(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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My name is Donnie Budinski and I'll be moderating tonight's debate. This is one of my personal favorite topics and I am excited to see what our debaters tonight, Pastor Shelley and Sean Griffin are going to bring to the table in terms of points and arguments. Gentlemen, what I'd like to do is get acquainted before getting into our debate openings and so Pastor Shelley, let's start with you. Firstly, this is your platform. So, I appreciate you allowing us to use it for this important debate and tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thanks so much for moderating our discussion. Thanks to our opponent for agreeing to the discussion as well and this is the Baptist Bias. We're looking forward to season four pretty soon. I pastor a church here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area Stedfast Baptist Church. I also pastor a church in Houston called Pure words Baptist Church but we're looking forward to ordaining a pastor down there pretty soon. September 1st. I'm really excited about this conversation because I think it's necessary component of salvation. Salvation is the most important topic and so I'm glad that we get to talk about the most important things and earnestly contend for the faith. Absolutely. Pastor Shelley, appreciate that introduction. Sean, great to have you as well. Thank you for doing this debate. I'm really looking forward to this exchange. Tell us a little bit about yourself or anybody unfamiliar with who you are and also tell us a little bit about your channel and ministry. Donny, thanks again for moderating this. Pastor Shelley, thanks for doing this. This is great. Thanks for the invitation. I'm Sean Griffin. I've been a believer since 1997. I've been, you know, voraciously studying the word ever since and we started our channel Kingdom in Context because we just felt like the message of the gospel of the kingdom was Christ's central message and that a lot of churches have gotten away from actually preaching what that is and all the details involved in that. We feel like it's very important for the edification and discipleship of believers and so that's what we try to stress and focus on our channel and that does blend into topics like this because when you get saved and the details of that does matter to the kingdom of God and the coming kingdom of God is the father's house tabernacles on the earth. So it's it is an important topic. Alright Sean, thank you for the introduction. appreciate the introductions from the both of you gentlemen. So let's get into the debate. Everybody has been waiting for our Saturday night soteriology showdown and I'm looking forward to a good clean fight here in the debate octagon spiritual fight that is of course and so we're gonna kick off the debate with opening statements. So these opening statements are going to be short, sweet and to the point. So the opening statements are going to be five minutes and what I'll do as I know five minutes flies by is I will say time audibly I'll say time at the five minute mark and then from there you gentlemen can take roughly 10 seconds to wrap up your your point that you may be on and your thoughts and then after that we'll move into the second phase of tonight's debate which will be the rebuttal round and so for now let's move into our first opening statement. Again the topic for tonight is can a believer lose his salvation? Sean Griffin takes the affirmative and Pastor Jonathan Shelley takes the negative. Therefore Sean we are going to give you the first five minute opening statement whenever you're ready. Go ahead. Okay thank you so much and uh let us begin here. All right so for my understanding is this this topic and wise debate is Christians are arguing about when a person is actually saved. Is it a point the point where they do an altar call, come up front, confess Christ as their Lord and Savior or is it at the point of resurrection? I'm positing it's actually at the point of resurrection. Resurrection is when you get saved eternally. In the meantime you're discipling and you must persevere to the end. It's only modern traditions and philosophical interpretations that's not only to confuse good-hearted believers about what it means to have faith in Christ and be his disciple. So professing Christians will not reach the resurrection which Paul calls our blessed hope with lip service confessions. It does require action. Cowards who abandon the discipleship to Christ and turn back to a life of sin and unbelief will not inherit the paradise of God. And Christ will judge us by our deeds and not our creeds. And a great example of this is in Matthew chapter 3. John the Baptist is actually pointing out the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to get baptized and he then admonishes them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. So it's one-to-one correlation. You produce fruit in keeping with dependence with repentance. Not to presume to say yourselves we have Abraham as our father. So in their culture, in their context, Sadducees and Pharisees, they just leaned on the laurels of them being of a specific genealogy to think that they had guaranteed salvation. But their fruits in keeping with repentance was still the admonition from John the Baptist. And that is still the same today, right? So this is why he goes on to say the axe that is ready through the tree, every tree that does produce good fruit will be cut down at the end of the fire. Acts 26-20, Paul in the same way, he declares you should repent and turn to God performing deeds worthy of repentance. It's a one-to-one correlation. Throughout all of your life you must continue with deeds worthy of repentance and it is an ongoing. Repentance is not a one-time thing. It's an ongoing thing. But to those Deuteronomy 7 9-10, this is that the Almighty himself through the prophet Moses, for those who hate him, he repays their faces with destruction. He will not hesitate to repay the one who hates him. Job 34-11, for according to a man's deeds he repays him. So the prophet preached Job. He also knew and understood this idea. Proverbs 24-12, rhetorically asking, will not he repay a man according to his deeds? Of course he will. Or Psalm 62 11-12, which is actually repeated in Revelation 22. Yahweh is also explaining he will repay each man according to his deeds. 1 Kings 8, Solomon's prayer, in his prayer that you may forgive and act and repay each man according to his ways. This is the same, consistent all throughout history, start to finish. The same behavior of the father, the same standard of judgment. It is a lifelong discipleship that is expected of all mankind. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, 13 and 14, for God will bring every deed into judgment along with every hidden thing whether good or evil. So if we do evil at the end of our lives, no matter how much evil we've done before, you will be judged on that. Now I'm not the arbiter, only Christ is, as far as what that line is, but I do know the actual moment of guaranteed eternal salvation is not the resurrection, because your life is the evaluation process. Jeremiah 17 10, I the Lord search the heart, I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve. Jeremiah 32 11, or 32 19 again, repeats the same concept, according to your ways, according to the fruit of your deeds, you'll be judged. Matthew 16 27, Christ himself the son of man will come in his father's glory with his angels and will repay each one according to what he's done. Romans Hall goes on to explain that in verses five through eight and verse six he says God will repay each one according to his deeds. He's actually quoting Psalm 62 12 right there, he says to those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory honor immortality he will give return to life. Now this is one I think that is a beautiful passage for my particular argument, which is you must endure to the end in behavior of producing fruit worthy of repentance. You must endure in discipleship to Christ, and in that you persevere in doing good, this is what he's saying. So right on the tagging on the heels of according to Psalm 62 12, God will repay each one according to his deeds. Paul says you must persevere in doing good and he equates it directly to eternal life. He will give you eternal life if you do good. Revelation 2 24 to 27, Christ also says to the one who overcomes and continues in my work until the end I will give authority over the nations. So we can't shrink back, we can't change course, we can't abandon discipleship. Revelation 22 12 again he's quoting Psalm 62. So this is the idea that we must finish the race. Matthew 5 48, Christ tells us to be perfect. Now a lot of people get confused on this, they think that perfect means that you have to be without failure, but that's not the definition of this Greek word or even the Hebrew even. So in the Greek it's a it's a word that teleio which is means brought to its end finished lacking nothing necessary to completeness. This is not having to do with you never making a mistake in your life, this is you completing the race, running the races. As Philippians 3, Paul talks about he doesn't think he's already attained it. In the context of verse 12 of him getting to the resurrection, excuse me verse 10 is the previous context about Paul getting to the resurrection, he doesn't think he's already attained all this perfection. He must press on. Time. Right yeah all right. It does fly by man. It does. I looked over and I saw four minutes and 50 seconds so appreciate the fast-paced five-minute opening statement there. Shawn we're now going to hand it over to Pastor Jonathan Shelley and so Pastor Shelley I'll reset the timer and whenever you're ready you got five minutes go ahead. The most famous verse in the Bible is John 3 16 and it says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. The Bible makes it clear that salvation is simply by believing in Jesus Christ and by doing so you have eternal life. I believe there's many proofs in the Bible that describe how one can attain eternal life and that they can have it now. The Bible makes it clear that in John 3 36 he that believeth in the son hath everlasting life. That's present tense so we're not describing something in the future we're not describing the resurrection we're describing a present tense moment which one who has trusted in Christ has believed in him as Savior has eternal life in that specific moment. Additionally John 1 12 says, But as many received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name. So the Bible makes it clear when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you can become a child of God. In first John chapter number three it says, Behold now are we the sons of God. It doesn't say in the future it doesn't say at the resurrection it doesn't say hope so might so maybe so could be so it says now. So according to the Bible when someone believes in the Lord Jesus Christ they are born again and they are now the son of God. Meaning that they are already saved with a D at the end because it's a past tense event. Now that they're saved they have eternal life they're a child of God and they cannot change the fact that they're going to be a child of God for the rest of their life and beyond death they are going to be a child of God forever. The Bible also makes it clear in Ephesians chapter number one that when you believe in Lord Jesus Christ you're sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise which is an earnest payment as the Bible describes it and that you're sealed until the day of redemption. That day of redemption is the resurrection so it's not that I'm waiting to be saved I'm already saved and I'm already sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise and that I'm already going to make known to everyone including myself that I have the Spirit of God. In fact we know that we're the children of God by the Spirit of God that's what the Bible says. Another point in John chapter number five verse 24 the Bible says that we pass from death unto life. The Bible says that we cannot come into future condemnation so it doesn't matter what I do in the future I can't come into condemnation I already have everlasting life and I've already been passed from death unto life. A fifth point is the Bible brings up in John chapter number 10 that when someone believes in the Lord Jesus Christ that they're put in Jesus Christ's hand not only are they in Jesus Christ's hand they're also in the Father's hand and the Bible says that no man can pluck you out of either of their hand and so I'm already secure and sealed in the Father's hand in Jesus Christ's hand and so there's no way for me to lose my salvation because I didn't deserve being in their hand in the first place and there's nothing I could ever do to get out of their hand no man can be plucked out of their hand. Another addition is in Romans chapter number five verses 15 16 and 18 the Bible makes it abundantly clear that salvation is a free gift it says that three different verses in Romans chapter number five and in fact it also describes that it's by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men under justification of life. So according to the Bible it's only by one person's righteousness that I get to go to heaven and that's the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It's not my righteousness it's not my actions it's not my deeds it's not my faithfulness it's not what I do it's what I believed and by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ I'm imputed his righteousness and his works and it's by the righteousness of one that I obtained the free gift of eternal life and I could never lose that. Another point is the Bible makes it clear that in Romans chapter number six that even though we're saved and we're supposed to do our best to not sin and repent we are never going to be perfect and therefore when we sin grace will continue to abound and grace will continue to cover our sin. Now of course the questions asked you know should we do those things should we continue in sin that grace may abound and the answer is God forbid but the answer is that grace will abound and no matter what I do God's grace will continue to cover my future sin and I will still go to heaven because of grace not because of faithfulness not because I persevered not because of my works but because of the grace of God. Additionally the Bible tells us in Titus chapter one that God promises eternal life and that he cannot lie. The Bible makes it clear that whosoever believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life so the person who believes in Christ has eternal life God cannot lie it's not conditional life it's not temporary life they will be saved permanently. Additionally the Bible says in some more difficult passages but it's a clear point that in first John chapter number three and in Romans chapter seven that you can't sin after you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now of course to clarify that point it's not that I can't sin in my flesh because the Bible says that we're going to sin continually I can still lie cheat steal commit adultery but it's no longer I that do it but sin that dwelt in me as the apostle Paul describes and that actually in my new man it's impossible for me to sin because I've been born again spiritually and because of that point there's no way for me to ever go to hell or lose my salvation. Therefore the Bible is clear you can't lose your salvation. Okay appreciate that five minute fast-paced opening statement there pastor Shelley gentlemen that concludes our five minute opening statements for tonight's debate on the question can a believer lose his salvation we're now moving into a rapid rebuttal the rebuttal is going to be three minutes give us the opportunity to respond to each other's points and arguments and further set the foundation for the discussion we got a lot of discussion time here which is good it's what the audience wants to see so what I'll do is the same thing I did for the opening statements I'll say time right at the three minute mark and then from there gentlemen take 10 seconds or so to finish your point and thought and so okay Sean whenever you're ready I'll reset the timer and you have three minutes go ahead um Sean thank you for opening statements am I off mute okay yeah thanks for opening statements uh pastor Shelley I won't have time to screen share because it's only three minutes so I have time to put a lot of verses on screen but um I we hopefully will get into some of this with our discussion across but um just one thing you quoted John 3 16 believing isn't a process it's an action so that's literally by definition of the word believing is not a thought process it's not mental assent this is not Gnosticism it's an actual action believing is not believing if it's not qualified by repentance this is why I brought the verses up initially about deeds keeping with repentance uh John chapter 10 those who are Christ's hands those that's those who are actually in faith and belief so if you remove yourself from Christ's hands which is what 60 of his disciples did in John chapter 6 then they're no longer in his care they're no longer under his discipleship they're no longer in his hands so obviously it's about a steward a shepherd which was what Christ was to his disciples that means it takes the willful action of his disciples to be there so this is I don't know if you ascribe to forms of Calvinism but this is this is there's still free will involved in this process of discipleship also James 2 of course would negate your proposed definition of belief James 2 says that you you know your your faith without works is dead so if you're describing faith as belief John 3 16 that you think you're guaranteed eternal life now I hope it's not in this fleshly body I hope you don't have eternal life now in this corrupted flesh I hope you have to get your new incorruptible body like Paul teaches us in first Corinthians 15 to actually be in the state of immortality again the same process that Paul is preaching and this is the same Paul who already believes in Christ as his Lord and Savior in Romans 2 like the verse I put on screen those who persevere in doing good will get eternal life from God so eternal life there is a there is an appointed time for the granting of the eternal life part a free gift I love it but a free gift I agree it salvation is a free gift no no two ways about it we don't deserve the eternal life that God gives us to Christ Jesus but we must actually show him we are his disciple we must we can't go worship bell we can't go worship satan we can't go sacrifice children of Molech and then expect Christ to take us into his father's house so this is very important that we must have repentance in order to this free gift to make any sense to us I can't resurrect myself to eternal life I have to have Christ to do that Christ is the only anointed and appointed one in all of history that's going to be able to do that for me through the power of the Holy Spirit Romans 6 yes grace does abound whenever we sin but we're not expected to be perfect this is why it tells us in first John 1 8 and 9 he who says without sin is a liar therefore if you confess your sins he's faithful and just to cleanse you of all unrighteousness so this there is a competent understanding of yeah you're gonna make mistakes Peter made a lot of mistakes after he came to faith in Christ after he announced in Mark 8 Christ is the Messiah the Son of God that that's that's the most blatant confession of John 3 16 you can have to which Christ rejoices says oh heavenly father has revealed this to you so yeah yeah that's it thanks John thank you very much for your three minute rebuttal pastor Shelley the floor is now yours I'll reset the timer and you got three minutes go ahead I do think my opponent correctly analyzes the situation that determining when someone is saved will ultimately lead to the conclusion of can they lose salvation or not of course I don't think anybody really argues that post resurrection anybody can lose their salvation but obviously I believe the bible clearly indicates that you can have salvation now and that it cannot be lost as well he did bring up the fact that faith is not lip service in his opening statement then additionally in your rebuttal you brought up the idea of this being an ascent to knowledge I think that that's a straw man I don't think anybody argues for that I don't think a single person believes that salvation is by ascent to knowledge the bible makes it clear that belief in Christ is a full trust and being persuaded and full confidence in what Christ has done and that's what it means to believe in or to believe on it's a full trust so no one just simply merely acknowledges Christ's existence and is gained entrance into uh heaven or has eternal life the bible makes it clear that you must put all of your trust and confidence in what he did on the finished cross the finished work of the cross and his death prone resurrection as the only payment for salvation that's how someone achieves salvation so if you believe you can lose your salvation if you believe that it's by works in any shape or form you're not trusting in Christ therefore you're not believing in Christ and so it's very clear that you must uh understand these core doctrines in order to even be saved it's what gives him all the honor and glory that Jesus Christ truly paid our salvation and can offer us a free gift um you brought up Matthew chapter number three and you brought up the uh you shall know them by their fruits in that same passage um well I guess if you compare that to other passages I would say this when it talks about you shall know them by their fruits it says in Luke chapter number six that we're talking about what comes out of their mouth out of the abundance of the mouth out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh and so I would argue that the Pharisees and the Sadducees were willing to justify themselves as the bible says and they were pointing to their works to save them they were not pointing to Christ um you brought up a lot of points where God is going to judge people according to their works and that's found all over the text but that's not in context of salvation and the bible does say that we'll stand at the we'll see that the judgment seat of Christ and to be judged according to our works but those that have gone to the judgment of Christ have already been saved and redeemed so it's again it's it's ignoring all the clear passages on eternal life salvation John 3 Romans all the different passages that clearly describe eternal life to go to more exotic passages that are bringing up nuanced doctrines you bring up the idea of perfect in Matthew chapter 5 I believe it does mean perfect it's just God expects perfection understands that will never be perfect and gives us grace