Justin Peters on Repentance, Calvinism, and the Charismatic Movement

welcome to do theology where we keep doctrine in its place i'm jeremy from utah and i am ken from indiana today we are excited to share with you an interview that we had with justin peters it's likely that the majority of you listening to this know who justin peters is he has a great ministry where he is able to bring about truth and discernment regarding particularly the prosperity gospel and charismatic movement uh that whole industry which really is a an industry and in this conversation we uh talked to him about that we talked to him about the christian music industry as well and we get his thoughts on repentance and what what makes a legitimate profession of faith so that's pretty exciting yeah we encourage you to reach out to us and share your thoughts with us about it if it generates questions or interaction or feedback or disagreement whatever reach out to us our twitter handle is at do theology you can email the show show do theology dot com and after the music we'll have our interview with justin peters calvinism is what falstalk is a woman preacher well of course in fundamentalism you define everything as a gospel issue this is a true mark of christian maturity to discern the difference of issues i got an idea that's not wrong with anybody who thinks they got another idea there's a lot of different understandings of what the days are in genesis 1 and to what degree evolution was part of how god created things i have disagreements with him in some areas but those are adiaphra those are side issues many important issues so many bible doctrines are ruined when we use the wrong words this is why it's so critical that we use only the king james bible you gotta have that right or get out of here thank god i don't take every minor thing and make a major thing out of it nothing divides like truth i respect him as brothers in the lord with whom i have some strong differences but they have a big problem with me is there a way that we can work together i think fundamentally we have to say yes christians can disagree and still kick it today's guest is an evangelist and teacher who is a leading authority on the word faith movement seeking to expose the errors of the prosperity gospel he has produced several resources in response to that wayward theology including the seminar clouds without water he is the author of do not hinder them a biblical examination of childhood conversion and he hosts didache a podcast about doctrine and theology you can find this and many more resources on his website justinpeters.org justin peters welcome to the podcast jeremy and ken it's an honor to be with you brothers serious thank you for having me on absolutely we're reading through your uh personal testimony on your website which is it's it's incredible testimony and uh just want to read an excerpt from there because there's something that i think is is is pretty interesting and could be helpful for us to explore a little bit you wrote in that testimony quote i continued to hold on to the decision i made as a seven-year-old boy as the assurance i was saved of course this is in relation to how you came to faith in christ but it did not make sense to me but it was pretty much all i had that and the apparent success of my ministry as the years went on i was essentially preaching the right gospel and preached it convincingly but looking back the vigor with which i preached was as much to convince myself of my salvation as it was to convince others their need for the same it was not that i was ever behind the pulpit thinking to myself i don't believe this stuff i'm going to preach it anyway i did believe it on an intellectual level but did not truly understand it so we're just wondering if you could speak to the role of your understanding of repentance that played into that process as as you came to faith in christ yes ken absolutely um yeah of course so my my full testimony is written out is from what you were just reading so people can go and read the the full thing but uh one of the big aspects of my testimony is that of repentance and exactly what that is uh i was born and reared in a southern baptist church went to a southern baptist seminary and i knew all the basics and i knew that repentance was a part of salvation but what i did not understand is exactly what repentance was to me there seemed to be a massive inherent contradiction within the gospel itself that i could not rectify and that contradiction was this on the one hand we teach rightly that salvation is not of works and that i understood i understood that i could not help enough little old ladies across the street to earn my way into heaven i couldn't work in a soup kitchen enough hours to earn my way into heaven i understand understood that you know works there's filthy rags i got that but in order to be saved we would tell people that they had to repent which was doing something uh it seemed to be a work and so i understood what my understanding of repentance was is that i just had to will myself to turn away from certain sins and you know just kind of pull myself up by my bootstraps and just you know give it a good college try and uh and i thought repentance was something that we had to do on our own and so there seemed to be this this massive inherent contradiction how on the one hand can you say that salvation is not of works but in order to be saved you have to repent which was a work and for the life of me i could not understand how you rectified that and uh so uh i would oftentimes preach the gospel the basics you know of the gospel but then i would go back to my hotel room wherever