Original Sin Debate

Just want to give everyone a head’s up concerning the upcoming debate on Original Sin!  It’s going to be great!  It will be a week from today, 12/20/2008 from 4pm-6pm Eastern Standard Time.  The debate will be between Kerrigan Skelly and a Calvinist Pastor from New Jersey named Pat.  More information on the Pastor right before the debate.  Here’s what the debate will look like:

-Jesse Morrell (moderator) gives brief Bio Info on both Debaters
-10 min. Opening Statement from Pat
-10 min. Opening Statement from Kerrigan
-7 min. Rebuttal from Pat
-7 min. Rebuttal from Kerrigan
-5 min. Pat cross examines Kerrigan
-5 min. Kerrigan cross examines Pat
-7 min. Rebuttal from Pat
-7 min. Rebuttal from Kerrigan
-5 min. Pat cross examines Kerrigan
-5 min. Kerrigan cross examines Pat
-10 min. of Closing Statements from Pat
-10 min. of Closing Statements from Kerrigan

The remainder of the show (about 30 min.) will be used to take questions from callers.  Each caller will only be able to ask one question.  The person that the question is directed at has 2 min. to answer the question and then the opponent has 1 min. to respond.  We will take questions until the 2 hour mark or until people stop calling.  If no one calls or calls stop before the 2 hour mark, then Pastor Pat will be free to go and Jesse, Kerrigan and John will discuss the debate.

Rules: The opening statements are generally a positive case for what the debater DOES believe.  The rebuttals are responses to opening statements and to cross examinations.  Cross examination time is to be used to ask the other person questions, not to continue with a lecture style response.  Closing statements are open for anything and everything except asking the other person questions.  We will discuss the topic of Original Sin, not Unconditional Election, Open Theism, Conditional Security, Once Save Always Saved, the Atonement or anything else.  This debate is to be focused on this topic alone.

Join us for this debate on a controversial subject!  At the least, it is sure to make you think and re-think what you believe concerning this issue.  Just listen or take the time to ask a question at the end.  It’s going to be great!

CLICK HERE FOR THE DEBATE

Secret Will of God?

This past week’s show was started by us talking about our last week’s worth of ministry.  Jesse and his wife were still in Florida preaching the Gospel, but they will actually be in NC by tomorrow night (Friday, 11/14).  John and I went and met with a brother in Charleston, SC to preach the Gospel to the students at the College of Charleston.  It was really rowdy the first day as the students defended their sin and professing “christians” defended sin and sinners instead of rebuking them and calling them to repentance.  The school newspaper actually published an article about our first day at the school.  You can read that by CLICKING HERE.

We then talked about the results of the election and what we think awaits America because or our new leadership.  Obama has already said that he would stop the offshore domestic drilling.  That means gas prices will sky rocket again.  He also is going to begin his socialist agenda by taxing the wealthy and giving to the poor.  Who does he think he is, Robin Hood?  This is America, not Nottingham Forest.  It is quite possible that having Obama as president is a judgment to America from God.  God have mercy on us!  We will continue to preach the truth no matter the cost to us.

Then, we moved on to our two Questions of the Week.  The first question has to do with the Calvinistic doctrine of the “Secret Will of God”.  First, we talked about the position and what it means.  Then we looked at from the perspective of logic, justice and the Bible.  It was found wanting!  We discussed it pretty thoroughly.  Finally, we discussed the second question of the week: When Paul said that he was the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15, was he talking about his present state?  Was Paul presently the worst sinner on the face of the earth?  Or was he talking about his past and his persecution of the Church.  So many professing “Christians” use this Scripture as a way to justify sin in their own lives.  What would be the implications of Paul presently being the worst sinner on the face of the earth while writing 1 Timothy?  It is crucial to understand this passage!  Your eternity may depend on it!  To listen to this episode of Refining Fire Radio, click below:

NObamanation!

By the time you have read this Refining Fire Radio Show update, Obama will have unfortunately already have won the election.  It’s really too bad.  I fear for the future of America and ultimately the future of the world now that Obama is presient.  To be honest though, I really think that America deserves Obama, just like Israel deserved being taken into captivity by Babylon.  But, as long as we have voices, we will fight for freedom, the sovereignty of America and the Truth!  Don’t lose hope and don’t trust in the government.  Rather, trust in Christ!  God is still sovereign and God is still in control!  Our hope is not in the President or the government, but in Christ!

We started out our show by discussing out last week’s worth of ministry.  Jesse was still in Florida preaching the gospel on the campuses in Florida.  Praise the Lord, Jesse and his wife Krista were able to purchase a 5th Wheel!  Praise God for that!  They don’t have a truck yet, but they hope to get one by the beginning of next fall or by the Summer sometime.  For about 8 months, starting in January, Jesse and Krista will get there 5th Wheel transported to NC and preach around with John and I.  Here’s a picture of their new home:

Praise God!  He is Jehovah Jireh, our provider!  He answers prayer!  John and I preached spent our week preaching at NC State, the University of South Carolina and downtown Greenville, NC for Halloween.  It was a very windy and cold day at NC State, but John was able to draw a great crowd.  I took over and preached the most of the rest of the day.  USC was great as well.  They actually have an ampitheater area for free speech.  We had decent size crowds, but they are used to having preachers come to their university.

The young man above is one young man that I talked to at USC.  I talked to him for over an hour last time we were at USC.  He was reduced to absurdity then and was again reduced to absurdity when I talked to him for quite some time this time.  He realizes now more than at any other time, that he must either become a Christian are be an infinite skeptic.  It was a great day of ministry.  We had some really good 1-2-1 discussions with those who are seeking the truth.  John and I also went to the “hallowen party” in downtown Greenville, NC.  It is a wicked place full of wicked sinners who need a rebuke for their wickedness.  Here is one picture of John preaching on Halloween night:

After discussing our last week’s worth of ministry, we discussed the election.  I started it out by talking about why people shouldn’t vote for Obama.  There are many reasons why people shouldn’t have voted for Obama.  I think that most people who voted for Obama either voted for him because they ignorant of what he really believes or because of his skin color.  People need to educate themselves about the facts!  Then we discussed how hard it is for a Christian to vote and the struggles a Christian has when voting for someone who doesn’t have the same values as them.

Finally, we discussed our very own friendly neighborhood heretic, Jesse Morrell.  We don’t really think that Jesse is a heretic, but he is often called such by people.  Well, not too long ago, Jesse went to a university where there was a Calvinist who has a lot of subscribers from YouTube.  This Calvinist “confronted” Jesse while he was preaching.  Jesse thoroughly dealt with this young man’s unbiblical objections and Bible proof-texts.  So, this calvinists decided to put a video on YouTube about his “confrontation” of Jesse.  Then he called in to the C.A.R.M. Radio Show to talk to Matt Slick about it.  We listen to the audio of both situations and discuss what is said.  You can watch the video of the Calvinist from YouTube below:

Check out this episode of Refining Fire Radio for yourself by clicking on the link below!

No Obamanation!

Conditional Security Part 3

In this week’s show, we continued our discussion of Conditional Security.  First, though, we started out the show talking about our last week of ministry and preaching.  Jesse has been spending time preaching in Florida while John and I preached at ECU.  I took the latter part of the week off to go visit family.  After we talked about our week of ministry, I mentioned that I had seen the movie Fireproof with Kirk Cameron.  The movie was produced and put together by the same people who produced Flywheel and Facing the Giants, Sherwood Baptist Church.  Very low budget films, but very well done.  Kirk actually took his part in the film without any pay.  It was a VERY WELL done film.  I recommend it to everyone.

After giving a plug for the movie, we moved to the Question/Objection of the week.  The objection that we discussed is something we hear quite often in the open air: “You Can’t Judge Me!”.  The two scriptures that college students know the best are Matthew 7:1 and John 3:16.  They usually don’t know the verses that come after both of those.  Can Christians Judge?  Is it a sin to judge?  Is God for certain kinds of judging and against certain kinds of judging?  We discuss the passage of Matthew 7, John 8, 1 Corinthians 2:15, 1 Corinthians 6:2, etc.  We also discuss WHY we think most Christians don’t think it is ok to judge: because they have sin in their own lives.  Find out what the Bible says about this issue as we discuss it very thoroughly.

We then moved on to discuss the main issue of the show: Conditional Security.  This week, we focused on people from the Bible who actually DID fall away from the faith.  One of the main people we talked about was Judas Iscariot.  The whole chapter of Matthew 10 shows emphatically that Judas was a follower of Christ, a sheep, a disciple and one who Jesus gave the power to heal, cast out demons and raise the dead.

In the midst of talking about Judas, we brought up the issue of whether Judas was individually predestined to go to Hell and betray Jesus or if he had free will.  Jesse did a great job talking about the different kind of prophecies there are from the Old Testament.  There are four different kinds and understanding these four different kinds of prophecies is crucial to understanding predestination and election in the Bible.  Besides talking about Jesus, we talked about many other examples in the Bible where TRUE BELIEVERS Departed From The Faith!  Take a listen to the show.  It is likely to challenge you and maybe even teach you something new.

Condition Security Part 3

Conditional Security Part 2

Last week, we continued our discussion on Conditional Security.  Before we got to that, we talked about our last week’s worth of ministry.  We were actually all in the same place too!  Jesse, John and myself were all at the SOAPA conference.  That is, the Southeast Open Air Preacher’s Association conference.  We went to one earlier this year in Virginia Beach.  This one was held Atlanta, GA.  We got to hear lots of good preaching from the pulpit by other open air preachers, had some great fellowship with like-minded brethren and got to do some open air preaching together with our fellow open air preachers.  Jesse preached a great message from the pulpit on the Wrath of God.  There aren’t too many good messages out there on the Wrath of God.  I believe that Jesse plans to put the message on DVD.

We got to preach in three different places.  We got to preach at Georgia Tech university, Kennesaw State University and at the University of Georgia homecoming football game.   Georgia Tech had a pretty cool free speech area.  It has a little amphitheater where people can sit and listen.  It captures your voice pretty well and bounces it behind you too.  We didn’t have huge crowds there, but we had a pretty good day of ministry.  The students at this university are the brightest bunch, but we were able to reason with them a little bit.  Kennesaw State University was pretty chaotic.  You couldn’t reason with them at all.  It was basically just a hell-fire and judgment message with a little bit of grace mixed in there.  Most of them were a bunch of mockers and scoffers.  Finally, we went to the UGA game.  Probably close to 100,000 people at this game.  We used lots of banners and did tons of preaching.

Then we got to the main segment of the show.  This week we talked about MANY Scriptures that clearly teach Conditional Security.  Among other Scriptures, here are some of the ones that we discussed:

-Ezekiel 33:12-20

-Romans 11:19-24

-1 Corinthians 9:27-10:13

-Hebrews 3:7-4:1

-John 15:1-8

We had a couple of callers that brought up some things as well.  It was a great show!  We are slowly, but surely thoroughly dismantling the false doctrines of Once Saved, Always Saved and Perseverance (Preservation) of the Saints.  We pray that God will teach people the TRUTH of His Word through our Radio Show.  To listen to last week’s radio show, click below:

Conditional Security Part 1

Another great show last week. As usual, we started the show off with our last week’s outreaches. It is great to talk about how the Lord is using nobodies like us to make an impact for His Glory. PRAISE HIM! Jesse has been traveling through Alabama and Florida. John and I have been making our circuit rounds through NC, SC and VA. I thank the Lord for allowing me to take part in this ministry of reconciliation!

After we talked about our last week’s worth of ministry, I talked a little about buttons, stickers and t-shirts. Since we talked about sandwich boards, banners and signs last radio show, it would have been good to talk about it then. I just forgot to. Buttons, stickers and t-shirts are great for getting the message of the Bible out there without even saying a thing. A good t-shirt, button or sticker can be really effective! They can help you draw a crowd in the open air, keep a crowd in the open air or start a great 1-2-1 conversation. Many times, people have offered to buy our t-shirts right off our back or the buttons right off our shirt. They are willing to pay lots of money sometimes too! Check out some ones that I made at www.Zazzle.com/PinPointEvangelism. You won’t be disappointed!

After I talked about buttons, stickers and t-shirts, John wanted to talk about politics a little. He asked me before the show if we could discuss the election. Since we really didn’t have time to prepare to talk about the issue, we didn’t talk about it for too long. But, in the short time that we did discuss it, we talked about whether a woman should be in leadership (especially one who calls herself a Christian), whether we should vote for the lesser of two evils or whether voting for someone who we know won’t win would be worth it or not. Jesse seems to be leaning towards voting for McCain, John was leading towards Baldwin (but has since changed his mind to McCain) and I really don’t know who I am going to vote for. I just don’t want Obama to be president, that’s all. NO OBAMA! NO OBAMINATION! I don’t want America to become a Communist nation and I want to keep my freedoms of speech and religion. If Obama becomes President, I fear for what our nation will become.

Finally, we moved on to discuss the main topic of the show: Conditional Security. We looked at many of the main verses that people use to promote “Once Saved, Always Saved” and “Perseverance (Preservation) of the Saints”. We spent the rest of the show refuting the false interpretation of these verses and showed how to properly interpret them. Here are a few of the one’s that we discussed:

-John 5:24

-John 6:37-40

-John 10:28

-Romans 8:1

-2 Corinthians 1:22

-Ephesians 1:13-14

-Philippians 1:6

The list above isn’t a list of all of the verses that we talked about, but I guess that you will have to listen to the show if you want to know all of the verses that we talked about. Look forward to this week’s show, where we will discuss the MANY verses that are FOR Conditional Security. The verses that we will discuss this week will clearly refute OSAS and POS. To download last week’s show, click below:

Sandwich Boards, Banners and Signs Oh My!

We had another great Radio Show this week.  After discussing what happened during the preaching on college campuses from the past week, we spent the rest of the first hour of the show talking about Sandwich Boards, Banners and Signs.  There have been many people who are open air preachers who have rejected the use of such things.  They will cite such reasons as pushing people away, bad preachers use them and that they are not effective.  We address the objections to the use of these items and then we talk about our experiences with them as well as giving some tips on what to get if you are thinking about using sandwich boards, banners or signs.  If you are an open air preacher and would like to get a Banner for your ministry outreaches, go to www.CryToGod.com and request one through them.  If you are interested in getting a sanwich board for your ministry outreaches, we also have a contact for that.  If you are serious about getting one, just contact me at: Kerrigan@PinPointEvangelism.com and I can help you with that.  You can basically get a sign made at any local shop.

Something that we didn’t mention on the show this week, but I meant to mention are Buttons, Stickers and T-Shirts.  These three things are three more ways to get the word out there when preaching or witnessing.  We have personally seen how effective these three things can be as well.  Take a look at Our Zazzle Store or create some for yourself.

PinPoint Evangelism Buttons, Stickers and T-Shirts

The next thing we talked about was the Great Saint of the week.  John talked a little about William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army.  We talked about his life, the time in which he lived, his family and his ministry.  This led us to talk about Homeless Ministry.  We talked about such issues as when to know when you are being conned by a homeless person, when you are enabling someone to stay homeless and when to actually help someone out.  We finished up by talking about the current state of the ministry that Booth founded, the Salvation Army.

Lastly, we talked about “Saint” Augustine’s prayer to Mary the mother of Jesus.  John read if through a paragraph at a time and we discussed issues.  This prayer was BLASPHEMOUS and HERETICAL at the least.  I don’t see how anyone Bible Believing Christian could call this man a “Saint”.  He was ungodly at best.  From this prayer, we get a glimpse of the beginning of the doctrine of Mary being co-redeemer of the world.  The prayer would say such things as Mary being our only hope and that through her we are pardoned of our sins.  Utterly ridiculous!

Next week we will be tackling the issue of Conditional Security.  We will talk about Once Saved, Always Saved, Perseverance of the Saints and Losing Your Salvation.  These are very important issues for professing Christians to talk about.  Believing the wrong this about this issue could cost someone their soul!  We look forward to talking about this!  To listen to or download the October 5th show, click below:

Sandwich Boards, Banners and Sign Oh My!

Homo Beach Radio

This past week’s radio show was great.  Sorry it has taken so long to get the info up on it.  John and I went to the mountains of North Carolina to preach Monday-Thursday.  On this week’s radio show, we started out like we start out every radio show: talking about the past week’s ministry efforts.  We talked about our preaching at UNC-Chapel Hill and at the University of South Carolina.  We had never been to USC before, so it was good to preach at a new school.

Then we decided to finish up talking about Pelagianism.  We discussed an article that is found on the Library of Theology Website, titled, “Defense of the Freedom of the Will“.  It is a bunch of quotes by Pelagius on the subject of FreeWill.  We talk about certain straw man arguments against Pelagius, read a selection of his quotes and discuss them.

We then moved on to talk about the book of the month.  The book I chose was Troubling Questions for Calvinists (And all the rest of us..) by F. Lagard Smith.  I am only about a third of the way through the book, but what I have read so far has been great.  I think this book is one that thoroughly refutes the unBiblical acronym of T.U.L.I.P.  I give a general overview of the book and then we look at some things he says in the book.  I recommend that every chrisitian read this book!  I think that everyone who professes to be a Calvinist or is even thinking about being a Calvinist should be required to read this book!

Finally, we played some audio of a secular radio show that I was recently on.  John, Jesse and I were preaching in Rehoboth Beach, DE this past summer and had some problems with the cops.  Rehoboth is a thoroughly homosexual area, so that probably had something to do with it.  We put our encounter with the cops up on YouTube and a local radio station found out about it.  The host of a morning radio show basically played the audio from the cop encounter on his radio show.  He was very much in favor of us, as was his audience.  So, he invited the Chief of Police on and then had me on his radio show right after the Chief of Police.  We played the audio of the Chief of Police being on the radio, as well as the audio of me being on the radio.  We discussed the audios a little, but they pretty much spoke for themselves.  The radio show that I was on is called Talk of Delmarva and it is hosted by Dan Gaffney.  For those of you who don’t know, Delmarva is simply short for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia and is referring to the peninsula on the East Coast that all three states are a part of.  Click below if you would like to listen to the parts of that radio show that were talking about us:

Initial Radio Show- the one that played the YouTube video and received calls from people responding to it.

Police Chief- Dan Gaffney talks to the Rehoboth Beach, DE police chief.  He basically gave a lot of non-answers

Kerrigan- Dan Gaffney talkes to me about the situation and then allows some callers to ask me questions.

If you would like to listen to or download the whole radio show from last week, click below:

Pelagianism

We discussed many topics on this weeks radio show. The biggest topic we discussed and the one we discussed most thoroughly was Pelagianism. Pelagius is probably one of the most lied about and slandered person in all of Church history. Here’s a short list of lies told about this saint of God. These are things that people say he believed when he actually didn’t:

1) Salvation is merited by good works

2) Human’s are morally good by nature

3) Grace isn’t necessary for salvation

4) A person could be saved by the law

5) That there are people who have completely obeyed God besides Jesus.

We address all of these lies and more in our segment on Pelagianism on this week’s radio show. We also tell you what Pelagius actually believed and whether the councils and popes of his day considered him a heretic. You can find tons of articles on Pelagianism among other great topics at our Library of Theology website.  Here’s the link to the Pelagianism Articles: CLICK HERE

We also talked about a great saint of old: William Tyndale. We talk about what the era was liked that he lived in, what he went through, what his accomplishments were and what his fate was. Did you know that this wonderful man of God knew 8 languages fluently! WOW! He was the second person to make an attempt to translate the Bible into English. If it wasn’t for William Tyndale and his sacrifices, it is quite possible that we wouldn’t be reading our Bibles in English today!

Here’s the link to the William Tyndale video we were talking about: Torchlighters

We also talked about the recent announcement of Ray Boltz. He has come out of the closet to let the world know that he is a homosexual. He left his wife of 33 years and his 4 children to be a homosexual. He even says that he was born that way! Is that even possible? We check the Scriptures and science concerning this issue.

Here’s the article discussing Ray’s “coming out”: CLICK HERE

Here’s the article discussing the Human Genome Project: CLICK HERE

Lastly, we also talked about the legal issues involved in preaching on college campuses and on the streets. We talked about one college in particular and the rules and policies of it. We look at the subjectiveness of the language of their rules and how to handle the issue.

We hope you had a chance to join us live for this week’s Refining Fire Radio. If not, you can always download the show and listen to it yourself on your own time.  We pray that God blesses you, encourages you, convicts you, challenges you and refines you through Refining Fire Radio.  Until next week, keep serving the King of Kings with ALL YOUR HEART and get out there and reach the lost with the Glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ!

LISTEN TO THIS WEEK’S SHOW-9/21/2008

Refuting Total Depravity/Original Sin

What happened on that fateful day in the Garden when Eve decided to disobey God and eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Did Adam and Eve become sinners and then pass a sinful nature onto everyone in their posterity? Are we born sinners and under the wrath of God? Are we sinners because we sin or do we sin because we are sinners? What about babies and children? How does God view them?  Are we born with a sinful nature?

This week’s show, September 14, 2008 from 4pm-6pm we talked about Total Depravity and Original Sin. We didn’t get to that topic until about 30 min into the show. First we discussed our last weeks preaching adventures on college campuses. Then we addressed the final question from last week’s show. A caller named Dustin called in and asked us about Isaiah 63:17. He is a Calvinist and was trying to promote the Calvinistic perspective that God causes people to rebel against Him. For some reason the show cut off after he asked the question. We kept talking because we had no idea the show was malfunctioning. Either way, we spent some time on this question. Then we spent the next 90 min. refuting the unBiblical concepts of Original Sin and Total Depravity. Download the podcast and take a listen for yourself:

Refuting Original Sin and Total Depravity