your definition would be so difficult to understand because you're saying you don't have to be absolutely perfect but you need to be good enough to basically meet that threshold to where God will still give you entrance into eternal life but in James chapter 2 the bible says in verse 10 for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offended one point he's guilty of all so the standard in the bible is to commit zero sins okay thank you pastor Shelley for that three minute rebuttal we've now concluded opening statements of five minutes and rebuttals of three minutes we got a good amount of points and arguments here to now engage in our discussion so with the discussion we are going to be getting the best of both worlds we're going to start off with cross exam and so this will be a little different than the open discussion that follows the cross exam the open discussion will be a little more free-flowing and organic but for this round for the cross exam that will do two rounds each and so 20 minutes in total we will want to go with more rapid questions and answers and so since pastor Shelley just ended with his three-minute rebuttal let's give the floor to you Sean to lead the way in the first cross exam it'll be five minutes and so Sean go ahead okay thank you pastor Shelley what do you define as belief i believe that it means to be fully persuaded or confident in okay and so would your actions have to match what you're fully persuaded and confident in would they have to match in what context your discipleship to christ they should but they don't have to for salvation okay okay um so if your actions don't match your actual confession of faith and christ and who he says he is and and actually repenting changing your life to be his disciple how is your confession then not just an ascent of knowledge someone can have an ascent of knowledge and understand something that's true and completely reject it so there's a difference between believing that um Kamala Harris is a is the vice president and putting your trust in Kamala Harris those are two completely different things okay so you're saying a person can put their trust in christ for their resurrection the glorification but which is the john 3 16 promise right the eternal life that you shall not perish but you're saying they don't have to actually change their behavior no then if in order to obtain eternal life no they should why why did christ perpetually tell people to repent he wants what do you think he was meeting when he said repent yeah in mark chapter one it says repent you believe the gospel that was he wanted them to stop trusting in their works and in themselves and believe in jesus christ so the word repent just simply means to turn or change and the context defines what we're changing from and to so it could be a change of mind it could be a change of action it just you have to allow the context to define that most of the time when christ was asking them to repent it was in the context of stop trusting in the works of the law to save you and trust in jesus christ to save you are you familiar with first century judaism and how they taught the oral torah as the works of law and not the actual commandments of god no because i don't think judaism was invented until the fifth century okay do you know who rabbi akiva is no okay um john 6 29 jesus replied the work of god is this to believe in the one he has sent is that a work yes or no i think it's a it's a it's a wording that's used to kind of trip people up but in the context of what works are in faith no believing in jesus christ does not work so a murderer can still murder and then and expect eternal life from christ yeah i believe that david went to heaven i believe um that that david didn't perpetually murder i'm sorry yeah david didn't perpetually murder he repented he's asking someone murder and go to heaven right right yeah because under the guise of what you've already answered that a person does not have to change their behavior and disciple after christ you're you're literally telling me a murderer can just say oh oh it's the son of god actually is the son of god i believe it and then continue to go murdering the rest of his life and then expect salvation from christ is that what you're saying yes okay thank you for your honesty um in romans 8 you talked about it um you talked about redemption right you think that the moment you you put your faith in christ um i'm not saying this jargon twirly just from your own answer so far through your confession of faith not your actions but as you said through your own confession of faith that you already are redeemed but yet redemption is defined by paul and romans 8 as the redemption of the body when the sons of god are revealed which is a future tense yeah i think the whole creation groans in eager anticipation for yeah i think redeemed can be me can be meaning two different things in the sense that i i can be redeemed but the redemption of my physical body hasn't happened yet so there's the soul and the spirit and then there's also the physical body okay um you mentioned that you didn't like my definition of perfect from matthew 548 i literally put on screen the greek so it's not my definition um i gave you examples both old and new testament and but i we don't have time to dig into that too much let's just address one of the things you did say in your bottles that you think that a person you think the bible teaches a person has to sin uh zero times in order to be i guess to be perfect no one's that no one's requiring that no one's preaching that and the bible doesn't preach that according to my my understanding of the bible because you have the entire old testament there was built into um the whole process of a priest it's something ordained by god so that he can make atonement for your sins and christ our messiah is actually prophesied and is currently now our high priest of the covenant ministering in heavens tabernacle as hebrews 8 1 through 2 hebrews 5 hebrews 2 17 a whole bunch of other places say that he's actively doing the process which creates atonement for our sins because the whole process given by the almighty anticipated us to sin were you aware that the old testament does not expect absolute perfection of behavior before you respond pastor shelley that's five minutes so what we'll do is consider that the last question in the last few points pastor shelley take as much time as you need to respond go ahead i would say that the bible um in the old testament and the new testament does put an expectation of perfection and and to never sin um it's similar to how a parent expects the children to follow all of their rules but understands that a child never will follow all of their parents rules and when jesus christ was confronted by the young rich ruler he literally asked him if thou wilt be perfect and then he says go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor take up thy cross and follow me it was under the guise of the guy that has kept literally every single commandment perfectly and he's following all of the works perfectly that was the context so yeah i think that perfect is pretty clear it's just perfect it's just that it's it's unattainable okay thank you gentlemen for that first five minute cross exam i enjoyed that pace i like the quick questions plenty of time to answer and it flowed well so let's continue with that for the next three five minute rounds this time i'll reset the timer pastor shelley you get to lead the way in a cross exam for five minutes go ahead yeah i'm hoping to ask some yes no questions here sean do i have to repent of my sins to be saved absolutely 100 is faith alone enough to save faith defined as repentance and deeds worthy repentance yes according to the biblical definition of faith yes his face evaluates on your deeds let me ask this way is faith without repent without repenting of my sins enough to save that's not the biblical definition of having faith in christ if if i believe that jesus christ paid for all of my sins and that he rose again from the dead and that he is offer me eternal salvation and i call upon his name in faith is that enough to save me it saved the thief on the cross who repented confessed christ publicly and then was guaranteed entrance into paradise is believed christ is ultimately the judge of how many actions qualify you but i can guarantee you if you do not disciple after christ and you you know he's gonna i wouldn't want to stand before judgment in his face when 99 of my actions throughout my life has spit in his face and not disciple to him even though i profaned him by claiming to people i was his disciple i mean this is what israel got in trouble for in the old testament and god's not a god's not a respecter of persons so is a one-time trust in christ without a change in behavior enough for salvation yes or no uh depends on christ but i would say that you're you must have deeds worthy of repentance which is what christ preached in ephishians chapter 1 verse 13 it says in whom he also trusted after that you heard of the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and whom also after that you believed you were sealed of the holy spirit of promise would you say in ephishians chapter 1 verse 13 that the word believe and trust mean the same thing no because like i said before the word believe is associated with you actively discipling so this is where even you know first century philosophy or second century philosopher uh justin martyr would claim that if you if you discount the ideas of discipleship you are excuse me i should say uh second century iranias he teaches in demonstration of apostolic preaching 200 years after christ that if you are no longer uh walking in the commandments of god you have left the faith and you no longer are a believer are are works necessary for salvation yes or no the work is to believe in disciple after christ not the works of judaism we're not talking about ritualistic rote works or any works i don't care what label i'm just saying are any works necessary for salvation yeah you must believe that christ is messiah and disciple after him do i have to endure to the end to be saved 100 yeah christ's own words you almost you almost quoted him if i don't change my ways but i believe in jesus would that save me no you must repent are you saved sean yes what are you saved from the second death how long are you going to be saved for how long am i well once you get eternal life you have eternal life and you're not subject to being thrown like a fire which is the second death do you have eternal life not yet does anybody have eternal life and christ does and the angels do does any man have eternal life life the resurrected man does just tries the resurrected man apart from the first resurrection apart from jesus does anybody have eternal life no okay not if the if i okay you know if i lose my salvation and i go to hell let me let me ask this if you lost your salvation and went to hell what were you saved from if i lost myself this hell that well for one how are you defined hell because that's translated several different ways you talk about okay let's just say let me ask her what different within if if if you lose your salvation and go to the second death what were you saved from the second death already answered that but you went to the second death so how are you saved from it well you said i lost the the question was if i lost my salvation and yeah you said you're saved right now so and you said you were saved from the second death you said that a believer can lose their salvation so i'm saying if you end up losing your salvation sean and you go to the second death what were you saved from right now i'm i'm no i believe in faith and belief that i would get eternal life and not face the second death there's an appointed time when people would have to face judgment for the second death but you're saved right now so what are you saved from the second death so if you lose your salvation go to the second death what would you have been saved from trying to answer you yeah this is a semantics right so when i say that i'm saved now that means i'm discipling in faith and belief after christ expecting him to raise me to eternal life i'm holding on to the hope the blessed hope that i have i'm actually doing first timothy chapter 4 verse 16 and persevering in my life and doctoring because that what that is going to be what saves me are you one more question are you a child of god in faith and belief at the resurrection you literally become raised by the spirit and actual born against on a god all right gentlemen very good that is now 10 minutes of cross exam i'll reset the timer we have 10 more minutes five minutes each sean you now get to lead the way in in questions starting now awesome so i just want to make sure i'm clear pastor shelley you said earlier that if someone puts their faith in christ but then abandons that later say like a year after they put their faith in christ you know they stop fellowshiping with believers they stop going to church you know they i don't know they they become the new lead guitarist for a you know a rock metal band that glorifies satan they go off had lascivious lifestyle full-on drug addicts ruining their life and the lives around them a people for the next 50 years of their life will christ still resurrect them and give them eternal life and let them live in his father's house yeah if they believed in christ then they were saved and they will go to heaven all right interesting so what what would stop anyone from what would motivate in your view of this uh oss teaching what would motivate someone to actually live for christ well the bible's clear that if you break god's commandments that you're going to reap what you sow that god's going to chastise those who break his commandments and so in fact the bible even says that there's a uh looking for fearful you know judgment of fire indignation so you know and in the bible says that god's going to judge his people he's going to judge the house of god so of course you can go to jail lose a death penalty god can curse you with blindness um he can cause you to obviously physically die he could cause you to be tortured i mean horrible things can happen as a result of sinning just because i can't change who my physical parents are i'm not motivated to be a bad person and just because my mama loved me no matter what doesn't make me want to go out and become an axe murderer so you know it's kind of a strange view to believe that i have to be tempted with the idea of being thrown into hell to want to obey christ in fact the main motivating factor according to the bible is love for christ okay thank you in um in matthew 12 50 christ um he's he's teaching and some his disciples come and say hey your your mother and sister are outside and your brothers are outside and he says and he turns the system in for who um my family those who do the will of god so you think that someone who without changing their behavior gives a verbal confession that christ is the messiah the son of god then doesn't do the will of god but they're still considered the son of god and will get eternal life well i think your your question's flawed the bible says first call upon the name of the lord shall be saved the bible makes it clear that the will of the father in john chapter 6 is specifically to believe on jesus christ so if someone believed on christ what does that mean they did the will of the father right so this is i mean isn't this literally what james chapter 2 talks about like you know even the demons believe and shudder but the devil's both the devils believe that god exists but that doesn't mean they trust in jesus christ for salvation there's a difference they trusted in that well okay so but james is making this exact point of the conversation we're having says the faith is that works is dead so what kind of faith are you talking about if there is actually no behavioral change to back it up and match it yeah james what faith are you describing james does not want people to believe on jesus christ and get saved and then do nothing with their life he wants them to actually have works that accompany salvation that's what hebrew 6 brings up but that doesn't mean that he had to have works in order to go to heaven it's just that god is not going to be pleased with someone who's not having any works and additionally it says that what does that profit how can i profit someone if i personally don't do any works i can't so so the whole point is if i get saved and i don't tell anyone that's selfish if i don't help anyone that's selfish and so faith without works is dead in the sense that it's not actively helping anyone first timothy chapter number five brings up widows that are living in pleasure are dead while they live but that doesn't mean they're unsaved it just simply means that they're not profiting anyone my cell phone if it doesn't have a battery it's dead but it doesn't mean that my cell phone doesn't exist and it couldn't profit me in the future i just need to charge it up and then start using your answer yeah i appreciate that thanks for your answer um so you're saying that faith a dead faith can still save you only a dead face saves because the bible says in romans chapter 3 verse 28 therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law that's salvation by faith without the works of the law again i strongly encourage you to study christian christian history and judaism history is pertaining to the first and second century ad so you can understand paul's dichotomy that the guy who was a pharisee of pharisees uh when he talks about leaving his former life in judaism in galatians one and he explains the difference he's he's addressing this conversation at romans 2 and in verse 8 when he says anybody preaches another gospel yeah again the other gospel was that you didn't need christ you just needed judaism's traditions of circumcision in order to expect the world to come which is which is false one more question you need christ so in james chapter 2 verse 5 he encourages the brethren reading listen my beloved brothers has not god chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him but you're saying your faith is not rich it's dead it's not vibrant because you don't think any work should accompany your belief that christ is the son of god is that is that what you're saying i'm not saying that my faith is dead because i actually do have a lot of works that accompany salvation what i am saying is that someone who did have faith without any works even if it's a dead faith would still save them okay gentlemen that concludes round three and 15 minutes so far of cross exam very good fast-paced and engaging so we're now moving into our fourth five minute round this time pastor shelly you get to lead the way in five minutes worth of questions go ahead so i want to follow up on a few questions that we had before you said you know i just might i probably asked this before but do you do you currently have current eternal life sean i get eternal life the resurrection i believe in anticipation that i'm going to receive that type of salvation when the time comes okay so when the bible says in john 336 he that believed in the sun half everlasting life is that present tense again how you define the word believe yes he that believes in the sun he that disciples after christ this is there is no just oh willy nilly oh i believe that he is real i mean the pharisees believed that he was real but 99 of them rejected him and so he he gives them the big woes in matthew 23 for all their you know unbelief right so why is he preaching against their own belief let me let me follow you i feel like you answered i want to make sure you said it is present tense so you're saying someone who believes in jesus right now does have eternal no i said i said the definition of belief is discipleship so yes you you absolutely should expect if you're just like because this is this is what christ promised you he who believes on him should not perish would have eternal life so we have to have the hope of the resurrection in order to that's the end of our discipleship you know we get the promise of god the promise of the covenant you cannot just say oh christ is real he was the son of god and then go keep murdering people the rest of your life and expect eternal life is is discipleship is it fair to say that discipleship is defined by doing the works of god yeah absolutely it's literally literally paul's so in romans in romans chapter 11 it says and if by grace then it is no more of works otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be of works then it is no more grace otherwise work is no more work so according to romans chapter 11 saying grace and works cannot be the same thing the bible says for by grace are you saved through faith if faith means works if if what you're saying believe means works then how can salvation be by grace without works let me read the passage you're you're going off of what verse you in romans chapter 11 verse 6 okay in the same way the present times were remnant chosen by grace and if it's by grace then the long bright works okay because the previous context in chapter 10 lead into chapter 11 is he's talking about unfaithful israelites of aprraham's descendancy whom are grafted out because of their unbelief and again this is that same conversation i've been saying first century judaism taught these people just this is the john chapter 8 discussion between the pharisees and christ when they said oh we're we're descendants of abraham and christ was like if you are descendants of abraham you do the deeds of abraham but instead you're children of the devil because you do the deeds of the devil like he immediately equates their dependency on being sons of the kingdom as being lineage descendancy of abraham in the same way paul is also admonishing or not admonishing but he's encouraging the new believers hey by the way there's there's some unbelief in in actual blood-borne israel that got grafted out you're now a wild olive shoot that's getting grafted in i don't think you're answering the question because of your let me let me just let me clarify let me ask it differently going off of the the what you're not answering my question i'm trying to give you some context because you're plucking something out of context so it's important i didn't plug me down a contest the bible says the whole that the election questions of grace is no works so is salvation by grace without works the bible the bible doesn't say the mantra that you repeated the bible says that i'm just going to answer the question is salvation by grace without works hey pastor shelley i'm trying to answer it you want to let me so it's so in verse five and six of chapter 11 is at the end because you know in the greek there's no verses and chapters it's at the end of paul already explaining there's unbelief in israel that's getting grafted out what was what was the context of them in