You go down the list, you also have Saved by Works and Watered Baptism, which would mainly be the Campbellites, the Church of Christ, Restoration Movement. As I say, our attitude toward Churches of Christ generally is in response to those who have been aggressively denunciatory of us. And we don't go out here just picking on Churches of Christ per se. If they attack us, if they come toward us, then we respond. Now, I guess what we better do then is, since the doctrines of the Church of Christ obviously fulfill your standard or definition of what a cult is, we probably better go to that at this point, because you have said that you agree with parts of the dictionary definition, but obviously there's more to it. What is your definition of a cult? Brother Larry here is holding up a little definition. I copied this from Larson's book. As you may recall, Mr. Bennett, who was representative of the Church of Christ, in one of our TV debates, he mentioned Larson's book, and he said, Larson didn't mention Churches of Christ in this book, so I got the impression that because Larson didn't mention them, Mr. Bennett was saying Larson doesn't regard them as a cult. But at the same time, Larson doesn't mention in here the Seventh-day Adventists, which Mr. Bennett thinks they're a cult, and he doesn't mention Roman Catholicism, and Bennett thinks they're a cult. And of course he doesn't mention Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians, and Bennett thinks that they are cults. So it did very little weight for him to say that Larson didn't mention them in the book, and so therefore they weren't a cult. Now, there's a book written by Bob Larson on the book of cults, page 19, and he said that there are two factors used in the evaluation of a group that is a cult. Now, these are the two points that he makes. Number one, if it ignores or purposely omits apostolic doctrines. Number two, if it holds to beliefs that are distinctly opposed to orthodox Christianity. But if you notice here, I have, this is from Lawrence in page 31, chapter 4, a Christian perspective on cults, and he has two contingent factors which evaluate whether a group is culted. Number one, if they ignore or purposely omit central apostolic doctrines. So these are ignored or omitted, and I think he could have added in there they are restorative, perverted. Then he goes on with number two in his definition, if they hold to beliefs which are distinctively opposite to the orthodox Christianity." Now, beliefs which are distinctively opposite to orthodox Christianity. Now, on this point, I personally, when I look at a religious group or a religious teacher or a religious book, My first question is, what is the doctrine that is being taught under this theme of the gospel? What is their gospel? What message do they bring to men that explains to men the way of salvation? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh under the Father but by me. I say that any message that deviates from Jesus Christ as being the way to God, and it deviates in such a way that it misleads people, that it misdirects people, that it puts something in the way of Christ, or in addition to Christ, or subtracts from Christ. This is a false gospel. You know, Paul talked about someone coming and preaching another gospel, another Jesus, and another spirit. Now, that is possible. Not only is it possible, but it's going on in the world. Another Jesus is being priest. Another gospel is being priest. Now, on this point here, this is the major element, so far as I personally am concerned. Yes. Because if they're wrong on the gospel, then what does it matter if they're right about everything else? Right. And if they're wrong on everything else and right on the gospel, then at least they're right on the major point. of doctrine, of truth, of teaching. So on this point here, when I look at the word cult, and we are taking Larson's definitions, for instance, here on this, I find that, at least in my judgment as I understand the teachings of the Bible, that the belief on the gospel adhered to by the mainline or hardline Church of Christ group, is an error, because on this point they add baptism to the gospel, and from there, of course, they go on to teach the idea that without baptism you're not saved, and then you have to do all these other things. They've got their so-called five acts of worship in the church that you have to do, and you just have to keep going on. And in effect, what they're teaching is what we would regard as salvation by works. In fact, you know what's funny about the Church of Christ is they pretty much spawned a lot of the other cults back in the 1800s in the United States. You've got the Campbellites starting in the Church of Christ, but out of them came Mormonism. Out of them came Jehovah's Witnesses. And so one heresy begets another heresy. Mr. Larry Wessels. Larry? Thank you, Jackson. We're going to just kind of review the debate that has been aired on Dayspring Evangelism Presents and has been seen far and wide. throughout the land, and we're just going to kind of review some of the things that were brought up in the debate and see what we can come to as far as conclusions and things that we noticed we want to just bring out for your benefit. And I'm here with Bob L. Ross, who is one of our debaters, and he's also the head of the Pilgrim Publications in Pasadena, Texas. He's written three books on the subject of the Church of Christ and the Restoration Movement. And I wanted to kind of get right into the debate. We don't have a whole lot of time, so Bob, I'd like to talk about some of the things that came up in the debate. As I talk about it, if people out there are watching this and they're going, what the heck is this guy talking about? What debate? I never saw any debate. Well, if you're interested, it was, in my opinion, a pretty interesting debate. And Dayspring Evangelism has those tapes available if you'd like to call or write for information about getting some. So feel free to do so. And for the moment, though, if you haven't seen it, you're going to hear some things about it. And hopefully that'll heighten your interest and find out more about it. But it all centers on the question, is the Church of Christ a true church or something else. And they talked about the history of the Church of Christ and also is water baptism essential for one's salvation to go to heaven. And one of the first things that I noticed in the debate was Don Bennett, there was two representatives from the other side, Don Bennett and George Williams of Eastside Church of Christ, and I thank them once again, and I'm sure they're watching this right now, for coming and being willing to debate the issues. Maybe some people would have chickened out, but they were brave enough to come on in and defend their position. I want to thank them, and I know that they're sincere, so there's no attack against anybody's personal sincerity or their beliefs, as far as their sincerity and their beliefs. But what we want to talk about now is some things that came up in the debate, and I'm going to ask Bob