Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good morning, everyone. It is Thursday, November the 6th, 2025. It is currently 1021 a.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now across the landscape of modern Christianity, one message echoes again and again and again and again and again, and that message goes something like this, we as Christians, we are a people of power. We have power. In fact, I created an entire series called The Illusion of Church Power. In fact, I may put this episode in that series because I think it fits pretty good. The Illusion of Church Power. Now, if I'm being honest with you, I grow very tired of this never-ending message that's being preached. You have power. You have power. We have power. We have power. We have this supernatural power. We have this ability. I've grown very just sick of hearing it. We are told over and over and over again, when a person becomes a Christian, everything changes. Oh, come on. You know you've heard this countless times, right? That when you were born again, you were made new. You were transformed, not just in position, but in practice. You were told that when you became a Christian, you became a new creation. Old things are passed away. All things have become new. This is preached non-stop in Christianity. It never stops. Week after week after week, you're told you've been changed, you've been transformed, you have power. And they don't present this transformation and you becoming a new creature as something that is positionally true. They present it as something being practically true. will go on to say that sin no longer rules over us. We've been set free. Because now we can supposedly say no to temptation and yes to God. We can say no to sin and yes to God. That we have been given the very power of the Holy Spirit to live a life of victory. to rise above the world, to rise above the flesh, and to rise above the devil. We hear this from pulpits, from conferences, and from books. We hear the same thing over and over and over again. The Christian life is a life of power. That's what we hear. That's what you go to church and hear. That's what you're taught in Sunday school, in small groups. That's what you're taught in conferences. That's what you're taught over and over and over and over again. You don't believe me? Just spend, I don't know, a couple of weeks listening to hundreds and hundreds of sermons on the Sermon Audio platform, and you're gonna hear this same refrain preached over and over and over again. And while that so-called reality is being preached, while that reality is being taught, while the people in the pew are saying, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, well, there's a reality that speaks, a true reality, not this delusional reality preached from pulpits, but the truth, the hard, cold reality And that reality tells a very different story than what's being preached from pulpits and what Christians are saying amen to. Reality, hard, cold reality, tells of Christians who still fall over and over and over again. Of pastors who preach holiness and then expose for hypocrisy. of churches that proclaim transformation, yet they hide abuse, they defend abusers, and they protect institutions instead of protecting those who are vulnerable. Reality exposes a painful truth. It does. And for all of our talk, for all the talk of Christianity about supernatural power, the church often looks disturbingly ordinary. It looks weak, it looks fearful, and it looks corrupt. And that is the reality of 2,000 years of church history. Oh, the church will continue to proclaim, we've got power and we are victorious and we this and we that. But the reality is like, no, you're all sinners. You're all weak. You're all fearful. You fall. You lie. You deceive. You're self-serving. You're selfish. You're greedy. You're focused on the bottom line. So this means all Christians should have to ask some hard questions. If we truly have this divine power we supposedly claim to have, then why do we keep seeing the same patterns of sin? Why do we keep seeing the same patterns of scandal? Why do we keep seeing the same patterns of silence over and over and over again while claiming supernatural power? We've got power, but we sin and we sin and we sin. Now, I know, I know the ace we carry up our sleeve. As soon as someone sins, if someone falls into great sin and there's great scandal, we just say, they were never saved. That we never say. They weren't a Christian. We just immediately throw anyone who falls and makes us look bad out of the body of Christ. And so we say, see, we have power. I have power. They don't have power. But then we can't see our very own sin and how we are sinning, even though it may not be that sin. The whole thing is so fraudulent. And I think this question, becomes even more clear, more piercing when we look at a movement that has built its entire identity on the language of power, the Pentecostal tradition, specifically the Assemblies of God. For more than a century, the Symbolism of God has proclaimed that believers can and should receive a distinct baptism in the Holy Spirit and experience subsequent to salvation evidenced by speaking in tongues. They teach that this baptism