their unbelief they're rejecting christ because they trusted in their traditions of the oral torah of judaism that they all they had to do is be circumcised and be a descendants of abraham and they were already good but that's not what the bible teaches that was a false teaching of the pharisees christ and paul reprimands them both for and he's teaching along that same line right here in chapter in chapter 10 11 verse 5 and 6 the goodness and grace of god which accompanies your belief not your unbelief this is why he goes on to say in verse 8 he goes on to quote actually from the old testament that god gave them a spirit of stupor their eyes cannot see their ears cannot hear even to this very day because they were in unbelief so that the new converts he's talking to in the romans chapter 11 are in positive rich belief so that means they're actively seeking god they didn't reject christ he's this is a comparison you're not answering the question it's a simple question is salvation by grace here pastor shelly just because you don't like the answer you didn't answer the question fully there's plenty of answers you given i didn't like but you at least answered the question you just did not answer that question full answer believe it and with that gentleman that is that is five minutes so we'll leave it up to the audience to objectively analyze that cross exam not only that five minute cross exam but the uh 20 minutes in total so gentlemen we're now moving into a discussion so rather than a real strict cross exam where it's just question and answer question and answer this is going to be a little more free-flowing a little bit more uh organic and so you guys can kind of bounce ideas off each other continue asking each other questions clarifying questions and so what we'll do since pastor shelly you just finished leading the way sean let's allow you to uh kick us off in this discussion and for the audience sake this discussion will be 50 minutes in total so go ahead gentleman awesome um pastor shelly um are you think that you're saved right now yes okay and semantically i actually agree with you it's actually called prolepsis it's we believe that christ is going to resurrect us to eternal life so you know but if you decided to abandon your position at the church abandon your faith publicly denounce christ you think that he would still give you eternal life on the day of the lord no i believe i already have eternal life and i could not lose it okay okay obviously i believe so and you chastised you'd be chastised what do you wait okay so you'd be chastised for leading others astray and being reprobate yourself yeah consider matthew chapter number five verse 19 okay those who teach against the law of god and teach others to do so yeah so in matthew chapter number five at least in the kingdom of god it contrasts two different people right does it not one person who says whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so others to do he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven but whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven both according to the verse are in the kingdom of heaven do you not agree no i totally agree but i understand the difference is between a deceived person versus someone that you know actually understands proper doctrine but both the deceived and the and the person with good doctrine actually both are admitting christ like the entryway into the kingdom is that you must john 6 29 you must believe on the one he sent so i my question to you was the scenario provided was that if you actually denounced christ publicly you abandoned the faith and live the rest of your life as a reprobate so this is a different you're now outside of the context of matthew 5 19. so that's why i'm asking you if you denounced christ okay let's go to the most extreme example do you think judas is going to be in the kingdom well judas is a devil from the beginning from according to scripture and so i don't believe he was never saved he is just simply someone who is destined for hell because he chose never to believe in christ so okay no he's not in heaven he's in hell so in john chapter 6 christ talks about you know you know striking my body and drinking my blood you know and then there's a hard teaching many of them had to abandon and turn away because it's hard teaching and at that point 60 disciples left him so are they going to be receiving eternal life those 60 that left and no longer discipled after yeah a disciple is one that followed jesus it's not clear that all of his disciples from that context necessarily believed in jesus or not so obviously those who believed they followed him for discipleship he had 72 disciples at one point i'm just saying that i don't know if all the disciples were necessarily ones who had trusted in christ and got saved obviously judas was a follower he was a disciple but he was not saved so it's it's reasonable to believe in that very in that very passage it says that he was the only one that's pointed out that christ knew from the beginning didn't believe so it's interesting that's that's he said some i believe so in revelation two three and seven christ says um he says in verse 64 but there are some of you that believe not and and you brought up john chapter six so again obviously in the 12 i believe judas is the only one who did not believe in christ but amongst all the disciples and followers of jesus there could have been others who also did not believe i i don't know so you're just saying this doesn't say out of the 60 some of them could have been believed some of them could have not so even though they turned away in discipleship to them even though in that very passage at the end i think it's verse what 40 um 60 uh 60 68 where peter's like you know i you where would we go you have the words of eternal life those 60 that left him no longer have the words of eternal life peter's directly equating staying discipling to christ with eternal life jesus christ has the words of eternal life those 60 it's not them having the words of eternal life he's saying who could we go to you're the one that has the words of eternal life so jesus christ is the word of god the word of god is what gives eternal life we're not born again of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of god the bible says in john chapter one i'm sorry first john chapter one that the the word of god was made you know flesh and you know we see that in john chapter one we see that in first john one that it was the word of life and that they saw it manifested before them so it's just referring to the fact that jesus christ is is eternal life that does not mean that those who have believed in him didn't have eternal life that came from christ they're in the vine they're abiding by christ so you know i don't i think you're just making a weird point here it's not a weird point but discipleship how is discipleship not abiding how is disciple do you believe discipleship is abiding in christ in a in that context yes in all contexts or just in what context john six context i think that you could you could apply abiding in christ is believing in him in some context specifically about discipleship is abiding equating that is that one-to-one correlation with discipleship to christ depending on the context that is what it means i think that they have the same meaning okay so in in revelation two three through seven christ is uh admonishing a specific church because he wants them to repent so i'll just read the passage you can tell me how you feel about this because i've it seems to be what you're describing right that someone's a believer at first but then they stop doing the deeds they did at first and what happens to them after that right so he starts in verse three he says without growing weary you've persevered and endured many things for the sake of my name but i have this against you you abandon your first love therefore keep in mind how far you have fallen so christ is saying they've fallen repent and perform the deeds you did at first but if you do not repent i'll come to you and remove your lampstand from its place and then at the end of verse 7 he says to the one who overcomes i will grant the right to eat from the tree of life in the paradise of god i see this as christ immediately equating the repentance back to their first behaviors with getting the tree of life in the paradise of god how do you view this verse yeah so again you kind of skipped a few verses here and there which which made the content i skipped the nickelation what it is i skipped the nickelation stuff it's fine yeah of course those if you read in chapter one you understand that the candlestick is the church and he's saying he's going to remove the candlestick meaning that he's basically going to in his like a metaphorical sense make it where they're no longer a church anymore because so you're previous chapters context matters you're saying all context matters suddenly matters all so like romans 10 and 11 the context matters all context matters yeah it does so in romans okay so i i agree with you the lampstand is metaphorized as the church the church is the seven churches in chapter one i agree with you yeah if he directly equates paradise in the tree of life which is after the resurrection in the kingdom come with their repentance is that how he says no you're okay so this is where you didn't let me finish in in verse number six then he brings up how they hate the deeds of nickelatons then verse seven he's just completely changing the what he's saying he says he that hath in here let him hear what the spirits say them the churches to him that overcometh will i give to eat of the tree of life which is the midst of the paradise of god but if i actually look at passages that describe how to overcome it says in first john chapter number five um it says whosoever is born of god overcometh the world and this is the victor that overcometh the world even our faith who is he that over the cometh the world but he that believeth that jesus is the son of god so the bible says the to overcome is one who believes in jesus christ it doesn't say who repents of all their sins or gives up all their sin you're not you're not comparing overcome with overcome yeah a little bit of cross act just for the audience sake sean i want to make sure that they can fully hear both sides pastor shelley can you reiterate maybe the last five seconds of what you're saying and then sean will throw it to you for as much time as you need go ahead yeah you use the word overcome if i use the same word overcome in first john chapter five it defines it as believing in jesus you weren't comparing overcome with overcome you're comparing with a completely different word a few verses back in a different context that's a completely fallacious claim even in the first john reference first john five reference you're saying in first john two he talks about those are commit you have to be to know god you have to keep the commandments of god i mean this is so the context of first john five would uh you know negate the claim that you're making a first john five but in revelation chapter two he directly says in verse four that you must repent and perform the deeds you did it first because if you don't i'm going to remove your lamp stand and then he immediately ties it into the one who overcomes i'll grant the right to eat the tree of life why would he threaten them with the tree of life if it was just oh you're going to lose your congregational fellowship here in asia minor threatened how did he threaten them with the tree of life i don't see him threatening them with the tree of life he says he would remove their candlestick he does not say he's going to remove the the tree of life from them right right because he's immediately talking about the the works that they did if i'm correct then is that saying your first date was wrong i'm going to get i'm going to explain better for you here he says you've abandoned your first love i have this against you you have fallen repent so how do you not believe i mean what how do you read this to think that oh they're not in trouble and then he reminds them of the promise which is hey you want to get to the tree of life you must overcome okay obviously you know there's some there's more to life than salvation itself just like if my mom says hey this was the most important topic okay but that doesn't mean that every passage in the bible is only addressing salvation and specifically he's addressing a church as an entire congregation that's already saved if they're already saved and they can't lose their salvation there'd be no point in bringing up the fact that they need to be saved which is why he's not bringing that up and specifically they are committing a lot of sin and so he wants them to repent so that he doesn't have to punish them just like my mom punishes me for breaking her rules but you know what i don't have to follow her rules to be her son and so you know you're just conflating these two things specifically and in first john chapter two you brought up the idea of if you don't keep the commandments you don't know them well that's the same with my parents if i don't hang out with my parents if i didn't talk to them if i didn't follow their rules i wouldn't have a relationship with them and i wouldn't know them there are people who are born in this world who don't even know who their parents are that does not mean that they're not their actual children and here's the thing there are christians who have believed in jesus christ and they're saved but they don't read the bible they don't go to church and they're not following his commandments and they don't really know who god is even though they are saved you're conflating discipleship works with salvation so christ's passages christ promises thanks for your opinion christ promises that he will reject those who he doesn't know and that he will reject matthew 721 workers of lawlessness workers who he doesn't know he didn't say that you didn't know him he says that he doesn't know you i just i just followed up depart from me i never knew you workers of iniquity that's behavior that's actions so in revelation 14 he's also encouraging people not to take the mark of the beast i think you and i would probably agree that we shouldn't take the mark of the beast it's bad right that you're it's a it's an immediate um only john mccarthur it's immediate torment well you and i though i'm talking about you and i yeah we we would not because i mean the scriptures are pretty clear in revelation 14 you're immediately going to the lake of fire which is prepared for the the holy angels um which are prepared for the uh the devil and his angels so at the end though it says in in revelation 14 through 12 a third angel followed him calling out in a loud voice if anyone worships the beast his image and receives his mark and his forwarder in his hand he too will drink of gods the wine of god's anger pure and undiluted in the cup of his wrath he will be tormented in fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the lamb and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever day and night there's no rest for those who worship the beast in its image for anyone who receives the mark of its name here is a call for the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of god and the faith of jesus so if you according to your hermeneutic of once they've always saved if they're already saved why is he telling them to persevere and not take the mark of the beast if they could be in danger of the second death which is the lake of fire why did your parents tell you what to do if you could never stop being their son without the anecdote could you address the scripture please sure obviously we're we're rewarded according to our works and of course god is going to preserve those who are keeping his commandments longer than those who are breaking them in fact god may even cause you to die or perish or to be punished severely for breaking his commandments of course god calls us to have faith and to trust in him and to follow all of his commandments and turn from sin and do all the works of the bible the reality is though that's not the context of salvation or going to heaven that's the context of being rewarded according to the works that we have and the things that accompany salvation as the bible describes there are things that accompany salvation and then there's salvation you're constantly going to passages that talk about things that accompany salvation and conflating them and resting them with the clear passages in the bible all the bible talks about in when i'm sorry when the bible brings up eternal life going to heaven it's very clear and you're not going to these passages you're going to end times bible prophecy i guarantee most people disagree on revelation 14 as far as just their viewpoints there's all kinds of different weird viewpoints here whereas we could just go to the clear verses in john 3 romans where it actually describes eternal life and is super clear on how salvation is but you're not going to those passages you're going to these cryptic passages that have nothing to do with salvation does romans 14 i'm sorry does revelation 14 bring up the concept of eternal life does it say eternal life where what verses let me answer you i'll answer you let me answer you show me the verses eternal life the second death is you're not going to get eternal life the opposite of eternal life is second death do you agree with that yes the opposite of something is not there you go this something is it so therefore it doesn't bring up eternal life states therefore it's talking about your eternal state if you if he's saying watch out for the mark of the beast because those who take it are going to the lake of fire is that is that eternal life master shelly can you can you abandon faith in christ and be unrepentant for the rest of your life and still receive eternal life well i would i would i would object to the idea that i could abandon faith in christ because i can never stop believing in christ as my savior it's impossible just like i could never okay so then you are five so do you do you believe in calvinism is that your home no i i reject all five points of calvinism but i do believe it's impossible for someone who has seen the light and the truth of the gospel to change their mind on that point just like i could never be convinced two plus two is five you could never convince me that santa claus is real you could never convince me that my parents are not my parents and that's not because of calvinism that's because i've already known the truth of those things i've already known the truth of the gospel and that jesus my savior i can't change that my experience tonight is how you're defining discipleship to christ you already believe two plus two is five you're already in mass confusion about what discipleship means so i'm asking you clearly the lake of fire is the second death you and i both agree on that why is he telling them they must avoid the mark of the beast you're saying that a christian could take the mark no and then okay so then there then a christian those who must persevere if you don't persevere that means you've turned back and you would take the mark in that context no i believe there's things that believers can't do the bible says that you know someone who blasphemes the holy ghost never has forgiveness i don't believe a christian could do that um i also don't believe that a christian could be a reprobate i also don't believe that a christian can uh take the mark of the beast because not only do they have to take the mark they have to worship the antichrist and i think that that's too objectionable and it's not possible for someone to sincerely do so i don't think that anybody so you know they're threatened with martyrdom they're threatened with not being able to buy seller trade so there's there's many christians who be killed life exactly i you know what does this have to do with a believer losing his salvation we're talking about the context of your hermeneutic which is you believe that you don't equate one-to-one discipleship persevering until death with actually avoiding the second death and getting eternal life you think that a person can still avoid the second death and they don't have to repent all you have to do is be written in the last thing i've ever heard okay well let's let's go to another chapter two and look at verse number eight and it says for by grace are you saved through faith through and that not of yourselves it is the gift of god not of works you've been saying repeatedly that faith and believing means works means discipleship i don't know how this verse doesn't just completely debunk everything that you believe i mean it's saying very clearly that it's by grace which is no works as defined in romans chapter 11 it's saying it's through faith and it has nothing to do with you it has everything to do with what jesus did and it's a gift so so define to me how this faith in romans 8 i'm sorry infusions chapter 2 verse 8 does this faith include works or no yeah literally the very next verse brother first nod of where we are god's workmanship hear me out let me answer you for we are god's workmanship creating christ jesus to do good works so let me let me answer this question ask this question again and and effusions 2 8 it says for by grace you save the faith is that word faith include works again who yes or no context of i'm i'm i just answered you directly no you didn't all you did was read the verse 10 you did not answer the question verse 10 exposes your poor inferred definition of the word works in verse 8 i didn't even i didn't even i asked you to tell me what you believe i did not infer anything i simply asked you does the word faith mean we're trying to tell you but you're just talking over me okay so in verse 8 for it's by grace you've been saved through faith this is not from yourselves it's a gift of god not by works so that no one can boast for we are god's workmanship creating christ jesus to do good works which god prepared in advance in our way of life so yes there is works that accompany your salvation but you're not saved by works again the the first century background argument the party of circumcision they literally have their own title in scripture that paul it's it's my understanding that it's literally the thorn in his flesh they went and they tried to take his converts from him all throughout asia minor of which ephysis is one of the the cities in asia minor that paul evangelized they constantly came in there and said you don't need christ you need the work of circumcision they were false they were judaizing and he is constantly battling this argument everywhere he goes which is why he goes on in verse 11 to say though remember you formerly were gentiles in the flesh but and the and they called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision which was a status of judaism he's if you don't