March 4, 2022 Show with Derek Melton on “One Man’s Exodus Out From the Charismatic Movement & Into the Reformed Faith”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.

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

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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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 Friday on this fourth day of March 2022.

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Yesterday, if you were listening, you heard me having an excellent,

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I think a spectacular interview, and I'm not saying that to brag about my end of it, but to brag about my guest's end of the discussion.

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John O. Sims, a pastor of the Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church in Shelbyville, Tennessee.

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And after the program is over, he told me, you've got to get my dear friend Derek Melton, pastor of Grace Life Church of Pryor, Oklahoma, on the program.

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He is extraordinary, he is fascinating, and he's a very good friend of your friend,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. So James White definitely echoed those wonderful sentiments about Derek Melton, and it just so happens providentially that he had today available to conduct an interview, and it just so happens that we providentially had today open.

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So I am so thrilled to have Pastor Derek Melton on for the first time. He is a retired assistant chief of police at the

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Pryor Police Department in Pryor, Oklahoma, and he's also senior pastor at Grace Life Church of Pryor, Oklahoma.

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And today we are going to be addressing one man's exodus out from the Charismatic Movement and into the

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Reformed faith, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to On Interprets On Radio, Pastor Derek Melton.

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Thank you, Chris. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to be here with you today, and we pray that the Lord will use it to help some brothers and sisters out there listening.

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Amen. And if anybody does have questions specifically about the

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Charismatic Movement, but usually when we have a pastor on, we also broaden the spectrum of questions that we would invite you to ask on pastoral issues, since, as I said, our guest is a pastor.

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But we would prefer, obviously, that the topic, as many of you as possible, stick to the topic at hand, one man's exodus out from the

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Charismatic Movement and into the Reformed faith. And before I ask a couple of questions about Grace Life Church of Pryor, Oklahoma, and get the ball rolling with our interview,

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I just want to make it clear to our listeners that we are not going to be guilty of hate speech today against brothers in Christ with whom we disagree over the sign gifts, the

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Charismatic gifts, and so on. I know some very wonderful,

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God -honoring, and Christ -like brothers and sisters who are charismatic and Pentecostal, some of whom outshine me and are far more

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Christ -like in their walk with Christ than I have ever been.

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They are wonderful people. Now, of course, not everyone who is a charismatic would fit that description, or Pentecostal, and not everybody who is a

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Reformed Baptist would either. But, in fact, there are some very dangerous charlatans and dangerous people who are deceived themselves who are both leaders in the

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Charismatic and Pentecostal Movement and also members and followers in that movement.

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So, I think that it's just very wise and I think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with exposing error in the

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Church when you see it very clearly. And, in fact, let me add to that that there are even charismatic and Pentecostal Christians who support this show financially, even though they know my stance against those particular aspects of what they believe.

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In fact, there is one particular individual who is extremely generous financially to this program.

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But, of course, I can't let that compromise my faith, nor would these folks expect me to.

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And so we are going to be delving into our guest's testimony and also revealing why he felt compelled, not only from the

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Scriptures, but from the Holy Spirit, to abandon the

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Charismatic Movement and why he embraced Reformed theology and cessationism. But, first, before we go into any of that, tell our listeners about Grace Life Church of Prior, Oklahoma.

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Well, brother, we are a group of believers that love the Lord Jesus Christ and that want to honor and glorify

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Him with all that we have and are. We're lovers of the Scriptures, and we believe in the

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Holy Spirit. In fact, I was getting ready to get up and preach Sunday morning, and I got a text from John O'Simm. It just said this,

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I believe in the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen, brother. I need the Holy Spirit. So, you know, for those out there that would accuse guys like me that I've abandoned the

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Holy Spirit, it's just not true. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I need the

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Holy Spirit. He is the spirit of truth. He illumines the glories of Christ in the

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Scriptures to me, empowers me for service. And so, anyway, we are a group of believers that are pursuing the

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Lord, to glorify Him in every area of life. We believe that what the

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Bible teaches us is to be lived out, excuse me, in every gamut of life. We exist for the glory of God, and that's our passion, to make much of Him, to esteem

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Him. And we love the Scriptures because they put Christ on display. And so, we also are involved in outreach with troubled teenagers, and I'm sure we'll get to that.

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But for the last 29 years, we have been working with a program in our community that's ran by the

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National Guard for at -risk boys and girls. And we've been doing their pastoral ministry for the last 29 years.

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And I've been working with troubled teenagers for 31 years. Praise God.

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And the website, for those of you interested in finding out more about Grace Life Church of Pryor, Oklahoma, the website is gracelifepryor .org

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And you can find out all the information you need. And I especially urge anyone who lives in or near Pryor, Oklahoma to visit there, especially if you don't have a church home that's biblically sound.

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Or if you're visiting there on vacation, or if you have family, friends, and loved ones in that area,

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I hope that you would urge them to visit as well. Well, it's interesting that our theme today corresponds with something that we already do as a regular practice, as a tradition, as a custom, here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

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Whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony.

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And in this case, the whole program will very much involve not only your salvation testimony, but also your journey into coming to see and discover and embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace, also nicknamed

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Reformed Theology, also nicknamed Calvinism. And so, tell us about, let's start at the beginning, your upbringing, the religious atmosphere, if any, in the home in which you were raised.

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And we'll move forward from there. Okay. So I was raised in a

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God -fearing home. My mother is a retired educator, and my father is a retired business owner, he owned a steel company or two.

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And so, they took to the church on Sundays and Wednesdays in just a mainline denomination.

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So I grew up hearing the gospel in an elementary form, not that there was any deep doctrinal distinctives in our denomination, because there wasn't.

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But the fact of the matter was that they did teach and preach that Jesus came to die for sinners.

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So I grew up hearing that in church, but also hearing that in the home. You know, my parents were godly and loved each other, and they exemplified what marriage should look like.

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And my dad was a very hard worker, and provided for his family. In fact, they're both still alive.

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My dad is 83, my mom's 82, and they're both members of Grace Black Church. My mom actually teaches one of our small groups for the elderly ladies, we call them the

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Grannies of Grace, and plays the piano in our church. She taught music in the public school, and then also taught other grades as well.

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So, I grew up with that, but the problem was, was my depraved heart. I didn't believe the message of the gospel.

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And when the scriptures say that we are by nature children of wrath, that pretty much depicts who

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I was before Christ. I was an enemy of Christ. I was opposed to the gospel.

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I went through some religious hoops at a young age. I was a little boy in our denomination.

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We took communion every Sunday, and they wouldn't let you take communion unless you went forward and said the prayer.

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So, I did that because we didn't have those. I mean, I was seven. We didn't have those little cute cups at our house with the grape juice, and I wanted that.

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And so I went forward and went through their hoops and got baptized, but was still a rebel. And by the time

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I'm 14, 15 years old, I'm slipping out and drinking alcohol unbeknownst to my parents, using profane language and just rebelling against authority.

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My dad was a strict disciplinarian, so he wore me out as he knew best and needed to. But still there was something on the inside of me that was very resistant to the gospel and to the things of God, and I just was not having anything to do with it.

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I remember one particular occasion when one of my mom's dear, precious Christian friends came up to share the gospel with me.

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I was in my bedroom, and I made that precious sister cry, just so wicked and rebellious against authority and against the

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Lord. And so that was kind of the setting of my mom. I would come home late at night.

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I rodeoed in high school. I would fight a lot, drinking alcohol.

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Again, this was unbeknownst to my parents. It was all done out and away from them.