right now about one of the things that Don Bennett brought up. He was making the argument in a segment on church history about Alexander Campbell being a Baptist. Now, he said it several times throughout the debate. Alexander Campbell was a Baptist, a Baptist, and then you made a point in there that he wasn't a Baptist, and then he changed the issue from, well, you're misrepresenting, I think he said something like, you're misrepresenting what I said, the tape's gonna show it. Well, you know, I reviewed the tape, and the tape showed he said he was a Baptist. Now, let's go over that. I said, during the period, that Alexander was caught up trying to find his way in false doctrine. He was still a Baptist, more Baptist. He's still a Baptist during this period that you're talking about. Barton W. Stone had done a lot more to restoring New Testament Christianity or planting New Testament Christianity on American shores. See? On American shores. That's what they're noted for. Campbell got his act together later, and he preached and refuted many false doctrines, some that he had formerly held. Now, one of these days, maybe you will come to the knowledge of truth. I'm not going to look back at you at your period now. Alexander Campbell was never a bad person. I said member of the Baptist Association. He was never a Baptist. But I said he was aligned to the Baptist Church. He was never a Baptist Church member. Never a Baptist Church member. I did not say, listen, I said that he was in the Baptist Association, that he was more aligned to the Baptist than he was to the Church of Christ. He was never in a Baptist Church. Would you let me? The organization he was with affiliated with the Redstone Baptist Association as an affiliating organization. That's what I said. They were never a Baptist Church. And he was never a member of a Baptist church, although he had been baptized by a Baptist priest. Now, look, I'm going to say something here, OK? And what I want to say is the fact that you misrepresented what I said, because I said that Alexander Cameron, at the point you mentioned in 1811, was associated with the Baptist association. He was not a member of the Church of Christ. He was not a member of the Church of Christ. He was not a member of the Baptist Church because there was no Church of Christ. There was no Church of Christ there. Listen, you misrepresent it again and on the tape it's going to show. Without stretching out too far here and using our time for informing the person who may be watching and doesn't know even the first hand about what we're talking about here, I'm going to have to try to stay a little bit in the context of what we have discussed. Alexander Campbell, we believe, was the man primarily responsible for the religious movement, which has become known today as the Church of Christ, the Christian Church, the Disciples of Christ, the Independent Christian Churches, and several representations of it. And overall, there's a term used for it called the Restoration Movement or the Stone-Campbell Movement. I have a book, just for instance, I brought up here written by Leroy Garrett and it's published by a college press up in Missouri, the College Press Publishing Company, and also it's sold by the Gospel Advocate Company out in Nashville, Tennessee. And this book, The Stone-Campbell Movement. Now generally they call it the Restoration Movement, but Leroy seemed fit to call it the Stone-Campbell Movement, which I think really is a better term to identify it because when you get into restorationism, you've got so many of these so-called restored movements that you gotta say, which one are you talking about? Is that a Church of Christ book? Oh yeah, this is written by Leroy Gary, a Church of Christ man. And of course, he's not what we call a mainline or a hardline Church of Christ. He's been trying to reform them for many years now and had a whole lot of success with it. But it's a good history book. I've enjoyed reading the book. But at any rate, back to Mr. Bennett, He was trying to say, in so many words, that Alexander Campbell at one time was a Baptist, then later became a member of the Church of Christ. But he was right on neither count, actually, because Campbell, whereas he was baptized by a Baptist preacher named Luce, he never was a member, an individual member of a Baptist congregation. He only went to this Baptist preacher to get immersion because as a Presbyterian he'd had sprinkling, infant baptism. So he came to the conclusion that he wanted to be immersed. And obviously there was no Church of Christ around at that time to go to, because there were none. That's a key issue in the whole debate, that there was no Church of Christ before this Alexander Campbell came around and started it. And so Campbell and his father and a few others there went to Matthias Luce, a Baptist preacher, and said, will you have mercies? So, contrary to what was commonly done in Baptist churches at that time, which was to go to the Baptist church building, you know, and probably make a profession of faith there, and then be baptized with a group of people, they went off and were baptized with this Baptist preacher. But they didn't become a member of his particular church. They had already organized their own church. Now, someone is saying, well, I thought you organized the church after baptism. Well, that's the normal way. But the Campbells had organized their brush-run church before they had ever been baptized. Well, another conspicuous inconsistency with this is that at that point in time, the idea that baptism was necessary for salvation was unheard of. They didn't believe it. They didn't teach it. They didn't know it was in the Bible. And then this was only discovered later on in 1823 when he was studying to debate W.L. McCullough, a Presbyterian. He said while he was studying, preparing for that debate, he found out that baptism was necessary for salvation. It was for the remission of sins. Well, that's where he found it out, but then they didn't practice it until four years later when a man named Walter Scott baptized a man for the first time, they say, according to the apostolic pattern. But the Campbells and the others who'd been in this brush-run church didn't get re-baptized or didn't redo it. In other words, they just went right on with what they had. So actually, Campbell was never a Baptist because he never was in a Baptist church. Now, this group that they formed, the brush-run church, they wanted the Presbyterians to accept them. The Presbyterians wouldn't do it. And then so, they went to the Baptists later on, after they were immersed, they asked the Redstone Baptist Association to accept them into their association. Now, if anyone who knows what a Baptist Association is, knows that it's simply a loosely knit affiliation of churches. It's not a hard formulated uh... uh... church of some kind like some big mass of uh... conglomerated churches formed together it's just kind of a an affiliation a fellowship they fellowship with one another and they exchange letters with one another from members and all that well at any