i was you know and lay awake staring at the ceiling one worried that if i were to die i'd go and go to hell because i never had an assurance that i repented enough and what i did not understand is that genuine repentance is a work but it's not a work that we do that initial repentance unto salvation is something that god does in us it is not something that we can do on our own we can't repent genuine repentance is in and of itself granted by god god grants that initial repentance unto salvation we see that in acts chapter 5 verse 30 through 31 acts chapter 11 verse 17 and 18 and then again in second timothy chapter 2 verses 24 through 26 all of these texts talk about repentance being granted by god so it is a work it's just a work of god it's not a work that we do it's something that god does in us and then after that initial repentance on the salvation that god grants then as part of our progressive sanctification that lasts throughout the rest of our lives here on earth then we do have a role to play in in repenting and putting to death the deeds of the body growing in the grace and knowledge of the lord jesus christ and all those things but that initial repentance when we pass from death to life being spiritually dead to be made alive in christ that initial repentance must be something that god does because we can't do it on our own do you and do you sorry i said do you think that there's a part of the confusion with that because this i think that's that confusion is pretty widespread in evangelical christianity and a lot of people wrestling with the concepts of repentance do you think part of that is an issue between struggling with the concept of what the word repentance means itself with the results of repentance yes uh we've all heard almost every evangelical knows a few greek words and uh one of course would be agape love and a lot of people know about dunamis power but the other one is is metanoia which is repentance and we hear this all the time that the word repent metanoia means to change your mind and and it does mean that that is what the word itself means but that's not the full meaning of the term that's not the full meaning of biblical repentance and i tell people often um word studies are good you know to look at a word break it down look at its etymology and all that can be very helpful but also look at how a word is used in its context the the final meaning of a word is not determined by the dictionary or the lexicon it's determined by the context of the passage and how it's used well who determines that the holy spirit determines that because he is the one who puts these words in their appropriate context and when you look at repentance contextually as it's used in scripture yes it does mean a change in mind but it's far more than that it it's a it's a change in our mind but it's a change in everything about us when god grants repentance yes our minds are changed but our affections are changed our desires are changed we begin to love what god loves and hate what god hates um we have a what paul describes in second corinthians 7 as a godly sorrow over sin and that's a that's another thing that that i really stress in my gospel preaching now is a godly sorrow over sin that's something that very very few christians understand or at least professing christians understand i should say uh it's when we grieve over our sin because we understand that our sin grieves god paul talks about a worldly sorrow and a godly sorrow in second corinthians seven a worldly sorrow paul says leads to death a godly sorrow leads to repentance unto salvation and a worldly sorrow is nothing more than a guilty conscience and and i had that before my conversion i knew i was a sinner i didn't have any problem acknowledging i was a sinner but what i didn't truly have was this godly sorrow where i grieved over my sin because i understood that my sin grieves god grieves his person and i tell people often that just as much as we should want a savior from hell and we should we should also want a savior from sin there are a lot of people out there who want a savior from hell but do not want a savior from sin they want to get out of hell free card but they don't really grieve over their sin uh in fact secretly they still love their sin they if they could get away with it nobody would know about it they would run right back to it that's a worldly sorrow leads to death godly sorrow is when we grieve over our sin because we understand that our sin grieves god so if you want a savior from hell but not a savior from sin then you have a savior from neither and when god grants that repentance that initial repentance unto salvation there will be fruit in keeping with repentance everything about us will change and this fruit will be real it will be tangible it will be um observable by other people around us who know us they'll be able to see it and so it's it's a lot it's repentance is a lot more than just okay yes i acknowledge i'm a sinner that's you just barely scratched the surface i mean lost people many lost people would not will acknowledge that so uh it's far more than just an intellectual assent to some basic facts i was really surprised when i was reading on your testimony that you don't believe you were truly born again until january of 2011 which to think that you've been converted uh just a little over nine years at the time of this recording it's like wow that's um that's kind of amazing to to think through but as you just described you're it seems like your understanding of what repentance is was at the heart of your conversion and you're at the heart of understanding what repentance is perhaps was your