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Obviously, they would not have tolerated that at all. And I would find my mom in prayer, and I would come home late at night, and I knew she was praying for me because I was the black sheep of the family, to use that phrase.

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My brother was an honor roll student in school. My sisters were very obedient in school, and I was the kid that got spankings at school back when they did that.

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And my parents would have to meet with the teachers, and so I was... The whole community knew that there was something wrong with the second of the four

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Melton children, and I was the second of the four Melton children. In fact, when I was in the ninth grade,

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I was in FFA, and I sang that John Anderson song, I'm the black sheep of the family, and the whole community was there.

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And they all fell over on the floor laughing and slapped on the floor because the whole city knew, or town knew, that that was so true, because the other kids were...

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My brother and my sisters did good in school, never in trouble, nor obedient, but I was not.

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I was the opposite. I was the kid always in the principal's office. So to speed this up,

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I got into law enforcement when I was 20 years old. They put a badge and a gun on my depravity, and I was married.

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At that time, I got married when I was 19 years old to my wife, Stacy, now of 37 years, and things were not going well in our marriage because I was so selfish and sinful, drinking.

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So my parents, I know, were praying, and my dad had a couple, I call them, come -to -Jesus meetings with me.

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In fact, I remember a time when I was in my patrol car, running radar, and my dad come down there and had to come to Jesus with me.

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He yanked me out of my police car, a little embarrassing, and talked to me about embarrassing the family name.

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Yeah, I turned to the Lord. My dad is still a robust, manly man, and he just wouldn't tolerate one of his sons embarrassing his name and acting like an idiot, which

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I certainly was. So I remember they wanted me to go to church with them, and I had not been going.

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I did not want to go. My wife was on the verge of divorcing me. She was unconverted at the time, but unhappy in marriage with me, obviously because I was not being a good husband.

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I was gone with all my law enforcement buddies, drinking and partying, and she was then at home alone.

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She actually had ratted me out to my parents, and my sweet little daddy had to come yank a knot in my tail.

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I did go to church with them, as a little country church. It was not a gospel church at all, although we had grown up in a traditional church that had a semblance of the gospel.

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This church was borderline charismatic, but borderline probably very generous.

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To make a long story short, that didn't last long. The pastor ended up in a sexual affair with one of the women in the church, and that church abandoned.

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That just kind of drove me further away from the church and wanted nothing to do with it.

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I was really deeply disturbed by what had taken place. I had enough sense to know that a man that claimed to be a godly man shouldn't be doing those things.

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Now I had more excuses not to go to church anywhere. This was in between a career.

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I was in a smaller department. I had applied at the department I retired from and was hired at.

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I was actually hired by the fire police department in the mid -eighties. I went to work for them undercover.

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It was my first assignment. I was living with drug dealers and buying drugs and recording all those transactions.

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It was going to be quite an ordeal. I remember distinctly that my wife was now pregnant with our first child, my son

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Cody, who is involved in our ministry as well now. She was pregnant and I was in my pickup truck.

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I just stopped at the store and bought a pack of cigarettes and some snuff and was in the pickup truck and on my way home and just instantly and out of nowhere began to become really bothered about my life.

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Bothered about my how I treated my wife. Bothered about my sin.

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I saw myself in a way I had not saw myself before. I mean obviously

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I'd grown up hearing that we're all sinners but now I felt that I was a sinner.

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If that makes sense. I was deeply burdened and all

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I know is I knew that I'd been taught from the time I was a little boy to call out to the

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Lord and he will save. I remember in my pickup truck weeping.

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You know this big tough cop with a gun and a badge and by this time I'm actually working undercover and buying drugs from bad guys.

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I've driven down the highway weeping uncontrollably over my life and I cried out for the

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Lord to save me and the Lord saved me in my pickup truck and so that was a beginning.

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The story goes on. I went home to my wife and I walked in the front door and of course

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I'm sure my face was red and she looked at me and said what in the world has happened to you and I sat down with her and she had been praying for me and I just told her how

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I had turned to Christ and repented. I'm done. I actually threw the cigarettes out the window that I just bought and the snuff.

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I was done. I finished my undercover operation and now

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I'm out on patrol and it was just a fire burning in me to make

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Christ known and that kind of one thing led to another over the next four years I was doing juvenile crime and just began sharing what

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I knew about Christ with teenagers that were involved with law enforcement that were at risk, kids that were being arrested or whatever and sharing

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Christ and I wanted them to know the gospel and another interesting thing, this all plays into the transformation over the years that when

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I first was born again, when the Lord first rescued me I'd never read a piece of literature in my life

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I didn't like school, I just wanted to work obviously

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I had no plans of being a pastor but when the Lord saved me

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I just had this insatiable appetite to read Christian literature and I knew that something was not right, the experience in the church

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I was in just those few weeks of that pastor falling into sin, I knew the church, the modern church was what

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I knew about it was a myth I remember going to a bookstore, it wasn't even a

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Christian bookstore it was just a bookstore in our community and I visited with the guy that owned it and I said, listen,

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I want to read a Christian book, and I want it to be old,

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I don't want anything modern, I don't want to read anything that's been written in the last 100 years it plays into what happened because John Owen falls into my hands, mortification so the first book that this now preacher ever read in the history of my life was

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John Owen, I'm sitting here in my library, I see the volume sitting on my shelf right here. And you understood it when you were reading it?

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John Owen is a very difficult person. I would work through it, you know it's puritanical, you know

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I was determined that these older Christians had to have had something that's not present or prevalent in the church today and that really set the tune for my reading appetite, and so one thing led to another

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I'd go back, do you have any other books like this one? And I want another one, and so I would get one and read it, and so my library to this day is mainly of that sort of genre of literature,

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I'm a puritan fan. I'm amazed that a secular bookstore would even have John Owen.

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Was this a used bookstore, like a collectible? It's new and used books. Oh, okay.

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And by the way, that bookstore still is operating in our community. But anyway back to the story,

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I read that book and it really began, it just gripped me. It gripped me.

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So how I get off into Charismatic Church, a guy that I was working with, a dear friend of this very day

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I love him dearly, in fact his sister is one of our most faithful ladies in our church, and he lives in Texas, he invited me to go to church with him because I was not going to church faithfully because of the situation that had happened, and my wife and I had actually visited and gone a few times to an

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Assembly of God church at the invitation of my older brother, and I just was not,

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I just nothing was clicking with me there, I was not happy, and he invited me to go with him, and we ended up in a small church in our community that was a

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Word of Faith church. And so, I didn't know enough about theology at that time to know that the level of the air that was in that church.

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So this was, or should I say, was this before you yourself had experienced any

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Charismatic phenomenon? Right. Absolutely. And so we started going, and I'm thinking,

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I'm just supposed to trust the preacher, and trust what he says, and so, you know, we're there, and making friends in this church, and my buddy is like, you know, this is a good place for us to be, and I'm going to Bible studies at his house, and I'm just learning,

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I just don't know much. My doctrinal foundation is so thin, but I'm reading good stuff.

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Now, this is in the background, and I'm not it's not like I'm reading five books a week, and it's taking me time to get through some of these books, because they're heavy, and I'm bent, okay?

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I'm not the smartest guy that's ever been on the face of the earth. So over the course of time, there's a gospel formation, deep gospel formation that's taking place in me.

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And I'm sitting there looking at my library right now, and, you know, I'm seeing Thomas Manton, I'm seeing

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Thomas Boston, and Richard Sidds, and John Newton, and John Flavel, and so these are volumes that I'm beginning to read, and this is over the course of years.

