LIVE DISCUSSION: Anthony Rogers - Sovereignty of God (Part 4/5)

A question as old as pain cracks open the conversation: did God create evil? From there we move through real lives and hard doctrine—men finding hope in prison classrooms, disasters that still fall under providence, and acts that look virtuous until you step back and see the skull and crossbones on the mast. We draw a clean line between natural evil as judgment and moral evil as human rebellion, then show how God remains just while upholding the world in which sinners act. If you’ve wondered how sovereignty and responsibility can both be true, you’ll hear a framework sturdy enough for the news cycle and close to home.

We also press into the claim “good without God.” Measured against neighbors, kindness shines. Measured against God, goodness must arise from faith, align with his law, and aim at his glory. That reorients philanthropy, status, and even our private motives. The pirate ship image brings it home: teamwork and fairness still serve rebellion when the flag is wrong. It’s bracing, but it leads to hope—God can restrain evil, redirect harm, and work all things for good for those who love him, without ever approving the sin itself.

A candid segment on apostasy looks at Judas as Scripture’s clearest profile of a false disciple. We talk about keeping boundaries with former partners who now deny the faith, while refusing bitterness and praying for true repentance. Then we shift to evangelizing Jewish friends with care: addressing the weight of history, clarifying what Jesus and the apostles taught, and using the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. One simple tactic—reading Isaiah 53 without naming the source—often opens eyes more than argument alone.

If you value clear theology with street-level application, this conversation will serve you. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s wrestling with these questions, and leave a review with the moment that challenged you most.

Transcript

Prison Ministry And Signs Of Faith

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Thinking they I don't I don't you know but then in the in the class I have a lot of very enthusiastic people they love it they they come back and they say this is the highlight of their week. You know, I I spend hours I go in there and teach for like four hours at a time and you know some of the guys express how uh much they look forward to it and and everything else and so there's a lot of enthusiasm there and I I can gauge that a little bit better with with some of these guys and uh you know I can say uh there is evident uh signs of faith there. Um but I know firsthand the the Lord's power to save people that are in prison since that's how I was converted 30 years ago. Sure. So um and I have a good friend who who has been doing great work as well. Uh many people know him online. He was also in prison. I don't know if you guys know David Wood, uh, but he uh he's a product of of the Lord saving somebody in prison.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

So anyways, I is he is he is he bald?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

No.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

No, I know it, I know a David Wood who was in prison and is doing ministry, so I was just wondering. Oh um, but anyway, sorry about that, brother.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Are you bald, Anthony, as well?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

No, no, no. Now my my hair's all smushed down. I I cut it short and it's all smushed down because of my beanie.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

I I made a comment earlier in the chat about great teachers wearing knit caps.

Beanies, Banter, And Warm-Up

SPEAKER_01 1:39

So yeah, I've always just loved beanies. I I hate when it gets well, I don't necessarily like when it's freezing, but uh when it gets hot, uh I'm always thinking, man, I missed my beanie. So I want it to get cold enough again for me to wear it.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

I appreciate brother. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Sister Candy, you have any questions for uh Brother Anthony?

SPEAKER_03 2:02

No, no questions. I I'm I'm enjoying hearing what he's saying because it confirms a lot of what I can't explain about my thoughts and the way it reason I am the way I am. So yeah. Like I'm loving it. Appreciate you, Anthony. So glad you got him here, Jonathan. Come back again, though, please.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

That's all that's all Pat and we hope he does come back in the future. I'm gonna press for it. Uh so he's in trouble now. Brother Pat, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, um, Anthony, I I gotta ask you this question while we have you here. Did God create evil?

