An Interview with Justin Peters

[Music] hey guys Chandler from seeker and servant here I just wanted to quickly update you guys before we get started in the video that we have for you today we're excited about 2019 the Lord's really been working in and through Cameron and I through a season of waiting and just trying to understand what God wants from seeker and servant moving forward and so we've been kind of quiet but we're excited to start putting more content out and you know today it's a little something different then then you've seen from seeker and chart before and that's that's kind of our heart for moving forward as we we do want to continue to create music content but we also want to start adding other content and that is gospel centered and that proclaims the truth of Jesus Christ to the world because that's what we're about so today we have an interview with Justin Peters for you he's a brother in Christ who has his own ministry and he came and spoke at a local church in our area Cameron's Church actually Cleary Baptist Church in Florence Mississippi and we were able to sit down with him and interview him about his ministry and he does a discernment ministry but his focus is the proclamation of the gospel and it's really neat how he uses what the Lord has given him to show to the world so we're excited for you to check it out and we hope you enjoy it and we hope that you'll listen to the end cuz he has a lot of really useful and beneficial information you can just get you mind giving this a quick background on how you got started in industry okay yes my name is Justin Peters and my ministry I guess the the seeds of my ministry started when I was a teenager a neighbor of mine came up to me Nia said Justin God has spoken to me and he's told me that he's going to heal you as long as you have enough faith and at the time I wanted to be healed I wanted to be able to do the things that my friends are doing playing football and driving and I can do that I can drive now but I couldn't at the time and so I really latched on to this and I want to see some faith healers in hopes of being healed and obviously I was not healed of my several palsy but that was the that was what in God's providence he used to expose me for the first time to the issue that I now address the word faith health and wealth naming claimant prosperity gospel also the New Apostolic Reformation but it wasn't until years later that I began to study this movement at a more academic level in seminary and as I studied it I began to realize that the origins of the word faith prosperity gospel are not Christian at all they can be traced back directly to the metaphysical cults like Christian Science New Age Gnosticism new thought and so it's kind of like peeling away the layers of an onion and it just got worse and worse and then I wrote my master's thesis on Benny Hinn and I went to a number of Benny Hinn Crusades for research and so long story short there was a church in Alabama a couple of years later this was in 2004 that heard of my research and asked me to come and teach at their church on this issue there was a well-known TBN personality still is actually Karen Wheaton who is based in the hometown of this particular Church Hamilton Alabama and so that was my very first seminar and ever since then the doors have just opened for me to go across the United States internationally as of this recording believe I've preached in 26 different countries and some of those countries multiple times so I tell people that as bad as the prosperity gospel is in this country it's far worse overseas it is the face of Christianity literally around the world today and and it is leading many many people astray teaching a false God a false Jesus a false atonement and a false gospel and so that is what drives me the truth of God's Word and I will say though that I've kind of been typecast theologically typecast in a sense and that when people think of me that's what they automatically think of is the word faith movement my research on that it is not my only interest my first love is exposition expository preaching God's Word verse by verse that's what I'm committed to now I will freely admit that in years past I was too fixated on word faith and I had kind of theological blinders on it's like all I could see all I thought about and by God's grace that is not the case any longer I trust and I don't I don't fixate on this a feed on God's Word and make sure that this does not become my preoccupation because that's just not healthy for any of us to become fixated on on one particular kind of a pet issue but but it is what I'm known for and most of the invitations that I get to preach are dealing with that but I really enjoy opportunities to just do some exposition or teach on other things like hermeneutics are number of other subjects so that is that is it in a nutshell that's kind of how my how my ministry began a few years ago we were asked to come and lead worship in Bogota Colombia for foreign events we knew a little bit about the event from the outside looking in at first glance it didn't seem to be associated with being heretical we quickly realized oh so you're a lot we arrived it was and what we saw over the course of three days shook our very core the guy they brought in to head the conference to preach used to run here in the States a very popular managed to recall come and live know if you ever ever heard or what that is but he targeted Millennials through music his mentor has late is a man by the name of Todd white whom I know you're aware of who's becoming more and more of a poster child in the AAR word of faith circles could you talk a little bit about the danger of his ministry Todd white specifically yes Todd white if you have seen him he is he's a guy with the dreadlocks and he has a ministry that he entitles lifestyle Christianity and first he kind of first became came on my radar the probably four or so years ago but the more I have watched him the more deeply disturbed I am by him he's really known for going up to people randomly on the streets and healing them of various maladies but if there's several things to notice one is he never heals anyone of a of an illness that is readily