. Striving for Eternity is really a teaching ministry, and so we have courses online on systematic theology, hermeneutics, which is the science of interpretation, interpreting the

01:22:59

Bible, introduction to discipleship, world religions. I have a book, What Do They Believe?,

01:23:05

which is on systematic theology of the Western religions. The majority of them, you know, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses.

01:23:13

I just came out with a new book this week, What Do We Believe?, which is a systematic theology for Christians, keeping with the same way that I did the other one, keeping it where it's concise and something for new believers, they can easily read it, new people that are new to theology, but it's also something for believers.

01:23:31

I try to put lots of references in there so that it's a quick reference guide as well. Tell us about the major emphasis of What Do We Believe?,

01:23:42

or is it What We Believe? It's What Do We Believe? What Do We Believe? So, what do they believe, and then what do we believe?

01:23:49

And so, basically, what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at, you know, the Christian authority. The second chapter is one of probably the most important ones because I deal with biblical reliability.

01:23:58

So, what I'm trying to do is take a topic that is usually reserved for seminaries, textual criticism, and break that down to a lay level because most people, the biggest thing that most people have to deal with, especially like when they're evangelizing, is the question, well, the

01:24:14

Bible was written by men. Well, the Bible's been edited, and a lot of Christians have no idea how to handle that.

01:24:20

Yeah, their pastor got that in seminary, but they don't continue studying that.

01:24:26

They don't teach that. So, what I want to do is break that down to a lay level so that anybody can understand the issues and understand how to defend that the

01:24:34

Bible is very reliable. In fact, I actually do some calculations to say that if you look at it, the

01:24:41

Bible is about 99 .8 % reliable. I'll put those numbers up to CNN any day of the week.

01:24:51

Now, why wouldn't you say 100 %? Well, because we do have textual variances. So, we do have some where we can't get back to the original meaning, and we can't get back to the original wording.

01:25:01

So, the meaning would have changed. Even, I mean, there's the one that Bart would refer to in his book.

01:25:08

You know, if you're going to write a New York Times bestseller, you've got to put your best argument forward. And so, his best argument that we can't get back to the original

01:25:14

Bible is that Jesus, in some manuscripts, was called the son of a carpenter, and in others, he was a carpenter.

01:25:21

I know, that just blew your listeners' minds, because there's so many doctrines based on that, right? In fact,

01:25:27

I heard, and I don't know if it's accurate or not, I heard in a documentary recently from a

01:25:34

Christian archaeologist, that the term, the Greek term, actually is a stonemason, but I don't know if that's accurate or not.

01:25:42

Yeah, I have not heard that. Okay. I have not heard that. But, you know, Chris, one of the things I always love about being on with your show is you have a unique ability, when you interview people, to just, there's the gems you pull out of people that always amazes me because the way you go through a conversation,

01:26:03

I mean, so I'm kind of curious how you do this, because you manage to pull out things from people in your interviews.

01:26:09

Well, I used to pull gems out of people as a pickpocket before I was a Christian. Oh, we had that in common.

01:26:16

I'm only kidding. And the question was, I'm sorry, what was that?

01:26:22

No, but how is it that when you interview people, right, you seem to be able to deal with differences of theological positions that people have and be able to pull out of them clarity in your questions to get people to really get to the heart of issues that need to be discussed?

01:26:38

Well, all I can tell you is that I have a philosophy of interviewing that is nearly diametrically opposed or 180 degrees opposite from many hosts who want to hog the microphone themselves.

01:26:55

Bill O 'Reilly would be an example. And of course, some people would say to me, how could you criticize somebody that until the recent unfortunate scandal,

01:27:04

I mean, he was one of the most popular talk show hosts in the media anywhere. But I think it's a different realm when you're interviewing somebody about theology and about matters that involve one's eternal destiny.

01:27:20

If I have someone that I would consider to be a an expert or a specialist or somebody well versed, who has some kind of an authority on a certain subject, or a variety of subjects,

01:27:35

I am not going to waste my listeners time by constantly butting in and giving my two cents.

01:27:42

Perhaps I even do that now too often. But I have guests on for a reason.

01:27:48

So that they can share their knowledge and wisdom and experience with my listeners, not so I can constantly stop them in the middle of a sentence.

01:27:58

But yet when you do, I mean, you do have you have a wealth of knowledge and wealth of experience. And I've always noticed you do bring yourself into conversations and you do it in a way that always brings out of the person you're interviewing, different aspects of either their background, or something about what they're teaching.