understanding of the doctrines of grace the fact that god is the one who grants these things could you just maybe speak to how a person's understanding of god's sovereignty and salvation impacts a person's salvation can you even be saved without understanding the doctrines of grace how does all that flesh out in the christian life yeah um i i tell people a lot that uh i yes you you can i'm not saying that all armenians are lost or unconverted uh i i don't believe that but i would say that if you're an armenian you really don't understand your own salvation you don't understand what's been done in your life if you're truly saved you don't rightly understand that because when you take armenian theology follow it out to its logical conclusion it leads you to work salvation it does because from the armenian perspective the freewill perspective you choose on your own to believe christ you choose to repent of sin it's something that you do and so i mean you don't have to take that very far in it you run into a work salvation and well salvation is not of works right ephesians chapter 2 isaiah 64. so so i wouldn't say that they're all lost but they don't rightly understand their own salvation i once you understand the doctrines of grace once you embrace the doctrines of grace then you start seeing it all over scripture i mean i can remember so clearly just once i once i kind of turned the corner i suppose and and uh began to see it and then then it was like here it is oh it's here too wow it's right on this page and here you know it's like how did i not see this before it's like everywhere you look in scripture it's all over the place and it's it's amazing how much more sense the bible makes uh once you embrace god's sovereignty and salvation and repentance i just it's so clear now and um and and i also understand that it is the most god glorifying doctrine that there is because i i understand now that my salvation has absolutely nothing to do with me i've you know y'all probably heard it said the only thing that we contribute to our salvation is the sin that makes it necessary in the first place so other than that that's all we contributed to it contribute to it and so now all of the glory for our conversion for our new life in christ it goes to the one to whom it rightly belongs and that is god not us and so it truly is a just a god honoring god glorifying doctrine and it's i've heard steve lawson refer to the doctrines of grace as the continental divide of christian theology because you know where you where you come down on that just as the the waters that fall on the west side of the continental divide run into the pacific ocean if they call on the east side they run into the either the gulf of mexico or the atlantic ocean it it it really has a profound effect on every other theological issue uh every other doctrinal issue is just the ripple effects are so so extensive in it but it really brings the bible together and and then you just like i said you start seeing it everywhere you look now you established yourself in ministry as an authority on the word faith movement and this of course was even before your own personal conversion as you studied it and researched to produce seminars and things like that to show in churches through all those years of studying and researching and even witnessing how it plays out firsthand have you noticed some areas within that word faith movement that start out as maybe secondary doctrines or secondary infractions things that aren't blatantly heretical but then over time they almost inevitably lead to heresies or to put it another way are there more acceptable disagreements that we might have with people who profess to be christians that at this time we wouldn't label them as as heretics because our disagreements are in in the realm of what's accepted perhaps but that they are on a track that's going to head toward um to certain heresy have you learned of any patterns like that in the christian world where maybe those things start small and almost always end up in a bad place yeah sure yeah that's a great question jeremy and i would say the first thing that comes to my mind would be the charismatic issue the charismatic question whether or not the apostolic gifts continue to be in operation today uh if you believe for example that the gift of tongues a gift of interpretation of tongues and the gift of miracles the gift of physical healing that these spiritual gifts are still operative in the church today then that is by definition the charismatic position and uh even if you don't speak in tongues personally that is the definit that is the charismatic position and it seems like it's become virtuous to be someone who i'm not going to condem others doing it i'm going to leave it open right yeah yeah right right and so i would say that that is not in and of itself heresy i think it's error i think it's very significant error but it's not heresy um all heresy is error but not all error is heresy uh you know your for example your position on eschatology pre-millennial post-millennial amillennial various flavors within that they can't all be right right i mean logically they can't all be right and so at least some of us uh are in error if we don't hold to the particular right position where the rest of us are in there but none of those positions are in and of themselves for radical so the continuous position the charismatic position i would say is very serious error it's not in and of itself heretical there are genuine believers who disagree with me on this question and they believe that all of these gifts are still operative in the church today i strongly disagree with them but i