Natural Evil, Judgment, And Providence

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Well, so the the problem with this is what do we mean by evil? So uh for one, sometimes scripture uses evil to refer to the judgments uh that come up. You know, we we could talk about like natural evils, what we might call that natural evils. Like if I get a flat tire, that's that's an evil in the way the Bible uses the term evil. Uh and and clearly God claims responsibility for things like that. I didn't accidentally get a flat, it's not like God looked and thought, oh goodness, I, you know, oops. God's not up in heaven thinking uh that you know just happened and and he didn't know it was gonna happen or anything like that. And there's a reason for it, right? Scripture speaks of God bringing floods, bringing uh destruction, bringing all sorts of things. It's it's all over the Bible where God is pouring out judgments. So in that sense, God is back of those things that we would call evils. If we're talking about things like this, like judgments, earthquakes, fire, famine, I mean, who else is running the show, right? But if you're talking about moral evil, now God doesn't do evil, he's not immoral, he doesn't do anything contrary to himself, he's the standard of goodness. He he couldn't possibly I mean, anything he does is necessarily good because he's the standard of goodness. So uh if we're talking about moral evil, we're talking about things that are perpetrated by human beings. When when they do something that's contrary to what God has said is right and and so forth. And so the question has to be: can these people act independently of God? And the answer is no. They they don't have any, they don't exist to do it apart from God choosing to make them. They don't have the ability to maintain their own existence in the act, they don't have the power to do the act unless God is upholding them and so forth. That doesn't mean God approves of their evil, but remember all that I said before, that God is the one who's you know going to hold people accountable for the the wicked intentions of their actions, but he's also going to use those actions to accomplish holy ends. So uh that's how I'd answer that.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Um you just brought me a question, and that is so if someone says they don't believe in God, but they're good to people and they do good things and they give this and they give that and they do all these things, but they just don't believe in God because of what He does do. Like I really don't know what I my question was now that I got it all over back out.

Moral Evil And Human Responsibility

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I I think I I oh go ahead. I think I have an idea of kind of what you're after. So I mean there are a lot of people who think that they they're good, they do good, that sort of thing. Number one, they're ignoring the Bible's statements that the heart of man is evil. They may be more restrained than others, but they're resisting the true teaching of scripture and are in danger of God giving them over to further depravity because they're not acknowledging God as the source of whatever they're doing. But but here's one way of thinking about this, one of my favorite illustrations. Imagine there's a bunch of people on a ship and all of them work together. They're there, it's like a well-oiled machine. Everybody's being good to one another, they're aiding one another, everybody's doing his job to make everything work. You know, somebody's swabbing the deck, somebody's making the the stew or whatever, somebody's raising the the mast and so forth. Now all that sounds good. They're evenly dividing whatever money comes into their possession. Uh all that sounds good, but imagine now that you if you took a uh if you stood further off from this ship and you saw that up on uh a pole it's flying a skull and crossbones, you realize that it's a pirate ship. And this ship is in rebellion against the government, and they're raiding the reason that they're they've got money is because they're raiding ships, and they're what they're dividing among themselves is what they've stolen. And every act that they're doing that otherwise looked good in aiding one another and supporting one another is only helping to further perpetuate their rebellion against the government and their piracy and everything else. If you only look within the ship, it might have the appearance of a bunch of people that are good. But once you have a broader perspective, you realize no, these are just a bunch of rebels who are only aiding and abetting each other in their activity, right? So uh there are a lot of people that do things that if if we're not looking, you know, Calvin used to say, if you know, people think that their eyesight is really great as long as they're looking down or around them. But as soon as they look up at the sun, their eyesight proves itself worthless, right? Try looking at the sun for longer than a couple seconds. That's not going to go well. Well, as long as we're measuring each other by each other, we can make ourselves look good or others look good. But measured by God, who is the true standard of goodness, nobody looks good at all. And so so you think about it, uh, if if for an act to be truly good in the eyes of God, three things have to be true. Number one, it has to be done in faith, it has to proceed from faith from a regenerate heart. Number two, it has to conform to God's standard. It has to be because this is what God says is good, not just because you like it or whatever. And third, it has to be done for God's glory. And when you take those things into account, unbelievers are not doing that. You know, when uh when some person gives away, that's an unbeliever, a million dollars to charity, they're not doing it because they have a uh you know faith in God, they're trying to glorify him and doing this because this is what he says. They're doing it for other ends, to they're doing it for self-gain or self-status appearance, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

For selfish reasons, so to say. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

“Good Without God” And The Pirate Ship

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Probably probably to get a break on their taxes.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Yeah, something not of God, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