01:28:17

It's just an amazing ability that you have. It may be just the length of time

01:28:23

I've been doing this. Well, since 2005, perhaps I'd have to listen to myself back then to see if I was horrible.

01:28:30

But perhaps after a while, I've just been able to get more, more of a grasp on the art of interviewing.

01:28:42

Because it's it's really, in my opinion, it should be letting the guest speak about what they know.

01:28:51

And to try to draw that out of them as much as possible without stopping them in their tracks too often.

01:28:58

Yeah, but you know, the thing that's that's neat is the way when I listen to you interview, and you'll just guide a conversation.

01:29:07

I know from from talking with you on previous interviews, we had, we there were certain things you'd want to discuss. And it's like, we'd go one way and you just you just very casually bring back to the sun that we didn't finish up a topic.

01:29:18

It's like, let's just bring that and you do it so gracefully. And so smoothly. I don't know if your listeners realize you do that so well.

01:29:25

You know, I appreciate that very much. And in fact, and if you started in 2005, so you started podcasting when you were radio doing when you were 10, right?

01:29:36

Well, I appreciate that. Because somebody that I interviewed during my stay here at the conference was,

01:29:46

I don't think it was an on air discussion. And perhaps it was all fair. Oh, it's actually a mutual friend of ours.

01:29:53

I might as well say his name because it's not derogatory against him. It's kind of amusing. But our mutual friend

01:30:00

Frank Mullis Oh, you was telling me about some unfortunate circumstances that you actually made me aware of, that he had to withdraw from fellowship with somebody who had been rebuking me publicly or slandering me and mocking me without warrants.

01:30:24

And he said, doesn't anyone he wasn't making a joke.

01:30:30

He was dead serious. He said, don't you know that Chris is your elder brother.

01:30:37

I mean, he's a man of many years above you. And he's our senior brother in Christ.

01:30:44

I'm thinking to myself, how old does he think I am? Well, Frank just thinks he's very young.

01:30:52

Yeah, actually, he was saying, if you're gonna call out someone like Chris Arnage, that's it.

01:31:00

How do you do that? I mean, here's a guy that doesn't pick fights with anyone, at least that's a believer.

01:31:07

Pick lots of fights over your years with unbelievers in different debates that you've, you've been able to moderate and stuff.

01:31:13

But obviously, obviously, I never wanted them to be fights. Yeah. But, but unbelievers don't always want to get along with believers, do they?

01:31:21

Right. And unfortunately, believers fall into that trap far too often of fighting and yelling and, you know, making fools out of themselves.

01:31:29

In fact, that's usually the first sign that a so called apologist or debater knows he's lost is when he starts to raise his voice and use mockery and ad hominem to try to draw attention away from the actual content of this, you know, of the theme of the thesis.

01:31:51

And to to kind of cast doubt in the audience's mind that his opponent knows what he's talking about, just by mocking him.

01:32:01

Yeah. You know, I saw a debate where there was there was going to be two things discussed. So they have the opening, they have cross examination, the close, and they were going to start the next one, next topic.

01:32:12

And it was very interesting, because without even listening to the arguments made,

01:32:18

I said, I concluded the who lost. And I concluded it because the guy who I said lost spent the entire opening of the next topic, still arguing the previous topic.

01:32:28

In other words, he wasn't convinced that he actually answered the question well enough and wasted his whole opening still trying to argue the previous point.

01:32:36

And I went, Yeah, he realized he lost that first part. And now that he never made his opening, he just lost the second. You know, but but an interesting thing that I didn't know, till recent was if you debate a

01:32:47

Muslim, you will see that reaction. And within Islam, it's a very interesting thing we debate

01:32:53

Muslims is they believe that if you don't have that, that yelling, the raising of the voice, you don't really believe what you're saying.

01:33:01

They, at least in the Middle Eastern, Muslims, they believe that if you have to be emotional, you have to be yelling, and they could say nonsense stuff, but that, that, that emotionalism ends up convincing the audience that that person's right.

01:33:16

And of course, many of our fundamentalist brethren in Christ have that same philosophy.

01:33:22

And it's that's another thing that's interesting, what I wanted to ask you about earlier, when you mentioned the fact that the

01:33:31

Bible, at least our English translation of it is 98 % reliable.

01:33:36

And you also describe yourself, at least in the past, you have as a fundamentalist, those two things definitely don't mix together.

