July 13, 2018 Show with Les Lanphere on “CALVINIST”

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,.

Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth.

We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this Friday the

13th, 2018, and that is merely a coincidence that we have Les Lanphier on the

program on Friday the 13th, and it's great to have him back on the program.

This is our first two -hour interview with Les.

Les was on the program once before when I was doing on -site interviews at a major Bible conference, and

he happened to approach the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth, and we had a wonderful

interview with him then, and we are so delighted to have a fuller interview, more complete and thorough

interview now on his film, Calvinist, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back

to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Les Lanphier.

Thank you so much for having me, Chris.

In fact, I'm going to give our listeners our email address right now.

It is chrisarntzen at gmail .com, chrisarntzen at gmail .com.

Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence

if you live outside the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question happens to involve

a personal and private matter.

Let's say you are starting to wonder about this

doctrine known as, or these teachings I should say, known as Calvinism, and you are in a

church where your pastor despises these teachings.

Perhaps you're the only one who is being drawn to study them, or perhaps you've already become,

you have already come to believe in them, and you are worried about making that public, or perhaps

you're even a pastor who has began to study them and think

favorably upon the Calvinistic doctrines and the denomination that you're in, or the congregation that

you're in, is historically anti -Calvinist.

There's a number of reasons why someone might want to be anonymous, and we will respect your wishes, but if it's not a personal and

private matter, please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

We are talking, as I said, about the movie Calvinist.

It's a documentary created by our guest, independent filmmaker Les Lanphier, and

first of all, tell us a summary, if you will, about this documentary before we go into

your personal testimony of salvation.

Even though you've been a guest before, we had a very brief interview the last time, and I want to have more of a

complete understanding of your background, what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and

what providential circumstances the Lord used in your life to draw you to himself and save you.

So we will get to that in a moment, but before that, give our listeners something of a summary of

the documentary Calvinist.

Sure.

So Calvinist has

been described as the young, restless, and reformed movement,

and I have since, I would like to say, matured in

my understanding of the doctrines of faith,.

Or doctrines of grace.

Now you're old, you're Calvinist and cranky.

Yes, also known as a Presbyterian.

So being in that movement, I saw this very dramatic thing happening all over

the country, it seemed, where all these young people were becoming Calvinist, and I found

myself in a situation, I have a podcast and things like that, so I found myself in a situation where I was sort of

surrounded by these people, hearing their people that they

were listening to, you know, 10 years ago, and that were really piquing their interest in

these doctrines, and I kind of realized that there was a very cohesive,

shared experience that all these people seemed to have, and so I

found myself in a situation where I was able to at least reach out

and ask if people would be interested in seeing a movie about, a documentary about this

time frame, and about this experience, and this phenomenon, and I was very fortunate to

get, I did a Kickstarter three times as much money as I asked for,

and I was able to devote an entire year to traveling all over the country and interviewing all of my

heroes, putting together this film.

So the film

is sort of about Calvinism

and the biblical defense of the five points of Calvinism and things like that.

Well, I want to give a list of these heroes that you just mentioned who participate in the

documentary.

R .C. Sproul, Paul Washer, Shai Lin, James White, Michael Horton,

Joel Beeky, Timothy Brindle, R.

Scott Clark, Kevin DeYoung, Ligon Duncan, Summer Jaeger, who is James White's daughter,

who I've known since she was a tiny, tiny, tiny little girl, John Piper, Joe Thorne, and Carl Truman.

In fact, most of these, with the exception of a few, have been on this program, and as I

was mentioning to you before the show, it was kind of, not even kind of, it was clearly

providential over lunch today when I was having,

sharing a fellowship over lunch with a man that many in my Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio audience will

recognize because he has frequently been a co -host, Buzz Taylor, and Buzz will

be returning at some point in the future.

There were various reasons why he has not been heard as a co -host lately.

He was away in Buffalo visiting his mother for a while, then he got injured, and then he

began to really dig into finishing a book on eschatology that he is writing.

But I was having lunch with Buzz Taylor, and I happened to mention when he asked, what are

you doing your show on today?

And I said, I'm doing it on the documentary known as Calvinist.

And when I mentioned a couple of the people that are participants in this movie, and Shai Lin was one

of them, he said, oh Shai Lin, I know him very well.

And I said, really?

Because Buzz, if you ever see Buzz rap in hip -hop, don't come to mind when

you see Buzz.

Buzz says, Buzz told me that he was Shai Lin's truck driving

instructor about a decade or more ago when Buzz worked for Schneider Trucking,

and he also gave Shai Lin a car.

And Shai Lin, from what I understand, when he visits this area, actually visits

one of my key sponsors of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

So I did call Shai to leave him a message and to invite him on this program as well,

because it's a very controversial issue in regard to Christian hip -hop and rap.

And I wanted to take both sides of that issue and have Shai as a part.

And of course, there are even more than two sides to that.

There are many sides to that.

But I'm looking forward to hopefully getting Shai on the program.

And looking forward to getting many of these men on this list back on the program.

And it's always a joy to interview those.

That you've included in this show, in this movie.

Shai Lin was the most elusive person to get on.

I had some preliminary conversations with him to see if he was interested, and he kept telling me maybe.

And then very last minute when I was in Philadelphia at Westminster, right before I got on the plane, he

texted me and said, OK, let's meet.

I had to change my plans and go set up for it.

But I'm so glad I did.

He's such a wonderful brother.

He's probably, out of all the people that were in the movie, he's let me know the most how much he

appreciates it.

So glad he was a part of.

It.

Great.

Well, I'm going to play the audio for a trailer for the movie.

And obviously, when you're playing the audio, especially on a trailer, it loses a lot because there's usually very

fascinating graphic images that help set up the mood for the movie.

But since this is a radio program, we're going to have to deal with the audio.

But here is the audio for the trailer for Calvinist.

Time, a child in the United States enters kindergarten.

He begins to be taught and to learn, if only through osmosis, a particular

understanding of the nature of man, this concept of free will,

that man is free to choose the good or evil on either side.