But yeah, no, and then I when you when you when you start talking about it, and then when you start talking about God turning them over, it it makes me it makes me wonder too that when they think they're like that and say they are doing what they think is good, like you said on the imp at at the bird's eye view. No, not even a bird's eye view, but you know, I know, yeah, you know what I'm saying. But at the same time, could that be a reprobate that they've been turned over to to believe that they are doing good until the day Jesus says, Depart from me, I never knew you. Yeah, it could be. It could be. I mean, I thought about that too. And then when you was describing earlier about the how basically basically God uses the natural way of man to control and discipline all of all of nature, all of nature. It's not God doing the the bad things to someone, the bad is doing it. And then it made me think about a math. When you take the positive and the negative, the greater the positive with a negative, you get positive, right? And the greater the negative, like with the pirate ship, the greater the negative is over the positive, you get the the negative. If that makes sense, the bad versus the good. He used it against itself. So God doesn't do it in everything he does, it does, it does come out to the good of those who love him and are called by him for his plans and purpose. There's like there's no way around it. He doesn't plan to for this person or this war to break out. But like when we was talking about the 20,000 in the war, okay, out of 20,000 that died, my curiosity would be out of 20,000 that died, how many actually lives?

SPEAKER_04 11:27

Brother Anthony, um uh a brother in the in the in the chat uh uh chain there, Anthony Dinak D Nicola. I hope I'm saying your name right, Anthony, um, also another Anthony, he's asking, so are you gonna come back to TikTok more off?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

You know, it's funny, so I I know him. He lives in uh I think he's still here.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

He's still here, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

No, no, I mean I mean still in my area. I haven't seen him in a while, but uh he was uh uh going to school here um uh at the seminary I went to. So um as uh so Anthony, I you know, I I was invited on here. I have a friend named Pat who I've known for a long, long time, and he introduced me to the Bible provocateur. And uh so I mean it's possible I'll come on TikTok. I don't know. Uh I was told by somebody I can because I for those that don't know, I mostly do stuff on YouTube. I'm I'm very in fact, uh it was already proven today. I'm I'm not very technologically uh skilled, and so the reason I do YouTube and and haven't done TikTok is because, at least for one reason, is I I didn't really know how to do a live on TikTok and wasn't interested in putting forth the effort to figure that out. Um I was content to go on to uh YouTube where I do all my main stuff, but maybe maybe now that I know how to do this, I might do it more.

Reprobation, Restraint, And Romans 1

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Well, I I I brother Anthony, I think that uh Anthony Di Nicola asked me that is a good question, and I and I and I will tell you that I think you should. And and and I'm gonna show you um we'll talk, you know, in a couple of days or so, but we'll talk and I want to tell you why, and show you why. And uh and I'm gonna show you how starting your content here um can have uh huge significance for you in terms of taking taking whatever you do here and leveraging leveraging it across uh several other platforms because the quality here is gonna be much higher. It's gonna be much higher. But I'm but I'm gonna show you how and and talk to you and try to convince you. I'm gonna try to persuade you, brother, to come on here more. Because I think I think it would be good, and there needs to be uh more voices uh like yours where uh where um where all these people really are. There's a lot of people here. Uh he he wanted to ask you something else. He says, can I ask can you he asked me if I could ask you if you would debate Unitarians. Let me see. If you would debate unit unitarians with him on his live, is what I think he's saying. Is that right, Anthony? He's I think he's asking if you would debate with him against Unitarians on his live.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah, I I didn't know he was on here. That's why I was surprised he he popped in. Um yeah, I mean, I obviously have uh a lot going on, so it wouldn't be like that. That's one of the things. These things are always dangerous, they suck you down a time hole. And you know, but so yeah, I I could do it sometimes. Brother Pack.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Well, Anthony, you know it's it's my job to ask all the uncomfortable questions. Uh so I hope you don't mind if I asked yet another one.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

That's entirely comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Well, speaking of the first time that we have ever had tacos. Um when I met you, I think the first time we met was previous the tape of that series first um on Isbomb, right? George Said. I think that's where we first been.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

I don't really remember the nature or of the event, but I know that yeah, I was down there. I think uh you were the one that put me up somewhere. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Right, we don't we don't we don't have to we don't have to talk about that, but yes, yes, he put me up in the getup my question. No, I did not. I would never do that. Um my question has to do with the person that we filmed, uh, I'm just gonna name name Sam Shamoon, as many know know now, he's become an apostate. What is the relationship when you have a friend who leads the faith and you're a Christian? How do you deal with that?