01:33:45

Well, I'd be, I'd be, you know, let's use bad words. I'm a fundamentalist Baptist dispensationalist.

01:33:50

But a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

01:33:55

That's true. So I really don't fit into any group well. I don't. I've never fit in perfectly to any theological group, because I just,

01:34:04

I'm a man of the word. I study the scriptures, and I'm going to go where I think the scriptures teach, which fit with some theologies in different areas, but I just don't.

01:34:14

So people, you know, are you this, are you that? Well, if you really want to know what I hold to, I'm a rapportian.

01:34:22

And so that's what I believe, you know, in the way, what's that? Well, now I can define it. And for those of you listening, that went over your head, remember, his name is

01:34:31

Andrew Rappaport. Yes. And another thing that's interesting about you is that, although you are a

01:34:40

Jewish believer, you appear, from what I know of you, to be a

01:34:47

Christian Jew rather than a Jewish Christian. In other words, the emphasis is on the Christian.

01:34:52

You're a Christian who happens to be from an ethnically Jewish background. Exactly. Yeah, I got saved the same way every

01:34:58

Roman Catholic that gets saved, every Muslim that gets saved. There's nothing special. I will have a privilege, hopefully, this either

01:35:06

May, this May, there was a rabbi 18, 19 years ago, who tried to convert me back to Judaism.

01:35:13

And he gave me cassettes. I don't know if any of your millennial audience understands what that is. But that was this little device that you would put into a player and it would it would kind of act like a

01:35:23

CD does it for people that even don't remember CDs. It's like a USB drive. It plays audio.

01:35:29

I was shocked that a girl that worked in a store that sold music, or at least in some kind of a department store, when

01:35:39

I asked her where the CDs were, she didn't know what I was talking about. Yeah, it's well, there's CDs are now. Yeah, CDs are going out.

01:35:45

Yeah. Well, the cassette, you remember the cassette, you'd stick a pencil in to wind it up. But I listened to about eight hours of his name is

01:35:54

Rabbi Tovia Singer. Oh, yeah. And so you know of him. So I don't know him, but I know of him. Yeah. And so I will be debating him hopefully in New York.

01:36:02

Really? And so I had said on a podcast that I would love to debate him because he really doesn't know

01:36:09

Christianity. Now to the other Jewish people in his audience that don't know anything about Christian, he seems like an expert.

01:36:16

But he, you know, the cassettes I had least got, he was mixing up Mormonism and Catholicism, but not describing

01:36:24

Christianity. You mean when he was describing when he was attempting to describe Christianity, meaning you and I.

01:36:31

Yeah. He was using the descriptions that would be more appropriate for either

01:36:36

Mormonism and Catholicism. Yeah. So I like realize he really doesn't understand it.

01:36:42

So we're probably going to be debating the topic of is Jesus the Messiah, which is like, OK, yeah, let's share the gospel.

01:36:49

But, you know, he did a he that came about because some some atheists, professing atheists, were commenting on a

01:36:58

YouTube video that someone had and used Rabbi Singer's videos to say, look, even the rabbis say that Jesus isn't the

01:37:07

Messiah. But, you know, what was interesting about the video is he never dealt with any of the prophecies in the

01:37:13

Old Testament that we would look at and use for the New Testament. Every one of the ones he wanted to look at were the second coming.

01:37:20

Now, the interesting one that he did deal with is in Isaiah, where it says that when the

01:37:26

Messiah comes, the knowledge of God will spread like water to the sea.

01:37:31

And he says that that hasn't happened. Really? It hasn't happened?

01:37:37

I mean, it's didn't happen within Judaism, but within Christianity, the word of God, the knowledge of God has spread to every culture.

01:37:46

If you go to the Museum of the Bible in D .C., they actually have this one room that's just wild to look at.

01:37:52

It's just a room full of what's supposed to be volumes of books, all different colors. And what those represent is all the languages that the

01:38:00

Bible has been translated into. The reason for the different colors, they have a color for where the Bible's been translated into both

01:38:06

Old and New Testament in that language. They have ones where it's just New Testament. And then they have colors where the

01:38:12

Bible is the first written book, where they've introduced the written language into a culture because they wanted people to be able to read the

01:38:24

Bible. So they created a written language for that culture and translated the Bible into that language.

01:38:30

It's the first thing that the first book or document that they would have in a written form.