seen for example I've seen him pray for an amputee that amputee didn't grow a new limb but what he does do is he goes up to people and supposedly heals them of a bad back or pain in their shoulder or something like that one of the most common ailments that he claims to remedy is that one person's person's leg one of the one of his legs will be just about that much shorter than the other one and he'll have the person sit down in the chair and he'll take one foot in each hand and kind of compare the the feet and you see it appears as though one leg is just about that much longer than the other one and so he'll come he'll talk to the shorter leg and command it to grow and the camera is zooming in and right there on camera it appears as though the leg grows to match the other one well this is a parlor trick I know how he does that there's a couple ways to do it and I know both of them it's a parlor trick it's not real here's what I tell people and if Todd white if you happen to watch this by some some providential act here's my challenge if you can command legs to grow then surely you can command cancer cells to die so the first place that Todd white needs to be going is st. Jude Children's Research Hospital and heal those sick kids with cancer many of them dying of cancer so that's the first place you oughta go but but he won't he's a charlatan he's a fraud something else that you'll notice about Todd is when he goes up to these people randomly on the streets III think I can honestly say I've never once heard him clearly present the gospel to anyone it is all everything that comes out of his mouth is affirming oh man you're awesome they're just so awesome God loves you you're just you're awesome he just he tells people how great they are that they're all that in the bag of chips and then that is anti antithetical to the gospel he's actually inoculating them against the gospel the gospel begins with us recognizing that we are wretched vile sinners rebels against God his enemies deserving nothing of from God but punishment and eternal hell his message is the exact copies of that so so he actually inoculates people against the true gospel but but he's a he's a false teacher false prophet and he's a charlatan other than that I have no issue with it people in in our circles the most part or at least are becoming more aware thankfully of our work they the prosperity driven churches thanks to ministries such as yours and others however there's a new threats that we see solely a beginning to take attention the social justice gospel movement is picking up steam can you talk about the dangers with this and how you see this movement possibly growing in the future yes one of the new threats to the gospel and I would say probably one of the worst threats of the gospel that I have seen and is extraordinarily alarming to me and others is this new push for the social justice called the social justice movement or social justice gospel it's not that it's new it has been around for a while it has been the bread and butter of what we call mainline Protestant denominations like the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church and Roman Catholic Church that it's it's infected those quote-unquote churches for decades many decades but what is so alarming now is that this is in our circles this is we're seeing the social justice movement in some of our theological orbits that we we just have not seen it before others have tried to sound the alarm for the last at least four or five years and unfortunately many of the rest of us are just kind of now in the last one years record at the end of 2018 but basically just you know 2018 have we really begun to realize what a serious threat this is because it is making alarming inroads into theologically conservative even so tear logically reformed churches and basically it is this that it's not that anybody that is promoting the social justice movement in our circles is outright denying the gospel you know I'm not hearing anybody in the circles say well there's more than one way to be saved or Jesus is not God I'm not hearing anything like that but what I am here is the gospel is salvation by grace alone through faith alone Christ alone Plus this that that social justice social activism is an integral part of the gospel and an integral function or purpose of the church and that's what's so alarming none of us is saying injustice does not exist of course it exists it exists all over the place but what we are saying is that that is not part of the gospel rectifying societal ills is not in an inherent part of the gospel itself it's not a it's not a function a purpose of the church that Christ gave her any time you say the gospel is salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone plus something whatever the plus is becomes the focal point that gets the attention and the gospel takes a backseat and lest anyone think oh that would never happen with us well it certainly has happened with every other denomination the United Methodist Church just as one example their doctrinal slide began when they started to ordain women as preachers and it seemed like a relatively minor concession to the culture at the time but what happened ere always be gets more air and so what the United Methodist Church started doing 70 or so years ago as of this recording has has snowballed into what would see that with a denomination now isn't that now there are many United Methodist churches or ordaining homosexuals and saying that homosexuals are any Christian and all this and they've just it's it's a it's an apostate denomination the vast majority of it not saying that there aren't some good Methodist churches out there that have retained the gospel but very few most of those would be overseas in other countries not here but that's where it began and error always forgets more error and so we've seen this movie before we know how it ends and so we're none of us is saying that we're not grieved by the injustice and we all long for for everything to be made right one day in the eschaton but none of us a two more things one of the things another thing that really concerns me is that this social justice movement engenders and people and entitlement