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At the same time, you know, I'm in this church realm of this word of faith charismatic ideology that's being taught.

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And so, you know, at the same time, I love my pastor. I love his family.

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We have friends there that we love. We're trusting that they know what they're talking about.

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Now, did that pastor, just to I'm sorry for interrupting you, but did that pastor strike you as a sincere, genuinely

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Christian man who was himself deceived by the word of faith, or did he strike you as a charlatan, at least later on?

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Well, now looking back, I do see that there was a lot of red flags

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I didn't see. I mean, there were huge glaring red flags that I did not see.

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But still, at that time, being young, I'm in my early twenties, and I just trust that what he's saying is right.

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So, I don't have enough doctrinal formation to be able to defend a position at that time, but I trust him as a person and a friend.

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But yeah, looking back, you know, and obviously I've given this a million thoughts since then, there were things that were that should have been that should have been identified, but weren't.

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And let's pick up right where you left off, because we have to go to our first station break. And if anybody wants to join us on the air with a question for our guest today, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N - Z -E -N at gmail .com Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And I can readily see when we are discussing something as controversial as this, that there may be people who want to remain anonymous.

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You might be a charismatic person who is starting to question what you believe, what you've been taught, what you've been practicing, and you don't want to call attention to your identity at this point in your life if you're still in a charismatic or Pentecostal church.

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Or you may even be a pastor of a charismatic or Pentecostal church.

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In fact, years ago when I was broadcasting out of WNYG radio in Babylon, Long Island, New York, a pastor in a charismatic congregation who listened to my program heard a

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Reformed guest, in fact it was my dear friend, Pastor Bill Shishko, at that time of the

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, he now pastors a church plant from that congregation in Comack, Long Island, New York, the

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Haven. But this charismatic pastor heard an interview that struck him to the core, and he had to meet with Pastor Bill, and this man left the charismatic movement, resigned from his pastoral position, and to my knowledge is still not a pastor anywhere, but he just could not move on in good conscience obviously with pastoring a church when he didn't even agree with one of the main principles that they believed in and practiced.

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But you might be somebody in that same position, you don't want to identify yourself, that was a very long way of saying why some folks will obviously want to remain anonymous, and we will honor that request, but if it's just a general question about Derek Melton's testimony, about the scriptures, about theology and doctrine, if it's just a general question, please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence, don't go away.

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We'll be right back with Pastor Derek Melton of Grace Life Church of Pryor, Oklahoma on the theme,

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One Man's Exodus Out from the Charismatic Movement and Into the Reformed Faith. We'll be right back.

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This is Pastor Bill Sasso, Grace Church at Franklin here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support

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Hi, this is President Biden. I want to encourage you to listen to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio with Chris Arnzen.

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Now as you know as a lapsed heathen Catholic, I don't listen to it, but you should. Come on man, what do you have to lose?

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And we are back now with Derek Melton, retired assistant chief of police at the

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Pryor Police Department in Pryor, Oklahoma, and he is currently the senior pastor at Grace Life Church of Pryor, Oklahoma.

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We are discussing one man's exodus out from the charismatic movement and into the Reformed faith, if you have a question, and we already have some waiting to be asked and answered, but if you would like to get in line and if you have a question of your own, email it to chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence, unless you are remaining anonymous due to the question being over a very private matter.

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And right before the break, Pastor Derek, you were talking about how early on in your

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Christian life as a new babe in Christ, you began attending a church that was a

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Word of Faith Pentecostal church, you didn't really know anything about what that actually meant, but you started to develop a close relationship and develop a love for your pastor, and you, right before the break, were saying down the road or in hindsight, you realized that there were some red flags that were flashing and you missed those flags, you weren't discerning enough at that time to notice that there was something really amiss there, but if you could pick up where you left off.

39:00

So, you know, young and just not having any doctrinal knowledge, there were so many things that I did not see that now looking back are so evident and glaring.

39:13

But to make a long story short, there I bought into that movement.

39:20

I mean, it's embarrassing now, but some of the things that they taught that I was actually believing, you know, some of the sign -gift things, the speaking in tongues, their words of faith, you know, they would show you in the

39:37

Bible, and you're like, well, okay, okay. And although, you know, when those things were happening, they were just an uneasiness, you know, even then, you know, as a young man, very uneasy about them in the beginning, and of course over time as you're exposed to that more and more, that uneasiness begins to drift and to dissipate.

40:00

Now, mind you, I'm still at home whenever I'm finding time, I'm reading good literature, and so I'm going to keep that in the background because that's going to ultimately play in to this testimony as it goes on along.

40:14

And so we are there, and you know, from beginning to end, we were in that church about 10 years, from my early 20s until around my early 30s.

40:25

I had started listening to A .W. Tozer's preaching. I would buy his tape series, there were a couple different ones

40:33

I would listen to, and listen to him and some other guys kind of in that genre.

40:39

There are many guys that had a high view of God, high view of scripture, and it really caught my attention because it was sounding more and more like what

40:47

I was reading. Now, didn't Tozer have some kind of a belief in charismatic experience?

40:57

Something to do with extra -biblical revelation or something like that? Yeah, I think so.

41:04

You know, Tozer was big on the Catholic Mystics, and he did a lot of reading of Madame Gayon and Teresa of Avila.

41:11

Really? I didn't know that. Oh yeah, those were some of his heroes. But at the same time,

41:19

I mean, he was preaching some solid truth as well, but yeah, I think so. And so as far as the sign gifts and all that,

41:28

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think Tozer was a continuation guy. But anyway, my gospel formation is well underway, especially with what

41:40

I'm reading, and towards the end of my time in that movement, I mean, I would be on the night shift working street crimes or whatever, and I would be listening to preaching, and at that time

41:50

I would listen to David Wilkerson as well, some of his preaching tapes, especially the stuff where he'd be preaching on repentance.

41:57

Yeah, and it's interesting that Wilkerson, although a charismatic, clearly, he was very, very opposed to the

42:05

Word of Faith movement, and he also had a massive Reformed library, including many volumes by Puritans, and I'm almost certain

42:15

Banner of Truth even had him endorsed one of those books, or it might have been another publisher that published a

42:21

Reformed book by a Puritan that he wrote a commendation for the cover.

42:28

But anyway. Christian Incomplete Armor. Okay, there you go. Yeah. And so anyway,

42:35

I'm listening to Wilkerson preach, and I'd have this stuff going in my police car, and I'd pray, and I would go to church on Sunday, get off at 6 in the morning, and go home and change, and get things ready for my pastor, and it is here or something, and I'm beginning to have a very uneasy, burdened issue in my heart as I'm there, because what

42:59

I'm hearing is something different than what I'm reading, something different than what even

43:04

I've been listening to in the police car. And so as time goes on, that burden gets more and more and more pronounced.

43:15

By the time I'm just completely done with the charismatic movement, and this was in the latter part of the 90s, and I just abandoned it altogether.

43:26

I'm done with this. 1999, I planted what now is Grace Life Church. We then were

43:32

Prior Creek Community Church. I'm preaching the gospel.

43:38

I'm preaching on what true conversion is, obviously, and I'm an Arminian at this point, but yet a high view of Scripture, a high view of God, and we walked along that way, and because of people knowing that I was in the charismatic church, that flavor of people started coming to the church

43:57

I was pastoring. Interesting. Yeah, because they knew that I'd been in that movement, so but I'm preaching repentance.

44:06

I'm preaching a high view of God. In fact, from 2009, I had been listening to Paul Washer preaching, and he just really, really spoke to my heart.