That's a blasphemous doctrine.

The Bible tells us that something happened radically to the constituent nature of humanity

in the fall.

Reformed resurgence has always been the young,.

Restless reform.

And it was all I could do not to scream out, Jesus wants the rose.

They call you a pastor here or dude.

And that's the way it was in the Reformation.

Calvinism, Calvinism is the view of Scripture that emerged

out of the Reformation.

Why does.

He still find fault for who resists as well?

And the answer from Paul is, who are you?

Oh, man,.

Who answers back to God?

Believe that God's love for you was set upon you, not for anything

in you or that you've done.

It sets you free to serve him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

There's nothing you can earn.

It's a weight off for people.

I can't even see the kingdom of God, Jesus told Nicodemus.

I have to be born again.

Well, there you have it.

That was the one of.

The trailers that is available on YouTube for the movie, The Calvinist, or should I say

Calvinist?

And I noticed that there were some names left off that list that I read to you

from the imdb .com website.

Stephen J. Lawson, obviously, is an important figure that's a participant in this

documentary.

And Joel Beeky.

I actually read Joel Beeky's name.

But if I missed anyone, it was not my intention because there are, I think, a lot more names are

included on the IMBD website there that I got that list from.

But surely a wonderful lineup of representatives of the doctrines of sovereign

grace.

And now we can enter into how you became Les Lanphier.

And I'm not talking about the moment you were conceived.

I'm talking about I'm talking about how you became this filmmaker and

specifically a on -fire, theologically -reformed Christian who wanted to use your

talents and create this movie.

And it all begins with how you were raised as a child.

I don't know what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in.

But tell us about that and how you providentially came to be drawn by God

to himself and become a born -again believer.

And then, of course, how you discovered and embraced and fell in love with the doctrines known as

Calvinism, Reformed Theology, the doctrines of sovereign grace, the doctrines of free grace.

There's so many different descriptions.

But.

Tell us about that story.

Well, yeah, I grew up without any real religion.

My mom would always say that she was a Christian, but we never went to church.

There actually was a small stint when I was like 15, maybe, where my mom,

she wanted to start getting connected to church again.

So she'd take me out.

That was a really nice time.

I remember that

very fondly.

But his father was a very...

He was raised in a Christian home.

And that was the most exposure that I got.

And they would take me to church whenever I would stay over on the weekends.

And the father, he would pay for me to go to Christian conferences with

his son.

And he just cared about me a lot and cared about my soul.

And that was a huge blessing, just looking back on it.

I didn't get saved through any of that, although I thought I did a couple of times.

We went to an Acquire the Fire conference when I was

16, I think.

And I came back to school, and I told everybody I was a Christian.

And very shortly after that, I was using drugs.

And so I

was not

more of an agnostic.

I didn't really care.

And I was also

into psychedelic drugs, the latter part.

After I graduated, the same friend,

he knew that I was sort of working at a gas station in our small town, Port Allegheny,

Pennsylvania.

And he was going to Penn State,

State College campus.

So he invited me to come live with him, just to kind of get out of this

environment, this sort of small town.

And all my drug friends were around me, and he wanted to pluck me out of it.

So I lived with him for a little while.

And then he wasn't really...

But he had all this background.

So we found ourselves in a situation where I was unemployed, I lost my job in State

College, and he was dropping out of school, both of us mainly doing a lot

of things we shouldn't.

And then he got hooked up with...

And they were preaching the gospel to him, and he was starting to really...

So one day,

driven home, and we were on our way back, I was coming down off of some pills that I had

taken.

And I was the most depressed I'd ever...

And he came, and he came to pick me up.

So I got in the car with him, and we were driving back to State College.

And he asked me what was wrong, because I was clearly doing something wrong.

And all I could say, the only thing that I could sort of articulate how I felt

was that I just want to be a good person.

So looking back on that, I think that I was really seeing my sin, and that

was the best way that I could say it.

I just want to be a good person.

So we were in this broken -down Jeep.

It was a green Jeep.

And he pulls it over to the side of the road, and he reaches in the backseat, and he pulls out his Bible, and he starts

explaining the gospel to me.

And he says that I'm a sinner, and I deserve to die.

But Jesus wasn't a sinner, and he doesn't deserve to die, but he died.

And then he explained that Jesus was dying as a substitute for my sin.

Now, I'd heard the phrase, Jesus died for your sins a million times, but I never quite understood what it

meant.

And all he did in that moment was connect the dots to show me the idea of substitution, that Jesus

died in place of you.

And in God's sovereignty, in God's electing grace in that

moment, he opened my eyes, and it just clicked.

It finally made sense.

So I remember just sort of having this confused look on my face the whole drive back home.

I was just like, wow, I think I believe this.

And then for the next few weeks, I would just stare up at the ceiling in my bedroom

and say, like, this huge, dumb smile on my face.

And I was broke, and I had no idea what the future held for me, but I would

just stare up at the ceiling with a smile and say, you're real, and you love me.

And I was just looking back on that, obviously, now that I...because I wasn't

a Calvinist, but looking back, it's so abundantly clear

that God opened my eyes in that moment.

That's how I came to faith.

In fact, it might be wise of us, I very often take it for granted, that everybody who listens to Iron Shepherd and Zion

Radio understands what Calvinism means, understands what Reformed Theology means.

But I do hear from people who listen to this program who are not Reformed,

and sometimes they're not even Christian, and I hear from Muslims occasionally.

And I've heard from atheists and members of the Unification Church, Reverend Sung Young

Moon's cult.

I've heard from all different kinds of people.

So in summary form, before we hear how you became a Calvinist, and of course, you

became a Calvinist by the doctrines of sovereign grace, or should I say by the grace of God, but

as far as the earthly providential occurrences that came about, before we

hear that, if you could let our listeners know, in

summary form, what Calvinism.

Or Reformed Theology is.

Sure.

I think that the easiest way to summarize it is to say that all

religions are synergistic.