Social Media Strategy And Debates

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Well, uh first of all, the the Bible has a example of just such a thing. Judas is the the fullest uh what do you call this profile, as it were, of an apostate. So so a lot of times people like to try and you know that they come up with their idea of what's happening in something like this. So you'll have people who say this person was saved and then he was lost. Uh you know, you have other ways that people will will talk about this. But the the biblical answer is that a person who once professed faith and does not later is not somebody who was saved. They they're just exposing that they didn't have genuine faith. But Judas is the is the fullest example we have of this sort of thing. So think about Judas. When when Judas finally betrayed Jesus, Scripture doesn't allow us to think that at this moment, when he outwardly becomes apostate, that at this moment he ceased to be a true born-again believer or something like that. Because what Scripture tells us uh well, first of all, just uh as an aside, uh it's you know, when you look at Judas, uh he's never mentioned at any point without you being told that he's the betrayer of Christ. So from the get-go, everybody has these little uh ways that they're demarcated off from other people, because people didn't have last names in those days, right? So you'd have Peter Bar Jonah, he's being called after his father, Peter, son of Jonah. Uh or uh you think of James and John, the the sons of Zebedee or sons of thunder. So they have these further qualifiers identifying them to mark them off from other people named James and John, or they'll be named after the place they're from, Jesus of Nazareth, something like that. Well, Judas is always the one who would betray him, right? That's that's how Judas is identified. Not not a very good thing. So you're already thinking, though, when you first meet with Judas, you're not thinking, you know, this man is uh, you know, he's you're already expecting bad here, right? But if you go to uh John uh 13, it mentions this is before Judas betrays Jesus. Um pulling it up here on my computer. Um let's see, hold on. You're all very gracious waiting on me. Okay. Um actually, I'm sorry. I I meant John 12. Did you bring it up for you? No, no, no, I I got it. So I mean you could, but uh um so what happens in this context is um Mary took a pound of costly perfume and anointed Jesus' feet with it, and then Judas objects, and it says, uh Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, who was intending to betray him. So notice already it talks about Judas before the Last Supper and all that. This is something that's in his heart to do. The disciples, the other disciples don't know this. To all outward appearances, Judas is just like them. They, you know, he believes in Jesus and plans to follow him to the bitter end. Well, if you go back even further in John, all the way back to John 6, back to Jesus' church shrinkage seminar, right? At the uh remember what Jesus said to the twelve? He says, Did I not choose you the twelve, meaning to be my disciples? And yet one of you is a devil. He doesn't say one of you will be a devil, he says one of you is. So Judas is presented from beginning to end, not as a Christian, though to all outward appearances, that's what others would have thought of him. If, you know, that's why the disciples don't know at the Last Supper, they're thinking, who is he talking about? Who's going to betray Jesus? You know, Peter wants John to ask Jesus because he's so close to him. And, you know, but the point is they don't have any clue. Uh so Judas is the perfect example of apostasy and what that means. It's not somebody who had a genuine faith later not having faith. It's somebody who didn't have a genuine faith, later being exposed. And that's what 1 John tells us when it says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but their going out from us shows that they were not of us. Right? So um that's kind of like Paul in Romans 7, right? I but not I, all that kind of stuff. Well, uh so uh remind me your question again, Pat. I think I'm answering it.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Well, how do you deal when with somebody who is a brother and you preach the gospel shoulder to shoulder? They were a friend and they apostized.