rate his church was accepted into the redstone association well As the Baptists learned more and more about this man's heresies, and as he began to come up with weirder and weirder ideas, the Baptists, they said, well, we don't want to have any fellowship with this man. So they planned to have a meeting at the association in which they would publicly withdraw fellowship. Wasn't he already thrown out of the Presbyterians before? Oh, yeah. Well, his father had been censured. OK, that's what it was. But at any rate, they learned that this was going to take place. And so what happened was the Brush Run Church dismissed Alexander Campbell with a few other members, and they went off and formed another church. and called it the Wellsburg Church. But that wasn't a Church of Christ. They didn't call it by the name Church of Christ, and they didn't believe at that particular time what the Church of Christ believe in practice today. So actually, we were strapped for time in that debate, but I kept wanting to ask Mr. Bennett, when did Alexander Campbell ever belong to a Church of Christ? because since he only had one baptism, and that was by a Baptist preacher, and that baptism obviously was unscriptural according to their teachings because at that time it was not for the remission of sins, they didn't believe that at that time, I would like to have asked him, well, when did Alexander Campbell ever get baptism that put him into the church? It sounds like by their own definition, he must have gone to hell. That is what they're shut up to if they use any logic or reason at all about it, because the man never had but one baptism, an immersion. That was by the Baptist preacher in 1800 and what, 11 or 12 it was. And then later on, 1823 and 1827, this so-called restoration of the purpose of baptism came along. And so unless you can say that you can have retroactive faith and do it that way, then it really puts Campbell's salvation. And on top of that, Brother Boyette, he professed conversion back in Scotland before he ever came to America. So he claimed he was a Christian before that baptism. Right. He claimed a conversion experience, as they said in his memoirs, it was such an experience that any Baptist church would have accepted it. Well, obviously this wasn't involving baptism. So you have a clear contradiction here between this claim of these latter-day Camelites that Campbell restored the church and actually what the man really did. I have gobs and gobs of literature that they'll say Campbell obeyed the truth. Campbell was a great gospel preacher. Campbell stood for the faith. Campbell did this. Campbell did that. This magazine, Spiritual Sword, I have one issue of this magazine that they quote Alexander Campbell over 100 times in this magazine, and yet they say, oh, we're not Campbellites. We don't follow Alexander Campbell. I notice they always try to distance themselves from Alexander Campbell, and they disregard the term Campbellite. And yet they say he restored the church, he obeyed the gospel, he did this, he was a giant of the faith, and all of these things. That brings me to the point in the debate. You're bringing these things up from the spiritual sword. Don Bennett is saying, well, our church goes all the way back to the first century of Acts 2, you know, Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost. And you are saying, well, wait a minute. All your brethren from the Church of Christ, or a lot of them, say that we restored it. And he was, at that time, associated with the Baptists and trying to reform the Baptists. He was not a member of the Church of Christ. First of all, let me refer you to this. Since you mentioned a while ago a statement you said before we went on that you didn't care about Alexander Campbell, here's what the Spiritual Sword magazine says, and this again, And the reason I'm referring to this magazine is there is a strong movement or representation of the Church of Christ here in Austin that associates with this magazine. Mr. Jackson, who is a minister here, of the Southwest Church of Christ is a writer and a consistent speaker at the lectureship sponsored by these brethren out of Memphis, Mr. Bill Jackson. He writes for this magazine, he speaks at their lectureship, and I'm quoting from this magazine of October 1976, page 29. Men now living are in the debt of Alexander Campbell. for having written and preached so faithfully these marvelous truths." And he goes on to explain that what Campbell and his brethren did was to restore this church that had gone out of existence into apostasy. Now, you said you didn't care about Alexander Campbell. That's fine. But you see, there are other representative Church of Christ men, like Mr. Jackson's brethren here at Spiritual Sword. They have more regard for Mr. Campbell than you seem to have. Can I respond to that? Yes, if you say, I said during the period that Alexander was caught up trying to find his way in false doctrine, he was still a Baptist, more Baptist, he's still a Baptist during this period that you're talking about. Are you saying then that the Are you saying that the assertions by these people that the Church of Christ would be restored by the Campbells and his friends, that that's untrue? That's what I think. Campbell did not restore the Church of Christ. God bless you. That's right. Campbell did not restore the Church of Christ. The Bible says it's everlasting in kingdom. Brother Larry, as we've discussed this, you know, when I came up here, I had done a little preliminary questioning about which group of the Churches of Christ did Mr. Bennett and Mr. Williams affiliate with, because there are many divisions within the Churches of Christ. You know that. They're divided over whether or not to support orphan homes out of the church treasury, whether or not to support the Herald of Truth radio and television ministry, whether or not you can have divided classes for Sunday schools, and all kinds of divisions. I could go on here and name them. They're one of the most divided religious groups in America, yet they're all claiming to be that we're the one and only Church of Christ. So I said, as you remember, when you first contacted me, I said, well, which category are they with? And you didn't know at that time exactly what I was talking about. I had to explain to you that they're all split up. Well, you said that you thought that they were in fellowship somewhat with, at least we got around to this, with this Mr. Jackson. Bill Jackson of Southwest Church of Christ. And as it turns out, Mr. Jackson wrote them a letter commending them for participating. I have that letter right here. I can probably read it later. And so I said, OK. I said, OK, these guys are spiritual swordsmen. They're in with Jackson, and Warren, and Elkins, and Deaver, and those kind of men. I said, there were the Spiritual Sword Magazine Churches of Christ. So I brought over some spiritual swords, which were teaching that Campbell restored the church after it apostatized, and so on. Well, I get up here and I present my material, and now Mr. Bennett and Mr. Williams, they come up, And as you recall, I went over and shook hands with them. They said they did not believe that the church apostatized. They believed that the church was always in existence and they did not believe this doctrine of the spiritual sword of Warren and Elkins and Deaver and Jackson. where they say that the church apostatized after the early apostolic days, they say, we don't believe that. Is that as bad as having musical instruments? Well, all I know is that these fellows are making liars out of these. So one of these Church of Christ groups, according to the way the debate went, is not telling us the truth. Right. I mean, these men over here are telling us that Alexander Campbell and his brethren They call them the restorers. People like the Bill Jackson of the Southwest Church of Christ? They're telling us that these men, the Campbells, etc., that they restored the church. And now these men, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Williams, whom Jackson commended for the debate, They come along here and they say, no, we don't believe that the church apostatized. We don't believe it was restored by these men that you're talking about here. He said, we believe there was a church all along. You remember Mr. Williams or Mr. Bennett? He said, well, that was before Alexander Campbell became a member of the Church of Christ. See, like he was a Baptist and then he repudiated that and went over and joined the Church of Christ. Well, as I said, I'd like to have asked him, well, when and where did Alexander Campbell ever find church of Christ to join or to unite himself with or to be baptized into. But now what we have here then is two distinct divisions of doctrine about the doctrine of the restoration of the church. Bennett and Williams say the church did not apostatize. The spiritual sword group, which includes Mr. Jackson here in Austin because he's one of their constant writers and constant speakers. By that I mean he's one of the, oh I don't know, four or five dozen or so men that they constantly use in their magazine and in their lectures. He's on television a lot here also. Right. Well, he's with the spiritual sword doctrine. If we can pinpoint problems and contradictions in what they're saying here, then what's to prevent us from questioning other things that they say in their specific television shows. Well, I don't want to take away the credit that I gave to Mr. Williams and Mr. Bennett on the program because I complimented them, as you recall, on the fact that they repudiated this restoration theory as taught by the spiritual sword people such as Warren and Elkins and Mr. Jackson and Deaver. They repudiated that and I still, I don't want to take that away from them because I believe that Mr. Bennett and Mr. Williams are far closer to the truth on this than Mr. Jackson and his compatriots or whatever they are. But could that difference cost one of the other groups their salvation and their view? That's up to them to decide. Fortunately, I don't have to make that decision for them as to which one's going to make it to heaven based on that particular doctrine. But I think, honestly, I think Mr. Williams and Mr. Bennett saw the fallacy. of this theory. And obviously they said, well we don't believe that. And I'm going to give them credit for having that much sense to, or that much, not sense as such, but that much understanding. of what is obvious. I mean, it's obvious that Campbell and them could not restore the Church of Christ in view of the fact that all they ever had was baptism, and that was without any understanding of baptismal remission of sins. I mean, how could a man even be saved? That's the point. And obviously, I think Williams and Bennett understood that. And so they just pulled away from it. They weren't obligated to defend the Spiritual Sword magazine, but as I say, that's how I came to expect them. I expected them to teach that, but fortunately, I came into something that turned out better than I had anticipated on that particular point. Now, it's up to them to resolve it among themselves, you know, whether or not they're in good standing or not with the so-called Church of Christ. But, and now, so far as Mr. Bennett's effort was concerned in the debate, I'm satisfied that Don was just expressing what he had exposed himself to in the past with regard to Church of Christ history. And I'm satisfied, based on what he said in the debate, that he has studied some history, but he has studied it, maybe authors who wrote it in a superficial way, or maybe he studied it superficially without really logically thinking through the consequences of it. In other words, you can read a history book or even hear history taught and not necessarily think in terms of, well, what does this imply? And I don't know, but what Don maybe had not really put it to that kind of a test. But I have, through the years, my contact with Church of Christ preachers, and I'm not saying this to boast, and I don't know if they're telling the truth, but I've had many Church of Christ preachers just frankly tell me, that they cannot discuss the subject because they don't have enough knowledge of it to discuss it. And they said, frankly, I have not read enough of our history to be able to discuss it with me. And they say, you, Mr. Ross, know far more about it than I do. I understand you were asked by some Church of Christ people to maybe represent them once. Well, there was an occasion once where a group of benevolent Church of Christ, their point of doctrine was, do you support benevolent work out of the church treasury? and they have those who are against it they call antis, and they have those who are for it that they call liberals. Of course, one side calls the other by those names. And so the group that was called liberals, they came to me and wanted to know if I would meet one of the antis in a public debate and represent their position, favoring the support of Orphan Homes as a church treasury. Of course, I was flattered by the fact that here's Church of Christ people wanting me to deal with this. But I said, frankly, I would feel uncomfortable representing your views, and I think you'd probably feel uncomfortable sponsoring me as a Baptist preacher. They said, oh, well, now, we weren't talking about sponsoring you. We just wanted you to challenge the antis. So evidently, they had confidence that I could undo the arguments of the antis, but they didn't want to be associated with me. Now this brings me, there was another thing mentioned by Don Bennett in passing. He said something about being a Calvinist, I don't, you know, and they don't like the word Campbellite, but am I to understand, I don't know, there's some rumors or something that there's maybe a Calvinistic movement in the churches of Christ. Do you know anything about this? Well, yes there is, as a matter of fact. In fact, I mentioned some preachers that came up to me after a debate one time. Both of those men were Calvinists. They believed in the eternal security of the believer, and they believed in other points of Calvinist doctrine. And when I say Calvinist, I'm using it in the classical theological sense, as it's used in theology. Not that we believe that John Calvin started this teaching, but it did, after a while, take on this for identity's sake in contradiction to what's called Arminianism. Well, and then there's a book out which the Camelots themselves wrote refuting Calvinism called Neo-Calvinism in the Church of Christ. So they themselves are keeping a watchdog look after this because they're discerning the traces of Calvinism. Now I have in my hand here a paper just to give you an illustration. Here's a paper called Enzyme. R.L. Kilpatrick out of Huntsville, Alabama is the editor of it. And here's the Calvinist principle they're committed to. He says, this magazine is further dedicated to the renewal of the teaching of justification by faith. and the imputed righteousness of Christ as the basis of our standing before God. Now that's pure and simple Calvinist doctrinism. And then on the inside here, we have a testimony of a man named Jim Gregory from California. And he's telling about his conversion. And let me read you just a few excerpts here. He says, at that time, in 1985, I realized I had serious doubts about the salvation of my soul. And let me just say this, that he had been raised in the Church of Christ, he said. His uncle had been an elder for 20 years. And he'd spent many hours in attending church, et cetera. But he says, I had doubts about salvation. He said, now I can accept the fact that this was the case during all my Christian walk up until that time. Not only this, I came to know this was also true of nearly all members of the Church of Christ. They had doubts about their salvation. Why? Why would members of Christ Restored Church have doubts about the security of their salvation? Well, the answer finally came, our lack of understanding or really even knowing about the workings of God's grace. I was amazed. I was shocked. Baptism was not that which saved, and doing good works, living a Christian life, was not what kept one saved. Oh, no. Only God, through the power of His grace, could do that. God's saving grace, the security of salvation, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now, all these are Calvinist principles, see? And this is a Church of Christ man telling this. This is a Church of Christ magazine. Now, of course, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Williams and Mr. Bennett, they say, oh, this man is apostate. But now, who are they to make these judgments? That's a good point. According to me, this man's closer to the truth than they are. This is some of the Calvinism that's just coming out, and I don't know the source of all of it. I hope that my book is having some contribution to make, because I've had many testimonies from people who have read my book. And in this very magazine, for instance, not long ago, I was telling Brother uh... boy ed about this i saw the name of a man in there that i had debated twenty-something years ago in georgia i called this editor up i said hey is that the same man i debated in georgia twenty-something years ago i said is he had some kind of change he said you wouldn't believe what kind of change this man is having and here was a man that i debated i thought well praise the lord maybe something i said got through to him and that's just one man uh... i debated in uh... I think I've told this before, but Ashland, Kentucky one time, and the Church of Christ had converted the holiest preacher in that town. After hearing the debate, he renounced cannibalism and gave it up. I have a question about the debate situation briefly, if you could. There's correspondence going, has been going, by the time this tape shows, you know, this could all be past history, so I want this tape to be sort of timeless, but you've been having correspondence with Bill Jackson of Southwest Church of Christ. Yes, and at this point in time, I wrote Brother Jackson a letter yesterday. Now this is being broadcast on the next day, and I told him, or the tapes being made, I told him, I said, I'm going to be in Austin this week. And the man has been just diverting. he'll go from one thing to another. Even one of the original propositions that he proposed that we debate was a proposition on the remission of sins through baptism. Baptism was for, in order to obtain the remission of sins. Well, now in recent correspondence, he's withdrawn that proposition. Well now, I just frankly told him. I said, now look, we either debate the original four propositions we agreed upon, and we do it in a neutral building, And we have no restrictions on the use of literature. Of course, I meant by that the restrictions that we don't pass it out during the speeches, of course. But we have no restrictions in the sense that we can use literature without a man telling me how much I can use or where I can put it out or when I can put it out. He's wanting to tell me, for instance, that I can't put literature out except at a certain time at a certain place or something to this effect. He's wanting restrictions about that. Well, I said now you either, we either debate the original four propositions, and we do it in a neutral place, and we have no restrictions on use of literature, or you can forget it. I mean, I'm not going to go on continually corresponding with this man and meeting these changes that come up from time to time. First of all, he started out, he wanted a four-night debate. Now he's got it down to three nights in the last letter I had. And he's cut out one of the propositions. And then he wanted me to debate something on the Baptist point of view. What he wants to do, he wants us to get in there and start defending something that's Baptist, so that can get him off the hook on the doctrines that we've got him pinned down on, on the Camelot Church. He wants to jump on us with a lot of these old arguments against eternal security and the Baptist this and the Baptist that. I've debated them on those things before, but in his case here, brother, we've got him on the spot here. We've got him exposed on television here on their history. We've got their baptism put out here for everyone to see and see the invalidity of Campbell's baptism. And we don't want to let him off the hook by him coming up here clawing at us. You know, I've got a file here I keep in my cults file, but I entitled this file, Church of Christ's Encounters of a Third Kind. And it's just filled with letters. from the Southwest Church of Christ, the East Side, and all these other Church of Christ guys. Correspondence and letters going back and forth and relating to all this information and stuff we've been talking about on this show. And I just wanted to mention that he had originally challenged us and called, talked to Jackson, sent a letter to Jackson. Jackson, you talked to him on the phone. We invited him to come and debate you and Dr. Morey. He is very mad at Dr. Morey's presentation. Yeah, on this TV program. Right, on this television program. He wouldn't accept them. He would not accept. I sent him a follow-up letter, which he, I believe, misrepresented on his TV show. But anyway, if anyone wants copies of these letters, I'll be glad to provide them. But he sent a letter to George Williams, and here's what he said. And then as he goes on, as I mentioned over the phone, we challenge these for a public debate and we'll continually press for such. And he goes on, but the key is... We offered him twice to come on the TV and meet the people he was opposed to, and he wouldn't do it. And see, I'm getting tired of the man. I mean, you can drag on and on and on with these fellows through letters, and he just keeps changing things. He keeps talking about this and talking about that. In other words, he just keeps beating around the bush, and I'm getting tired of it. So I just told him. I said, now look. You take it or leave it. I'm not going to continue wrangling with you through letters. That can go on forever. The key is you're willing to debate, but you're just tired of all... I accepted the man's propositions when he first sent them, the two he sent. I signed my name that I would negate those two propositions. And then I sent him two. that I would affirm. Well, he objected to one of them, so I changed it to suit him, and I signed it. Now, we had four propositions. Now he comes back, he starts trimming on those, he starts grappling about having to get a public place or a neutral place for the debate. He's wanting it in his church building. So he can have the comfort of all these Camelots that are gonna be there. He acts to me like he's afraid to get out in a neutral place so that other outsiders can come in to the debate. But of course I've debated them in their church buildings before. I'd just rather be out in a public place so the other people feel like they're not coming to a place that's identified with a particular group that's involved in a debate. But the point is a man is hedging. He's hedging. You're suggesting perhaps he's looking for a way out. Well, if the man wants a way out, I've given it to him because I've told him I wasn't going to wrangle with him anymore. He either debates the full propositions, debates in a neutral building, and has no restrictions on the use of literature that are decent and orderly. I'm not talking about any kind of indecent use of literature. I'm just talking about making literature available for people to pick up. But he's got this idea, oh, well, if you put literature out there, they'll pick it up and bring it in and be reading it while you're talking. Well, if I can't hold their attention by talking, let them have the literature to read. I mean, I don't want to put them to sleep. I'd rather have them read in the literature than me putting them to sleep if I can't hold their attention But I never have personally I never have been unable to hold their attention in debates And I don't worry about them reading literature while I'm debating. I'd like to ask Dr. Ross about a word that George Williams brought up during the debate and And the word, I believe, as he pronounced it was sh-neg-la-shay. I might have mispronounced that a little bit. I'm trying to remember what exactly I said, but I think it was sh-neg-la-shay or something like that. Isn't belief in the Bible sometimes used as a sh-neg-la-shay? You may be pronouncing it wrong, but I'm not aware of that word. You aren't? No. Sh-neg-la-shay. It is a word, a word that is used to represent... No, no, no, it's a negligee. You can get any grammar book and look it up, and it stands, it is a word that stands for the total process. And I can show you how belief is used in the New Testament in that sense. What is your theological interpretation of this word, the vocabulary definition? Jackson had a dictionary on one of our earlier shows. Well, Brother Morris said something about that being something somebody, maybe a camel out wore to bed. But in all seriousness, I'd have to have Brother Williams to spell that word so I could look it up in the dictionary because I'm not really familiar with what he was trying to say there concerning that word. He assured us that he was using a legitimate English word that had meaning and perhaps he was because I'm not the best educated person in the world, but I'd have to have it spelled out for me. But at any rate, the context in which he used it didn't prove anything for his case because he was trying to prove, I think, that it was a collective term, the word faith. was a collective term that would refer to everything. And he used some passage, I believe in Acts, where he talked about the faith. And of course, there is a sense in which the word the faith can refer to the body of Christian truth. But when it says, he that believeth on him is not condemned, it's not talking about he that believeth the whole body of Christian truth. He's not condemned. He's talking there about the initial conversion experience of believing in Jesus Christ for salvation. God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son. Who's ever believeth in him? He's not talking about believing everything there is in the Bible from cover to cover. If I had to believe that was essential to salvation, then I'd have to start in Genesis 1 and go all the way to Revelation 22 before I was ever saved if I had to believe the whole faith and hope there was no misprints. Right, because the atom of faith that we believe is from Genesis to Revelation. You hear sometimes people say, well, I just believe the Bible, all the Bible, nothing but the Bible. Well, now, actually, all you believe about the Bible is what you understand, what you know. And I don't know anyone, never met anyone that knew everything in the Bible. So there's nobody can say, I believe all the Bible. And we can say, theoretically, oh, yes, I believe the Bible's the word of God. And I believe all of it. But in practical life, the only thing we believe that's in the Bible is what we've actually read and understood. Now, that's not saying that neo-orthodoxy is true, which says it's not the Word of God until you accept it as the Word of God. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that we only actually believe what we know. This reminds me of what Williams had said again and again, not only in the debate, but in his other shows, where he held his Bible up and he said, we just believe this book. And if you just believe the Bible, believe what the Bible says about water baptism, believe Acts 2.38, and of course everyone in the debate believe the Bible, but then he makes it a point like you are at odds with the Bible. He takes something like Acts 2.38, but then if I were a Jehovah's Witness, I could say to him, I'm a Jehovah's Witness, I believe the Bible, and I say you need to believe Colossians 1.15 that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation, and he's not God, he's a created being. Now, of course, I believe Mr. Williams would reject that argument from the Jehovah's Witness, but here's the same line of reasoning. Just quoting a verse and forcing your interpretation into it and then implying that someone that doesn't accept your interpretation of that verse doesn't believe the Bible. Well, you know, their statement to the effect that we just believe the Bible actually What that is saying to you and to me is, from their standpoint, is you don't believe the Bible. We believe the Bible, but you don't believe the Bible. They're like the party at the Church of Corinth. Well, it's an insult. Yeah, they're like the party in the Church of Corinth that said, I am Christ. It's an insult for them to say, well, we just believe the Bible. You don't believe the Bible. You believe other things, et cetera. Let me make a point here about confessions of faith. I can take any Baptist confession of faith, and I can take that confession of faith, and I can open it up, and I can read it, and I can show that there's nothing taught in that confession of faith, but what the writers of that confession understand to be the teaching of the Bible. In other words, this is not something different from the Bible. It's just a summary in the form of brief statements on certain doctrines. Now, Church of Christ say, well, we ought not to have that. Is it authoritative? Is it binding, etc.? You can go into a Church of Christ church. They'll have a track rack over there. They'll have a bunch of articles. In other words, individually, they're going to tell you about this doctrine and that doctrine and another doctrine. It's no more different. I mean, there's no difference between this and a confession or a statement of faith put out by a Baptist. Well, they say, oh, well, your statement of faith is binding. Well, now, isn't there a track binding? You're going to tell me they've got a track up there on Acts 238 teaching what they believe, and they're going to tell you that track is not binding if they're teaching the Word of God? The Word of God is binding wherever you find it. And if the confession of faith has the Word of God, sure it's binding. If your gospel track has the Word of God, sure it's binding. But they try to make these little dodges to cover up their shenanigans about we don't have creeds, we don't have confessions, we don't have this, that, and the other. Actually, anything you believe, whether you write it, speak it, or think it, it's a creed. Whatever you believe, that's your creed. If you don't have a creed, then you don't believe anything. And your creed is What? Infidelity, I guess. That reminds me of the point you brought up in a debate about holding up a book by Alexander Campbell called Christianity Restored, and then you wrote over the top of it Campbellite Creed and Doctrine. Now, I challenge you, if you want to talk about challenges, to take this book and to show me one thing in this book taught by Alexander Campbell that you do not believe and practice. If it's in this book, If it's in this book, and Alexander... Wait a minute, wait a minute. If it's in that book, and it's in this book, I'll agree. Are you saying that this book and that book are the same? No, no, no, no. Now you know what I'm saying. But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I'm telling you that your interpretation even on the word for in Acts 2.38, Alexander Campbell claims in this book that he was the first man on this continent to ever assert that baptism was in order to the remission of sins, and I have the book right here in which he made the statement, the Campbell-McCauley debate. Now that's his claim. You are asserting his interpretations of that book, and those interpretations are in this book. The Spiritual Sword magazine, I showed you that they said it was an encyclopedia of Bible doctrine. Well, if it's teaching Bible doctrine, it's Bible doctrine. But that's no different than a Baptist confession or a statement of faith. And I can take any Baptist statement of faith and show you chapter by chapter, line upon line, and they give you proof text in the Bible, showing you the teaching, and substantiate the doctrine taught therein as a biblical doctrine. But we're not substituting this for the Bible. It's just a summary. of Bible doctrine just as a tract in a Camelot church will summarize their understanding of a Bible doctrine. I have had booklets from them. In fact, I've got hundreds and thousands of books and pamphlets from them where they give just quick summaries of everything they teach, their whole system. They'll say the church is scriptural in name, origin, doctrine, practice, worship, whatever. And then they'll start dividing it up, telling you what they believe. They'll put you a scripture verse out there and all this. Well, what are they doing? They're making a statement of faith. They're making a creed. They're making a declaration. They say, oh, we don't teach that's binding. Well, it's not the Word of God then. If it's the Word of God, it's binding. You bet. And if they're teaching you the Word of God, it's binding. Now on this show they had here recently, I think they ran it for three or four weeks in a row, and they said in their show, this is after your debate, that you and Dr. Morey had failed to answer their arguments and just skipped over what they had to say and went on to your own stuff. Did you answer their questions? Well, really that's nothing new in my life because I don't think I've ever answered a Church of Christ argument or a Church of Christ question. uh... in their point of view in other words i've had lots of debates and i've answered many arguments and uh... in fact just my last debate with garland elkins garland elkins believe it or not we had a four night debate and each night he had three speeches which means what three times four twelve speeches you know how many scriptures he used in that whole debate to prove his proposition he quoted one half of one verse Mark 16, 16a. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Now that was it. I answered it night after night after night. I answered the verse. I stated my position. I offered even charts on the screen. But you know, he came to the end of the debate still saying, I never dealt with the scripture. I never answered his argument. Now, all he meant was I never agreed with his interpretation. Now, if you'll agree with their interpretation, then you answer their argument. But he gave me a list of questions. And he said, answer this way, that way, or the other. He had multiple choice. And he wanted me to answer it one way or the other. I said, I can't answer these questions with your multiple choices, because this is telling me that these are the only possible answers. And I said, they do not answer your question. I said, you've limited me here to answers that do not answer. So I can't answer your question. Now, with Mr. Williams and Mr. Bennett, some of the things may fall into that category. We did not agree with them the way we answered it. We didn't answer the way they wanted it answered. or they had a choice there for us to make that we didn't pick or something of that sort. But, you know, I've never had a Church of Christ ask me a question yet that I couldn't answer from my point of view. Now, it may not satisfy them, but I'll give them an answer. This reminds me of a point that we've pointed out so far in the show that Don Bennett was talking about church history, and yet you had to correct him several times. He kept saying bull run instead of brush run, and his facts seemed to be, you know, he's supposed to be representing his side. He had a month to prepare for the debate, and it seemed like he was rather foggy on Church of Christ history. I said that he was associated with the Baptist Association. He was a preacher at the Bull Run Church. And that church was in the Baptist Association. In 1811, they were not in the Baptist Association. They did not get in the Baptist Association, if you look at the book I gave you beforehand, until 1813. Okay. And it wasn't the Bull Run, it was the Brush Run. Oh, the Brush Run, okay. I stand corrected. See, you've got to get your history right. These dates and places and people. Okay. Correction, correct. But still, the point that I made, the point that I made that I want you to answer, is that Alexander Campbell was not a member of the Church of Christ during the time he was associated with the Baptist Association. Exactly right, because there was no Church of Christ. There was no Church of Christ. No, no, there was no Church of Christ. The Church of Christ developed after all this as a result of the Restoration. Wait a minute, wait a minute. See, Mr. Elkins shows that they restored it, so there was no Church of Christ. That's why he went to the Baptist Association. We don't have enough time now to really get into the charts, although I do want to put this down here and show some of Brother Morey's stuff that he had. Brother Williams said there was no Greek scholars and no translations for Acts 238. And of course, those that haven't seen the debate, but Dr. Morey was able to show all this information. No reputable translation has ever translated Acts chapter 2 and verse number 38 as because your sins have already been forgiven. Scholarship! I do need to respond to your program in which you called me a liar, a prevaricator, a lying prophet, a deceiver. And part of your program, which attacked my character and you didn't know me, was that you said there were no Bible translation, no Greek scholars that understood the Greek word ace in the sense that I said it meant in the light of or in reference to. I want you to read this in Reap, brother. Amplified Bible. This is on Matthew 3.11, which in the Greek is in the accusative. Baptism with the ace. Same exact grammar as Acts 2.38. Amplified Bible. Baptized because of repentance. Renaissance, because of. Phillips, as a sign of. Goodspeed, in token of. Williams, to picture your repentance. The 20th century New Testament, to teach repentance. Even the Living Bible. You can read in Thayer's Greek lexicon, page 184, that ace can be used, quote, to mean of reference or relation or with regard to, in reference to, or as regards. Liddell and Scott, which is classical Greek, not koine, does say that one of the uses of that Greek word is in regard to. When you come to the Greek English lexicon of the New Testament, on page 54, done by Green, ace can mean in accordance with. Or again, Artin Gangren, since you mentioned him, he goes on, on page 229, to state that ace can also have the causal use, because of, and he even mentions Matthew 3 and verse 11. In terms of Greek scholars, Dane and Manty, who produced the most well-known, well-used Greek grammar in this century, states that it can mean because of, in reference to. When you turn to Acts 2.38, you find the same thing. In Kenneth Weiss' translation of the New Testament, who was professor emeritus of Greek, in his translation, Acts 2.38, be baptized in relation to that your sins have been put away. Or Randy Yeager's Renaissance New Testament, baptized because of forgiveness. Or the famous Weymouth translation, baptized with a view to. In terms of Greek scholars, you have A.T. Robertson, who has repeatedly pointed out that the Greek word ace, whenever it's used in connection with baptism, and Matthew 3.11 is a good example, an exact parallel, you have to admit that their ace is not, we're not saying because, we're saying in view of, in relationship to, in reference to baptism. And here, it simply means, according to Dr. A.T. Robertson, Dr. Randy Yeager, whose modern work, the Renaissance New Testament, is viewed in this century as the most careful Greek scholarly work done, or even Marshall's Greek Interlinear, all of these things point out that when Peter was preaching, when John the Baptist was preaching, and John the Baptist, as you would agree, that his baptism didn't save anybody, it was unto remission of sins, it was unto repentance, the exact same terminology, but it didn't save anybody. Don Bennett, in that same show that ran for seven out of nine weeks previous to the debate, where they were attacking Dr. Moore's character, call him a false prophet, a liar, a prevaricator, and all kinds of other heinous attacks, in my opinion, but even though they didn't really know who he was, and they're operating, as we can see on some of the things we've talked about before, on what I believe is to be somewhat of an ignorant situation of what's actually going on. But he said, Don Bennett said, we feel that if people begin to lie, he quoted no authorities. Now he's talking about Dr. Morey. He said he quoted no authorities. He is the authority, Dr. Morey. Of course, Dr. Morey is the authority for everything that he says, and since he is a doctor, I guess he thinks that's sufficient, that everything that comes out of his mouth that people have that people have to believe. But he gave no authority, he quoted no authority of anything that he said. Now, he's basically talking about church history there, about Campbell and all this kind of stuff. The book you brought up a minute ago, the Stone- Campbell. Campbell history. All these things showed that Campbellism basically spawned Mormonism. Well, you know, Maury was talking about Campbellism being a cult and a mother of cults. Well, this book here I was showing y'all a while ago by Leroy Garrett, it mentions numerous cults that came out of Campbellism. And he's even got pictures. I mean, here's Sidney Rigdon and the Mormons. He says Sidney Rigdon was essentially the founder of Mormonism. So this is a Church of Christ book, and this shows that Don Bennett attacking Dr. Murray's character about his history was actually the one that was in error. Where can people get materials? Get materials on this? Yes. Well, they can contact Pilgrim Publications or Dayspring Evangelism. Well, to get back to what brought all this long conversation up, I mentioned that word, sheneglage, and I did want to ask Jackson, If I can say the word infralapsarianism and superlapsarianism, does that necessarily mean that I know what I'm talking about? Well, let's put it this way. Superlapsarianism, I know. And infralapsarianism, I know. But what is a what? What was that word? Chicanery? I think he said it was Cambellite underwear. I'm sure we're going to get some repercussions for this, but it was still worth a laugh, I think. I don't know that word. Thank you, gentlemen. 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