Session 8 - Q&A with Costi Hinn and Jim Osman

Kootenai Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

All right, I think we're ready to get started. Final session, and after this I'll have a couple of announcements, and then we'll close in prayer.

00:08

So first up for a Q &A, do you have any church recommendations in Tucson? Oh, that's a good question.

00:16

We have people who drive to our church from Tucson. So that's a, but I don't recommend driving an hour and a half every week one way.

00:25

I don't yet. I should, but I haven't found, and this doesn't mean there isn't a good one there, but I have not found a church that would be similar to this or ours in Tucson yet.

00:39

But I talked to her earlier, and I'll look a few up and send send them your way.

00:45

Yeah. How many here have heard of Mark Driscoll? There we go.

00:51

How far away is Mark Driscoll from you? 20 minutes. Does he, how much influence does he have in your area?

00:57

Lots, mainly over pastors. He does coaching. Yeah, so he coaches them on how to how to do multi -site, and how to grow, and and all this stuff.

01:12

We have some people that are. Does he coach you? No. No, maybe I should sign up for one session so that I could, no, he,

01:21

I'm blocked on all his social media outlets. I've said my piece. Could you explain, explain briefly what the apostolic word is?

01:31

Yeah, as far as I, I know, or am familiar with that phrase, or that term, the apostolic word would be the apostle in the, in the church now claiming to be an apostle, who's getting direct revelation from God, and then delivering that to the people.

01:49

So, there's some weird phrases that you'll hear. One of them is breakthrough, right?

01:57

If you listen to enough of that stuff with Bethel and all that, you'll hear, you know, we're really pressing in for breakthrough.

02:03

You're like, what does that mean? It's one of their phrases. The apostolic word is the, the man who claims to be an apostle, and they're women apostles now, and there's actually a website

02:12

I found. We don't have probably time to go through all this research, but there is a website that does, they'll sell you apostleship, and you can get a couple's discount if you're both signing up to be part of the apostolic network they have.

02:30

It's kind of cool. A couple's, yeah, a couple's cool in a heretical way, but yeah, yeah, there you go.

02:38

So the apostolic word is you're getting direct revelation from God for those that are under you, and it's completely false.

02:47

It's false authority. We have apostles. They're all dead, and they were the foundation.

02:53

They were foundational in the church, and now we have their writings, and we're thankful for them in their role.

02:59

Now the church is being built up. Do you see any decline in the strength of the prosperity gospels influence?

03:05

Are people starting to have their eyes open? No. Here's why.

03:10

The players are changing. So my uncle, his ministry in steep decline beyond.

03:18

When you talk about steep decline, you're talking about financial giving to that ministry? Totally, dive -bombing, like not at all.

03:24

Can't fill a stadium. Kenneth Copeland, we laugh at him. He's on the, not

03:30

ESPN, Inside Edition, and Lisa Guerrero catches him at his airstrip and all.

03:38

These guys are laughable in that sense, but like another one, you know, Bill Johnson, you know,

03:44

Benny, and I don't relish in this. His wife, Benny, dies of cancer, and that just kind of like slides under the radar.

03:51

No one fixes COVID. Chris Vallotton falsely prophesies however many he's said are gonna happen, or do, from presidential stuff with Trump, and, or his prophets have prophesied very falsely.

04:04

He'll say that was his main first one, and he repented of it. Like, all right. Yeah, there's a cast of characters that are in decline, but the prosperity gospel is very much alive, because for every

04:16

Benny Hinn that's in decline, Kenneth Copeland, that's some old weirdo that's laughable now, a

04:22

Bill Johnson who's kind of like, well, your wife died. This stuff doesn't work, man. And Todd Bentley, who's pretty much not even taken seriously at all.

04:33

You have Michael Todd, who is bigger than ever. And Furtick, and you have

04:42

Tim Ross, who's the, if you haven't heard of him, look him up. He's, these guys are, are way more famous than people realize.

04:49

You have Judah Smith, you have Chad Veach, you had Carl Lance, but he's back.

04:55

He's on staff at Michael Todd's church. And so you have this new wave of guys, and they don't wave white jackets, they don't have pink hair, and they don't have

05:03

TBN, but they are massively influential. They preach the prosperity gospel. They are reaching our young people in massive ways.

05:14

We did a video for the gospel. We did, we did a series that we release a video every once in a while. It's called

05:19

False Teachers, and Michael Todd was the first one I picked. And we got hammered by a lot of people for that video, and that lot of people were mostly young youth pastors and young adults pastors.

05:34

And one of them was actually on the comments, was Mark Driscoll's son, Calvin. And I didn't know that.

05:42

Somebody had told me that, you know, Calvin Drizzy. I'm like, yeah. They're like, that's Driscoll's son. Like, oh wow.

05:47

And they were very angry with us, a lot of those young guys, saying, how dare you throw stones at At the young brokenhearted false teachers?

05:54

Yeah, how dare you throw stones at a brother? Just because he's influential, you're just jealous. He's been such an inspiration.

06:01

We should be praying for him to keep being used by the Lord. You're like, what delusional spirit has come over them all?

06:07

And then you look at 2 Thessalonians 2, and you're like, oh, yeah. Pretty much a delusional influence, a deluding influence will take over.

06:15

And I think that in many ways this is, and again, I know that everyone shares my eschatology, but I'll share it.

06:23

And then, you know, I'm gone. So it's fine. But that I, I'm not unwelcome here.

06:29

It's the same. Yeah, I believe that you can't have widespread delusion, and you can't have an antichrist, and you can't have these things happen without delusion.

06:43

And we're seeing it. When you go, how in the, are you people serious? How, how do you, like the

06:48

R .C. Sproul, like, short video, everyone's like, what's wrong with you people? You know, Sproul doing that. Like, you have to have that to set the stage for the kind of chaos that will ensue.

07:01

And so that's what we're watching. But the church is being strengthened. I don't like when people say that, you know, the pre -millennial view or whatever is pessimistic.

07:10

Well, I'm not pessimistic. The church is being built, man. Jesus is saving. There's the remnant. We're strong.

07:16

The sheep are coming. But around us, yeah, the world is, is growing darker. The church's light is growing brighter.

07:23

So in that, I don't see the decline. I see strong delusion, a next -generation wave.

07:30

I mean, T .D. Jakes' kids are in ministry. A whole wave of next -generation guys are in.

07:37

My brother -in -law's brother, Michael Koulianos, and Jessica, Uncle Benny's daughter, lead Jesus Image Ministry.

07:44

You go to their thing in Orlando. There's like 5 ,000 people at that church. Their conferences are massive.

07:49

I was at a coffee shop the other day where I live in Phoenix. A woman was wearing a Jesus Image shirt.

07:55

They're doing tours. I, you're, there's no decline. There's, there's, they're just grabbing a whole new generation.

08:02

And Benny Hinn's the weirdo with the white coat on YouTube. So that, Is your uncle's ministry declined due to the fact that he's getting older or due to the fact that the hunger for the show is changing, that somebody else has to push the envelope, become more sensational, more edgy, more sort of, yeah, grandiose.

08:22

And so you have the new generations doing that, or is it just that, I think both, the, the old, the old people who used to watch

08:29

TBN and see Benny and Kenneth Copeland, they're dying off. They've given their seed faith, and now these people are being buried.