All man -made religions, and even misunderstandings of the biblical Christianity,

are synergistic, meaning that there is...God is doing His part,

and it's now up to man to put in some sort of effort towards

God.

And usually in, uh, you know, mainstream Christianity, that's called making a

decision for Christ.

So Jesus is trying to save everyone, and now all you have to do is, you know,

He's reaching His hand out as far as He can.

Now all you have to do is grab His hand, essentially.

Make your decision.

He's trying to save you.

Let Him save you.

Where Calvinism essentially removes all of that

effort that you could possibly have, and it does that because it's

embracing the biblical idea that you're unable to have any part in

your own salvation.

You can't choose Christ because you're unable.

By nature, it's who we are.

So that brings in a lot of concepts to our

flesh, such as the idea that God must have

elected, for the foundation of the world, based on nothing that they had done,

good or evil, and He chose that He would save them.

And that means that He chose not to save others.

And then also, in time, even when we were rebel sinners and wanted nothing to do with God, He

chooses, on His own time, in His own...through His own means, to open our eyes

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So it's a miracle that He performs on people that actually want nothing to do with Him until He

does make that change, and then they love Him.

So that's essentially it.

It's all God.

Zero us in salvation.

When I worked back in the 90s for a major Christian

radio station in New York, which is an affiliate of the Salem Media Group, which

is the largest Christian radio network in the world, when I worked for WMCA, I

founded and created a program, a nightly program, called The Voice of Sovereign Grace.

And it involved multiple participants, some of whom are actually on

the list of speakers in your movie, Calvinist.

And Joel Beakey, actually, The Voice of Sovereign Grace was Joel Beakey's very first radio

program because he was once a part of a denomination that didn't believe in using radio, believe it or not.

And one of the reasons he left that denomination was because of a hyper -Calvinistic

leaning, to say the least.

But anyway, I invented a tagline, or an opening statement, I should say,

for The Voice of Sovereign Grace that went like this.

It defined Sovereign Grace as being the fact that God alone saves

sinners, because sinners cannot even help save themselves.

Would you agree with that summary of Calvinism?

Absolutely.

Yeah, so that's a way to summarize it in just a few words.

Well now, let's hear how you, in fact, you know what I'm going to do, since we are rapidly approaching our

first break.

When we come back, I'm going to have you give a summary of your testimony of how you discovered and fell in love

with Calvinism, the theme of your documentary, Calvinist.

And we will also take listener questions.

But if you would like to join us on the air, there are already people waiting to have their

questions asked and answered.

But if you'd like to get in line, our email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S

-A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away.

We will be right back after these messages with less land fear and more about his movie,

Calvinist.

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And that was the voice.

Of Rich Pierce of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I don't know if you recognized his voice there, Les, but we thank him a lot

for participating in that ad for us.

For those of you who just tuned us in, this is Chris Arnsen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

We have as our guest today for the full two hours with 90 minutes to go, Les Lanphier, independent

filmmaker and producer of the movie or documentary Calvinist.

If you'd like to join us on the air with your own question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

Now you already somewhat gave us a summary of how

you came to the Doctrines of Grace in the very beginning of the show when you were talking about why you created this movie.

But if you could perhaps give us some more detail, although

still somewhat summarized, about what it was lacking, what specifically the things that were lacking

that you came to realize were lacking in your theology as someone who was regenerate, who loved

Christ, who loved his word, you believe you were born again, and you're

following Christ, you're worshiping him, and you're learning about him.

But then all of a sudden you start to recognize, wait a minute, there's something wrong with certain things that I

believe that aren't meshing with the Bible.

If you could tell us a little bit more about that.

Sure.

Yeah, so shortly after my conversion, I moved to Florida, and I would start attending whatever kind of

church.

And I had no discernment, I had no understanding of doctrine, I had no idea.

So the first church I was a part of was actually an IHOP church, which if people don't know what that is, it

is on the fringes of crazy.

And I was actually baptized in that church,

which was a

very interesting beginning, and the Lord slowly, progressively put me in

more solid churches.

And I ended up in a Calvary Chapel, a really big Calvary Chapel in my

town here.

And of course, a lot more reserved than the IHOP.

Yes, much better theologically and ecclesiologically as well in a Calvary Chapel.

So right around this time was, like, you know, as I identify in the movie,

this resurgence was happening.

All of a sudden, all these young people were discovering this thing called Calvinism, and they were talking about it.

And this group of young men who were sort of in leadership at this Calvary Chapel, they

all became Calvinists, and they started teaching Calvinism in the church.

And that became a really, really big problem at this Calvary Chapel.

So they had all the leadership start signing documents saying they don't believe in Calvinism.

From the pulpit, they would start teaching against it and saying it's a doctrine of the devil.

And I was in pseudo -leadership in

a young adults ministry.

So I was a Calvary Chapel fanboy, and this piece of contraband

started getting passed around Calvary Chapel, and it was called Amazing

Grace,.

The History and Theology of Calvinism.

Excellent documentary.

Excellent, excellent, excellent.

By Eric Holmberg, who has reached out to me, and he says he thinks my movie

is better than his.

Wow.

I disagree, but it's a huge compliment.

Oh yeah, his is a lot longer, but very good.

I would say they are on the same par of greatness.

Yeah, no need to compare them.

I just wanted.

To let you know that he complimented me, which I really, really appreciate.

But so I watched this movie, and it was my mission

to disagree with Calvinism, because I cared about Calvary Chapel, I wanted to defend

the doctrines of Calvary Chapel.

So as I'm watching this movie, the first thing that's brought up is, you know, they're going through the

history, and they talk about Pelagianism.

And they say that Pelagianism is this teaching that we're born clean slates.

We're not stained by our parents' sin, by Adam's sin, and we are free to

sin or not sin, and we only learn sin from our parents.

And I turned it off at that point, because I said, oh, that's it.

That's the answer to Calvinism, Pelagianism.

No big deal.

So I didn't continue watching it to find out that it was a bald -faced heresy, and every,

you know, it's been rejected by the Church for centuries.

So I went in front of a young adult ministry,

born clean slates, that we have, there's no sin staining us, tabula rasa.

And one of the guys in this young adult ministry afterwards

confronted me, and he started debating me.

And this guy's name is Tanner, who I now host a podcast with, 10 years later.

This other gentleman would approach me, they would debate me,

and this one time I was praying with a kid that had been saved 20 times, and this was his 21st time,

and I had him pray the sinner's prayer, and I popishly declared him saved.

And my other friend, who approached me and said, you know that didn't save him,

right?

And I, you know, I brushed him off.

And then he sent me a video link, and it was a link to,

and the Paul Washer sermon was all about these mills that we run people

through, where we have them pray the sinner's prayer, and we say, well if you're too embarrassed to pray,

just repeat after me.

And if you don't want to repeat after me, just squeeze my hand if you agree.

And then Paul Washer says, behold the.

Power of God, in this amazing sarcastic tone.

Yeah, leave it to Paul Washer to make you feel uncomfortable, as he

did in that clip in Calvinist, where he tells a crowd of young people,

I don't know why you're clapping, because I'm talking about you.

Yes, yes, directly to me in.

This clip, and he said it's in of regeneration.

He talks about how God, he must take out your heart of stone, and he explains how

to say hello

out of nothing, but he actually has to do, he

turns a dead sinner, a sinner who's against God, and he makes them now alive, and

actually changes their heart positively.

And my jaw, I'm staring at the screen, my jaw just drops.

And I remember for like two days, I couldn't like,

and my wife, she was, you know, along on this journey with

me all along.

So I started saying like, I think I'm a Calvinist,

because I studied everything so much to disprove it.

I knew the five points, and I knew how they sort of all hinged on each other.

So once Paul Washer made me see the need for regeneration, which

in the Tulip is irresistible grace, once that chain link closed, the

other ones just slammed closed around it, and it all just consistently made sense.

I mean, it was, talk about it being the

third birth, being born again, again.

It was extremely dramatic for me to realize that God had chosen me

when I never would have chosen him.

Amen.

That's how I became a Calvinist.

And how did you eventually find a church that was faithful to those teachings?

So that same friend Tanner, he found a church

in Palmside.

He met me there, so I went there for a little while, ended up

now back in Port St. Lucie, and I go to a wonderful Presbyterian church.

Wow, you live in Port St. Lucie, and so does my very first pastor now, my very first pastor as a

born -again believer, Mike Gaydosh, the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, the ad that you heard

earlier.

Yes!

Yeah, he lives in Port St. Lucie now.

He came to visit our church a few times.

Oh, great!

Yeah.

Yeah, he's a wonderful man and a dear brother.

But let's backtrack a little bit, because I want to prevent any unnecessary

angry calls or emails from Calvary Chapel pastors or members.

From what I recall, and I'm not an expert on Calvary Chapel, but I don't think that they are full -blown Pelagian.

You were talking before.

No, no, no, no.

And again, to remind our listeners, Pelagianists believe that we are

born basically spiritually neutral.

We're not born with original sin or depravity, that that is something learned

by humans.

And of course, a full -blown Pelagian does not even believe that grace is

required of salvation.

It's just a help that may be a good thing to have, and

is a good thing to have, but it's not a required thing for salvation according to the full -blown Pelagian, as opposed to a semi

-Pelagian or an Arminian.

Yeah, and Calvary.

Chapel has their distinctives all written, and they are

somewhere between Calvinist and Arminian, and in a sense, they are.

But I think if you really read through their points, they're mostly Arminian, and then they agree with the perseverance of the

saints.

They do?

The Pelagian heresy, well, yeah, they believe you can't lose your salvation.

Really?

All of them believe that?

Yep.

Oh, I did not know that.

Well, that's the distinctive.

That's Chuck Smith's official doctrine.

Oh, wow.

So the Pelagian heresy is my fault alone, and nobody backed me up on that.

Nobody was teaching that to me at Calvary.

You might find this humorous.

In fact, I'm fairly certain you will.

One of my new two pastors at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania,

which is a confessionally reformed Baptist church, one of them, Simon O'Maney,

who is originally from Cork, Ireland, and also spent some time in California here in the United

States, he was also a member of a Calvary Chapel, and he was told

by his Calvary Chapel pastor that beware of Calvinism, because it will turn you into an

adulterer and a drug addict.

And it's kind of an interesting reversal here.

You were a drug addict, or at least you were a frequent user of dangerous drugs, and you became a

drug addict.

And he said he warned Simon, especially stay away from James White and his book, The Potter's

Freedom.

So what did Simon do?

He immediately got a hold of The Potter's Freedom, and the Lord used it to bring him to the doctrine of grace.

I'm sorry, but go ahead.

Yeah, and I will say that's the first thing I.

Grabbed onto when I became a Calvinist.

I looked in iTunes, because I was going through all these systematic theology courses that they had for free on iTunes, and I

started searching for Calvinism, and I found The Dividing Line, this amazing

podcast, and I listened to all the archives and just ate it all up.

And James White always says that, not trying to pick on Calvary Chapel too much, but it's sort of a funny thing.

He says the Calvary Chapel famously makes Calvinists because they don't want you to believe it, but they do

encourage you to read your Bible.

And then you do, and you end up with these questions about this thing about election, and Romans 9, and

all these things, and you know, yeah, it's kind of humorous.

Yeah, and in the 1990s,.

I don't know if you're familiar with Peter Jeffrey.

He's now with the Lord in heaven, but he was a friend of mine, he was a preacher and writer

from Wales.

In fact, he at one time pastored the church, originally pastored by Dr. Martin Lloyd

-Jones in Port Talbot, Wales, Sanfields it's called.

And Peter used to make frequent trips, or at least annual trips, to the United States, and

he was a favorite among certain Calvary Chapel folks, and the Lord was leading them into the doctrines of grace, and

they were either voluntarily or involuntarily leaving the Calvary Chapel.

In fact, a couple of pastors, if I'm not mistaken also, because of hearing the doctrines of grace through Peter.