01:38:36

I don't know where Rabbi Singer falls into this category, but I have heard, and I don't know if these

01:38:48

Orthodox Jewish apologists or rabbis were being completely honest, if they were just being politically correct, or what their reason was for this approach.

01:39:03

But I have heard Orthodox Jews in public say that they believe or have no problem with Jesus being a

01:39:14

Messiah for the Gentiles. They would never, of course, say that he's deity or that they would never claim any kind of allowance for the

01:39:23

Trinity or anything like that. But obviously, they are trying to have a different approach to Jesus than some of the

01:39:34

Talmudic rabbis who said very harsh and horrible and horrific things about Jesus.

01:39:41

Well, I would find that a hard position to hold to because there's no passages that I could even think of that would say that there's two

01:39:52

Messiahs, a Messiah to Gentiles and a Messiah to the Jews. So there's the

01:39:58

Messiah. That's it. And there's certain things we see of who that Messiah would be.

01:40:04

So I'm not quite sure how someone would be able to say that there's a Messiah to Gentiles. Now, unless they're saying it's a

01:40:11

Messiah for Gentile people to come to a form of God, but they can't use the

01:40:16

Bible for that because the Jewish Messiah described in the Old Testament is not going to be one to Gentiles separate from the one to the

01:40:25

Jews. Right. And they wouldn't view the New Testament as being a God -breathed document anyway.

01:40:31

Yeah. Yeah. Would not be part of their canon. Now, I'm not sure if this is an area of your study, but I have had some interaction with Roman Catholics lately who were one in particular who is saying, as the old saying goes by Roman Catholics, that Luther removed the

01:40:58

Apocrypha or the Deutero Canonical books from the canon. And even as Jerome, who compiled the

01:41:08

Latin Vulgate, knew the Jews have never embraced in recorded history, the

01:41:20

Apocrypha or Deutero Canonical books as a part of their Hebrew canon. And he said that that was not true.

01:41:28

So the earliest that we know of a list of books of the

01:41:33

Old Testament was when the rabbis met in 70 A .D. in Jamnia. And the Council of Jamnia has really where the where the rabbi said what is part of the canon.

01:41:43

And those books are not included. So this is before long before the

01:41:50

Catholic Church added them in the 1500s. I mean, the Catholic Church did not include them until Luther.

01:41:58

And the Council of Trent. Yeah. They didn't officially. Officially. So the question is, if they say that they're the ones that gave us the

01:42:05

Bible in the 300s, well, why did they leave them out? Why did it was like, oh, oh, yeah, we forgot those for 1200 years.

01:42:15

Oops. So I don't even need to go. I mean, the Jewish rabbis don't hold to those books, but neither did the

01:42:21

Catholic Church. Right. So was the Catholic Church wrong when they didn't include them or are they right now?

01:42:29

Which is because it can't both be right. Well, why don't you before you go give us a summary of your experience this year at G3, anything that you care to say about?

01:42:40

Well, I came this year to G3 for a very different reason. I didn't come you know, I didn't come here to support striving fraternity.

01:42:47

I wasn't here to to enjoy the conference because I actually only made it to a couple of sessions.

01:42:53

I came down because I have a friend, Justin Peters. Oh, yeah. And for folks who don't know Justin Peters Ministries, go to justinpetersministries .org.

01:43:01

He does a great job dealing with the Word of Faith movement. But for folks who don't know who he is, he has cerebral palsy.

01:43:07

And so when he travels, it is difficult for him to get around. He, you know, he can't tie his own shoes.

01:43:14

You know, it's so he needs help. And I know he's he is, I tell he hates when

01:43:19

I say this. But you know, Justin. Justin is the humblest man

01:43:25

I have ever met. He'll he'll never he always thinks everyone's if you do something, it's like,

01:43:31

Oh, I don't want to burden you. I don't want to burden you. It is a pleasure to be able to help him out.

01:43:37

And so I came down here just for the fact of I knew he's speaking. And so I flew down just to, you know, just to be able to take care of him, help him get dressed in the morning, help him at, you know, in the in what we brought striving fraternity people came just to, you know, we ran his table for him.

01:43:54

And so that's why we came down. So it was so a little bit different experience for me this year, because I really wasn't. I didn't let anyone on social media know

01:44:01

I was coming down till I got down here because people wanted to get together with me once they saw us here. And I'm like, I'm here for one reason.