have fellowship with them and christ i fully expect to see these men in heaven i would and some of the names that i would include in this list would be guys like wayne grudem and uh john piper um sam storms sam storms yeah that's the name i was actually looking for sam storm so yeah i fully expect to spend eternity with these brothers in in heaven but that's very serious error because once you take the charismatic position you have the camel's nose is under the tent and the rest of the camel almost always comes in uh you have started down the slippery slope from having the position of wayne grudem and sam storms there there's no logical or theological reason to prevent you from sliding right down into benny henland because once you take the charismatic position then the sufficiency of scripture is out the window by definition it's gone you cannot hold to the continuous position charismatic position and the sufficiency of scripture at the same time they're mutually exclusive positions now they would push back on that they would disagree but i don't see how you can get around it because the charismatic position allows for a god to uh speak in a direct quotable sense outside of scripture and if that is true if god is still speaking outside of scripture then whatever he says should be theoretically just as authoritative as any verse in scripture because god cannot speak less authoritatively on one occasion than he does on another if god is speaking god is speaking and so whatever he's is saying should carry just as much weight as john 3 16 or ephesians 2 or romans 10 or you know any verse in scripture so you've abandoned the sufficiency of scripture you open yourself up to god speaking in some mysterious mystical kind of way and it's you don't have to travel very far before you're right where benny hinn and kenneth copeland are or joel osteen or joyce meyer you know so um so that's that's why i take such a strong stand on cessationist sensationism that these apostolic gifts have seized so i think that is one one very serious error in fact let me while i'm thinking about it uh the strange fire conference that was held back in 2013 one of the common criticisms of it was oh you're just you're painting with too broad a brush and you're lumping all charismatics in with the fringe element of the charismatic movement you know the tiny fringe element that's what you're focusing on and you're painting us all with that same raw brush no the the fringe of the charismatic movement is not benny hen and kenneth copeland and joel osteen joyce meyer that's not the fringe that's the mainstream of the charismatic movement the fringe of the charismatic movement is your john piper's and your wayne grudems and your sam storms they're the french they're the french the mainstream is all of this garbage that you see on christian television and as simple evidence for that all christian television is is a function of supply and demand that's all it is whatever the demand is that's what they're going to supply because they're in it to make money so when you turn on tbn or daystar or god tv or one of these others who do you see you don't see sam storms or wayne gruden or john mcarthur or steve lawson or any any solid guys who do you see joel osteen joyce meyer kenneth copeland benny hinn jesse duplantis square flow dollar joseph prince andrew wommack you know word of faith word of faith you have solid reformation bill johnson bethel all that stuff that's what you see so that's the mainstream of the charismatic movement yeah speaking of uh you just mentioned um bethel over there and um speaking of them and and groups like hillsong as well and and the music that they produce uh some videos uh that are um that you made with todd friel have been become quite popular online in fact on the on the wretched youtube channel um that one video you did talking about how hillsong and bethel music has invaded the local church that one has become one of the top three most viewed videos on their channel so what would you say to someone who you know looks at the issue of music within the church and would try to make the argument you know this is really this is a matter of conscience this is a gray area and we really uh shouldn't be you know making these hard and fast rules like this and you can just do whatever songs that you're you want within your local church what would you say to someone making that kind of argument yeah i would point out a couple of things bethel and hillsong they are word of faith churches health and wealth prosperity churches bethel especially new apostolic reformation and so these are false churches they are by definition false churches they are theological cults and so when the bible is not unclear about how we are to deal with false teachers we are not to endorse them we are not to partner with them we are not to engage in spiritual enterprises with them they are to be marked and avoided romans 16 17. um i mean there's so many warnings in fact 26 of the 27 books in the new testament directly warn about false teachers and or false teaching only the book of philemon has nothing to say about false doctrine or false teachers all the other books in the new testament do so it's a very prominent theme in the new testament warning about false teachers and false doctrine and so when we sing their music we are partnering with bethel and hillsong we are we're using their resources uh and the one of the pushbacks i hear is this well yeah some of their songs are kind of goofy and some of their songs have a real romantic flair to them and they do but some of their songs are okay and you know what they are some of the lyrics you read