And if you don't know Peter, you got to get a hold of his sermons and books.

He's written, he had written at least 20 to 30 books at least, but

a really powerful preacher of the gospel now in heaven.

One more thing to move on to, this may be something that

scholars can sit around behind closed doors in libraries and so on,

debating or arguing over.

Before, and we will get to this later because this is really the heart of the matter,

you were mentioning about all the world's religions being synergistic, and then of course those who believe in the

doctrines of grace being monergistic, because salvation is all of God.

I, for the first time ever, I heard someone say that there is a bad monergism too.

In fact, this was a Calvinist named Jerry Johnson.

I don't know if you're familiar with Jerry.

He was a part of the production of the Amazing Grace videos that you mentioned before.

And Jerry actually categorizes Pelagianism as monergistic,

but in a bad way, because because Finney, for instance, he said that God has

no essential role at all in a man's salvation.

Charles Finney, who is a full -blown Pelagianist, not even a semi -Pelagianist, and so therefore he is

monergistic, but not in a good way.

Wow, yeah, that's interesting.

But so you become a member of a good reformed church,

and now we are talking about a movie, a documentary known as Calvinist.

And tell us something about, well let me, before we do that, I'm going to at least let

a couple of our listeners have their questions heard.

First of all, I don't know if you're familiar, I don't usually give the full names of people who

write in questions, but since I want to give a plug to this brother's ministry, I've been a guest on his show

and he's been a guest on my show.

Dwayne Atkinson, are you familiar with Dwayne?

Oh yes, absolutely, I've been on his show as well.

Yeah, so Dwayne, yes, The Bar podcast, and I just

chuckle every time I think of it, Dwayne gets a little frustrated because people automatically think The Bar stands for

black and reformed, when it stands for biblical and reformed.

It just so happens that Dwayne happens to be black, but more importantly he's a biblical Christian.

But he asks a very good question, well he asks a couple of them.

He says, what was your goal for the movie Calvinist?

That's a very good question because you already mentioned how Amazing Grace, the history and

theology of Calvinism, was already in existence and was a part of you coming to the doctrines of grace.

Why did you say, well we need something else?

What was the driving force, what was the goal of this movie, this documentary Calvinist?

Yeah, well I

wanted a story of

a phenomenon that I saw at that point,

and also I also kind of wanted to bring my own aesthetic

to the whole genre.

I guess I just wanted to make a movie in the way that I wanted to make

animation.

You know, whenever I would sit down with people and try to explain doctrines, almost every single time I'd pull out a piece of

paper and draw some diagram or something, trying to explain.

I'm very visual in that way.

So I figured it'd just be really fun to be able to use my artistic

ability to explain things in these various ways.

So there's the very selfish reason that I wanted to meet all these guys and have them answer my questions,

which was a lot of fun.

But I definitely think that Amazing Grace was one of my big inspirations, and I just kind of wanted to bring it to

a new generation, make it a little more compact.

Not necessarily make his movie again, but bring the teachings.

And also, you know, there's

people like this part of the movie that talk about different things, like the dangers of

celebrity pastors, and the very interesting thing that happened in the

hip -hop world, where there was reformed theology was very prevalent through hip -hop.

And those are things that I was able to do in a more, maybe more serious movie, maybe

wouldn't have been able to.

Well, it's actually, though, as I said before, I want to get Shy Lynn on the program, because I happen to be one

of those Christians who don't find anything wrong at all

with rap in a proper setting, as long as there is a key element that

is prominent in rap music, especially secular rap music, is absent.

And that is something that God even counts among the things he hates, which is a

haughty look.

And the rap industry champions haughtiness, and arrogance, and pride.

And I would hope that a biblically -minded Christian would not

imitate that part of hip -hop and rap when they bring the gospel into it.

And then I have not seen anything like that with Shy Lynn and some other of the excellent hip -hop

artists that are Christian.

But I also believe that this is something that is not something that I would want to see in a

worship service.

But at the same time, like I said, there are many things, actually, that I love and

participate in and enjoy that shouldn't be in a worship service, not just

rap.

But I'd love to get Shy Lynn on to discuss those different things, and even perhaps have somebody that

opposes rap, and we can have a Christian discussion in a very level -headed and

bibliocentric way, without getting into an argument or anything like that.

And we have, Dwayne also asks, what was the harsh

criticism that made you think you could have done something different with the movie, besides not having me

and Chris Arnzen in it?

Yeah, I guess my invitation got lost in the mail or something.

That's funny.

Has there been harsh.

Criticism of this documentary?

There has been criticism.

There has been criticism from the people that I would—Arminians.

And it's very interesting the way one Arminian in particular reviewed the movie.

And he sort of took every criticism I was making about sort of, like, the

shallowness of the Church in general as a criticism against Arminianism.

So it's almost like he thought that the movie was

Arminianism as a theological system, when it really wasn't.

It's more of a criticism of the Church of my

generation, and, you know, how that led us

to—so that criticism doesn't hurt, because, you know,

I expect Arminians to not like the movie.

But the only other criticism—people

that just don't like me very much.

I—there's some discernment blog -type people out there.

And Young, Restless, and Reformed, and, you know, I'm trying to promote

debauchery and things like this.

You know, whatever.

Because I enjoy the things Presbyterians have always historically enjoyed.

There was this one specific article that was saying,

you know, beer -guzzling hipster makes a movie about Calvinism.

And then he went through all these—he basically said, I found all these people who said the movie is

great, and all the content is great, but you shouldn't watch it because people like Joe Thorne have

tattoos and are known to drink alcohol.

He didn't—he said the movie was great, basically, but he said that

you need to steer clear of all these dangerous new Calvinists.

Right.

The people that I want to enjoy the movie, really, really enjoyed the movie.

Well, we are going now to our midway break.

By the way, thank you, Dwayne Atkinson of The Bar, and I want to give our

listeners his website, is thebarpodcast .com.

Thebarpodcast .com.

And The Bar stands for Biblical and Reformed, not the alcohol we were just talking about.

And nor does it stand for Black and Reformed, even though Dwayne happens to be Black.

It's Biblical and Reformed.

Thebarpodcast .com.

We're going to our elongated break.

This is our longer break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires

of us a long break.

But use this time to write down questions for our guest today, Les Lanphier, and also write down

questions—or should I say, write down the information provided by our

advertisers so that you can properly respond to them and patronize them.

That, once again, our email address, if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, is

chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and country of

residence if you live outside the USA, and only remain anonymous if the

question involves a personal and private matter.

And right now we're having difficulties with the computer here.

Oh, there we go.

But we look forward to hearing from you and your own questions, whether you agree with our guest, whether you disagree, whether you are not

certain at all.

We would love to hear from you at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be back with Les Lanphier and more on his documentary, Calvinist.

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Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley

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Please always remember to mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Before we return to Les Lanphier and our discussion on his documentary Calvinist, we

just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

Coming up August 2nd through the 4th, the Fellowship Conference New England is

being held once again at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine,

and the speakers at this conference include Tim Conway, Mac Tomlinson, Jesse Barrington, and

Nate Pickowitz.

If you'd like to attend that conference, the website is

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowship known

as Calvinism or the doctrines of sovereign grace or reform theology, but the themes are different.

The Fellowship Conference New England is one of those rare conferences where there is no central theme, so each man will

bring to you what is burdening his heart at that time to share with you from or

should I say proclaim to you from the scriptures.

So that's fellowshipconferencenewengland .com and it's being held August 2nd through the 4th

in Portland, Maine.

Please also mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio if you register.

Also coming up in November 10th, I'm sorry, November 9th through the 10th,

the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology

at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

That's the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology, not to be confused with the Reform Town Conference on Quaker Theology.

It's the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology.

The theme is the glory of the cross and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard

Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn, November 9th through the 10th.

I will be manning, God willing, an Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth at the conference, so if you register and you

attend, please stop by and say hello.

Go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org to register, and we look forward to seeing you

there.

Then coming up in January, my favorite of all conferences that I look forward to

like a kid waiting to open up his Christmas presents, that is the G3 Conference

in Atlanta, Georgia, technically in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta at the Georgia International

Convention Center, and they are expecting over 4 ,000 people this January

at the G3 Conference.

It's being held from January 17th, which is a Thursday, through January 19th, which is a

Saturday, and the speakers, a very long list of speakers, I think just about as long as the list

of speakers on Les Lamphere's documentary.

We have Paul Washer, John Piper, David Platt, Stephen Lawson, Vody

Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, my favorite of all preachers alive on the planet Earth, the pastor of

Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and chancellor of the African Christian University.

Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You, the ministry of

John MacArthur.

Josh Bice, my dear friend, who is the director of G3 Ministries, which stands for Grace, Gospel, and

Glory, by the way.

Anthony Methenia, who is Paul Washer's pastor.

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and the list goes on and on, and if you'd like

to register, go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com.

You can also not only register to attend, but you can register for an exhibitors booth, just like I will be having.

This will be my third year manning an exhibitors booth at the G3 Conference, God willing, and with 4

,000 people milling around, it's well worth your investment to sponsor an exhibitors booth, so

you can go to G3conference .com for that as well.

And last but not least, this is my least favorite part of the program where I have to rattle my tin cup

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If you want to advertise with us, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

That's also the email address to send in a question to Les Lanthier on his documentary movie

Calvinist.

It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

And let's see here, we have another question from a listener

and again I'm going to mention the full name because when it comes to pastors who are pastoring

churches that I believe are biblically faithful, I like to give them a plug.

We have Pastor Jerry Schumann of Ludlow Baptist Church in Ludlow, Vermont

who has a question.

Oh and by the way very quickly, Dwayne Atkinson, I forgot to mention that you have won a free DVD

of the movie Calvinist, so make sure that we have your full mailing address in Greenville, South Carolina so that we can

ship that out to you as soon as we get them in our hands.

They are currently in the mail to us by the grace and generosity of Les

Lanthier and his ministry, so you will get that as soon as we have an opportunity to mail it

out or should I say as soon as Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service cvbbs .com has an opportunity to mail it out to you.

Pastor Jerry Schumann of Ludlow Baptist Church says, in your preparation for and

work on the film Calvinist, what new things did you learn about the modern reform

movement that you found to be most encouraging and what new things did you find to be the most

concerning?

For those things that are weaknesses, failings, or sins in.

The Reformed Church, what counsel or advice would

you give?

I

began with

Martin Lloyd

Jones,

Philadelphia,

the

Confessing Evangelicals.

Oh, you mean James Montgomery Boyce?

Yes, Boyce.

In fact,.

You dedicated the movie to him.

How could you forget James Montgomery Boyce?

Yeah, I know.

So, yeah, with James Montgomery Boyce there in Philadelphia with Reformed

Theology at 10th Presbyterian.

So, and then R .C. Sproul and Boyce together had just such a huge influence

on promoting Reformed Theology in America

and then, you know, passing that on to the next generation and then suddenly, I'm a

Calvinist.

So, that was all very, very interesting to me.

And I guess some of the concerning things are the things that are pointed out in the movies.

Some of the cautionary things are the celebrity -ism of

Reformed Theology.

We kind of have all our heroes, and I think the solution to that issue,

not intellectual and spiritual

investment into these, plug in

and be really rooted in your local church

and your own pastor.

There's a lineage here, and there's a history, and we're not making this up for the first time.

Amazing Reformed confessions that people

have very few things that aren't covered in these confessions.

So, those are sort of the things

that I guess every generation maybe struggles with, and we did as well.

And then another issue in the movie that was brought up is just the idea of race, specifically

Reformed Theology just naturally, throughout the centuries, hasn't seemed to do

a good job of reaching minorities and people outside of, you

know, and that's, you know, the solution to that is

essentially just love your neighbor and theology

with them and give them all the same opportunities we would want.

And so...

I'm sure you would agree, though, that the complexion of Calvinism has radically changed, at least since I

was a Christian, and when I became a Christian in the 80s, I would go to Reformed

conferences, and it would be a very diverse group.

It would be white, off -white, lily -white, you know?

But since then, I have seen quite a large number of African -American,

Hispanic brothers and sisters.

I rarely go to a Reformed conference now that doesn't have a reasonably good

representation from those brothers and sisters, and it is growing.

And I think that we have to be very careful, I think, also, as I have

unfortunately seen, and this is a whole other story that we've already addressed in different shows

and will probably address again, but there is an unfortunate thing

going on with social justice warriors within the church who are combating racism

with racism.

Just that the targets happen to be white, and they are claiming, many of them, I'm not saying all of them,

many of them are claiming that they are incapable of being guilty of the sin of racism because they happen to be of a different

skin color than white, and that's a tragedy.

It's a lie from the pit of hell.

As my dear brother in Christ, Bob Cameron, now in heaven, an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor who was

also a black brother in Christ, as he used to say, racism is a sin

problem, not a skin problem, and everybody, no matter what color they are,

can be very easily prone toward that wickedness.

Yes, yeah.

You know, I'm very politically conservative and all that, but I've even seen

some people that reacted to my movie and saying, you know, the whole section on race shouldn't have been in there and all that.

And, you know, I just, all I think that we can do is just listen

to each other, and don't, you know, if one side says that the other side is making things up,

that's not going to help, you know?

And if the other side is saying, you know, you're evil and trying to take over the world and you have no, not a

good ounce of goodness in you, within the Church, these are things that can't be.

We have to love one another.

We have to listen to each other.

We can't be calling each other liars left and right, you know?

Right.

That's really all that we can do, and do everything we can in Christ to love one another.

Amen.

Well, thank you, Pastor Jerry at Ludlow Baptist Church.

You have also won a free DVD of Calvinist, produced by our guest today,

Les Lanphier.

And for those of you listening, if you live in Vermont, or intend to visit there, or if you have loved ones there,

the website for Ludlow Baptist Church in Ludlow, Vermont is ludlowbaptist .org.

That's L -U -D -L -O -W baptist .org.

Thanks again, Pastor Jerry.

Let's see here.

We have Ted from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

And I have to enlarge Ted's font on his email because I'm going

blind.

And let's see here.

Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama says, I knew this was a very serious project when I noticed

while watching the trailer that Stephen Lawson apparently bought himself a new necktie

for his appearance in the documentary.

But another thing I noticed is that one of the interviewees in your documentary is identified as a

podcaster.

By the way, I don't propose to identify who this is for fear that I will never be allowed to ask a question

on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio again.

Maybe this is a generational thing, but podcaster

struck me as an odd credential for being interviewed in a theological documentary.

Of course, I haven't seen the documentary yet, only the trailer.

Would your guest mind commenting on this?

Wow, what a nitpicker, Ted from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Go ahead.

That's funny.

Yeah, pretty much everybody in the movie.

Is a podcaster, I guess.

Everyone's a podcaster these days.

He's referring to Summer White, who, well, I'm sorry, Summer Yeager,

Summer White in the film.

I asked her what I

named White, that would have been

a good credential, I guess.

But we settled on podcaster because that's kind of what she's most well known for.

I interviewed her because I like her a lot.

I was in Arizona, and I also needed a female voice in my movie,

which I apparently didn't get enough of.

That is one criticism I got, that there weren't enough women in the movie.

But, you know, you're always going to get...

Never going to make everybody happy.

And of course, you could always get criticism that you have too many women.

And Summer is a very, very, very bright young woman.

And she is.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as they say.

Yeah.

And in fact, whether you look upon this favorably or with criticism, both

of her names, before and after marriage, sound like cocktails to

me.

Summer White obviously sounds like Chardonnay to me.

And Summer Yeager also sounds like a mixed drink of some kind.

Yeah.

But anyway...

I like that drink.

I'm sorry?

That is not a good drink.

But thank you very much, Ted.

And you have also won a free DVD of the movie or the documentary

Calvinist.

Thank you for writing in.

Make sure we have your full mailing address in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

We have a first -time questioner, Patrick.

Patrick does not give us his name.

I'm sorry, his location, his city and state.

If you could email that to us, it would be helpful, Patrick.

That's why I repeat that so many times.

People wonder why I always go on and on and on about repeating where you are from, your

city and state, and your country of residence.

Well, this is why, because Patrick didn't do it.

But anyway, Patrick, if you could let us know where you are from, that would be helpful.

Good afternoon, brothers.

When explaining how God is not the author of sin, I often struggle to do

so coherently.

Could you briefly provide an explanation to how I can share this particular thing?

And I think that Patrick has actually hit on something that is at the

core of the opposition that many have to Calvinism.

They are trying to defend the character of God because they

think, wrongly, that Calvinists have invented this monster of a God who

forces people that would otherwise not sin to sin.

As if men are theologically and spiritually and morally neutral,

and God, who is playing a chess game from outer space,

is making these people who would otherwise go to heaven, he's making them disobey him.

And this is just a very slanderous and false character.

And I'm not saying that Patrick is slandering us, but many people, many in

ignorance and many purposefully, who hate Calvinism, have constructed this idea of what we believe

in their minds.

But if you could respond to that.

Sure.

Well, I think there's.

Amazing necessary doctrine is that

men are accountable and they will be judged for their behavior

and specifically for their sins.

We sin because we want to sin, so much so that we are actually born in sin

and unable to do anything but sin.

And even though that's true, we will still be held accountable for every action that

we do.

And the other side of that is that God truly has

decreed everything that ultimately has to include sin.

And when we think about the cross, that's the perfect example of how we know that's true, that God

was pleased to crush his son.

He actually crushed his son, but that happened by the hands of sinful men who

betrayed their own Messiah, handed him over unjustly to

be men, drove nails into an innocent man's hands and feet, and

they killed the innocent son of God.

So that's sin taking place, but God has ordained that that sin would take place.