01:44:07

If, if, if it happens to work in Justin's schedule, hey, that's great. We'll get together. If not,

01:44:12

I'm sorry. I don't want to be rude. I'm not, you know, but I'm here for Justin. So like people would just gonna be talking to someone or getting a photo and someone come talk to me as soon as he needed to go.

01:44:21

I said, I don't want to be rude, but you know, I gotta go. And so that's why I came down. Yeah, it was a little different for me this year.

01:44:26

I was very honored to interview Justin again here on site at G3. And I have interviewed him by phone as well.

01:44:34

But what a precious brother. Yeah. In Christ. Yeah. And perhaps now you could just leave a summary for our listeners of a several minute length of what you most want etched in their hearts and minds today.

01:44:49

Well, if you're gonna say the one thing, I'll tell you what I'm starting to get known for other than Bible hermeneutics and interpreting, you know, not a bad thing if you're known for interpreting, you know, turning the

01:44:58

Bible rightly, right? You know, one of the things that's been a burden on my heart is for years, I've been trying to display that as Christians, we could disagree even on theological matters and do it with love and charity.

01:45:09

I have a friend of mine, Matt Slick, don't agree with him on a whole lot of doctrines. But you know what?

01:45:15

We've been going to conferences, apologetics conferences and things, and people are asking us to come so we could disagree.

01:45:24

Because one of the things a lot of people are realizing is Matt and I, though we disagree, and we both think of each other as a brother in Christ, we realize that there's a lot of people who don't know how to argue about theology, especially.

01:45:38

But people start getting, as you said, when they start losing or not being able to answer something, it gets to name calling, the ad hominems and all this stuff.

01:45:45

The reality is, I think we as Christians need to learn how to disagree with one another with love and charity.

01:45:51

We're going to spend eternity together. We might as well get used to it now. I mean, I understand that everyone will be a dispensational person in heaven, but you know, it's like we could joke like that.

01:46:05

We shouldn't hold to our theology and our positions on secondary things so tightly that we're going to disassociate with people or start calling people out on something that the question that we have to ask is, how did they come to that conclusion?

01:46:21

I think that the two men that wonderfully and beautifully demonstrated what you're talking about are

01:46:26

John MacArthur and the late R .C. Sproul. Their baptism debate was really one that etched into my mind that this could be done, and that's really what

01:46:35

Matt and I almost try to model with it. We kind of have talked about some of those things—dispensationalism, covenant theology, baptism.

01:46:46

He's a continuationist, I'm not. We have these differences, and they're big differences, but all those differences, when we sit at the feet of Christ, they're all going to be straightened out.

01:46:58

All of us, I think every one of us has problems in our theology. We just don't know where they are. I mean, if we're going to be honest, we would change it if we did, but we have those things, and Christ is going to set us all straight.

01:47:09

I don't want to hold on to my theology so tightly that I'm going to disassociate with someone over our differences.

01:47:19

The world is watching Christians on social media, and I talk to tons of atheists, and they all are watching

01:47:28

Christians fight it out. It's an amazing thing. Matt actually debated two atheists on two separate nights.

01:47:34

Insane. Two different topics, two different guys. Why you do that? Because you've got to prepare for two, they each prepare for one, but you know what?

01:47:41

I got to talk to some of the same atheists two nights in a row. There was an issue that was going on with an atheist community, and I talked to several atheists asking, hey, would you say this guy's wrong?

01:47:51

Some would say he's wrong, others wouldn't. Those that said he's wrong, I said, would you call him out publicly? No, no, no, no. Why? They wouldn't give reasons.

01:47:59

They'd give bogus reasons. One guy was really honest with me. He says, Andrew, I'll tell you why. He said, whether I agree with that guy or not, he is doing damage to Christianity, and you are the enemy, and he is destroying you.

01:48:11

I like you as a person, but I want Christianity to end. He said, I will never publicly say anything about him because he is helping to destroy

01:48:18

Christianity, and I realized, I walked away from that and said, you know what? Here's an atheist that understands what

01:48:24

Christians should know, that we should be having a unified front against the world and keeping our in -house discussions in -house, not displaying them and really presenting them for the world to see because we not only put it on social media, but you have whole ministries that just focus on attacking other people.

01:48:44

Right. One thing before we go that occurred to me, if you could comment on this, something that has been puzzling to me is that the majority of those that I have encountered in the

01:48:59

Messianic Jewish movement are, and there are some exceptions, so I don't want to broad brush, but for the most part they are vehemently anti -Calvinistic.