Apostasy, Judas, And True Faith

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah. So uh, you know, first of all, I'd I'd never work with the guy, obviously, uh, because this person. Person still is, you know, this is his bread and butter kind of stuff. So he's still trying to do what he can to, you know, get money from it and that kind of stuff. Uh you'd never see me associate with him at all in that way. Um obviously we're not going to enjoy fellowship with each other. But at the same time, you know, I do have a sense of loyalty to people. And so that that makes it difficult because I, you know, I think of like, if you think of like, let's say you have a child and your child does something terrible, I wouldn't expect somebody else to think anything but you know, bad thoughts, wanting wanting him to be punished for it and so forth. But as my son's father, I would want every good for him, right? I I would recognize that he deserves whatever punishment comes with it, but uh I'm still his dad. So it's kind of analogous to that for me. It's like I was a friend of this person's. Um I they've committed apostasy. So on the one hand, we've got nothing in common as far as that goes. On the other hand, I I still want good for that person in a sense. It's kind of a hard position to be in, right? So there's a bit of a tension there. Uh happily, you know, I don't live around this person, so it's not like I've got to see them all the time. But I will say that Paul's very clear that, you know, you when it comes to the people of this world, you know, we we we don't just turn away from them. But when it comes to people who were brothers or profess to be brothers, they turn away from the faith. Those people were not to have anything to do with them. Yeah. So uh, you know, it but that doesn't mean I sit over here having bad thoughts. I, you know, I I hope uh, you know, in the book of Hebrews, it talks about people who profess the faith, it being impossible to renew them to repentance. Uh I think the author is talking about as far as our efforts go, there's not anything we can do, but that doesn't mean the Lord can't grant genuine conversion. So, I mean, I don't know. I I that's just me. I'm holding out hope that the Lord could uh, you know, uh He's obviously not obligated to, and it's always up to him. But uh I I can hope that he repents and believes in Jesus uh unto salvation, right? Uh for real. But I don't know. Uh hopefully that's somewhat helpful.

Boundaries With Apostates And Hope

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Anyone else? Have any questions for Brother Anthony while he's here, while we got him? Abusing. Let me ask you a question, Anthony. I got a question for you because I was thinking about this today. Um and and since you're like on this is your area, uh, a lot of these debates and things like this. Now you have, I want to try to frame this right. So you have Christian groups who, you know, debaters and evangelists and things like this that will go and they will have a specialty, basically, that they that you know, of people that you're trying to appeal to, like Muslims, let's say, for instance, or the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses and so on. Um what to me. Uh what and I've been trying to wrestle with this. How do you deal with with Judaism? And and I'm asking you that because especially says your your wife is a Jew, is Jewish, and your your your father-in-law or your in-laws, and and here's the interesting thing, and I want to frame this for you because when you say the term Jew, for example, you could be talking about an Israelite in the ancient in the Old Testament, in the Bible, or and in the New Testament, you could be talking about a national Israeli today, you could be talking about um a religious Jew, and in all these other in between. But there's only one, there's only one descriptive given to all those different categories of folks. So when you when you are addressing, when you want to address them in terms of the evangelistic side of it, in other words, dealing with the religious Jew, first of all, are there ministries that you know of that do that specifically? And when, and if they do, how do they avoid all of the pitfalls that is that are being that you know that are being out there about being called anti-Semitic and these kinds of things when you're dealing with just the religious aspect of it as you would any other um religion? And much the same way they will have problems with Christianity, for example. So how do you how do you frame that type of a ministry? And how would you go after it?