the lyrics and you know what that's okay that's all right you know the lyrics some of them are just fine they would they would pass a doctrinal smell test um i would not quibble with some of the some of the music that they put out the problem though is that when you okay aside from the the biblical instruction which we can't lay aside but just for a moment aside from romans 16 17 and second john 9 through 11 these clear texts about how i want to have to nothing to do with false teachers but on sunday morning when you put up a song on the screen in your church and you have the lyrics from bethel or hillsong and then in the bottom left-hand corner whatever it is anyway at the bottom you see in the fine print music by bethel music by hillsong the unsuspecting person sitting there in the pew they're looking up at the screen reading this and they and they read oh music by bethel bethel i think i'll check them out um hillsong i think i'll check them out they must be okay we're singing their music and our church so they must be okay and bethel and hillsong and i'll throw in with that elevation music stephen ferdick's yeah goat farm uh they use their they use their music as one of their primary evangelistic their own twisted version of evangelism it's already popping up on people's youtube channels they're seeing it already because they advertise it so much oh yeah absolutely in fact there's a video of bill johnson actually saying that that we use our music as a way to broaden our tent to you know expand our our brand and they use that music as a hook to pull people in to their false theology their heretical church um and i'll take it a step further this is what i got a lot of criticism for but i'll i stand by it and i'll say it here according to the ccli regulations you know codes when you sing a song in your church that's copyrighted music then if you're if a church is doing what it's supposed to be doing every single time you sing one of those songs you're supposed to send in a little bit of money to whoever produced or wrote that music so if a church is doing things the way they should be doing every time you sing a hillsong song or a bethel song or elevation you're sending a little bit of money to a cult to a cult and i gave this illustration let's just say well to illustrate absurdity by being absurd let's say for whatever reason planned parenthood decided to write some christian music obviously that wouldn't happen but let's just say they did and they'll say you know what we're going to write some christian music and we're going to make the lyrics pass a doctrinal smell test so that christians will sing it and every time christians sing our song they're going to send us a little bit of money so if if you're in church and they put up a muse a song on the screen and the lyrics are singing the lyrics and look in the fine print and you see music by planned parenthood would you sing that music huh none of us would not not a i dare say probably not a single evangelical church would sing a song even if it's a good song even if the lyrics are okay would sing it if it came from planned parenthood so here's my question how is it any different if we do the same thing but send our money to a cult you know planned parenthood is horrific abortion is horrific but planned parenthood is fully owned and operated by lost people lost people do what lost people do their consciences are seared they've been given over to a depraved mind lost people do what lost people do bethel and hillsong they claim to be christians and yet they blaspheme god they preach a different jesus they preach a different gospel and they are leading millions of people to hell in doing it in the name of christ which is worse which is worse yeah those these topics get like ken was mentioning with the views on the video these topics grab our attention because we all have so many opinions about these things and um discernment ministry i i don't know if you're comfortable taking that label or not um it's it's not one that i ascribe to myself but but i know that's how people think of me right yeah yeah and it's like the general the general term for these conversations right is general uh discernment ministry uh type of conversations and they draw a lot of attention i i've got a a modest website and my what my articles that are discernment related get far far more views and reads and responses than devotionals or things that i do it's just the way people are i guess true on my youtube channel yeah i've noticed that yeah and so um i think it's interesting because earlier this year you made a video titled a word of caution about discernment and in it you said don't ever get to the point where you relish in discernment ministry where you'd be disappointed if there wasn't someone to critique as we're talking about these discernment related things where have you seen that type of attitude and what's the the most effective antidote to that type of attitude yeah and unfortunately i see it i see it quite a bit some of my some of my loudest critics are actually discernment people and uh they yeah you really get the sense that if there wasn't someone to go after they would be disappointed and uh they they revel in it they they use very caustic language they fail miserably at speaking the truth in love per ephesians 4 15. that is something that i strive to do in my ministry is follow jude two through three but also ephesians 4 15 speaking the truth and love i don't do it perfectly i don't claim to do it perfectly none of us does that perfectly but it should be the goal towards which we strive to attain is speaking the truth and love and and some of these discernment