Serious problem with are the young Earthers that want us to deny what we know from science.

And as a result, they want us to ignore scientists when they tell us things like take a vaccine for the pandemic.

And guess what?

The science, the science supported not getting the vaccine.

Over six minutes later, we heard her say this.

Now you don't want to even talk.

So you know.

Well, because it's because you've brought up a topic that I was not prepared for.

If I had known that this was going to be the topic topic, I would have brought facts and figures with me, but I did not know that this topic would come up, and so I did not bring any facts and figures with me, and I'm not prepared to defend that position.

But you brought these topics up.

I didn't.

Well, okay, you're right.

I did.

This is Apologetics Live to answer your questions.

Your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapoport.

We are live, apologies live here to answer your most challenging questions you have about God and the Bible.

We can answer any.

That's right.

Any question that you have about God and the Bible, we can answer right here on Apologetics Live.

And if you doubt that, just go to apologexlive.com join the discussion.

You just scroll down till you see the duck icon and from there you can join the discussion and ask us your most challenging question.

Just remember one thing as you give us really something really challenging.

I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

That's right.

I said I'd answer it.

I didn't say that I'd answer it the way you might like.

So with that.

This is a ministry of Striving for eternity.

We are here to provide discipleship.

And in this podcast or live stream, what we do is disciple through teaching Apologetics.

And tonight's topic is the fact that there's a claim you will often hear when defending the faith that all religions are the.

So the question tonight will be, is there a way to know which religion is, well, true compared to the false ones?

Are they all the same and therefore they'd all be false?

That's the argument that we will discuss tonight.

Lay, bring in Mr.

Dan Kraft, the seven foot apologist.

Welcome, sir.

Well, greetings.

Am I muted?

No sound like I'm muted.

I can hear you.

Okay.

You just said you owed me $20.

I heard that loud and clear.

Turn off the translation button here.

I have the gift of interpretations.

There's just something wrong with the way I interpret.

Oh, man.

So I am for for regulars watching, you can see that I am in a different sort of setting here.

So I am in the process of moving yet again.

I did this five years ago, but we're in the process of moving, and therefore, well, I had to move out of the office that I was in into one of the bedrooms.

And we're actually going to move one more time maybe for next week's show, if not the following one, that I will be in a different room of the house, a different bedroom, actually, as we're just trying to shift furniture around and things and getting it ready for sale.

You could be praying for that.

By the way, it goes up the weekend after Father's Day weekend, so it'll go up that Friday and it will be.

Yeah, I just hope that it sells quickly and not a lot of stress, so.

Yes, exactly right.

You are correct there, sir.

Dude, anytime you're moving, there's.

There's stress involved.

So.

Yeah, you can just disabuse yourself of that silly notion.

Yeah.

And I do apologize for those watching on the live stream that.

That there is a light behind me.

Never good to do.

And so what I am.

I'm gonna try to cheat.

So I'm going to tell folks a cheat way of doing it.

I thought I had this up.

Here we go.

I just opened up a blank Microsoft Word document and put this above it so that I get more light in the front.

That's a.

A little cheat you could do.

If you ever need to.

To.

To do that.

Turn your desk 90 degrees and face the window.

Yeah, it would.

Well, technically, the reason I didn't do that is because there was a bed back here.

So it was.

I was gonna have the bed on.

On camera, but we ended up setting this up and then moving the bed.

So.

Yeah, I could have done that, but.

I got lucky today because I got lots of natural sunlight pouring in through the.

Through the room.

There's a.

This.

This curtain right here is covering a big old window.

So.

Yeah, there's my backlight, but.

So, yeah, that kind of works out well for me every once in a while.

But for nine months out of the year, I don't get this.

Yeah.

Being in the Pacific Northwest and all.

Well, you know, you just need to move more east.

I would love to move closer to actual America.

Yeah.

I was gonna say, like, move out of a communist country.

The green light.

Yeah.

The People's Republic of Washingtonistan.

Yeah.

All right.

So if folks want to join, you can do so.

Just go to apologetics live.com, and if you are Listening on podcast or later.

You can always come Thursday nights, 8 o' clock Eastern Time.

That's when you can join and any questions you have.

So Melissa is asking, am I going to be in the same state?

Good question.

I would love to know the answer to that.

No.

Actually, I do know the answer that no.

Where I'm moving.

I'm not 100 sure yet.

So we will see.

I have two options and I haven't decided.

So is this one of those pick up, get all your stuff and go to the land that I will show you kind of situations?

Not.

Well, maybe.

Yeah, maybe there's a strong pull for the grandkids.

I'll just.

Yes.

Put it that way.

So we will see.

We will end up there eventually.

So folks were asking me, I just got back from Japan.

Some folks were asking me if I would talk about the trip, how the trip was.

How was Japan very different than America.

By the way, I will say the.

There is something wrong with Twitter.

So I'll ask folks, if you don't mind, if there's anyone on Twitter to go drop the link to apologizelive.com I'm going to try to do that myself because it's not showing.

So folks probably are not knowing that the show is actually going on.

It got an error.

I don't know why.

But so you know one thing.

Have you ever been to Japan?

No.

Okay.

I stay away from places where they serve fish for breakfast.

They, you know, dude.

Okay.

So we went to Costco because, well, you know, my wife and her family love Costco.

So we go to Costco in Japan and I'm like, I could go to Costco in the States.

I didn't need to fly halfway around the world to go to Costco.

But it might be different.

It's the experience.

Okay.

So I, I will admit I did take a picture in Costco because you know how Costco you get this really long aisle of meats.

Yeah, that was a really long aisle of sushi.

It was great.

Not my style.

Oh, yes, it's great.

I also don't like to go places where, where, where the most of the populace only comes up to my belt buckle.

Well, that's tall enough as it is in America.

That's everywhere for you.

So the, the, the one thing that's amazing is the fact that.

So we had a Japanese student live with us for a year and I was able to go and visit her and her family.

But when she would talk to us, like when she came to the States, she just.

Things like locking the door was a foreign concept for her.

She actually went to Romania and lost her phone because she forgot she was in a dressing room and put the.

Put it down as she got changed and came back two hours later, expecting it to be there.

And I went, why would you expect it to be there?

She goes, because I've done that before in Japan.

And she came back two days later, and no one touched it.

Wow.

So I realized she was.

That's the way it is there.

Because I actually saw a wallet on a bench in a pretty public, pretty busy area, and I decided to just back up and sit and watch.

No one touched it.

Even when a person sat next to him, like, oh, that guy's doing the old.

I'll sit next to it and slowly take it.

No, he looked down, he saw it didn't.

Didn't bother a thing.

Walked off.

I was like, wow.

And so I got to her house and.

And we go to take a car ride, and I discover that they.

They just.

Not only do they leave their door unlocked, they have the keys to the car.

The car's unlocked, and the keys are sitting right there in the center console.

I thought you're gonna say the keys were in the ignition.

Well, it doesn't.

Running.

It doesn't have one in the ignition.

But, you know, But I was just like, that would never happen in America.

So there's no garbage cans anywhere.

I did.

I.

And I found out why that.

So what happened was there was a.

Someone put a.

A device with CERN gas into a public garbage can many years ago.

So they got rid of all the public garbage cans.

So you.

You'd think if that was new.

New, like we kept saying, if it's in New York, there'd be trash everywhere.

There's trash everywhere in New York with the garbage cans.

Well, there's no trash there.

Anyway.

I actually saw a guy that saw a piece of paper on the ground as he was walking by, drop down, pick it up, and put it in his pocket.

Wow.

So I was like this.

The idea of the.

The respect they have for others, the drivers there.

I mean, I was in the.

In the taxis, and they.

They're so.

I'm from Jersey, folks.

Driving in New Jersey is like an art form of you.

You got.

Got to deal with the martial arts.

Yes, yes.

And so it's just.

It's a tense place to drive it.

Japan was like, everyone's, like, getting out of each other's way.

So polite.

Like, there was a guy that the taxi driver thought was completely out of.

Out of control, rude because he was in the right lane at a red light, and then at the last 20 seconds, decided to get into the left lane so that they.

He would be in the first car in the left lane.

We in America wouldn't think twice about that.

He was upset that the guy was so rude to make a decision last minute because others might have been coming and wanted to be in that.

In that lane.

Wow.

I was just like, wow, this is like a foreign country.

For real.

Just like a foreign country.

So, yeah, it was.

It was.

The food was great.

I ate and ate and ate some more.

And the amazing thing is I ate all the things that in America would make you fat, and I didn't gain any weight, so go figure, because they.