08:34

And so that whole generation is dying out, and the people given to them is dying out. I think both. He's getting old, and you look at that whole support system, it's older, and then also

08:45

Bethel sort of branded, in a way, and so did like Judah Smith and some of these guys, a new brand of this whole, and Satan's really smart.

08:57

You've got kind of cool music, skinny jeans, vibes, young people, the arts.

09:03

You look at Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry, and their school for the arts, they've got like ballet and all this. They're targeting young people and skills and the arts and all that, and it looks really cool.

09:14

My uncle, his, if someone came again and was like him, it would not sell the same.

09:21

Why? Because we're over the massive stadium, the detached faith healer, his white, we're entertained by it, it's laughable, but it doesn't work.

09:29

What works now is Bill Johnson, super authentic, real calm, almost like, yeah, they're just signs that make you wonder, you know.

09:37

He said he would cover you with his feathers, you know, I don't know what's going on here, just miracles everywhere, and letting his, letting like that vibe works, and then letting his kids,

09:48

Jen Johnson, Brian Johnson, like letting the next generation thrive, where my uncle was like the single showman, and it was the traveling show and circus.

09:56

Some of these guys now, it's about empowerment, because Gen Z wants to be involved. Millennials like to be in and authentic, so it is, he's aged, but it also, the game has changed.

10:07

It's gone from a spectator sport to a participation sport. Totally. Yep. What kind of money comes in at Crusades?

10:13

You mentioned the lady, the first one to give a million dollars to your ministry in one of your sessions.

10:19

What kind of money comes in at a Crusade? Were you ever backstage when you counted the money that came in and the offering buckets?

10:24

What was it like? Half a million dollar offerings like that, just easy, easy money. In one night?

10:30

Yeah, easily. And that's, that's an, that's a marginal number. In terms of the money that came in, comes into those ministries, is most of it large gifts from the celebrities, the athletes, the influencers, or is it, you know, a little grandma who's hoping for a miracle for her cancer cure, given 25 bucks a week to Benny Hinn?

10:48

What does the majority of that income look like? Yeah, by way of numbers, certainly the, the smaller gifts are massive.

10:55

It's a lot of people giving smaller amounts, but you have your ways of getting the larger gifts.

11:01

Like God's telling me right now, there are 70 people that can give $7 ,000.

11:08

And right now he is going to give you a breakthrough. And some of you, you can only give $7 and some of you, you can, but some of you, you can give an uncommon gift of faith, $17 ,000 and 70 ,000, like they do all the tiers and stuff.

11:22

And so what you end up with is this conglomerate of, of numbers that are large and small, but you get your big, your big heavy hitters.

11:31

And there are a lot of them and it, it drives me nuts. I think, oh, if these people would get saved and just give to real ministries, then we, but I, I know it's a narrow way,

11:41

I get it. But sometimes I'm like, Lord, just steer a few of them over and like finish

11:49

Jim's building. Like that, you just, it's easy.

11:55

They don't even, they don't even need a tax write -off for it. They're like, nah, we already hit our max. We can just give you more.

12:01

Like, dude, all right. But you know, the hype and the show of all that stuff. Yeah. As a cessationist, how do you support a phrase like clear thinking charismatic?

12:12

Does one not negate the other? Good question. That's a good question. First, I would say,

12:18

I'm going to say clear thinking continuationist is a phrase we can use. If we didn't, then you're calling a lot of people crazy and not clear thinking.

12:30

I think clear thinking charismatic, I think I'd hold to, even if it were a small number, clear thinking

12:39

Pentecostal or clear thinking charismatic. There, I have a,

12:45

I have a buddy of mine, local, another pastor. We have different kinds of churches. Um, he listens to, for the gospel stuff.

12:57

We dialogue and interact. We started out, uh, not getting along. It was, he didn't like me and I didn't know who he was and was like, why are you angry at me?

13:07

We had good interactions and he says amen to stuff we post and is, is pretty much on board.

13:17

He methodologically is different. They're more multi -site type. Uh, and then he would be, he considers himself, uh, you know, charismatic with a seatbelt or whatever.

13:28

You know, he got one of those phrases from Matt Chandler or whoever, and I don't agree. I, I, you know, he's trying to reach people and we've talked about things.

13:38

He goes, I know, but you know, these people, they're not well taught. And I think, you know, you got to leave some things open because the

13:47

Bible doesn't say this, this and that. And I said, well, that's, that's a continuationist position. You use the word charismatic.

13:52

He goes, ah, it's all the same, whatever. And I go, well, kind of, but not really. And we have these dialogues and I would consider him a clear thinking man.

14:02

He is logical. He is theological. He doesn't buy into the word faith.

14:08

Doesn't buy into the word of faith. No way. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be so chummy with him behind the scenes if it was true.

14:13

Um, we don't agree on a few things and we know we're clear on those, but he's clear thinking.

14:23

And that's, and he's, you know, a few people have come over to our church from his church and he's like, it's good for them.

14:30

They, they love your ministry. They, they'll do better and cause less trouble here if they're with you.

14:37

Because these people have strong convictions. And so is, is, you know, Justin or other buddies of ours right to say like, yeah, that phrase,

14:46

I don't know if I'll use it that much anymore because it's, it's, there's, there's not a lot of them. Like totally.

14:52

Yeah. But I would still say clear thinking continuationist. Um, and I guess

14:57

I wonder aren't continuationists charismatics with seatbelts on sort of technically.

15:03

So, but there's such a spectrum, like John Piper is like I said before, and I think

15:11

I've joked about where him with all his stack of books and his continuationism, the church at the time when he was there, if you went and attended a service there and then went to Grace Community Church the next week, the services look similar.

15:26

And for all the, yeah, I don't know. I just can't say if this is not ceased or not.

15:33

The practical outworking is pretty similar looking. Um, so yeah,

15:38

I think some of them, of course, some of them are clear headed, but some of them are very confusing to me. I'm, I'm wondering about their hermeneutics, but again,

15:46

I'm still 38 and I'm young. So I got to be careful. I can't say stuff about older men and be cheeky because that's arrogant.

15:52

And so you can, no, you're older. Not much. You, you have dialogue with, you could say things.

16:00

I, I still have to behave and ride your coattails. I just say things and then I'll say, I got that from Costi. Oh yeah.

16:07

Is there any correlation between the prosperity gospel and the sacrifices required of the Jewish nation in the

16:13

Old Testament, in particular in supporting the priesthood and temple? I think maybe correct me if I'm wrong, whoever submitted this question, but it was required that people gave in order to support the priesthood, mandatory sacrifices.

16:27

And giving in the nation was a prerequisite for blessings. So you get the Malachi references often where you're robbing

16:34

God if you're not giving to the ministry. Yeah. I would say that all of that is classified under lazy hermeneutics, which is,

16:43

I just approach the Bible and I look at it and go, yeah, I'm going to preach that for me today.

16:51

And doing no work. It's really easy. And there's similarity there between that structure and the way that the prosperity gospel leverages that for their purposes.

17:00

And people will go, come on, preach. Amen. You go, you need to, you need to take care of the man of God, the priesthood in the

17:07

Old Testament, the people brought the tithes into the storehouse and all this stuff. And some of you get PTSD when

17:13

I preach that way, I get it. But you, you know, and these people today try to keep the man of God down.