44:18

I really loved his proclamations. I loved his style. I mean, I loved the message.

44:25

I loved the strong, bold, confrontational preaching, and I was listening to him, and that was the first time

44:31

I'd ever been introduced to Jeff Noblitt and Anchored in Truth, True Church Conference. By the way, were you there at the last one?

44:38

Because I was there, and I was absolutely blown away. That was such a phenomenal event. Yeah, I was there.

44:46

We are actually a church plant of Grace Life Church of Muscle Shoals, Alabama now, and I'm sure we'll get to this later, but we had a massive church plant overdoctrine in 2012, as you can only imagine, and I was pretty devastated.

45:02

I had a lot of health issues. I had to have my spine operated on because of law enforcement injuries, and I was just kind of at the bottom of the barrel, and then they came in, and it's kind of Jeff Noblitt and Steve McAllister came in to pick me up and said, we're going to help you through this, and we kind of did a restart and became

45:20

Grace Life Church. Praise God. Back to where I was at, the tension built where I just had to leave.

45:27

I was just done. I turned away from it and denounced it as being untrue.

45:33

The charismatic movement, you mean? The charismatic movement. They called themselves a full gospel church, and there was just no gospel in it.

45:41

I can't recall the gospel being preached in my home church one time.

45:48

Wow. It was just all this superficial, these experiences.

45:56

You had to believe for external, outward things and have enough faith in your faith to get these physical things.

46:04

I mean, everything that we find in 1 John chapter 2, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life is what they were pursuing, and so I was just done with it, and so, and of course,

46:20

I planted this church in 99, and I'm reading, I'm developing a theological worldview, a theological framework.

46:32

I'm beginning to listen to the right guys. I've been reading the Puritans. I'm more avid of reading the

46:38

Puritans, and I committed a year, and I think it was around 2008, to preach on just the doctrine of God, because I was convinced that the evangelical church didn't have a clue that the

46:52

God of the Bible was. So I'm preaching on the attributes of God every Sunday for a year.

46:58

This was back then, and by the way, I was an Arminian, right? But I'm using for some of my resources, you know,

47:05

Tozer's book, but most especially Stephen Charnock's on the existence of the attributes of God.

47:11

It's a volume I just love and treasure to this day. It is fascinating to me that the very first Christian book you got your hands on, and your first baby steps as a

47:26

Christian, which you got at a secular bookstore, was a book by John Owen, one of the giants of the

47:34

Reformed faith, and yet, and all these years go by, and you're in the Word of Faith movement, and you're even after having left there, you're still an

47:45

Arminian Christian after devouring all these Reformed books. It's kind of interesting how it took so long, or God just chose to tarry.

47:55

That's what really it was, to turn the lights off. I'm dead, right? I'm not the sharpest.

48:03

Well, since we're Reformed, we know that it is not the intellect of anyone that reveals these things.

48:10

No, it's the grace of God. Amen. It's the grace of God. So again, we're fast -forwarding, and it's around 2008, maybe 2009,

48:20

I remember going to the True Church Conference and hearing David Miller preaching on the doctrine of election, and I'm just right there at the teetering point.

48:30

I mean, I've been reading on elections as a Puritan. I'm just right there, and I loved

48:36

Grace Life Church. I remember telling my wife, I want the church I pastor to be like this. I just don't know how to get it there.

48:43

I don't know how to turn this thing around. So I had transitioned to expository preaching.

48:50

I've been a topical preacher my whole life, so now I'm going verse by verse through the book of John, and obviously you come to some mighty texts.

48:59

But back to the year of preaching on the doctrine of God, I come to the doctrine of God's sovereignty, and I'm reading

49:07

Charnock in his chapter on the dominion of God, and all

49:12

I can say, Chris, is it was like scales fell off my eyes. I was so overwhelmed with joy.

49:22

I mean, I got it. The way that Charnock put it, that if all of humanity are headed towards hell of their own volition, loving their sin, if we are fallen the way the

49:36

Bible says that we are, we're all headed to destruction. What injustice is there if God, for his own glory, changes the hearts of some and turns them back and gives them grace, and then allows the others to go forward in the sin that they love and want, and God gives them justice?

49:58

What injustice is there? And just like scales fell off my eyes.

50:03

I'm like, oh God, you are sovereign in my salvation. I'm sitting there.

50:08

I'm the assistant police chief at the time I was working bivocationally, my laptop's in my lap, and I'm sitting there weeping, weeping, full of joy, and things were coming, like there were pieces missing.

50:23

I knew the Bible was right. I knew it was my understanding that was wrong, but I didn't know where.

50:28

All of a sudden, these things are coming into view, and I'm beginning to understand, and I'm just overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed with joy, and I'm weeping.

50:37

I'm not emotional. I just don't sit around the house and cry, and my wife, you know, walks in.

50:43

I try to explain to her what I just see in Scripture, and I see in the Word of God, and like,

50:49

I didn't even know God was this sovereign, and of course, then she's like, oh, you need to quit reading.

50:54

You're going to split the church, and how prophetic that was. This starts seeping out of my preaching as I'm going through the

51:02

Gospel of John. I'm preaching on regeneration, that it being a sovereign work of God.

51:07

We're dead, and God has to act upon us, empowering in grace, and I'm on the radar with the elders now, and that went on for a couple of years.

51:18

The tension was building, and in 2012, the church I pastor split. Probably 75 % of the people that were attending our church left.

51:30

I mean, Facebook was alive with Pastor Derrick.

51:36

This was all over the doctrines of sovereign grace. The doctrines over sovereign grace, yeah. The freedom of God in the regeneration of His people is what started it, and I just holding on to Scripture is all

51:50

I had, and you know, my best friends were on staff at the church

51:55

I pastored, and they were leading the split against me, and the church did split, and there were probably less than a quarter of those that had been coming stayed with us, and that's when

52:10

I reached out in 2012 to Jeff Noblitt and Steve McAllister at Anchored in Truth.

52:18

You know, I'm urging, I need some help here, because of what's going on, and they knew what the split was about.

52:23

It was over doctrine, that I was trying to get the church doctrinally sound and doctrinally right.

52:29

I mean, I'd seen these truths and saw that some of the things I had previously taught that were wrong, and you know,

52:35

I'm brokenhearted over those things, and I want to be true to the Scripture. I'm going verse by verse.

52:41

David Miller had helped me. I went to his preacher's class with him in Herschel, York and Arkansas, and then

52:47

I went to the very first Expositors Institute that Steve Lawson put on, and Steve knew what

52:54

I was going through, and they were really helping me, but Anchored in Truth came in and just picked this up and said, we're going to help you restart.

53:02

So in 2012, we changed the name from Pryor Creek Community Church to Grace Life Church.

53:08

And in fact, we're going to pick up right where you left off there, and don't let me forget to tell you a Steve Lawson story that he told me, and may have told you as well, but we're going to our midway break, folks.

53:21

It's longer than the other breaks, because Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show, because they're required by the

53:30

FCC to air their own public service announcements and other local things that geographically are connected to Lake City, Florida.

53:45

So while they do that, we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials, so please use this time wisely.

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Write down the information for as many of our advertisers as you can, so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. That is, if you do really love the show, and you are really grateful that there are people who love it as well, enough to spend their hard -earned money on keeping this show in existence.

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So if you're really thankful for that, please thank our sponsors. We cannot exist without them. And also send in your questions for our guest today,

54:45

Pastor Derek Melton, on his journey out of the charismatic movement and into Reform Theology.