ministries don't do that they're they're mean quite honestly they're just mean and that's not how we're supposed to be doing it even though a lot of what they say is is right there is a way to to speak what is right and i tell people ephesians 4 15 speaking the truth in love that in love part is just as inspired and just as authoritative as the speaking the truth part and so if you can't speak the truth in love then don't speak the truth until you can figure out how to do it in love doing it in love does not mean watering down the truth that's not what i'm talking about you don't water down the truth you don't compromise the truth you speak the full truth but you speak it in love and i think i can honestly say to you brothers that i would love nothing more than to wake up tomorrow morning and see where benny hinn and kenneth copeland and fill in the blank all these false teachers bill johnson and all have repented their their repentance would be evidenced by them shutting down their ministries uh i would love to see that um i would love to see that uh and i don't want any of them to go to hell i put up another video a few weeks ago a personal plea to kenneth copeland which i pled with him to repent because he's 83 years old now and you know doesn't have a whole lot of life left and he's going to die and go to hell i don't want him to go to hell i don't want that for him um so with some of these discernment guys you get the sense that they're just there's no compassion uh they're they're mean they're vindictive um and they would be disappointed if there wasn't somebody to attack and that's a danger that we've got all that we have to we have to guard all of ourselves against yeah and and sadly i think some of these discernment ministries um you know you mentioned the the importance of speaking the truth in love and they're missing the love element some of them are also missing that truth element where they're not speaking factual things um an example of that recently you had you had published a response video to service christie uh joshua chavez on youtube he sought to expose you as someone who is actually supportive of the word of faith movement something that you know your ministry has always been about exposing uh the issues of the word of faith movement and i find you know his videos are often divisive they're not spoken in brotherly love they're not pursuing love so when it comes to examples like that how do you personally discern when someone like that is is a hellbound threat to the church or merely just a misguided brother in the faith yeah and uh that's a good question because uh some of some of them are just misguided you know but they're they're brothers and i would say one of the one of the things to look for is accountability do these whatever particular discernment ministry you're looking at or look to see what their accountability is do they have a church home and uh with joshua chavez i refuse to call him service christie because if there was ever someone who had an improper name for himself it would be him um he doesn't have any meaningful accountability he doesn't he doesn't you can go to his website there's no mention of his home church you can go to my website i know exactly where i go to church you know give you the address the website address for it i have no problem uh telling people who my accountability is uh my two board members are pastors and they're good friends of mine uh one of them was my pastor until we moved about a year ago so um look for accountability and and almost without exception the angriest critics that i have the most vociferous vocal critics i have the one thing that they have in common is they have no accountability they will not tell you where they go to church they will not tell you who their accountability is they're just basically lone rangers so i would say that's one of the key things to look for yeah and i appreciate your openness too that it's interesting um in the christian famous world that that exists out there um there are lots of guys who are closed off and you can't get to know them you can't get to know anything about them you can't send them messages you can't find their email any of that um you've got a phone number on your website uh and uh it's that's pretty rare um what what goes into to that thinking um and maybe it is purely accountability but why did you decide to go that route with your ministry where people can really access you um if they if they want to ask you questions you're available why have you done that instead of keeping all the crazy people away yeah i know uh sometimes i wonder what i'm thinking because i do get to that's for sure but uh you know um i like people i i like people i i don't have a staff the ministry is just me and kathy my wife i don't have a staff so i don't have anyone to um well i have a good friend named david hinke he maintains a ministry facebook page and stuff like that but but he does that just out of the kindness of his heart and in support of what i do and very very grateful for him but i don't have a paid staff i don't have my office is in my house so um but i like people uh when i go to a conference i don't if i'm a speaker at a conference i don't hide out in the green room you know i like to talk to people so i'll ride around on my scooter and mingle with folks i enjoy that it's uh it's encouraging for me so i don't know i don't ever want to get to the point where i'm inaccessible to people now that having been said i am a lot of times overwhelmed by the number of emails i get i could do nothing but answer emails from sun up to sundown all day every day and still not be able to keep up with