17:20

They don't honor the man. You realize the reason why the church is in the state that it's in is because people don't honor the man of God. You honor the man of God, God will honor the church.

17:27

People are like, come on, preach. And the preachers are like, preach. Love it. All that stuff, that's lazy hermeneutics.

17:34

You've not rightly divided the word. You've taken Old Testament, Levitical laws, you've taken these and just superimposed them on New Testament churches.

17:41

But man, it preaches and it sells. So yeah, it's very, and then God will bless you.

17:47

And if you, honestly, if you tie a little bit of America in there too, and which the right patriotic attitude is, we love our country, we want to vote.

17:56

But you wrap that up into an American thing of like, you want God to heal this nation?

18:02

You want him to turn it around? The reason he's not blessed, you want him to bless America? I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh.

18:07

And no one even knows what he's saying. They're like, amen! Like, what? Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

18:13

America started as a Christian nation and God wants to bless this nation. And we've been killing babies. You're like, I know, but what?

18:19

Hold on. Some of this is true and some of it's not. What is happening? And that is what we're seeing right now with Turning Point USA Faith.

18:27

You've seen, have you seen some of that? Oh, we're doing a video about it for the gospel. This will get us in some trouble, but it's good.

18:33

So Charlie Kirk and the boys, I know them, super helpful on some things. Gone down the wrong path when

18:40

Aspiree started their thing. Some of you have been seeing this. You've got their revival now. They're going around America.

18:46

And I told, I told, I'm getting fired up. I told some guys about this. I told guys about this.

18:51

I'm like, I've seen this stuff before. They're like, ah, be quiet, Kosti. You're just jaded. I'm like, no, I'm telling you. They're doing the thing they always do and the political and the stuff gets squirrely.

19:01

And when it's not led by pastors who are sound doctrine driven, it won't be pure.

19:07

You'll get everyone else with their weird little agenda. And so now you have Sean Foyt, you know, long curly hair,

19:12

Bethel guy. He's the leader of it. TPUSA has contracted him. TPUSA Faith has contracted him.

19:18

And they're doing revivals everywhere. So we have one of my good buddies. He just posted, he got fired yesterday because he's speaking up.

19:26

He posted this publicly. It's all, it's there. Johnny Root. And he loves Verge. The guys from G3, they're all in tight.

19:32

Good dude. Lives locally. And they are wrapping up all this revival stuff in the

19:39

Seven Mountain Mandate into a political American vibe. So people are like, yeah,

19:44

I love my country. I'm sick of Biden and this whole political chaotic thing they're doing.

19:53

And I don't like this at all. And then TPUSA is like, well, yeah, let's take over America again.

20:00

And it's this woman the other day at the revival was shouting, we declare, I decree the

20:05

Seven Mountain Mandate is ours. And the Seven Mountain Mandate is the NAR. That is all merging in.

20:12

And so what you have is bad hermeneutics. And you have a lot of things read into this.

20:21

And then they're cheap shot artists. They're grabbing American vernacular, which grabs onto all of our heartstrings.

20:30

Because I don't want Titus growing up in an America like it has been. Of course not. I love my country. And we should be involved.

20:37

But when you grab that and you have people that are untaught and you stamp it with false teachers, and then

20:43

TPUSA with their platform says, we're going to do it. We're going to save America. You have all these people caught up in it.

20:50

And they're giving money to it and their time and their energy. And the local church is nowhere to be found.

20:56

And this is the issue with the Asbury Revival. Again, anything happening detached from the local church, that's not what

21:02

Jesus does. It's manufactured. So a lot of that is you could go down a lot of different illustrative roads and say, that's a weird hermeneutical issue.

21:13

That doesn't even make sense. That's just taking some Old Testament thing and slapping it on.

21:19

And so people, it's lazy. And some of it, I think just Satan is so, he's so smart.

21:27

It's so crafty and scheming and deceitful. I'm reading through the Bible in one year using

21:33

YouVersion Bible app. Is YouVersion bad? I don't know.

21:39

I don't use YouVersion. I don't even know. I probably should. YouVersion seems old to me now.

21:46

It's like YouVersion, great Bible app. Well, I seem old. That doesn't mean it's... No. Yeah.

21:52

I'm just like people... You thought I was old. So your ability to discern age is...

21:57

Older, wiser. There's a YouVersion in...

22:04

Isn't it just, it's a Bible app. There's some devotionals and weird reading plans though too. MemoryServe has multiple translations in YouVersion, correct?

22:12

So NASB, ESB, LSB. Yeah. Use your NASB or your LSB Bible on there.

22:18

Most young guys know how to use that. Yeah. All right. Do that. But don't click on like the Priscilla Shire women's devotional.

22:25

If they have those, I don't... Or Beth Moore or Andy Stanley or anyone else that you've mentioned. Luke 18 .42,

22:33

your faith has healed you. Why are there Bible scriptures crediting faith for healing? Does faith heal?

22:39

Oh yeah, sorry. I didn't do a great job of this when I preached that yesterday in my testimony.

22:44

I talked about John 5 and I said, you know, it's not... It wasn't faith that saved the man in...

22:51

Or sorry, that healed the man in John 5. What I've often said or what I would say is you can't turn faith into a formula.

22:59

Where if I have enough faith, God will heal me. You have the woman with the issue of blood, and I think you've got some interesting both ends there, where Jesus says, so power left me.

23:10

Who touched me? And the disciples... Or he says, who touched me? The disciples are like, everyone touched you. Look where we are.

23:15

There's no power left me. It's different. And then he ends up healing her and he goes, daughter, your faith has saved you.

23:23

And I always think it's very interesting that he uses a familial term and it's translated that way. And I think, did he kind of saved her and healed her?

23:31

That's interesting. And then just like other times, he heals someone and says, don't tell anyone.

23:38

And other times, apparently he doesn't care if they tell everyone. The whole point when you look at the

23:44

Gospels is Jesus is a sovereign healer, and he does as he wills and as he pleases, and he has purposes in what he's doing and why he does it.

23:53

You can't turn any of it into a formula. Then you can't say, well, yeah, just, you know, if you don't have faith, you know,

24:00

God will heal you. So everyone who doesn't have faith come forward for healing today. That doesn't make any sense. And then you can't say, if you have enough faith,

24:07

God will heal you. Just believe and he'll heal you. You cannot turn his healing power into a formula.

24:13

That's what I would say to that. There's beautiful instances in which he's moved with compassion, the

24:19

Bible says. And that word compassion is translated directly. If you were to just do a literal translation,

24:26

I believe it's good bowels. And you know the word, and it's that stirring up in the stomach.

24:33

It's your stomach is turning in knots. You feel compassion. That's the word that's used in the Gospels of Jesus feeling compassion.

24:39

He feels compassion for people. Why? They're in need. Others, the buddies who lower their friend through the roof.

24:46

Jesus is obviously impressed with that and heals the man. So there's a lot of instances in which what

24:54

Christ is impressed with is their faith. It pleases him that they know who he is.

24:59

Like with the disciples, who do you say that I am? You're Christ, son of the living God. They say you're Elijah. They say you're this.

25:04

They say you're that. So faith does please the Lord, but you cannot turn his healing ministry into a formula.

25:12

And John 5 is a really humbling and helpful example of that. In the Gospel of John, I'll just add to this real quick.