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And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com—C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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Earth you live, I have really extensive lists of Christ -honoring, doctrinally sound, theologically faithful, biblical churches all over the planet

01:12:37

Earth, and no matter where you live, I may be able to help you find a church. Sometimes I have helped people find churches in our audience in all parts of the world, right around the corner from where they live, and they didn't even know these churches existed or they passed them by every day and didn't know that the churches were theologically sound.

01:12:56

So if you're in that category or if you know someone who is, just send me an email to chrisarns at gmail .com

01:13:02

and put, I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to where you can send in a question to our guest today,

01:13:10

Pastor Derek Melton of Grace Life Church of Pryor, Oklahoma, as we continue our discussion on one man's exodus out from the charismatic movement into the

01:13:19

Reformed faith. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

01:13:25

Pastor Derek, right before the break, you may recall, you were discussing a really tragic event that was occurring in the life of your congregation after you came to the

01:13:39

Doctrines of Sovereign Grace, also nicknamed Reformed theology and Calvinism, and you said about 75 % of the people left there, if I'm not mistaken.

01:13:49

And to quickly tell at least a part of that Steve Lawson story, when he was a guest on my program sometime in the early 2000s, when he was still a pastor, he had told me that when a similar circumstance happened to him, and he came to the

01:14:09

Doctrines of Grace, there were actually deacons who were physically trying to drag him away from the pulpit in the middle of a sermon.

01:14:17

I can't remember how that played out, I can't remember if somebody else stopped them, or if he was dragged away permanently, but I know he obviously left that church not long after that.

01:14:29

I don't know if you ever heard Dr. Lawson tell that story, but pick up where you left off.

01:14:36

Yeah, so he shared that story with me just to encourage me in my season of pain going through that's necessary.

01:14:47

Encourage you by making it clear that his situation was worse? How could it be an encouragement otherwise?

01:14:54

No, it was encouragement in that I wasn't the only guy that had gone through these kinds of church situations to where church members were revolting against the truth of God, about God's sovereignty and salvation, and then upheaval in the church.

01:15:13

In fact, I think it was at that same church that Dr. Lawson was at that he actually left out, took his shoes off, and dusted them off in front of his own children and then left church.

01:15:27

So yeah, we had that experience here, and very painful, very dear friends left us over these truths that I was preaching, and not my verse -to -verse preaching, by the way.

01:15:45

It wasn't that I had this new hobby horse and was going to ride the hobby horse for the rest of my ministry days.

01:15:51

I was just preaching verse -by -verse, and these truths came out in the preaching, and then the war began.

01:16:00

But all for the good, brother, because you know where we're at today and the sweet, godly people that have joined

01:16:07

Grace Life Church in the last ten years as we've been seeking to have biblical health and to reform the church to biblical health are believers in our communities that surround

01:16:19

Pryor that are now driving to come and to hear the word preached verse -by -verse and the power of the

01:16:25

Spirit and to be part of a faithful local church. So it took that pruning,

01:16:30

I guess, to be the best way to put that to get where we are today. Well, praise

01:16:37

God. We do have a listener who has a question involving something far less serious.

01:16:44

It's somewhat off the topic, but it involves something that evidently is a passion of yours

01:16:51

We have John in Peoria, Illinois, who asks,

01:16:57

Could Pastor Melton say a few words about his knife -making? And he basically wants you to explain that in detail.

01:17:10

He apparently must be a customer of yours or is at least aware of your making of knives.

01:17:17

So I am a custom knife maker on the side. I do that simply because I enjoy working with my hands and after several days of tedious study, it's good to get outside and hit something.

01:17:30

And so I go out in my forge and light it and forge steels. I make all different kinds of custom knives.

01:17:38

I mean, each knife I send out has been custom -made 100 % by me. And so I do higher -end

01:17:46

Damascus steels. I call those my heirloom series that your great -grandkids will be using.

01:17:53

I have different layers of steel. Some of those have inlaid nickel and copper in them.

01:17:59

But anyway, I use some raw materials like deer antler, elk antler, and those higher -end blades.

01:18:06

I do make just a custom skinny blade, homogenous tool steel blade that's less expensive but equally as quality.

01:18:15

But anyway, yeah, I do that on the side. I've been doing that since I retired from law enforcement and 2015 was my last time in law enforcement.

01:18:24

I did 30 years behind a badge and decided

01:18:29

I needed to do something like that. I didn't have time before between pastoring full -time and our outreach work with troubled kids and then administrating a law enforcement department.

01:18:44

I was just working seven days a week for years on end, and so I didn't have time. But after I retired,

01:18:49

I thought it would be good for me to get outside and to work with my hands. I like guns and knives, always have, and so it just kind of was a natural fit.

01:18:58

So I started studying the art of knife -making and meeting with some master bladesmiths and did a lot of research and then started doing that on my own and one thing led to another.

01:19:11

I'll just say this. I know that there's an audience listening that my desire is not to be a good knife -maker and a mediocre pastor.

01:19:21

My chief desire is to glorify God in my ministry. I'm a student of scripture, so I spend the majority of my time in the study.

01:19:30

If I do have an afternoon or an hour or two, I go to the shop and work. I think

01:19:36

I've worked in the shop one day since before Christmas. I'm not ready. Now how can somebody purchase one of your knives?

01:19:44

They just have to reach out to me on Instagram or Twitter. Twitter is Derek Lane Melton is my

01:19:49

Twitter and then Instagram is Derek .Melton. Now I will say there is another Derek Melton that is a lot better bladesmith and blacksmith than I am.

01:19:59

He's a Forged in Fire winner and he's in Mississippi and he has a big webpage with Derek Melton.

01:20:05

I'm not that guy. He's way better than me. He's a good Christian brother, but I am.

01:20:12

I'm the little D. Derek Melton in Pryor, Oklahoma that pastors Grace Life Church and I make knives as a hobby on the side.

01:20:20

John has some of my blades and Pastor Jeff has some of my blades. I like to see guys use them and they seem to think they work really well.

01:20:27

By the way folks, the spelling of our guest's name is D .E .R .E .K.

01:20:33

M as in Michael E .L .T .O .N. Make sure you are looking for his knife work in Pryor, Oklahoma not

01:20:45

Mississippi which is where the other brother has his knife business. By the way, did you make any of James White's swords that he has on the wall?

01:20:56

No, but Dr. White has two of my knives. He has one from earlier on that I've been friends with around 10 years

01:21:05

I think. He has one of my earlier on blades and last time he was here I made him an heirloom blade.

01:21:12

I think he takes with him about everywhere he goes. Maybe one of these days I can afford to get a customized knife to be a symbol for Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:21:24

Obviously your hobby is something that is connected to the image on my website where you have a blacksmith hammering out metal on an anvil.

01:21:39

So I just immediately thought of that. Oh, look at this! We have a brother who

01:21:48

I have interviewed before who I did have the pleasure to see at the True Church conference.

01:21:54

He has a question for you. His name is Blake Keenum and he is a pastor in Selkirk, Canada.

01:22:04

And his question is, what can I do to help a charismatic friend understand the doctrine of the spirit better?

01:22:12

What truths are helpful to bring clarity to the charismatic movement? Good question,

01:22:17

Blake. And of course Blake is one of my dear friends. I'm glad he asked the question.

01:22:23

You know, there is an aberration of their view of the Holy Spirit with more the outward manifestations of the spirit.

