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00:00:00.000 | I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast.
00:00:15.620 | The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's
00:00:19.740 | been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand
00:00:24.600 | the test of scrutiny.
00:00:26.620 | As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people
00:00:32.320 | in the right direction.
00:00:51.080 | As of today's date, which is February 26, 2021, I have 22 recorded episodes, which means
00:00:58.080 | at the rate I'm going now, I could release new episodes without creating more into 2022.
00:01:05.360 | Once I realized that, I sort of pulled the brakes a little bit since I needed a break
00:01:10.720 | from podcasting anyway, specifically the script writing portion.
00:01:18.300 | I bring that up because you might start to see bonus episodes here and there, which is
00:01:23.880 | what this is, and they're bonus episodes for the reasons I just explained.
00:01:29.040 | But what I wanted to do with these bonus episodes, and some of these bonus episodes I'm going
00:01:33.440 | to call side notes, is to address events that are a little bit more current.
00:01:39.080 | I want to apologize for the audio quality.
00:01:41.680 | I don't have the capability to have good audio quality when it comes to having more than
00:01:46.920 | one person on a mic because of hardware reasons, but if we end up doing more of these, perhaps
00:01:51.320 | that might change.
00:01:53.260 | What you're going to hear is an informal discussion I have with Pastor Peter, Pastor Peter Kim,
00:01:58.320 | about the whole Ravi Zacharias scandal.
00:02:00.740 | We don't cover every single aspect of it, but some good portions of it and some of the
00:02:05.040 | broader questions that people seem to have.
00:02:08.200 | Have a listen and enjoy.
00:02:11.840 | Marine Community Church, I am here once again with Pastor Peter.
00:02:15.560 | I dragged him here.
00:02:17.040 | I thought it might be helpful if we did one of those recorded informal discussion times
00:02:23.960 | like we did with the one concerning politics right before the election.
00:02:30.940 | That was when John Piper, if you recall, John Piper came out with a blog and then Wayne
00:02:35.420 | Grudem came out with a blog, and then several people reached out to different people in
00:02:39.820 | leadership.
00:02:40.820 | So we just thought it might be a good idea just to have an extended conversation recorded
00:02:45.140 | and then share it with the church.
00:02:47.260 | This is one of those times again, except the subject matter is now involving Ravi Zacharias.
00:02:55.220 | Several people, just like the last time, have reached out to different people in leadership,
00:03:01.220 | have asked us what we thought.
00:03:03.180 | So we thought, in the same vein of thinking, we thought it might be helpful if we just
00:03:09.780 | again have an informal conversation that's recorded to provide some insight for anyone
00:03:17.700 | that would be confused, anyone who wants to put together the pieces, so to speak, because
00:03:27.100 | he was somewhat of a prominent figure within Christendom.
00:03:30.660 | I know many of you might not know who Ravi Zacharias is.
00:03:34.720 | I'll spend a little bit of time just building up what we're going to talk about.
00:03:41.060 | Ravi Zacharias was a prominent Christian apologist.
00:03:45.460 | You can think of a modern day C.S. Lewis.
00:03:47.860 | His ministry had become international.
00:03:50.260 | They had headquarters in various countries and apologists based in those headquarters.
00:03:57.960 | They were receiving, I think, in millions in terms of donations.
00:04:04.300 | Up until recently, they had another main office in the U.K. specifically devoted to a school
00:04:12.000 | for apologetics called the Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics.
00:04:15.780 | Ravi Zacharias himself lectured in various college campuses, including the Ivy League
00:04:21.140 | campuses during forums called the Veritas Forum.
00:04:26.420 | He would come and he would defend the Christian faith.
00:04:29.180 | These schools included Harvard and Yale.
00:04:31.780 | He's written numerous books, tons of lectures.
00:04:34.980 | I've read the vast majority of his books.
00:04:37.480 | I've listened to the vast majority of his lectures.
00:04:42.060 | They're like hybrid sermons, lectures.
00:04:44.900 | He's spoken at megachurches throughout his entire career.
00:04:49.380 | He also notably in 2000 spoke at the Mormon Tabernacle.
00:04:56.580 | Many people will say they came to faith because of him.
00:05:00.720 | He made Christianity understandable in ways that very few people could.
00:05:05.260 | At his funeral, you had people like Tim Tebow and Mike Pence eulogizing him.
00:05:11.500 | You even had Kayleigh McEnany say kind words about him.
00:05:15.480 | He was known as the quintessential gentleman when it came to debating.
00:05:20.740 | He was extremely bright, but he was extremely kind as well.
00:05:25.460 | He was the guy that everyone pointed to show you that Christianity is not just for fools.
00:05:31.640 | It's for smart people as well.
00:05:33.700 | You can be smart and you could also be a Christian.
00:05:36.280 | People would point to him.
00:05:37.940 | He made Christianity make sense in a world where you had a vast marketplace of ideas.
00:05:50.940 | A couple years before his death, there were some things that were being talked about him.
00:05:58.900 | There were some lawsuits that raised some eyebrows.
00:06:02.320 | A couple years ago, a person by the name of Lorian Thompson alleged certain behavior.
00:06:08.900 | It was settled with an NDA, so nobody really knew the details.
00:06:14.140 | After his funeral, victims began to come forward one after another.
00:06:19.220 | What's interesting is, initially, because it was after his death and he's not allowed
00:06:24.420 | to defend himself, it could easily be interpreted as picking on someone after they're dead.
00:06:33.020 | But enough people came forward where it warranted an investigation.
00:06:39.940 | RZIM, to their credit, contracted an independent agency.
00:06:46.380 | That independent agency looked into the matter.
00:06:50.240 | That investigation, they released preliminary findings a little bit before Christmas.
00:06:58.500 | The preliminary findings were not good.
00:07:01.060 | They were not good at all.
00:07:02.880 | The preliminary findings alleged that Ravi Zacharias did indeed engage in inappropriate
00:07:07.840 | behavior, that he had owned various massage parlors, which was known by many people, maybe
00:07:16.860 | not to the public, but to many people within his circle.
00:07:22.500 | The preliminary findings had indicated that it was certain that Ravi Zacharias was guilty
00:07:30.320 | of many of the things that the victims were saying.
00:07:33.740 | A final report came out.
00:07:36.780 | I think many people were perhaps holding out hope that the preliminary report was incorrect,
00:07:43.300 | but the final report came out not too long ago.
00:07:46.380 | It was actually worse.
00:07:48.200 | It was much worse than what the preliminary report said.
00:07:53.380 | So I'll just kind of read off just a glimpse of the final report.
00:07:59.780 | The final report stated that Ravi Zacharias was guilty of sexual abuse on many occasions
00:08:04.300 | in different places over a period of many years.
00:08:07.440 | These involve not only women in the U.S., but also in Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea,
00:08:13.380 | and almost certainly other places.
00:08:15.720 | The agency, Martin Miller, did not particularly investigate Asian and what he did on these
00:08:19.700 | trips, but he especially used those who worked in massage parlors, even importing them from
00:08:25.700 | overseas and seeking more than a massage.
00:08:28.180 | In one example, he offered to take a masseuse to travel overseas with him.
00:08:33.020 | He used RZIM ministry funds to fund his abuse.
00:08:37.220 | He will give masseurs large gifts or pay them financially.
00:08:40.860 | Or received monthly supports from RZIM's charity for the poor for a lengthy period of time.
00:08:46.000 | He used the gospel and Christian language to gain the confidence of his victims.
00:08:51.440 | Listen to this paragraph.
00:08:52.920 | This witness told us that their relationship began as a normal massage therapist-client
00:08:57.680 | relationship, and she came to think of him as a father figure.
00:09:01.280 | He elicited information about her faith and her financial situation.
00:09:05.020 | She reported that after he arranged for the ministry to provide her with financial support,
00:09:09.240 | he required sex from her.
00:09:11.420 | According to this witness, Mr. Zacharias used religious expressions to gain compliance as
00:09:15.800 | she was raised to be a person of faith.
00:09:18.060 | She reported that he made her pray with him to thank God for the opportunity they both
00:09:23.680 | received.
00:09:24.680 | She said he called her his reward for living a life of service to God, and he referenced
00:09:28.860 | the godly men in the Bible with more than one wife.
00:09:31.800 | She said he warned her not to ever speak out against him, or she would be responsible for
00:09:36.680 | the millions of souls whose salvation would be lost if his reputation was damaged.
00:09:44.000 | And I can go on just a little bit more.
00:09:46.560 | Ravi owned at least two apartments in Bangkok.
00:09:49.220 | On one occasion, he spent 256 days in one of those apartments and charged IZIM for rent.
00:09:57.040 | Also, Ravi Zacharias is on record saying that he's never done anything appropriate in his
00:10:03.560 | 45 years of marriage to his wife.
00:10:06.080 | He said this, "In my 45 years of marriage to Margie, I have never engaged in inappropriate
00:10:10.120 | behavior of any kind."
00:10:11.860 | Just weeks after, this is the Lorian Thompson case, the case I referred to earlier about
00:10:16.720 | the non-disclosure agreement, the NDA.
00:10:19.640 | Just weeks after the Thompson case, he was engaging with similar behavior with a Malaysian
00:10:23.520 | masseuse.
00:10:25.560 | Now, Ravi Zacharias also carried with him, it was well known that he carried with him
00:10:31.080 | several phones, several phones with him so that on these different phones, they would
00:10:36.520 | not be connected to the Wi-Fi.
00:10:40.680 | On these phones were found pictures.
00:10:44.400 | We're talking hundreds of pictures, hundreds of pictures of different women on his phones.
00:10:51.640 | So it's not just a testimony of different women in different regions of the world as
00:10:59.040 | if that weren't enough because the details were eerily similar, but they found pictures
00:11:04.920 | of hundreds of women on these phones and the digital corroboration, the physical evidence
00:11:13.960 | is insurmountable.
00:11:15.360 | If you want to read the report for yourself, there's a 12-page report that you can find.
00:11:21.800 | To RZIM's credit, they contracted this agency to do the investigation, they released the
00:11:31.440 | findings publicly, and they have repudiated Ravi Zacharias' conduct.
00:11:41.480 | We don't know anything outside of that with respect to how many people knew or didn't
00:11:45.680 | know or things like that, but this is, in a nutshell, what we know.
00:11:52.080 | So Pastor Peter is here with me, I'm going to ask Pastor Peter an open-ended question.
00:12:01.440 | Pastor Peter, what are we to make of all this?
00:12:05.880 | What are we to make of all this?
00:12:08.520 | Well, you know, when I first heard the news of Ravi Zacharias, I think it was about five
00:12:15.440 | or six ago when the founding pastor of Willow Creek, Bill Hybels, was also accused of sexual
00:12:22.440 | misconduct and Ravi Zacharias' name actually came up during that time and because he didn't
00:12:29.240 | really get much press because of the non-disclosure agreement and then all the press went to Bill
00:12:34.960 | Hybel, and when I found out a few months later that Ravi Zacharias' case was just closed
00:12:41.200 | because of the non-disclosure agreement, I thought that was a very strange way to finish
00:12:45.760 | something like that, especially when his primary objective in life is to glorify God and to
00:12:53.240 | leave it as a question mark like that.
00:12:55.200 | So I knew something fishy was already going on behind the scenes, it just didn't get the
00:12:59.960 | press so when all these facts did finally come out, yeah, I wasn't necessarily shocked
00:13:06.120 | by it and this is not the first time I've experienced somebody that was celebrated as
00:13:13.880 | a Christian, you know, apologist that fell, you know, and obviously there's tons of people
00:13:19.600 | that we could name but people that I've followed and known and heard and respected from a distance,
00:13:26.120 | I would say he's probably maybe about fifth or sixth person that I've seen in the last
00:13:29.600 | 37, 38 years that I've been a Christian and so to me it's not a shock, you know, but it
00:13:36.840 | always tells me, you know, like the way that people come into ministry and once they come
00:13:43.440 | in especially somebody who's as influential as he is, to not have that kind of accountability
00:13:50.520 | and again it's hard for me to believe that people around him didn't know what was going
00:13:55.800 | on especially knowing just how elaborate this was and how long it's been, somebody somewhere
00:14:02.560 | swept this under the rug.
00:14:04.560 | So it wasn't just him that was doing this, somebody justified it, you know, he was surrounded
00:14:10.400 | by people who saw the impact that he was having and justified all his other behavior because
00:14:15.800 | of it, you know, and so when the Bible says the elder needs to be above reproach, you
00:14:21.840 | know, as much of a good thing that he did when he was alive, the damage that he has
00:14:28.240 | done is far greater than the good that he has done because of this and yeah, so, you
00:14:35.320 | know, I grieve over the impact that this is having on so many Christians but hopefully
00:14:40.880 | that at the least that people will come away from this realizing that all have sinned and
00:14:45.920 | fall short of the glory of God, there's no man who is above accountability.
00:14:51.960 | Yeah, you know, Pastor Peter, you raise an interesting point when we talk about the qualification
00:15:00.400 | of an elder, you know, we look back at Ravi Zacharias' ministry and it wasn't done through
00:15:08.480 | a local church, it was, his ministry was done via corporation, you know, he was the CEO,
00:15:17.960 | he was the one in charge and it wasn't, you know, the system that was in place that RZIM
00:15:31.720 | used wasn't the makeup that's given to us in the scriptures.
00:15:41.140 | In the scriptures, a church is led by elders and there's trust there between the elders
00:15:46.400 | and the congregation but the elders keep one another accountable and they're also accountable
00:15:52.360 | to the congregation as well but there are layers of accountability in place where in
00:15:59.800 | the case of Ravi Zacharias, I mean, he's walking around with multiple phones, you know, women
00:16:07.040 | are, I mean, I understand that he has a bad back but this woman, this masseuse is following
00:16:14.680 | him around the globe, it's strange but do you think that contributed in any way, Pastor
00:16:24.680 | Peter?
00:16:25.680 | >> Yeah, and I think God's wisdom, he did establish a local church, there's qualifications
00:16:30.120 | for elders, for deacons, he says to not to entertain a charge against an elder unless
00:16:35.080 | there's two or three witnesses so it doesn't say not to charge an elder but to do it very
00:16:40.320 | seriously and because the consequence of an elder who was living in sin because it's going
00:16:46.960 | to damage the whole church.
00:16:49.160 | But to be fair, most of the people that I know who have fallen were local church pastors
00:16:54.760 | who embezzled money, who had affairs with their secretaries and so definitely the local
00:17:01.880 | church if practiced biblically is meant to have accountability.
00:17:07.160 | We have plurality of elders, we have discipline that we're supposed to carry out, not to bring
00:17:13.800 | charges flippantly but if there is a serious charge, to take it seriously and to take it
00:17:18.640 | to the church but the problem right now is that the church itself, not just locally but
00:17:25.440 | globally is not healthy.
00:17:27.360 | I think we've given to the goal of what we think is successful is if it grows, if many
00:17:34.160 | people get baptized then we're being successful so whatever means that we've used, whoever
00:17:40.400 | is being used for that end is excusable because we're seeing fruit but in the end ultimately
00:17:48.940 | what God calls us to do is to be faithful to what he teaches and so true fruit is going
00:17:55.140 | to always come from abiding in Christ and to abide in Christ obviously we have to abide
00:17:59.600 | by his word and so we can't just look at the end goal and to justify the means.
00:18:06.100 | The means have to also be glorifying to God and I think all these things that we're seeing,
00:18:11.720 | it doesn't mean that if you follow what the Bible says it guarantees that we're not going
00:18:14.900 | to fall in sin but definitely when we don't follow it, it gives room for this type of
00:18:22.660 | stuff to happen and to sweep it under the rug so it's not just one.
00:18:27.220 | There had to have been through 30-40 years of this man's ministry and we don't know how
00:18:32.640 | long this has been going on but there had to have been dozens and dozens of people who
00:18:36.840 | justified his behavior that allowed him to be able to go this far in his sin.
00:18:45.420 | Yeah and humanly speaking I can't help but think if there were some brave souls who were
00:19:00.240 | part of his inner circle assuming he had an inner circle that saw this but it's quite
00:19:08.280 | probable that there was so whoever those hypothetical people are, if they had spoken truth in his
00:19:18.140 | life and if they had stuck by it, there are reports that someone brought it up to him
00:19:23.480 | but it looks like they were silenced but instead of just kind of being silenced like that,
00:19:28.960 | if they had maybe just pried a little more, I can't help but wonder if this could have
00:19:35.440 | been stemmed a lot earlier on but at the same time, if somebody wants to do something, it's
00:19:47.920 | ultimately not the fault of someone outside of us.
00:19:52.760 | You know what is interesting to me about this situation is that he almost seemed like he
00:20:01.320 | knew that this was going to be exposed after he died because he made no effort to cover
00:20:06.640 | this up.
00:20:07.880 | He only covered it up while he was alive so he's not a dummy.
00:20:12.280 | He knew once he died what was on his computer on his phone was going to get exposed that
00:20:16.380 | all those people who made allegations, the hotels, the masseuse, that all of that was
00:20:20.480 | going to come out which makes me think that he wasn't a believer, that he said all of
00:20:27.160 | these things but he was not afraid of the consequence after he dies because an unbeliever
00:20:33.360 | will think well after I'm dead, I'm not here so it doesn't matter.
00:20:36.560 | He's not thinking about the afterlife.
00:20:38.160 | He's not thinking about the consequence afterwards.
00:20:40.760 | So you know, I know many men who have fallen and have repented, whether the repentance
00:20:46.800 | is sincere or not, but his behavior is particularly grievous because everything that I've heard
00:20:56.320 | and read, it sounds like the mentality of an unbeliever.
00:21:01.980 | And so for him to have the kind of impact that he had as an unbeliever in and of itself
00:21:06.840 | is something that we need to kind of take a step back and look at.
00:21:09.800 | What caused this man to be effective?
00:21:12.560 | What was his message?
00:21:14.000 | Why were so many people duped by this man, right?
00:21:18.400 | I mean, God could use donkeys to speak truth so it doesn't mean that there wasn't any truth
00:21:22.960 | coming out of this man but how did that many people not recognize that this man may not
00:21:30.120 | have been a Christian?
00:21:32.600 | Yeah I mean, you know, we had to take stock, you know.
00:21:38.480 | I mentioned early on that I read a vast majority of his books and a vast majority of his lectures
00:21:46.160 | and I remember when this news came out and just kind of as an experiment, I listened
00:21:53.160 | to one of his older lectures and I listened to it with different ears, you know, just
00:22:01.440 | completely different ears now that I know him, you know.
00:22:05.400 | And I think, you know, looking back in my mind, I just viewed him as an apologist, you
00:22:11.480 | know, not as a, not necessarily as someone I'm going to receive biblical truth from.
00:22:17.880 | Not that he didn't, not that that wasn't present at all but that wasn't, to me I didn't see
00:22:24.640 | him as that goal but the problem is, but the problem is this, right?
00:22:30.720 | Truth is truth, you know, truth is truth, period, you know.
00:22:34.520 | And so these questions of like, what did he actually say?
00:22:41.000 | What did he actually believe?
00:22:42.720 | These are fair questions that need to be answered, you know.
00:22:48.000 | And I know for myself, I've given seekers in the past, I've given some seekers some
00:22:57.440 | of his books like, "Hey, you know, what book would you recommend if I want to find out
00:23:02.600 | more about Jesus?"
00:23:04.200 | And to one particular person, I gave them Jesus Among Other Gods.
00:23:07.680 | Now as I'm sitting here right now, I do wish I didn't do that, of course, you know.
00:23:13.120 | But it's reinforcing just, in my mind, the necessity of core truths that we need to absolutely
00:23:26.240 | fight for and no matter how eloquent you are or how smart you are, nobody is above that.
00:23:34.480 | Clearly not even Ravi Zacharias, you know.
00:23:38.440 | So Pastor Peter, I want to ask you, for going forward, going forward, I don't think we say,
00:23:50.760 | "Well, you know, I don't know this guy personally so I'm not gonna listen to him.
00:23:53.880 | I don't know, you know, I don't know Steve Lawson personally.
00:23:56.720 | I don't know what's going on in his life so I'm not gonna listen to him."
00:23:59.680 | Because you and I would agree, in theory, someone even as solid as Steve Lawson, we
00:24:07.360 | don't know their life so in theory, they could be someone else.
00:24:10.040 | I don't think he is.
00:24:11.040 | Obviously, I'm not saying that.
00:24:12.800 | But that could be true, you know, in a hypothetical vacuum.
00:24:16.520 | You know, we don't know anybody, right?
00:24:18.920 | And then the other layer to that is we can look at each other.
00:24:22.360 | I don't know you.
00:24:23.400 | Are you telling me the truth and start, you know, having this, like, you know, in the
00:24:27.920 | spirit of being discerning, kind of take it too far, you know?
00:24:32.480 | So what are your thoughts on that, Pastor Peter?
00:24:36.320 | You know, I think Jonathan Edwards in his book, Religious Affection, you know, he basically
00:24:42.240 | writes like half of the book is about, you know, fake affection.
00:24:47.560 | Like you can go to church and be fake.
00:24:49.160 | You can be a leader and be fake.
00:24:50.920 | You can be knowledgeable and be fake.
00:24:52.340 | You can bear fruit, at least seemingly, and be fake.
00:24:55.240 | And so he basically tears down everything that we would measure as, like, that's a godly
00:25:00.160 | man.
00:25:01.160 | That's a man who's a Christian.
00:25:02.160 | And then the second part of it, he builds up and says, well, this is what true affection
00:25:05.320 | looks like.
00:25:07.360 | And the reason why he wrote that book is because the Great Awakening was happening and there
00:25:11.600 | was a lot of charismatic things that were happening.
00:25:14.180 | And so you had one group saying that that was all from God.
00:25:17.480 | And then you had another group saying, like, that's all from the devil.
00:25:20.160 | That's not from God.
00:25:21.240 | And that's why he was sifting through to just biblically.
00:25:25.160 | So he goes after passage, after passage, after passage.
00:25:28.680 | And one thing that really stood out to me in his main point in his second part of the
00:25:32.200 | book is the primary and the most important evidence of genuine faith is his true affection
00:25:39.960 | for Christ.
00:25:42.240 | And that's why he, like his, the evidence that his eyes were open to God's glory was
00:25:48.200 | his affection, right?
00:25:50.860 | And so he starts to break down that, what does that affection look like, right?
00:25:54.920 | In worship.
00:25:55.920 | What does that affection look like in preaching?
00:25:56.920 | What does that affection look like in life, in evangelism?
00:26:00.140 | And so he kind of deconstructs and then rebuilds up.
00:26:04.360 | But like I said, the primary thing that really struck me was, you know, it's so simple that
00:26:09.640 | the Bible says, you know, the greatest thing that God desires is to love the Lord your
00:26:12.520 | God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
00:26:15.640 | With apologetics, the emphasis is on the mind.
00:26:19.320 | You know, with charismatics, the emphasis is on your emotions, you know.
00:26:25.160 | With the discipleship movement, the emphasis is on your will and discipline.
00:26:30.960 | But there's a reason why I think all of that is covered because true affection requires
00:26:37.120 | all of it.
00:26:38.200 | You never detach your emotion, you never detach your mind, you never detach your will.
00:26:42.500 | Like when there is genuine love for Christ, you see the evidence of that in all aspects
00:26:47.720 | of your life, not just one aspect.
00:26:50.080 | And so, but at the core of that is not how smart somebody is, how disciplined somebody
00:26:55.320 | is, or how passionate somebody is, but how is the affection for Christ evidenced in his
00:27:01.560 | passion?
00:27:02.560 | How is the affection for Christ evidenced in his discipline and his study in theology?
00:27:08.520 | And so it doesn't mean, so we're never going to be perfect in our discernment, you know,
00:27:13.200 | because only God will know truly what's in man's heart.
00:27:16.600 | If before this happened, if anybody asked us, like, "Oh, we're questioning Ravi Zacharias,"
00:27:21.380 | how many people would have questioned him?
00:27:22.880 | Zero.
00:27:23.880 | Only it's because all this has been laid out, right?
00:27:27.480 | But I'm always weary when I think of people who are up on the stage, you know, and God
00:27:34.120 | is obviously using them for a purpose, but there's always an alternate motive when somebody
00:27:41.360 | is celebrated in public, like whether they become wealthy because they wrote a book,
00:27:47.840 | or they're treated, and people line up just to be near this person.
00:27:53.760 | And so they're human.
00:27:56.080 | So whenever someone is celebrated by earthly standards, you know that they're struggling
00:28:02.600 | internally, even if they are a genuine believer, genuinely being used by God, they're struggling
00:28:07.600 | with that desire to touch some of that glory.
00:28:10.680 | There's a reason why Christ put a thorn on Apostle Paul's side, and he said the only
00:28:15.840 | reason why he did it is to keep him humble because God was using him, you know.
00:28:20.520 | And so for me as a pastor, I'm always weary of that because, you know, the more "success"
00:28:28.940 | that I or our church experiences, there's always that temptation to be proud and to
00:28:34.880 | think that, you know, what we're doing is right.
00:28:37.600 | God is using us, and then once that pride gets in, that's the beginning of the unraveling
00:28:44.160 | of everything else, you know.
00:28:46.080 | And so I don't think we have ultimately the true discernment to be able to say, you know,
00:28:52.720 | with absolute certainty, "This man is somebody that we trust.
00:28:55.600 | This man isn't somebody that we don't trust."
00:28:57.320 | I think as a general rule, we always believe that all have sinned and fall short of the
00:29:02.680 | glory of God.
00:29:04.680 | And the same pride you struggle with, He struggles with.
00:29:07.680 | Same temptation you struggle with, He struggles with, you know.
00:29:11.160 | So to be discerning in the way that we are looking for the affection for Christ, does
00:29:18.520 | He have me to love Christ, right?
00:29:21.220 | And if He does, great, you know.
00:29:24.760 | And to me personally, Rabbi Zacharias was not, I wasn't never like a, I had nothing
00:29:29.960 | against him, but I just didn't have that kind of affinity to him.
00:29:34.240 | So it didn't affect me that much.
00:29:36.760 | And I've had enough people when I was younger that I really looked up to fall, where I'm
00:29:42.200 | kind of, you know, like, not only can they fall, I can fall.
00:29:47.240 | So if I know that I can fall, I'm not going to be shocked that they fall, you know.
00:29:52.400 | But like you said, the truth is the truth.
00:29:53.880 | It doesn't diminish the Word of God at all.
00:29:56.360 | If anything, to me, it brings my attention back to God's Word, right?
00:30:03.240 | Where I truly get fed is not through the presentation, but the content, right?
00:30:08.520 | Even if it comes through a man like Rabbi Zacharias.
00:30:11.440 | I can read, I can still read his books.
00:30:14.080 | I can still be blessed by certain things that he said, you know, even if it did come through
00:30:20.560 | a man like him.
00:30:22.800 | Yeah, you know, it's, you know, I'm reminded when you say that, Pastor Peter, I'm reminded
00:30:30.320 | of James chapter one, you know, where, you know, when we think about wisdom, we think
00:30:36.080 | about getting wisdom.
00:30:38.040 | Sometimes our inclination is to just build principles, okay, I learned this.
00:30:42.680 | So I'm going to make up this principle and abide by this principle forever.
00:30:46.320 | Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be reflective or introspective, or I'm not saying that the
00:30:50.640 | building of principles is bad, but primarily, wisdom comes from God.
00:30:57.000 | Wisdom comes from God.
00:30:58.920 | It's not, the application of truth isn't static.
00:31:04.040 | His mercies are new every morning.
00:31:06.240 | As we seek him, he will give us wisdom.
00:31:09.320 | And we never reach a point where we say to ourselves, oh, I have all the wisdom I need.
00:31:15.360 | James chapter one doesn't apply to me anymore.
00:31:17.960 | No one gets into that category anymore, you know, and so, yeah, Pastor Peter, you know,
00:31:25.440 | we're not going to start, you know, this witch hunt discernment ministry.
00:31:29.120 | We're not going to do that.
00:31:30.760 | Neither are we going to be naive as to think that some people are superhuman.
00:31:36.640 | All men have, all men of sin all fall short of the glory of God.
00:31:40.240 | And so we kind of live in biblical truth.
00:31:46.120 | And we seek a person, you know, we seek a person, right?
00:31:51.800 | So, you know, Pastor Peter, I want to ask you, so for a lot of people, they, or, you
00:32:04.160 | know, some group of people maybe, you know, have his books, you know, they profited from
00:32:11.880 | his lectures.
00:32:12.880 | What will be your advice?
00:32:14.800 | Should we burn his books?
00:32:16.760 | You know, should we not listen to it or what, you know, should we get rid of anything associated
00:32:25.640 | with him?
00:32:26.640 | I see arguments both ways, but if you can kind of just shed some light on that.
00:32:31.600 | Yeah, I mean, it's hard to give like a universal advice saying that this is what every person
00:32:36.800 | should do.
00:32:38.040 | But I could, you know, I'll tell you what I would do.
00:32:42.400 | I wouldn't recommend his books because there are many other books that I think could do
00:32:48.200 | the job that he's done.
00:32:50.120 | I personally don't have a problem reading it because I can detach what I'm reading from
00:32:55.320 | the person who wrote it.
00:32:56.880 | You know, there's a lot of good books that people fell away in their faith at the latter
00:33:01.040 | part of their life.
00:33:02.040 | And if we were to go back and discern and to trash everything, you know, there's a lot
00:33:06.380 | of books that really wouldn't stand the test of time.
00:33:09.640 | But personally, if you're able to do that, and I know a lot of people that did because
00:33:15.600 | what he did was so disturbing that they can't detach that as they're reading his stuff.
00:33:22.200 | And you're perfectly within your rights to say, I'm not going to read it because it bothers
00:33:26.800 | me.
00:33:27.800 | But for whatever reason, I could detach that emotional part with what he said.
00:33:32.920 | So if I can, if I can be blessed by what he said, right, because what he said isn't his
00:33:38.640 | knowledge.
00:33:39.700 | What he's saying is wisdom ultimately come from God.
00:33:42.400 | So even if a secular, a secular scientist, you know, tells me something about the universe
00:33:50.040 | and even though he's an adulterer and he's as immoral as you can get, you know, that
00:33:55.000 | causes me to see the glory of God, even if it came through the study of that man who
00:33:59.560 | hates God, you know.
00:34:01.300 | So I kind of take it like that.
00:34:03.040 | I don't think we need to collect all his books and burn it.
00:34:06.200 | But I would be very cautious and wise in the way that I recommend it to people.
00:34:11.760 | Yeah, no, that, I mean, that's good.
00:34:13.880 | I mean, you know, Einstein wasn't a Christian, but I think everyone accepts his general theory,
00:34:22.880 | his theory of general relativity.
00:34:24.920 | And certainly when you study the theory of general relativity, it expands and, you know,
00:34:32.400 | puts me in a state of awe at how God created the universe.
00:34:40.360 | You know, Pastor Peter, so I don't want to make this too long, but what would you say
00:34:48.720 | are things that we can learn from the life of, I mean, you've already alluded to it,
00:34:54.360 | but you know, if someone, you know, someone's in college, it doesn't have to be college,
00:35:00.040 | but you know, someone comes up to you, looked up to Ravi Zacharias, you know, he's, he or
00:35:05.240 | she is just completely heartbroken.
00:35:09.200 | And that makes that person introspective because that person understands it could be any one
00:35:13.120 | of us.
00:35:14.500 | What would you say to that person?
00:35:18.600 | You know, it's understandable, you know, but you know, what's interesting to me is when
00:35:23.960 | Apostle Paul went to Berea, he said that the Bereans were more noble character, noble minded
00:35:30.440 | because they questioned him and they tested him by scripture.
00:35:34.580 | So you would think humanly speaking, it's like, what, why you question me?
00:35:38.080 | And then Thessalonians, they said, you know, when I spoke the word, you listen to it as
00:35:41.440 | if it was the word of God, which it was.
00:35:44.840 | But he says that the Bereans were even more noble than them because they were questioned.
00:35:49.600 | And I think going forward, everybody, like nothing should be above the word of God, you
00:35:56.320 | know, and I'm not saying that we should have a critical spirit, you know, but we need to
00:36:01.520 | be familiar with the word of God enough that when we sense the wolf, right, that you don't
00:36:07.280 | have to go and ask, is he a wolf?
00:36:10.080 | You know what I mean?
00:36:11.080 | Like know the truth well enough that when something is off, right, that you can test
00:36:17.160 | it through the word of God.
00:36:18.160 | So that's one.
00:36:19.520 | Secondly, the emotional damage that that does, if it's damaging to the point where you don't
00:36:26.600 | trust anybody, and maybe even God, that's something that we have to take a step back
00:36:32.960 | and say, maybe your confidence was placed in the wrong place to begin with.
00:36:37.360 | And God may be using this to reveal to you that your confidence ultimately wasn't God
00:36:43.000 | himself, right?
00:36:44.920 | So when his supposed messenger that you realize is, you know, like what's exposed now and
00:36:52.360 | that destroys your faith, that means your faith was resting upon man and not God, right?
00:36:58.920 | So that's the second thing.
00:37:01.360 | But for those people who are genuinely hurt, their faith is not shaken, but genuinely hurt
00:37:07.080 | by that.
00:37:08.080 | That's natural, right?
00:37:10.520 | To go from that to say, I trust no man, that's also a mistake because the Bible says to submit,
00:37:14.880 | to submit to elders, you know, to respect and honor, and God establishes leaders and
00:37:21.680 | elders for a reason, right?
00:37:23.520 | But to say, go from that to so therefore I don't ever trust the church, you know, I love
00:37:27.400 | God but I don't love people, you know, that's also a rebellious heart, right?
00:37:33.160 | Because God tells us to love, God tells us to submit, God tells us to honor and build.
00:37:38.080 | But that requires maturity, you know, it's just like when you first started dating somebody
00:37:43.620 | or getting married and you have this ideal vision of what you think your wife is going
00:37:48.080 | to be like, and then inevitably you get out of your honeymoon and you see reality of the
00:37:54.440 | selfishness and sinfulness in yourself and in your wife.
00:37:58.600 | And when the building happens is when you see the reality of who you are, you accept
00:38:02.760 | them and love them anyway, and you speak truth and love, cover over some sins, and you endure
00:38:10.040 | with one another, and you love despite the things that you see, and eventually a great
00:38:17.000 | marriage is built on true foundation, right?
00:38:22.480 | In the same way, like, you know, when we're young we have a tendency to idolize and put
00:38:27.440 | people on pedestal, and then when they get knocked off the pedestal, like, you don't
00:38:32.000 | want to honor anybody, you don't want to follow anybody, that's also a mistake.
00:38:36.440 | That's just like saying, because you came out of your honeymoon, I want a divorce, right?
00:38:42.860 | That's an unhealthy way to deal with the situation.
00:38:45.360 | I think the hurt and pain should lead us to find refuge in Christ, and then love everybody
00:38:54.320 | as if you're loving a sinner who's been forgiven.
00:38:58.360 | No matter who you respect, there are also sinners who've been forgiven.
00:39:03.200 | Then we could build a healthy church, that you don't expect perfection from your leaders.
00:39:08.160 | You expect mistakes, but you can cover over that, right, and still honor them.
00:39:12.040 | How do you honor somebody that you know are not perfect?
00:39:17.000 | That's also part of maturity.
00:39:18.380 | Just like we learn to respect our parents, you know, you go through a rebellion when
00:39:22.720 | you start to see imperfections in your teenage years, but eventually you grow up and you
00:39:26.800 | see them as human beings, but you learn to honor flawed human beings, and that's what
00:39:31.920 | causes you to mature.
00:39:34.000 | So I think that's the same, in the same way, right, like to not to be discerning, you know,
00:39:40.440 | question and know the Word of God, but at the same time know that mankind, even if they
00:39:46.040 | are good men of God, they're flawed, right, and to learn to focus on Christ.
00:39:51.480 | Yeah, that's good, Pastor Peter, you know, I mean, I go back to what you said, you know,
00:40:02.640 | early on in this response, but is that the Word of God is sufficient, and we need to
00:40:09.960 | know the Word of God, because we can handle things in one swing or a completely different
00:40:21.280 | swing when the Bible is teaching us to handle it in a completely different aspect than what
00:40:28.920 | we're normally inclined to do, whether it's left or right, the Bible's telling us to go
00:40:32.840 | straight in the middle, you know, and you can't follow what you don't know, and if you
00:40:40.360 | don't know the Word of God, then we're lost.
00:40:45.560 | Yeah, I mean, you're in a completely dark room with no light without the Word of God,
00:40:53.240 | and you know, we saw this with CRT, we saw this with just what's going on in the world
00:41:00.800 | with social justice, we're divided, but the Word of God is not ambiguous, the Word of
00:41:10.720 | God is clear, and the more we attach ourselves to the Word of God, the clearer this world
00:41:16.760 | is going to be, so yeah, thank you for that, Pastor Peter, did you want to say something?
00:41:22.400 | Yeah, I mean, because you brought up what's going on, I mean, think about where we're
00:41:27.000 | at right now.
00:41:28.640 | You have one group of Christians saying that if you don't march with the Black Lives Matter,
00:41:35.280 | you don't love Jesus, right, and if you don't fight against that, you don't love Jesus.
00:41:42.440 | If you are a Democrat, you don't love Jesus.
00:41:46.120 | If you aren't a Republican, you don't love Jesus.
00:41:48.960 | If you don't wear a mask, you don't love Jesus.
00:41:52.480 | If you wear a mask, it's because you don't love Jesus.
00:41:55.560 | I mean, you have these voices, right, now, are there some truth to everything that they're
00:42:01.200 | saying, of course, there's some truth, right, but we have, especially right now, we're living
00:42:06.400 | in a generation where people are so convicted, one way or the other, right, and maybe some
00:42:14.240 | of that is true, maybe some of that is wrong, but we're not going to find truth ourselves,
00:42:22.160 | just because, you know, I'm balanced, I'm smarter than those guys, you know, I'm more
00:42:26.100 | moral, that's not the plumb line that God gave us to be able to see if our life is level,
00:42:34.520 | you know, the only plumb line that we have to be able to measure if something that seems
00:42:39.060 | to be right, maybe crooked, is God's Word, so, you know, right now, like, it seems right
00:42:44.920 | in every direction, to the left or to the right, to wear the mask, don't wear the mask,
00:42:48.560 | get the vaccine, don't get the vaccine, and everybody, and even the so-called professionals,
00:42:53.640 | pastors, celebrity pastors, are saying polar opposite things, saying that if you really
00:42:58.800 | love Jesus, if you really did, you would do this, right, so, if we don't have the plumb
00:43:04.560 | line to measure with, you're going to end up doing basically who you like, I like this
00:43:12.120 | pastor, so I'm going to trust what he says, you know, I tend to lean this way, so I'm
00:43:15.920 | going to lean toward that way, which is how bad doctrine and bad life and corruption to
00:43:22.320 | the church comes in, so if there's any time where we needed to stick to the Word of God,
00:43:28.360 | it's now, right, because that's the only plumb line that measures if something is not level,
00:43:34.800 | because we can't, clearly, we can't tell with our own eyes.
00:43:38.240 | Yeah, yeah, in times of peace, you know, the necessity to be in the Word isn't as apparent
00:43:52.240 | as it is in times of confusion, in times of confusion, you realize, man, I don't know
00:43:59.520 | how to interpret, I don't know what's going on, I don't know who to believe, and it kind
00:44:04.480 | of reveals, maybe we had more trust in men than we ought to have, you know, and the thing
00:44:11.000 | is, even if you land on the correct position, whatever that might be, if you don't take
00:44:16.480 | the proper vehicle there, you know, it doesn't really mean much, because you still have faith
00:44:23.760 | in men, you just happen to be fortunate, you know, and that doesn't really do anyone much
00:44:29.760 | good, so the primacy of every believer being in the Word of God is so apparent now and
00:44:40.560 | so central, you know, yeah, yeah, so, you know, we can talk more, we can talk about
00:44:49.120 | James Coates, we can talk about so many other things, but I'm looking at the time here,
00:44:54.200 | and it's already 42 minutes, so we'll end here, Pastor Peter, do you want to pray for
00:44:59.480 | us?
00:45:00.480 | Sure.
00:45:01.480 | Heavenly Father, we just want to thank you for this ministry, and we pray, Father, that
00:45:09.480 | our discussion would just help us to gain wisdom, whatever that was said that may cause
00:45:16.780 | confusion, I pray, Lord, that you would help to filter that out for the listeners, and
00:45:23.920 | even in the things that we've said, I pray, Father God, that our listeners would listen
00:45:28.800 | with a lens of your Word, and help us truly be Bereans, Lord God, who test all things
00:45:34.520 | according to what you have said, that Christ would be at the center, Christ would be the
00:45:38.720 | head of our church, and I thank you, Father, for Elder James, and I pray that you would
00:45:44.200 | bless this ministry, and just asking, Lord God, that you would give him wisdom, and that
00:45:49.840 | this ministry would flourish, Lord God, that we may be blessed as a church as well.
00:45:54.560 | I pray for the believers, Lord, who have been deeply affected by Rav Zechariah's sin, Lord,
00:46:00.840 | we don't know where he will be in eternity, but we know, Lord God, that you are gracious
00:46:05.080 | and loving, I pray for those who have been affected, whether it is in our church or all
00:46:10.280 | around the world, that this would not be a reason, Lord God, to abandon their faith,
00:46:15.640 | but only to strengthen it further, and not to put their confidence in men, but in you,
00:46:21.200 | in your Word alone, so we pray, Father God, that true fruit, genuine fruit, pruning, Lord
00:46:27.080 | God, would come out of this situation, ultimately for the greater good of your glory, in Jesus'
00:46:32.800 | name we pray, amen.
00:46:38.520 | As Pastor Peter has just prayed, our hope is that this would bring clarity, and not
00:46:43.120 | more confusion, but in the case anything we said does raise another question, well, you
00:46:49.680 | know where we go to church.
00:46:52.800 | Thanks for making it to the end, I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it.
00:46:58.480 | To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion.
00:47:03.360 | James Honlow
00:47:03.880 | [Music]
00:47:33.840 | (upbeat music)
00:47:36.420 | (upbeat music)