25:19

In the Gospel of John, there are seven signs. And only in one of those miracles could it be argued that faith was involved in that.

25:25

So you have the turning of water into wine. Was there faith involved with that? Well, Mary just said, look, whatever he tells you to do, do.

25:31

So was that faith? That's a little ambiguous whether she was just saying... This was the first of Jesus' signs.

25:38

So it's not like she had seen him do miracles and thought to herself, oh, water, wine, just do whatever he tells you to do.

25:43

He'll take care of it. It doesn't even sound like that is really an expression of faith on Mary's part. The second miracle is the healing of the nobleman's son in chapter four.

25:52

In that instance, there is faith because the nobleman's son said, if you just say the word, come and heal my son.

25:58

And Jesus says the word. And it says the man believed the word that Jesus said, and he went his way and found out the way that his son was healed.

26:04

Then there is in chapter five, the healing of the man at the pool. That man's faith was not involved with that.

26:10

So the healing of the nobleman's son so far is the only sign where you could say that faith is present. The third sign or the fourth sign is the feeding of the 5 ,000.

26:19

And it's not like the disciples say, why don't you just multiply some bread and fish? Jesus said, have them sit down in groups and we'll feed them.

26:25

And the disciples say, where are we going to get food for these people? They had no idea what was coming. The next miracle is Jesus walking on water.

26:30

There's no faith that's in John chapter six. There's no faith involved in that. Then you got John chapter nine, the healing of the man born blind.

26:36

That man didn't even know who it was or who Jesus was. Jesus encountered him and healed him. And the man didn't even know who it was who had done that.

26:43

And it was not until later when he confronts Jesus or Jesus confronts him that that man understands that Jesus, makes that confession and is born again, saved then.

26:51

And then you have the raising of Lazarus from the dead. There's no faith involved in that, because when

26:57

Jesus says to her, I'm the resurrection, says to Mary and Martha, I'm the resurrection of the life. They said, well, we know that we'll all rise on the last day.

27:03

Yeah, they don't get it. Yeah, so they don't get it. They don't even, they're not understanding that right then he's saying, I have the ability to raise him from the dead. So in out of the seven signs in John's gospel, there's only one of them where faith could be said to be instrumental in the miracle itself.

27:15

And that's the healing of the nobleman. And the evidence there is that he is not even, that guy is not even a

27:23

Jew. And really he had just heard what Jesus was able to do. And so his faith, obviously, he's not somebody traveling around with Jesus who sees this and has known this.

27:32

He has heard the word and he believes that Jesus can do this. And he takes a pitch at it. So no faith, obviously is not,

27:39

I made this point to Michael Brown, Sam Storms, and we're having a round table discussion because they brought up faith is necessary. And if faith is there, then

27:44

God can heal. And I made the same presentation to them basically in real short. What'd they say? Not much.

27:54

Can you talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Why do Pentecostal churches emphasize this? Is this something that releases more power to the believer as they would think?

28:03

Such a loaded, I should have done. Well, this is prosperity gospel, but I could have done a session on some of that.

28:13

Can I change Sunday school tomorrow? From sanctification to baptism and filling? I just preached on sanctification.

28:19

So you could do that. So good. Thank you. Why don't you tell me that? Yeah. I thought, well, we'll see if what he says is true.

28:29

I have my laptop with me on the trip. I'm changing. Can I, I'll teach on that tomorrow at Sunday school. Yeah. Are you guys good at that?

28:36

All right. Is that okay? Yeah. And basically what we'll find quite quickly, maybe I'll stay up late tonight and do some

28:41

PowerPoints for it too. It'd be fun. I have charts in the book, the spirit book coming out in September. I love charts.

28:47

You like Venn diagrams? Totally. I like it visually. I'm like, I need you in the, you know where I was going with that.

28:53

The vice president loves Venn diagrams. Go ahead. If you could do a Venn diagram for us. This is great.

29:01

You will find so quickly just cursory overview of the book of Acts. In the instances where tongues are pouring out and there's the baptism of the

29:12

Holy spirit, there's a specific purpose in it. There's a sign that's happening. And in those, the

29:18

Jews who thought they were it are like, oh, the Gentiles are getting it too. It's all purposeful.

29:25

It's not an explosion of baptism of fire everywhere. And all it Pentecost had come.

29:31

So there's instances and God is using it as a clear sign. You've got unbelieving Jews. You have the word going out.

29:37

You have the church being birthed. It's very unique in particular. What Pentecostals and Charismatics do is they latch onto that as the normative experience.

29:46

And what they're often doing is taking the book of Acts, which is mostly descriptive, telling us the narrative of what was happening and how the church was birthed and making it prescriptive.

29:59

Like you must now have Pentecost. All of you want to be baptized and the Holy spirit filled speaking in tongues and they're using terms like baptism, filling tongue.

30:09

They've conflated a number of different things that the Holy spirit does. So tomorrow I will, uh, we'll have some fun in Sunday school.

30:17

That sounds good. Mark 9, 38 through 41. Whoever's not against us is for us is a common argument against calling out false teachers.

30:25

What are your thoughts on this? Well, they are against us because they're false teachers. So they're not for us.

30:31

They're against us. They're against God because they teach false things. So that is a bad argument.

30:39

And you should read a book on logical fallacies. All right. Uh, from online, in your opinion, is it okay to stay in a church where a handful of the congregants display hyper charismatic behaviors, but the rest don't.

30:53

So imagine that scenario. We're in a church. We've got hyper charismatic behavior. You'd have to define, are we talking hand raising, swaying this stuff?

31:03

You know, I don't know. I sit up front, so I don't know if we have hand raising here, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider that hyper charismatic.

31:09

So there could be six or seven hand raisers in your church and you don't know. I know

31:15

I should be guarding the flock. I should be up here looking out at everybody. It's true. It's true.

31:21

Okay. We have a number in our church. Hand raisers. Yeah. I give the fist pump too. How do you sing some of these hymns and songs about like in Christ?

31:29

And I'm like, sorry, everyone. I'm not going back. I'm fired up about Jesus. Like, let's go.

31:36

You know, let's do it. I'll allow it. Yeah, you come preach. Justin was there, you know.

31:42

Yep. Sometimes I see him stand up when he's singing. Justin, we love you.

31:50

You should be here. Oh, I, so hyper charismatic behaviors.

31:56

Let me, I don't know who asked the question or what the context, but let's do a small spectrum.

32:01

Okay. You have what we just described. Please stay in the church. I'm sure there's a hand raiser or two here.

32:07

Just excited about Jesus or they haven't caught on yet. They're not allowed to raise their hands in Jim Osmond's church.

32:13

And so we're just singing to Jesus. I joked with Scott Annieall, you know, from G3.

32:18

He had those articles about hand raising and I joked with him at, we were at Shepherd's conference and I said something and he, we were laughing like in stitches about it.

32:30

And I, I just said to him, like, I look, you, I'll be willing to get like, I can give up some hand raising, or if you want to compromise, you want to do a little hand raising.

32:38

I think we can work that. We were joking about something and we were laughing, having a great time. I think you got a lot of, um, good, broad fences there generally with like how someone just gets excited in, in worship.

32:53

Uh, Austin Duncan sometimes raises his hand, you know, John MacArthur, Austin Duncan, they haven't run them out of town yet.