01:49:11

And the thing that puzzles me about that is the whole concept of the people of Israel in the

01:49:19

Old Covenant being chosen out from the multitudes and elect people is not foreign to the

01:49:26

Jewish mind. And why would someone who has become a Christian seem to completely throw that out, that mindset of God choosing whom he will choose?

01:49:41

The Jews are supposed to know anyway that God did not choose them because they were better than everybody else, that there was something innately more lovable about them.

01:49:54

And so unconditional election should be something that is completely logical and consistent with them, but most that I have encountered are non -Calvinist and even anti -Calvinist.

01:50:09

Well, I think it comes to something that we've talked about in our previous episode, and that is the majority of those who call themselves

01:50:14

Messianic Jews are also rabid charismatics. Not all.

01:50:21

Not all. But what I find is that most of them are. Most of those that stay within the

01:50:26

Messianic Jewish movement. Now, you do have lots of people who are Jewish of background and ethnicity, but we don't identify ourselves that way.

01:50:34

I don't think of myself as Jewish. I am, but I'm Christian. I'm a

01:50:40

Christian first who just happens to come from a Jewish background. And so the point being is,

01:50:46

I think you see the differences with people like that, where people that get into the Messianic Jewish movement get into all the feeling -based things.

01:50:54

So everything is based on not theology, but feeling. And so you're going to have them leaning more toward the, well, what

01:50:59

I experienced. I experienced choosing Christ. And they don't want to think about the theological

01:51:04

Christ chose me. Right. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners know how they can get in touch with you and striving for eternity ministries.

01:51:13

Well, first off, I'll say that I was glad that I had a goal of being on here and trying to get to interview you a little bit, to bring some of you out, because it is something that you do amazing.

01:51:24

I don't know that your listeners even always pick up on it, but you do a great job with interviews, one of the best.

01:51:31

And so if people can get a hold of Striving for Eternity, it's strivingforeternity .org. Strivingforeternity .org.

01:51:38

Thank you so much, Andrew Rappaport. I look forward to not only fellowshipping with you again, but interviewing you again in the future.

01:51:45

Well, thanks for having me. God bless. And now we're going to conclude today's Iron Sherpa and Zion radio broadcast with an interview with one of our faithful listeners, originally from the

01:51:57

UK, now living in Oregon, Kofi. And Kofi is the son of a

01:52:04

Word of Faith Pentecostal pastor who was rescued out of that heretical movement by the sovereign grace of God, and now he is a

01:52:15

Reformed Christian. And I hope you enjoy our interview with Kofi. Chris Orensen here again in Atlanta, Georgia at the

01:52:23

G3 conference, and I'm so excited that one of my most faithful listeners is once again here, and I'm delighted to interview him again.

01:52:33

Many of you may recognize his unusual name when he emails questions for our guests on Iron Sherpa and Zion.

01:52:41

His name is Kofi Adu -Bwohen. Did I pronounce that correctly? Great job.

01:52:47

And as you will detect from his accent, he is originally from the UK, but now is residing in Medford, Oregon.

01:52:56

And am I correct in saying that you recently got married? April 22nd.

01:53:02

Praise God. And was it a yank? Yep. And that's why you moved here, right?

01:53:07

That's why I'm here. And Kofi, tell our listeners how you first became familiar with Iron Sherpa and Zion radio.

01:53:16

I can still remember vividly my first G3 conference, which was last

01:53:21

January, and I heard somebody yelling with a British accent, Iron Sherpa and Zion!

01:53:26

Iron Sherpa and Zion! And I saw you from a distance. I had never met you before, and you had not yet at that time emailed any questions to our guests, so I was totally unfamiliar with you.

01:53:38

But tell our listeners how you discovered us. Yeah, so I've been listening to Iron Sherpa and Zion for years now, back when you were in New York.

01:53:47

And I discovered, I think it was through a show that you had done with Dr. White. I think he mentioned that he was going to be on this show called

01:53:53

Iron Sherpa and Zion, and I was like, what is that? I'm sure he distorted his face just as you did when he said

01:54:01

Iron Sherpa and Zion. But anyway, James loves to degrade me any opportunity that he has, in a lovingly humorous, brotherly way.

01:54:14

Well, for anyone who's here at the conference, you heard the hatchet job he did to me the other day, so I think he does that to everyone.

01:54:24

And some of you who heard Kofi's interview last January may be surprised to learn that even though he is a

01:54:34

Reformed Baptist today, Kofi actually was raised in a Word of Faith Pentecostal home.