know the cultural context of ephishians this is why you're inferring your own definition into verse eight and nine so you said quote we're not saved by works was that accurate by the works of judaism you're not saved john 6 29 this is the words you believe in christ okay and the one let me let me let me ask it again you said we're not saved by works it's only works of judaism a religion that did not exist in the context in ephishians 2 absolutely it existed what are you talking about rabbinic judaism rabbinic judaism yeah again like i said you know who rabbi akiva is you said no it tells me everything i need to know you have no clue what you're talking about here so who is a liar but he did deny that jesus the christ he's anti-christ so i'm going to trust a christ rejecting jew to tell me what religion existed at the time of christ what are you talking about i'm trying to figure out what you believe here the bible says by grace be saved through faith and that not ever sells it is to give you god when it says verse nine not of works what does that mean explain to me what verse high nine means what does not of works mean some history here i told you i just gave you a full breakdown with historical context even showed you verse 11 which backs up what i'm saying do you know why who's called the circumcision and the uncircumcision you know who was making those claims of status in the first century price rejecting jews but that's the that's a colloquialism for people that are of the region of juda of juda not a religion that exists in the sixth century judaism that would be you have to understand that jews were dispersed after 70 ad into all of the world and then we have rabbitic judaism from the talmud when did the town would come into existence in your opinion well it was codified by being written down in the second century ad but before that they had what's called oral torah so here in galatians 1 13 and 14 we literally have the wording you're looking for for verse 13 says for you've heard of my former way of life in judaism how severely i persecuted the church of god tried to destroy it i was advancing in judaism beyond my contemporaries and was extremely jealous zealous for the traditions of my fathers do you i think you think that we can i just want to ask can we trust history do you think we can trust mainstream history the scriptures are giving us the history i'm reading it to you i know i'm just asking you keep bringing up jews and judaism i'm just asking do you do you agree with me i just brought up galatians 13 and 14 i just brought up galatians 1 13 and 14 the scriptures are giving you your history but do you think we can trust history i'm just asking generally speaking that's uh that's not the debate tonight we're talking about the scriptures and i just brought the history from the scriptures and you're bringing up a rabbi how does the rabbi kiev have anything to do with the scripture it's akiva and um he was specifically the the pharisee the the head rabbi that changed judaism forever in the first so when you want to you as a response rabbi anti-christ but i can't ask you a question of if you believe history all i said was are you familiar with him and then i moved away i said never mind i didn't ask any more questions and i'm going to the scriptures to give you historical context do you understand why you can bring up historical context but i can't even ask you about history so-called circumcision do you understand you want to ask me about historical context but i can't ask you about history so in ephesians 2 11 who's the so-called circumcision paul's referring to those who are physically circumcised okay that's that's not the cultural context it's actually the party of circumcision by a class title you're either considered uncircumcised or are you quoting the bible because this sounds like it's out of the scope of the bible so in first corinthian seven talks about okay i'm actually going to answer you from scripture if you you know be patient and kind so in first corinthian seven he talks about those who are circumcised should not become uncircumcised so there's he's expressing classisms that were existed in the first century same with there's no juror greek there's no male or female there's you know he goes even romans too he goes on to say those who are part of the circumcision if they do not do the ways of god are considered uncircumcised so is galatians dealing with physical circumcision yes 100 whole context of the chapter but you don't believe the circumcision is a physical thing what well you asked me to define circumcision and i said it was a physical no i didn't i said in ephesians 2 11 who's paul calling the so-called circumcision that phrase who's he calling that okay well obviously that would be people it's okay if you don't know we can move on i'm okay ephesians chapter 2 verse 11 the circumcision are those who are trusting in the works of the law to save them that's who that that's what circumcision is averting to yes yes the works of the oral torah technically yeah no the war the bible no the oral torah the bible doesn't tell you you have to be circumcised to be in covenant with god it's something you do after you're in covenant which is a sign that you're already in covenant how many works do i have to keep to be saved if i if i came to you and i said sean i'm not i i don't know how to go to heaven what do i have to do to be saved what would you say uh you got to put your faith in christ and disciple after him so what does the cycle pertains to your life brother pastor you should tell me what is discipling to christ mean this is literally my opening slide modern christians are so confused don't even understand that discipleship is i thought that earlier and i correct me if i'm wrong you said that faith is discipleship are you defining those are the same word yes you cannot have so then why do i have to do both so i have to do both or you're just being redundant faith is defined by you discipling into christ what you can't have if you if you try to disciple into christ because you don't believe who he is you're just covering your bets your cya let me ask this question and you're not going to get salvation can i have faith in jesus without discipleship no can it even exist does it even exist the biblical definition of faith includes this actions includes discipleship okay so in james chapter number two at the very end of the passage because it's been contrasting the idea of like not having any works with your faith i'm sure you would agree with me on that but it says in verse number let's see 17 even so faith if it hath not works is dead being alone so does that say that it doesn't actually exist or does it say that it's alone well it says it's dead brother let me read the passage so too faith you said it doesn't even exist i'm saying that it's alone i know i didn't and that's what the bible says faith but you're saying it doesn't exist let me let me answer you i said faith is don't put words in my mouth be honest and let me answer you i said faith is defined by discipleship i've been very clear this whole time faith is defined by discipleship just like 17 says so too faith by itself if it does not result in action is dead you said you have dead faith i claimed james admonishes us to be rich in faith which is not dead faith again i disagree with your hermeneutic and your understanding also if you go back to uh james i just want to understand is verse 17 describing a faith that exists or not it's a it's a faith that is dead so therefore it doesn't exist it's without life so why does it say that it's being alone you have no faith because he's he's contrasting the ideas that faith is equated to actions he's saying exactly what i'm saying he says speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom do you agree with that statement no so in in romans chapter number four oh are you actually a martin lutherite i want to ask you this it says in romans chapter do you think james should be inspired scripture all of james is the word of god in romans chapter 4 verse 5 verse 12 him that work if not knows you're going to be judged by the law gives freedom you don't think that's that's true say that several verses here i want to ask romans chapter 4 verse 5 but to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justified the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness in romans chapter 4 it's saying someone that does no works but believes how is that possible with your theology which verse you're in verse romans 4 5 4 however to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the wicked his faith is credited as righteousness yeah how is how does that interpret it did you read the whole passage i i've memorized the chapter again okay so again go back to the context this is what i even said remember what i said earlier about the the context of chapters two through four in romans what verse expressing those who what verse do i go back to you said context that means with text john let me let me finish let me finish answering okay my donnie do we need like to do moderated 30-second answers or 60-second answers or something because this is getting bad how we could move to that i'm gonna keep talking over him or let's do this sean feel free to respond take let's say max 30 seconds then we'll throw it over to uh pastor shelly to do the same go ahead appreciate it so um we'll start again like i already said chapters two through four in romans he's still addressing the circumcision thing this is why all of chapter three he's addressing circumcision he addresses those of the circumcision party at the end of chapter two because they claimed just because they're circumcised they're good but if their their actions don't match it their circumcision means nothing so this is in the the same context of all that just like you went two chapters earlier in revelation one to talk about chapter two really in the same context he's talking about verse four now the wages of the worker are not credited as a gift but as an obligation however the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the wicked his faith is credited as righteousness so just like he's going to talk about abraham if you believe your faith is credited to you as righteous that's wonderful but your faith that doesn't mean that you can just go worship bail for the rest of your life you have to follow god it's that simple brother you must follow god your faith is created as righteousness you must follow god this is why in chapter 331 he says does this faith nullify the law no we uphold the law which is actions expected of you so i would go six verses back to romans 331 and there's your answer pastor shelly go ahead take about in what a minute to respond in verse 27 it says where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith so in verse 27 it says it is excluded what is the it that is excluded where then is boasting it's excluded you you don't boast so okay this is what he's talking about what am i not what am i not boasting in well go back to the context of of the end of chapter two where he talks about this um so he goes on it's actually in verse 14 now if you call yourself a jew you rely on the law and boast in god if you know his will and approve what's superior because you're instructed by the law you are convinced that you're a guide for the blind a light for those in darkness a structure of the foolish a teacher of he's talking about people that claim to have the law verse 23 you boast in the law of god do you dishonor god by breaking the law as it's written god's name is blasphemed among the gentiles because of you it's not that i'm brought up in my rebuttals circumcision has value if you observe the law if you break the law your circumcision has become uncircumcision this is exactly the context of the conversation i've been trying to explain to you this whole night i just want to make it clear the jews boasted in the flesh galatians 6 13 those who boast in the flesh don't even keep the law themselves galatians 6 13 so you're saying conversation the same boasting they're boasting in the flesh they're boasting in the oral tradition of judaism they claimed as long as they're snipped they're good and that's that's a lie that's not scriptural i just want to make it clear so you're saying romans 3 27 when it says where is boasting then is referring to romans chapter 2 in verse number 17 that's that's what it's actually referring to 17 and 23 the whole context of him explaining your circumcision only has value if you do the commandments of god why why is study at some time why is romans 3 27 not referring to verse 26 the verse before it let's go back and read it again i mean again this is what happens when it takes stuff out of context all right so to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so to be just and to justify the one who has faith in jesus i mean this this i don't understand could you try to rephrase your question maybe yeah verse 26 it's saying that we uh are declaring jesus christ righteousness and that jesus christ is just and that jesus christ is going to justify those who believe in jesus and i think the logical question then is okay how can i brag or boast then if jesus only saved me by faith and then the answer is it's excluded is that not what it's saying again this he's well that's it are you trying to say that verse 26 is soul doctrine and there's nothing before it i'm saying that verse 27 is there's an entire three chapters before it he goes like in verse 20 of chapter 3 therefore no one is justified in his sight by works of the law for the law brings awareness of sin see this this whole concept that we're talking about is verse 21 but now apart from the law the righteousness that means the right behavior of god has been revealed as attested by the law and the prophets and this comes through faith in christ jesus to all who believe there's no distinction so this is you there's no way that you can actually believe in christ and not do right behavior christ tells you to do the commandments of god to be righteous if it's impossible then why does the bible tell me to follow the commandments if all i have to do is believe i didn't say that i did that's your claim i made the claim that you must accompany your actions with your claim of faith we said it's impossible to believe and not do the works is that correct i said it's impossible to have faith in god and by a biblical definition and not actually disciple after christ would would you say there's a difference between the word faith and like being faithful faith is in the greek it actually is translated as faithfulness okay remember in hebrews in matthew 9 when christ let me ask you a question now you've asked a lot of questions in matthew 9 do you remember when he says go and learn what this means i desire mercy not sacrifice okay have you ever taken have you ever taken christ's uh advice and go and learn what that means yeah so he's obviously can comparing how the pharisees uh didn't understand the spirit of the law but they actually followed the letter of the law that's that's the context of that passage no it's not in the hebrew and in the greek it's that word mercy he's actually quoting from hosea chapter 6 verse 6 and in the in both in the septuagint and in the greek and the hebrew that word mercy means covenant loyalty which is faithfulness so you're saying that the passage means what then when he says when he's quoting from hosea and he says i desire mercy not sacrifice he's talking about covenant loyalty is it in the context greek is in the context of the uh the disciples breaking the sabbath no i'm asking you i'm if he said go and learn what this means and then he gives you the this he's quoting from he from hosea chapter 6 and he says i desire mercy not sacrifice the word mercy there is an english translation of a greek word that means covenant loyalty because i took his advice and i studied out what does this mean that the context of hosea 6 was people that were doing sacrifices without having a heart circumcised to yahweh that's why yahweh's saying i desire covenant loyalty and not just sacrifices so you think the word mercy you think the word mercy means covet covenant keeping it is um the greek definition of that word so so if i every time i word i just want to make sure i understand is it just in this passage or is it every time the word mercy is used it's it's translated i think it's uh in the septuagint it's translated 150 different times as covenant loyalty covenant loyalty so anytime i read mercies towards ibraham isaac and jacob and jeremy chapter 30 is him talking about his covenant loyalty of upholding his end of the covenant with abram isaac and jacob so same way he's telling he's telling the israelites i desire covenant loyalty and not just your sacrifices okay i just want to ask so when when the blind man screamed at jesus and said thou son of david have mercy on me he was saying jesus the son of david have covenant loyalty on me no i said it's translated 150 different times what about luke 1838 is that translated as covenant loyalty no that's to my understanding in the context of that that would be no but that's not the context of matthew 9 is it what's the context of the matthew 9 where he says go and learn what this means you don't even know what it means i had to i will have covenant loyalty and not sacrifice what is the difference between covenant loyalty and sacrifice i just tried to explain the context of where he's quoting from hosea chapter 6 when the israelites were duplicitous and only bringing sacrifices but their hearts were still worshipping bale and asheroth and molec and other gods at the same time they were not loyal to yahweh but they thought they could appease yahweh by just continuing to bring in sacrifices which is what all the other pantheistic gods taught that you didn't have to be loyal to one god you could just appease them all but with sacrifices and yahweh is admonishing them in hosea 6 that no that's not what he wants so christ who's also explaining in matthew chapter 9 as he's teaching discipleship he explains go and learn what this means he desires covenant loyalty not sacrifice so the point is he's admonishing constantly the the pharisees mark chapter 7 matthew chapter 23 he's all over he's constantly telling you are neatly setting aside the commandments of god for your traditions this is what i brought up in my opening statements they rested on the laurels of their oral torah and their the descendants from abraham they weren't doing the actual commandments of god christ is teaching the commandments of god and so he's admonishing them here look he desires covenant loyalty and not just the the going through the motions without a heart that's dedicated yahweh because they're not doing the greatest commandment which is to love lord your god with our hearts will strengthen mine they're being duplicitous hypocrites brood of vipers whitewashed tombs are they the children of god then if they're not christ said in john they're not following the deeds right he said in john 8 they're doing the deeds of the devil they're not children of abraham or of god okay so who is is anybody today a child of god those who do the deeds of god the will of god so you know so like let's say you are you a child of god right now yeah absolutely okay could you stop me could you stop being a child of god 100 i can abandon my covenant loyalty to him i can abandon the offer that he gives me of eternal life at the resurrection can you walk away i just want to make sure i understand so you are a child of god you said you could stop being a child of god after you stopped being a child of god could you become a child of god again i mean i i would pray that he would receive that work of repentance and he would actually you know receive the confession and that he knows the heart so he's going to judge you this is what jim right 17 says he knows the hearts and thoughts of every man yeah but i'm just saying like let's say you said your child's god let's say you are you're playing semantics now no i'm just i'm just asking you can can someone let me read you ezekio 18 24 to 26 how am i not asking that i'm saying can someone lose their salvation regain it how is that not a question because salvation comes at the resurrection you're discipling in the meantime this is you said that you were saved right now and that you're a child of god right now i said previously in our cross when you asked me this already i said i'm saved because it's a faith and belief i believe i'm going to get resurrection so i proleptically with faith and belief believe that i'm saved in ezekiel 18 24 3 it says now we're the children of god how is that how is that understood yeah you're if you have faith in christ and you're actually discipling after him go to john chapter 3 first john 3 is what i was referring to i know you were but go to john chapter 3 okay you you mentioned john 3 16 earlier yes is someone born again when they believe in jesus or are they born again at the resurrection uh you're born again in faith when you put your faith in him and you repent but technically you're given a new body a new heart at the resurrection okay could someone be unborn then after they've been born again i'm gonna ask you i'm gonna ask you a question real quick okay go ahead um let me just go to this particular passage here all right so it's verse 36 john 336 whoever believes in the son is eternal life whoever rejects the son will not see life instead the wrath of god remains on him so can you reject the son even if you say with your lips you've already believed in him at one point i don't believe you can do both because the verse doesn't the verse doesn't even imply someone could do both either you believe on him or you don't that's just well exactly so if you don't believe on him if you believe on it from one year of your life in the next 70 years of your life you don't believe on him you reject him could i convince you that yeah but could i convince you that santa you that santa claus is real okay that's irrelevant um how is it irrelevant i'm saying what someone believes in jesus they're never going to change their mind irrelevant ezekiel 18 24 through 26 if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity committing the same abominations as the wicked will he live it's a question to you well the context is talking about you know in this life or in this flesh and it's a rhetorical question so there's no need in even answering it obviously if none of the righteous acts he did will be remembered none of the righteous acts he did will be remembered because it's saying it's saying it's saying like if you commit sin can i answer sin is committed he will die okay but if you tonight so if you go out and kill someone shawn you're not gonna stand before the judge and be able to clear your righteous acts of the past you're gonna have to take an account for the the murder that you did so just like no matter how good of a person