mentality that they are owed something and dear ones we're not old anything the only thing that we are owed is what our sins have earned us that's the only justice that we really deserve and and we don't want that justice we don't want what we are we are owed what our sins have earned us so we're not entitled to anything I'm crippled I have several palsy and there's a lot of things that will forever be off-limits for me I'll never be a professional sports star athlete I'll never be a pizza delivery man I'll never be a mailman there's I mean most professions quite honestly will forever be off-limits for me is that fair well I don't know I mean it's just it's what God has decreed for me in his good Providence and so it is what it is so but I don't think I'm owed anything the other thing that that grieves me about this is because this push is trying to divide the body of Christ based upon things that just don't mater I have been all over the world by God's grace I have preached in 26 different countries I have been in countries in Central America South America I've been in African countries some of them multiple times European countries I've been in India I've been in Singapore and the Philippines Asian countries Australia I mean barring Antarctica I've preached on every continent on the planet and it doesn't matter where I am it doesn't matter what culture I'm in it doesn't even matter what language is spoken it doesn't matter how much or how little these folks have or how much or how little I have when when we're when I'm with like-minded believers in Christ there's an instant bond there's an instant fellowship with these precious Saints there's an instant kindred spirit and there's an instant love for these people I love them and they love me because we're family we have been adopted into the family of God and none of these other superficial issues or differences matter any it just they just don't matter and what else doesn't matter is skin color I'm in Florence Mississippi right now hope I'm not taking too much time Florence Mississippi right now at a preaching in a church and I just of just a few minutes ago walk away from having sweet sweet sweet fellowship with two black brothers who have who have come to faith in Christ and we were talking about this social justice stuff you know it doesn't matter skin color doesn't matter so where there's neither slave nor free you know greeting at you male nor female we're all one in Christ Jesus God has its people from every tongue tribe and nation so that that grieves me it's like this is trying to divide the body of Christ over issues that just don't matter as we would agree when it comes to ministry in God's Word there's nothing additional needed to supplement the gospel we trust or we know that God's Word is sufficient you have discussed this in your seminar but the amount of dressing why it is sufficiency of the Word of God being called into question over the inerrancy of scripture and how this is affecting the mass majority of churches yes I tell people often that the real battle today is not so much over the inerrancy of scripture because those battles were waged in the 1970s early mid 1980s in the Lutheran denomination and then later in the Southern Baptist Convention as those battles were fought and by God's grace at least theoretically we came out on the right side of that and today if you want to be a theologically conservative evangelical whatever the term evangelical means anymore but if you want to be one of those then you're at least gonna have to give lip service to believing in the inerrancy of Scripture whether or not you believe it personally incident another matter entirely but you're good at least I have to say you do but where the battle is really being fought today is not so much over inerrancy but over sufficiency is God's Word sufficient and we are losing that battle big time we are losing that battle on a number of different fronts we see that for example of course in the Word of Faith the prosperity gospel we see that in the seeker-sensitive movement secret sensitive approach market-driven approach to doing church where so many churches feel like that they have got to make church fun they've got to make it entertaining and they make the church look like the world to draw in the world and then they entertain the masses and hopefully somewhere along the way they'll pick up a little bit of truth here and there enough to to get saved but what these churches are showing is that they're ashamed of the gospel they are ashamed of the gospel if you have to turn your church into a house of entertainment or a circus like speaking of circus like Edie Young junior at Fellowship Church not long ago had an entire sermon series based off of a circus you know when you got to resort to these gimmicks then what you're saying is is I really don't believe the gospel is enough in and of itself to draw people to convert people and to keep people you can tell me all day long how much you believe the Bible but I can tell by how you do Church and how you preach whether or not you really believe it and so that's one aspect another aspect another front on which we are losing this battle is this whole notion that God speaks to people in a direct quotable sense outside of scripture I believe that this notion that God speaks in you no audible voices are still small voices or through as Bill Hybels once said he thought God was sending him a message through a Bud Light beer can that floated by his bass boat people want to believe that God is speaking in some way other than Scripture this notion was really introduced by experiencing God and that kind of introduced this whole concept that God is speaking and hunches or still small voices or at the time thing which by the way the still small voice in 1st Kings 19 was still an audible voice but so it experiencing God introduced it and here in the last six or seven years or so Jesus calling him by Sarah young has made this even more popular she claims that Jesus speaks to her she tuned in to just the right frequency and and Jesus began speaking to her and writing down what he was saying well if that's what is happening if Jesus is calling Sarah young she's writing