32:59

And there's always like two or three guys out of the 6 ,000 at chef con that raised their hands and we let them keep coming.

33:04

So, um, but then hyper charismatic behaviors. If you got someone over in the corner doing the like, you know, all this stuff, like, no, that's needs to be dealt with.

33:16

Uh, you shouldn't stay there per se. And here's what we have to be asking.

33:21

This would be prudence. Do I have children who are observing these behaviors? If they are, am

33:29

I prepared to raise my children in a church where every single week while I, while daddy has explained that that's actually not biblical, but they continue to do it, then it's like telling my kids it's not okay to speed, but then

33:42

I just always speed. They're like, okay, so we don't follow. Is this just, is a general rule of thumb or this is something you're serious about?

33:50

Does God say it or does he not? Is that true tongues or not? And so I think you have to gauge that also with teaching.

33:58

Like, are we talking second blessing stuff? Are we talking, you know, healing service stuff?

34:05

This comes down to the leadership. Is the behavior being, is the behavior demonstrated on behalf of the leadership, the worship team, and people there?

34:13

So you have people in the congregation maybe who are not on board with that, but then you have the tongues talking and praying in the spirit and apostolic words coming from the platform.

34:21

That would be different than a little old lady sitting in the back who spins a ribbon. Yeah, the flag, you know, the flag wavers.

34:27

I remember going to a vineyard. It's a ribbon ministry. It is. We have two or three here. You do?

34:33

Yes, we could. Do you? No. Oh. I remember going to a church in Texas, went and visited, and preached the gospel.

34:42

It was a sweet Sunday. And I looked in the bulletin and it said, please reserve all flag waving and dancing in the spirit for the northeast corner of the sanctuary.

34:50

True story. And I was just looking at the bullet and I looked over. Sure enough.

34:56

There they all were. You know, there's some different strokes for different folks there.

35:04

But yeah, you want to gauge the spectrum, and I'd be careful.

35:09

But no, we're not talking about someone singing loud, raising their hands, excited about the

35:16

Lord, people in the church that are new or that are older Christians, and just they love

35:23

Jesus. And they're like, I ain't no charismatic. I'm just singing loud. Get over it.

35:28

And you're great. Yeah, be careful. But yeah, if there's a pocket of it, you may just want to worship somewhere else and say, love you guys.

35:38

I'm going to just kind of go over here without the ribbons. And for us, the northeast section of the sanctuary would be right over here.

35:44

So we couldn't do that. All right. How might I approach communicating with friends who have left truth behind and gone to Bethel School of Ministry when arguing is pointless?

35:59

Oh, case by case. Do they want to talk when they get into town and hang out? Great. Are they a

36:05

Bethel apologist? Like where they say, hey, I know we've talked before, but now that I'm back,

36:10

I want to tell you, you're still completely wrong. They're amazing. You're like, we need to keep talking like you're, or versus someone else that has been flagrantly clear about where they stand.

36:23

And they don't really want to have a relationship or a friendship. I find it increasingly challenging, and I'm not trying to be narrow -minded when

36:30

I say this, but I'm finding it increasingly challenging to get past a simple, shallow lunch, talking about sports, and that's kind of it, or whatever, the weather, with someone who is an ardent defender of Bethel and their theology.

36:54

There's just nothing left to talk about. Not that we can't enjoy common grace and just enjoy life and love.

37:01

Like I have family members. I love you, and it's good to see you, but if you're going to defend an active heretic,

37:06

I just have less to say. There's no active fellowship, grounds for fellowship. No, and that's what levels up fellowship and levels down fellowship.

37:17

So if we're, hey, Kost, Uncle Benny, he's so different. We're telling you he's changed, and I'm going, great.

37:26

When are we going to talk about this publicly and make sure everybody knows in the body of Christ that he's different? Well, that's not how it works.

37:33

All right. Fellowship goes down. What do you do with that? You can't just look over and go, oh, well, you're my lining

37:41

Christ, my Lord, my Savior. No big deal. So case -by -case basis, you've got to try and share truth with them as best you can, gauge them as far as what their commitment level is and what their receptiveness and openness is.

37:56

What did the process of grief look like for you and your wife as you lost community? Because you certainly did. And what were some of the main comforts and counsels that you were given?

38:06

Yes, I went through a stage where I was very angry internally. I had a lot of anger, a lot of frustration.

38:13

And sometimes she would just say, you're all right. I'm like, I'm fine. She'd say, no, you're not.

38:19

I go, no, I am fine. You know, she's like, okay, this is crazy, ridiculous.

38:26

You're like, what? I'm like, no money, just sitting here, broke, like no family.

38:32

I mean, you know what my life is. And you're like, all right. I mean, you have me, like we have each other.

38:38

I'm like, I know, but it's just, it's not the same. And I was going through, that's when

38:43

I went and got biblical counseling. And seriously, went and met with this older gentleman who was helping me, you know, quantify what it means to lose your whole identity.

38:55

What I thought was my identity, because it was. I'm a hen, my family, like we're top of the world, king of the hill.

39:03

There's strength in that. Even you could understand, we all can, the strength of your own family even now.

39:11

Like if you have siblings or if you are one and you're like, we're the so -and -so brothers, like my kids already have that.

39:19

Like the hen girls, there's three of them. And my boys, like my sons, like they're, I have that now. We have a family.

39:25

When you lose all that, you lose a sense of security, stability, a sense of care.

39:31

Like, I don't know these people at the church at that time. Like, who are they? They would, how do I trust them? They'll leave me in a heartbeat.

39:37

I don't know what's what. And I'm newlywed. So I'm going, okay, I know,

39:42

I love her. I know her, but like here we are in this apartment. Everything that I've known for 27 years is done.

39:50

And all I have is, I met this gal in 2009. Now I'm married to her.

39:57

So my longest lasting relationship or friendship with the person closest to me is two years, my own wife.

40:03

And then the longest friend I had would have been about six or seven years, one of my baseball buddies. But that wasn't like deeply rooted in theology.

40:11

Everything else, gone. And then all these new people that, you know, my family's heretics and we're all crazy.

40:19

And they're right, but there's no level of relationship. So I went through that. And it's hard, the grieving process.

40:26

How long was it? I would say I was in biblical counseling for a solid year straight.

40:33

And I remember Tony, Pastor Tony said to me once a few months in, he was like, you meet with someone?

40:41

I was like, yeah. He's like, keep it up. I was like, really, what's going on?

40:48

He's like, I don't know. You just seem like clear headed. Things are getting stable. You feel good? I said, yeah, I do. I kind of figured out who

40:54

I am and who he is and like how this all works. He's like, yeah, you'll be all right. Keep going. And I would talk to him.

41:00

We had a lot of talks. But at some point it was like, man, I think you need to go like sit with a biblical counselor, like life, leadership, emotions, all of it.

41:10

And sift through. You got to sift through the rubble. You got to kind of deconstruct and reconstruct all of it.

41:16

And I'll be here. I'll disciple you. But you need to go see an older man. And at the time, I'll tell you who else was really helpful, is

41:22

I mentioned them in my testimony with Travis Allen and Jay Flowers from Grace to You. Those guys were so helpful.

41:29

And I would call them for wisdom. I was spinning. And it's just an example of how young converts need discipleship.