i am if i sin against god in the future all that righteousness isn't going to necessarily cover that future sin it's like david committing adultery it doesn't matter how much he did in the past right i know it's a good try i've heard that argument before but this is definitely not talking about uh corporal punishment on the earth so this is y'all speaking so ezekiel's talking about eternal life hundred percent ezekiel 18 he's talking about eternal life he goes on to say if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices this ongoing behavior practices iniquity you know the same matthew 721 that christ said get away from me workers iniquity he says he will die for this he will die because the iniquity is committed is the phrase eternal life mentioned in the bible is the phrase eternal life mentioned uh yes it's mentioned in the bible is it mentioned in ezekiel 18 no it's not it's okay so we don't use we're not going to use any verses that actually use the phrase we're going to go to passages that don't bring it up there's um okay so i wonder what it would be like if i mocked all of my opponents um not very effective just like yours isn't right so yeah you're not elijah brother i didn't say no way are you elijah i'm not even close you're sure not but i am saved because you know what elijah believed ezekiel's message and he understood the promise of eternal life which is the reward of the covenant but why would i not use those verses like you're using all these passages but you're not using the badges that actually bring up eternal life or salvation you're just so familiar with them when did you i say i was unfamiliar with ezekiel 18 in in genesis 17 when when yahweh promises abraham that he and his descendants will live in the land forever to talk about eternal life yes or no no okay so again you're unfamiliar with the promise of the covenant which is to get eternal life obviously he's describing that jesus christ is the seed and that he's going to be given the land as according to galatians chapter number three and that we're heirs did abraham promise through faith in jesus christ but did abraham live with his descendants in that land forever no exactly is abraham going to get that land is god's promise going to come true for abraham yes okay you don't understand the resurrection then how do i not understand the resurrection did you even disagree with me because you just buy by your answers you just explained that you agree abraham didn't get the land but he is going to live there forever which means he has to get resurrected to eternal life it's the promise of the covenant it even says so in hebrews 11 by faith to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance he obeyed and he went without knowing where he was going yeah but if you okay if we're talking about abraham romans chap number four says that he staggered not at the promise of god through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to god and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to reform and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness so the bible describes that the faith is being fully persuaded it doesn't say the faith was what he was promised doing the works or whatever he says future tense by having being fully persuaded i just read to you i just read you he was 11 4 says he obeyed he obeyed yeah so basically you are validating my opening slides which is this doctrine has confused modern christians so badly you don't even understand the promise of the resurrection brother and how it's replete throughout the bible hebrews 11 all the people in the hall of faith it literally in verse 39 and 40 says i'll read it to you it goes on to say at the end of the chapter all the old testament people that it mentions in there it says these were all commended for their faith yet they did not receive what was promised god had planned something better for us so that together with us they all the people in the first 38 verses would be made perfect okay let me ask a question about hebrews 11 because we're in this chapter is you acknowledge can i see your work acknowledge what i just said sure okay the bible brings 11 39 and 40 hebrews chapter 11 is talking about the works of i don't want your reinterpretation i read hebrews 11 39 and 40 okay would you mind addressing those verses please okay in in verse 39 is these these all having obtained a good report through faith received not the promise meaning that they did not inherit the promised land and it says in verse 40 but god i've been providing some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect so it's just saying that they're not gonna inherit the promised land without us we're all gonna inherit at the same time i don't know what that has to do with losing a salvation it's at the resurrection it's defining when salvation happens and it's also expressing to you all these patriarchs from the old testament had the same promise of eternal life like you and i do because it's the same promise of god to all the mankind who believes in faith the words of the almighty given to his prophets and in these latter days that were spoken through his son hebrews 11 well in in verse one of this chapter in verse one it says now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen can i see your works and your discipleship absolutely brother absolutely faith so so if faith is my discipleship then how can i it'd be something that's not seen but then you're saying that i can see it right in the same way that the young rich ruler asked christ how to get eternal life he said actions do actions then he said keep the commandments yeah yeah i'm just i'm giving you a summary i'm expressing to you yes it's actions keeping the commandments as actions so you think that so he's going to heaven is by keeping the commandments i'm constantly equating to you the concept of faith in christ is discipleship so faith is the assurance of discipleship just it's synonymous replace the word in hebrews 11 1 with discipleship now discipleship is the assurance of what we hope for and discipleship is the evidence of things not seen now faith is the assurance of what we hope for what are you hoping for what's what he called paul paul paul excuse me paul call our blessed hope i just want to make sure i clarify you're saying in the same verse we've been talking about that faith can be determined interpreted as discipleship you're saying discipleship is the evidence of things not seen no it says the certainty of what we do not see read the verse don't put your own words in there read the actual just reading a king james bible i'm not putting any like interpretation on it faith is the assurance what is faith your faith without works is dead faith and faith in your discipleship your actions are synonymous faith without the assurance of what we hope for excuse me faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see if if i you do not have faith if you do not have actions it's that simple pastor shelley if i lose my salvation what what did i have before losing it you already asked me this you want to get to another ones we got a few few minutes left we got less than 30 seconds i just it doesn't matter i just wanted to understand again what that what that is that i lost exactly well i told you you gentleman if you i was like go ahead donnie it's okay did you guys we're a little bit over the 50 minute mark time has flown by but we do have closing statements and also live call-in questions did you guys want to move in put the number out there again yeah there we go yes so to those in the live chat i understand we're simulcasting as well and so we will be taking in your questions your live call-in questions as soon as we're done with the closing statements here so make sure to call in now and get in line two three one two two seven eight four seven eight okay so we got five minutes gentlemen to wrap up our thoughts points we can possibly address anything we feel may have been left hanging and just give some closing summaries for tonight's debate so uh sean you started us off in your opening statement and so we'll give you the first closing statement and so whenever you're ready let me know and i will start your time you got five minutes okay thank you we'll begin all right so uh i appreciate this opportunity uh pastor shelly thanks for being here donnie thanks for hosting in closing job eight three through nine this this whole passage here is just expressing someone that abandons the faith that god will not judge them as righteous joe eight three through nine does god pervert justice does the almighty pervert what is right when your children sinned against him he gave them over to that rebellion so they were children but then he gave them over to their rebellion but if you wouldn't earnestly seek god and ask the almighty for mercy if you are pure and upright even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore your righteous state this was the question that was asked by pastor shelly to me just a few minutes ago though your beginnings were modest your latter days will flourish please inquire of your past generations and consider the discoveries of their fathers where we were born yesterday and know nothing our days on earth are but a shadow he goes on to say in verse 10 through 20 they will will they not teach you and tell you and speak from their understanding does papyrus grow where there is no marsh do reeds flourish without water while the shoots are still uncut they dry up quicker than grass such is the destiny of all who forget god so the hope of the godless will perish so now the hope which is defined in the new testament by the resurrection will perish your eternal life state will not be granted to you as a gift anymore because these are those who forget god he goes on to say his confidence is fragile his security is in a spider's web he leans on the web but it gives way he holds fast but it doesn't endure he's a well-watered plant in the sunshine spreading its shoots over the garden his roots wrap under the rock heap he looks for a home among the stones if he's uprooted from his place if it will disown him saying i never saw you surely this is the joy of his way yet others will spring from the dust behold god does not reject the blameless nor will he strengthen the hand of the evildoers again god does not reject the blameless that's people who are doing righteousness nor will he strengthen the hand of the evildoers he will not give eternal life which literally is the strength promised to you in isaiah chapter 40 he will not give eternal life to you if you're an evildoer very simple does this mean that one sin keeps you out of salvation of course not this is why we were told to confess our sins to christ he knows the line obviously he knows your heart this is why we're told to persevere in doing good persevere until the end ezekiel chapter 18 i'm just going to read it again for good measure but if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity committing the same abominations as the wicked will he live none of the righteous acts he did will be remembered because of the unfaithfulness and the sin he's committed he will die yet you say the way of the lord is not just i lovingly and i'm not saying this in a pejorative way i hear my opponent saying this tonight he's making the claim of this hypothetical antagonist in ezekiel 18 claiming that how dare god reject someone who's already at one moment in time with one lip service confession claim that christ is the son of god but yet doesn't disciple after christ how could god possibly not give that guy eternal life ezekiel is is having this type of dialogue in ezekiel 18 yet you say the way of the lord is not just that's the antagonist's understanding of someone that turns from righteousness and becomes unfaithful and yahweh says they'll die the antagonist says oh that's not just that's that's everything i've been hearing my opponent say tonight here he goes on to say here now house of israel it is my way that is is it my way that is unjust again yahweh's always asking rhetorical questions he says is it not your ways that are unjust if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity he will die for this he will die because of the iniquity he's committed so i just want to thank you guys um for this opportunity and uh that's that's pretty much my closing thank you thank you sean for that closing statement we're now going to hand it over to pastor jonathan shelley i'll reset the timer and whenever you're ready the floor is yours you've got five minutes thank you so much for moderating this discussion and uh i wish i believed if i wish it was possible for me to believe that sean is saved but the bible's clear he's not because in order to be saved you have to put a hundred percent trust in jesus christ what it means to believe in jesus means that you're trusting that his death burial and resurrection paid for all of your sins and sean unfortunately does not believe that he believes that he has to follow the commandments follow the works of the law that he has to continue in faithfulness and discipleship and therefore he's really just trusting in himself he does not trust fully in what christ has already done the bible makes it clear once you believe in jesus christ that you're saved that you've become a child of god that you're sealed with holy spirit of promise that you've been passed from death on the life and while our physical bodies have not been redeemed our spirit has been quickened we've been born again spiritually and we can't discern that physically but we walk by faith not by sight of course it's important to follow the commandments it's important to be pleasing unto god but according to the bible salvation is a free gift and once you're saved you're always saved because you're given eternal life because you're a child of god because god will never leave thee nor forsake thee and specifically in first john chapter number five the bible says very clearly that you can even know that you're saved i was just going to read a verse here for you the bible says these things have i written unto you that believe on the name of the son of god that you may know that you have eternal life you can actually know the of eternal life and the reason why you can know you have eternal life is because you believed in jesus christ not because you know you're going to continue being faithful not because you know you're going to keep the works of the law but because you know that jesus christ already paid for your sins in full and that you're trusting in the righteousness of one and that one is jesus christ and once you put your faith in christ and you've called upon the name of the lord as romans 1013 says then you're saved and you're saved forever because there's a d at the end of it it's done the bible also tells us and gives us this assurance in romans chapter number eight it says in verse 38 for i am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord the bible makes it abundantly clear that nothing can separate you from the love of god after being saved i wish that my opponent would completely reject his works based salvation and actually repent which means change what he believes and put all of his faith in jesus christ who is the only one that can save him he would give him eternal life he would give him clarity of mind the truth would set him free from his bondage to works and it would allow him to actually see clearly and understand that the gospel is truly a free gift it's good news his message is not a message of good news it's a hope so it's a maybe if you continue being faithful well i i'm gonna try my best well if i do good enough well if i'm a good enough disciple but no one can ever know that only the prideful would think that they could be saved by discipleship or works or keeping the law the bible is abundantly clear that there's none good no not one the bible makes it abundantly clear for all of sin and comes short of the glory of god and romans chapter number three just hammers the fact that salvation is only by what jesus did it says being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in christ jesus who god has set forth to be a perpetuation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of god to declare i say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in jesus where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law sean is constantly justifying himself by his deeds his works his faithfulness he is not justifying himself by the works of christ and by what he has done and really he's robbing christ of the glory of salvation our salvation is only by jesus christ and he gives it to us by grace which means no works sean constantly confuses all of these definitions and make grace no more grace he makes works no more works he makes faith no more faith we must have a clear distinction of these words grace is no works faith is not works salvation is by grace through faith without works that's what the bible says and it says in ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 and 9 sean wouldn't answer that question and he doesn't look at any of the clear verses of the bible he looks at all the esoteric strange cryptic passages that have nothing to do with salvation and so therefore unfortunately he's resting the scriptures to his own destruction and i would i would beg and plead any of his disciples or himself included to change what they believe and to believe in jesus christ who is the only one that can save them and give them eternal life all right five minutes on the dot thank you pastor shelly for that concluding statement gentlemen that concludes our opening statements rebuttals cross exam and a comprehensive discussion very good and concluding statement so appreciate the engaging debate and uh thought-provoking debate it's an important topic nothing wrong with a little passion in liveliness at times and so i think it was definitely a debate to remember on the topic or question can a believer lose his salvation okay so now what we're moving into is live call-ins in terms of our q a period as you can see we got the number on the screen call in now you can engage directly our debaters tonight sean griffin and pastor jonathan shelly i do want to let people know though that those calling in are not here to debate the guests and so we are here as a questioner to end our sentences in a question mark so we are looking for questions not lengthy speeches and also a question regarding the topic please so okay let's let's get right into it then anybody who uh wants to join in for a live call-in we've posted the the number and looks like we've got caller number one here if i'm not mistaken who is abraham and he has a question for sean abraham if you're there yeah yeah thank you to the baptist bias for taking my question so my question is for sean so sean let's say that i have faith in a serbian olympian to win a gold medal i tell you i believe and have faith and i am fully persuaded in tennis player novak jokovic to win a gold medal are you going to tell me that i don't have belief or faith in him since i didn't buy his merch don't follow him on instagram don't imitate his playing style and didn't buy the tickets to watch his games are you going to say that my faith in him is non-existent abraham thank you for your question sean over to you go ahead oh sean might be muted make sure it's not on your end though sean because yeah sorry thank you abraham for your question unfortunately it's a categorical error because uh this serbian tennis player does not ask for your discipleship like christ does very big difference as far as what god expects and asks of you that's why i put ecclesiastes chapter 13 excuse me chapter 12 verses 13 and 14 on screen this is the conclusion of the matter um so the whole duty of man is to keep the commandments of god it's for all mankind not just for jews all mankind all of israel was supposed to be a light to the nations to teach them the commandments of god because everyone was expected to do it jeremiah is actually called a prophet to the nations i mean this is you know jonah was sent to the assyrians to go teach them the commandments of god it's the expected discipleship of all of mankind everyone under heaven is expected to do the behavior of the father and the son so that's why in first grantees 11 verse 1 paul says imitate me as i imitate god so there i appreciate your question but your tennis player doesn't ask for your discipleship thank you sean thank you and what we typically do with the q a and i think we'll do it here is we'll give the other debater a chance to respond and then the one who the questions for they get the last word so pastor shelley go ahead floor is yours i was confused if we were talking about the nba player nikola jokic or who we were talking about but i would be surprised if that particular sport athlete had never asked any of his followers to buy his merchandise because i'm sure he probably did and asked them to be his disciple but regardless of that yeah the question's great uh it seems like sean doesn't believe that this definition of faith can even exist but that's clearly what the bible means in romans chapter number four that faith is being fully persuaded in ephishians chapter one it contrasts it with the word trust and salvation is trusting in christ not being a disciple and being a follower of course we should but that has nothing to do with being saved thank you pastor shelley and sean you get the last word question was for you go ahead i appreciate it i'm good with my first answer okay well thank you sean and pastor shelley for your responses abraham appreciate you joining us and thank you for your question okay so our next caller here is clay and it looks like it is a question for sean something to do with romans too so clay thank you for joining the show feel free to thank you put in your question yeah so in in romans too we see an itemization of the deeds of the law it says thou therefore which teacheth another teacheth thou not thyself thou that preacheth the man should not steal dost thou steal thou that sayeth the man should not commit adultery dost thou commit adultery thou that abhorrest idols dost thou commit sacrilege thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking the law dishonorous thou god and in romans 3 just one chapter later it says where is boasting then it is excluded by what law of works may but by the law of faith therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law meaning that we're justified by faith without respect to infraction such as adultery idolatry and theft so in light of this sean why are you teaching that we have to repent of adultery idolatry and theft in order to have faith clay thank you very much for your question sean floor is yours go ahead thank you clay for the question and um i'm teaching that because that's what christ taught that's what all the prophets teach that's what the apostles and paul teaches as well you better repent of