01:54:41

And I am so delighted to hear that the relationship between you and your dad, who is a pastor in the

01:54:48

Word of Faith Pentecostal church, it is very cordial. There's no hostility from what

01:54:54

I understand, at least now. Tell us something more about how you discovered the doctrines of grace while in such an environment.

01:55:05

Yeah, so I was 16 at the time, and was very much immersed in that world.

01:55:11

That's all the Christianity I'd known. My dad has been my pastor since I was 8 years old, and he was my dad before that, so that's all the

01:55:18

Christianity I knew. And it was as a teenager that, for the first time, I was confronted with some of the stuff that was being taught, that I knew.

01:55:27

I'd heard it. I couldn't deny that these were things that were being said. But beyond being confronted with what was being said, was being confronted with, well, what does

01:55:35

God's Word have to say about these issues? And that began a period of asking questions.

01:55:41

I think I really got to a point where I didn't know what I believed anymore. I was like, okay, I can't argue with what

01:55:49

I'm hearing in terms of a biblical response to all the teaching that I've heard. I think it's kind of funny, we're in Atlanta, one of my favorite preachers to listen to was

01:55:57

Creflo Dollar. And so I'm like, yeah, I've heard him say this stuff, and I can't argue with the biblical responses to it.

01:56:04

But this is where I go to church. My dad is a Word of Faith pastor, essentially.

01:56:12

And so I grappled with that for a while, and didn't quite know what to do. And in God's providence,

01:56:17

I became friends with a retired Presbyterian pastor, who realized that I had questions, and realized, here's this young man who needs so much spiritual help.

01:56:28

And so, entered into a discipleship relationship with him. This sounds almost identical to a brother

01:56:35

I interviewed from the Bar podcast.

01:56:43

His name escapes me. Dwayne Atkinson. Yes. A friend of mine. Yes. Oh, he's a friend of yours. Yes. Well, he had a very similar experience in Greenville, South Carolina.

01:56:52

Yep. He was from a Pentecostal background, and he developed a friendship and a mentor relationship, where he was the student, and a

01:57:02

Presbyterian pastor in Greenville was his mentor. Yep, yep. So yeah, I was in this relationship with him.

01:57:09

He was teaching me the scriptures. He was giving me good books to read. And I think what drew me to him was the fact that any time

01:57:15

I would ask him a question on any issue, his first answer would be, okay, well, let's see what the scripture has to say about that.

01:57:22

And he was just adept with the scriptures in a way that I had never seen before, and it just blew my mind. And I was like, okay,

01:57:27

I want to learn from this man. And in a very real sense, he poured of not just his theological knowledge, but his years in the ministry, his years of experience.

01:57:37

He was 89 years old when I met him. So he'd been walking with the Lord for years, and he really poured of himself into me in a way that I'm still incredibly grateful for to this day.

01:57:47

Praise God for that. And why don't you give our listeners a summary of your experiences here at G3 this year?

01:57:56

Yeah, absolutely. I've been telling everybody when they ask me how am I enjoying the conference, like, just like a big family reunion now.

01:58:02

This is my third year here, and there's certain people who I met the first time I was here, and now they see me like, oh, how's it going?

01:58:11

Last year when I saw you, you were about to get married. How's that been? How's the move to the U .S. been? And that's great.

01:58:18

Made some good ministry contacts here as well. Met a brother at one of the booths who is from a town which is like 10 minutes from where I live in Southern Oregon.

01:58:29

You know, just would not have met in Southern Oregon, but we've met here in Atlanta of all places. So that's a great blessing. And on top of that, all the great teaching that we've received this weekend has been such a blessing.

01:58:40

Being able to fellowship with old friends, make new friends. I love the expression that Josh and the team here use so often for the musical times that we are singing the gospel.

01:58:53

That's been such a blessing. So it's just been such a great conference. Well, Brother Kofi, I look forward to continue to receive questions for our guests on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:59:05

It's always a great privilege and pleasure and joy to fellowship with you and to have conversations with you.

01:59:13

And I look forward to seeing you again very soon, Brother. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me on. It's always a joy to be with you, Chris.

01:59:18

Please, as you did in the U .K., now please spread the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Medford, Oregon.

01:59:25

Most definitely. God bless you. God bless. Well, we'll be airing more G3 Conference interviews and broadcasts to come, but I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater