Transformative Power of Christ: Faith and Freedom

Welcome! Thank you so much for joining me, especially to my patrons and channel members. I have a very special guest with me today, Joe Ensley, who has agreed to join me. Welcome, Joe!

Hey, good to be on your channel. Thanks for reaching out and having me on. I do want to caution all of my audience; my usual audience is atheist, and you were well aware of that. I really respect and appreciate your bravery in coming on the show, and I would ask my audience to be respectful of people. We're not going to deal with personal attacks.

One of the funny things my fans have commented on is how harsh the atheists get in the comment section on these things. I went on Bridging the Divide with JL Warren, and he had the most respectful audience, and they're actually nice to me about it. They liked both of our beards, and they're really cool about that. Also, those comments get pretty raunchy pretty fast. I've gone on Inspiring Philosophy a couple of times and sent him some super chats just so that I could make sure that my question got addressed, but I always look at it that this is his channel, and I'm not going to be disrespectful. I'll ask a question, but that's all.

Mark Caesar says we're respectful here, God bless granny, and he's right. Mark Caesar is right. You know generally most of the people here are very respectful. Awesome.

Getting into the topic, when we set up this stream, I told Joe to pick his favorite topic that I would go with whatever he wanted to talk about, and Joe picked perseverance of the Saints. So go ahead, Joe, and tell us what you mean by perseverance of the Saints and why do you think that this is a good defense for your faith.

I'm not sure that that doctrine's word starts with defending for my faith. You said that you had been a Christian and now you weren't a Christian, and as someone who is more on the theology side of things, I thought that's not possible. And so when you said pick your topic, I'm like let's jump right onto that one.

I know I haven't been able to watch a lot of stuff on your channel, but I know that you say that you were a Christian and you're not. I would say that the biblical doctrine—many times people make the mistake of combining eternal security with perseverance of the Saints. Those are two. You have to divide those, but perseverance of the Saints would be one where we'd say if someone is saved, eternal security means that Christ sold your salvation, and he's not going to let you go. We base this on "no man can snatch you out of my hand." But then the perseverance side of that is going to be more like the human side where we're going to see who the Saints are by who perseveres. So I would separate those two doctrines. Eternal security is something that God knows, and perseverance of the Saints is something that we can see.

If I was a real believer, I would think that somehow God will bring me back to the fold. When asked for an opinion, I would put the speaker in a Hebrews 6 category. This section talks about those who have tasted of these things and then fallen away. Jesus talks about the seed going on four types of ground in the parable of the sower. One category of ground is the seed that sprang up and had the appearance of life, but then later withered. If I had to guess, I would put the speaker in this category.

The speaker then goes on to explain that they were sincere in their belief and it was the major focus of their life. They went to church, read their Bible, taught it, went on mission trips, sang in the choir, taught BS, started a church library from scratch, and held almost every position that they could in a church. They did all of this out of love for God.

When asked if the speaker's spiritual life was rootless, the speaker clarifies that they were in many denominations due to their husband's active duty in the Army. They started in the Evangelical Free Church, were a member of a couple of Southern Baptist Churches, an Evangelical Mennonite Church, and Fellowship of Evangelical Churches. I have been a member of several different churches throughout my life. I have been a member of Congregational, Presbyterian, and Independent Baptist Churches, all of which were Calvinist. I was also very briefly in an Assemblies of God church, but I was never a member of that church. So, I would say that I have run in the conservative Evangelical circles.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me and caused me to lose my faith was the most obvious part, but after I started listening to other people's deconversion stories, I realized that the cracks in my faith had been coming for the last decade before my deconversion. The first crack came when three girls in my younger daughter's school all became pregnant and were going to a Baptist school. Two of the girls were expelled, and the third one withdrew knowing that if she went back to school in the fall, she would have been expelled. This caused me to start questioning why the public school could forgive them, but the Baptist school could not.

The major fracture came when I started reflecting on the life of the Apostle Paul, and through that reflection, I reasoned my way into the divine hiddenness problem. I started thinking about the fact that if God was capable of drawing all people to himself and if God was capable of revealing himself to each person in a way that he or she would know him, then the fact that not everyone knows God has to be because God chooses not to draw them and God chooses not to reveal himself. This led me to move to universalism, believing that there was probably some way for everyone to be saved.

The second element is when you have a literalist view of the Bible and you take the Bible literally, and then you find out that the Bible is not true, then you have to re-examine your faith, and that's what happened to you. The third element is when you have a faith that is built on a foundation of the Bible, and then you find out that the Bible is not true, then the foundation of your faith has now shattered, and it all collapses like a house of cards.

I suddenly realized that Aaron Raw was right when he said we know that the flood didn't happen through biology, geology, history, and mythology. No history course I had ever taken had ever said that after a global extinction, a civilization began to rise again. This meant that the Bible was not true, and I had to re-examine my faith.

My faith was built on the Bible being true, so when I found out it wasn't, the foundation of my faith shattered and collapsed like a house of cards. This was the perfect storm of three elements necessary to lose my faith.

The first element was a christless Christianity, where God was not the main ingredient. The second element was a literalist view of the Bible, and the third element was a faith built on the Bible.

In 1984, my husband and I lost our first baby. This event caused me to cling to my faith, believing that if the Bible was true, then Christianity was true. However, when I found out the Bible wasn't true, I could no longer believe it. Our faith was not in Christ himself, but in the followers of Christ. This was a shattering realization. I never mentioned anything about Christians doing anything to me or failing me in any way. However, I did talk about whether or not the Christians could forgive teenage pregnant girls, and the Christians failed miserably.

We then got into the two lies of the devil in the garden: God is holding back something good from you, and did God really say this wasn't going to be good? This created the perfect storm for losing faith.

When asked if there really was a global flood, I'm not prepared to give a scientific discourse on the historicity of it, but I do believe it to be true. I'm a presuppositionist and find most theories presented as fact to be unable to work with the argument for intelligibility or to show how life got here.

When asked if I'm a young earther, the answer is yes. If you hold to the Bible as the infallible word of God, then you must be a young earther or a global flood believer. To explain history, we can look to the Bible as one of the few sources that is discredited more quickly than other sources with less authenticity. We think Pompeii happened, and one guy talked about it, and then we'll go back and we'll look at biblical records, and we've got tons of witnesses and different people saying it and these things showing up. Then we're like nah, but the Bible's not right because that's religion.

Okay, now Pompeii, I've been to Pompeii, and I have seen the charred remains that are still on display there. The evidence for Pompeii is sitting right there for people to look at. Did you go to Jerusalem too? I've been to Jerusalem, okay, and the evidence for Christianity and what happened in the life of Jesus is all right there.

No, it's not. You go to the alleged Garden of Gethsemane, and the guide will tell you we think this might have been the Garden of Gethsemane, and then you go to the Church of the Nativity, and they say we think this might have been where Jesus was born, and then they show you a tomb, and you say Jesus was buried in a tomb kind of like this one, but we don't know where. There's no actual evidence; there's just a bunch of guesswork.

I think we've got lots of historical markers, and you've got the Bible Museum in DC. We've got plenty of markers that tell us hey yeah this guy was around. We've got tons of historical documents; we've got the works of Flavius Josephus, who aren't really contested on any other area of history that he talks about. We've got plenty of evidence for Christianity, especially revolving around the historicity of Jesus, the life and death of Christ, and plenty of secular sources too, like the same guy that told us Pompeii that you can verify with the witness. That same guy's talking about the life, the life and death of Jesus.

I'll grant you that Jesus probably lived, and I'll grant you the Greek Jesus definitely died, but that's it, okay? And I think that's all the historical sources will give you is that he lived and he died. Okay, so that doesn't give you Christianity; that gives you a dead Jesus. It doesn't give you a dead Jesus because they haven't found his grave yet, so I don't think that quite gives it to us.

Okay, if Jesus is still alive today, can you produce him? Okay, I can't produce him physically, but okay.

But getting back to how we're dealing with history and how we're looking at that, what I've noticed is that a lot of times in our scientific community that is not Christian, obviously, there's plenty of Christian scientists that are creationists, you know, you take your Henry Morrisons and those kind of guys. But when we look at science, they're very particular about what evidence they want to look at.

So when you're looking at okay deciding whether the Earth is old or not and how old is the earth, and so we'll take our dating rates and we'll say this is how we can know something is that old, and you can take the path of the moon and the magnetic field of the earth, and you can look at the decay rate of those things. The decay rate of the magnetic field of the earth and the rotation of the moon around the earth is not going to hold up to billions of years.

Science is assuming the current decay rate must have been the same millions of years ago, which is how they date the Earth. However, when it comes to things like magnetic fields and the moon rotation, creation is a more plausible explanation.

When asked about history, the speaker was not talking about Jesus, but rather the alleged flood. When looking at Chinese, Egyptian, Indian, and South American history, there is no 100-year gap where there are no people. In fact, there is archaeological evidence of people existing all through the time of the alleged flood. Tectonic plates explain how fossils got on top of mountains, as the mountain goes up with the plate. The speaker is not prepared to argue for the global flood.

When talking about Calvinism, it is an articulation of biblical truth, and the speaker would call themselves reformed, meaning they follow the Bible. The speaker believes that who is a believer and who is not a believer is the sovereign choice of God. Belief is not the choice of man, but the choice of God. Belief in God is not a choice of man; it is a choice of God.

So, what is the purpose of telling people about God if the only way they can come to believe is if God chooses to come and move them? Any kind of evangelistic efforts I have a 100% success rate for the kingdom of God, so either it is going to add to the condemnation of vessels prepared for wrath for destruction that God will use to glorify himself, or he will use the preaching of the gospel in the way he primarily has, which is how he draws his elect to himself.

So, I have a 100% success rate with whatever I'm doing because I'm accomplishing God's purpose either way. You could also look at it and say you have a zero percent success rate because anything anyone that comes to God was predestined to do so before you even existed, and what you had to do had nothing to do with it.

Yes, God doesn't need me to do what he's going to do; it is a privilege and an honor to be used by the Sovereign God to accomplish his purposes.

I think the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. We are both very religious for what we do; we just are on opposite sides, and we have different religions. I would agree that we are very religious. You don't like to use the word religious, but it does describe this level of worship and preeminence over a certain ideology over others; it's very similar to religion even if you don't want to put it there.

Except I don't worship anything; you do. You've placed yourself in the judge seat over God, and you worship yourself in righteousness over God.

What do you see as worship? Worship is the adoration, the preeminence of something, the serving of something above other things.

Do you think that I adore myself only in relationship to how you see God because you see God as beneath you, right? I don't see God beneath me; I mean above me. I don't see God beside me; I don't see that at all.

Put yourself in the judgment seat; you have made yourself the judge over God, and you have declared that he does not exist, and so now you are above him.

But aren't we called to do that? Aren't we called to do that? I don't understand who does the calling in the atheist world. You're gonna have to.

I'm not okay when I believe it's in First John that says that we are to test spirits to see if they are from God. If we are to test and find out if something is from God, does that not direct us to test God and to judge God? Did God really do this?

That does the spirit to see if it comes from God, and I test? If I am to test the spirit to see if it comes from God and I come away from that arguing that there is no God, clearly my testing of the spirits was done very improperly.

That's like me saying, "Hey, I want you to test that chair you're sitting in. I want you to make sure that it came from the manufacturer that it says," and you come back and you say, "I've decided that the chair doesn't exist." You actually didn't do it right.

We never determined the manufacturer, and saying the manufacturer doesn't exist doesn't make my problem go away. That's just where we're at. God is the only one worthy of adoration and worship, so if you want to see my video on is God a narcissist, I've dealt with this with Godless Engineer and JL and all that, but yes, God adores himself. He's the only being worth adoration.

So, if you found out that God chose not to save one or more of your children, how would you feel about that? It means he's God. God is a bigger being than I am; he's higher than I am. I sure hope that God has chosen my children, and one of the assurances that I have that he most likely has is that he's placed them in my household to be raised under his admonition and nurture.

But if God chooses not to save my children, that is his prerogative because he is God, and I am not. God decides who's in his Heaven; he decides as in hell. Romans 9 is really clear about how God handles that, and because he's God and I'm not, I don't get to sit over him in judgment of that decision. That's his decision to make, not mine.

So, it's not only possible, but it's also very likely because the way is narrow and those that are chosen are few. It is very likely that at least one of your children is not among the chosen. That's possible, and it is very likely that God predestined one of your children to an eternal torment in hell. That is possible, and you don't have a problem with that.

We've got two ways to look at this; this is a glass half full or glass empty. Either I can rejoice that God chose a wretched sinner for salvation, which is me, or I can worry about God's choices with other wretched sinners. When I realize that the human nature and the human position against God is that I've sinned against an Almighty God and that everyone deserves his judgment, I should be mystified, shocked, and stunned whenever he chooses anyone, not surprised when someone doesn't get chosen.

Here we're looking at the same thing from different levels, and so when we look at the Bible, we have to look at it from the level of God's sovereignty, and then we have to look at it from the level of man's responsibility. When we smash those two together, we're making a mistake, and that's why I want to talk about that, okay?

Recently, I've been concentrating more on our conversation and not reading all of the chat. I'm picking up all the super chats and trying to read the others, but if they're more than two lines long, I can't go back and forth fast enough. If you've had a really good question or comment that I've missed, I apologize for that, but I can't keep up with both at the same time.

The question I have for you is whether or not a person is saved was determined before the world even existed. According to Ephesians and First Peter, the answer is yes. So, whether or not your children are saved is a decision that God made even before the earth existed—before you or anyone else existed. If a baby is born and it's an Esau baby, it dies and it goes straight to hell, not because it's sinned, but because God made that sovereign choice.

We're also responsible for our sin and being born of the sin nature because we're represented by Adam in the fall. But, God explains why man is responsible for his sin. Judgment isn't just judgment; everyone is under this punishment whether they were good or not. We have to realize that God is bigger than us, and God is just. He will make no decision that is unjust or immoral.

Adam represented us as our federal head, and when Adam chose to sin, all of humanity was represented in that fall and bears responsibility for him. We have to look at the Bible from the level of God's sovereignty, and then we have to look at it from the level of man's responsibility. When we smash those two together, we're making a mistake.

First and second Timothy are forgeries; they were written by somebody else, and they were written in Paul's name, so you can't even trust the Bible when it comes to authorship.

We live in a three-dimensional world, but it is difficult to explain to people in a two-dimensional world what it would be like. We arrogantly assume that we understand the universe and can make judgments on how God has operated it, when in reality, we are not the ones who made the universe, and God has dimensions outside of time that we do not understand.

All religions have the same essential problem: what do I do with Jesus? He had so much impact in history, did so many documented things, and claimed to be God. His writings never said he was God, so the eyes of the disciples who said this is what he said are not good enough. None of them wrote anything, and we have no idea who wrote the Gospels.

Even secular people like Jordan Peterson talk about how incredible the Bible is because of how it was written with so many different authors over the continents and the continuity of the thing, but even the Bible has continuity issues with the pastoral letters. Titus and first and second Timothy are forgeries, written by somebody else in Paul's name, so we can't even trust the Bible when it comes to authorship.

The answer to the question of how we can prove that Charles Darwin wrote his book on Darwinism is that there were plenty of people who published it at the time that he wrote it; there were people who talked to him and discussed the book with him at the time that he wrote it, and there were lots of contemporary writings about his book all talking about him having written it.

However, even if it wasn't Darwin that wrote it, I would not have a problem with that because I'm not trying to live as if everything in that book is true.

When looking at the textual critics, Bart Ehrman for one and not alone, acknowledges that the consensus of the textual critics is that the pastoral letters are forgeries. We also have eyewitness accounts of the people, contemporaries, and other publications all providing proofs that the books of the Bible are true.

We do not have original texts from any of the gospels; the oldest thing we have is a fragment of John. However, we have no way to prove that the things in the Bible are true, yet the atheist applies a double standard to the Christians.

Paul really felt that the end times were going to come during his lifetime, and that's why he called Jesus with the first fruits of the Resurrection, expecting the rest to come any day now. This is why Paul was adamant that people should remain single because he didn't think there was any time for marriage, as the world was going to end during his lifetime.

Yet, in the pastoral letters, which likely were written 15 years after Paul's death, they say that a pastor has to be a married person, which is completely contrary to what Paul had to say.

We have no original manuscripts from the New Testament, but we do have evidence for it. The oldest biblical text is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52, which may be as early as the first half of the second century. We also have the writings of Plymouth Alexandria, which were circulated amongst churches.

We can prove that the people who visited these churches talked about bringing a letter of Paul to them, and then they copied those letters and circulated them. The oldest New Testament manuscript that still exists is P52. It is six centimeters by 8.9 centimeters and contains John 18:31-34. It comes from Manchester, UK, and is about 300 years removed from when it was written.

We have lots of copies, most of which were made in the Middle Ages, and we still have some of the manuscripts sitting around. When textual critics compare copies of the same text, they may see variations between them. To rate the differences, they assign a confidence level of A, B, C, or D. A is the highest level of confidence, as it appears in a number of different manuscripts. D is the lowest level of confidence, as it does not appear in many manuscripts.

Due to the 100-year gap between the time when the originals were written and the earliest pieces we have, we cannot be sure that what is in our New Testament is what was originally written. Additionally, there is a gap of 20 to 40 years between the time Jesus died and when any of this was written down. This means that the writings were based on an oral tradition.

Paul's writings about Jesus and Christianity are not debated in serious scholarship. However, Paul does not mention Jesus' resurrection. He talks about his vision of a resurrected Jesus, but he never met Jesus. Flavius Josephus, a respected Hebrew scholar, only mentions that Jesus was crucified. He does not mention that Jesus was the Christ, as this is a disputed text.

It is important to be cautious when discussing the Bible with children. Do not let them know that you are okay with them being tortured for eternity, as this could be emotionally damaging.

To be passed on to the next generation so that is an instinctual thing that is not learned; that is something that is in our DNA, so that is how I determine what is right and wrong in an atheist worldview.

Don't you feel hurt knowing that your parents are okay with you being tortured? I think it depends on your understanding of God and your bigness of God. Having the right to do with this creation as he will makes a lot more sense than an atheist worldview.

This has to do with your relationship with your children and how your children feel about how you know are you a loving and protecting parent. If you as a parent feel that you would hand your child over to someone to be tortured, that's going to make your children feel good.

This is emotionally a question of who I trust more. On the vertical level, am I okay with God doing with this creation as he pleases? I 100% am. Why do you think I would evangelize my children and tell them the good news of the Gospel hoping that God would draw them to himself and they'd be elect?

We're combining the two levels of God's sovereignty and trying to make him even, and that doesn't really work because God is sovereign and man has responsibility; both of those things can be true at the same time.

I need to provide them with a worldview that provides an intelligent basis for things like logic and reasonable thought and giving them some sort of order to their world. In an atheist worldview, I don't think telling your children that they are garbage, that they are worthless, that they are deserving of nothing but torture and death is good for them. I think that is very damaging. That is what the atheists purport.

How is that any better than what we say? An atheist position that children should be tortured, where in the atheist view is there a torture chamber for children? Richard Dawkins says there is no such thing as good or bad, just blind pitiless indifference. There's absolutely no moral code that can be founded on in the atheist worldview. There are no morals.

How do I know what is right and wrong? I draw what is right; what I find to be right and wrong by my experience, by the experience of others, by what I read from what other people say. I just draw on the totality of human experience that is available to me. Some of it is instinctual, so not all of it is learned. Some of it is instinctual, and that which is instinctual is learned evolutionarily.

By that, I mean that humans do certain things to bring about the survival of the species. You will see a person that will self-sacrifice to bring about the survival of their own children. That is a way of bringing perpetuation of the species by allowing your genes to be passed on to the next generation. So that is how I determine what is right and wrong in an atheist worldview.

Survival or what is best for the survival of our species is something that all living organisms do, and so there is some morality that is tied to that as well. Not all of it, but something.

All we need to do is change the parameters of your paradigm, make you a Nazi, and have your children be not of the right German heritage, and then have your experience tell you that torturing and killing these children is going to be the best thing for survival of the species, and wham bam thank you ma'am, it's good to torture kids again in your worldview.

No, you're wrong. Okay, it is entirely possible for people to be wrong and for an entire group of people to be wrong about what is wrong, what is immoral, and whenever that happens, there is eventually going to be a correction, and this has happened many times throughout human history.

It's okay for them to be tortured under the Nazi regime? No, it is not. It is not.

Then how do we know that's wrong? How do we know that it would be wrong for the Nazis? Because that is not right; for that is not promoting the well-being of the members of the group, it's not promoting the well-being of the species.

The Germans certainly believed it was promoting the well-being of the species, and they were wrong because it didn't; it was killing people, it was hurting people. The only way that they were able to come to that conclusion was by redefining humans to not include Jewish people.

Okay, and if you exclude some people from the definition of human, then obviously you were wrong because you're not doing what is best for people by deciding that only certain people get to be people.

Oh, that's going to work real well until I bring up abortion, and yet that's not considered wrong; that's considered right in this worldview. It leads us to a subjective morality that is based on our experiences and our feelings.

Like you, and I will grant you that I do think morality does have a—it is subjective, and that's why I said you've asked several questions there because one of your questions was how do you get to an objective morality, and I don't. Right? I think morality is subjective, and I think it is something that humans keep figuring out as we go along.

Two thousand years ago, we thought that gladiator games were more morally acceptable, and now we find that reprehensible. Christians never did. The Christians have had God's moral code; God's moral code hasn't changed.

Oh, that is so true. You know the next example I was going to go to was slavery, and Christians most definitely were okay with slavery. Now I'll grant you that some of them were not.

What kind of slavery? Because if you're going to compare what happens in the New Testament and the slavery that happens in Christian households where you have Christians buying people from slavery to evangelize them and make them part of their family, that's a different kind of slavery than what happened in the United States.

So, to be passed on to your children and species survival is something that we see in pretty much every living organism doing what is best for our own survival. It is something that all living organisms do, and so there is some morality that is tied to that as well.

It is something that humans keep figuring out as we go along, and it is something that is subjective and based on our experiences and our feelings.

There is a long history of slavery in the United States, and many Christian pastors argued that it was a god-given right for slave owners to own black people, citing Genesis as justification. However, William Wilberforce used the Bible to prove that slavery was wrong.

When civil rights reforms were needed, Martin Luther King Jr. also used the Bible to show that slavery was wrong. God's morality has not changed, but how people understand it has. God did not explicitly forbid slavery, but he did provide instructions on how to treat slaves.

In the Old Testament, God permitted chattel slavery, allowing people to buy and sell slaves from foreign countries and keep them as slaves for life. However, the kind of slavery we are discussing is different. God's permitting of some of these things does not make it right.

When looking at the cultural context of the time, it is clear that God was creating a power balance between men and women and allowing for the protection of people taken over by foreign nations.

We think of slavery as something that is not absolute or objective. Morality is something that changes because God permitted it at one time, but now he is not permitting it. Some may think that God's moral position has changed, but I think the context of slavery has changed.

Then, it was within God's moral code to permit it, but now it is not because of how we treat slaves and our idea of slavery. God says he is a God that does not change, and that is the only person you can trust with your objective morality.

I come on these shows to promote the good news of Jesus Christ and how he died for sinners. My channel is all about teaching Christians how to live the Christian life, how to follow Christ, how to follow the Bible, how to have freedom from sin, and how to have eternal life in heaven.

I have zero hope that the person I am debating with will actually listen to me, but there are a lot of people watching this. I want to let them know that there is a life in Christ available, and I can personally testify to it. God has blessed me and my family greatly, and we follow his way, and I want to share that with others.

I would expect my opponent to listen to what I have to say and correct me if I'm wrong. I wouldn't necessarily expect them to agree or accept what I had to say, but I would expect them to listen.

We are here to have a clash of worldviews and listen to each other's arguments. We are not listening to each other as people, but rather debating. Debates are not always of a lot of value because nothing ever really gets resolved.

Recently, there was a debate between Michael Jones and a Muslim man. The Muslim man was trying to make a case for child marriage, and Michael Jones pointed out that the Muslim man was okay with a man marrying a three-year-old and raping the three-year-old.

Coming up on my channel, I have released a video addressing the infighting in the Southern Baptist convention. Next week, my guest will be Carlana. She wants to come back and say why she thinks Satan is influencing our culture and is causing people to be homosexual and transgender.

I have asked her not to bring her son on because if we're going to be discussing sexual topics, I'd rather not do that with a minor, and she's agreed she's going to bring her husband instead of her son this time.

Thank you, Joe, for coming; it has been a pleasure having you. You are in the extreme minority here. Thank you all for being in the chat, and I'm sorry I did not pay a whole lot of attention to your comments today.

Thank you to all of you for coming and for your comments. Thank you to all of you who watch this in the future. Live your life. See ya!