01:22:33

And I would just say to Blake that Scripture is the two -edged sword. Go to John 14 and John 16 and it shows how the

01:22:42

Holy Spirit is given to glorify Christ and to empower us for service and that we might be a

01:22:52

Christ -centered people. And so that's just where I would go. And again,

01:22:58

I have these talks with a lot of charismatics in our area and former charismatics and that's a big struggle for them that you know, their view of the

01:23:10

Holy Spirit is that melee and these outward signs giving us direct revelation that's just the way that they view the

01:23:21

Holy Spirit of God and you have to bring to bear the Scriptures upon that misunderstanding or is this going to continue?

01:23:31

These people, as I was at that particular time, believe that what they're taught is true and they learn the language.

01:23:41

And that's one of the things I see with the charismatic movement. They don't learn doctrine, they learn the language of the charismatic culture and they're dogmatic about it.

01:23:51

And with that is some of the misrepresentations of the Holy Spirit as well. But the big thing with them is the sign gifts.

01:24:01

And it was a big thing for me too, Chris. And all I can say is that the study of Scripture is what pruned off those dead branches in my life and I saw that God speaks sufficiently and authoritatively through the 66 canonized books of Scripture and any direct revelation outside of Scripture how would

01:24:32

I know what that is? By what measure am I going to know whether it's the

01:24:38

Holy Spirit speaking to me or is it Satan come in disguise as an angel of light? And so, you know, a quote that helped me,

01:24:46

I think it's a John Owen quote, that these private revelations are biblical, they're not necessary.

01:24:53

If they're not biblical, they're untrue. And that just helped me years and years ago when

01:24:59

I was wrestling with this and the doctrine of sola scriptura and the

01:25:05

Scriptures convinced me that God has spoken to us in these last days in His Son.

01:25:12

And that's the end of the story. It was just the end of the story for me. And it reminds me of Steve Lawson again because he said something very true and yet it is somewhat comical.

01:25:24

He said if you want to hear God speak, read your Bible out loud.

01:25:30

That's right. That's exactly right. Now, thank you.

01:25:36

By the way, I'm going to give a plug to our brother who has submitted the question,

01:25:41

Pastor Keenum. This was not planned, I assure you. It was just a nice surprise to see his question come in, and I'm looking up his information here.

01:25:56

His church is Grace Baptist Church in Manitoba, Canada, and I was just looking at it and it disappeared.

01:26:10

Oh, here it is. Grace Baptist Church in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada. The website is selkirk,

01:26:17

S -E -L -K -I -R -K G -B -C for Grace Baptist Church dot org.

01:26:23

That's selkirk, S -E -L -K -I -R -K G -B -C dot org,

01:26:29

Grace Baptist Church in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada, and that's Blake Keenum, the pastor.

01:26:36

Thank you so much for listening, Pastor Blake. You said something very key here, because most

01:26:44

Charismatics and Pentecostals that I have met and known believe that the

01:26:52

Bible is very precious and vital. There are very

01:26:58

Biblically literate Charismatics and Pentecostals. There are many that I have met that have memorized great portions of Scripture.

01:27:08

But what they don't realize is that they are downplaying, if not right out rejecting, the sufficiency of Scripture.

01:27:19

They may believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. They may believe in the necessity of Scripture, but they don't believe, at least consciously, or should

01:27:30

I say, they unconsciously don't believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.

01:27:36

Would you agree with that? Yeah, I do agree with that, Chris. That's why I mentioned that a few moments ago, that it is a distrust in the sufficiency of Scripture and that we need, and as you will hear in the

01:27:50

Charismatic circles, a fresh word. A fresh word so as to devalue, and I know that not all do this, and I'm not throwing all of them into one lump because they're not, and they're some good brothers, as you've mentioned.

01:28:04

I've got some dear friends that are still in that movement, and I do love them dearly. But what you're doing, and maybe it is an issue of not consciously, but you're unconsciously saying that the

01:28:16

Scriptures do not speak clearly or definitively enough for me and I need a word that is outside of the

01:28:26

Scripture directly from God. Now to give more of a what's the word

01:28:34

I'm looking for actually to lessen the hostility of our listeners against the

01:28:42

Charismatic and Pentecostal movement obviously we strongly disagree with their views on the signed gifts and in many cases also on theological issues since many, not all, there are

01:28:59

Calvinistic Pentecostals especially in the 21st century. I know some personally but most of them would not be.

01:29:07

Most of them would even believe you could lose your salvation and so on. But their roots and I'm not saying their roots are pristine and I'm not saying that there weren't charlatans among those in the very foundations of this movement, but there was a wrong response for a right reason to the

01:29:32

German higher criticism that was really spreading like wildfire in the 19th century and early 20th century where you had theologians denying the miraculous in the

01:29:45

Bible and painting a picture of God as if he is impotent today as if he is not actively involved in things in the day -to -day lives of people on this planet and they just wrongly reacted to that wanting to uphold a

01:30:09

God that is biblical and a Christ that is biblical and a church that is biblical they just misapplied the teachings in the

01:30:19

Scripture about the sign gifts and insisted that they must be happening today in order for the

01:30:26

Church to be relevant in order for the Scriptures to be true. Would you say I'm overstepping my defense of them or how would you respond to that?

01:30:36

I think there's truth in that, Chris. Obviously that's a big thing within the charismatic

01:30:41

Word of Faith Pentecostal culture. The church I was in was more

01:30:46

Word of Faith probably not Pentecostal in that there are

01:30:52

Pentecostal churches that have a pretty robust understanding of the Gospel. The church that I was affiliated with did not.

01:31:01

And I see this common area that I live in in northeast Oklahoma we're 30 minutes from Tulsa, the birthplace of the whole movement, the charismatic

01:31:08

Word of Faith movement with the Hagins and Oral Roberts and those kinds of names.

01:31:14

There are still mega -churches there today. So the influence is here and it's strong, but a lot of this is their view is that Christianity and these manifestations is what characterizes

01:31:27

Christianity and it's a Gospelist system that this direct revelation these manifestations, if you will, of the

01:31:36

Spirit is what they center and asphyxiate themselves upon. And again, I'm not saying that that's everyone that's in that movement.

01:31:44

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that there is a large contingent of them in northeast

01:31:49

Oklahoma that it's about these outward tangible manifestations.

01:31:56

The Word from the Lord that God spoke and told me to tell you and that there is such a focus upon these external, what they would call manifestations of the

01:32:08

Spirit, that they're completely void of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let me give you an illustration or example.

01:32:16

When I was working at law enforcement I'd been ministering to one of my employees who was in a Word of Faith church.

01:32:22

Had been in a Word of Faith church his whole life and he's 63 now. He left law enforcement right around the time

01:32:31

I left. He was actually in animal control and I prayed with him as he left and we maintained friendship.

01:32:39

His father passed away and he wanted me to do his dad's funeral and I ministered to him and the family and it wasn't long after that his mom passed away and I did her funeral and again we're friends.

01:32:50

And I'm still ministering to him the Gospel of Christ. To make a long story short, his wife left him and he reached out again and started coming to church with me and I started meeting with him, just going through the

01:33:05

Gospel on Mondays. We'd spend a couple of hours going through the Gospel and I was explaining the substitutionary atoning work of Christ to him and I looked across the desk and he had tears run down his face.

01:33:17

And I said, what's wrong brother? He said, why hasn't anyone told me this before? I said, told you what?

01:33:23

He said, about substitution. I said, you've never been told that? He said, I've never heard that word in my life.

01:33:30

I said, you've been going to church for 60 years in the Word of Faith Pentecostal churches and you've never heard about Jesus dying as your substitute?