Only give you portions like this big.

No, I mean, I ate.

Dude, I ate a ton of steak.

Wagyu steak rice.

You know, they, I, they.

I will admit I think the, the pasta is better in Japan than America.

I love Italian food, and I went to three Italian places and they.

I'm like, every one of these are better than 90 of the Italian restaurants.

I've been into America, so.

So, yeah, it was.

And I came back and I, I got.

Got out of the airport in New York City, up in Queens, actually, not New York City, but the Queens in New York.

And yep, it didn't take long for me to realize I left Japan.

You know, as soon as I stepped out of the airport and heard people screaming at each other, honking on the horn, garbage everywhere, I was like, welcome to America.

Kind of reminds me of some scenes from Coming to America, which I don't dare quote here.

I'm assuming that's a movie.

Yes.

Murphy, enough said.

Okay.

He was a clean comedian, right?

He would have made a hilarious.

I mean, he was.

He's funny, dude, but, oh, man, if he were, if he'd just clean up his mouth, I mean, he could have been something.

You know, that's actually the last thing before we get to a topic tonight, but it is something to talk about as far as the way society is when you think about humor.

What has happened to humor?

Because humor today in America, it's.

It's about foul language, dirty jokes, and that's all they get for laughs.

It's not the type of humor we used to have where you actually had to think about things.

And I think it's so much because of a culture we have now is not a thinking culture.

It's a feeling culture.

Yeah.

Amen.

And so the, the humor can't.

It won't work if you know it's not going to work if you are trying to make people think and they don't want to do that.

Yeah.

So.

All right, looks like the Twitter just or X just started working.

So for those who are next that were like, hey, was there a show?

Well, yeah, you just missed 15 minutes.

You'll have to go back and listen.

That's right.

We were just chewing the fat anyway.

All right, so let's get into this challenge and if anyone wants to come in, have discussion, whether on this or any other topic, you're free to join us at apologexlive.com and the challenge I get a lot.

Dan.

I don't know if you've gotten this often, but the argument that's often made when you're out of doing evangelism is that all religions are the same.

And I want to break this down because what is really being challenged and said in the argument is that all religions are false.

Okay.

Because you can't say that all religions are the same and they're all true when they have differing.

They disagree with one another.

And so the core argument that people are making when they say all religions are the same is to argue they're all false because they cannot all be true.

I don't know.

I would challenge that.

I think the people who are typically going to make that kind of an argument really don't know what they're talking about and they're speaking out of ignorance.

So what they see is they see a religious system.

And I think what they typically mean, at least in my experience, is that when they say all religions are the same or they're basically the same, is that there are moral teachings right from wrong and this and that and the other.

When people make those claims, they really know anything about the, the, the, the, the specific truth claims of each religious system and how they, how they are contradictory.

Now if somebody were to know those details and how they, how they contradict and they were still make the claim, then yeah, I would agree with you.

But I think most people are just ignorant about.

I mean, and I don't mean necessarily mean that in a pejorative sense either.

Right.

They just don't know because they've never looked into it.

They just like, eh, religion, they're all the same.

I don't need them.

Right.

Have you been looking at my notes?

No.

Okay.

I can't read it because.

And actually I think Jesse was reading my notes too because he says two religions, you have all that require works and Christianity based On grace.

And so thank you, Jesse, because that is what we're going to talk about.

I make the claim the way I usually do this is when someone says all religions are the same, I will ask them how many religions there are in the world.

Get.

Usually get an answer of thousands, sometimes hundreds.

I always love the person who does this.

Christianity, Buddhism, Islam.

And they.

They're like.

They count on their fingers, like they're actually trying to.

Yeah, okay.

And.

And if they.

If they give me a number.

And I've actually had this.

A guy that was sitting there thinking, looking up in the sky, calculating, and he goes, maybe a dozen.

And I said, can you name some of them?

And so when he said Christianity, I said, okay, is.

Is Christianity all one religion?

Or is there like Mormonism, Jehovah Witness, Catholicism, Protestant?

And he goes, oh, yeah, there's more.

How about Islam is.

I mean, do you have, you know, major branches in there?

Yeah, okay, what about Jewish?

Like, he started to realize, oh, yeah, he goes, okay, so maybe we're up to hundreds.

But I do that on purpose because I want them to.

To give me the big number.

To which, as Jesse said, I turn and say, no, there's only two religions in the world, and that's it.

There's only two.

Now, you could say true and false.

I wouldn't say it the way Jesse did, because Jesse's thing here of saying two religions, those that require works and Christianity, I don't say that right up front.

I will get there, but I don't say that up front because that's where I want to go.

I want to show that.

And so I argue there's only two religions, divine and man made, because all religions seem to be the same, because all but one have a similar thing in common.

That is a major issue, and that is the works.

Righteousness.

So.

And if you have the second edition of my book, what do they believe?

You will see that on the second edition, I added an epilogue.

And that epilogue, the purpose of it was, because I didn't realize people were using that as a evangelistic tool and the gospel wasn't in there.

So I added an epilogue that is the uniqueness of Christianity and then ends with.

With the Gospel message.

And so what I put in just a few pages in the back of that book we're going to dissect for the next, well, maybe hour or so.

But essentially, Jesse got it right to the heart of it, which.

The reason why all the religions seem like they're the same is exactly what Dan said.

What the ignorant Think when they look at religions is they just teach a system of morality.

And why would that be?

Well, because what Jesse said works.

If you have a system that's works righteousness do good to earn heaven.

Well, what's, what's that system going to teach you?

Doing good.

Because that's how you get to heaven.

Christianity is one that says it's not done, it's not based on your works.

So that is the only religion in the world that teaches grace.

And it's really.

I had Dan.

There was a guy in.

I actually, his name is in the back of my book.

What do they believe what he wrote for?

But that's not his real name.

I actually originally had his real name.

And he, he saw that and was like, no, because he's in the Middle east and he, he can't have his.

He keeps his name separate when he's in the Middle east versus his real name.

And so.

But, you know, we have the study guides that go along with the book.

What do they believe?

And he used to use that as a evangelism tool.

And he said it was the best tool he ever found.

Because what he did was he would start with Islam and he would just say, let's study world religions.

Because in the countries where he is, if you convert to any religion other than Islam or outside of Islam, you can be killed, right?

So because of that, he can't.

He.

It's really hard to evangelize because to do so you're putting your yourself at risk because it's.

It would be against the law to encourage someone to switch religions.

So what he would do is just say, would you be interested in studying world religions?

And instead of starting on chapter one, Judaism, he starts on chapter three, Islam.

And he said he would go through Islam.

And because they saw that everything that it said was accurate, they trusted the study.

He said they were always willing to go further in the study.

So then he'd go back to Judaism.

Well, if you are in an Arab country, you kind of have an interest in Judaism and what they believe.

So then he'd go into Roman Catholicism and Mormonism, Jehovah Witness.

They don't deal with a lot.

But then he'd get into Christianity.

And he said the beautiful thing of it is he has by then spent six to 10 weeks with them before he gets to Christianity.

And when he gets to Christianity and salvation, he said, I can always stop and just say, hey, do you notice something different with this?

Each of these other religions we looked at was always doing good works.

Now, even if it's works plus what God did, it's works, works, works, works.

Notice that Christianity is grace.

And he said once he got there, people would ask questions.

They would be wanting to know more about, you know, Christianity.

He said that was, that was the way he did it, to just open up the can of worms where they suddenly would have questions and they started to realize the difference between all the world religions and Christianity.

Yep.

And so, yeah, I mean it's, it's something that's.

When we go and defend the faith, we have to recognize that there's.

There's three things that I argue make Christianity unique from every world religion, no matter what.

1.

So any of the man made religions.

And I'm calling a man made for a very simple reason.

Dan.

When kings went to war, did they have the, the historians write about all the battles they lost?

No, they leave out the embarrassing parts.

Yeah.

The Egyptian kings in particular would, would just wipe, wipe, wipe out kings if they wind up being disgraceful.

Yeah.

And so if, if they lost a war, they'll talk about the individual battles they won.

Right?

It's like.

Yeah.

So I was looking, I was watching a video by, oh, what's his name?

Joel Kramer.

Oh yeah?

What's the name of his channel on YouTube?

Oh, I should know.

So Joel Kramer is, I'm gonna go look this up.

But Joel Kramer is the guy who we had as a tour guide when we were in Israel and I would have loved that.

You should have come with us.

So, so my wife, actually, my wife is maybe one of very few people that can, can claim this.

She had a.

And folks, I'm gonna, I'm looking up the channel name and when I find it.

But Joel, I'm trying to find it.

Bible.

Yes, Expedition Bible.

And so one of the things like you want to go check out his stuff?

He's super smart.

A lot of things.

Expedition Bible on YouTube.

He has, he's an archaeologist.

So we were in Israel and everyone in our group wanted to go through Hezekiah's tunnel, the wet tunnel, except for my wife.

My wife didn't want to get wet.

So he was like, great, because he wanted, he, he took her through the Hezekiah's dry tunnel and she had a one on one personal tour with Joel Kramer.

And the reason he was so glad was because coming out of the dry tunnel there is.

You come out in an area where if most people go straight and.

But if you make a right, there is a gate and from there you can open the gate if you're Only if you go through the dry tunnel, and if you open that gate, it takes you to the real tomb of King David, not the one the Catholic Church says is the tomb.

And we went there and he explained it all.

But.

So my wife actually had a private tour with Joel Kramer, and then she sat down waiting for all of us to come and open the gate for us, because he went through the gate to get us.

And so.

Yeah, so the reason I, the reason I brought him up is because he did a.

I think I'm looking at the video right now.

Bible evidence unearthed at Nineveh.

Oh, yes.

And he had, he was talking about.

They found a relief.

And I can't remember what the king's name was.

I want to say it was Ashurbanipal, but that might not be it.

Anyway, the, The, The.

The record they found in nine said that this particular king, and you have to forgive me for not remembering his name, this particular king, it talked about his conquest of Israel and that he laid siege against Jerusalem, but it never says that he conquered Jerusalem because, as you recall, he was.

He was turned back.

God called him out, and then I guess his sons killed him.

Is that what happened?

I'm trying to remember.

Yeah.

I'm sitting here staring at the video.

I'm pretty sure this is the one.

Yeah.

And that, and that's exactly the point, is that they're going to word it to make them look better.

Yeah.

And so maybe do not record your failures.

Yeah.

Which is one of the arguments we say why we know the New Testament is written by God, because the disciples recorded a lot of their failures.

Peter's foot and mouth disease.

Well, you know, James and John.

Shall we rain thunder down upon them?

Rain fire down from heaven.

Yeah.

You know, and the fact that, you know, you have women that go to the tomb, they're the first to, to see it, because that wouldn't have been in a Jewish culture at that time.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

So.

So I say all that for this purpose.

What you see is that mankind will.

They always, well, as Dan said, always hide their failures.

We're always going to add what.

What, you know, what we can do and make it sound good.

And so because of that, you will have people that want to earn heaven.

They want to do something to make it where if, even if, like Catholicism, Christ dies on a cross, they're going to say it's faith plus works.

It can't be faith alone.

You have to add something.

You have to do something.

You, you work with God, you do something.

Turn it you know so well.

Okay, let's just upset some people.

Maybe we're far enough removed from this evangelist.

The most well known evangelist worldwide, Billy Graham.

And Billy Graham said this.

God did the 99%.

It's up to you to do the last 1%.

Well, if you're doing the last 1%, guess who's doing the saving?

You are.

Okay, if God didn't do 100%, then you are the one that ultimately saves yourself.

Would you throw Jacob, Jacob Arminius in there?

Well, I would encourage people to go look at, go search for the Top the on YouTube My name, Andrew Rappaport, history of Calvinism.

And you will see that I argue that.

And when we did the why Calvinism conference, the different speakers, we all shared notes with one another, but you know, just what our outline was going to be.

And there was a lot of discussion on my outline because I had one of my points was the Calvinism of Jacob Arminius.

And people were like, I really want to see what you're going to say there.

Because what a lot of people don't know is Jacob Arminius was a Calvinist in the sense that he followed after Calvin.

So historically what you had was Calvin didn't actually define Calvinism.

What we know of Calvinism today, Calvin was long dead.

Calvin had a follower, Beza.

Jacob Arminius was I think 4 years old when Calvin died.

So for the people who think Calvin and Arminius debated these issues, that's known as Calvinism, Armenianism.

No, I, I Look, if a 4 year old was debating Calvinism or debating Calvin and, and holding his weight in any form, I would be impressed.

Okay.

Because most 4 year olds are not at a point that they can do a debate unless especially upon theological topics in depth.

Okay, so, but, but that is what many people think.

They think that Calvin and Arminian argued and debated the way Luther and Erasmus did, just because it's called Calvinism versus Arminianism.

And so you had Beza and he was teaching.

And what ended up happening was, you know, Arminius actually thought Beza was going astray from what Calvin taught.

And the big thing that set him off was the idea of double predestination.

The idea that not only did God elect some to salvation, but then he damned others to hell.

And Arminius's point was that we're all going to hell.

That's just the foregoing conclusion.

God is choosing some to go to heaven.

So it wasn't an active decision on God's part to say, you are Going to hell was his issue.

He believed in total depravity, what we would call total depravity.

And so he was, in his early years, he was actually looking to bring Beza back to what he felt Calvin was teaching.

But then as they continued to debate, well, what ends up happening when you're arguing with people and trying to, you know, make a point, especially when you have lots of followers, you kind of don't want to give up your point.

So Armenia started to go further down a road.

But the reality is Jacob Arminius did not believe what we call Arminianism today because he was dead before it was doc, before they formulated it.

So Beza and was trying to put Arminius on trial.

There was health issues, whatnot.

It never happened.

Arminius dies, he never has this trial.

And what ended up happening was his followers are the ones that continue it.

His followers come up with five points of the Remonstrance.

And the, what we call the Calvinists today responded to that.

Okay.

And the, they're actually for those who go, well, if there was a six, I'd be a six point Calvinist.

Well, technically there were actually eight points to Calvinism.

The first, the first formation of the response to the followers of Jacob Arminius were eight points.

And in the end they, they came down to five that were counteracting those that were at, you know, for the, the doc, the Remonstrance.

So, so there became five points, but it started off with eight.

So Jacob Arminius actually was a Calvinist in a way because he, he was, he was trying to get back to Calvin's teaching and then just kind of went off.

So, so you had, you could see, you know, bees goes off one way, Arminius goes off the other way.

And yeah, so.

And then the followers took it way to extremes, you know, on each side.

Answer to the question is no, not necessarily correct.

Bring it back full circle.

Well, a little history lesson, you know, But I do encourage you to go check out that, that sermon I did at the Y Calvinist conference.

And I should mention Jeffrey Rice is having another conference.

It's on.

I have posted it on X and Facebook if you want the details so you could just scan the QR code.

But it is, it is the conference.

Let me look up the actual name of it because I don't remember it offhand.

I should have, I should just put up a title for it, say I took two many pictures in Japan and now it's harder to find.

So it is the CRBC conference.

2025.

Road map to revival.

It's September 12th and 13th.

Speakers are James White, Andrew Rapaport, Michael Schultz, Jeremiah Jeremiah Notler, Keith Fosky, Jonathan Boris, Claude Ramsey, and Jeffrey Rice.

So that's in total.

Tullahoma, Tennessee, if you're in that area.

And he just has the QR code to register.

But if you.

If you do a search for Road Map to Revival, I'm sure you'll find it.

But it's good.

That's gonna be a good guy.

That conference is always good.

I've been watching.

I went to James White's, you know, Alpha and omega Ministries, their YouTube playlist on Roman Catholicism.

And I think I've watched almost every single debate he's done against Roman Catholics because I got that less those lessons I have to.

I gotta teach in August.

Yeah.

So I've been.

I've been kind of, you know, gearing up.

Gearing up for that.

So.

And I'm sure you've read chapter two of.

Well, I know for a fact you read chapter two of my book.

What do they Believe?

Because for folks that don't know, we.

We actually have, you know, made updates because of Dan.

Dan went through that book.

I don't think there was a comma in the wrong place that Dan didn't point out.

Dan found every.

Everything.

He was so detailed.

Whenever I get a new book, I put a post it note in the front, and if I know the author and if I know how to contact the author, I'll put a post it note in the front.

And every time I run into an error, I'll just jot the.

I'll circle it in the book and jot the page number down.

And then I'll just say, hey, would you be interested in getting a list of errato from your book?

I even.

I even found some.

I think I found a math error in one of Jason Lyle's books.

Wow.

And I think it was the.

The ultimate proof of.

No, it was the physics of Einstein.

I believe I found.

I found an error in that book.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

And folks, to let you know, that's what.

That's what got me to say, hey, Dan, do you want to come on and be a speaker or striving attorney?

Because he was so.

He was so detailed.

He was so polite in the way of, hey, you open to correction?

Let me get, you know, some things that, you know, I found in your book, but so thorough.

After having published my own, you know, three volume set, I.

I would read it and reread it and reread it and everything looked fine.

Then I would hand it to somebody and then the more people I handed it to, the more errors came back that I just didn't see.

And then I paid a professional editor to go through my book and edit it.

And even after it was published, I still found a couple of errors.

So it's, I know that things get through and it's just, it's really frustrating.

So it's, it's kind of, it's kind of, it hits me in the feels when I see an author, you know, publish a book that's got boo boos in it because they probably have no idea.

Well, you're talking about math errors we had.

When I was in college, we had a, we had a professor.

We took calculus one and he thought that by teaching us Calculus three, we'd have a better understanding of Calculus one.

Because when he took calculus one and two, by the time he got to three, he said a light bulb went off and he really understood calculus in Calculus three.

So he thought he would just skim through Calculus one and jump into calculus three.

And so yeah, it was, it was the worst.

The entire class, it was bad.

So, so what ended up happening?

He gave a, a take home test, okay.

And it was interesting because I, I, there were out of 10 questions, there were two that I, when I handed in, they were not answered.

There was one that was directly out of the textbook that he wrote on calculus.

Okay?

And I got it wrong, as did everyone else in the class.

And that becomes an interesting one.

I'm going to get back to it because that's the thing of what you said.

But the interesting thing was I took this calculus take home test to the dean of the math department and I dared him to finish the test.

I dared him to.

And so he, he copied it down and he got concerned because he could not do it.

Now there's one reason he couldn't.

There was an error in this guy's textbook.

Now one of the problems, he was like, he just, he looked at the problems and was like, you're in calculus one.

This is.

Whoa, no, no.

You know.

So every single student took the example from his book.

We started.

We worked it down to a certain point, couldn't figure it out.

So we go to the answers and we take the answer and work it back.

Just like the dean did, by the way, okay?

And it didn't work.

It didn't work.

And so he accused the teacher, professor, accused all of us of cheating because we all had the exact Same answer every student.

And so one of the students goes, asks him, well, how about you show us?

So he starts, works it down, gets to the same spot, looks at the answer in the back of his book, works his way up, and he turns and looks at the class and the student that asked him to do it goes, hey professor, that looks exactly like our answer.

Are you cheating?

So needless to say, he wasn't teaching anymore at that school.

Wow.

So yeah, I got him fired.

And not directly, but I think I did because I went to the dean and said, here, you know, but so the thing though is that we will add human effort.

We will want to make ourselves look good.

Okay, so one of the things with every man made religion, I'm being very specific in the wording there.

Man made religions will add human effort.

Why?

Because if a man is creating a religion, man is adding his works.

So this is something we know about human nature.

So it's, it's one way, not the only way, but one way of determining which religions are man made versus divine.

Okay, now I say that because what I want to do ultimately is show that there's, Remember I said divine versus man made.

I'm giving an argument and now notice I'm also trying to make it objective.

I'm appealing to the person to admit that every king is going to write about the battles he lost, not the war he.

Or sorry about battles he won, not the war he lost.

Right.

And so because of that, and, and I've never once had a person disagree with that.

And I would say so do you think if a person is creating a religion, a man is making up a religion, that even if he's changing one that exists, that he would add his good works, his what he can contribute.

And people always say to me, yeah, okay, well see, now it's not like some subjective thing.

I'm giving an objective standard and I'm getting them to agree with it.

I don't talk about whether it's subjective or objective yet, but because the, the way of going through that, they agree with it.

I later will say, well you agreed with it.

You, you saw that it was objective earlier.

And they go, oh yeah.

So because they want to say religion's just subjective, it's, it's something you believe, therefore it's just to you.

But I think there's an objective way to examine it.

And the first and most crucial is the idea of works.

Because what that leads to is why do so many of the man made religions seem similar?

They seem similar because they're all based on work works on a system of morality do's and don'ts.

Now I don't, I don't get into which religion doesn't have that yet.

I leave that alone for now.

One of the, the things though, I'm, I want to get to is to get them to see that.

Now a second thing I'll get to is I'll say, you know, is there anything and Dan, I'll just ask you the question, is there anything specific that you know of with Islam that's specific to Muhammad the founder?

I mean, could those teachings have come from anybody?

Is there anything like, is Muhammad uniquely a unique individual that only he could be the founder of Islam?

I don't know.

Do you have to be a pedophile to be a founder of the, a major world religion?

Well, he waited till he had sex with her.

He married her young.

Okay, but.

And folks that don't, don't understand.

So Muhammad had married a six year old but did not consummate it till nine.

Oh, nine.

Yes.

I thought it was 13, man.

No, I think she was, I think she was nine, if I remember correctly.

Unless she was nine when they married and 13 when they consummated.

But, but there, but yeah, so, so I mean, there's nothing within Islam they wouldn't, they would say he's a prophet, he's a greater prophet than Jesus, but he, he's a prophet.

Right.

There's nothing unique about Muhammad where the teaching could only come from Muhammad.

How about Joseph?

Is there anything unique to Joseph Smith where only Joseph Smith could come up with Mormonism?

Well, actually, no, because he had peep stones.

Yeah.

You got to have the Uman and Thummim in order to start Mormonism.

Right.

You gotta have the magic spectacles.

Well, but the thing is that gave him the Book of Mormon.

But do you.

That gave him the Book of Mormon, supposedly.

But the interesting thing is much of what we think of as Mormonism today came from Brigham Young, not Joseph Smith.

In fact, the Book of Mormon is closer to the Bible than it is Mormon teaching.

Yeah.

So close that you might say he plagiarized some parts.

He plagiarized major sections.

Major.

One of our podcasts that are in the Christian podcast community is True Espresso.

And he has been going through the Book of Mormon explaining his history, and he goes through and shows the major parts that plagiarize.

He even, he even points out something that Gerald and Sandra Tanner pointed out was basically the only time that Joseph Smith gets the old English Right.

In the Book of Mormon is when he's quoting the, the King James Bible, he didn't know the sentence structure of the, these, the vows and things like that.

And so when he would get it wrong almost every time unless he was quoting the, the Bible.

And so, you know, there's nothing specific about Joseph Smith, Muhammad, Buddha.

I mean you think of the person that create, that created a man made religion.

There's nothing unique about them.

But there is something unique with Christianity.

You cannot have Christianity without Jesus Christ because the, the idea of Christianity is about a person, right?

So it's not a system of morality.

It's about someone who is truly God and truly man.

Being truly God, he can pay a fine for all of eternity and he could pay it for more than one person.

Being truly man, having never sinned, he can be a proper sacrifice for human beings.

That's what makes Jesus Christ unique.

Being truly God and truly man.

The idea of Christianity is that it is not about a system of morality, but it's about what Jesus Christ did at the cross when he died in our place.

Those who know Christ, when he died in our place for our sin so that we could be set free.

You see, that's different because if he didn't die, die and three days later rise from the dead, then any, the, the teachings that Jesus had, well, they could have come from anyone because well we, there isn't a different message between the Old Testament and the New Testament because all of that came from God.

So Jesus didn't start Christianity.

I would argue this is, this is the same teaching we had with Adam and Eve directly from God, the same grace that is offered.

It was just that the Old Testament looked forward to what Jesus did.

And we look back to it and.

Many people confuse the whole sacrificial system with that earning favor with God by doing stuff.

When what you're really saying is it's just, it's an act of obedience and it's a pre figure figuring of the ultimate sacrifice to come, namely Christ, exactly.

As Paul preached in Hebrews, the book of Hebrews.

Oh, did I just give that away?

Sorry.

I think that it might have been Barnabas who wrote it down.

I'll grant that, but I do think it was a sermon of Paul's.

But yeah, in Hebrews that's what it says that they look forward, the sacrifices look forward to what Christ would do.

So you cannot have Christianity without Jesus Christ.

It's fundamental because it's based on the resurrection.

Read First Corinthians 15, the resurrection of Christ is fundamental.

If Jesus Christ didn't rise from the dead, Paul says Christians are of, or it's in vain, you of all people.

Are to be most pitied.

Correct.

And so when you hear.

So what is it?

The, the argument is often said that, you know, if, you know, if, if Christianity is, is true, then I get heaven, but if it's false, then, and your view is true, how does it go?

It's, it's Pascal's Wager.

And it basically, it basically goes like this.

Is that if you know from, from an atheist, you know, or you know, from a perspective of, well, if, if Christianity is, you know, if you're talking to an atheist or someone of a different religion, if your view is, you know, is right, there's no hell, then I got nothing to lose.

I don't, if I go into non existence, I don't know any different, so I lose nothing.

So if you're right and I'm wrong, it's a dead even.

But if I'm right and you're wrong, I go to heaven and you go to hell.

That's, that's Pascal's Wager.

Yeah.

So whenever I, whenever I hear that, and obviously it's been a while since I've heard it, remember it.

You just heard it about a minute ago.

Wait.

Completely unbiblical argument, folks.

Please don't use Pascal's Wager.

You know, that's not what Balti had taught in First Corinthians 15, right?

Yes.

You know, if, if, if the resurrection isn't true, if Christ is not raised, then, and if the dead are not raised, then, then you of all people that are to be most pitied because you're missing out on, on all the stuff that life has to offer.

Yeah, that's what, that's what, that's what it is.

And so we, you know, man in the best, best way of man's thinking comes up with Pascal's Wager.

And you know, the best we can do when we divorce ourselves from the word of God is to get it completely backwards.

Yeah.

Well, I actually back, this is like 35 plus years ago.

I, when I was first engaging with job witnesses and they said that hell didn't exist, I actually argued without knowing.

I didn't know anything about Pascal's Wager, never heard it before, but I came up with the same thinking because I remember saying to him, look, if, if what you're saying is true and I die, I lose nothing.

But if I'm, what I'm telling you is true, you go to hell I go to be with God.

That should concern you.

And I remember telling my pastor, and he's like, pascal's wager is a bad argument.

And I went, who's Pascal?

Like, I actually thought I.

And maybe I did come up with that on my own, but it's, it, it wasn't original with me and nothing.

New under the sun.

And as my pastor explained, I went, oh, yeah, it's a bad argument, but it worked really well for the job.

Witness.

Well, when you have an entire belief system based upon bad arguments and bad theology, one more bad argument on top of he isn't gonna even be noticed.

Yeah, so.

So the first thing that I try to convene to people when they say all religions are the same and or what is the true religion?

Either way, first I want to do is separate the difference between the fact that all religions are based on human effort, they're based on works.

Once I get to explaining the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, now I can talk, talk about the fact that the difference with Christianity, it's based by grace and not works, you see, because now it's based on that uniqueness of just Christian of Christ, that he died on the cross being truly God, truly man, that now he paid it once in time, but it counted for all eternity because he's an eternal being and therefore it can affect.

He can forgive me.

And so it's based on grace, and it's the only one based on grace.

So now objectively examine any religion.

What religions are based upon the grace of God alone, and what religions are based on human effort?

Well, you only have one in the category of grace of God alone, and all the others in the category of human effort.

Okay, which one's based upon God and which one is.

Is anyone can come up with, well, Christianity is based on the specific person of Jesus Christ.

God and all the others could be taught by anybody.

Even though Muslims will say that Muhammad is a special, but the teachings that Muhammad gave are not based upon him and his nature or essence.

Where Christianity is based based upon the nature and essence of who Jesus Christ is.

So it leaves us with the third point.

And the third point is this, that you have many religions that will say that God is merciful and they'll also say he's just.

In fact, when I speak to Muslims, I'll ask it this way, do you believe God is just?

I asked that one first.

They say yes.

And when you speak of Allah, how do you refer to them?

And they'll say, well, Allah most merciful.

Okay, so you believe God is merciful?

Yes.

Now once you get someone to see that they believe that God is both just and merciful, the question becomes how?

Because justice and mercy are mutually exclusive.

Justice.

Let's give an example.

The example I like to give.

If I was to get up on a ladder and smack Dan in the face.

Because to reach his face, I would have to get up on a six foot ladder.

But I get up, I get up on a ladder, smack Dan in the face.

The law says Dan must smack me back with equal force.

Okay.

So Dan, you got a choice.

If you smack me back with equal force, which one is that called?

Justice or mercy?

Oh, justice.

It's getting what you deserve.

Okay, if you don't smack me at all, what is that law breaking?

Well, is it justice or mercy?

Well, but it's.

It would be mercy, right?

It's downtown Seattle.

So you could be just.

And smack me with equal force.

You could be merciful and not smack me at all.

But if you smack me with half the force, is it mercy?

No, because he smacked me.

Well, there's a certain element of mercy there, right?

Certain element.

You all that you could, you could have, you know.

But it's not complete mercy.

No.

Which is what they would say God is.

Is it complete justice?

No, because he didn't do it with equal force, which was what the law said.

Right.

So every, every man made religion says that God is just and merciful, but what they end up with is a God that's neither just nor merciful.

Because somehow he is letting people into heaven that don't deserve to be there without punishing them the way they should.

In Islam where they say, well, God, Allah will just by what he, in his infinite wisdom, he's going to decide who goes to heaven.

And yet you earn it.

You merit it.

So it's based on what I do?

Yeah.

Well, okay then is it, is it really just right?

If it's.

Well, if it's based on what I do, is it really mercy because I earned it?

Well then no.

Then God's not merciful.

Well, if he just lets me in when I'm.

I'm deserving punishment.

He's not merciful.

You see, only Christianity, because of the nature of who Jesus Christ is, can have a God that is both just and merciful.

And the reason for that is.

And Dan just went off camera but didn't mute.

Sorry, I was closing my window.

Ah.

So I got concrete being shoveled outside.

Okay.

It's rather distracting, so I thought that was just.

You were Hungry?

Because it's, it's dinner time out there.

About you grinding my cheese.

So what you have, when Jesus Christ is because of his nature being an eternal being and him being his part of him, you know, the fact that he became a man, he can in time pay an eternal fine.

And because his nature is eternal, that if we have a fine that is forever, his nature is forever.

So it's the nature of Jesus Christ that the payment could be made because of his deity.

So he didn't pay a half part of the, the sin.

He didn't even pay 99% of my sin.

He paid a hundred percent of the punishment of my sin.

But, but again because of his nature being God and man, he can pay it once in time.

It's paid fully.

And guess what?

Now he can offer to me mercy.

Why?

Because the punishment was fully paid, he can now offer mercy.

Amen.

And these three elements are unique to Christianity.

These three elements are what makes Christianity the only divine religion.

So when people say all religions teach the same thing, I can agree partially.

And what the way I usually do it is, I say, well I can agree that all man made religions teach this some element that's the same.

Because every man made religion is teaching human effort.

No matter how close they come to the truth in other areas, they are always teach human effort to get right with God, to get to heaven, nirvana, whatever it's going to be.

And so what you have is that effort is what's going to lead them to a system that is teaching morality.

And that's what seems similar in all these religions.

It seems similar because they're teaching, as Dan said earlier, a system of morality.

And that's what makes them look similar.

But Christianity is unique among them for these reasons.

It's the, it's the only one that is based on grace, not works.

As Jesse said, it's the only one that is based upon a being on a person, not a teaching.

And it's the only one that has a God that can be truly just and truly merciful.

So this sets it apart from every other man made religion.

Any thoughts that you have on that, Dan?

When you told me what the topic was for tonight, I was sitting here, you know, going through the introduction, just kind of sitting here thinking about where you were going to go with this.

And I thought for sure you were gonna, you were gonna go all precept on me and we're going to talk about, you know, doing internal critiques and internal inconsistencies and all this other stuff.

I'm like, oh boy, here we go.

But I was, I'm, I'm very, I was very pleasantly surprised to see you take this approach.

It's, it's much less, it's, it's, it's more, I don't know, it's, it's more basic.

Right.

You don't have to get all, you don't have to know a whole lot about every single religion.

You just kind of have a service level understanding and you nail the core essence of it that way without having to get into, you know, internal inconsistencies and you know, contradictions in their respective texts and which of course just gets you into a spitting match, you know, with the person from the other religious group.

So, yeah, I like this, this is, this is good stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, because simple stupid, that's my theory.

Well, the way that I word it is keep me simple stupid.

Yeah, it doesn't spell anything though, because you can't say that.

Yeah, I mean the, the thing is, is that as we, as we look at it, there are ways and that we can objectively look at religions and compare them and you know, like Dan, I didn't think about it, but you know, like someone could challenge.

Oh, well, you're not precept by doing that.

Well, I am in a sense because I'm not giving up God's nature, I'm not giving up God's word.

I, I'm just giving an objective way to, you know, evaluate the different world religions.