Evangelizing Jewish People Without Caricature

History, Anti‑Semitism, And Clarifying Christianity

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Yeah, so there are groups that do that. Uh one is called One for Israel. There is a particular guy with that ministry that I really appreciate, whose name is Seth Postel. He's written a number of books. One is called Uh Reading Moses, Seeing Jesus. Another one is Adam is Israel. He's just done a lot of really, really phenomenal work, and it's typically stuff that is of relevance to Christian witness to Jews. Right. It's dealing with scripture as pointing to Jesus. Everything he's written is in one way or another, I think, if I'm not missing anything, uh basically dealing with that sort of thing. And of course, any group that's focusing on Jewish people is profoundly aware of the history of anti-Semitism and how that comes into play for a lot of Jewish people. All they think of when they think of Christianity is persecution of Jews. And part of addressing that would involve number one distinguishing between certain things and Christianity. So, you know, the attempt to just lump Hitler in as a representative. Hitler wasn't a Christian. Right. He he did use Christianity to some extent because it was a means of tricking or, you know, in other words, you're not gonna it's sort of like any politician today. They, if they want to get the Christian vote, they've got to make some, they've got to give some indication that they're Christian or something, right? But and they're usually gonna have to play both sides. They're gonna even liberals will do this, right? And uh they're gonna have to try and find a way to say it that in a way that gets the Christian votes but doesn't lose these other people either, right? Uh well Hitler was using some of that, but he's very clear in his writings that he's basically a pagan. He he wishes that the German people would return to uh the old paganism because he thought that it created a more manly uh man and all this other stuff. But but for Jewish people, he just is at the face of Christianity, and so they only they think of Christianity as just that religion that persecuted them. Now, there is truth to the fact that uh the the Catholic Church, you know, which is uh I I would say that the the Reformation comes out of Protestant, the Protestant Reformation comes out of the Western Church. So at a certain point, that history is our history too. Right? We you know uh when the Reformers came, they weren't making a new church. They're saying there are corruptions and errors and so forth that need to be addressed. And when the Roman Catholic Magisterium officially anathematized their efforts and basically said, You're damned, at that point we would say Rome ceased to be proclaiming the true gospel, and she was, you know, basically cutting herself off from those who were believing the gospel and following Jesus. But, anyways, that that history is our history, and unfortunately, there's some ugly spots in it. And you know, we just have to make it clear uh, you know, people can represent others badly, and it doesn't prove that those others are to be blamed, right? If I I mentioned before, I hate to keep using my son, my poor son, uh, but I you know, I've said if my son went off and did something terrible, I'd still be his father. Well, at the same time, uh there are there are children that go off and do something other than what their parents really, you know. Oftentimes, you know, they're reflecting what they learned at home, but there are cases of children who didn't learn some of the what they did at home. It isn't a product of that. They just got twisted somewhere and uh they've done terrible things. It doesn't prove that the parents taught that, right? Well, obviously Jesus and the apostles didn't teach these things. And so if you see people later in history engaging in anti-Semitism and persecution, uh they're not at that point doing what Jesus taught. They're not living up to Christianity. Now, other religions, you know, it's it's the opposite, actually. If you see somebody doing good in some of these other religions, some other religions, uh, they are actually uh acting contrary. They're not being good members of that religion, because that religion in many cases does justify doing evil deeds. And I would say no religion outside of Christianity has a true foundation for morality, but they do at least try to teach it, right? Many of them. Anyways, um, so you know, it just involves a lot of explaining that this isn't what Jesus taught. Now, a lot of Jewish people are surprised to find out that Jesus was Jewish. They they think Jesus was a Catholic or something. It sounds strange to us, but that's how they think of it. They they think that uh, you know, Jesus is like this Gentile. I've heard Jews say, oh, he's the Gentile God, or something like that. Uh uh all this weird stuff. And you know, you tell them that Jesus was a Middle Eastern man from the first century and uh you know lived in Israel and was a rabbi or something like that. And they're like, what? They think that's crazy. But I'll tell you one thing. This isn't exactly what you asked, but uh it's something that I do a lot. Uh and I I know people say this now, but I I fell into this uh from my own experience long before I heard anybody else doing this. I used to get into all these back and forth discussions with my father-in-law, who's an agnostic, but still thinks he's a Jew because right? Uh the whole ethnicity thing and all that. My wife was is no longer Jewish in his eyes because she became a Christian. But he's still Jewish, even though he's an agnostic and doesn't think God exists. Well, we would talk and uh we would have big arguments like you know about the the truth of Jesus and all that. And one day he came over for dinner and I said, Dave, I said, uh, I don't want to argue today. I said, I'd kind of like to just have a good meal. I was just setting him up. I didn't mind arguing. I like arguing, but I I was just setting him up, you know, uh to do what I wanted him to do. I said, here's what I'd like to do. I said, I'd like to just read you something and get your honest thoughts about this. I might make one little comment, but other than that, I don't intend to push back or anything. I I just I just want to eat or whatever, and you know, we talk about other stuff. And he says, okay. He goes, What do you want to read? And I said, Well, let's let me read it to you. So I read to him from Isaiah 53. Now, if people aren't familiar off the top of their head what that is, that's uh a text in the Old Testament written 700 years before Jesus by Isaiah the prophet, which describes what's going on there almost with I mean, it gives us an insight into what was happening on the cross that goes beyond much of what you see even in the New Testament. Right. And same thing would be true of Psalm 22. You get a more vivid description of what was happening to Jesus on the cross in Psalm 22, written a thousand years before Jesus, than you do from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Right? Well, so I I read to him Isaiah 53, but I didn't tell him what I was reading. I read it to him and I said, What do you think about that? And he said, Oh, he goes, Well, you know what I think. I said, What do you mean I know what you think? I I'm asking for reason. He says, Yeah, I don't believe that. And I go, What do you mean you don't believe that? He goes, He goes, we don't believe that. He goes, Jews. He says, Jews don't believe that. And I said, Well, we all know you're not the best Jew. I said, So I don't know how that helps, but I what does it have to do about being a Jew that says you don't believe this? Right. I said, What do you don't, what do you not believe? And he says, that, what you just read. I said, What yeah, but what did I just read to you? What's that about? What is it that you don't believe? I wanted him to commit. And he says, All that stuff about Jesus. And I said, Oh, Jesus. I said, So you think I'm reading something to you about Jesus? And he says, Well, yeah, he goes, it's obvious, right? He's talking about Jesus' crucifixion. And I said, Oh, it's obvious. It's it's about Jesus. And he goes, He goes, You think I'm uh oh.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

