Mark Driscoll Yanked From the Stage and Exposed as a Liar

Justin Peters

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00:01

And then, he swallowed a sword, and Jesus cried, okay,

00:07

Pastor John, I'll receive that. Thank you. Much has been made about Mark Driscoll being yanked off the stage at the

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Stronger Men's Conference, but I'm gonna talk to you about what really happened, why it matters, and in the second half of this video,

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I'm going to be interviewing someone who has firsthand experience with Mark Driscoll, and we will see.

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I'll show you some video that will prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that Mark Driscoll is eager for publicity.

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This is a publicity stunt, and he is a liar. Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen.

00:53

My name is Justin Peters. I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today. I wanna thank you so much for joining me.

01:00

So, just a few days ago, Mark Driscoll was indeed yanked off the platform of the Stronger Men's Conference because before he spoke, there was a performer that got up and did a sword -swallowing act, and he took that,

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Mark Driscoll took that as this guy trying to seduce the men there, apparently with a

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Jezebel spirit, which is bizarre, and we're going to get into all of that, and I've enlisted the help of a friend of mine named

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Gabe Hughes. Gabe is a pastor in Casa Grande, Arizona, and he also has the

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YouTube channel, WWUTT, When We Understand the Text, and Gabe and I both did some research into this, and we're gonna talk about what happened.

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We're gonna play some clips from this conference, why it is important, so that will be the first part of this video, and in the second part of this video, timestamp down below there in the description,

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I'm going to be interviewing Travis Allen. Travis Allen is the pastor of Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado, and he used to be an elder at Grace Community Church when the

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Strange Fire Conference happened back in 2013, and he had firsthand interactions with Mark Driscoll, and Mark Driscoll pulled another publicity stunt.

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This is all this is, pure publicity stunt, and Mark Driscoll did the same thing 11 years ago now, and Travis Allen had firsthand interaction with Mark Driscoll, and we have footage from the scene, and it will prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that Mark Driscoll is an absolute liar, and he is manifestly both unqualified and disqualified from being in the pulpit.

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So we're gonna talk about all of this. So first part of the video, here is my interview with Gabe Hughes.

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Well, Gabe, brother, how are you? Doing great, Justin, thanks for asking. It is a beautiful, sunny day here in Southern Arizona.

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We're already getting up to 95 this week in April, so it's looking to be a hot summer, yep.

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Oh man, oh man. They're predicting the possibility of snow up here in Montana in a couple of days, so.

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That's not us, yeah. That's not Arizona, nope, nope. All right, well,

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Gabe, thank you very much for coming on the program, brother, and you were about to text me last night when

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I called you about this subject matter. So quite the brouhaha has been brewing over this

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Stronger Men's Conference, at which Mark Driscoll was a speaker.

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So tell us a little bit about what is this conference? So the

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Stronger Men's Conference has been going on for about seven years.

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I think it started back in 2017, at least from what I was able to find, at least going back that far.

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And Mark Driscoll has been involved in this conference for at least that long. This is a church in Southern Missouri.

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Do you have the name of the church? James River Church, I think is the name of it. James River Church, yes. Yeah, so they're the ones that put this on, and it's almost like they try to outdo the church.

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They try to outdo themselves every year. It gets bigger and bigger. It's almost like a Super Bowl halftime show. They'll have about the most macho stuff that you can think of with tanks rolling through and piling over cars and monster trucks and pyrotechnics and rock music.

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And it just gets bigger and bigger. So they'll even have people that'll perform these elaborate stunts.

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There will, of course, at least according to their claim, be a presentation of the gospel. I know that one of the things that they were claiming at this most recent conference that has gathered all this attention is that several hundred men came forward and gave their lives to Christ.

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So they claim that it's an evangelical thing. Of course, our experience with big evangelical churches that do stuff like this is it's often a very watered -down gospel.

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I've known men that have attended stuff like this, and they will tell me, yeah, I got saved there, but then they mature in their faith and recognize, boy, what a circus that was, and praise

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God that he was able to use something like that to draw me to himself. But overall, you're not gonna get any true gospel preaching, an understanding of sin, the wages of sin, which is death, the eternity of hell that will come upon every person who does not turn from their sin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Oftentimes, it's a very watered -down presentation. It's huge on pyrotechnics, but not so much on theology.

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So there was a fellow, actually, that had contacted me in the midst of this controversy and had said that he and his pastor have had a ministry in Southern Missouri where they have evangelized people out of this particular church and the influence that that church has had over the area.

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So he said it's a pretty big deal and very unfortunate to see how much influence they've had in their region.

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Yes, indeed. And James River Church, this is an enormous church. And so to give people an idea of the theological flavor of this church, this is a word -of -faith church,

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NAR. Bill Johnson has been a guest preacher at this church, at least one, I think more,

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I think I'm safe to say more than once. So - Yeah, I knew at least one time, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I think more than that.

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So if you're having Bill Johnson of Bethel Church come in and fill your pulpit, that speaks volumes about who you are and what you believe.

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Absolutely. Other teachers have included Greg Rochelle, who is of Life Church in Oklahoma City, John Gray, who used to be one of Joel Osteen's pastors.

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And the man is a multi -time adulterer in addition to being a prosperity gospel preacher and word -of -faith, like you mentioned.

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I mean, they all claim that God speaks specific messages to them. And so what

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I am saying is from God and you must listen to me. That kind of theology is throughout this men's conference as well.

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Yes, absolutely. And this is also the show me the toes church.

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Are you - Yeah, you told me that and I had totally forgotten about that and did not realize that that was related to James River Church.

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So you're gonna have to expose that one, I guess. Yeah, so for those of you who are not aware, so James River Church, pastor by John Lindell, this is a signs and wonder, word of faith, prosperity, gospel, health and wealth kind of a church.

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And a year or so ago, not long ago, but John Lindell came out and he made this claim of a testimony of a woman named

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Chrissy Thompson, who says that some years back her husband,

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I'm assuming now a strange husband or whatever, shot her toes off. And she was in a service and her toes grew back.

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And there's video of her making this claim. And they said, the claim is, is that everybody saw this, her toes grew back.

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And Bill Johnson has repeated that story at his church, Bethel Church. So it's, but anyway, someone who is closely associated with James River Church and Chrissy Thompson knows her, doesn't believe it.

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And put, made this website. It's, I'm looking at it right now, showmethetoes .com.

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Oh my goodness. Showmethetoes .com. And so he's basically got an open challenge, like show me the toes.

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Okay, so if this happened and there are many, many, many witnesses of it, of it happening in real time, surely living in the 21st century in the 2020s, everybody and their uncle's got a smartphone.

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How is there no video of this? I mean, I would, I think that would, if I saw something like that,

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I think that'd be worthy enough to whip out my iPhone and take some quick video. But yeah, so this is a -

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That's a story that has no soul. Oh, I see what you did there. I see what you did there.

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All right, so this is a heretical wackadoodle church.

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Yeah, women pastors and the whole nine yards, all that stuff that goes along with charismatic women. So that's what we're dealing with.

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All right, so on to the subject matter at hand, what brings us together today to paraphrase, paraphrase

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The Prince's Bride. All right, so I'm going to play this and this is a clip of what happened at the men's conference.

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So for context, well, let's set up the context. At this men's conference,

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Gabe, there was a man by the name of Alex Megala, correct? Right. Who got up and performed apparently at least a half hour before Mark Driscoll preached.

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So tell us who Alex Megala is. So he's basically a stunt performer.

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He has been on Britain's Got Talent, and this was kind of how he gained notoriety, doing this particular stunt that he did at this men's conference.

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And after making it to like the quarterfinals in Britain's Got Talent, he went on to do America's Got Talent and China's Got Talent.

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So he's kind of done this circuit of the televised talent shows around the world and has gained notoriety from this.

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Now, it is true that he used to be a former stripper. I was not able to find out if he still does that or if he's even repented of that.

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But what has been pulled into this story is that he did a strip show at this men's conference, which really was not what happened.

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And that's what Driscoll was calling out. Megala was just doing the stunt that he is known for doing.

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Of course, he did it shirtless. You know, he takes his performance jacket off. He's showing his ripped physique.

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Now, I feel like I should interrupt here just for a second, because I've seen some people say that this must have been some kind of a strip -oriented theme because he took his shirt off.

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Well, that can't really be the reason because at this Stronger Men's Conference, they've had several other events in which men have been without their shirts.

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Here's one, of course, of two guys boxing without their shirts, as typically boxers do.

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Here's another guy doing weightlifting without his shirt. And here's another guy doing whatever this is without his shirt.

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I must say, it's pretty impressive to balance. Yeah, so if you ever wanna see a guy balance a big log beam on whatever that is, on his chin, on fire without a shirt on, there you go.

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You can see it all at the Stronger Men's Conference. So just being without a shirt in and of itself cannot possibly have been the reason, at least not a legitimate one.

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And then ascends this pole. I guess I should explain the stunt. So he swallows a sword, and then he ascends this pole with the sword still in his mouth, and then he rapidly descends the pole, and everybody gasps, because they think he's lost his grip or something.

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But no, he's fully in control of everything that's happening, and just inches from the ground he stops before the sword would hit the ground and impale him, if that would happen.

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It's a pretty death -defying stunt, but that's what it is. It's a stunt. It's like a circus performance. And of course, that's what this men's conference is too.

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It's a goat farm. It's a big circus performance. It's entertaining goats. It's not preaching the gospel.

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That's right, that's right. Okay. So I'm going to play this video clip. Someone with their smartphone recorded this.

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This is not like an official feed or anything. Just someone in the audience posted this. And so let's watch.

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I found this clip, and I chose this particular clip because whoever posted it had put in, what do you call it?

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Subtitles? Not subtitles. Not subtitle. Okay, so here we go. But let me do this.

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I've been up since one o 'clock in the morning. The reason I'm hoarse is I have been praying for you and my heart is very burdened for you.

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Okay, Gabe, I want to pause it right there. He says, I've been up since one o 'clock in the morning. And the reason my voice is hoarse is because I've been praying for you and my heart is burdened for you.

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When I heard that, I thought, isn't there something in the Bible about not letting your right hand know what the left hand is doing?

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And, you know, you know, Yeah, when you pray, don't sound a trumpet about it. Don't sound a trumpet about it, yeah.

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And I mean, I'm obviously, as a Christian, prayed a lot in my life. I've never prayed myself hoarse.

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That just sounds weird to me. And is he staying in a hotel and he's yelling in his hotel room?

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That is making him go so hoarse. I don't, I think somebody would call the front desk and go,

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I think the man next door is possessed. If you're praying hard enough and loud enough that you've yelled yourself hoarse,

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I think, is God hard of hearing? I just, that just doesn't make any sense.

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So right off the bat, this has a ring of like, I ain't believing this, but here we go. Well, and by the way, before you continue, there's even some context before this part where Driscoll says that I'm going to talk about this in my next session if they allow me to come back.

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So it's almost like he's ready for, he knows he's going to say something that's going to probably get him booted.

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And it really does kind of have an air of, he was planning this, you know, he was taking an opportunity to do something here.

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Yep, yep. I agree a hundred percent. And we're going to see that here in just a minute, too. Woo! And I want to be very careful with this, and it's not what

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I want to say, but the Jezebel spirit has already been here. Okay, the

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Jezebel spirit has already been here. What is a Jezebel spirit?

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I have no idea. Now, this is something that he's been on about for at least a year, probably more than that.

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He preached a sermon at his church, which is not far from me, by the way. I live in Casa Grande.

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That's true. His church is in Scottsdale, which is just a little more than half an hour from me. So at his church, he did this series where he talked about a

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Jezebel spirit. And there's a sermon that you can look up where he goes through 29 signs of the Jezebel spirit.

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So he talks about how a man can have an Ahab spirit or a woman can have a Jezebel spirit.

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And to kind of define what that is, you have to listen to the whole sermon because he doesn't give a definition of it.

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It's these different things. If a woman is doing this, then she has a Jezebel spirit. And to just kind of give you an example, if a man is an overbearing man, then he has an

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Ahab spirit. If a woman is an overbearing woman, then she has a Jezebel spirit. And I'm sure it goes on from there to like if she's sexually promiscuous, then she has a

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Jezebel spirit. So that's kind of the implication that he's giving here with regard to the

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Jezebel spirit is already in the room. Now here, he's talking to a bunch of men. So he doesn't talk about Jezebel or an

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Ahab spirit. He says Jezebel spirit. But this is all kind of like stirring up the niche thing that he's been preaching on for the last year or so.

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Right, right. And this fits perfectly. He's gotten wrapped up with the modern demon slayers and casting out demons and all this kind of stuff, binding

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Satan, all that. And if you're an alcoholic, if you're looking at porn, if you've got anger issues, you've got a demon.

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Yeah, right, exactly. You don't have a sin problem. You've got a demon. You just got to cast that demon out and then you'll be all better and you won't have those issues anymore.

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So this is a way of short -circuiting people's sanctification, assuming they're even regenerate.

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The Bible gives us instructions to repent, put to death the deeds of the body.

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If you're looking at porn, you don't have the demon of pornography in you. You've got a sin issue.

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Right. And you need to repent. That is, yeah, that's your flesh. You are, you have not put to death the sin that is in you.

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Colossians 3, verse 5, put to death what is earthly in you. And then the sins that Paul mentions includes sexual immorality and against such things, the wrath of God is coming.

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So it doesn't say anything about cast that demon out of you so that you can live wholly unto God. Put to death your fleshly desires that you may be wholly unto

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Christ. That's not what you hear from this. You hear that you have a spirit of some kind that needs to be passed out, or it's that, you know, it's the old, the devil made me do it sort of thing.

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Whip Wilson theology. Yeah, the devil made me do it. All right. The Jezebel spirit opened our event.

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This is a rebuke and a correction of no one. This is an observation. Before the word of God was opened, there was a platform.

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It was a high place. And on it was a pole, an

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Asherah. Okay, he says there's an Asherah pole. What is an

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Asherah pole? So if you are familiar with the sins of Israel in first and second

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Kings, for example, they would worship the Asherah, who is the mother God. And they would erect a pole that would be the symbol of the

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Asherah. It's kind of like Baal's wife. And so that's what he's claiming this was.

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So this stunt that this guy performed, climbing this pole and rapidly descending the pole is an altar to Asherah.

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That's his claim. Right. Whereas that, you know, this is typical of the charismatic tendency to spiritualize everything they see.

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You know, if you see something a little bit unusual, whatever it is, it's

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God somehow trying to get a message to you or something like that. I am no apologist for the gimmickry that is rampant at this conference.

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I mean, that's all it is, is a bunch of gimmicks and pyrotechnics and a light show and all that kind of stuff.

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But come on. I mean, this guy's a sword swallower. It's what he does. This is not an Asherah pole.

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I mean, good grief, right? Yeah, and like I said, it turns out that this man does have a past as a stripper and has not just done this in front of women, he's done it in front of men.

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So he's a homosexual. What I don't know, because I really did not do a deep dive into the guy, but what

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I am not sure of is if he's repented of that. Like, does the man now claim to be a Christian?

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And so that's why he was brought in to this Christian men's conference, because he has a testimony of,

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I used to be in all this sexually debaucherous stuff and now I've repented of that and I've come to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That would be interesting to know. If that's not the case, then the story here is not that they had a stripper performing a stripper performance, because that's not what happened.

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The story would be that they had an outspoken, open homosexual entertaining these men.

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That's right. And that would be a problem that needs to be called out. That would be the issue, right.

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And you said you went to his website. You went to Alex Megala's website.

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Yeah, and I did not click on any links or pages in there because if he is a stripper, I just don't want to see it.

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So, but it did have like the list of stuff on the front of the page that was, you know, all the different talent shows that he's done and won and stuff like that.

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But there wasn't anything on the front page that presented him as a

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Christian performer. Yeah. So I don't know if that's part of his shtick or not.

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Right. And I went to his, well, I didn't go to his website. I haven't even seen that yet, but I did find a video of him on Twitter that he posted.

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And I think it was about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago. And it was something like the hardest season of my life.

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And I thought, okay, maybe is this some kind of a, you know, testimony of conversion or whatever.

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And so I watched it. And all he was talking about is how he did this same thing, you know, climbing the pole and he ripped his bicep.

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Wow. And yeah, and wasn't sure he would be able to perform anymore because he injured himself, ripped his bicep.

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He hadn't even had the video of him when it happened. But yeah, as best I can tell, this guy's not a

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Christian. If he is, we haven't seen any evidence of it, but. The same thing that's used in the strip club for women who have a

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Jezebel spirit to seduce men. Okay, he just said a Jezebel spirit to seduce men.

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All right. I mean, that really is a claim of like, we've got something homosexual going on here.

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That's what his statement is. So that's what he's suggesting. There's something homosexual going on here.

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In front of that was a man who ripped his shirt off like a woman does in front of a pole at a strip club.

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That man then ascended. See, our God is not arrogant. He doesn't ascend, our

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God is humble. He descends. Okay, so he's... That's a weird statement too, because our

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God did ascend. He ascended to the right hand of God. Yeah, he did. That's the first thing I thought. Wait a minute, yeah, actually he did.

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It's like, he's trying to be profound here. And again, he's just selling his whole Jezebel spirit thing.

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And in the process of doing that, he's really not biblical in anything that he's saying here. Yeah, no, he's not.

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And I don't think a single man in that room, when they saw this guy climb up the pole with a sword in his mouth or whatever,

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I don't think a single one of them thinking, wow, that's a really beautiful picture of what

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God did. Who's even thinking that? And then

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I would also want to know, did anybody there actually think that what they were seeing was anything resembling a stripper performance?

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Would they have thought that about this stunt? That's what I was about to get to.

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Like, okay, we are no apologists for what they did here, but this is a men's conference full of rah -rah men stuff.

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I mean, tanks driving over cars. Yeah, right, very masculine stuff. MMA stuff, boxing, weightlifting.

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Football players come in there and professional athletes are there. Yeah, yeah.

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I mean, some masculine stuff here. Macho stuff, that's right. I would wager to bet there is not a single homosexual in that room.

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Why would they have some? At least not openly, but yeah. At least not openly, yeah.

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That would be, to have a male stripper come in and perform, that would be the last thing they would ever want to have come in at a conference like this, right?

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Right, yeah, for all the different things that James River Church does with this particular conference, that's not anything that we've seen before in this conference.

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It's not becoming progressively more homosexual. It's more and more macho every year is what they're trying to do.

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But I mean, furthermore, Driscoll has fed into this. He's been involved in this men's conference since 2017.

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So the more grandiose it gets every single year, he's contributed to that. And you don't hear any humility in what he's saying here.

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Like he's not going, listen guys, I've been a part of this for seven years and we're letting this get out of hand and I'm sorry that it's gotten this far.

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There's no humility in this at all. Nope, not at all, not at all.

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And then he swallowed a sword and Jesus cried, okay,

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Pastor John, I'll receive that. Thank you. Okay, so and that's when

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John Lindell, the pastor said, called out, you're done, you're done, stop, you're done.

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And then Mark Driscoll walked off. And so John Lindell now walks up on the platform.

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All right. He's a big axis, you should have said it to me first.

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He didn't ask you in 18. If your brother offends you, go to him privately.

27:34

Okay, Gabe, so Lindale comes up on the platform and he says that he basically accused

27:44

Mark Driscoll of lying. And he said that, uh, Mark, Mark Driscoll was, was with me for half an hour after the sword swallower guy.

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And before he got up on platform, he was with him for half an hour. He never said one word about this thing.

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If he had a problem with it. And right. And that's another kind of hint that, that Driscoll was doing something opportunistic here.

28:09

Yeah. Why would he not have in that half an hour conversation have said to Lindale guys, what are we doing here?

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Like, where did you know that when this guy got up there, that he was going to look like a stripper or something like that?

28:21

Um, you know, there was no sort of confrontation, excuse me, no sort of confrontation like that.

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Now I'm not one who thinks that this necessarily needed a Matthew 18 sort of exchange where you go to the brother who's offended you.

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You talk with him, uh, this Matthew 18, 15, where Jesus gives the, uh, the guidelines for church discipline.

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You talk with your brother alone and if he repents, well then you've won your brother. But if he doesn't repent, then you bring two or three others along that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

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If he won't listen to them, you take it to the church. And if he won't listen to the church, then you treat him as a Gentile or a tax collector.

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Now in this particular situation, if it were like a false teacher or something like that would be on the platform, which there have been plenty of those at this particular men's conference.

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No doubt. Then another teacher coming up and calling that out. I don't think that needs a Matthew 18 approach.

29:15

Jesus didn't privately confront the Pharisees before he called out the Pharisees. But in this particular situation, you, you clearly had a situation where they're, they're alone together and Mark doesn't even tell the guy,

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I'm going to go up there and I'm going to call this out or ask any questions to see like how much

29:32

Lindell knew that this man was going to do when he did this performance or anything like that.

29:38

It really looks like Driscoll took an opportunity and he, and he said something that has been part of the preaching that he's been doing for at least the past year.

29:49

This platform issue that he has of a Jezebel spirit. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

29:55

Very opportunistic. Yeah, if he was so bothered by it, he should have said something in the half hour he had before he got up on the platform.

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This is, this is, but this is typical Mark Driscoll. He's wanting to, wanting to make a name for himself, wanting to get his name in the headlines.

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And we certainly did that, you know, but and I must say,

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I find it ironic anytime I hear churches like this quote Matthew 18, my first thought is, well, how convenient you don't even do

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Matthew 8, you don't even do church discipline at your church. I guarantee you James River Church has never done church discipline.

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They always stop with verse 15, you know, they never go through all the way through verse 20 and get to the point where they get up on a

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Sunday morning and tell the entire church what, you know, Billy Bob and their congregation has been doing, what his sin is and all that.

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They never do that. So at any rate, I digress. But, you know, if, if the

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Jezebel spirit is there trying to seduce men through a male stripper,

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I think the Jezebel, she came to the wrong conference because I don't, I don't think she's going to have a lot of success.

31:10

Yeah. And it is kind of funny, too, that he, that he throws women under the bus. Like what does a

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Jezebel spirit have anything to do with, with any of this? This, this would be hyper masculinity would be the problem here more so than, than some sort of Jezebel spirit.

31:25

Yeah, that's right. That's right. You know, and I'm fine with. You know, football and all that kind of stuff, and I like to go out and I like to watch football,

31:36

I like to ride my four wheeler, I like to shoot my guns, I like to go. I happen to know, I happen to know that there's a video out there of you shooting a flamethrower.

31:44

So no, we know what kind, we know what kind of guy you are, Justin. You sure that was me? So y 'all never seen a crippled guy in a suit and tie shooting a flamethrower at a clown?

31:56

Now you have. Oh, Nelly.

32:14

Yeah. So, you know, I'm fine with all that stuff, but that's not, that's not what being a man is about.

32:20

It's not what being a godly husband is about. So anyway. All right.

32:25

Well, very typical Mark Driscoll. And it's also ironic that he would, he would get so exercised about this, at least what he perceives to be some sexual immorality when he himself has claimed that the

32:42

Holy Spirit gives him pornographic visions. I'm sure you've seen that, right? Oh, yeah. Some people actually see things.

32:52

This may be gift of discernment. On occasion, I see things. I see things.

32:58

There was one woman. I dealt with. She'd never told her husband that she had committed adultery on him early in the relationship.

33:07

I said, you know, she's sitting there with her husband. I said, you know, I think the root of all this, I think Satan has a foothold in your life because you've never told your husband about that really tall blonde guy that you met at the bar.

33:17

And then you went back to the hotel and you laid on your back and you undressed yourself and he climbed on top of you and you had sex with him and snuggled up with him for a part, even though you had just met him.

33:28

You desired him because secretly he is the fantasy body type. I said, you remember that place, it was that cheap hotel with that certain colored bed spread.

33:39

You had sex with the light on because you weren't ashamed and you wanted him to see you and you wanted to see him.

33:45

She's just looking at me like. I said, you know, it's about 10 years ago. I mean, and yeah,

33:52

I somebody else brought that up last night, too. And I was seeing people respond to what Driscoll was saying.

33:58

It's like apparently Driscoll didn't have a problem with God showing him pornographic images in his head, at least according to him.

34:04

That's his claim, which would be a very that's blasphemous to say that that that God's giving you these images of these women doing these sexually immoral things, which he's lying about that and doesn't seem to have a problem with proclaiming those kinds of things, doesn't call out his own sins, has never repented of the stuff that he's done.

34:24

You know, if people are watching and are not familiar with Driscoll, there's something like there's a letter with something like 30 former elders with Mars Hill Church that that since he's left have said this man was never repentant.

34:39

He has never apologized for anything that he's done. The abuses that he did while he was a pastor, the lying, the cheating, the stealing, manipulating church funds and all this kind of stuff.

34:51

Driscoll is not a different person. He's just moved on to his next grift. And and it's sad that our our memories are so short over the stuff that he's done just just 10 years ago.

35:02

It was 2014 when he left Mars Hill Church. He's been doing this men's conference since 2017.

35:09

So he just moved on to his next thing. And there are people that are cheering for him completely unaware or at least willing to forget that this man is unqualified.

35:20

He is not fit to be a pastor and and is every bit as much of a problem of the stuff that was going on at that men's conference as the stuff that he was calling out.

35:31

He's contributed to all of this. He's not a hero here. That's right. That's right, Gabe.

35:36

I'm so glad you said that. He is not a hero here. He is unqualified. He is both unqualified and disqualified from being in any kinds of any kind of ministry, the plagiarism, the coarse language, the sexually explicit language.

35:51

As you said, there were, I think, almost 40 former elders of Mars Hill signed this statement saying that he is unfit for ministry.

35:59

So, yeah, man shouldn't be anywhere near a pulpit. All right, well, well,

36:05

Gabe, brother, thank you very much for your input here. Appreciate your help.

36:11

Always a pleasure being on. Thank you for playing that recent video of mine, too. Just to just to give a plug, excuse me, to give a plug for this.

36:21

You helped me push my YouTube channel, WWUTT, over 50 ,000 subscribers because you played that video.

36:27

So I thank you for that. Well, I'm happy to do it, brother. I appreciate it. You know, there's some there's some really bad

36:33

YouTube channels out there in the evangelical world, but there's some good ones, too. And I like to I like to promote the good ones and point people in their direction.

36:42

And yours is one of them. WWUTT, link down below, dear friends, in the description, as well as to to Gabe's church out there in in what town again?

36:54

Casa Grande, Arizona. Casa Grande, Arizona, where it's 95 degrees right now. So if you like the heat, go pay him a visit.

37:02

All right. Thanks, Gabe. Thank you, too. OK, now, dear ones, my interview with Travis Allen, who had the firsthand interaction with Mark Driscoll in the publicity stunt that he pulled at Grace Community Church back in 2013.

37:18

And it's my joy to interview him. This will be very enlightening into the character of Mark Driscoll.

37:26

OK, well, Travis, brother, thank you for joining me. How are you today? Hey, I'm well.

37:31

How are you, Justin? Good to see you. Good to see you, too, brother. Good to see you, too. Always good to see you.

37:37

All right. So, Travis, you and I have been together on a number of occasions, the first of which was the

37:42

Strange Fire Conference back in 2013. But since then,

37:48

I've been to I've been to your church. We've hung out. We've spent some time together and a great deal of love and affection for you and your ministry, your family.

37:58

And you have some personal experience with Mark Driscoll. And so you've seen the video.

38:05

I've already played it in the first part of this video. So you've seen the video, what happened at this conference. And I think this was a publicity stunt.

38:15

Tell us about your your history with Mark Driscoll and what you've observed firsthand.

38:22

Right. Well, there is precedent for you assuming that this might be a publicity stunt.

38:31

When back in 2013, Mark Driscoll and James McDonald were on their way to a conference where they were going to be speaking and bringing a bunch of a bunch of like acts, 29 pastors with them and things like that.

38:50

So they were down in Southern California area. And the way he told the story is they just happened to be in town.

38:58

And hey, why don't we pop over to the to the Strange Fire Conference? I think these these guys would you know, they'd appreciate some free copies of the book that I just wrote.

39:09

I just want to be gracious and hand out some copies and that kind of thing. So he showed up on campus and it kind of was causing a little bit of a buzz.

39:19

And there were, you know, some who had the idea of, well, let's just be as shrewd as Mark Driscoll and kind of line up a bunch of guys who are kind of in the know and we'll kind of take all his books from him and that way they won't get circulated around the general population.

39:38

So it was this line of guys out in front of the the master's seminary building on the campus of Grace Community Church.

39:45

Because you're not to interrupt, but this is this was the Strange Fire Conference. And and as you being an elder at the church, you don't you know, obviously you don't want just anybody coming in and passing out books that have not been approved by the leadership of the church, right?

40:02

Yeah, well, thanks for thanks for interrupting with that, because it's it's important probably to say that I was at that time

40:10

I was I was working at Grace to You as the managing director and I was an elder at the church and and, you know, pastor there at one of the fellowship groups at the church.

40:21

But my my my main work during the week was at Grace to You as the managing director and Grace to You was putting this conference on.

40:31

It was a truth matters conference. Right. And it was themed for Strange Fire, which was the book that John wrote to expose the the charismatic movement and to to confront the abuse of the

40:48

Holy Spirit, the doctrine of pneumatology and to set the record straight on the Holy Spirit. It was a fantastic book, you know, parallel with charismatic chaos, which has also been a very helpful book.

40:59

But anyway, so Grace to You is putting on this conference and I had been tasked with organizing this, bringing it together and conducting all the research and stuff for it and putting this thing into play.

41:11

So we'd obviously had a number of people who had come to, you know, come to distribute books or set up vendors or people promoting their ministries and having ministry tables or ministering displays.

41:26

And all of that is vetted beforehand. And so, you know, you go through a process for that and, you know, you're approved or not.

41:35

And so that had already happened. It's the conferences going on and Mark Driscoll shows up to, you know, essentially to act in a de facto way as a vendor promoting his ministry and handing out his books.

41:50

So, you know, as the organizer of the conference and and having a role there,

41:56

I just thought, well, this this isn't right. And so, again, there were there were guys lined up, kind of in the know, taking his books and things like that.

42:04

And so I just happened to at the time be in John's office and talking to some of the guys.

42:10

And and I just said, look, John, this is, you know, this is going on. John MacArthur is completely unfazed by this kind of stuff.

42:18

And he he he could kind of care less one way or another. He's like, you know, God's going to take care of this stuff.

42:24

And I just said, John, do you mind if I just go and confront this and ask him to stop handing out books?

42:30

And, you know, look, look, I'll invite him to the conference. I'll give him a wristband so he can join the conference. I think he could really benefit from the sessions at the

42:38

Strange Fire Conference and learn a thing or two. That's for sure. So John said, yeah, go for it. So went down there, grabbed the head of our security department,

42:49

Tom Hatter, who's a he's a good friend, a dear man, a long career with the

42:55

LAPD, used to handling all kinds of issues. And so just a very competent man to have by your side.

43:04

I went to went to Mark and I said, hey, listen, you know, I just kind of introduced myself, introduced

43:09

Tom and just said, look, Mark. Mark, I want to introduce you to our head of our security,

43:16

Tom Hatter, nice to meet you. You know, we've had people who have who've actually formally applied to be vendors here.

43:25

You never applied. You're not on that list. And really, you are handing out books at this conference is really an inappropriate thing.

43:33

Could you please not do that? And in fact, I'd love to give you a wristband, have you join free of charge on us.

43:40

And he said, oh, thanks. Yeah, thank you. He was he was cordial. He stopped handing out the books and, you know, just had him behind him, but kept greeting people.

43:53

So I just backed off and let that let that continue and watched him for a bit.

44:01

And I noticed that he was talking with guys and he'd shake their hand. They'd go right around him and go grab one of the books out of the box.

44:10

And I thought, well, that's interesting. Maybe it's maybe it's an anomaly. No, man.

44:16

Number two, man. Number three, over and over it goes on down the line. They're talking to him for a couple of minutes, shake his hand, go around, grab a book.

44:25

So he's essentially telling him, hey, just go grab a book. He's doing the same thing. He's just not putting a book into their hand.

44:31

He's having them go grab it. So I just went up to him and I said, listen, Mark, whether you're handing the books to the guy yourself or you're having him go get it, it's the same thing.

44:41

I've asked you, please, could you not hand out the books? And I don't remember if it was in that first exchange or the second exchange where he said, what are you going to do if I don't?

44:53

You know, what are you going to do if I if I keep handing them out? And I just I thought to myself, what are we like in junior high?

44:59

This is strange that you would kind of front up to me like that. And so I just said to him, yeah,

45:05

Mark, I don't know what I'm going to do. I was like, I didn't anticipate really that he would say something like that, but just that he'd be polite and do what

45:14

I would do what we ask. You know, it's not his this isn't his church, not his conference. And I thought, well, that would be the that just kind of be what a what a man does is just say, oh, sure.

45:25

Sorry for the offense. And that's what a man does. And he had just come from a conference titled

45:30

Act Like Men. That was the irony of it. Yeah. The conference that he and James McDonald were were heading down to was was the

45:39

Act Like Men conference. James McDonald was there with him, too. Correct. He was. Yeah, he was kind of wearing like a like a do rag or something.

45:48

And they were driving like a it was a Mustang or Camaro or something. But it was kind of parked out back of the the seminary building.

45:58

And, you know, there were people kind of chatting those guys up, getting some pictures and selfies. And I don't know what they were doing anyway.

46:04

So I just said, look, you know, could you please not do this? He's like, what are you going to do if I don't?

46:09

I said, I don't I don't know. I really I'll think that through when I have to. But could you please not do it?

46:16

And so he I think Tom had also talked to him and said a couple of things, introduced himself.

46:22

And so he said, look, I'll give you the books. And we said, yeah,

46:28

Mark, we don't thank you. We don't want your books. He said, no, I'm giving you it's a gift to you. So now just let us

46:35

Tom will grab them. We'll just put go put them back in the Mustang or whatever your car is, take them back behind the building, put them in your car.

46:43

And he said he said, no, I mean, really, I just want to give these to you as a gift. It's my gift to you.

46:49

Just go ahead and take them. So we said, OK, all right. Didn't want to spurn his his kindness.

46:58

Whether you're putting them in his hands or whether. I have to say, he's going to take the books over there, we just put them in the

47:07

Mustang. He'll take just take them to wherever you want. We're going to come back and we want to give them back.

47:14

OK, I'd like to give this. So just take this.

47:24

Yeah, just take this again. Yeah, just take this again. Yeah. So we we took the books and Tom took them into the.

47:33

Into the the church offices. It sometime sometime during this and I can't remember if it was right before or right after.

47:45

Someone told me that Mark Driscoll actually it turns out he contact before he got on campus, he contacted his publicist and told the publicist, hey, you want to send some reporters over here because we're about to stir things up over the strange fire conference.

48:02

It was a publicity stunt from the very beginning to promote himself, his ministry, his books.

48:08

And so anyway, and that has actually been verified through some of his former elders who have also spoken of this and to their credit, they've spoken of it with a kind of a contrite remorse that they were even involved in this little stunt to begin with.

48:27

And they've described from their perspective what's going on or what what happened that day.

48:33

So all that all that happens later on. We find out he posted on Twitter.

48:41

I think it was security just confiscated my books and I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

48:49

Really? That's how he spun this. So once again, it was another there's just one attempt to stir up trouble and cause cause a scene and try to I think he was maybe trying to embarrass us if we had a bad reaction and and then trying to when it when that didn't happen, try to find another way to kind of needle us a bit.

49:12

And but whatever whatever was in in the recesses of his heart, God knows,

49:19

I think that from beginning to end and all the way through the end of it, it was a publicity stunt.

49:25

And I believe that it was Janet Mefford that really started to expose him.

49:30

And she kind of, you know, really, really bulldog that as she got on to got him on to her program and started to really dissect his, frankly, childish behavior and exposures to exposes to her audience.

49:48

And that was kind of the kind of the beginning of his downfall as he there were some plagiarism charges and there was the stunt at Strange Fire that was, you know, all his abusive stuff coming out as well.

50:00

And now we have, you know, he's as you were just telling me, he started going to this current conference where he's done something that looks eerily similar, reminiscent of that first publicity stunt.

50:15

Yep. But he's been going to that conference since twenty seventeen and three years after he was kind of deposed from his church and then went and set up shop down in the

50:25

Phoenix area with Trinity Church. And now he's now he's in another church and another. It's like the guy is an abusive, bad example, charismatic chaos, all the kinds of issues, anti -Calvinist, angry, all that stuff, prideful.

50:42

And they're going to put him back up on a stage again. And present him to men, a whole bunch of men there who are trying to learn about biblical manhood in a time, in a time when we really do need biblical manhood.

50:55

We do need a return to a clarity on the on the roles of men and women. Yeah. To portray that as manhood, to put him before people.

51:05

That just it just grieves my heart to see that. Yeah, indeed. Indeed, Travis.

51:11

That is unbelievable, you know, to set this up, to plan it out, to to contact reporters, hey,

51:18

I'm going to tell them I'm going to I'm going to stir it up at the Strange Fire Conference and then to and then to just flat out lie about saying that his books were confiscated.

51:30

Yeah. I mean, that's a bald faced lie. It is. It is a bald faced lie.

51:36

I was, you know, and again, to to to take someone like that and put him up before men and and and then, you know, again, the whole premise of the

51:50

I think of your program is you're talking about that Stronger Men conference. Yeah. And it's got it's got bull riding and tanks destroying vehicles and monster truck and motorcycle jumping.

52:04

And it's like Evel Knievel mixed with church. Yeah. And you got you got, you know,

52:10

Marx taking issue, calling a Jezebel, calling out about a calling out a Jezebel spirit because there's a sword swallower that's ripped his shirt off and climbed a pole with a sword in his mouth.

52:20

And I'm wondering what is more unfitting in that setting? The sword swallower or Mark Driscoll, I can tell you what's unfitting is the name of Jesus Christ is unfitting in a place like that.

52:35

Yeah. I mean, do all that stuff. Have NFL quarterbacks come in and all, you know, try to legitimize what you're doing.

52:42

Yeah. But don't mix the name of Jesus Christ there. I would prefer. I mean, sword swallowers, if they want to go make a buck swallowing swords.

52:52

More power to them if you want to, you know, if you're if you're really good at jumping motorcycles or driving tanks over cars, whatever your thing is, right, fine.

53:01

And that's that's entertainment. And you want to entertain people and have a weekend to do that. I got no problem.

53:06

But when you start to mix the name of Christ and try to start to speak words about gospel and try to call this preaching, you're you're now blending entertainment, pop culture stuff, caricatures of manhood and male things into what is calling that Christian and saying that that is the model of manhood.

53:30

I think there are a lot of men who are being led astray by that. And I just would like to see men be men and look at Jesus Christ in the scripture, not what's portrayed here, not definitely not what's portrayed by Mark Driscoll and his ilk.

53:43

Yeah. But look at Jesus Christ and see what he is. I was just you and I had interacted in this and my my

53:51

Bible reading happened to take me through the book of Ruth this morning. I'm looking at Boaz. This man is this man is a behind the scenes.

54:01

You know, he only comes to the forefront because of the story of Ruth. But the man is behind the scenes.

54:08

He's a fair, righteous man. He's he cares about his the people who are gleaning his fields.

54:15

He cares about this widow. Young widow comes in and wants to take care of her. He serves her.

54:20

He's kind to her. You know, you don't see this abusive, self -promoting, chest beating, chest thumping kind of a macho man.

54:30

You see a guy who is very gentle. And when he said when he gives his word, he acts on it immediately.

54:36

He goes to to conduct, you know, take the place of the kinsman redeemer to put his his his covering over this woman and care for her to raise up children for her dead husband.

54:49

I mean, a guy is totally self -sacrificial, giving himself to the law and giving himself to kindness and the compassion of God.

54:58

That's manhood. That's Boaz. You don't see that. You don't see that guy making the conference stage in a place like, you know, stronger men conference.

55:07

That's right. That's right. Amen. Well said, Travis. Well said. That's why I wanted to interview you on my program, brother.

55:14

Right there. Well, thanks for having me, Justin. I appreciate so much what you do and calling attention to some of this, some of these shenanigans.

55:22

You know, you and I were kind of chatting offline about this, about how it's so disappointing to see, you know, you saw it.

55:32

I think Christianity Today called it the rise and fall, the rise and fall of Mars Hill.

55:39

Yeah. And, you know, did that whole series talking about the fall of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill and everything that came apart.

55:46

I think that they, they, because they weren't equipped theologically, they didn't really get to the heart of the theological issues and the ecclesiological issues, pastoral issues in that, in that series.

55:59

But they did a good job exposing some of those things. You would think that that guy could never find his place into a pulpit again.

56:07

And yet they're just, I guess it's just a big world out there. And there are so many people who don't know or don't care, but they don't know.

56:16

And then they find themselves right back at conferences like this, where a guy like that is headlined. It's so disappointing to see that.

56:23

So I'm grateful for what you do, Justin. Sometimes I wonder, like, how is it that you can continue on?

56:29

You've done such a thorough exposure of the charismatic chaos and some of the loony fringe stuff that really is mainstream in the charismatic movement.

56:39

But you do such a good job exposing it. And I think they can't have a leg to stand on. I think you said it during COVID, too.

56:46

You said, you said if they're not walking through the land, healing everybody of COVID and running the pandemic off of the earth, and, you know, then they're kind of exposed just by this pandemic thing.

57:00

Yeah, but they're back, they've come back and they seem to be stronger than ever.

57:06

So, yeah, I appreciate what you do, Justin, for the kingdom. Thanks, Travis.

57:12

That means a lot to me, brother, especially coming from you. Thank you. Thank you. You've heard me say this before and I'll say it to you, dear friends.

57:20

You know, I'm an evangelist and I travel and preach and teach and it's my joy to do so.

57:27

But I tell you, I have a tremendous, tremendous amount of respect for all of our love and respect for all of our faithful shepherds out there.

57:36

Pastors, elders out there that are serving in local churches that aren't known, aren't aren't being asked to speak at the big conferences, but they are out there doing the

57:44

Lord's work, rightly dividing the word of truth, shepherding the flock, loving the flock, doing all these things.

57:50

It's it's and Travis, you're one of them, brother. And and it's guys like you that one day will be at the front of the line.

57:58

So I appreciate you, brother. Oh, man, I don't know about that front of the line thing, but I sure appreciate the kudos to the pastors because it is such a joy and an honor to serve the

58:09

Lord Jesus Christ and in that capacity to follow, to be able to do what Jesus says in scripture and try to be one of the under shepherds that represent his shepherding interest as a good shepherd over the church to care for his flock is just a great privilege, as you know.

58:26

Amen. Amen. Indeed, brother. Thank you so much, Travis. You're sure welcome.

58:31

Thanks for having me on, Justin. You bet. You bet. And you are at Grace Church, Greeley, Colorado.

58:39

And that's right. Grace Greeley dot org. Grace Greeley dot org. All right. Give us a listen.

58:45

Yeah, good deal. Grace Greeley dot org. So you're an hour or so northeast of Denver.

58:53

Yeah, just just north of Denver. I mean, it's it's almost a direct line up. Yeah. But yeah, just go up by twenty five, about forty five minutes an hour or so.

59:01

We're just off to the right a little bit, depending on traffic. All right. OK, well,

59:06

I love to point people to good, solid churches. And so maybe some folks watching this will will discover you guys and give you a visit.

59:15

Yeah, well, thank you. Justin, we'll have to have you back sometime soon because you're well loved around here. So appreciate you.

59:21

I would love it. Kathy and I both would. All right, man. But she won't be preaching. Just me. All right.

59:29

Thanks, Travis. See you, man. I hope that this has been helpful for you, dear ones. Thank you very much for joining me, for watching the program.

59:38

Until our next time together. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of his

59:43

Holy Spirit be with you all. Mark, I want to introduce you to our head of our security,

59:50

Tom Hatter, nice to meet you. Whether you're putting them in people's hands or whether you want to get them on the box, for example.

59:58

So he's going to take the books. So, James, there we just put them in the Mustang. He'll take the money.

01:00:03

You guys just take them to wherever you want. We're going to come back in a month. Yeah, we want to get back. OK, I'd like to give them as a gift.