41:36

They need to sit with their pastors. Maybe they came out of something crazy and you get some counsel and have some good older brothers in the faith that just you go to, you call once in a while.

41:45

They tell you, nope, you're crazy. That's weird. Nope, you're wrong. Yep, that's true.

41:51

Here's what to do about that. And remember what God says, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then fourth, all right, back, go serve.

41:58

Truth in time. All right. You hang up the phone. You're like, okay, I got to grow up and figure this out.

42:04

And so I would say in total to be at a place where I felt spiritually healthy and in my right mind, so to speak, like renewed in the mind and could quantify everything, about three to four years total from 2012, 2013 to where it was 2015.

42:23

And I was in seminary and most everything made sense. It was just now the tension of figuring out how to coexist with family members.

42:32

And we've talked a ton about that, where how do you deal with grace and truth? But yeah. And then after that, a year later,

42:37

I started writing and that I'd never really written a lot. And it became a way to sift through things.

42:45

I'd think about a topic and go, well, let me write a paper. So I used to give Tony papers that he never asked me to do.

42:51

And I wrote blog articles for no one that no one read except my wife. And it was because I was sitting in my office day after day thinking about a topic, looking at the

43:02

Bible, looking at commentaries, studying a ton and going, so that's what that means.

43:08

And these guys are nuts. Okay. And then Tony would say, hey, why don't you teach that in a small group?

43:14

Okay. So I would teach it. So it was really like that. I don't know. Does that make sense?

43:20

Yeah. No. How do you personally teach rightly about conviction and illumination while rejecting language like God told me?

43:29

Well, God did tell me through His Word. And the Holy Spirit illumined my mind to see what

43:37

God had written and told me in His Word. And now I can rightly see it and rightly understand it.

43:43

And so obviously I'm using the same language, but I know what the person means. Illumination, the

43:50

Holy Spirit's work, opening up our mind or our eyes, the light bulb moment, if you will. And then, well,

43:57

God told me. Typically, we would see illumination as God opening your eyes or your mind, let's just say it like that, to the reality of what has already been revealed.

44:11

So you're looking at Scripture and it's the, has that always been there?

44:16

Moment. There it is. God told me is special revelation, that God is directly speaking to you.

44:27

And I would create very clean categories between the two. So I can easily say that I'm letting the

44:35

Word of Christ dwell within me richly, that I have the 1 Corinthians 2 mind of Christ, that I'm filled with the

44:40

Holy Spirit, that I am devoting myself to prayer, and I'm illumined by the

44:46

Spirit of God, studying the Scriptures, and I'm not receiving any type of special revelation.

44:54

I'm going to be filled, though, with conviction. Like some of you, who's our

45:00

Ministry Gamer evangelist, getting super fired up the last session.

45:07

So was I. Why? Gospel. All the evangelists in the room are like, yeah, let's go, shouting amen.

45:14

So what is that? Man, the Lord really stirred my heart with conviction.

45:20

It's His Word. So you're being filled. So we would use different language. I feel such a strong conviction.

45:27

Pastor, just Jim. You said, just call you Jim. Okay, Jim. I feel such a strong conviction to go share the gospel with my neighbor today.

45:37

I had meant to the other day and I chickened out, but today I'm going to do it. Why? Well, I'm just stirred with conviction.

45:45

I'm reminded again that someone else would say, I just feel like God told me

45:51

I need to share the gospel with my neighbor. Well, no, you don't feel like God told you. He did tell you through His Word.

45:58

And now you're filled with conviction. Or we might say, I have such a strong desire to love my wife more sensitively and more thoughtfully after reading 1

46:13

Peter 3. And that was so clear to me when I read today.

46:18

Just say that. Why? Well, because you read God's Word. You renewed your mind. You want to do it.

46:26

And so you go do it. Our vernacular is often like, I feel like God spoke to my heart. Well, you feel with your feelings, your emotions, your heartbeats.

46:34

And well, I feel like God told me. You do? Because if God told you like He did tell people in the Bible, you wouldn't, you'd feel fear.

46:41

And you would definitely not feel like He spoke to your heart or feel like He told you. You'd say, God told me to do this.

46:49

So, or like, I'm just really listening in contemplative prayer right now, Jim. And I'm just listening for that still small voice.

46:59

What? As Justin Peters loses his mind. Still small voice.

47:04

Like, what? What is that? How do you know which voice, which small voice was the

47:09

Spirit of God? So, stick with God's Word. God did tell you.

47:16

And when you sense a strong conviction or you're filled with zeal or impulse to do something in line with God's Word, just give the

47:26

Holy Spirit credit. The Spirit of God is going to stir you with conviction unto obedience.

47:33

He will. When you read God's Word. When Paul says, let the Word, in Colossians 3 .16, that the

47:38

Word of Christ dwells in you richly. And then he goes on to say what's going to happen. You're going to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

47:44

You've got all this fellowship and worship that explodes. You have this thankfulness in your heart and this obedience. You go over to Ephesians in the parallel passage.

47:52

What in the world is going to happen? You got the Holy Spirit in you. So, we need to change our language.

47:58

God's Word is God's Word. We just need to be more clear. Would you, you obviously, you wrote the book,

48:04

God Doesn't Whisper. So, you've been so kind as an older brother.

48:12

Do you want to just school us for… I would just say use biblical language to communicate biblical concepts.

48:19

Boom. Oh, so concise. I wrote the book on it, so.

48:27

Do you think most of these prosperity preachers genuinely believe what they preach?

48:33

That the Holy Spirit really heals and prospers us? Or do they just play this story just for the money?

48:39

Oh, it's such a good question. 2 Timothy 3 .13 says, in the last days, evil men and imposters go from bad to worse.

48:46

Deceiving and being deceived. That, to me, is one of the more helpful explanations for a question like that.

48:53

Deceiving and being deceived. Yes, there were times where we really thought the stories that were told were as though we were

49:00

Elijah 2 .0. We really thought we were doing it.

49:05

And the talk was that. There were other times where you knew that something was fake, and everybody in the room knew it was fake.

49:15

And you kind of just like, well, that was, we needed to raise some money. So, that was a little far -fetched.

49:23

You just go on with your life. And you shove it under the rug and suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

49:29

So, the Bible does describe what was happening. It's Romans 1 .18. But, yeah.

49:35

So, would your uncle consider himself to be a deceiver? Would he look at his ministry and think, I'm tricking people?

49:41

No, no. He would say, we all make mistakes. I've made mistakes.

49:47

We all, nobody's perfect. But he's convinced that genuine miracles have taken place at his hands?

49:54

Yeah, for sure. Does he, has he at any of his crusades, when you've got all the people lined up in the wheelchairs, off the edge of the stage, paraplegics and all of that, does he, are there plants in there?

50:09

People that put on braces and come out of wheelchairs that they bring up out of them and they fabricate a healing to sort of prime the pump for the psychosomatic effect?

50:17

That's a really good question. So, I don't have factual knowledge. And if I did, I would tell it.

50:25

There might be some edits on the material from last night. I told everything.

50:32

I gave you guys updates from like three days ago, that I want to let cook a little bit. But there, so I would tell you,

50:39

I have no factual knowledge of planted people, fake healed people.