those things and if you think you're a follower of christ but in your question you you actually this is what happens when we take things out of context because you just you read through verse 24 of chapter 2 but you didn't get to verse 25 which would give you the context not chapter 3 verse 26 and 27 but in 2 verse 25 it says circumcision has value if you observe the law but if you break the law your circumcision has now become uncircumcision so again this is why i keep trying to stress this um the the argument that paul is addressing was the pharisees literally the party of circumcision is what they're called in this they run around asia minor and everywhere he went evangelizing even in macedonia and rome trying to steal his converts and they do this by telling them you don't need christ you just need to be circumcised and we'll take you through holocaust we'll take you through the nohiddic laws and then you'll be you can expect the world to come through the lens of judaistic interpretation so this is where he that's why verse 25 he starts going into the idea of being circumcised or uncircumcised after he gives the itemization that you're talking about because he's talking about hypocrites just like you read verses 21 through 24 how do you preach against stealing if you still how do you preach against adultery if you're in adultery but he's talking about hypocrites and then he goes on to explain in the context of this so-called party of circumcision this is why in verse 28 he has to cap this off with saying a man is not a jew because he's one outwardly nor is circumcision only outward and physical a man is a jew because he is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit not by the written code so that he's not talking about the law of god that came down from the almighty he's talking about the oral torah which they then tried to codify and tell people you have to follow this if you're not aware of judaism you have to study it they believe the oral torah was given to moses alongside the actual commandments on mount sinai they do not believe exodus they have their own interpretations that over impose on the scriptures and they teach that their interpretation of the oral torah just imagine it like you know 18th century bc calvinism right or any interpretation of darby right that they just overimposed onto the scripture because that was their their man so judaism's pharisees of party of circumcision claimed that the oral torah and all their personal interpretations of god's law was also given to moses on mount sinai but that's not true that's a claim of judaism that's how they push themselves onto the people for power and control this is documented they still teach this in judaism to this day you just have to learn the arguments that paul's addressing in first century but thank you for your question great question okay sean thank you very much pastor shelly over to you the floor is yours i like the question i think it's pretty funny that when i asked sean about this question he told me specifically that romans 327's context went directly back to romans 217 that's what he said and then when the when the caller used that he said it was out of context so it's kind of interesting how it's in context when sean does it and it's out of context when the caller does it um additionally it's it's very straightforward and it's asking the clear question how can we boast in salvation if all of our works are excluded and the answer is we can't because it because it's excluded that's why it's a clear statement it is excluded what is being excluded is the works sean does not provide an answer what's actually excluded um he would say boasting but then he just doesn't really explain what the boasting is in and so you know the bible is really clear that we're boasting in christ not what we do sean is constantly harping on the works of the law as opposed to christ dying on the cross and paying all of our sins because that's where his boasting is in so you know i think it's a great question it the bible is really straightforward in this passage thank you pastor sean if you'd like you get the last word go ahead yeah uh pastor jonathan shelly loves to twist what i actually say misrepresent me pastor it's a sin called slander you should you should work on that you should listen better so what i was actually talking about is the same answer i gave him is that i gave you in our cross which is the idea that in 327 when he's talking about why do they boast boasting is excluded why because i mean he goes on in the beginning of chapter three to continue talking about circumcision what then is the advantage of being a jew verse one or what is the value of circumcision he goes on to say in verse two he affirms it much in every way again he's he's not discounting the oracles of god that were given to his people which teaches righteousness to the whole world he's not discounting those things he's literally saying though if you're a hypocrite and you claim to be a teacher of them yet you don't do them then you're not you're not abiding in them then your your claim of being in the circumcision doesn't mean anything you actually are now considered uncircumcision in god's eyes because in romans 2 verse 28 at the very end he says that our approval does not come from men but from god actually verse 29 so therefore in verse chapter 3 let's just go four verses after where he says he thinks boasting is about ignoring what christ said which is the commandments that we should ignore the commandments and just have faith a dead faith in christ verse 31 says do we then nullify the law by this faith certainly not that means the law is not nullified pastor shelly instead we uphold the law positive affirmation paul upholds the law he teaches that everywhere it goes it's the standard for discipleship to christ great question caller okay thank you gentlemen for those responses and our next caller is angela this time it is a question for you pastor jonathan shelly and it looks like it's a question a question dealing with the woman caught in adultery and so angela thank you for joining us here on the baptist bias go ahead thank you first of all i would like to make a couple statements first i would like to tell you i was raised in a baptist church my whole life my whole life i watched the baptist congregation adultery run wild when i become a young woman and i started um trying to find my mate and let god do those things i just started to mimic the behavior that i was taught in the baptist church so you know if it didn't work out get your divorce going about your business once you're saved you're always safe if they cheat if you want to cheat on your husband go right ahead it's okay just get a divorce go on and about your business well i spent my life in the baptist church being under this deception and then i come into the truth of what relationship with christ was really about and let me explain something to you the woman at the well she came in to believe of who he was she recognized him she recognized him and then he told her go and sin no more she had to start from that very day she had to change her actions she had to change who she was and she had to walk out that old baptist mentality that you could just do what you want to and she started a new life and guess what it did it set her free and my question to you is how in god's green earth the creator yahweh how could you lead people in such lies and deception by telling them they could sin do anything i gotta stop you right there because angel i gotta stop you right there because i think we're taking a little too long to get to the question so if you can drop it in the next five go ahead angelo okay so just explain to me how can you justify preaching sin is okay after salvation okay and we'll hand it to pastor shelly feel free to address or interact with anything angela said angela thanks for your question go ahead yeah obviously if someone's been abused in a church or been under you know some kind of teaching that's teaching against the commandments of god then you know i feel sorry for that person that's obviously unfortunate just because someone says that they're a baptist doesn't mean that we all agree on things necessarily there are bad baptists out there um if someone's teaching that you should get a divorce for any reason i strongly disagree with that i believe that you should never divorce obviously adultery is wicked people should be thrown out of the church for committing such grievous sins but obviously in this context of salvation people are still saved regardless of how wicked you know they may be just like first corinthians chapter five it deals with church discipline issues specifically in someone that's with their father's wife it brings up a handful of sins idolatry specifically it brings up fornication it brings up all these different sins and it even says that that person's wicked but it says that they would be saved um i'll read you it's i believe it's first corinthians chapter five it's probably like verse five specifically um the the idea that someone is saved no matter what sins they commit in the future is not to to entice people to commit sin i don't think that people even need enticing to commit sin considering the fact that the vast majority of people who don't believe in christ have no problem sinning and even many christians have no problem sinning i don't think that teaching them once they've always saved magically causes people to want to sin grievously but in first corinthians chapter number five dealing with someone that's sleeping with his father's wife it says that he's going to be punished says to deliver such in one unto satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the lord jesus i don't think that that verse motivated people in the corinthian church to go and live however they want knowing that they could potentially be delivered unto satan for the destruction of the flesh but he does caveat and say that their spirit would still be saved and it brings up a list of other sins specifically it brings up fornication covetousness idolater railer drunkard extortioner and it says specifically specifically that they should be church disciplined and they're a wicked person but that they're still saved and you know i personally go to a church where everybody in that church believes that you can do anything you want and you could live however you want you still go to heaven yet they live very separated lives they're very dedicated disciples of christ they love the lord jesus christ they're not committing these grievous sins they're not just going out committing adultery and and getting divorced and remarried constantly or doing these things so i think it's a straw man argument to teach that once saved always saved leads to that i believe that it can for some people maybe cause them to get confused but for the vast majority of people i know that believe once they always saved they do not act like that whatsoever thank you pastor shelley for that response to angela's question shawn we'll hand it over to you now for some thoughts amen angela amazing call thank you for your testimony unfortunately out of both sides of his mouth tonight pastor shelley has spoken in one hand he claims how dare you know badges pastors are shouldn't teach against the commandments of god yet tonight to bear tonight in this very conversation he's told me it's okay if someone goes off to worship bale goes off to do whatever they want for the rest of life deny christ that they could still get eternal life it's literally and as in again so let's go back to the other side of his mouth which he's continuing to speak out of both sides when he tries to affirm first corinthians 5 as an answer to you he's also positively proactively teaching the law of god because he writes in verse 9 of first corinthians 5 not to associate with the sexually immoral people that's literally leviticus 18 through 20 and dune army 22 13 through 30 the sexually immoral it's the commandments of god they're described in great detail in the same way he says not to uh it's someone that's a drunkard in verse uh in verse 11 that's also in the commandments of god they were not supposed to be drunkards in the same way this is someone that's a swindler that's in leviticus chapter 5 there's a specific offering you have to give and you have to pay a recompense four times of what you stole he's literally affirming the commandments of god out of one side of his mouth and the other side says it doesn't need to be done for discipleship to christ so i'm so ecstatic angela that god is actually woken you up to the truth of his word and i encourage you sister i love your passion keep following christ and i'll see you at the resurrection thank you sean pastor shelly this question was for you and therefore you get the last word go ahead i would love to hear when i said that it's okay to worship bail and any of this discussion that i think it's funny that you accuse me of slander and then you literally slander me in one of the questions i asked you earlier in this passage or in this uh question but it's super clear that i've said that we should never break god's commandments and you asked me in a hypothetical situation if someone did do that against my advice would they still be saved and i said yes but that's a complete lie for you to say about me but again i feel sorry for someone i did not interrupt you i just want to make sure that pastor gets the last word go ahead sorry donnie thanks i feel sorry for anybody that's been abused in a church and been taught something false obviously i i hope that angela would realize that salvation is a free gift and that yes people should continue to follow god's commandments faithfully if you're in a church where they're teaching you to get divorced just leave that church and go to a church that's teaching correctly on that issue all right thank you for the final word thank you for the question and for joining the program angela okay we're now moving into our next question and caller and it looks like we have charles and it is a question for sean and it looks like it's a question dealing with the children of god and so charles welcome to the program feel free to introduce yourself and pose your question to sean hey sean this is charles from the layman seminary you know i don't know if this came up in our debate but i heard it in this one uh i want to ask you can you clarify your view about children of god and sons of god language as it relates to eternal life do you believe that we are sons of god now and children of god now and do you believe that that's related to your discipleship or is eternal life purely future hope that helps oh and by the way y'all are welcome to the after show thank you charles jennings from the layman seminary i should have known it was you so you got an after show so it looks like it's going to be a soteriology showdown all-nighter after this so appreciate the question there charles and sean go ahead floor is yours yeah um yes i talk about the language of considering yourself calling yourself a son or daughter of god now because you're a faith and discipleship to christ uh first john talks about this as well when i said you were literally born again at the resurrection you're also literally becoming a a born of god at that point this is actually a previous conversation i had called into your channel as we discussed first john three nine about seven eight months ago to where you're literally born of god at the resurrection we proleptically in it with faith speak right we proleptically call ourselves sons of god now because we're discipling in the hope of resurrection and so this is what uh first john three goes into depth about when it says um behold what manner of love the father has given us that we should be called children of god because this is what we are the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him why didn't they know him because they didn't do his behavior this is again chapter two which we already talked about tonight you have to do the behavior of god to be known by god and to know god and so beloved you're now children of god and what we will be has not yet been revealed when we know that when christ appears we'll be like him for we'll see him as he is everyone has his hope in himself purifies himself that's an active verb purifies himself that's discipleship you must purify your hands sinners you know isaiah like this is you must disciple so equated in the concept of calling yourself a son of god everyone who has that hope in themselves verse three for sean three three you must purify yourself just as christ is pure so it's very simple everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness as well indeed sin is lawlessness and of course the big one like you know first round three seven little children let no one deceive you the one who practices righteousness is righteous just as christ is righteousness as the one who practices sin is of the devil so this is where i can't i can't get on board with pastor shelley's arguments tonight just like i couldn't with yours you claim that just like he that you can do whatever you want after one moment of confession of faith and time to christ and that you're okay but that is not what the bible teaches the wicked the unrighteous will not inherit eternal life it's that simple good question though thank you thank you sean and pastor shelley go ahead the floor is yours yeah great question once you're a child of god you're always the child of god the bible says we're now the children of now we are the children of god it's clear it's present tense right now i am a child of god i've already been born again in the world there's children of the devil and there's the children of god um and so you know it's and it's manifested through what we believe not necessarily if we're following the commandments as well as sean is apparently but according to the bible yes it's important to continue to know god and follow the commandments but sean never answers the question the question was if we're the children of god now he doesn't he can't even answer it as a simple question he just uses flowery language to talk about other passages ask if we know god or purify himself he just didn't answer the question if we are the children of god or when we become you just can't seem to just answer simple questions because you're just avoiding what the bible clearly teaches here thank you pastor chelly and sean you get the last word go ahead pastor shell you can't be serious literally just read all those passages from first john three that's what's called slander bro you gotta you gotta repent i'm done thanks okay gentlemen thank you for the responses to that question charles oh i forgot you don't want to repent appreciate you joining charles and offering up a question okay so net looks like we got a good mix of callers who have questions for both debaters we've had a good diversity of views in both chats tonight so next question comes in the next caller is matt and it is a question for pastor jonathan shelly and so matt thank you very much for calling in and feel free to introduce yourself and offer up your question hey guys um my name is matt i'm out of florida i just wanted to address you guys have been doing great i look forward to seeing more of it i kind of came in late to the party didn't see the entire uh debate but i would like to ask pastor shelby a question in reference to i would think that you believe that yeshua mashiach is our eternal high priest in the order of my keys today he would be the one who's going to be redeeming us out of shield he's going to be the one raising us to eternal life on the uh you know first resurrection one two resurrections depending on each person's deeds according to the deeds that they did not according to their beliefs it says there will be granted rewards he brings rewards according to everyone's deeds but i would just like to see if you could speak to uh matthew 1916 and 17 when somebody had the opportunity to actually speak to you and ask him how do i have eternal life and he didn't say just believe in me or believe that i came to die for you or believe in that he said if you will enter into life keep the commandments it was straightforward and same thing with matthew 7 21 to 23 he says not everyone calls me lord lord not everyone that does these have gifts of the spirit that can cast out demons not everyone that does that will have eternal life only those who do the will of the father and at the same time ai says that uh he casts he departs from me either work iniquity he doesn't say either don't believe in me either don't have the right uh concept of the trinity or anything like that he speaks to commandments he speaks to working iniquity i would just like to hear your thoughts on how what you think the author of eternal salvation has to say about it himself thanks thank you matt for your points and your question pastor shelley the floor is yours go ahead yeah matt to address your questions about the passage first of all the bible says in matthew 1916 what good thing shall i do that i may have eternal life he's asking to do something and the first thing jesus responded with was why call us thou me good he does not first answer the question with keep the commandments he first asks a question of why are you calling me good and then he states there is none good so it's it's making it abundantly clear in jesus's response that no one is good and no one has kept all of the commandments and then he responds after that by saying but if thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments so it's a paradox that jesus christ is even presenting to this person and he's asking him these questions then he clarifies and says which then jesus brings up some of the more famous commandments mentioned specifically in the ten commandments thou shall not do murder thou shall not commit adultery thou shall not steal thou shall not bear false witness honor thy father thy mother and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself which upon that specific commandment hangs pretty much the entire law anyways and the young man said on him all these things have i kept from my youth up what lack i yet this guy says that he's never sinned before now the bible addresses that in first john that if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us there is not a person that has never sinned before this person is lying this person also denies who jesus christ is because when he even asked him why call us thou me good there's none good but one you know earlier he called him good master but when you compare this with other parallel passages he doesn't continue calling him good master he doesn't use the same titling so you can tell that he actually denies who jesus christ is he denies that jesus is good and jesus christ is giving him this particular paradox of well i guess if you want to go to heaven you have to keep all the commandments but unfortunately no one can do that that's why he then later says in verse 26 but jesus beheld them and said to them with men this is impossible but with god all things are possible meaning that it's impossible for someone to get saved through good works but when you believe in jesus christ you're imputed christ righteousness and that's what gives you salvation it's all the glory is what jesus did for us it's by believing in him only hypothetically speaking if someone did keep all of the commandments then they would go to heaven because there's no reason to go to hell they didn't do anything wrong but there's a problem we've all sending i'm sure of the glory of god therefore this person trying to work his way into heaven wanting to do some good thing cannot enter we'd have to do is humble himself recognize who jesus is that he's the only good one and believe in what jesus did as the only way into heaven sean thinks he can be good enough to get into heaven and therefore this parable would confuse him but i'm certainly not going to use parables as my core doctrine of my faith you know the parables were meant to confuse people and confuse the pharisees and the unsaved i'm going to use the clear verses like john 3 16 to let me understand that salvation is by faith alone and then help me understand what these more difficult passages mean but i i really appreciate the question thank you pastor shelly for your response sean we'll hand it over to you now if you had a response go ahead yeah it's not a parable for one uh two no one claimed you got to be perfect scripture doesn't claim that three no one said you work your way into heaven i've actually taught against that tonight and uh four this is a wonderful question because it just reveals that pastor shelly is wholly unfamiliar with the front of his bible that's why he added all that ice of jesus into this answer he thinks that this is about the imputed righteousness statement he thinks this is someone that's coming to the hard realization that he can't he's his question is malformed somehow and that he can't actually do anything to be approved by god and that's just completely backwards to what christ is actually seeing in the text the man says what good thing must i do aside from there's no one good but god christ answers him he actually says do these things the guy says i've done these since my youth it doesn't say he didn't claim he was perfect without sin again because i said him in my cross or my rebuttals earlier that a pastor should know that the old testament assumes you're going to sin this is why your high priest is there to make atonement for you so if a pastor doesn't know and understand that about the front of the bible he's going to start making up stuff to answer this question so christ addresses hey here's do these things you know the commandments do them as it parallels in luke uh the other luke passage and the guy says i've done all these since my youth and then what does christ say christ doesn't go into this elaborate baptist altar call that claims that oh now everyone's falling short of the glory of god so come down and give your heart to christ with lip confession romans 10 9 and 10 he doesn't go into all that he simply says deuteronomy 15 and if pastor shelley was aware of the front of his bible which he seems to think is irrelevant to him as a disciple of christ then he would understand that he's literally telling him here's one more thing that you lack dinner me 15 out of your wealth give to the poor deuteronomy 15 the same thing that peter and james instructed paul to do in collations 2 10 keep the commandments of god give to the poor out of your abundance and the man went away because sad because he had much wealth now we don't know what the rest of his life was like we don't know how that man turned out but we know that christ emphatically just listed off commandment after commandment after commandment to get eternal life the master himself literally pastor shelley's judge just told him how to get eternal life and he seems to ignore it thanks for the question okay thank you sean pastor shelley the question was for you and so you get the last word on this one go ahead i'll grant my opponent one thing this passage i do believe really happened i use the word parable in a loose way there and that's not accurate but i would say this i'm not ignoring the first part of the bible whatsoever and he uses metaphors here like the camel going through the eye of a needle which is kind of a cryptic way to describe some of the things that he's explaining but what's funny to me is that sean is interpreting this passage that this rich guy would have had to sell all that he has to actually go to heaven and i would love to know when sean is going to sell all that he has and give to the poor so that he can go to heaven and so you know it's pretty interesting that he he said that this guy had to do that in order to go to heaven what did you say then what i'm pretty sure you clearly said that this guy needed to do that the reason you're continuing to slend me is because you've never read dinner my 15 i said did you say that the rich man had to sell that he has and give to the poor i said the deuteronomy 15 passage is out of the abundance of his wealth give to the poor doesn't mean you sell all that you have it's out of what did jesus say you said you're a messiah what did jesus say jesus said sell what you have and give to the poor he's quoting deuteronomy 15 he doesn't tell him he has to sell everything he has christ does not command destitution like a 12th century monk so just his abundance then so he had to give out of his 15. i'm giving you the scriptural citation you can study it later it's okay so when have you have you sold all of your abundance sean out of my abundance we give but this my behavior my discipleship is not here on trail tonight brother so just get to the question i did it wasn't it was just yeah i know it was a ritual attempted mockery i know but at the end of the day we see that sean thinks you have to do something like follow the commandments to be saved and you know that's because amen how are you ignoring he's ignoring all the passages like in john that clearly say you get eternal life by believing and then using this one here in matthew 19 to negate all the clear statements whereas we've already alyssa i just want to jump in we've already had basically an hour of banter with the discussion i made sure to be non-intrusive let you guys go at it do kiddo have some fun let's stick to the format on this we got a lot of callers to get through i'm good next question okay all right guys let's just make sure to stick to the format for these questions okay matt if i remember correctly that's who the question the questioner was for this one and so okay next question and the next caller is dave and so dave we got two daves it looks like one dave who's going to ask a question for pastor another one for sean so since pastor just got the last word let's bring in dave who's got a question for sean so dave thank you for joining us here on the baptist bias and feel free to present your question for sean go ahead yeah hi hey sean um you guys are doing really good tonight and i appreciate the the way you're both keeping your cool and and not uh and not getting uh spun up where other people who weren't walking walking in the spirit might uh i just want to say that up front um also my question is back to um ezekiel chapter 18 and i want to couch it in the form of the first death and the second death and as a preface to the question i'll just kind of reiterate what the understanding was back when messiah walked earth and when ezekiel was written is that there there was they were looking forward to the resurrection and there is a first death which is the physical death and there is a second death which is the spiritual death which there you cannot recover from and my question sean is specifically if you could iterate your position on why ezekiel 18 applies to the second death and not the first death and my and and the follow-along question two-part question the second the second part is rather than ezekiel 18 being couched as earning your salvation do you believe it is more uh accurate to look at it as if it is trying to explain how you would disqualify yourself from being chosen to not be destroyed in the second death thank you dave thank you for your questions and i agree our guests tonight have done an excellent job keeping things healthy but also engaging at the same time so pastor shelly and sean i appreciate that sean questions for you go ahead yeah i'll address the first the second question first i suppose um i i apologize i don't think i quite understood the nature of the second question very clearly i'm gonna do a quick attempt to answer it but ezekiel 18 is an admonition to uh rebus israel at the time ezekiel is a prophet who preached repentance to the israelites and he ezekiel was on both sides of nebknezzar's invasion of israel of southern kingdom and dispersion in his exile of the of the southern house and so um they were in mass rebellion worshiping the idols even to the point of putting up idols and false gods in the temple of yahweh as we see in ezekiel chapter 9 and so he's telling them that you know your previous works of righteousness aren't going to be anything for you if you if you stop doing that and go into wickedness i don't think it's a i don't quite understand the nature of the second one but let me let me address the first one a little bit deeper if i can real quick um basically you're you think that you're saying that your assumption which a lot of churches teach this assumption the old testament had no mention of eternal life until jesus got on the scene but that's just absolutely untrue this what i mentioned earlier about the genesis 17 promised abraham and his descendants that they'll live in the land forever you can't do that without eternal life it's inherent it's built into the covenant from day one it's built built in you can't have living somewhere forever without eternal life right so even scholars in ezekiel 18 i can go here to um there's a scholar uh professor simon simon jay um on a book they wrote in torah life and salvation uh they quote in early judaism and in paul their understanding of these passages from leviticus 18 5 which is the same language of ezekiel 18 9 which says there's he says that there's ample evidence of an understanding both pre and post 70 ce that's the fall of jerusalem of leviticus 18 5 as talking in terms of eternal life and this understanding furthermore was on the increase during those days but they all understood and it's even this is why the rabbis in judaism would teach of a world to come your obedience to covenant or or to the oral torah as i've been talking about they kind of skipped the commandments part and just made up their own their own law but but they would teach that the your obedience to the oral torah guaranteed you a place in the world to come which assumed the resurrection remember paul dealt with the Pharisees who did believe in the resurrection but the sadducees who did not so you see that next 24 so assumed all throughout the old testament and in fact even in uh the wisdom of solomon which is um which is a a passage that uh used to be in our bibles you're still in the old king james it's chapter 6 verses 17 through 20 it says this for the first step toward wisdom is an earnest desire for discipline and care for discipline is love of wisdom love means keeping wisdom's laws to observe wisdom's laws is the basis for incorruptibility that's your immortality your eternal life and incorruptibility makes you close to god therefore the desire for wisdom leads to the kingdom of god so it's right there wisdom old testament wisdom solomon chapter 6 17 through 20 great question thank you sean pastor shelly floor is yours go ahead i don't want to spend much time on this question but uh everything sean said was didn't really make any sense um the first death is when someone's uh soul leaves their body and they would go to hell the second death is being cast into the lake of fire ezekiel 18 is not referencing the first or the second death i do agree the old testament brought up concepts of eternal life second death all throughout it but in no way did he answer the question and really it was hard to pay attention yeah you should just give your own answer instead of critique in mind bro whoops sean you get the last word if you'd like it yeah i'm sorry he should give his own answer yeah he should give his own answer instead of critique in mind i'm satisfied with my first answer thank you okay and and just to note for the for the questions let's say the questions for pastor shall he can respond and then in your response sean you could rebut things that he said if if you want it doesn't have to be especially if the questions for someone directly then uh there can be some interaction there so let me move to the next question then that was dave for sean so now we got dave for pastor and just looking at the list of callers that we have here it's my suggestion but it's up to you uh gentlemen you guys are the debaters tonight i think we should do more rapid fire for the rest of the callers because we do still have quite a few and so maybe keep our answers between 30 seconds to a minute keep it more rapid fire yeah okay we got okay let's let's do that stick with that so we got dave for pastor so dave thank you uh for joining and looks like you have a question pertaining to first corinthian six verse nine dave go ahead yep hey guys thank you for this debate this has been great nature i really enjoy this so i'll keep this quick um sean i'm i follow your stuff i've been in the last nine months here so this is makes sense to me where you're coming from but then pastor um the one thing i don't quite understand is your statement in your closing arguments you're discussing about you believe along the lines of once saved always saved and you made a statement that sean's not saved i know sean's testimony 17 years old he gave his life to the lord that's accepted him as his lord and savior and he's grown on this you know journey into this knowledge of you know following the law and the commandments and the instruction the Torah of God but you're saying that he's not saved but was he saved at 17 now he's not and that kind of leads me to the first corinthian it doesn't really talk about if somebody believes in the works of salvation so if you could kind of clarify that statement of sean's not saved that'd be great dave thanks for the question go ahead pastor shelly yeah in 30 seconds will be hard to address both but i would say this my belief is that salvation is by faith alone in jesus christ that you have to trust alone in his finished work that it's not of works lest any man should boast so i believe that salvation has to be understood as a free gift and that you're only trusting what jesus did to save you because sean does not believe that what i'm saying he's he kind of believes that it's something that can be lost or that you also have to have discipleship he kind of redefines the word faith then therefore my view of scripture it would not allow him to be saved because he hasn't trusted christ he actually is trusting in a combination of jesus plus sean's good work sean's discipleship sean's faithfulness and so he's not resting in the finished work of christ but he's actually still trusting in his good works in the future first corinthians chapter 6 verse 9 is saying that people who are sinful are not going to get in heaven but it says in verse 11 they've been watched they've been sanctified they've been justified meaning that in their new man because they believe in jesus christ they are a new creature and their new man has never sinned even though in their flesh they have sinned and so sean would have to repent change what he believes and put all his faith in jesus christ alone as savior understanding he can't lose his salvation to be saved and since he doesn't want to do that he's not saved yet thanks for the response pastor and sean floor is yours go ahead yeah thank you color i appreciate you uh you're watching us and you know thank you for your support and everything that's amazing nine months if you haven't if you haven't left after nine months it sounds like you you're actually being a brian and studying your bible to to check out what we're talking about so that's amazing um great question and uh i think that it is a travesty your your acknowledgement of what you heard tonight is a travesty because even according to pastor shelley's admitted belief tonight someone who puts their their someone who knows nothing about god knows nothing about the bible puts their faith in christ according to him they're saved that was me at 17 july 17th 1997 i knew nothing about god i didn't read the bible yet but my faith in christ wholeheartedly radical experience lost friends stopped cussing stopped partying started living for christ went to church now taking notes right i'm i'm all in uh lost lost relationship opportunities i'm all in right he would say i was saved if he was my youth pastor in 1997 but now suddenly because i disagree with his extremely unbiblical version of discipleship the thing that he's read he thinks i redefined faith he redefines christ's finished work on the cross with his i because he completely ignores christ's own words matthew 28 19 therefore go into all nations and make disciples teaching them all that i've commanded you christ commanded everyone he ran in contact with to repent and keep the law of god so yeah it's it's a double standard and it puts our pastor shelley here in the judgment seat of christ which is extremely blasphemous to christ so i just pray that he uh repents but great question caller pastor shelley you get the last word go ahead yeah if i was his youth pastor i would have asked him what he has to do to be saved and he would have said well look i gave up cussing and sinning and i've changed my life radically and he would have been pointing to his works and not the finished work of jesus christ and i would have tried to preach him the gospel and if he had continually repeatedly rejected it i would have told him he's unsaved and that he's not welcome at our church because he doesn't believe in salvation by faith and so no i would have never thought that sean was saved even at that age he's clearly testifying of his works not the finished work of jesus christ and he's boasting in himself and what he did so no he's not saved it's that simple okay thank you gentlemen for the responses to the question from dave dave appreciate you joining us and just to the audience in general on both channels simulcasting here streaming i appreciate how engaged everybody is it's been a lively live chat and so this has been a great great debate this saturday night so okay we got a question now from evan so evan thank you for joining us hope you're enjoying the debate as much as i am and it looks like you have a question for sean and it pertains to ephishians 4 and so evan go ahead oh evan are are you there evan hello can you be heard yes evan we can hear you now okay okay sorry about that okay so yeah i go by nephron tree on youtube my question is about ephishians 4 30 and in this passage god uses a tool used by uh authors called a literary device and this literary device is the choice of words that is used to create an image of something or an event something that happens excellent authors use literary devices like this it makes real impact because you see in your mind what the author is saying and he's using the language of an attorney or a judge here law language legal language where he says that the judge is taking his signet or king taking his signet which has his royal seal on it and he's pressing it into the clay on a document to create a delay now this seal seals the document and whatever's in that document is now law according to the king it cannot be broken you breaking that seal is breaking god's law and so god says in this passage and grieve not the holy spirit whereby ye are sealed until the day of redemption this is the language of an attorney this is a law language here god is saying legally unto god his law is that they are sealed until the day of redemption by the holy spirit now the day of redemption is the day of resurrection you're redeemed from the earth you've already been bought but you're redeemed somebody already pays for the product they go to the customer service desk with a ticket and receive it they've already paid for it christ paid for it on the cross you go to the customer service desk with the ticket says this is my property they give it to you that's when you're redeemed this redemption is when you receive from the earth the day of resurrection you die you go into the grave you'll be awakened and you'll be resurrected so if god is saying using the language of an attorney that he seals you with the holy spirit a legal seal the seal of the king of kings until the day that you're received from the earth resurrected from it who is going to break that seal and who has the authority to do it in between the day that you die and hit the dirt and the day you're raised from the grave who's going to do that please that's my question thank you for the points and also the the question there's kind of a lot there so sean of course if you need to take more than 30 seconds feel free to do so no it's okay it's okay great question i appreciate you caller um yeah there's legal language in all of the covenant of god but people still have to be willing participants god's not forcing somebody to stay into this thing get redeemed and live in his house who doesn't want to live in his house and we show him if we want to live in his house by our behavior so just as ephesians 4 30 says um do not grieve the holy spirit in whom you were sold for the day of redemption the same author paul in first thessalonians 5 19 says do not extinguish the spirit if you can't extinguish the spirit why would he even be admonishing the people in thessalonica don't extinguish the spirit just like he says previously up in that chapter in first thessalonians 5 that there are now children of the light and not the dark right he's he's reminding them of what they've come into through faith in christ and so i mean i mean clearly you can abandon the faith if you can extinguish the spirit so i understand the legal language that's being used because all of the law of god is a legal and binding contract with you to give you eternal life upon the conditions of the covenant just like all law has conditions so this is what i'm trying to explain is that this is christ tells us the conditions paul repeats the conditions emphatically everywhere he tells us in romans 3 31 that this faith we have doesn't doesn't negate the law we uphold the law we uphold the conditions and the legal requirements for our wonderful resurrection which is the promise of the covenant great question thank you sean pastor shelley