all my emails uh so i'm not i'm not able to get respond to everybody as much as i would like to but i do try to uh respond to people but i'm yeah i want to have that access i don't want to i'm just a guy you know i'm a fellow do loss with you brothers so there's nothing special about me just just a fellow servant of the lord well i i really appreciate that about you and um thank you for putting up with all the people who want to talk to you um it's a service so thanks um and you mentioned conferences there as you go and speak at a variety of conferences and when you do that you of course rub shoulders with people who don't agree with you all the way down the line so from you know this ministry that god has given you from that perspective how do you know when you are comfortable speaking at a conference as opposed to uh rejecting an invitation because of some disagreements and i think that's probably at the heart of where a lot of those discernment criticisms come from is this guy spoke at that conference with this person who spoke with that person how do you analyze accepting or rejecting invitations yeah uh that's that's a good question too and and i agree with you one of the problems like the joshua chavez guy or i think it's actually pronounced shabbos but um you know he's one of these six degrees of separation kevin bacon kind of thing if if if you spoke at a conference where this guy was and he also spoke at a conference one time with this other questionable guy that's then you're just as guilty as you know that's ridiculous um uh that's that's crazy that having been said i am careful about the invitations that i receive and there have been some that i have uh graciously declined because of of who i saw was going to be speaking there in fact there was one conference i won't name it um but there was one conference that that i had agreed to speak at and before i knew who was going to who the other speakers were and then i saw who the other speakers were and one or two of them one especially i was like oh i can't do this and i i i wrote an email to the organizers and i said hey maybe you're not aware of what this person is doing and what this person is teaching and so i gave a bunch of information and to their credit they uh said wow you know we were not aware of this you're right and so they disinvited this person that i was uncomfortable speaking with and so i went ahead and accepted the invitation so so uh that was really encouraging actually to see but i am careful um you know i to my knowledge i don't think i've spoken at a at a conference with someone that i would just you know have a real objection to so i don't know if that answers your question just out of curiosity do do secondary matters ever play into that like uh baptist versus presbyterian type of stuff or um yeah i mean does that ever go into your calculations not not secondary you know i i can i have no problem speaking at a conference with some with a presbyterian a lot of people think i'm baptist i'm not baptist i used to be i'm just our church now is just non-denominational so i'm not technically a baptist anymore but no i would not have a problem with say you know rc sproul is in heaven now but let's just say i never met him but say he and i were supposed to speak at a conference together i would not have a problem speaking in a conference with rc sprawl i think john mcarthur and rc sprawl their their friendship modeled for us you know how you can disagree on some issues but as long as you're united in the gospel salvation by grace alone through faithful on christ alone that you can you can still be friends even if you disagree with each other on some secondary issues so so secondary issues wouldn't come into play with me and just because you're not a capital b baptist anymore that doesn't mean you're sprinkling babies right no no no okay just just want to provide clarification yeah yeah yeah okay yeah good point yeah yeah good catch there no i'm not sprinkling babies now um depending on the secondary issue like say if i were hosting my own conference i might be more careful about who i would invite to speak at my own conference as opposed to who i might agree to you know accept an invitation at a conference where someone else is speaking there now i'm not going to go let me let me rephrase this if uh if tbn said hey justin uh we want you to come and host the praise the lord program we want to you know we want you to to come on a tbn sometimes people ask me would would you do that yeah i would do it but it would be the first and last time tbn would ever have me come because what i would do is i would get up and i would rebuke them all as being the wolves that they are so hopefully none of the producers at tbn are hearing this so we don't miss that opportunity i'd love to see that happen yeah i'm not i'm not exactly holding my breath staring at the phone waiting for a call from tbn to come in so i'm not expecting that to too quickly but uh um let's see i got sidetracked was that that what was the question again yeah yeah yeah so you have basically just how how much secondary uh matters play into decisions on who you speak with and are shoulder to shoulder with at a conference um you know because i can imagine especially because your ministry is so focused on issues of the charismatic movement um those guys that you were talking about before who you respected it could be kind who are also continuationists it could be kind of awkward for you to be there with them knowing that your your ministry is best known for being against that and that is that is the one secondary issue that that i would i would personally draw a line in the sand