01:33:37

He said, not once. And I just began explaining the full Gospel and he just weeping and said, no one's ever told me that.

01:33:44

And he now has been saved. He called me shortly a few days after that and then he went home and threw himself on the floor and cried out for the

01:33:52

Lord to save him and repented and he is on fire for the Lord. I still meet with him every week and he's a member, gone through membership at our church and he's, you know

01:34:01

I explained to him the error of the Charismatic Church and he is just on fire and he's like me, just has a bitter taste in his mouth about the error that was shoved down his throat for all those years.

01:34:13

But the point I'm making is this, there was such an emphasis placed on the miraculous upon the signed gifts, upon physical healing, that there was zero

01:34:21

Gospel preaching. He had never heard the Gospel in all those years in going to church. In a word of faith then he calls it a church.

01:34:28

Yeah, I remember years ago in the 90's

01:34:33

I believe, I'm almost certain it was in the mid 90's my general manager of WMCA radio where I worked for 15 years he said,

01:34:45

Chris I want you to join me at a large Charismatic Church not far from where you live because I want to see and hear with my own eyes and ears what

01:34:57

Rodney Howard Brown is all about and not just go by hearsay and so on,

01:35:03

I just want to see how far off this guy really is and we both went to this nightmarish circus that Brown had orchestrated at the

01:35:18

Upper Room Tabernacle in Deer Park, Long Island and I purposely mention the name of that church because it's a dangerous false church and thousands of deceived people from my native home,

01:35:32

Long Island, New York are flooding into that place. I don't know I haven't gotten an update lately but it was a chilling experience.

01:35:42

First of all there was no mention of the need to embrace Christ and to trust in his atoning death there was no mention of his substitution for sinners on the cross of Calvary there was nothing at all mentioned about that it was all about this laughing revival experience that he was promoting and he said something very interesting that I never heard a

01:36:11

Pentecostal or Charismatic say. He was making fun of Charismatics and Pentecostals who see a demon under every rock and he said he was sick and tired of being invited to churches where the pastor will pray for the protection from demons while he was speaking at a particular place and he said very arrogantly,

01:36:39

I don't need those prayers, I walk into a room and the demons scatter and when

01:36:45

I was listening to all this criticism of Charismatics and Pentecostals by someone who is the king of the false

01:36:55

Charismatics it occurred to me, I thought I think that he was trying to put people at ease to accept a demonic experience.

01:37:06

He didn't want people to be afraid of the demonic while this experience was happening whether it was fake or real even

01:37:15

A .W. Pink who was involved in the occult before he was a Christian said that he witnessed things that could not be explained as parlor tricks and the tricks of charlatans.

01:37:27

He believed that he witnessed genuinely demonic activity that was manifesting itself in some kind of outward seemingly miraculous way.

01:37:39

So, anyway that brings me to a question why is this so serious and why is this so dangerous and I believe one of the reasons it's dangerous is because of this opening up the mind to invite whatever these bizarre experiences may be that are occurring in some, not all in some of these

01:38:07

Charismatic and Pentecostal churches and there are Charismatics and Pentecostals who are just as repulsed by Rodney Howard Brown and the

01:38:16

Word of Faith movement as we are. But this is not the kind of thing you're typically going to see in a

01:38:21

Reformed Baptist church. So, take up my thoughts from there and your reaction to them. I'll say that again.

01:38:30

Just respond to what I just said about one of the reasons why I believe this is such a serious and dangerous area is that it does open up people who believe they are safe, they perhaps are not even regenerate and they are naively opening up their minds and hearts and souls to demonic activity.

01:38:57

Undoubtedly. So many people that are attending those churches are like a young Derrick Melton. They just don't know any better.

01:39:05

Here you have these charlatans coming in and putting on these hocus -pocus shows and I'll just be honest with you, brother.

01:39:14

These guys preach on faith all the time but I'll just say that it's an issue of doubt that drives a lot of this.

01:39:24

They have to see something. Give us a sign. That's what drives it.

01:39:31

These people are not people of faith. These guys that are leading these movements are not men of faith.

01:39:38

They have to have the outward and the visible to help them be reassured that there's something that's real in what they're doing.

01:39:48

It's not just trusting what the Lord has said and given to us in divine revelation that is affirmed to our hearts by the

01:39:55

Holy Spirit. And I know there are charismatic believers that don't believe that way that may have been in that movement but that's what

01:40:03

I saw as characteristic that these were people that did not believe and they needed some outward sign to believe.

01:40:12

And is there an inroad, like you're saying, to dark demonic forces in some of these meetings?

01:40:20

Is that what's driving this laughing phenomenon? I've been in a meeting with Rodney Howard Brown way back in the day.

01:40:27

It is an eerie situation. Even in those days, it was very eerie to me.

01:40:33

Something was not right with it. And what's not right with it is I believe that it's being driven by demons.

01:40:40

And listen, the adversary is not concerned about being affiliated with the charismatic or going to a church meeting.

01:40:49

It's the issue of the lordship and the glory of Christ. And as long as people are sidetracked with chasing phenomenon or the miraculous or needing to get a direct word from the

01:41:00

Lord, which by the way, those direct words from the Lord never bring you to repentance, do they? They don't.

01:41:06

They just swell up with more pride and spiritual arrogance in your heart and that's characteristic in that movement as well.

01:41:14

I remember being in a meeting with Kenneth Hagin's son -in -law

01:41:19

Buddy Harrison. He's gone and died of cancer. He was praying for preachers and just basically strutting and pushing them down on the floor and strutting.

01:41:33

There's so much arrogance that they look down on guys like me, a

01:41:40

Baptist especially, a performed Baptist, that we don't have the corner on the market of truth and they've got all these miracles and the pursuit of these things, it's just distracting from the message of the cross.

01:41:52

You know, it's sad when you can go into a charismatic church in northeast Oklahoma for 10 years and never hear a message about the cross.

01:42:00

You never hear a message about the radical depravity of man. You never hear a message about the atonement of the

01:42:06

Lord Jesus Christ. It's all about these external manifestations and the pursuit of these miracles or finances or God wants you to be rich or whatever.

01:42:16

It's all a distraction. And if you've noticed these so -called prophets,

01:42:23

I have never heard one of these so -called charismatic or Pentecostal prophets or prophetesses give bad news to somebody when they are prophesying over them.

01:42:34

Have you? It's always a wonderful bit of news about their future and in fact there is,

01:42:42

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see the video but there was a woman leading some kind of a prophecy event in a church and a man went forward to be prophesied over and this woman declared publicly that he was going to be a great prophet of God himself and leader of God's people and when she was finished, he said, can

01:43:05

I say a few words? And she said, yes, praise the Lord. And he started to publicly denounce her as a false prophet.

01:43:12

Right, I've seen that video. So, we do have an anonymous listener who says, oh, the

01:43:22

Upper Room Christian World Center you were mentioning, which is definitely a false church, is on Deer Park Avenue in Dix Hills.

01:43:29

It's not in Deer Park. Yes, absolutely right. And the only reason I would allow that to be pointed out is not because I'm promoting this synagogue of Satan.

01:43:38

I am telling people, I'm warning them to flee from that place as fast as they can run.

01:43:47

We also have an anonymous listener who wants to know, you discussed how you were a member of a church that was word of faith and charismatic but I don't recall you ever mentioning during your testimony if you yourself had ever spoken in tongues, if you believed it was real, and what you think about that now.

01:44:12

Well, that's a good question, and I was hoping that would come up. I did. And let me tell you how that works.