any thoughts i think the passage was self-explanatory once you're still in the holy spirit you're still even under the day of redemption which is the redemption of our body because our body is not redeemed when we believe just our soul and spirit and so we have to wait until the redemption of our body but it's saying specifically not to grieve the holy spirit we grieve the holy spirit by sinning by quenching the spirit which is what the king james says there and so you know of course we can have sinned disappoint god and we can do things that upset him but he'll never leave us nor forsake us we're sealed and so it's it's really a great proof text of the fact that you can't lose your salvation because once you're sealed it's a done deal thank you pastor sean you get the last word if you'd like it so i was saved in a baptist i was saved in in uh while i was saved i was actively going to a baptist church in high school in my wonderful youth pastors encouraged me to turn from sin so they encouraged my works so i'm not sure what kind of baptist church pastor shelley uh runs but uh the the baptist church the southern baptist church part of the southern baptist association that i was that i went to absolutely told me to apply works to my now newfound faith and to start reading the scriptures and they guided me in those things and i and i give them a lot of thanks for that because they understood that i had to be grown in my discipleship they at that church and they reprimanded publicly from the pulpit people that they would see partying and drinking at the oklahoma university games on the weekends because i used to live in oklahoma so like they 100 i'm not we must be down with the fringe pastor here i'm not sure exactly who taught him discipleship but you must stay in the faith okay again like i said if you don't if if the people listening uh don't even believe the words that are being put on screen tonight through the scriptures goes go directly to second century bishop of lions erinaeus he'll directly tell you in his apostolic demonstration preaching you must the rule of faith is keeping the commandments of god simple that's all it is to it but if you abandon them that's when you extinguish the spirit that's how you're grieving the holy spirit he's not going to force you to be in his house if you want to go worship bale he'll let you die in your destruction so great question caller okay thank you evan or nephilim free thank you for your question and participating in tonight's debate okay guys we've got about 10 minutes before we got to wrap things up and so just a reminder to the callers we're looking for questions that are short sweet and questions that end in a question mark not saying that any of the callers have done a bad job everyone's done excellent i appreciate it we just got to make sure that we can get through these last several callers here so okay the next one we have is justin and so justin thank you so much for joining tonight's debate looks like you have a question for pastor on first john two so justin go ahead welcome yeah hi um thanks for that conversation first of all um it's been really edifying uh the questions for mr shelly could you give your opinion on the passage in first john chapter two or on the one that i'm about to read and uh basically if if or how it connects to believe for faith as you understand it uh so first john two starting uh verse three it says this is how we know that we know him if we keep his commandments one who says i know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him but the love of god has most certainly been perfected in whoever keeps his word this is how we know that we are in him he who says he remains in him fought himself also to walk just like he walked is this not um just saying that one's confession is a lie if they display a life that is against the father's commandment go ahead so again first john is talking about fellowship with christ in in its context so in first john chapter one verse number three the purpose is that you may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son jesus christ and he says in these things right i end you that your joy may be full the the point of first john in his broad context is specifically having fellowship with jesus christ in chapter two it transitions and it says that he's writing these things unto us that we sin not if any man sins we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous and he's the propitiation for sins meaning he's the payment for our sins but at the same time you can be saved and not really know christ not have a act of fellowship with him and so those who are breaking his commandments and claiming that they have a great relationship with jesus or they know jesus christ are lying and that is what the passage is saying the passage is saying that you are not being truthful that you don't have an understanding really of who god is or jesus christ and you're not having great fellowship with him this this is not negating the fact that someone could be saved and not having fellowship with jesus christ um it's very possible for that to be the case also the most of this passage though is contrasting people that are unsaved with the saved that's mostly what first john is doing in chapter two it's it's differentiating people who are anti-christ and those who believe in jesus christ and here's the thing the jews would have said that they know god and they say they would know the lord and all these things but they're actually liars because they didn't keep the commandments they were hypocrites and they denied jesus christ and so they were unsaved and it's contrasting those people with the true disciples of christ and the true jews who are those who have believed in jesus christ and are the christians and so first john chapter two is just is addressing the idea of people who are claiming that they know god but they're just breaking all the commandments he's saying that they're liars this in no way has anything to do with proving you lose your salvation or anything like that it's just simply helping people understand who really knows god and who doesn't and it's through keeping the commandments thank you sean floor is yours yeah thank you pastor shelly you just conceded the debate you literally just said people that are claiming to know christ not doing the commandments are liars they're unsaved so i guess you thank you for your concession great question i agree with the caller i agree with this conclusion on the passage we must walk as jesus walks that's include all the teachings of christ which is keeping the commandments of god great question pastor you get the last word go ahead yeah i certainly did not say that someone can lose their salvation at any point of my response uh simply pointed out that someone can't know christ and know the things about him intimately and have great fellowship with him if he's not keeping his commandments but they could still be saved so i'm done okay i'm done with the response all right thank you very much for the final word there pastor shelly and the responses from the both of you okay next caller is jenaro and it is another question for you pastor looks like it has to do with lukewarm christians and so jenaro apologies if i'm mispronouncing your name feel free to introduce yourself and uh offer up your question thanks for being here can you hear me yes can you hear me yeah yeah hello okay loud and clear i have a question for you bro got you brother okay um i have a question for you shelly so when the verse says i wish for you were hot or cold because you're warm i will sit you out i i want to know what is your understanding of a lukewarm christian and by your belief did judith not lose his salvation great question uh it's addressing a church in the seven churches which are in asia it's addressing a specific church that is neither hot nor cold and so the lord says they're kind of lukewarm and he's going to spit them out of their mouth um that's specifically just talking about god chastising them having nothing to do with them even potentially even physical death it's also mentioned in revelation chapter two how he's going to destroy jezebel and all of our children with death so obviously god can kill people killed anais and sapphira he killed many of the children of israel in the wilderness god can constantly um bring all kinds of horrible punishments on people that break his commandments sin just like my mother and father could punish me severely as a child but that doesn't mean that i'm not their child and so unfortunately for sean he doesn't understand the analogy of a mother and a son or a father and a son he thinks that you have to like keep commandments in order to continue being a child here you know once you're a child of god you're always a child of god but you could be a lukewarm child meaning that you're not really obeying your mom and dad and you're not really zealous you're not really doing anything and your parents could be very upset with you you could even be a lukewarm um adult child that's living at home lazy playing video games not getting a job and so your parents literally just pick you up and throw you out of the house you don't stop being their child and they don't even stop loving you necessarily they're just sick and tired of you being a lukewarm person and so they're punishing you severely um when it comes to judas judas wasn't lukewarm judas was completely dead he never believed in jesus christ he was a devil from the beginning he had nothing to lose the bible makes abundantly clear that jesus never believed in jesus christ so there's nothing about him that's lukewarm he was deceitful he was an infiltrator he was a false prophet and a false teacher so you know those are completely different concepts and so i would say that you know there's nothing about judas that's lukewarm thank you pastor shelly sean griffin the floor is yours go ahead uh donny could you repeat the full question please i'm sorry yes if we can get janaro if you're still there could you possibly reiterate your question for us he probably dropped i believe that the question was about lukewarm in revelation chapter two he didn't quote that but he was bringing up the lukewarm and if judas lost his salvation so it's my best understanding of the question yeah i think uh pastor sean actually agree on this we even talked about this in our first rebuttals and cross that we both agree that judas did not ever put his faith in christ he was there for the wrong reasons he was never considered one of them and even christ knew this from the beginning and so i um yeah i don't think he was okay i think he was just playing a part because he thought he was going to get something out of it later all right appreciate the responses gentlemen we now have our next caller who is james james thank you very much for joining us looks like you have a question for pastor shelly on the sheep and the goats and so james thanks for being here the floor is yours go ahead thank you very much uh thank you pastor shelly thank you sean uh for doing the debate appreciate that uh question well did want to prefix um in john 3 16 pisteo is is the greek when referencing a person it means obey unto not just believe um but the sheep and the goats it's it really does look like jesus is saying that those who do not do the works of righteousness feeding the hungry the sick the thirsty going to the people in prison it's it looks like he's saying those people go to eternal punishment if they don't do that so it does look like some people will be taken out of the kingdom and given to punishment so how does that sit with once they always say it looks like people can be thrown out and punished thank you for the question and pastor shelly go ahead yeah matthew chapter number uh 25 is bringing up you're bringing up the parable of the sheeps and the goats um i would say that first of all the matthew 25 is coming still in the context of matthew 24 which is talking about the return of christ and he kind of gives like three different parables in matthew 25 they're all very related so he's talking about a point when he's going to have two groups of people the sheeps on one side on the right side the goats on the left side and he says unto the sheep on the right side that they've done all the good works essentially they visited people in prison and help people and the people on the left didn't do that he's not really isolating it to a sig to a singular individual and so matthew 25 i believe is talking about two groups christians and people that are not christians christians generally speaking are the people that have done the good works in this world non-christians are the people who have not done the good works but i do not believe that every single individual has done every single thing on this list it's rather just a collective and the people that are saved are the ones that do good works and the ones that are not are the ones that don't but at the same time that doesn't mean there couldn't be someone in the crowd of the sheep that didn't really contribute necessarily but at the same time if you kind of pay attention to the past the passage he makes it also clear that when he's talking about the good works that they've done he's done it on the least of these my brethren so i think you have to understand matthew 25 in the context of doing those works unto a saved person or unto a christian because i think even just the unsaved they'll visit their brother and sister in prison they'll help people they'll feed people and do things just because they love their own brother and sister but what christ is contrasting is the people that were actually ministering unto christians who are god's sheep who are jesus christ's sheep and when you do it under his sheep it's like you are doing it unto jesus and that only the christians are the ones ministering unto other christians in that way and so it's just it's a broad statement this certainly would not contradict the rest of all the clear passages in the bible that say that salvation is by faith without works therefore we include that man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law like in romans 328 so again this is just a a particular end times prophecy talking about two big groups of people it's not teaching loser salvation thank you pastor shelly for that response shawn any thoughts it's directly equating eternal life i'm coming here at the kingdom of prayer for you from the foundation of the world with your behavior just like i put all the verses on screen tonight great question caller um yeah deeds you were judged by our deeds not by our creeds great question caller appreciate it pastor did you want a quick final word on that one yeah i want to say that there is a passage in the bible that makes it clear that you were saved by your creed in romans 617 it says but god be thanked that you were the servants of sin but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you so in fact actually what saves you is having the right doctrine of heart which was believing in jesus christ you have thank you doctrine okay all right gentlemen uh appreciate it and looks like we've now made it to our final the next day okay yeah we've made it hey we got a 24 hour debate here so excellent endurance from the both of you pastor shelly and shawn and okay if i endure to the end will i be saved you're just according to christ yeah all right there we go appreciate it okay so uh jeremy is our last caller for tonight's memorable debate that's for sure so jeremy thank you very much for joining us and being willing to ask a question looks like the question is for pastor shelly and okay jeremy feel free to introduce yourself and ask your question okay thanks donnie shawn and pastor shelly again for your time this question is for pastor shelly i was raised the son of a baptist preacher when i was saved in third grade and was taught once they'd always saved and like a good baptist i went to church every sunday morning some of the evening and wednesday night um then i rebelled for over 35 years until i got the fear of god and i fell on my face and begged god to help me stop sharing i believed in jesus my whole life and i've never stopped believing and i'll never stop believing him 100 i don't deny him and i never will you said in your closing statement if i believe in jesus i have eternal life however i knew i didn't have eternal life and salvation i was convicted to my core because my sin was absolutely not following god's ways or commandments but this point it seems i have two options i can either repent of this misunderstanding because i really am saved because i believe in jesus and doesn't i and even if i go back to sending i'm still saved or i can repent by sharing god and keeping his commandments so which option should i follow okay thank you caller pastor shelley go ahead well salvation is a free gift by faith so if someone believes that they need to be saved then they need to put all of their faith in jesus christ they need to repent of their works they need to repent of any false religion they need to repent of any self-confidence and they need to put 100 trust in jesus christ and the finished work of the cross and they would be saved after being saved a person should be baptized and after being baptized they should try to follow all the commandments to the best of their ability understanding that they never will be perfect god's grace will cover that sin they should daily crucify the flesh and walk in the spirit but that has nothing to do with being saved you've already been saved so perhaps that you were saved as a child and got under some really bad teaching and confused or maybe really under never understood salvation was a free gift by faith i'm not sure but i would highly encourage you to consider that salvation truly is a free gift and even if you did sin later in life which many people sin worse in the later parts of their life that didn't mean you lost your salvation or weren't saved and really what gives us an assurance of salvation according to first john chapter 5 verse 13 is that we believe in jesus christ it says that you can know you have eternal life and they may believe in the name of the son of god the bible makes it clear that we are the children of god by faith um his spirit that bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of god the bible says my sheep hear my voice and i know them and they would not follow the voice of a stranger so you know i believe also that you're going to hearken and resonate with people who believe in salvation by faith alone whereas unfortunately you know people like sean and people that follow him it's a different voice and it's it's not the right gospel um he mentioned he was you know in a southern baptist church well they teach that salvation is by repenting of your sins and you have to turn away from all your sins in order to be saved that's not what i believe i believe salvation is a free gift that's not the voice of the shepherd so one must recognize that salvation is a free gift humble themselves 100 repent by changing their mind and putting all their faith in jesus christ and that's what truly saves them once they've done that they're saved forever they're a child of god they're sealed with the holy spirit of promise nothing can ever take that away from them and you can truly see the light so i would hope that anybody who is not confident in their salvation would put all their trust in christ and rest in him he's our sabbath and he gives us that full assurance because he is the one that was righteous not us thank you pastor shelly sean over to you go ahead yeah jeremy thanks for the question uh great to hear your brother and uh good to hear your testimony and how god has brought you along throughout your life that's amazing and i agree with i think i would recommend the latter right i would recommend that what you did i would recommend that which is to repent and of your of your dead works which is what paul calls it in reverend six start doing being a slave to righteousness this is what he follows up to say in roman six and that you're therefore now doing the behavior of christ as uh first john two talks about you're actually walking as christ walked and so i do think that you came out of bad teaching it's the same bad teaching we're hearing tonight and so i'm super grateful for that and i want to bless pastor shelly tonight with may god give him the message of wisdom as one of the gifts of the spirit in jesus name thanks for the question caller okay thank you and pastor shelly you get the last word question was for you yeah repentance from dead works is what sean believes in he believes in his dead works to save him he believes in being disciple being faithful keeping the law keeping the sabbath um i believe he has a lot of other strange uh things that he observes rich in faith rich in faith according to the bible that's dead works so he's trusting his filthy rags to save him and what he would need to do is repent of that and put his faith in jesus christ as hebrews chapter six clearly teaches so you know i would hope that anybody out there that's um confused on this would go to the clear passages john 316 romans 328 romans four five basically the entire book of romans romans 10 9 and 10 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the lord jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that god have raised from the dead thou shalt be saved so the bible is clear it's by believing it's by faith it's by trusting god wants us to be saved and he loves us and so he made it easy sean's form of salvation is not easy it's difficult it's hard it's confusing it's unknowable god the god of the universe wants you to be saved so much that he made salvation so easy and so simple and so free that jesus paid it all and all you have to do is take simple faith and put it in jesus christ just the faith of a child in jesus christ in his finished work and you can know that you're saved it's not by the works of the law and i'm it's sad but unfortunately sean and his followers are not saved until they repent and put their faith in jesus christ all right gentlemen that concludes our audience q a and i gotta say i had a lot of fun with that that was an excellent hour and 15 minutes so this has been a great debate on the topic of salvation and whether or not a believer can lose his salvation we've had a great chat over 700 people between both channels that were streaming this this debate so pastor shelly and sean i do appreciate the time that you both put into the preparation for this debate and then also the time for the debate itself you've definitely given us a debate to remember on a very important topic a controversial topic again the question can a believer lose their salvation and at this point we'll leave it up to our audience to analyze this debate and come to hopefully their own objective conclusions and so with that we are going to officially wrap things up for tonight god bless all you