Oh no. Can anybody else hear him? Or is it just is it just me?

SPEAKER_02 36:05

Come back, Anthony. No, he paused. Yeah, he's fixed.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

That was weird.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Oh, there he goes.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

There you go. Good thing I'm on my phone. Yeah, yeah. So uh then I told him, I said, Dave, I said, I just read to you from the prophet Isaiah, found in the old testament. And he his jaw just dropped. And I said, Okay, let's eat. And uh I I I've learned some tactics over the years. That's that's one of my favorites. You but you've gotta you, you know, if they already know where you're quoting from, what they're gonna do, they're gonna act like it doesn't say what you say.

unknown 36:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Right. So it has to be that they don't know where you're reading from in order for that sort of thing to work. Otherwise, you're just gonna be like, oh, it's not talking about Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 37:01

It's you know, yeah, that's excellent. Brother Pat, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Well, I've I've got to continue to make things as hard as possible on you, Anthony. I want to ask you a question about the doctrines of grace, and um, I'm gonna play devil's advocate uh if you don't mind. Uh someone might say to you, um, you know, these doctrines are divisive. And this is a minority position in today's society. Why cause so much trouble? Uh wouldn't you rather have unity? Why is this so important? Uh what would you say to that?

Isaiah 53 Tactics And Family Conversations

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Well, uh in principle, I've already addressed that from what I was saying about John 6. This, that, what you expressed is the underlying way of thinking behind the church growth type stuff, or these what they call seeker-sensitive, I don't know if people use these terms today. These are all stuff that uh I I would hear a lot in the past. The the mindset's still with us, I'm sure of that. But the idea is that we're trying to make Christianity appealing to people. And that means if you think about a business that's trying to get people in, what are they doing? They're they're changing things according to what they think are people's likes and dislikes in order to get them in. Well, we don't have the luxury of doing that when it comes to Christianity. People can't just come to God any way they please, they've got to come his way. That was the whole point of this temple or tabernacle system, where God is saying this is the way to approach me. When when Nadab and Abihu tried to approach God in a different way, sounded like a good idea, right? Leviticus 10, you know, if people don't know the account, go read it. They brought unauthorized fire into God's presence. It sounded like, hey, this is a cool idea to worship God. A little smoke and you know, mirrors and stuff. I don't know if they had mirrors, but no, they brought unauthorized fire, and it says fire shot out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them. So God tells us how we approach him. He's he's in fact, he's the seeker. So if we're going to be seeker sensitive, we need to be sensitive to what he wants, right? He says that he's the one that came to seek and save that which is lost. John 4, Jesus said God is seeking those, right, who will worship him in spirit and in truth. So God is the great seeker. He's the one that we should be trying to please. We don't make up uh I I've heard people say, think about this. I mean, I if if we're gonna change this, why not change other things? I've heard people say, Unitarians, for example.