So what am I really doing by it?

I'm looking at this world religion and saying, okay, is it man made or divine?

Okay, so let's see, does it add human effort to getting right with God or getting right?

Because like if you, if you think of Hinduism, Buddhism, you just keep, you keep working your way through life after life after life until you finally get everything right and you're in nirvana.

Right.

So, but that's works.

Seriously.

So now, so now we've reached the point where you've established that there are two major classes of religions.

There's, there are, there is a grace based religion and there's the whole panoply of works based religions.

Obviously they're, they're, they're fundamentally contradictory.

So that tells us that not all of them can be true.

But it doesn't say which one is true, of course.

So I'm gonna guess that that's where you're going next.

Well, I, I actually don't even need to because I've, we've already established that one is unique amongst all the Others and only one relies completely upon God.

So now it's just, I mean I could go precept at this point because now it's the fact that you know, it's the God you know exists.

Yeah, right.

Because, because there are the argument, what people sometimes argue when they do apologize is argue for a God, not the Christian God.

Yeah, Generic theism.

The William Lane Craig approach.

And that's exactly who I was going to say.

William Lake Craig argues this way.

He argues for a God, not the God of the Bible.

And what you'll see what I find interesting.

And if you're talking with someone that professes to be an atheist, depending how the conversation goes, one of the things that I find is they will often argue to me me early on is they, they want to argue that other religions could be true, but the Christian God can't exist.

The God of the Bible can't exist.

I always find that interesting.

So.

So the God of Islam could exist.

Yeah.

And Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the Christian God, the God of the Bible can't exist.

That's right.

Why is it all the others could exist?

Right?

It's like they're, they're showing, they're playing their hand when they do that to the fact that they know which one they want to reject.

Romans 1:18.

Yeah.

So.

So you're saying these all could exist.

They all can't be.

Right.

But they, you're saying they can all exist.

Okay, so if they can all exist, then we could go with the fact that they're all the same, but they're all man made.

So they're all wrong then because they're not divine.

So.

Oops.

Yeah.

All right, brother, I need to, I need to take off here.

All right.

I need to go have dinner.

Well, before you go, actually I want, before you go, I want to see if you have any speaking events coming up.

Before you go.

I do want to turn this on.

I want to see folks, if you have any comments, put it in the chat.

There's a new feature I want to test.

It says show comments on stage.

So let me click that.

I want to see if comments just automatically, I think down in the lower.

Right there.

Yep, there it goes.

Hard, hard to read on a small screen, but there.

Okay, so if I click that on, the comments just show up in a small little box that just can be there for.

So that's an interesting idea.

We might, we might leave that on.

It was just.

When it was just me, I think it covers it up.

But.

Okay, so Dan, what speaking events you got coming up for folks?

So on June 29th, 6:00pm at Emmanuel Baptist Church of Snohomish, that's in Washington.

My, my stomping grounds.

That's actually my home church now.

I'll be delivering my, my, my abortion presentation.

The awful reality of choice.

Choice.

So I talked to my elders and they said they're gonna, they're giving me the, the fifth Sunday evening to, to present it there.

And I'm trying to get other churches in the area to, to help me promote it and to, you know, to send their people over because I think it's a message that really, really needs to be heard.

Yeah, so be praying for me on that one because it's as you know, it's not a presentation.

It's easy to deliver.

I don't like giving it, but I think I have to.

But it's necessary.

Is it.

Will that be recorded?

I don't know.

It's the, the church does do a live stream of the Sunday services, so.

On Facebook.

So I would imagine it'll be there.

But I have not asked.

I.

That's a good question.

I'll.

I'll, I'll run that by the elders and see what they say.

And Fatima is saying, let us have Dan in our prayers.

So yes, please be praying for Dan for that talk.

If you have not heard that, if you search for Dan.

Actually, is that, is that.

You have it on your website, right?

On your website.

My website.

Go to sevenfoot, apologist.com speaking.

And it'll be the first presentation on the page.

It's called the Awful Reality of Choice.

Don't bother Googling the title because it won't.

It won't.

It won't come up.

So seven foot apologist.com was dot com, right dot com.

Yeah.

Okay.

Seven foot apologist dot com speaking.

You want to watch that one?

And so it was a very powerful message.

It was a mistake having Dan do it before lunch because poor, poor Dominic.

I think he still hasn't had lunch since fasting.

Yeah, he was, he was so gut wrenching for him.

He was like, I can't eat lunch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was, it was.

And yet left.

It left a lot of people just.

It was, it was a gut punch.

It was.

It was a really good message.

Any other speaking events you got coming up?

Let's see here.

So on the 27th, two days before that, I'm doing a morning devotional at Seattle's Union Gospel Mission Mission.

I.

We have a mother in law apartment in our in our downstairs of our house.

And the guy who lives there is a caseworker at Union Gospel Mission.

So he has invited me in to give a 15 to 30 minute devotional.

So I have to figure out what I'm going to do there.

15 minutes.

A family camp at Peniel Ranch out in Okanagan in Washington.

The Okanagan is basically in the middle of nowhere Washington, but more importantly in another public event is called the Crucible Conference.

It's being put on by Tiny Heartbeat ministries.

That's Saturday, September 13th at Redeemer Church in Bellevue, Washington.

So that's.

There's.

I'm going to be speaking and there are going to be two other two pastors speaking and my firstborn son who just graduated first of his class at New St.

Andrews College College is going to be speaking to.

He's going to be doing a presentation called Dismantle Foolish Arguments.

Pro Life apologetics training seasoned with compassion and grace.

Neat.

Yeah.

All right.

It's very proud of him.

I was gonna say a proud daddy.

All right.

I'm also a hungry dad.

Yeah.

So you go get some dinner.

Thanks for coming in.

All right, take care, man.

So if folks in the chat have any questions, any comments that they want to make.

See, see, it's hard to read that when, when I'm just me.

See, that's good.

So we, so I'll turn that feature off when it's just me.

But yeah, if you guys have any questions.

I actually covered everything I wanted to cover in an hour.

If you guys have questions we could, I could look to answer man wants to come in.

If not, we could just end the show early tonight which is fine because, because I got to get up at 3:30 in the morning.

But, but yeah, let me take a quick look at what we have in questions and comments from that were sent in.

Oh yeah, that's right.

Some.

This was a fun one.

So I was on.

Let's see, there's Chat GPT had a new feature and it came up and it asked me whether I wanted to use this new feature where it goes through all of the chats, the, the interactions that Chat GPT and I have had.

And most of what I use for Chat GPT is here's my sermon notes.

Can you make it sound better?

You know, you know, basically fix all my poor English grammar.

And so the other thing I do is I, I ask it to write the, like, here's the topics I want to cover for Apologetics live and let it come up with a good catchy title and, and description.

And so it knows much of what I have from apologetics live and sermons.

And so it had this, this new, a new feature where it looks at your, your chats with it and it, it said, would you like to have an example said?

Sure, try it.

So it, it said that what it was going to do is describe me based upon our chats and make it catchy.

So that's what it told itself to do.

So this is how ChatGPT described me based off of my chats with Chat GPT.

So it had a title of Meet the Lion of Live Stream.

A Bold conservative Baptist preacher.

Hold on my screen just, it just disappeared on me.

Hold on that, that's a great way to doing it.

All right, so it said, meet the, the lie, the line of Lime Stream.

A bold conservative Baptist preacher with a theological theologian's mind and a debater's fire.

By day, you craft the, you craft crisp sermon manuscripts with doctrinal precision.

By night, you host apologetics live where you fearlessly tackle big questions, stand firm on dispensational truth, and keep the gospel front and center.

No fluff, no compromise, just sharp wit, sharper scripture, and unapologetic, unapologetic clarity to the word of God.

So I, I thought that was pretty funny how chat TPT described me from our chats.

So also, let's see, we did have, Let me double check, see if any.

You guys had any questions.

If not, Fatima wants to know why I have to get up so early.

I have to get up early because I got to be in New Jersey by, oh, dark 30.

Now I got to be in Jersey by 5am so it's a distance away.

So I will be getting up early.

So I have on our backlog of questions the question of false revivals.

Someone wanted to know about false revivals, which is something that I actually kind of covered a bit.

I was on Iron Sharpens, Iron Radio with Chris Arnson, and we talked about what revival is.

We talked about the fact that there are these false revivals where people manufacture the revival, they pick a start date for it and an end date.

That's not how revivals work.

When you think of the revivals today, what a lot of people do, and this is ever since Charles Finney, he really popularized this was using music, the use of music to get people into an emotional state where they would be like, oh, this is, this is some emotional feeling.

And that emotional feeling would give them a, a desire.

And not really a desire, but a feeling like they could do something different.

They could do something more.

And so you have false revivals where the university is.

The one I mentioned on Iron Sharpens Iron, where they pick a start date and they're, they're going in and saying, okay, hey, look, we have everything.

And they're, they're, you know, we're just going to sing.

And, and to one point, I just made.

What happened with that university.

What did they do instead of preaching?

They forgot, said, we'll forego the preaching and just sing songs.

And so what you saw there was you had people who were not listening to preaching but getting the emotional message of, of music.

Now Fatima is asking the question, were there any revivals in the Bible?

Yes, I referred to one on Iron Sharpens Iron was Nineveh with Jonah, the reluctant preacher of the gospel.

Right.

He.

He reluctantly went to Nineveh because he didn't want the Ninevites to get saved.

Strange to have a preacher that doesn't want the audience to have mercy when that's their.

The purpose.

But he didn't want them to have mercy because.

Because he hated the Ninevites, and yet he proclaimed a message of judgment and they repented.

So that, that would be one example of a revival within Scripture.

And Kathy Deming said, yes, Nineveh while I was saying it.

So let me try to answer this question.

I got today, actually.

And I got.

I.

Well, so this was actually I discovered today when I was hunting through, I was trying to find something in Facebook and I discovered that there's a whole new set of messages, chats that I had, like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them that were kind of hidden from me by people that I wasn't friends with on Facebook.

And so we're going back years.

People who asked me questions, and I didn't know they asked me a question, so I felt bad and I'm trying to get back to them and apologize.

And so this person had originally asked, his original question was about Calvinism and election.

And I asked him, I, you know, I said, sorry, it's been a while, you know, face.

It's the first.

I'm reading it because Facebook had it in a hidden folder.

So do you still have questions?

And so he, he said this.

Hello, Pastor, it's been three years since I last messaged you.

I feel so bad I didn't answer his question for three years.

I didn't even know it was there.

Oh, he says it's been three years since I messaged you.

And those years have been very challenging for me due to my commitment to God's.

Calling.

However, by God, by.

By the grace of God, I am still holding on to my faith and am now being used by God in the church.

I feel blessed.

I feel blessed by the ministry that God has entrusted to, to you.

I.

I wanted to ask you for advice on how to handle situations when others are being.

Are talking behind your back, even when you are trying to do the right thing.

This is a struggle I'm currently facing.

Thank you for your guidance.

And so the, the answer I would have is, in short, is if that is the least that we suffer, that's.

That's less than we deserve.

Each one of us, we deserve eternity in a lake of fire.

That's what we deserve.

And so if we're getting even 70 years of being slandered, that's not that much.

That's not that long.

So if that's all we have, okay?

And what I'm trying to say, it's.

It's not that we don't have to correct every.

Everyone, okay.

If you listen to my Rap Report podcast, which I encourage you guys to follow that podcast, as well as the Apologetics Live podcast, I replayed an episode that I was on, the Dead Man Walking podcast with Greg Moore.

And when I was on there, I was on there because there was the news that had broken about Josh Bicep.

I'm not going to get into that here.

The guys did that two weeks ago while I was in Japan, so I didn't have to get involved in that.

Just didn't want to.

But now that it is public, you know, I was one of the people that Josh Bice went after with his fake accounts.

And, you know, there was.

There was slander going on.

And it's interesting that different people.

John Harris made mention of it.

Drew made mention of it in the show that they did here.

You know, Greg Moore made mention of it.

The fact that, yes, I've been slandered by, by Josh and others.

I didn't know it was Josh at the time, but even after knowing it was Josh, I.

I don't go after him.

I'm not feeling like, you know, you don't have to make every argument.

Right.

You don't have to defend yourself against every single argument.

And so are there false claims about me?

Yeah.

Do I need to defend them?

No.

You know, and Greg had asked me, do I feel vindicated with what happened with Josh?

Not at all.

I mean, it's.

There's not a vindication there.

Like, I feel bad for him.

The fact that he got himself in a Place where he, he would create all these anonymous accounts so that he could, you know, attack people that he couldn't do publicly under his own name.

I, I feel bad that he got in a position like that.

I feel bad that he is basically out of work.

I mean, the guy's whole life has been preparing for ministry and now he's out of it.

What, what's he gonna do?

I, I don't, I don't know him well enough to know if he's, if he's got skills for anything else.

I feel bad for him.

I feel bad for the people that are.

Would be slandering me because it's.

To get to that point where you're, you're, you know, slandering someone.

It says something, especially when you, you know or don't care if you're slandering.

It says that there's something wrong with you, that you are in a state that you don't care about truth.

You don't care about God's word.

You don't care about all that God says about the unity that should be within the church.

What gets a person to that position.

If you have a love for Christ, you will have a love for even those who are, well, not, I don't want to say enemy, but those who attack you.

Paul had this.

Let me read from Philippians chapter three.

And, and this is a verse I strongly encourage you guys to read and meditate upon.

Especially when you see, you see many people that do what they call discernment ministry, they're out.

They're going to be discerning for everyone else, and they're, they're going to tell everyone how everyone else is wrong.

Okay, you, I don't have to name the ministries.

You probably know some that are doing that.

But look at how Paul says this.

Paul says in Philippians 3, starting in verse 17.

The key is in verse 18.

But I want to start some context.

Philippians 3.

17.

Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us for many walk of whom I've often told you and now tell you, even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.

You see these ministries that do discernment and, and they, they almost are gleeful when they find something they can use to call someone else out.

They're happy because, oh, this is going to be good material.

I can get a lot of views, I can get a lot of likes, I can get a lot of clicks, I can get a lot of attention.

I can get a lot of supporters.

I can get followers.

People will love me.

Let me call this person out.

Paul calls people out with tears in his eyes.

Are you doing that?

Are these discernment ministries doing that?

No, I.

I know someone who wrote an article saying that John Piper believes that we are saved by works.

Wrote a whole article.

Article has literally gone around the world, been translated, I think into 14 languages, or at least that was when I had last heard.

A lot of people have referred to that article.

It looked very scholarly.

The author told me to.

He did his research.

Check this out.

Like, you know, and I, I said, you know, someone had said based on that article that John Piper is a heretic.

I said, you know, you got to be careful.

Saying that he believes in work, salvation.

And, you know, he talks about final, final judgment, and that works are necessary for final judgment.

I'm like, I think he's talking about sanctification, the works of.

Of sanctification, not regeneration.

And so, sure enough, the author of this article dares me to.

To do the research, and he's gonna.

He's.

It's.

It's so well documented, there's no issues with it.

So I do.

I said, it's gonna take me hours.

I mean, it is gonna take hours and hours to go through all of John Piper's writings, to even search, just do.

Doing searches on it.

And so what ended up happening is I agreed to do it.

I read his article.

I read the article.

He said that Piper was.

Well, I first read the article.

He said that.

That he based everything on that Piper had written.

So I read Piper's article.

I read the.

This author.

I reread Piper.

I reread the author.

And then I started going through the rest of Piper's writings.

And I ended up having a friend of mine.

He was a guy who was one of our speakers at the time, Frank Mullis.

He was on the board of directors at Striving Fraternity.

And he said, you know, John Piper was a big fan of Jonathan Edwards.

I think he did his dissertation on Jonathan Edwards, his doctoral work.

And he was like, I'm just curious whether this idea of final, you know, justification comes from Edwards.

And sure enough, just as Piper was arguing against N.T.

wright, using the idea of final justification and using the works referring to sanctification in our glorification, not of regeneration.

Just as he was using those arguments against someone that believes in a workspace system like NT Wright, so did John John Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards had someone he was debating in his day, and he used the same arguments that Piper was using so when Piper was arguing against N.T.

wright against works, and by the way, that should be the trigger.

He's writing, he's writing against NT rights view of a works based regeneration.

That alone should tell you he's not in agreement of it.

And so nt, sorry, John Piper is using all the arguments that came from someone he studied a lot, which is Jonathan Edwards.

And I was like, oh, that's interesting.

But what really got me and I pointed that this out to the author was two things.

One was the fact that there was a quote that the author cut off.

And when I went and searched everywhere that Piper, everything Piper has written, because I have it on my Logos Bible software, I searched through it all, I cannot find that quote anywhere where Piper is, not where he had.

I forget the phrase now, but the very next part of the sentence, the first half of the sentence makes it sound like Piper is arguing for works because he's, he's defending, he's really attacking a works based regeneration.

And so he's wording something and this author cut it off right there.

And the very next part of the sentence condemns the first half of the statement.

And I went, you took him out of context.

I said, but I still have a struggle.

I said, I have a struggle because you have a quote here that says, quote, it's from Piper, quote, works are necessary to earn salvation, unquote.

Where is that from?

I could not find that quote anywhere.

You have it as a quotation.

Where is that?

I could not find it.

And I said, I pointed to one place where I could find that.

Piper said, works are necessary for salvation, not works are necessary to earn salvation.

Did you pick up the difference there?

Yeah, that's a big difference.

And so what happened was that he added a word to the quote and that word makes a major difference.

If you read the context of the of Piper, he is basically arguing for works necessary for that.

Sanctification.

But.

And salvation is a broad word used for regeneration.

Sanctification, glorification.

Okay.

And so the fact is, is that the author didn't say that anywhere.

He asked where that from.

It's in quotes.

You didn't cite a source.

The author of this article said that's what he meant.

I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

You cannot put it in quotes.

Something he didn't say and add a word that radically changes the meaning of the sentence.

That's not honest.

You can't do that.

And he just kept arguing, that's what he means.

I've read enough.

Piper.

That's what he means.

I said, but you're being dishonest.

See, a guy like that was just so thrilled that his article was being asked to be translated in other languages that blog sites wanted to have it on their blog that he was getting interviewed over and over all this.

He was getting a platform.

Was he weeping for John Piper?

No.

He was actually, I would argue, slandering John Piper because he was being dishonest in his evaluation of what John Piper said.

So I am, you know, I, I, I say that to say when people do things like this, we have to be careful.

Okay, so Fatima says all that reading research and verification.

My ex therapist would say Andrew has ocd.

But great job Andrew.

That's okay.

Your therapist wouldn't be the only one to say I have ocd.

But I've actually overcome a lot of it just by forcing, by forcing myself to, you know, I had certain hang ups that I just forced myself to just stop doing so.

So to the person who asked the question, how do you deal with people that are talking behind your back when you want to do the right thing, keep doing the right thing.

Let, let God correct it if he so desires.

But guess what?

He will correct it.

One day it may not be here on earth.

The record will be completed, you know, corrected.

But it has to be if you're, if you're going to deal with like if you're wanting to correct the record, someone's, you feel an enemy of you.

An enemy or even worse, an enemy of Christ.

Philippians 3:18.

What is Paul's model?

He's saying we should follow after his example.

What's the example?

That when he calls out enemies of Christ, he does so with tears in his eyes.

Did Josh Bicep slander me?

Yes.

Did he do things?

John Harris has now made this public.

Did John, Did Josh Bice remove me from the cessationist film?

Yes.

Do I rejoice that he's out of ministry?

No.

I'm grieved over the fact that he got himself in a state that he's out of ministry with.

Why?

Because his sin is now a mark, a smirch on the name of Christ.

There's people who, because he was such a well known name, are looking at him and going, that's Christianity.

It's, it's a, it is ruined.

You kind of can't ruin the reputation of Christ because he's God.

But in the minds of the world it is hurting the cause of Christ that grieves me.

I don't rejoice that someone that slandered me and came after me, even if he did so without knowledge and wisdom and wanting to know the facts, because he actually didn't.

But that doesn't make me happy that he fell.

And if it makes you happy that someone who slandered you fell, I want to ask you, are you having the same mindset that Paul says we should model him as he models Christ?

So, and, and I told this, this brother that it was going to be a harder answer thing for me to answer and that I, I invited him to come on to the show, but he lives in a different country in, in Europe, and therefore it's really early in the morning, so I told them that I would try to answer it.

I'm glad we had extra time tonight to answer it so that we could get to that.

All right, so I didn't finish reading this, but I just saw someone say they have a question.

So I'll put it up and we'll read it together.

Jeanette, Janetta says I have a question.

How should we personally view teachers in a biblical way that aren't in our church following a man's teaching and learning that.

That other reformers say are like them?

Okay, I don't know, Janetta, if this is regarding what Paul said about follow his example.

So, you know, this is where, folks, it's always best to come in the show so that we don't waste the audience time as we.

As I wait for a response from Janetta, but I don't know if this question is in response to me reading about Paul's setting an example for us, that we should follow Paul as Paul follows Christ, or if this is people outside of our local church, maybe preachers that we watch on YouTube or on TV or on radio or things like that.

Okay, she's clarified and she said, like, Steve Lawson, thank you.

So always better to come in, though, and ask the questions so that we can have the dialogue.

It always is better, faster.

So.

All right, so with a guy like a Steve Lawson, how do we, how do we view people like this?

Well, I'm not one that says throughout all of Steve Lawson's books, I know a lot of people are doing that.

People were like, I can't trust anything this man has ever said.

You know, the things he said that are right are still right.

The things that he taught that were biblical are still biblical.

And so I think we have to look at him as a human being who fell.

All of us are susceptible to that.

All of us just don't have as this big platform where people know our name.

So if we fall, it's a much smaller fall in the sense of its impact on others.

And so I think that what we have is we look up to certain people and they are.

Well, they let us down.

This is actually what I'm going to be preaching about at the road trip to revival that Jeffrey Rice will be doing at his church there in September.

The idea is going to be to.

My topic is the revival of faithful leadership because we have seen many men who have failed in leadership because of some sin.

You know, Steve Lawson, Josh Bice were two that have been mentioned.

There's others, plenty of others whose sin isn't even known yet may never get known on earth.

But the reality is that we still look at what they taught that was biblical.

So how do I personally view Steve Lawson?

I look at him as a, as someone who is a good teacher.

He had a lot to.

A lot of.

He was very gifted in his communication, in taking biblical truths and crafting them together, whether in book form or in sermon form.

And the, the thing is, is that the things he taught are no less true today than they were when he wrote them.

So I don't want to.

We.

I don't.

I mean, would I recommend him, his preaching today?

Well, he's.

I wouldn't recommend him continuing his preaching, but I wouldn't be opposed with things he previously preached.

I don't, I don't have an issue recommending a book he wrote.

I don't think he's going to be doing anything more in the future.

So Chris Honholz says, I put this up.

Chris Hunold says, that's why we are told not to seek to be many teachers, for they have a greater judgment.

That's right.

That's what scripture says.

We do not want to be in a position where as teachers that if we're going to be teaching, we're going to be under a greater judgment under God.

So that becomes a thing that we, we have to recognize.

So the way I would say to view guys like a Steve Lawson would be, Janetta, we, we need to see them for as the humans they are, value what they do well, see how God has used them.

Appreciate that.

See how God can continue to use what they did in the past, but we wouldn't want to put them in ministry today.

So I, I hope that would be a good answer for you.

It is, son.

You personally have to come to a conclusion too.

So.

All right, Pete and repeat says this.

I, I was Buddhist and I used to think that that.

Sorry, I Used to think the same, that all religions are good, but once you know Christ, you know the one true God.

And that is what we spent the first hour covering.

Right.

So.

But yeah, it is something where everyone thinks that there's one religion, that religion is false because they can't help it.

True.

But they're also arguing that there's no differences.

So it, it doesn't matter.

When we say Christianity is the truth, they're trying to.

Oh, no, they're all the same.

And no, they're not.

So let me, I, I didn't give a word of our sponsors.

So let me do that, encourage you guys to go out and support our sponsors because that's what supports us to continue doing shows like this and traveling to be able to go to small churches and help them out when they can't afford it.

So let me start with Squirrelly Joe's Coffee.

If you go to striving for eternity.org Coffee, you will get to Squirrelly Joe's page.

That's a link that we have set special so that he knows that you got sent there from us.

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He's never told me it's different.

Maybe just your first bag of coffee free.

But I, I love their coffee.

I actually went back to drinking coffee after I started drinking his coffee.

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Well, I actually didn't have to save money for mine.

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So another sponsor of ours help you get a good night of sleep is my pillow.

And if you go to mypillow.com use the promo code SFE that they give us a percentage of everything you buy.

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Lastly, sorry folks, my voice is getting raspy as when I'm the only one here speaking for two hours it gets like this and that's why we'll end early.

Logos Bible Software.

You can go to logos Bible software/sfe.

Sorry Lagos Bible software.sfe.

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Excuse me.

And so I encourage you to to get that and since my voice is going out I think we'll end the show there.

We'll be on next week.

Remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God and we'll see you next time.

Have a good night.