imparts power for life, for service, and for ministry, a supernatural equipping that makes the believer a bold witness and a holy servant. That's what they teach. They teach this constantly. And yet I've worked with I don't know how many people, I don't know, I can't even tell you how many people I've worked with who were assemblies of God. And they claimed they had the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They spoke in tongues. They have that Pentecostal power. They have the power of the Holy Spirit. And I worked with them, and they were liars and backstabbers and gossip and slanderers and adulterers and fornicators and everything else. Oh, but they spoke in tongues. They had power. They didn't have any more power than the atheists they worked next to. In fact, some cases I trust the atheists working next to them more than I did the Assemblies of God people. They made ridiculous claims that never was proven in any meaningful way. Their claims about healings and all of this, while they, oh, I won't even get into that healing aspect of it, but they claim this power. Yet their lives demonstrated no more power than anybody else had. Now, why am I zeroing in on the Assemblies of God? Why am I focusing in on them? Because just this week, a new investigation has surfaced detailing decades of sexual abuse within the Assemblies of God denomination going all the way back to the 1970s. The report documents Hundreds of cases, leaders restored after admitted misconduct and patterns of silence and failure that persisted for decades. It's a story not of supernatural victory, but of human depravity, unmasked inside a movement that claims to have divine power for holy living. See, in the very movement that claims to have divine supernatural power for holy living, there are decades of sexual abuse. Now I'm focusing in on the assemblies of God because of this new report. But trust me, there have been reports about sexual abuse within the independent fundamental Baptist movement. You just name the Christian denomination, there has been investigations and there have been countless tales of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct. Name the denomination, it's there. It's everywhere! But yet we still claim this power, and we won't even go into all the other sins that are evident. So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to try to place these two things side by side. The claim of Spirit-giving power for life and holiness, and the reality of corruption, abuse, and systemic failure. Because if Christianity And particularly, Pentecostalism proclaims a power that reality never seems to confirm that we have to ask a question or questions. What kind of power are we really talking about? And is the promise itself biblical? Is it theologically sound? Or have we built an entire theology on a misunderstanding of what the Holy Spirit actually does? And I think, obviously, something is clearly wrong. So let's start. Before we get to the report, Before we get to the news, and I'll tell you how to look at the story, and there's two major sources for this story. Before I get to all of that, and I will try to, and I want you to check out and read all of the accounts and all of the details. It's not always pretty, it's not always easy to read, but it's something we have to be confronted with inside the church. I am tired of the church running around fighting culture wars, yelling and screaming, we're here to protect the children, and the children, and the children, and not—and we can't even acknowledge all the children being sexually molested by people within Christianity and within the church! So let's start with the Assemblies of God because they are the subject of this latest investigation. Let's start with what they claim about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the power we supposedly get. The official doctrine, which is known as Fundamental Truth No. 7, you can go to the Assemblies of God website, look at it for yourself, and I've been talking about this for 25 years, 30. I can remember like 30 years ago going to the Assemblies of God, getting their official documentation, going, look at all this claim about power, and then, I know, you guys, that you don't have this power! Stop claiming it! Okay, so I've been talking about this forever. This is nothing new for me. But if you go to the Assemblies of God website, look at what we believe, look at fundamental truth, I think it's number seven. And here is according to the Assemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths, the denomination teaches that. Are you ready? Here's a direct quote. Assemblies of God Fundamental Truths. All believers are entitled to and should ardently expect and earnestly seek the promise of the Father, the baptism in the Holy Ghost and fire according to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the normal experience of all in the early Christian church. it comes to endowment of power for life and service, the bestowment of the gifts and their uses in the work of the ministry." So, you get endowment of power for life and for service. You get power for life I almost have to just laugh at it, right? This experience is distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the new birth. So you get saved, but then you seek this subsequent experience, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and once you get that, you get power. So according to Assemblies of God, Me, lowly me, just a dumb podcaster, I don't have the power they have because I've never spoken in tongues. So I've never experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So that means all of the Assemblies of God people that I have ever known, they had more power than me. They had more discernment than me. They should have been more godly than me. And it's like, come on. That's just ridiculous that you claim that you have more power than I have when I know you guys. Look, oh man. Right there is just crazy. This goes on to say, with the baptism in the Holy Ghost comes such experiences as an overflowing fullness of the Spirit. See, you get the fullness of the Spirit. Those other poor people, they don't have the fullness of the Spirit. a deepened reverence for God, and an intensified consecration to His work, and a more active love for Christ, for His Word, and for the lost. And the initial physical evidence of this experience is said to be speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance. Fundamental truth number eight. So you get power, you get an overflowing fullness of the Spirit, you get a deepened reverence for God, you get an intensified consecration for his work, and you get a more active love for Christ and for his Word and for the lost. Basically, you get the baptism of the Holy Spirit between your power that you get and all these other things. You basically should be close to perfect. Oh, they'll come back and say, well, we're not claiming to be perfect. You look at all the things you just claimed that you get when you get the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I don't know why you wouldn't be perfect. And if you can't be perfect, then what kind of power did you get? Obviously, an inadequate power, since God calls you to be perfect. The Assemblies of God presents this experience as granting, are you ready, power for life. The believer supposedly lives in victory over sin and worldliness. This is what they claim, that when you get the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you get power for life. This means you can now live in victory over sin and worldliness. Now, if you can live in victory over sin and worldliness, to live in victory means you have to be perfect. Because if you're not perfect, you're not in victory because you're in sin. So they almost have to claim a sinless perfection. In many cases, they will contradict this, but many churches do the same thing. You now have the power to say no to sin and yes to God. They say it in their church talk. Whatever, just stop it. Unless you are perfect, you are not then living over the power over sin. You are still controlled by the power of sin. Supposedly, you get power for life. You get power for service. The believer supposedly becomes a bold witness, an evangelist, or a minister. You get power for ministry. The believer is supposedly equipped with supernatural gifts that manifest holiness and divine effectiveness. The implication is that Spirit-baptized people and ministers are empowered in a way that should elevate their moral character, should elevate their discernment, and should elevate their holiness. So their formal claim, according to the formal documents of the Assemblies of God, is that this is not just about a boldness to be a witness. This is about power for life. They use language that strongly implies a qualitative elevation of holiness, discernment, and ministry effectiveness. You can't get around what they claim if you take their doctrinal statements serious, and I do because that's what they teach. So they run around claiming all of this power, all of this supernatural ability. And Christians do this in every denomination. Oh, I've got the power of God inside of me. I can overcome everything. This never ending just, oh, it just drives me crazy. Because you look around and go, well, where's all your power? And this weird, and I once, I cannot stress to you the utter, absolute, foolishness of claiming that you've got power, but then turn around and admit you can't get to perfection. So what power do you have then? Or the worst is when Christians claim, I have been set free from the power of sin, but I can't get to perfection. Well, the thing keeping you from perfection would be the thing that still is in power and you're not free from its power. If you can't be perfect, then you're under the control of something keeping you from perfection, which God calls you to be. And that thing is still in control. You're not free from it. Christians will claim this nonsense over and over and over and over and over and over again. And then they get upset when people look at them like they're absolute out of their ever-living mind. You're delusional. You're insane. You need counseling. You need therapy. Now, take all of these claims, especially within the Assemblies of God, And I'll contrast those claims. The title of the article is Report Outlines Decades of Sexual Abuse in Assemblies of God Denomination. You can read this report at