50:44

I don't. I definitely know that there were people who would want to get on stage or they would come up and they just wanted to get on stage at a

50:53

Benny Hinn or they wanted him to pray for them. And so they would fake a healing to get up there. And the doctors after would check them and none of that would check out.

51:02

I also have factual knowledge of actual people saying they were healed and they weren't.

51:09

And, but the ministry said they were. And that, and those people in a psychosomatic way, got all the feels and all the adrenaline.

51:18

And they're like, yeah, I talked to a gentleman, a young man, actually a shepherd's conference after talking to him at my church, in the food truck line at Chepcon, he came up and we had a really good moment because he was mad at me.

51:31

It, when I talked to him at my church, he had come to visit and he had said that he got healed at Bethel, but the pain came back and he thinks it's because it was his lack of faith.

51:39

And I said, no, it wasn't. You got healed on that foot. He had cerebral palsy. And he said, I said, you got healed.

51:44

And he had an injured foot at the same time. So like double whammy. And I said, no, you got healed on that foot because you were all fired up.

51:50

You were walking around limping around because you got the adrenaline rush of a couple thousand people shouting your name and being excited for you.

51:57

And there's a human element there that was tapped into. And it's that rush. It's the same reason why people lose their minds at a sporting event.

52:04

They forget that they have to go to work the next day and their face is painted. They're shirtless on ESPN, waving their thing around.

52:10

Their wife's like, are you nuts? It's like you, you, you lost yourself because the adrenaline, same reason why athletes don't feel certain levels of pain when they get hit.

52:21

Why? They're just the adrenaline. So, but now you got injured and your doctor said it's worse.

52:27

And it's not because lack of faith. It's because it was fake. And he was super upset with me. And I said, I mean that in love, brother.

52:32

I want to pray for him, be his friend. He was upset. Comes to me at a shepherd's conference a couple of years later.

52:40

And in the food truck line, it says, hey, I said, hey, you're here. Yes, you're here. That's awesome.

52:45

And he said, yeah, I got to say, man, I'm sorry. I, I didn't, it was just hard what you had said.

52:51

And I kind of knew it was true, but I didn't want it to be true. So, I started watching

52:56

Justin Peters. I started watching YouTube and blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, a typical story. And he said, and I realized that it was very adrenaline based, psychosomatic.

53:07

And so, stuff like that all the time. I will also say that all the, you know, you can't have that many rented or that many stadium wheelchairs.

53:18

That many rented wheelchairs, not many wheelchairs that look identical. People who come to crusades have their own wheelchairs.

53:26

And when you line them all up on the platform and most of them look like airport wheelchairs.

53:35

Maybe that's a red flag because that many people don't use airport wheelchairs.

53:42

In all your time in that movement, did you ever see any legitimate healings or miracles that you can say,

53:50

I saw this, I was there and everything else was fake this one time? No. Not once?

53:55

No. I saw the opposite. I saw moments that shook me to my core, made me cry, made me wonder why

54:01

God wouldn't heal them. Yeah, no, no genuine healings.

54:08

You want to know an interesting story? Really interesting. And I say this with respect to God's will and what could happen.

54:16

But when Timothy got diagnosed with cancer, we went through a few months and the elders, really kind, the elders at Grace Community Church, I was there for a meeting.

54:28

And Pastor John was really kind. He said, hey, come to the elder meeting and we'll pray for Timothy tonight.

54:36

I was like, really? He's like, yeah, we'll pray for him and he'd be encouraged.

54:42

I was like, okay. So I'm sitting there and the elders had their whole meeting and you can go to the first half and I was able to sit.

54:51

And they prayed for Timothy. And I remember Pastor John saying,

54:56

Lord, if it be your will, sustain him, heal him, sustain his days, extend his days.

55:04

If it be your will, he prayed both sides. And so, and since then, like if I have one instance where a situation has either turned around or just completely gone a different direction.

55:17

So since then, Christine and I both, we haven't written down the date in like a little journal she had. There was never a single incident more with Timothy after the elders of Grace Community Church and John MacArthur prayed for his cancer.

55:33

So the irony is... Timothy is thick. It is, guys. So thick. So here's what we have to do.

55:39

Here's what we have to do. You have to look at the course of Timothy's life. And one day, we'll basically all be dead.

55:46

And the proof would be if Timothy keeps living and he has a great life, then there's been one particular person that I know of who was, quote unquote, healed or that didn't succumb to cancer, who had it.

55:59

And it's Timothy. And it's because John MacArthur prayed for his healing. The cessationists, too.

56:05

The cessationists. People say they believe in spiritual gifts. So I say that. All true. That's all true.

56:10

But I do say that to say that so many people give a bad rap to you or Justin or Pastor John or other people and cessationists don't believe in healing.

56:20

They just, oh, just suffer and die. You know, if you go to that church. It is fascinating to me.

56:29

And I'm thankful. And yet, other people, you know, his cancer could come back. I'm aware.

56:35

So it's the, we are at the mercy of God and His sovereignty. And so even in that, like for all the hooting and hollering, cancer won't touch this house and yelling in Jesus' name and laying hands on people and blowing on them and throwing jackets at them and putting olive oil on people and all the stuff that we would do.

56:57

Not one actual healing. My own mother had a tumor on her pituitary gland.

57:09

My uncle has a heart condition. This is not unknown. People died in the ministry.

57:18

Actual people on the team. Like there were drug overdoses. There was sickness. There was divorces.

57:24

There was adultery. You think about that. And it should humble us to go, even in circles of sound doctrine, just to go,

57:35

Lord, keep us pure. Keep us faithful. Keep us humble. If you would, by your will and power and your mercy, allow the sustaining of life for others.

57:46

If you would heal, if you would protect, okay. If you would allow trial and suffering, okay. Whatever God says, whatever my

57:53

God ordains is good. That, just stay there. And so all that to say, that's our mentality.

58:02

Not one single healing ever. Two last questions that'll wrap this up and kind of bring us back to your conversion story and testimony that we started with last night.

58:14

What other faith teachers have you met? Obviously your uncle, you mentioned Oral Roberts. What are the other ones that you have personally met with and interacted with?

58:21

Paula White was one. We had an interesting Christmas with her one year. That's all I'll say about that.

58:31

Crouches? Oh, all of them. So I live, my roommate in Dallas, one of them was

58:37

Brandon Crouch, their grandson. Good friend of mine. All the way through that era.

58:43

Did he come out of that movement? He did. So Brandon is definitely out of there. And a little more jaded, not in ministry.

58:52

He's not preaching at this point. He's in media. This is the grandson of the founders of TBN, Paul and John Crouch.

58:57

And his dad, to give you kind of an idea of our relationship now, I love hockey, big hockey fan.

59:04

The Toronto Maple Leafs are my favorite team. They're in the playoffs and they won, they beat, they got out of the first round for the first time in 20 years, the playoffs.

59:13

And so like Dallas Cowboys fans can feel my pain as far as like, yeah. And when they won this overtime winner just several weeks ago,

59:22

I got a FaceTime and it was Brandon and it was Paul Jr., his dad, who I love them both dearly.

59:28

They both got X from that whole world. And they had FaceTimed me and they were like, yeah, yelling at my phone.

59:34

And I was like, yeah, my wife's like, cool. I'm like, Brandon. She's like, what? You know, it's been years since we've really talked, but hockey was our bond.