for myself because uh it is something that i speak and teach on so clearly and you know and passionately and i do believe that i would i would be very reticent because of the not because i wouldn't think that these guys are brothers but because of the i think the the confusion that that might portray to people uh i would be very leery to speak at a conference even with the so-called you know open but cautious i'd be very careful about that um so all right well we really do appreciate your time coming on i have one final question for you and um you know we're we desire to you know this this podcast everything is is you know intended to be a ministry for the local church and i know your ministry is is very passionate about that as well and so as we consider that what parting encouragement would you would you have for leaders lay people alike within a local church as it pertains to striving to live out the unity of christ within the local church but people are also developing convictions and they're thinking through theological matters trying to avoid the foolish controversies as they wrestle through stuff what words of encouragement would you have for god's people sure ken i would say a couple of things uh one i would say i get a lot of emails from people asking me justin i'm growing in christ and i now realize that some of the things that my church are teaching or is teaching are not biblical and i really have concerns they're teaching some bad stuff they're quoting joel osteen they're quoting joseph prince or you know whatever maybe bill johnson even should i stay in the church because i want to be a source of light i want to be a source of truth so should i stay or should i leave i would encourage people to leave um if if you realize now you're in a because of your own growth you realize that you're in a bad church that is really not doing expositional preaching not doing church discipline not not teaching sound doctrine not refuting those who contradict don't stay in the church you're not going to change it you're not i know your intentions are good but you're not going to change it a congregation is not going to rise to a level of spiritual maturity above that of its leadership it's just not going to happen so if you're in a church that does not have biblically qualified men serving as elders doing what elders should be doing then you're not in a real church anyway so leave that church that's one thing don't expect a church to be perfect because it's not going to be and it's okay if you're in a church that maybe you know there's some peripheral issues that you're not a hundred percent on board with find a church that you're on board with as much as possible but um there's no such thing as a as a perfect church show your elder if if an elder if you hear your pastor or your elder whatever say something that may kind of like i don't know show that man some respect and some deference and don't automatically start blasting him just if you're confused about something politely gently ask him for clarification i'm sure he'll be happy to so um i have a great deal of love and respect for our faithful shepherds out there tremendous deal there are challenges in what i do in evangelism but i don't face the kind of challenges that a pastor faces and so i'm i'm so grateful for these faithful shepherds who are laboring away in the word the vast majority of them do so in anonymity they're not known they're just known to their own little flocks but these are good men and they're rightly dividing the word of truth and i love these brothers and they're going to be at the front of the line one day not not guys like me they're going to be at the front of the line one day so um so show them love show them respect pray for them if they say something that maybe makes you kind of [ __ ] your head a little bit just politely ask them and uh so uh you know show them patience and deference and respect um and to wrap it all up be encouraged because it can get discouraging honestly as you look at the broad visible spectrum of christianity today because you see so much compromise you see so much dilution of the gospel so um you know so much pragmatism you see so many false teachers but you know what else here's what you don't always see is that because of the ministry that god has entrusted me i have been able to preach the gospel all around the world i think i've been in 27 different countries now and on every continent except antarctica and it doesn't matter where i go there are good churches out there there are faithful churches faithful shepherds out there they are all over the world they're just not in the spotlight you know they you know your little your little church in the middle of zambia somewhere that's pastors faithfully preaching the gospel and and they're doing what a church should be doing they're not in the spotlight you know they're conferences don't talk about them but but they are out there and so there are we have brothers and sisters in christ all around the world we have our our families all around the world they're just not in the spotlight as much as some of this other stuff that that does unfortunately get the spotlight so god has his people everywhere be encouraged thank you justin peters for your time and for your words of encouragement and insight into these things and we hope this is beneficial for god's people thank you so much thank you brothers i've enjoyed it thank you so much you

Channel: Do Theology

Views: 34,719

Rating: 4.8516903 out of 5

Keywords: Justin Peters, Charismatic Movement, NAR

Id: tZxFSbX7zx0

Length: 52min 25sec (3145 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2020