down what he's saying or God is speaking to people in voices telling them what to do then then we have an open Canon of Scripture again because whatever God says should be just as authoritative as any verse in Scripture so the Canon of Scripture is open and what we're saying is is that the Bible is not enough in fact Sarah younger self says and this is a direct quote I knew that God communicated me with communicated to me through the Bible but I yearned for more and for so many people the Bible just is not enough it's not sufficient they people want to have something more and you see that this is the same thing as being taught by everyone from you know Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland and Todd white and all these guys to Beth Moore to priscilla Shire to Charles Stanley it runs the gamut it's it's become the the rule rather than the exception now every almost everybody thinks that God is speaking to them in some way outside of Scripture so if that's what is happening then what we're saying is that the Bible is not enough and for those people who would say that I need something more than the Bible my question is this have you completely mastered the Bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:20 1 have you mastered it have you squeezed every drop of truth there is to squeeze out from there's nothing else that you can learn no no other benefit that you could possibly glean you've completely mastered the entire thing if the answer to that question is no and it is for all of us then please don't tell me the Bible's not enough because we don't even fully understand what we have in black and white right in front of us so that's where the the the real battle is being fought today is not so much over inerrancy though those battles still those fires still smolder but the real battle is today today is over sufficiency and last question what do you think the greatest threat posing young evangelicals young Christian men and women it would be today I'd say the greatest threat posing young believers today is what we what I talked about in the previous question that scripture is not enough I believe that there is a almost a tangible deliberate effort amongst so many within evangelicalism to downplay the importance of doctrine downplayed the importance of theology and at the expense of doctrine and theology when that is downplayed and they'll emphasize our love for God that's what's really important that you just love God you love Jesus doctrine and theology not so important just your love for God not so much your knowledge of God but the Bible never makes that distinction the Bible never separates knowledge of God in love for God the Bible always combines these things Philippians chapter 1 verse 9 Paul says and this I pray that your love would abound still more and more and knowledge and real discernment so the only way that we can know God is by knowing him through his word and it is sound doctrine it is right theology that deepens our knowledge of God when our knowledge of God is deepened that enables our love for God to be deepened so I would I would say a de-emphasizing of doctrine of theology and an overemphasis own experiences feelings emotions side issues like social justice it is it is anything that diverts our attention away from the Word of God that that is that is the truth as long as we are lashed to God's Word then then we are we are equipped to combat everything that would distort the gospel and combat effectively everything that would distort the mission of the church so it may sound like a Sunday school answer but but in the various forms it takes and efforts to subtly move young people away from truly studying God's Word rightly dividing the word of truth awesome also just would you mind also letting people who may watch this know where they can support your ministry find your content stuff like that just so they have no way of knowing that okay if you would like to contact me may be reached at my website Justin Peters dot o-r-g tell people I stayed up all night long trying to come up with a name for my website and it finally hit me Justin Peters org so anyway you can contact me through that you can email me my email address is there feel free to email me if I'm not back in touch with you within a couple of days you know me again sometimes I get a little busy but you won't bother me I promise phone number on my mailing address is there and I was I was asked to say this if if you so want to to support the ministry in a tangible way that you can do that on my website as well be greatly appreciated but what is far more valuable to me is your is your encouragement your your support your prayers and I don't say that lightly I can't tell you what an encouragement is to me when people walk up to me anywhere I am all over the world and tell me that they're praying for me and they're praying for my wife Kathy on us as we do this work together so so I would certainly cover your prayers but you're glad to be a help to you in any way hey guys hope you enjoyed that video if you did be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to be updated on new content we release also be sure to follow us on our other social platforms those will be listed in the description below and feel free to comment on this video or any other video we would love to continue to talk with people that are supporting us and interested in what we're doing a way that you can support us this year to financially is through patreon you may have heard of it you may have not but it's a great way to support our ministry especially on a monthly basis everything we do a secret servant is we do everything for free we'd be if away our music for free we come play shows for free and we want to continue to do that and a way for us to be able to continue to do that is through your giving so check out the link to our patreon below for more information on that and again we appreciate your support thank you

Channel: Seeker & Servant

Views: 58,718

Keywords: seeker & servant, ministry, justin peters, interview, 2019, todd white, worship music, christian, Jesus

Id: CPLapeMBUjg

Length: 29min 20sec (1760 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 18 2019