01:44:18

And this is how it works for all of them, because I don't believe that any of it's authentic. I believe it's all a sham. I'm a cessationist.

01:44:26

So, whenever you're young in the faith, acceptance is a big thing.

01:44:32

You know, and they teach and preach that you have to have this gift to be a genuine, real kind of a

01:44:40

Christian. And so if you're not doing that stuff, I mean, you're the kid on the football team that weighs 40 pounds and the rest of the guys weigh 270.

01:44:50

And no one wants to be the third leg on the body. No one wants to be the third arm or the double -headed beast.

01:44:59

And so, you know, you conform to that, and it goes against everything. I'm just talking from personal experience.

01:45:07

I'm a 22 -year -old kid. I don't know anything about theology.

01:45:12

They point me to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and 14. They're looking here. Then they go to the book of Acts, and they're looking here.

01:45:19

But they don't give me the context. They don't give me the they don't even understand themselves descriptive versus prescriptive text.

01:45:26

You've got to do all this. So you start listening to these guys talk about how they drove a Honda. They drove a

01:45:32

Honda. Or they drove a Toyota. They drove a Toyota. And you fall into that so that you'll fit in to that stereotype.

01:45:40

You really do. It's embarrassing. Untie my bow tie. Is that another one? Untie my bow tie.

01:45:46

Yeah, hang on. Another one. You know, the Shundi -Shundi deal, you know. And as long as you can say that, in fact, there's a church in our community.

01:45:56

They had this video. My son sent it to me. They called down people, and they're going to get them to baptism of the

01:46:02

Holy Spirit. And they laid hands on them and had them repeat, Mom and Daddy. Mom and Daddy.

01:46:07

Faster and faster and faster and faster. And where is anything like that ever demonstrated in the

01:46:16

Scripture? It's nowhere to be found. These people in the upper room did not even know what was going to happen to them.

01:46:24

And to be coached to do it is absolutely ridiculous. It's manipulation, brother, and manipulation's demonic.

01:46:33

It's manipulation, and as long as they get you doing that, they're good. But brother, the thing is, it's so bereft of the

01:46:40

Gospel. It's bereft of Christ. There's no mention of the glory of God. There's no mention of the excellencies of Christ.

01:46:48

It's great salvation. It's all about getting you to stage two. It's this higher life.

01:46:54

It's this deeper life. And they convince you that by doing that, that you're bypassing everything.

01:46:59

You're getting into the deeper life. And it's just a manipulative tool that they themselves are just bereft of truth.

01:47:07

But it's easy to get a young 22, 22 -year -old guy that doesn't have any doctrine to do these things when he just wants to please

01:47:15

God. And they tell you this is what you need, and you fall into that, and you have to really hit override with your mind because everything in you tells you this ain't right.

01:47:26

Yeah, and that manual override button, brother, I had to do that. And obviously whenever I came to the doctrinal convictions that I'm at now,

01:47:37

I look back, and it just infuriates me the manipulation that was pulled on me as a young man.

01:47:45

And it's extraordinary how people could view this, and depending upon what

01:47:53

Pentecostal denomination you're in, some actually teach the more mainstream even

01:48:01

Pentecostal denominations teach that tongues is the sign of the baptism of the

01:48:09

Holy Spirit. And the thing that has always baffled me is how can something that can so easily be faked be a sign of anything important?

01:48:22

How could it? It makes absolutely no sense at all. Am I correct?

01:48:28

You're correct. Let me tell you a story, and I hope this is not improper. In fact, could you tell the story right when we come back?

01:48:33

We're taking a very quick break, and then if you could tell the story, please don't forget it. We'll be right back after these messages.

01:48:41

Very quickly. Don't go away, folks. Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music for Christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959.

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Linbrook Baptist Church on 225

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Earl Avenue in Linbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

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Call Linbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

01:54:44

Or visit linbrookbaptist .org. That's linbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. And Pastor Derek, right before the break,

01:54:51

I was saying that I think it is absolutely nonsensical for someone to believe that the modern understanding of Pentecostals and Charismatics in regard to what tongues is, how that could possibly be a sign because it's easily faked.

01:55:13

It's not like the gift, as you and I believe, where real languages were being spoken by people who had never previously learned those languages.

01:55:23

That would be a sign. But saying untie my bow tie 100 times, how on earth could that be viewed as a sign?

01:55:32

Right. You're just so mentally conditioned for that by those preachers that, and again,

01:55:39

I think there's just that you wanna believe your preacher to be right. And again, if you don't have a theological basis, if you don't have that kind of rigorous understanding of the scripture, then you fall for it.

01:55:53

I did. Let me tell you the story I was gonna tell you before we went to break. I had arrested a woman for first degree murder.

01:56:02

She was a lesbian and she killed her gay lover. And so I have her locked up in the cell.

01:56:10

I mean, she still has blood on her hands and she has hold of the bars and is looking at me and speaking in tongues.

01:56:18

Wow. Now, was she claiming these were the Holy Spirit of God or was she just perhaps just demonstrating something satanic that even she'd recognized?

01:56:31

She would hobble between that and singing Amazing Grace, so. Oh, okay.

01:56:37

Wow, that is - And that's 30 some years ago and I was a young street cop and that just really shook me.

01:56:44

Yeah, even the actor, I don't know his name, but I saw him on an interview on the 700

01:56:51

Club many years ago. He performed in Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway and he said that when he was hanging on the cross, he began speaking in demonic tongues because he openly professed that he was not a believer at that time.

01:57:10

Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but it is an odd thing to want to confess to if you're trying to promote charismatic phenomena.

01:57:20

But we've got about two minutes for you to really summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:57:27

And I know I'll definitely want to have you back on the program, either to expand this same topic or discuss something else, but please summarize what you want our audience to most leave with today.

01:57:39

I think the most important thing I can say at this point is if you're in a church that's not preaching the death, burial, and resurrection and ascension and the glories of the

01:57:48

Lord Jesus Christ, you need to leave and find a church that preaches the word of God and the power of the spirit verse by verse that puts on display his glory.

01:57:58

Listen, Jesus came into the world to save sinners, not to make tongue talkers. And so I think if there's anything

01:58:04

I can leave the listening audience with, if your church is not preaching the power of the spirit, that Jesus Christ is fully

01:58:13

God and fully man and that came into this world, lived a holy, perfect life, and died a substitutionary death and the cross and bore the wrath of God that we deserve, you need to find a real church because you're not even in a church.

01:58:24

Amen. And isn't it true, brother, that we who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, we who are nicknamed reformed

01:58:32

Christians and Calvinists, don't we really have a Holy Spirit that is far more powerful and vital and who has a much more important role in our lives and even in our coming to Christ and even in our possessing faith, we credit that to the

01:58:51

Holy Spirit whereas much of the Christian life and even salvation itself and believing is viewed by many

01:59:00

Charismatics and Pentecostals as something that was conjured up in a dead human heart? Brother, we believe as reformed

01:59:08

Baptists, we believe the doctrine of sovereign grace, we believe that God, the Holy Spirit, raises up dead sinners by the creative power, omnipotent power of God to do to new life and that His power is at work in our sanctification in our day -to -day life and showing us the glories of Christ in the word of living

01:59:28

God. We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray daily that that power would be manifest in my life.

01:59:36

Amen, and we're out of time and the website to get more information about our guest's church is

01:59:41

GracelifePrior .org, GracelifePrior .org.

01:59:48

Thank you so much, brother. I wanna thank everybody who listened and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater