The Lie You’ve Been Sold About Islam | GodLogic

It seems to me that temperatures rising as you become more of a threat. I worry about your guys' well-being. I'm the friendly neighborhood apologist. God logic. Father is the same being. They're starting to dox us. If you refuse to sign, I have to take you to jail. Put our phone numbers and addresses out. We're dealing not with flesh and blood, but with these principalities.

Muslims want Islam to be the dominant religion. They want Sharia law. So anything that pushes Islam is what they will side with. Even if it goes against Islam. I don't have to lift a finger to defend the Bible. The Quran did it for me. All we got to do is read it. They think that Muhammad is the perfect example for mankind. So you show him that he was immoral and depraved. It cuts them.

I think if anything, I've heard people say negatively about your approach is that it's too aggressive sometimes. Does your approach reflect the heart or the way of Christ? Jesus didn't have the same style with everyone. With the sinner and the seeker, he was very patient and loving and gentle with that person. To the prideful religious leader, he was very harsh with them. So if what I'm doing is not loving and is not Christ-like, then I guess Christ wasn't Christ-like. You believe that Jesus is going to come back, right? Yes.

Christians and our idea of Muslims, they're not really aware of how Muslims are equipped to come against us. They're brought up to contend against Christianity. So what do Christians need to know then? What are your go-to arguments? Where do you see the weaknesses in their worldview? Where do we start? Let me tell you something, man. I'll put it like this.

Avery, welcome to Maybe God. Man, thanks for having me. I'm excited. Welcome to Houston, Texas. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, just had some good food over here in Houston. That's the way to get me, y'all. That's some good food. Mission accomplished. We can do that in Houston. Houston's got some good food. Yeah, look, good first experience. I'll be back. Yeah, good. I hope so because I am a huge fan of yours, man. And I'm so honored to be talking to you long before we ever asked you to be on this interview with us on Maybe God. I have been a fan of your channel, God Logic. For years now, it feels like. I know you-- how long you been doing God Logic? Four years now. Four years. I don't know how early on I got into it, but something about your approach always stood out to me. I love Christian apologetics. And there's a lot of apologists that I follow. Most of them are high-minded, kind of intellectual. They give good talks in forums in Oxford, places like that. And you can do that too, but you're mostly on the streets talking to real people in real ways every day. There's something about you and your approach that stands apart in the Christian apologetic space. I just wondered if you know what that is. What is it about your approach that has given you such-- other than just God's grace, what has given you this kind of success? Yeah, that's a good question, honestly. What I hear, the feedback that I get from the audience, is I'm genuinely friendly. They say, man, when Avery talks to someone, he talks to them like he's known them for years. And that's how it is. I talk to a person that I'm dealing with, because I love you. I care about you. I want you to know-- I want you to be comfortable. And so I do have this gift of making people comfortable in conversations. We could talk. We could chop it up. You can express your disagreement. Say, I'm crazy if you want. You know? Say, I'm tripping. You know? Because sometimes I'd be tripping. But let's have that dialogue. And that's why I love connecting with people in person more than on the stream. Like, in person, it's just you can really reach them. Yeah, you like that even better. Oh, yeah, man. I love connecting with the other human being. Instead of the screen that's in front of me. Sure, sure. So I know you're a YouTuber, but really, you're an apologist. I mean, that's your trade. You just happen to do it on YouTube. And how did someone-- you're a preacher's kid. You're a lifelong Christian. But how did you get into the apologetic space? Look, man, let me tell you. I was in a community college. Some Jehovah's Witnesses were posted up. And I always used to hear about Jehovah's Witnesses from my grandpa. Man, he did not like them, man. I'm telling you. Oh, really? He like, man, don't trust them, Jehovah's Witnesses. Don't let them in. I'm like, why? You know, that pushed my curiosity even more. I see them in college. They're posting up. I said, man, let me go ask them some questions, man. Let me go just see what they're about. And so I went. I asked them, what do you say about Jesus? They're like, oh, yeah, he's Jehovah's son. I'm like, OK, yeah, that sounds good. So you believe he's God. They're like, no. And I was like, wait, what? No, we don't believe he's God. I was like, yeah, the Bible teaches he's clearly God. They was like, no, he's created by God. He's Jehovah's first creation. And I said, can you show me that in the Bible? And so they pulled out their New World Translation, that great Bible they walk around with. They went to Colossians 1.15 and it said, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Now, that shook me because I didn't know how to read in context. I didn't know how to deal with that. And so I was stuck. Other verses didn't come up, John 1.1. None of them verses, first and last, nothing came to my mind. I have pros, man. I was frozen. And so I was like, OK, yeah, I got to research this. And the dude, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, yeah, you got to do your homework. Nice guy. But so that right there, I was like, dang, let me call my dad because I know Jesus is God. This ain't right. And he's like, yeah, Jesus is God gave me John 1.1. John 858, John 1030, all the usual verses. And I knew these verses. But they just did-- in the moment, I froze. I couldn't think of nothing. And so that's when I noticed, I'm like, man, if I'm this unequipped-- and at this time, I'm like a young ordained minister, leading young adult ministries and Bible studies with my peers. So I'm like, if I don't know how to answer something as simple as that, then I know my peers don't because we're on the same level. And if we don't, then that means the average Christian, especially young adults, will not be able to defend their faith against a cult group. We can't do it. They twist us up. Can't let that happen again. Can't let that happen again. I was like, yeah, nah, I need to get equipped. And I need to help other believers get equipped. And that's when I found the genre called apologetics. And man, pastor, when I found that, it was like finding a new flavor candy or something. It was everything. It was right up my alley.

Hey, everybody. Eric Huffman here, just popping in to thank you for tuning in today. If you've been enjoying this interview, make sure you hit that Subscribe button. That genuinely helps the channel grow and allows us to keep making more videos like this one. And if you've got any feedback or questions about today's conversation with Avery, be sure to drop a comment below. We always love hearing what you have to say. And your comments help us shape our future episodes. So thank you in advance. And thank you for watching. Now let's get back to my interview with Avery from God Logic.

You remember what kinds of stuff you started reading or what people you-- Absolutely. Living Waters, Ray Comfort. That was the first thing I saw in regards to Jesus being God and dealing directly with Jehovah's Witnesses and how to answer them. And so I'm watching hours. I'm stuck on this side of YouTube. I didn't want nothing else. I started getting books now. And I don't like reading. But I like reading those. I like reading "Deedia," "Christ," "New Testament," I like reading those type of books. But anything else, I don't care for reading. Wow. So you kind of discovered a calling through that failed confrontation, I guess, with Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh, yeah. That's when I can say that God Logic was born. Really? That's when God Logic was born. Because without that, I probably-- it would have maybe taken another experience. But that lit that fire like, dang, I'm not ready. I can't defend Christ. I don't have the training or the mindset to read the next verse that tells us why He's being called the firstborn. It says, "For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth." So it's not firstborn in the literal, since it's firstborn in a preeminent, since He's supreme over creation. But I didn't know how to do that at the time. You had never had that question asked. Never had it asked. Never thought about it. Didn't the Jehovah's Witness sort of alter that verse, too, in their translation somehow? Yes. In their translation, so it says, "For by Him all things were created." In their translation, it says, "For by Him all other things were created." Oh, that's right. They insert the other. They insert the word other. But here's the interesting thing. When you go on their website, JW Library, and you go to their kingdom interlinear-- so they have a Greek interlinear-- you go to it, it doesn't have the word other. It shows that they inserted the word other. So even they acknowledge it. They acknowledge it. Interesting. They had to to fit their preconception. Yep. Jesus can't be the one who created all things. But He could create all other things. But He Himself has to be created by Jehovah. Interesting. I found out the other day my hair stylist of three years is Jehovah's Witness. What? Yeah, she hit me with it out of nowhere. After all the hours of conversations, she's like, Jesus died on a pole, not a cross. Oh, man. And if you don't believe you died on a pole, you're in trouble. And I was like, I guess I got to find a new hairstyle. [LAUGHTER] She does a good job, though. She does an OK job. You better get to work. I'll keep going back there. Maybe I'll get her on our team. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

So I'm guessing it didn't happen overnight, that after that experience and you started diving into your studies and exploration, you didn't start your YouTube channel right away and become an outspoken apologist. Absolutely. When did you first realize this might be something you're called to lead the charge on and be an outspoken, out-front apologist? So it happened probably a couple of years later, or maybe within the next year. OK. Because, yeah, the following year-- so I'm studying. I'm looking at, you know, great comfort videos and how he's evangelizing. That's when I first started seeing street evangelism, OK? Not just street preaching on a microphone, but he's evangelizing to people. And he's doing it in a unique way where it's conversational and he's witty and he seems like he's himself. He's not just some preacher guy, right? And I just loved how he evangelized and how he reached people. And so I'm like, he'd make this look so-- I can do this. Like, I'm personable. I like talking to people. I love people. I can talk to anyone. I can do this. I can do this for the Lord. And so I started. I tried it. At lunch. By yourself. By myself. I saw a girl sitting with her headphones on. But I sat down. I said, hey, I got a question for you. You know? And she's like, yeah, sure. What's up? Now, when she took her headphones off, that one for me was the like, oh, OK. You know, here we go. What do you think happens after you die? And we end up having a whole conversation. And I introduced her to Jesus. And she was like, yeah, I never thought about that. And she got interested in reading the gospel after that. After that experience, it was over. Really? I was talking to anybody I could find. No going back. No going back. I was like, yeah, I can do this. And this is what I want to do. I want to do this. Yeah. You know? And-- Wow. I just kept studying. Kept growing in that. You know? Perfecting the craft and learning and watching, absorbing for years until finally I was able to-- you know what? OK, it's time. Yeah. Let's start the channel up. I think that's an exciting turning point for any Christian, really, when you realize this isn't just a religion to digest and consume on Sunday morning. It's not just sort of a framework by which you live your life. Like, it's a set of truth claims that really is in conflict with other sets of truth claims. And somebody's more right than others, you know? And it's not sufficient to say all religions are basically the same and all this. Like, no, they're different. The gospel of Jesus is different. Yeah. In your exploration of this field of apologetics, what did you discover about Christianity that was major for you in terms of how it is distinct from what other people believe? Evidence. Really? The evidence for Jesus is what blew my mind. And the evidence for prophecy and the historical events in the Bible and how people use the Bible to find lands and peoples and just stuff, it blew my mind. The historicity. The historicity of Christianity is what separates it from me than the others, because the others are just claims. And they say stuff, but they don't have the evidence backing it up. We have atheists talking about the crucifixion of Jesus and anti-Christians talking about the crucifixion of Jesus as a historical fact, not just something people believe. It's a fact of history. And to say otherwise, you'll be laughed out of academia. So that right there was like, I'm like, yeah, Christianity is different. There's actually evidence backing up the God of the Bible. Wow. Yeah, there is. It really does set it apart. It's not what I expect you to say, I guess, because there's much more we could talk about that separates Christianity. But I've never thought about that as sort of the tip of the spear. And it is because you don't have to believe Christianity to appreciate its historicity. Exactly. It's sort of an open door. Exactly. Like if I'm talking to an atheist man, it's like an atheist tries to pretend to be evidence based and whatever, empirical. And so we have that for Christianity. We have empirical evidence that leads you to God. We have empirical evidence about Jesus. So it's like Christianity passed all the tests when it comes to testing truth. It passed it all with flying colors. Everything else fails. Something will be inconsistent. Something lacks history. Something's out of touch with reality. Something goes against what we already know is true and how we live out our lives. But Christianity, it fills every context, history, consistency, morality. It fills it all. Even authorship and knowing who the authors were and their proximity to the events in question. The details they give. Yeah. I was also a preacher's kid. And I was raised in the church. I did have a prolonged crisis of faith where I was not a professing Christian. Long story. We won't get into it. But I remember coming back to faith and diving headfirst into apologetics and realizing just how alive it is and how much we have to talk about. I remember a turning point for me was when, I think it was William Lane Craig said in one of his lectures, "The stories of the New Testament do not bear the earmarks of legend." And I think in the back of my mind, I always wondered if it's legendary. If the whole Jesus thing is sort of mythological and that it developed over time. And he was deified centuries later in the whole narrative. And hearing him say that and the reasons why he said that because of the, again, the authors being in such close proximity time wise to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, it really brought it to life in a real way for me. Oh yeah. Same here. That was also something that, because you hear that a lot. Every Easter, every Christmas, you look up on Facebook or Instagram, there's some poster, Jesus is just a mythical copy. And yada, yada, yada. But no, Jesus is a historical figure who had a historical impact on the world. And there's no denying it. You cannot deny it empirically. You cannot deny it historically. You cannot deny it. So what do you do with it? I'm going to choose to follow the evidence where it leads, which leads me to the Lord Jesus. What are you going to do? Yeah. Wow. Did you also look into other religions and their alternative claims? Yeah. Yeah. At that point in your life. So I was a die-hard Christian, living for the Lord. But of course, I wanted to see what are other people saying? What's Islam saying? What's Hinduism saying, Buddhism saying? And so I looked at them very briefly and seen the inconsistencies just in their truth claims. For example, with Buddhism and Hinduism, you've got to let go of all your desires in order to reach this higher mindset or-- Enlightenment. Yeah, enlightenment. But you have to desire that. But they want you to get rid of all your desires. So there's-- Except that one. Except that one. So that doesn't work. If I got to get rid of all my desires, I can't desire enlightenment. It's just internally consistency. And then Islam, I'm pretty sure we'll get into that later. But-- Yeah, that's next. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's when I first noticed you online. I don't know if it was the algorithm feeding it to me or what, but I just remember discovering your conversations with-- it works with Muslims and spokesmen for Islam. I don't know if they're imams or just teachers or what they would be called. But what I noticed is you talked with them in a way that they responded differently than the typical sort of-- I don't want to say it-- milquetoast, kind of polite Christians just get steamrolled by these guys. And I noticed you did not. And what was it initially that drew you to or motivated you to speak directly to and with Muslims? So in my study and trying to figure out Jesus being God and what the Bible says, I came across Sam Shimon and David Wood. They used to do a show, Jesus or Muhammad. And they were responding to a guy named Zacher Nike, who is probably the most popular Muslim preacher of all time. And so he-- Still living. Still living, yeah. Still alive. Still alive. And so he used to do lectures. And people would come. Thousands of people would come to his event. And he would be reciting verses off, Jesus is not God. Jesus never said, I am not God. Jesus never said, I am God, worship me. Prophet Muhammad is the comforter in John 14. He would be listening on for John 14, 16, John 15, 26. He's just going off. And they're just clapping because they're like, whoa, he's on fire. They're just clapping. Yeah, he knows his stuff. He's looking impressive to them. And so I'm like, bro, what? What he's saying doesn't make any sense. If you all looked at the verses that he's talking about, you all would see how much of a fraud he is. Now, David and Sam, they're breaking this stuff down. And I'm watching them. They're dismantling him. But I mean, they're not reaching these people. So that's what I was like, wow, Islam is different. Because with Jehovah's Witnesses, they're quiet. They just sit there with their stands. And they let you come to them. And if they find out you're Trinitarian, we don't want to talk to you. Mormons, they're really nice. They're not loud. They're nice. They'll come to your house, have little Bible studies with you. Islam, the Muslims, they were loud, beaten their chest in front of thousands. So I was like, yeah, nah. I accept this challenge. They got to be stopped. And I saw what wasn't working. This was at a time I started watching Muslim apologists. I'm watching them destroy Christians in London. At Speaker's Corner, I'm watching them, I mean, stump the Christians with simple stuff. And if I was in that environment, I would have also gotten stumped. So I'm watching these absorbing and learning, oh, how would I answer that? Or how would I answer that? And I'm seeing their personalities. I'm seeing how they communicate. I'm seeing their slipperiness. I'm seeing all of that. And so in watching that, I'm like, OK, yeah, you can't talk to them like how you would talk to a Mormon. They will take advantage of your respect. They'll take advantage of your-- if you're soft spoken, if you're really trying to be too polite. They take advantage of that. Rhetorically just destroy you. Absolutely. And over talk you and dominate the conversation. So you can't be a pushover, especially with them. You cannot be a pushover because they'll see that weakness. The rest of the people will see that weakness, and they'll chop you up. So you have to have a sternness as well. You have to be Peter out there. You've got to be Paul. You've got to have a sternness. At the same time, have a gentleness and a love with it, a care for them, a genuine care. So what I tried to do is I tried to mix a lot of it together into one package. You get Sam Shimon, Sam Shimon, he'll go at you. You know, he'll go at you probably. David Wood. So I try to take the sternness of Sam Shimon, but the coolness of a Jeff Durbin or a Ray Comfort and put it together. So if you want to go hard, we can go hard. We're going to be chill. We're going to be chill. But am I hearing you right that the primary motivator in the beginning was just watching Christians lose these debates and thinking you could do better? Well, not necessarily thinking I could do better, but I saw that they were destroying Christians, and they were loud about it. They needed to be challenged. Right. So that's what it was. So it wasn't necessarily I think I could do better, but I just know if I get equipped, I can. Yeah. Y'all can't deal with the doubt, man. Don't sell yourself short, man. I think you felt genuinely called and equipped-- For sure. For such a time as that. For sure. Did you also have a concern about how Islam is making advancement in roads into the culture and making converts en masse? At that time, I wasn't aware of that too much. I wasn't aware of how much it was growing and how much it was entering the culture and how the liberal side of things is really-- to be inviting to Islam is to be woke. Yeah. That's the wokeness now. Right. It's a strange bedfellows sort of deal with secular liberals and Islam. Yeah. It's weird. In the culture. And you have Muslims that are so-- they're in line with that. That's like, yeah. It's so weird to me because you have these liberals and seculars who are siding with Islam, but you guys don't like this side. Yeah, I know. Y'all are not on this team. You guys are against homosexuality. You're against the way they dress and the women and all that kind of stuff. But anything to get Islam pushed, they will side with it. In the name of inclusion, you think? Or is it just about siding against Christianity? I think it's both. Yeah. And they want Islam-- don't get me-- don't get it to-- Muslims want Islam to be the dominant religion. They want Sharia law. They want it everywhere. That's encoded in their scriptures. Yes. So anything that pushes Islam is what they will side with, even if it goes against Islam. Sure, sure.

I think if anything, I've heard people say negatively about your approach is that it's too aggressive sometimes or too-- you probably hear this sometimes, just, does your approach reflect the heart or the way of Christ? What's your response to that line of criticism? It's hilarious, because I was just live Wednesday. And one of the comments-- one of the commenters said, sometimes Avery is just too dang patient. It's pissing me off. Really? Yes. Speaking of both sides. Speaking of both sides, man, sometimes I'm too patient and nice. Sometimes I'm-- I guess I'm too aggressive and known Christ-like. Right. But to answer the question, it's-- I just-- I look at Jesus Christ and how he handled different groups. And so Jesus didn't have the same style with everyone. For example, with the sinner and the seeker, he was very patient and loving and gentle with that person. To the prideful religious leader, he was very harsh with them, called them out on their stuff. He didn't hold anything back. But also taught them while he did it. He taught them at the same time while speaking harshly to them. It was all love on both sides. Both are examples of love. Don't get it twisted that just because he's harsh and calling them out that that's not loving. So if what I'm doing is not loving and is not Christ-like, then I guess Christ wasn't Christ-like. Yeah. He was pretty-- Man, Matthew 25, whoa, whoa, toes. Whoa, you Pharisees, snakes, you vipers. White washtunes. White washtunes. Hey, don't give what is holy to the dogs and to the pigs. He's calling them dogs and pigs, man. What do you mean? If I'm not Christ-like, man, Christ ain't Christ-like. That's crazy. Yeah, I think people that would take that line of criticism probably haven't watched you enough. Maybe they saw a clip pulled here or there. But they probably also don't know Jesus, that side of Jesus, as well. You know, a lot of people think Jesus was just this real softy. Yeah. And he had some edge. Yeah, it's interesting, man, because I love to give respect. I love for the person to feel heard out. Because I want the same. So I've learned that if I give that, I'm most likely going to get it back. And even when I don't get it, I can take the punch and let it slide off and continue. Sometimes I punch back, though. Yeah, I've noticed. You're good at taking punches. Yeah, but me, I do believe you do it in love. Yeah, that's all it's about. Out of genuine concern, not just for your debate counterpart, but for everyone listening. That's what is important to me. Because, Pastor Eric, I know that the person I'm talking to most likely is probably not going to change their mind. However, we have, by the grace of God, there's thousands of people watching the live stream, live, and they're listening. They're learning how to, one, respond to certain objections the person is bringing up. And two, other people who have these same objections are now getting these answers. So even though this person may be hard-hearted, and maybe there's too much-- the lights are on too bright, so they won't concede because of the pressure or whatever. But there's someone else who's not online with me, who's listening, where the seed is being planted. And so it's so effective. It's been so effective.

So as you've had all these conversations with Muslim spokesmen and about Islam with others, what do you think most Christians or people out there that haven't watched your content might not know or understand or appreciate about Islam? I think that one thing about Christians and their idea of Muslims, they're not really aware of how Muslims are equipped to come against us. They're brought up to contend against Christianity. Like Muslim apologetics 101 from kindergarten. From day one. So that's what the Quran is. The Quran is basically kind of a polemic against Christianity. It dives into Jesus not being a son and how God doesn't beget, nor is he begotten. Jesus is just a messenger. Just like his mother, they both ate food. So it's directly addressing our beliefs. But the Bible doesn't say anything about Islam, particularly. So that's where they have the advantage in that Christianity is in their mind from day one. And they're geared up to contest some core beliefs. So when a Christian runs into a Muslim, they're not expecting them to have these direct rebuttals or objections to the core of their faith. Like you with the Jehovah's Witness? Like me with the Jehovah's Witness. Wow. So what do Christians need to know then? What are the primary-- what are your go-to arguments against Islam at large? Where do you see the weaknesses in their worldview? Oh, man. Where to begin? Where do we start? Let me tell you something. I'll put it like this. There's two big arguments that you can use. And I think that I've been very effective. Number one is the immorality of Muhammad and the Quran. That affects Muslims. Like it really gets them. They haven't considered it? They haven't considered it. Or they have been taught otherwise. They haven't really-- stuff has been brushed over. Like Muhammad married a child. The Aisha. At the age of six-- She was six years old when they got married, nine years old when he slept with her. And so for most Muslims, for most Muslims, that don't sound right. Most Muslims will deny it. They're like, no, you're lying. Is that in the Quran? It's in what they call the Hadith. So the Hadith would be like the sayings and the behaviors of Muhammad, what he's done in his life, what he said. The Quran would, to them, is the verbatim speech and word of God. But the Hadith is revered. Yes. As scripture. Basically, you can't deny Hadith, especially because they'll have weak and strong grading for a certain Hadith, how authentic it is. So the authentic Hadith, you can't deny them at all. So Muslims believe that Jesus is coming back to judge and stuff like that. But that's not in the Quran. That's in their Hadith. So they have revelation in their Hadith. You understand? And so in their Hadith, in their most authentic source, in every single authentic Hadith they have, Muhammad slept with Aisha when she was six years-- I'm sorry, married Aisha when she was six years old, slept with her when she was nine years old. And he already had wives. Yep, he already had wives. So Muhammad was pulling them all in. So arguments like this, bringing this to the light with Muslims, is very effective. They think that Muhammad is the perfect example for mankind. They think he's at the top of the world, as far as exemplary influences. The greatest man that ever lived. Ever lived. He is that guy. So you show him that he was immoral and depraved. That cuts them. So it's very effective. Another argument, which is my favorite, is what we call the Islamic dilemma. And this deals with what the Quran has to say about the Bible. The Quran speaks so well of the Bible, it does all the work for us. I'm telling you right now, Pastor Eric, I don't have to lift a finger to defend the Bible. The Quran did it for me. All we got to do is read it. That's interesting, because you just said that the Quran is basically a polemic against Christianity. Is it because some earlier parts of the Quran were friendlier with Christianity, and then as it developed, it became more-- You got it absolutely right. Early on, Muhammad wanted followers. He wanted the Jews and Christians to believe in him as a prophet. He didn't have influence at the time. He didn't have power. Moved to Baddinah, grew in influence and power. That's when you start seeing a lot of the denial of core doctrines. That's when you can see and fight the disbelievers. Fight whoever disbelieves in Allah, make them pay the jizya. That's when you start seeing those verses after he gained influence and got some guys behind him. But before that, the Quran spoke well of the Bible. But even then, though, there's a lot to this. Muhammad was an illiterate man, uneducated, didn't know scripture. He didn't know anything. All he did was hear things. That's all he could rely on. He's literally called the ear in the Quran. They call him the ear because he hears things and then just repeats them. So he's hearing traditions. He's hearing stories of the prophets. He's hearing fables. And he doesn't know which is which. So he understands that, OK, Jews and Christians, the Sator and the gospel and the Psalms and the writings of the prophets, that's the word of God revealed that. But people strayed. Jews and Christians strayed from the revelation of God. But the word itself is from God. But the word itself is from God. Go back to the Islamic dilemma. So this is what the Islamic dilemma is, is that these scriptures are from God. The Quran says in chapter 2, verse 41, it says, it's talking to the Jews saying, "Believe in what we have sent down," meaning the Quran, "believe in the Quran and what we have sent down, "confirming that which is already with you." So the Quran is confirming the scriptures that they have in the time of Muhammad, right? Chapter 5, verse 47, "Let the people of the gospel judge by what Allah has revealed in it. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed, you're a wrongdoer." I want to be a good Christian, Pastor Eric. I don't want to be a wrongdoer. So I'm gonna judge my gospel. But here's the other side of the dilemma. If I judge by my gospel, I see Jesus was crucified. I see Jesus rose again on the third day. I see that God is my heavenly Father. I see that God exists as a plurality of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I see that the Son incarnated, took on flesh. So this is what the gospel says. So if I'm judging by the gospel, I got it. Like the Quran tells you to. Like the Quran tells me to. But I got to judge the Quran is false. Because it says Jesus is not the Son of God. It says that he wasn't crucified, but it was made to appear so. You know, it says that Allah has no sons, no daughters. It says that there's none in the heavens or the earth that can come to Allah except as a slave. So he eliminates any sense in which he can be a father to any of us. While our heavenly Father is intentional, is relational, adopts us as his children. It's diametrically opposed to the message of the gospel and the Torah. How do Muslim leaders you've spoken to respond to that? I know most of them don't have response. Most of them talk around it, but what are the best responses you've heard from Muslim leaders? Bro, come on man. To this. (laughing) Do they have anything? They have responses. They're not good, but here's the, I'll give you the popular one right now. The popular one is that Muhammad was making, or the Quran doesn't confirm the whole Bible. It confirms it in parts. It's a general confirmation, not a wholesale confirmation. And so where we see contradictions with the Quran and the Bible, those are the parts that Muhammad is actually consciously editing. He's consciously correcting these parts because those would be the corrupted parts. So that's what they're saying. That's the part that always got me just as I'm not as dialed into this as you are, but I've listened enough to hear that the Quran is clear that no word of God can be corrupted and that the Torah and the Gospels and the Psalms, the prophets were the word of God. But those were corrupted. And I've always wanted you, or maybe I've just missed those clips where I want you and David Wood and Sam and those guys to go after that more because that seems to be patently problematic or a contradiction. Yeah, so that none of Allah's words can be changed, yet you guys claim that Allah's words were changed. So how do you deal with that, right? Absolutely. And it's funny that you say that because when you go into early Islam, the early Islamic scholars were split on this. There were some that believed that the Bible was textually corrupted. There was another side that believed it was perfectly preserved, but just people misinterpreted the scripture, right? And distorted it with their tongues and interpretation. So you have that side, right? That sound like us. Now, known as the argument they use, they use chapter six, verse 115 in the Quran, where it says, "None can change the words of Allah." So there's no way that the scriptures can be corrupted since they are the words of Allah. These are Muslims making this argument, right? They also use a hadith, Sunan Abu Dawood, 4449, this one is good. So some Jews come to Muhammad for a judgment. One of them committed adultery. And so, but they didn't want to go with what the Torah said. So they hoped to get a different ruling from Muhammad. Sure. Right? So they go to Muhammad, you're like, "Hey, can you give us a judgment? "You know, this happened." And so Muhammad says, "Bring the Torah." So they bring the Torah to him. And so what he does is, so he's sitting in like a kind of a chair, a judgment seat. And so he gets up, he takes the Torah, and he puts the Torah in the judgment seat. And he says, "I believe in you and the one who revealed you." So do what the Torah says. Wow. Yes. And so their argument is, Muhammad would not have done this if the Torah was corrupted. Sure. Right? These are early Muslims who are making this argument. Yeah. Right? So they're using the same thing, they have the same reason in Pastor Eric that you just had. That no one can corrupt Allah's words, and Muhammad would not have believed in them if they were corrupted. So do modern Muslim imams and teachers claim that it was corrupted after Muhammad's life? They'll say before. Or before. Yeah, they say before. Okay, and yet, Muhammad, as you just said, put the Torah on the judgment seat. There's so much evidence against this. It is so, this is why we say, we say Muslims hate the Quran. And they hate Muhammad, because they go against exactly what he's, notice this, here's one of my favorite verses. Chapter 10 in the Quran, verse 94, it says, this is Allah speaking to Muhammad, "If you are in doubt about that which we have revealed to you, then go and ask those who've been reading the scripture before you. The truth has come to you from your Lord, so be not of those who doubt." So wait a second, hold on. (laughs) Park, hold on a second. You mean to tell me that if the prophet, the one who's receiving the Quran and the revelation, if he's doubting what the Quran is saying, to get certainty and to clear up his doubts, Allah tells him to come to us. Come to us to clear up your doubts, because we got the Bible, we got the scripture. Jews and Christians. Go ask those who've been reading the book before you. So the Quran points to our scripture as the standard of truth. If you're uncertain about what the Quran is saying, you can come to the previous scripture and see that the Quran is in line with it. That's the assumption. So that means that if the Quran's not in line with what we have, then Muhammad's doubts would be verified and he'd be like, yeah, this ain't true. This isn't coming from God. So the Jewish and Christian scriptures are the filter. Yes, they're the filter. That's the standard of truth. And so this is what's insane about this. For Muslims to come to us and say, yeah, it was corrupted by the time Muhammad came, then why in the world is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sending Muhammad to corrupted books to clear up doubts he would have about the Quran, which is supposed to be the perfect book. Why would he send him to corrupted, fabricated, tampered books to get truth about what he's doubting in the Quran? That makes no sense at all. And there's multiple verses. Just like two other verses that say, just like that, it says in chapter 16, verse 43, if you do not know, come, go to the people, go ask the people of the reminder. It calls the Bible the reminder. Wow. When I hear you talk about it and break it down like this, my first thought is simple-minded, just how is this thing growing? How has Islam grown? You said birth rates? Birth rates, yeah. As the main driver. That's the main driver. You got a lot of different, they're having many wives and many children, many kids, so. When we talk to, I talk to Hatuntash, and I've talked to others as well on this show about Islam, former Muslims or Christian apologists that talk with Muslims, and they seem to feel like a big part of it is also the, I hate to use the word ignorance, but I mean that in the most respectful sense I can, like because the Quran must be read properly in Arabic, and not all Muslims read Arabic or some don't read at all. And so they're just told what parts of it says, and they memorize it, but don't really know what it's saying. I can't help but wonder if that's also part of it, because if they had their own copy at home that they were reading and diving into, it would be so easy to expose the things you're talking about. On top of that, they really hold their imams, their shakes like their, for us would be pastors and stuff, they really hold them so high. And so they're not even learning the Quran themselves with critical thinking, and they're learning it through the lens of their imams and their shakes. So whatever their shakes and imams are telling them, even if they read it on their own, they're reading it with the interpretation of their imams and shakes. So a scripture that says, believe in the Quran, which confirms what you have, they'll say, yeah, they'll interpret that differently, instead of what it says. Instead of what it says, they'll interpret it as saying something the opposite. What's the back of your hoodie say? Earlier you were wearing a hoodie and I saw it. Was it just-- We just read. We just read, is that what you're mean? Is like, just get to the text, cut to the chase, let's stop talking around it. Get to the text. We don't have to interpret nothing. We don't have to add, we don't have to subtract. We just read. And according to what the verse says, that's what we take. We take the context, we take the verse, that's it. I don't need your scholar to interpret this for me. I don't need you to interpret this or add nothing to this. I don't need you to go on telling me a story. Let's read the verse. Does Allah confirm our scriptures yes or no, according to what it just said? Sure. Yeah, boy, it's sometimes it's even painful, even though I'm on your side, it's painful to watch your debates with these guys. I just feel sorry for them. But I do encourage everybody watching, maybe God to subscribe and watch God Logic. Even if you're a solid Christian, like your faith will be grown and challenged by watching Avery defend the faith with some other religions. I wanna talk about some of the other faiths you go to toe to toe with in a minute. But first let's just put a bow on the Islam conversation. Because I remember, I had a Jehovah's Witness moment where I was frozen one time in the Holy Land, where this Muslim guy pulled me aside. He knew I was a Christian pastor. He pulled me aside. We were in a settlement, like in Palestinian territory kind of settlement from the old days, which still is there. It was awful circumstances. But we were just there to learn the situation on the ground. And this guy pulled me aside and he said, "I will never under..." First he told me, "You people are the reason for all of our problems." (laughing) I was like a young man. You people. And I was like, what if I do? (laughing) He meant like white American Christians that are pro-Israel by and large. He said, "You're the source of all my problems." And when I looked at him with the deer in the headlights, he said, "I just don't understand why Christians in America aren't siding with us Muslims, because we, at least we believe in the same Jesus. Because the Jewish people don't accept Jesus and don't revere Jesus. And at least we Muslims do. And so we should be more lock in arms." And I was not, I confess, I was not informed enough at the time to push back at all. And I was, I had one of those moments where you're just like, "Oh, what do I say?" And I also wanted to get out of there alive, probably. (laughing) I'm sorry. But I think a lot of people might fall prey to that same kind of line of argumentation. Like these, the Muslim people revere Jesus. They look up to Jesus. They talk about him in many of the same terms that Christians do. So talk to us about the similarities and differences in how Muslims view Jesus. Sure. Just speaking on them thinking that they revere Jesus, it's something like this. Let's say you are introducing your mother. And you say, "Yeah, this is a good woman that I know. She's a great friend, a lovely person, helps the poor a lot. You know, has nurtured me, but she's not my mother." Would that be respectful and loving to your mom? I don't think she would take it very well. She wouldn't take it well, right? But you said a lot of good things about her though. You said some great things. Those are good qualities. But she wouldn't take that well.

Would she? Because you're denying who she is. And that's how it is with Muslims. With Muslims, they say a lot of good things about Jesus. He's the Messiah. He's a prophet. He's a messenger. He performed miracles. He's born of a virgin, but he's not the son of God. He didn't die for your sins. He didn't come and save the world. So they're denying who Jesus is, which is an ultimate disrespect to him. So all that lip service is just fluff. That's all it is, is lip service. We believe everything about Jesus, except the most important things. Except the most important things.

So like, on touching on this, they'll use, like you said, Christianese it a little bit. He's the Messiah. He was born of a virgin. He's coming back. He's coming back, you know, to judge and stuff and to set things right and defeat the Antichrist. Sounds good, don't it? But they don't mean it in how we do. He's not coming back as Lord. He's not coming back as God and the judge of heaven and earth, who decides is going to heaven and hell to establish his kingdom, the kingdom of God. No, that's not what they believe. That's not what they mean. When they call Jesus the Messiah, they don't know what that means. They don't.

I asked them, this is what I talked to Sheik Uthman about, which got him stumped. I asked him, what does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah? What does that mean? What does that word mean? It doesn't know. Just rhetorical. Just rhetorical. Well, the Quran calls the Messiah. Yeah, but why? Why him? Why not Moses or Abraham or even Muhammad? Why him? Why is he identified as the Messiah? Because that doesn't go for every prophet. So what makes that unique?

For Christians, I mean, it's his death and resurrection. Exactly. The stuff he fulfilled, right? We have a, what do you call? It's like how you know, we have a standard. We have the Old Testament. We have the Tanakh that told us what to expect. So when Jesus comes, walking in those things that the Bible told us about, the Torah told us about, we know he's that, yeah, that's him. That's the prophet that they spoke about. That's the Messiah. We have somewhere to point back to. But for Muslims, our book is corrupted. So then where are you getting this stuff from? It's like an atheist who denies God's existence, but holds to morality. You deny God's existence, but you're stealing from God at the same time. Richard Dawkins and the cultural Christianity stuff blew my mind. Exactly.

It's the same thing with Muslims. They deny the revelation of God, the Bible. They deny it, but steal from it to support them. Wow. So. Yeah. You think, I mean, I guess most Muslims, everyday Muslims probably don't even see that. No, they don't, man. It's crazy. Talking to the everyday Muslim versus an online Muslim is totally different. That is something I would love to talk to you about for like three hours. (laughing) I know we don't have time for it, but that's been on my mind lately. What's the difference between talking to an everyday, good-hearted Muslim person that has genuine questions versus talking to one of these spokesmen who has to sort of posture and flex? It's night and day.

Okay, so we don't have time for it, but I'll encourage you. Watch my most recent live stream. Because you saw I had a debate with Muhammad O'Jab and all that kind of stuff. So what I did was as I invited Muslims to come tell me how Muhammad O'Jab cooked me. Tell me what points he made, what you agreed with, whatever. So I bring them on. My first three guests, they're the normal average guy. They come, they're respectful, they're listening, they're considering things. I'm able to get to a point with them, but when I wasn't able to get to a point with O'Jab, they're admitting stuff. He wasn't able to admit stuff. So they were completely different in character, in reason, than the spokesperson. So the person with the platform, they have the pride. They are puffed up. These guys were not. They weren't prideful. They weren't puffed up. They conceded things. They considered things. And it was good. Totally different, night and day.

Yeah. Have you seen a bunch of Muslims, maybe off camera, tell you that you've led them to reconsider their faith or to come to Christ in some real way? Or have you seen a lot of that conversion? Yeah, a bunch of stuff. So if it's not live, because we get conversions live on the show, but in my comments section, I'm getting emails, I'm getting comments where, I've been watching for a while now, and now I'm ready to let go of Islam officially. Jesus is the truth. We get so many of those comments. DM's on Instagram and TikTok. It's so special because it's those things that help. It's like, it re-energizes you. Oh, I bet. After you get like the thousand of stubborn hard heads, but then you get these, hey man, I'm coming to Christ. Yeah, I'm reconsidering. I just left Islam. Now I'm looking into Christianity. You get those comments. It's like God vindicates what you're doing.

As you talk, I'm trying to get myself in your head because it's gotta be, the challenge of what you do is, you have to be two places at once. On the one hand, you have to be present with the person you're debating on camera and getting all the points right and winning the debate. But on the other hand, you have to do it in a way that speaks to the people out there. Yeah, yeah. And in a way that's compelling. And those are two different things, man. You can win a debate and lose the crowd. Exactly, yeah, yeah. I'm just trying, this is my first time sort of thinking this through. You've got to be able to maneuver both of those situations. And I would imagine, now you can tell me if I'm wrong, I would imagine that's how you gauge a true win in a debate isn't in the moment with the opponent, but the fallout. Exactly, that's exactly it. It's the people. Like whenever you're debating, it's the people who decide. You want to reach and convince the people watching, the listeners. It's not for the person that you're talking to because they have their position and they're not changing. And they'll lose too much if they change their position. If they change their mind. If they concede it to your points. They lose too much, right? So it's always for the people listening and--

You gotta be a secret genius to pull that off. I mean it genuinely, like in a social sense, just really keeping that in mind while you're engaged in a heated debate. Yeah, yeah. By the way, these debates keep getting more and more heated. Oh, yeah, man. You feel that? Oh, listen. It's, well, it kind of feels the same to me. They're the same. It depends on who you're talking to, right? Do you feel like the temperature is rising? No, not as far as-- I do as an observer. But maybe I'm just worried about you. Because I care for you, I love you as a brother. And you and David Wood and others that we've had on the show, it's like I worry about your guys and your well-being. It seems to me that temperature is rising as you become more of a threat. Ah, okay, yeah, that's-- You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, so not just debate wise, but just in this space. Yeah, temperatures are definitely rising because as you see, they're starting to dox us, put our phone numbers and addresses out. They're-- Going after your wives. Going after our wives, slandering our wives, making up lies and rumors. And our family members or sisters. There's people, man, that have gone to my mother's Facebook and taken pictures of her and put it as their profile picture to troll me. You're kidding. That's the spirit behind it. We're dealing not with flesh and blood, but these principalities. And so it's that spirit that is running this, that's behind them. And we recognize, I recognize that, my family, my household, we recognize who the enemy is. Yeah, amen, amen.

I hear that and I respect the courage and I hope everybody watching gets behind you 100%. I'm behind you 100% and I just-- Thank you, Pastor. But at the same time, I do wonder if you're a married man now, you've got a wife and folks that depend on you. And as I saw the recent video where a guy, I don't know if he put hands on your wife, but he got close. Yeah, he bumped her shoulder. Yeah. Covered camera. I was uncomfortable. Do you think it's a matter of time before there's some incident? Do you sort of keep that in the back of your mind? Have you ever gotten shook to the point where you're like, maybe I just should do this from my studio more? How does that work in your mind? Does your wife ask you to be more careful? Absolutely. (laughing)

So, all right, so I'll answer that. Do I ever think that I should probably just do this from my own studio? Never. I didn't think you did. No, not in the slightest. I wanna be out there more. (laughing) But yeah, my wife is like, you know, when I was going to Dearborn, Michigan, she just was like, you got security, right? And who's gonna be with you? And just make sure you're paying attention. She was really, really on that and just really happy that, and thankful to God that I made it home safe without a scratch. But yeah, I'm definitely aware, like I'm not naive to this. I'm not arrogant to where I don't think that somebody can come after me and somebody might try me. They'll try. And so, I'm always looking, I'm on the watch, I got people with me. But there's never been a time just yet when someone has actually tried to physically attack.

I'm almost surprised to hear it. Just watching the videos, I feel the tension maybe I'm hypersensitive to that sort of thing. It's interesting because the videos, are you talking about the videos in person and stuff? Yeah, when you're out on the streets or in front of a mosque or something. Yeah, so I guess it looks worse than what it really is. Really? Yeah. That's good to hear, I'm glad to hear that. Because when we were at the mosque in Dearborn and we had a lot of them come out, we had a chunk of them that were emotional and angry that we were there and disrespectful and stuff like that. You also had others that was offering us water, water bottles, cold water bottles, chilling with us, talking, and some calming the other guys down. So, it wasn't as bad as it looked. It was, there was tension, but nobody was gonna do anything. Right, yeah. We're never in any danger. Good, good. I'll continue to pray for you. Keep praying for us, please, yeah.

One interesting sort of theological issue that always comes up whenever it's time for them to question you. Yeah. As a Christian is the Trinity. Whether you're talking to Muslims or whether you're talking to Mormons or Jehovah's Witness or any, they always go after the Trinity first. And I'm guessing there's people watching right now, even Christians that if asked, could not properly define or explain the Trinity. Talk to us about how you talk through the Trinity with people in a way that's digestive. Sure, absolutely. So, one, just an easy explanation of what the Trinity is, it's the concept that God exists as one being, one divine being who exists as three distinct persons. So, there's one God, three persons, one what, three whos. And so, in talking with Muslims, it's interesting actually because they obviously like, yeah, no, God is absolutely one in every way. But yeah, Allah talks throughout the Bible, I'm sorry, throughout the Quran is we and us an hour. He's always using these plural pronouns and they'll say, oh, it's just the plural of majesty. And so, that's interesting to me because if it's the plural of majesty, it seems like it's more majestic to be plural than singular. Why is he pretending? But our God doesn't have to pretend. He says we, us, an hour because he is majestic. He is plural within his unity, right?

And so, with talking with Muslims, it's interesting. They deny that Jesus ever associated himself with being God in any way. And even in the Bible, they don't recognize it. And so, with Islam, they have a concept called shirk, which is associating a partner with Allah, right? Okay, and it's a heresy, right? Yeah, it's one of the unforgivable sins, depending on which verse of the Quran you read. But, you know, so shirk, associating partners with Allah, you can't do that. You can't say anybody else is God or has his attributes or whatever, right? So, I asked them, okay, would you ever say that I'm gonna go perform prayer or perform salat or perform jihad in the name of Allah, Jabril, and Muhammad? Could you ever say that? They say, no, of course not. I say, why? Because that'll be associating partners with Allah when you're the one God. I said, okay, yeah, I agree with you. That would be blasphemy, because they're not God. So, I say, okay, so I'll read the Matthew 20, 19. Jesus says, "Go out and make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father, "the Son, and the Holy Spirit." I asked, did Jesus here just commit shirk? They said, yes, that would be shirk, yes. So, that's part of the Bible that's corrupted. Yeah, that's corrupted though. That's corrupted. But they see that, yeah, we see Jesus is associating himself and the Spirit with the Father under one name. So, we see that Jesus here is teaching the Trinity in just one place. I could show you others, but I could show you multiple places.

No one questions Jesus as being, I mean, I'm sorry, the Father is being God. Usually, as always, in the red seat is Jesus. He's in the red seat, and then the Holy Spirit is like the, don't really get no attention. So, lately, I've been targeting Jehovah's Witnesses in dealing with the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit needs to be, people need to know who the Holy Spirit is and his role in our life and how he strengthens believers, guides believers, inspires believers. You need to know who's on your side and who you're the temple of, because he's living in you. So, talking with Jehovah's Witnesses, they'll say that the Holy Spirit is just an act of force, kind of like in "Star Wars," just a force of Jehovah's power and energy, right? And I'm like, huh, but the Holy Spirit speaks. The Holy Spirit can be grieved. The Holy Spirit commands. So, no, but this is figurative. This is metaphoric. Wisdom also speaks in Proverbs and is given emotions and stuff, but the difference is that that's obviously personification in poetry literature, but the Holy Spirit is speaking and interacting with other persons in real time. So, here's one example, Acts 13, verse two. It says that while they were praising and worshiping the Lord and praying, it says, "The Holy Spirit said, set apart for me, Saul and Barnabas, for the work to which I have called them." So, notice here, the Holy Spirit is speaking. The Holy Spirit calls out Saul and Barnabas, so he's choosing, he's making this, he has a mind to make decisions. And he says, "Do it for me. I set them apart for me." So, the Holy Spirit is self-aware. The Holy Spirit's a person. He's not just some power that can use him. He's a person of the Godhead. So, you have the Holy Spirit who is personable, but is also said to create. He's also called the eternal spirit. He's also called God in Acts chapter five. So, you have the Holy Spirit. You have Jesus, who's the divine son, created all things, and was the tool by which the Father created all things.

Jesus said some crazy stuff. And so, if he wasn't God, that man was an absolute blasphemer. This man said all things that the Father has are mine. That includes you, that includes me, that includes the temple, that includes the prophets. What man, in the right mind, if he's a good prophet, a good Muslim prophet, or just a good messenger, or a good son of Jehovah, would make the claim that everything that God owns, I own. Right, yeah. That's blasphemous. It's above his pay grade. It's above his grade, exactly. Nobody would dare to say that, or they'll be crushed. You have Jesus saying that the sheep hear my voice in John chapter 10. And I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and none can snatch them out of my hand. Then he goes on to say, he says, "My Father who has given them to me, "he's greater than all, "and none can snatch them out of my Father's hand. "I and my Father are one." Now what is this? What is Jesus saying here? Is he just saying one in purpose like he does with the disciples in chapter 17 of John? No, because here, notice what he claimed. John 10.30, I and the Father won, that's like the little cherry on top. People miss this, bro. That's the cherry on top. The verses prior sets that statement up in what he means by this. He said that the sheep hear my voice. I know them, they follow me. They are in my hand. None can snatch them out of my hand. I give them eternal life. What do we find this? In Psalm 95, you look at verses six to eight, it says that we are the sheep of Yahweh's hand. And it's Yahweh's voice that we hear. Today, if you hear his voice, we are the sheep of his pasture, the sheep of his hand. Jesus is applying the attributes and qualities of Yahweh to himself. He's saying that to me. In Deuteronomy 32 and 33, it says that God, that Yahweh is the one who gives life, and he causes death. And he says, none can deliver out of my hand. The same thing Jesus said. So Jesus is applying the attributes and qualities of Yahweh, of Jehovah, to himself. That's why, when he says I and the Father are one, the Jews tried to stone them for that, because they knew what he was saying. And he's either right or wrong. He's either right or wrong. Lie or lunatic or Lord kind of thing. That's right. And you can't water him down if you claim to have any respect for the New Testament at all, or the old, for that matter. No, for real.

And so when I hear you talk about Trinitarian concepts, it makes more sense to me than pretty much any explanation I've ever heard. Because it's not so heady that I can't wrap my mind around it. And you have a way of unpacking a concept like that, which is everyone's first question about Christianity. And alongside of that question is one that I hear you asked, they ask you a lot, which is the nature of the Father and the Son. How can Jesus be God if he didn't know God's plans? I don't have the chapter in first. If he didn't know the hour. If he didn't know the hour, yeah. And only the Father knows the hour, not even the Son. I hear you being questioned about that a lot. Just talk us through your explanation of that. Seeming contradiction. Yeah, absolutely. So it's in Mark 13, 32, and in Matthew 24, 36, where Jesus, in talking about the destruction of the temple that's gonna come, and the judgment of Israel, and some of the end times that's gonna happen, then he gets asked, like, when is this gonna happen? And he says, "No man knows, nor the angels, nor the Son, but the Father only." And they're like, whoa, Jesus can't be God. He doesn't know something, see, he doesn't know. God is all-knowing. God is all-knowing. Jesus doesn't know this. Jesus can't be God. Boom-boom, Christianity is cooked. It's over, se'yashahada. That's it. Bear witness, Allah is one. I like your impersonations, by the way. That's not gonna, that's the God telling you about it. I'll tell you, but it's funny, because they all have the hand movements. I'm getting that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's so funny. You have one too, by the way. Oh, hey, hey, listen, listen, listen, it gets there.

So, yeah, so Jesus can't be God. He doesn't know the hour. Now, here's what's interesting. Number one, Jesus is talking about his coming, right? And so, here's the interesting thing about this, is that in Matthew 22, just a few chapters before, he brings us up in Matthew 24, the hour. In Matthew 22, he gives a parable about the kingdom of God, about his coming. And he says that it's like a wedding, that a king gives for his son. Now, with Jesus being a Jew, according to tradition and a Jewish wedding, it's the father who announces the wedding day. It's not the son or the bride. The bride waits, and the son waits for the father to say, go get your bride, right? But it doesn't mean he doesn't know his own wedding day. They gotta prepare, they gotta set up the food, invite the guests. He knows his own wedding day, but the respect is for the father. That's his role, that's his job. That's his authority to announce it, to declare it, right? And so, this is what this is, is that Jesus isn't talking about cognitive, his own cognitive knowledge. But he's talking about declarative knowledge, meaning it's not for anyone, not man, not himself, or the angels, to make known or declare the hour, but that's the father only, that's his job.

Now, how do we know this, though? Because we gotta, like, you can't just come up with that and there are no Bible references. Number one, in context, right after he gives a parable, he says, it's like a master who goes away on a long journey and leaves his servants in charge of his house, and as he leaves the servants to work, right? And so, the servants are to be alert, because they don't know, they don't know, when the master is coming back. In this parable, Jesus is the master. Now, I mean, if I'm tripping, a master knows when he's coming back to his own house. Absolutely. Jesus compares himself to this master in the parable, who's gonna come back to his house one day. He knows when he's coming back. It's the servants who need to be alert, because they don't know, they don't have cognitive knowledge of when the master is coming back, right? So, it's not cognitive for Jesus, but it's declarative knowledge. Is the father's role to declare? Is the father's role to declare. Now, here's a beautiful thing, that whenever the father is ready to declare something, whenever he's ready to make known something, he always does it through the sun, always. And so, what this means, we see this in John 1 18, it says that no one has seen God at any time, but the only God who was at the father's side, he has declared him. Whenever the father is made known, it's Jesus being, who's the one making him known. You'll see this in the Old Testament, you'll see this with Abraham, when he comes to know God, it's through the word. It says that the word came to Abraham in a vision, and showed him the covenant and the promises that God was gonna give him. This is how he came to know the father. It was through Christ, it's through the word. So, you'll see this all the time.

Avery, that's such a good example of why I get value from your content. This is not a commercial for God logic, but like, truly, I go and I learn, not just about other religions, and how to argue with people from other faiths. I learned about Christianity, about my faith. You teach me these things, like setting that in context. It helps me get through some of my own confusion about, the father knows, the son doesn't, all this stuff, it's like, no, it's pretty clear what's going on there contextually, but you have to be able to understand the Bible contextually. Absolutely. And I'm so grateful for that. And many, many other examples I could point to, to the same effect. Praise God.

In recent months, I've seen you talking more with people of the Mormon religion. I'm just curious, we've had a couple of Mormon-based conversations on Maybe God lately. I found them fascinating. I find Mormonism conceptually easy to dismantle, but hard to argue for some reason. And I just wonder what similarities you found between arguing with people or debating people of the Muslim faith and debating people, like Jacob Hansen, who you had a conversation with recently. We had him on the show recently too. And you did a great job in that debate, by the way. What are the similarities in sort of their lines of attack and the ways you break through and get through to them? Yeah, so it's funny, with Mormons, they really hold to interpretation, just kind of like the Muslims do. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities. Yeah, they hold to interpretation of the scholars, Mormons hold to interpretation of their prophets that they have in their system. And so, just like with dealing with Muslims, you gotta show them what their sources say, you gotta show them what Muhammad say, you gotta show them what the Hadith says. You guys do the same with Mormons, you gotta show them what Joseph Smith says, show them what their prophets have said. Bring them young. Yeah, bring them young. Show them what they said, quote their sources, because they heavily, they can't deny that stuff, they can't get away from that. Unless you're talking to somebody who's a little bit different like Jacob. Jacob's different, he's a different Mormon. He doesn't quite hold to-- He's a good debater. Yeah, yeah he is, he is. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing, he's a smart guy. Nice too, one of the nicest people I've met. It was fun debating him, it was fun. But all in all, he doesn't have the truth. Doesn't have the truth.

Yeah, are you as motivated to debate Mormons and others as you are to debate Muslims? Jehovah's Witnesses, not really Mormons, not yet. It always comes with a trigger. The past few weeks or maybe a month ago I would say, I saw these Jehovah's Witnesses on TikTok. Now remember I told you, Jehovah's Witnesses, they're quiet. They don't go into the public. You'll never really see a Jehovah's Witness do a public debate, you won't really see that. And rep like, yeah I'm Jehovah's Witness, the Kingdom Hall, defending Jehovah's Witness. You won't see that. But you have this group of Jehovah's Witnesses that started to come out and they're on TikTok and challenging and whatnot. So I hopped on their panel. I hopped on their panel, it's a group of them. They muted me, kicked me out and yada yada yada, right? So that sparked something in me. I woke me up. I'm like, oh okay. You're a competitor man, I can tell. You got competitive age. Yeah, yeah. It's God given. Yes sir, yes sir. Yes sir, so, and I watch Kobe a lot. Oh Kobe. I'm telling you man, so that happened. I'm like, oh, so you wanna talk about mamas now? So I opened up my, and ever since I just started like targeting Jehovah's Witnesses and dealing with their beliefs and I just have this, and when I started doing it, immediately, my first life, doing it on YouTube, because I did it on TikTok, but then I was like, yeah I'm carrying this to YouTube. Did it on YouTube, immediately, a Jehovah's Witness, he came two streams in a row. And the first conversation was so long, because we were just breaking stuff down. And he was listening and it was clicking for him. And he was like, okay I gotta come back. I gotta come, yeah I'll do this again for you. I'm gonna do this again Wednesday, come back Wednesday. He came back, and we're going through things again. And then I show him what the Watchtower teaches and how they claim to be prophets, but they have false prophecies, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back for him. He left the organization. Lived announced them. And that was the first time I ever got a Jehovah's Witness, through the grace of God, to change their mind through the conversations. This is the first time it ever happened. It was so the immediate fruit that bore from targeting Jehovah's Witness, I say, yeah, this is where we're at right now. This is where we're at. And the comments, people like, yeah finally, so many ex-Jehovah's Witnesses that watch the channel. I didn't even realize. And they've been waiting for me to start addressing Jehovah's Witnesses. And so they're like, man this is an answered prayer, and none of that does. So I'm like, yeah, this looks like God is pushing us in this direction to target Jehovah's Witnesses at this moment. Yeah, wow man.

I just think it's such a cool time to be alive as a Christian. I know there's a lot wrong with the world, but I just see God working and using the world's own avenues to spread the gospel in new ways. And I think there was a time, maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, where you wouldn't be considered a minister unless you had a church, or whatever on the wall, degrees or something. And we're in a whole different age now where anyone who feels called and motivated to do their homework and step into the fray can become an active minister and an effective minister, reaching more people than most churches and preachers. Yeah, praise God. Is that how you see yourself? Is this a calling and a ministry of yours long-term? Absolutely. You're gonna keep growing this thing. Man, I ain't never said, as long as God puts breath in my body, I will continue to minister and labor in the kingdom in this way. Unless he says something otherwise, unless he says something otherwise, this is what he has clearly commissioned me to do. And I ain't doing nothing else but what God tells me to do. And look, I see how effective it has been it's still hard to believe sometimes. It's still, I'm still kind of in that bliss type of thing. Like, I can't believe this, I'm here again, I'm on a podcast, I'm past the Eric, I'm like, it's crazy. You finally made it. I finally made it. (laughing) We made it, dude. (laughing) But seriously, it's God putting me in places to, for him to shine through me. And for people to be put on to this side of Christianity, it's, I-- To see the fruit of it is unbelievable. I'm grateful, pastor, I'm so grateful to the Lord. And I don't ever want to get puffed up, I don't ever want to lose the plot. Think it's about, I don't ever wanna do that, man. I wanna stay humble, it's all God, he's doing all of this. Just the vessel, he could pick up a stick and make a stick do this. I'm happy I was chosen for this. And you have a wife now, you have no problem staying humble. Hey, look. (laughing) She'll make sure of that. Sounds like you married up like I did, so. Yeah, I sure did. That's good. Sure did.

We're almost out of time and I hate that we are, but you gotta fly home. What would you say to somebody who's a Christian, maybe they're a new Christian or a long time Christian that just has always felt a little bit gun shy about getting involved in conversations with non-believers or people of other faiths, but they're interested and they feel like they should, they just don't know how. What would you say to them about first steps to get more equipped and involved in this? Sure, but study your religion, study the Bible. When you learn the gospel, you study who Jesus is, you study him to the T. Learn who Jesus is and learn the gospel, you can talk with anyone. You don't have to know everything about someone else's religion or position. You learn Christianity, you'll be able to talk to anyone and just share the gospel. You won't necessarily be like, oh, the Quran says this, you don't have to. This is what the Bible says, what do you consider about this? What are your thoughts on this? Yeah. You could start there, that's how I started. I started not knowing all the ins and outs of Islam and atheism and Jehovah's Witnesses, but I learned my religion. Right. And in the practice of sharing my religion, I also began to pick up things about other religions. That's right, yeah.

Earlier, a lot earlier, when I asked you what really stood out to you about Christianity, when you started exploring apologetics, it was the historicity and just the veracity of it, of the claims we make. But I also know in your heart, just from watching your videos, that it's really, you just said it, the gospel, that is the distinguishing factor of Christianity. There's nothing in this world like the gospel. Nope. So before we close, again, not to put you on the spot. You do pretty well when I put you on the spot, so I'm not worried, but people that might not know it or might not be aware of it, they think they might know what the gospel is, but they don't, what is the gospel? The gospel is that we as people, as human beings, deserve God's judgment. We are sinners, we have broken God's law, we're criminals in the eyes of God, in his courtroom, we're guilty, and we need help. We need immediate help. And matter of fact, we need so much help because even if he were to let us go, we'd do it again, and again, and commit another crime and invent new ways to commit crime. We're sick with crime, with sin. And so we need a cure, we need a doctor, and the gospel is, is that God is so loving and just that he has a way in which he's able to deal with sin, punish sin, right, where his justice is appeased, but also show mercy to where his love is appeased and shown and grace is given at the same time. And that's in the person of Christ. Christ comes, takes on humanity, leaves us thrown, sets us glory aside, and takes on humanity, the likeness of sinful flesh, lives the life that we should have lived, walks the walk that we couldn't walk, and does it perfectly because we weren't perfect. And he then represents mankind. He's our representative now. And then he takes on the punishment that we deserve. He takes on the judgment that we deserve, the humiliation that we deserve, so that we wouldn't have to. And because of his work, what he did, he destroys sin, destroys the power of sin, to which now, if we confess our faith in him and accept the work and trust in the work that he's done for us, then we are accepting the cure for the disease that we had in sin and we are purified through his purity, not our own. And so we are saved through the work of Christ, through the life-giving spirit, and the promise of the Father, who loved us so much to do this. That's right. Loved us so much. It's a beautiful thing. And again, it's a unique thing. You'll never see this. We have in the gospel, every other religion I've ever looked at is about human beings fighting and scratching and clawing and giving and sacrificing to go find God. And we have a God who fought and scratched and clawed and died to come find us. Just a little nugget here, Pastor Eric. Yeah, please. And the Qur'an says that Allah loves those who love him. And the Bible says we love because God first loved us. In Romans five it says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, that this is how God shows his love. So he loved us before we even knew of him, before we even contacted him. He loved us while we were criminals, while we were in rebellion, he loved us first. That's the difference. Amen.

And if you're watching and you're unsure of where you're at with God, I just hope you heed Avery's words about the gospel. It's not about getting your life right right away. It's not about coming clean before you come to God, seeing that God has already come to you. And all there is to do is say yes to grace. That's it. That's it. Say yes to grace and you're in. You're in. That's it. Praise God. It's that easy. Praise God for grace and for the gospel. Amen. I praise God for you, Avery. No, thank you for having me, man. This is so fun. It flew by, man. I'll tell you what. We must be having fun because I feel like I blinked in an hour plus whip by. I know. I was like, man, we got more to talk about. I know. That's how I feel. We'll have you back though. For sure. To Houston and maybe speak live even here in Houston. Yeah, I'll be here. I'll be here in just a minute. God bless you, man. Keep going. Stay safe. Yes, sir. We'll be praying.