59:41

He loved hockey. Um, then we used to have, he and I, before all the fallout, unfortunately for them, because they got cut off.

59:49

Because his sister was in the accounting department and dealing with money and went after, uh, she's kind of a blue collar straight shooter and didn't like the shenanigans and went after her grandfather and started saying there's things we're doing wrong.

01:00:05

I'm not signing these checks. And that was the end of her. That's Brandon's sister.

01:00:10

So lots of drama, all that stuff. But in the end, uh, we used to go to, we'd show up to a restaurant, particular restaurant in Orange County with our board shorts straight from the beach and go eat with Paul senior and new

01:00:24

Jan. My, my mom was cooking for Oral Roberts as her, my, my mom loves to cook.

01:00:29

She's a very gifted cook. She was driving down Pacific coast highway, PCH in California to Oral Roberts's house in Newport before he died.

01:00:39

And cooking for him once a week and talking with him. Like this is just before he died. So the whole family, like TBN, uncle,

01:00:48

Oral Roberts, that orbit pretty heavy. Went to praise the

01:00:54

Lord. We saw all that. And he met Kenneth Copeland. Yes. Met Kenneth Copeland once.

01:01:01

Do you remember Carmen? Yeah. The music singer. Yeah. You remember Carlton Pearson? All of them as well.

01:01:10

Kenneth Copeland was my hero growing up because he had these shows.

01:01:16

One of them was called, he had covenant rider. Did you know he was an actor?

01:01:22

I know he did a movie recently. Oh no, no. He, he like acted when I was a kid, he was a cowboy.

01:01:29

He was Wichita slim. That's his name. And these, these, so gospel bill.

01:01:36

No, any of that? Nope. All right. They should have called it false gospel bill, but they were so good at, you know,

01:01:43

I just remembered they were so good at media. So good at media and using media to leverage and to get into homes and to get into people's his daughter,

01:01:52

Kelly. So commander Kelly and the super kids was one of their shows. They produced like high dollar, high value, high creativity.

01:02:00

So they were all like to meet them and see them and use their stuff.

01:02:06

All heroes. Trying to think of any others, but that was never met

01:02:11

Joyce Meyer. Never met Osteen. Do you know of anybody else?

01:02:16

Final question. Do you know of anybody else who is like you in that? They've come out of that movement, being close to it as you were been saved and now are sound in doctrine, whether or not they're in ministry or not is irrelevant, but they're sound in doctrine now, clear thinking and trying to reach people inside that movement.

01:02:31

Do you know anybody else? One. Morris Cirillo's grandson, Michael Cirillo.

01:02:38

He's a dear brother. Met him. He's in like marketing or something like that.

01:02:43

He came out. He was going to a reform church in San Diego and then working for Michael Horton doing graphics and media.

01:02:50

And I met him. We did some podcasts with Michael, Dr. Horton and Michael talked about his story.

01:02:58

Michael Cirillo and shared some of his story. He's one. And I would say he's saved and solid, not just like jaded and spat out.

01:03:12

That's kind of it, which kind of stinks because I don't want to be the only one, right?

01:03:19

There's lots of people and that's what I would delineate is I'm one of just many. There's many, many, many who've come out of the movement, come out of the movement.

01:03:27

That's all I am is I'm just another convert. But to be in those families and things like that, that's what

01:03:33

I say is the kind of what stinks is I wish. I wish more would and what the issue is this your whole not saying it's harder for God to save anyone.

01:03:45

He can save anyone, but your whole life is wrapped up in that your livelihood, your identity.

01:03:51

There's something just. Deep about it that.

01:03:58

You almost have to have like a program in your church. It's like a missions program.

01:04:03

It says, like, if you leave, we'll like give you housing and pay your bills for three years and rehabilitate.

01:04:12

You need a rehab center. I say that like it's funny, but you do the if it wasn't for that church being willing to let me come out and be a part that the

01:04:22

Lord did it perfectly. So that's the part I sometimes wonder. I don't know all the answers to it, but I sometimes wonder in my own life, my

01:04:30

Lord, am I being open enough to if someone really needed help? Would they reach out to me? Would I be able to help what

01:04:36

I could? I ask people in my church to say, hey, we need to like rehab this person. They need to get away from this.

01:04:41

Could I? Because that's the issue with people who don't leave Scientology to and these other cults. Well, if I leave,

01:04:46

I'll have no family. I'll have no money. I'll have no food. I'll have no friends. I can't pay rent. And so now you leave, you forsake all for Christ.

01:04:56

But I still like people. There was a safety net like move out here.

01:05:02

We'll help you. Okay. But even then it wasn't like, hey, we'll save you from heresy.

01:05:08

It was like, whatever. It's costly. It's cool. Like it only came out after. So I don't know anyone else who did it, but I bet they're out there.

01:05:17

And I bet they're wondering. There's gotta be someone going, I'm done.

01:05:23

Maybe one day they'll call you. Can I move to Sandpoint? Yeah. Live in somebody's front yard or I'll pitch a tent.

01:05:29

They're likely to call me for sure. Not costly. I called Justin. Yeah. I knew stability when

01:05:36

I saw it. That guy. You haven't seen him walk then, have you? That is the definition of lack of stability.

01:05:48

And you're allowed to say that. He tells me I should write

01:05:53

Hallmark cards. So let's give

01:05:59

Costi a round of applause for his time. So we do have

01:06:07

Sunday school here tomorrow. If you come from another church, we're not asking you to stick around to be here for that.

01:06:13

We welcome you. If you want to stick around for that Sunday school and church tomorrow, Costi speaking for the main service, as well as adult

01:06:19

Sunday school class, which starts at 930. And again, if you have a chance to say thanks to one of the many volunteers, here's the dirty little secret.

01:06:28

Some of these volunteers pay the registration to come to the conference, and then they spend the time in the kitchen working and serving you and still sitting in on some of the sessions as they can.

01:06:37

So we wouldn't be able to do this without them. And then speaking of volunteers, if you are here and you know how to set up chairs afterwards when you set this up for the church service tomorrow.

01:06:47

So those of you who have helped set up chairs before, you know the drill, you know what the markings are at and what to do.

01:06:52

We appreciate a hand doing that. It takes us 15 or 20 minutes. And Costi will probably be hanging out in the foyer at the back of the sanctuary if you want to talk to people and take pictures and sign autographs.

01:07:03

What's that? Signed Bibles. Signed Bibles. That's right. All right. As the elder brother,

01:07:09

I will close in prayer. Father, we are grateful for this weekend that we've been able to have together for bringing

01:07:16

Costi here, that this has worked out. And again, we thank you that you have saved him, that you have sanctified him, that you have put him in ministry.

01:07:23

We thank you for his heart and his sound doctrine and the way that your spirit works through him and has spoken in and through your word to us today through Costi as your mouthpiece.

01:07:31

And we pray your continued blessing upon him and his ministry and reach to his family that you would be pleased to save them and draw them to your son so that they may have true salvation and experience genuine repentance and the forgiveness and begin to produce the fruits that bear evidence of repentance.

01:07:50

And so we would ask your blessing upon our time. We pray that the things that have been said here and what we have learned may serve to equip us and edify us and encourage us in the truth and give us the tools that we need to reach out to others who are lost in error and share the gospel, the true and living gospel with them.