theroysreport.com. If you go to theroysreport.com, you can find it and it was the number one story, the leading story as of I think yesterday. Again, the article's entitled, Report Outlines Decades of Sexual Abuse in Assemblies of God Denomination. This story presents serious allegations against the Assemblies of God. And this report pulls from the NBC News investigation. So NBC News did this big investigation about it. Roy's report has picked it up. So there's at least two sources right there. Here are some of the major findings in this report, all right? And these are highlights. These comes from NBC News and the Rory's Report. Here we go. The report refers to an investigation by NBC News that alleges hundreds of people being sexually abused within the Assemblies of God by pastors or church leaders going all the way back to the 1970s. It claims that some church leaders who admitted misconduct were later restored to ministry or leadership positions and then abused again. For example, a minister in Illinois was suspended in 1979 for molesting girls. Later in the 1990s, he allegedly molested more girls. A youth camp children's pastor in Arkansas allegedly made children do nude stretching in a bathroom, hit a camera, and raped and molested children age 10 through 11. And I could go on talking about all the other things going on here. The article states that in 1997, the General Counsel considered a measure to ban anyone convicted of child sex abuse from being credentialed, but it was discouraged and the measure died. They couldn't even pass that in 1997. They couldn't even do that. Hey, you've been convicted of sexual child abuse? Well, you can't be credentialed. Well, you know, we can't really pass that. We can't. But these are the spirit-filled people with the power of God that gives them discernment. But you couldn't figure out, hmm, I don't know if this is a good thing to have people credentialed who are guilty of sexually abusing children. I know, what a wild concept. It's just crazy. Later in 2019 and in 2021, proposals to more strongly enforce safeguarding, disaffiliating churches or disciplined ministers who neglected safeguards was introduced, but guess what? It fell to advance. So they can't get anything passed. Oh, you got to love denominational structures, don't you? Denominational structures will keep you protected. Denominational structures will keep you accountable. That's why people always clap. These independent churches are just out of control. You need a denominational structure. A denominational structure that cannot even pass safeguards to protect children from being sexually molested? Yeah, I'm so glad for those denominational structures made up of men of God who have the spirit that gives them discernment. No, it's made up of the same vile sinners that make up independent churches. That's why you have denominational corruption, you have independent church corruption, because everyone in church is corrupt, including me, who speaks on this podcast. We're all corrupt, vile sinners. The Assemblies of God leadership responded by video by saying, one instance of abuse is too many, asserting they have zero tolerance policy, but victims say the structure and culture have prevented meaningful oversight and protection. Now let's contrast the doctrinal claims with the realities undercovered in these recent investigations. And you can go read all of the NBC investigation. I think they've done two or three parts on this. And it's disturbing. And it's not the first time. I don't know how many different times investigations have to be done, articles have to be written about all of the abuse within the Christian community, within churches. And it's like, the churches are like, who cares? We're upset about a book in a library. Ban the books in the library. Protect the children. All children need to go to church where they can be molested. Man. Talk about wanting to point our fingers at everyone else and condemn everyone else and we cannot see even the sexual abuse that happens within Christianity? What, we claim to be having power and we don't get mad about it? Decades of sexual abuse committed by supposedly spirit-baptized pastors and leaders, men who preached that they had received divine power for life and holiness. Institutional failure to act consistently with moral discernment, leaders who should have been supposedly spirit-filled, they displayed cover-up, restoration of abusers, and institutional self-protection. Moral powerlessness, not empowerment, is what emerged from the data. Lust, being a predator, fear of man, and bureaucratic deflection. That's what we see. Not power, but we saw powerlessness. We saw people being predators. Fear, bureaucratic deflection, protect the denomination at all costs. See, if this claim was literally true, if spirit baptism imparts power for life and service, the presence of decades of such depravity within a spirit-baptized fellowship would demand at the very minimum explanation and at the very most make you say, maybe your claims are just absolute garbage and you don't have any stinking power that you claim to have. I get so tired of these claims of power. If you claim power, you can quantify it, you can qualify it, you can measure it, you can see it. That's why I constantly try to tell people with Symbolism of God, you claim to have more power than I have. Well, then just don't argue with me. Don't sit here and argue with me. Prove it. Be perfect. And if you can't, shut up. I get so tired of it. Any of these claims of power that Christians make, don't argue, just go prove it. Just be perfect. And if you can't be perfect, then what power do you have that I don't have? Because I can be just as imperfect as you. Are you just less than perfect than me? Are we now quantifying it by how less imperfect one is? Or is it only measured by what sin one commits? I don't know. Sexually molesting children, I think is pretty serious. Oh, but well, I know what you're gonna say. Well, they weren't saved. Oh, well, that's always the ace up your sleeve, right? Someone does something bad, they're not saved. We would have been sitting there going, David is not saved. Solomon is not saved. We would just go through the entire Bible. That person's not saved. Because as soon as you do something bad, well, you're done. You're done. You're done. Because we don't have a way in our theology in most churches to explain, why do people keep sinning? Because they're still sinners, and they still have a depraved nature, and that has not gone until glorification. And I'm sorry for screaming, but I get tired of this. So here's the claim. Spirit baptism grants supernatural power for holy living. That's the claim. Spirit baptism grants supernatural power for holy living. Here's the reality. Leaders and members commit long-term repeated moral abuse. The supposed power does not correspond to observable holiness. Claims spirit-baptized believers possess heightened discernment. Reality, many failed to recognize or report evil and even reinstated abusers. The claim spiritual discernment is empirically unverified and in most cases proven not to be true. Christians constantly claim they have some supernatural discernment. and then they say some of the dumbest things in the history of mankind. Oh, that's your spiritual discernment? Wow, okay, well, thank you, but no thank you. The claim is that spirit baptism is a distinct and subsequent work of grace. But the reality is, it's the same sin appears as in any human institution. The experience produces no demonstrable distinction. The claim is that spirit-filled ministry should overflow with love for God and the lost, but the reality is survivors report indifference, silencing, and institutionalized self-protection. The fruit contradicts their profession. And I want to make this very clear. This is not simply a moral contradiction. This is not even a moral failure. This is a doctrinal falsification by reality. Reality falsifies their doctrine. Reality calls it into question. And the assemblies of God have got multiple issues here. Their claim of power, and then their nonsense about healing is guaranteed in the atonement, and if you'll just pray, God will heal you. Just stop it! This is why everything associated with the charismatic theology is pure trash. It's garbage. I can't stand any of it. But this power thing left the charismatic world and infiltrated all of Christianity. They've been infected with this virus. We've got power. We've got power. As they sin, sin, sin, sin. And they can never seem to go, well, wait a minute. If I've got power, why can I not be perfect? Hmm. Something's wrong with my claim. Now, the Assemblies of God builds their entire pneumatology, their entire belief about the Holy Spirit, largely from the Book of Acts, especially Acts 1-8, Acts 2-4, and Acts 10-44-46. They will interpret, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you as a repeatable post-conversion empowerment. So they see what's in Acts and say, this is repeatable and it's for everyone and this happens after conversion and you get power. However, if you look at Acts 1.8, it seems to be describing apostolic empowerment for witness, not for moral transformation. It is tied to the unique apostolic mission to bear witness to the resurrection from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Nothing about a moral transformation. Nowhere in Scripture is the baptism of the Spirit presented as a guaranteeing holiness or a moral victory. Instead, moral life is a fruit of sanctification and an ongoing struggle with sin, as you see in Romans 7 and Galatians 5. The New Testament repeatedly warns of Spirit-gifted people falling into grave sin, 1 Corinthians, 2 Peter, spiritual gifts, and supernatural experiences never, never, never eradicate depravity. Depravity is not eradicated. I don't care how many times you speak in tongues, how many times you fall on the floor and bark like a dog, I don't care how many visions you supposedly have, I don't care how many supposed miracles you saw, you still are a stinking depraved sinner like everyone else. That's the reality for all of us. Within the assemblies of God hermeneutic, they seem to confuse charismatic gifting with moral transformation, which creates the illusion of divine power when depravity You're not going to like this, Christians, but depravity reigns. Don't tell me depravity doesn't reign. It still reigns. Why? You can't be perfect. If you can't be perfect, what's keeping you from perfection? Whatever is keeping you from perfection is the reigning power. Depravity still reigns, or you would be perfect. And since you can't be perfect, that's the controlling, dominating power. I said, but I've got the power of the Holy Spirit. And clearly, whatever power the Holy Spirit gives you is not strong enough to get you to perfection. And if you're going to argue with me, then just be perfect. You don't need to win a theological debate. Just go be perfect. Everyone will see that you're perfect in thought, word, and deed by what you do and by what you don't do. And then ultimately, everyone will follow you because, well, there hasn't been anyone else on this planet perfect since Jesus Christ. If we interpret the Assemblies of God doctrine literally, we can frame the tension kind of like this. Those baptized in the Holy Spirit receive supernatural power for holy life and ministry. Assemblies of God pastors and leaders have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, assemblies of God pastors and leaders should manifest supernatural holiness and moral victory. That's what should happen. If we take it literally, that's what should happen. But the premise collapses in light of reality, revealing one of basically three possibilities. The claim itself is false. Spirit baptism does not produce moral power. Two, the claimed experience is psychological or culturally constructed rather than supernaturally real. And it's not supernaturally real. You're out of your ever-living minds. Or I guess we could say the assemblies of God misidentifies or misdefines power in a way that's inconsistent with scripture. And I think most Christians misdefine power as it's identified in scripture. They don't understand what the power actually is. They want this idea that I was once weak, but now I'm strong. I can do, you know, everything. And yet, they fail and fail and fail. And this is why so many people have walked through the front door of the church, left the back door broken, disillusioned, discouraged, and saying Christianity is trash, it doesn't work. Because you were promised power that you never ever actually had. But you tried to convince yourself until the walls came tumbling down. While many people can live inside that church in delusion, thinking that they have this power, when you know them, you're like, How do your mind? From a law gospel, and what I'll call a realist perspective, which I tend to be, I tend to be, let's call me a realist Christian, okay? I'm a Christian who believes in reality, all right? From a law gospel, this is simple. The law exposes human sin, even among the spirit baptized. No experience eliminates the sinful nature. That's just a reality. The law is going to be there to expose every single day the most Spirit-filled person, the most Spirit-baptized person, the person who spoke in tongues 65,000 times. No matter your experience, none of them eliminates the sinful nature. And the law exposes that every single time you open your Bible and you read it, you see a standard which you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever meet. The true power of God is the gospel. the imputed righteousness of Christ. It does not infuse moral ability. It imputes righteousness to your account. It does not infuse moral ability. It imputes the righteousness of Christ to your account. It does not infuse moral ability. It imputes the righteousness of Christ to your account. And when the church will someday wake up and figure that out, What the Assemblies of God attributes to a post-conversion experience should properly be attributed to the Spirit's universal work in bringing faith and sustaining believers through the Word, not in producing flawless institutions or leaders, because it doesn't do that. The Assemblies of God is not uniquely corrupt. The contradiction simply exposes a universal truth. I want to make this very clear. because I wanted that in my notes, because I am not trying to say the Assemblies of God is uniquely corrupt. Now, I think their theology is uniquely corrupt, because charismatic theology is just corrupt. But the institution itself is not any more uniquely corrupt than any other of the institutions. Church, every denomination has scandal, splits, fights, deception, greed, immorality, sexual abuse, sexual scandal. You name the denomination, name the group, they're always, it shows up everywhere. So they're not uniquely corrupt in that way. And the reason they're not uniquely corrupt because every Christian, every church, anywhere there are Christians, there's corruption because we're all corrupt. But it exposes a universal truth. No claim of spiritual empowerment can erase human depravity. I don't care how much power you claim to have. I don't care how much power your church yells and screams about. You are just a depraved sinner. You were a depraved sinner. You put your faith in Christ. You're now a forgiven depraved sinner, where the imputed righteousness of Christ declares you to be perfect, even though you in practice are still the same depraved sinner. I gotta stop hitting the table after every single word. Power, even when called spiritual, is never self-verifying. All the power, we never truly verify it. So this crisis should not lead to this triumphant form of Christianity, but it should lead us to humility. We should recognize that sin remains in every single pulpit, it remains in every single theological system, and it remains in every single heart, because that is what we are, our sinners, and we are saved by grace, by an imputed righteousness, not an infused power. And I have to say this, I have to say this. We are living in an age when church-going Christians turn their full force towards the culture wars. Scrambling to ban books, shut down drag queen reading hours, restrict music or shows, castigate library story times. The banner is protect the children. And yes, Protecting children from evil is a good thing. I'm not saying it isn't, but here is the hard truth. The data shows that one of the highest risk zones for children's sexual abuse is inside religious institutions, within trusted adult-child relationships, in the church, under the roof of the fellowship. If we fail to address the far greater risk we have inside the church by leaders, by ministry staff, by members, we are being irresponsible. The power we claim to wield hasn't protected the most vulnerable. And that contradiction lies at the heart of this entire episode. We've got power, but we can't even protect children from being molested inside churches by religious leaders. But we've got power! Decades of sexual abuse of children. Decades. Decades. While we run around, power, I got power, we have power, we have power, we have power. Oh, and we run around and also make all kinds of claims that God will protect you and God will do this and God will do this. But yet God can't seem to protect children from being molested by church leaders. So we make wild claims that reality throws in our face over and over and over again. Every single one of us, that includes me, is a corrupt, weak, broken, vile sinner. My sin may not manifest in the same way as it does in others, but it's there in thought, in word, in desire, in deed. And until the church sees our own corruption, I don't know why we're running around pointing our fingers at everybody else. Look in the stinking mirror. and stop this delusional idea that you have been infused with some kind of power. You've been saved by an imputed righteousness that's accredited to your account. It does not make you righteous. It simply declares you to be what you are never going to be in this life. Now, I would challenge you, you can go to the Roy's report, Go to julieroys.com, I think I said roys.com, julieroys.com, and you will see it was posted on November the 4th, 2025 at 6.48 PM. Report outlines decades of sexual abuse and assemblies of God denomination. I don't know if they have a link to the NBC report. Hang on, I think they do. Yes, and here is the NBC report. It's a part of their series, Pastors and Prey, not P-R-A-Y, but P-R-E-Y, Pastors and Prey. And then NBC News uncovered 50 year pattern of sex abuse, silence and coverup in the world's largest Pentecostal denomination. And their series, Pastors and Pray, NBC News investigates abuse allegations in the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal denomination. What I will do in this episode and the show notes, I will put a link to Pastors and Pray, and you can read the entire investigative report about the sexual abuse. Do not see it as simply, oh, the Assemblies of God are bad. I'm so good, I'm glad my denomination is good. No, it demonstrates that the claim of power by all of us is fraudulent, and that sin is in everyone, and that the church of all denominations needs to stop pointing the finger and look at their stinking selves, including me! But we have to face it, and I know your defense mechanism is, they're not saved, they're not saved. You gotta stop just anytime someone commits a sin, they're not saved, to try to protect your fraudulent, whacked-out theology. Your theology should be, we're all sinners and their sin is evidence of that. And your sin is evidence of that. And my sin is evidence. My sin is not the sin laid out in this investigative report, right? I've not committed those sins, but I've got my own share of sins just as you do. The power is the gospel, and that power is that the eternal Son of God died to forgive us of all of our sins and then save us, not by making us good people, but by saving bad people, by imputing righteousness to my account, so I stand before God as perfect, holy, righteous, a new creation. Old things have been passed away in my position, while at the same time, in my practice, I'm the same depraved sinner. Now, hopefully, because I now believe in Christ, I've changed my mind about God and about sin, that I will pursue righteousness, but I'm still pursuing righteousness as a depraved sinner, meaning I have to repent of my repentance. I have to repent of my good works because everything I do is still corrupted. And that's historical Christianity. It goes back to Luther. All right. I don't know what else to say. I wish I could say something dramatic, say something profound, but I have nothing profound to say other than, yes, I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, and we have to acknowledge that. Thanks for listening. God bless.