And both of those ideas have to be held up, and neither of them can be denied,

and there has to be some area in the middle, you can say as much as you want about God

ordaining everything that happens, and men are still responsible.

There is going to be some overlap there where there's some kind of mysterious intertwining,

and that's just a part of the way theology works.

You can't wrap your mind around everything that God has done, but we do know that

God is not the author of sin in the sense that nothing God has decreed is sinful from

His perspective, because He's doing all things for our good and for His

glory.

So if God ends a person's life, that's not sinful, because God is that person's creator,

He is their sustainer, and He has all authority to take that person's life away.

But if I take someone's life, I do not have that authority, and God has revealed to me that I

cannot do that lawfully.

So if I take someone's life, I'm in sin.

God has decreed that that person's life would end, and He decreed the means that it would take place, but I'm the

sinner because my motive is sinful.

God's motive is only.

For good.

That's how I would answer.

Yes, because even the Arminian has to realize that the death of Christ,

as you were describing before, was ordained before the foundation of the world.

This was a thing that would certainly happen, and that does not mean that God

forced innocent people to do this, but He did at the

same time use human beings who are wicked to bring about the ends of what He had

ordained.

And so this is something that all Christians need to grapple with.

We just happen to believe that God is so powerful and sovereign that

nothing slips by Him.

He's not just sitting back watching like a century

and doing nothing, which also brings about a problem for the non -Calvinist

as to why God doesn't stop certain things.

If He knows all things, why is He just sitting back and watching them?

And then, of course, we as Calvinists believe that He brings about everything that comes to pass,

but He Himself is not guilty of sin.

And we even, you know, we have other examples of this, obviously, in the

scriptures where where you see horrible things happening,

and it is clear from the text that God is the one that brought

those things to come to pass.

Like Genesis 50, for Joseph's brothers throw him into a pit, sell him to

slavery, all this evil, but at the very end of the book of Genesis, Joseph explains to

his men for evil, the action being throwing me into a pit and selling me into

slavery, you meant that for evil, but God meant that exact same action,

me going into slavery, for good.

And actually, if he hadn't been sold into slavery and lied about by Potiphar's wife and ended up

second in command over all of Egypt, then all of the known world would have died,

not to mention the bloodline,

sustaining the bloodline

but the brothers weren't forced to do it.

It just so happens that their desires fell.

Yeah, we even have in 2 Samuel 12, a classic example where

Nathan the prophet is splashing a bucket of cold water in

David's face and making him realize that he

has committed the great atrocities of adultery and murder in regard to Bathsheba

and her husband Uriah.

And the Lord speaking through Nathan, this is

God saying, out of your own household, I am going to bring

calamity on you.

Before your eyes, I will take your wives and give them to one who is close

to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.

You did this in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.

I will do this, he says.

That's quite an amazing thing for God to be saying, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

Well, thank you very much, Patrick.

And we still haven't heard from Patrick where he is from, but if you would like to receive the free

DVD that you have won as a result of writing in, and also since you are a first -time questioner,

if you would like to receive a brand new New American Standard Bible, which we give to all of our first -time

questioners, then please give us your full mailing address, obviously off the air, and we will have that

shipped out to you.

Thanks a lot for listening, Patrick, and for being a first -time questioner.

We are going to our final break right now, and this is a briefer break than normal,

and so don't be dismayed that we're going through another station break, but now is your time to write in a

question if you intend to write one, because we're rapidly running out of time.

Once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

This.

Is our last segment of the program today with our guest, Les Lanphier.

We are discussing his documentary movie, Calvinist.

If you'd like to join us now, do so, or forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live

outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And we do have an anonymous listener from overseas, and this anonymous listener

says, I have been an Arminian because I didn't know anything else.

The Calvinists I had known had been out with battle swords, and people

stood back lest they get their heads chopped off.

Of course, she is using an allegory here.

Everybody was allergic to them because of the manner in which they delivered their apologetic.

Meanwhile, I am reading a lot of books on the reformed teaching and am now of the

persuasion that I believe in monergism, that I had absolutely nothing to do

with my salvation.

It was all God's work.

I understand about three of the five points of Calvinism, but I get stuck when Calvinists say Christ did

not die for everyone, but just for the elect, when Isaiah 53 says the Lord

has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

How do you explain that verse, please?

Also, do you have to believe all the five points of TULIP to be reformed

as only able to grasp, as I'm only able to grasp three or four

at the moment?

Yet, I love the Westminster Catechism.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

And she does say something very key here.

Yet.

Because we were all in a yet position at one time.

We're not Calvinists yet.

Yeah.

But yeah, this is obviously her description of

Calvinists at times being out of control with, as they call them very often, cage -stage Calvinists.

But even those that live to ripe old ages never leave that cage -stage, some of them.

But I've been in Christian media for going back to the 80s, and we're not the

only ones that behave with, swing the battle -axes.

There are a lot of different theological camps that do that.

I think it just has to do with the person's own sinful behavior.

But anyway,.

If you could respond to our anonymous listener overseas

here.

Sure.

Well, points have to be embraced in order to be called reformed.

That's a little difficult to answer, just because the word.

Reformed is defined in so many various ways.

J .C. Ryle was an Amaraldian, a four -point Calvinist, and reformed people love J .C. Ryle,

the 19th century Anglican bishop who was very Calvinistic.

In all but one point.

And so it depends on how much you want.

The five points of Calvinism are logically and

necessarily connected.

I would say that if someone is a three or four -point Calvinist,

it's really just a matter of thinking it through a little more consistently.

And so if you embrace the idea that you had nothing to do with your salvation

in the sense that God is the one who opened your eyes, well, that would mean that you were unable to do so

beforehand, so now you believe in total depravity and you believe in irresistible grace.

And if God isn't doing that work to everyone, and he's only doing it to those individuals

to whom he chooses to open, then you also must believe in election, and that

was unconditional.

So there's a, you got T .U. and I.

The atonement goes, it's really just a matter of defining what that

is.

What is the atonement?

What's actually payment?

Because that's what we're talking about, Jesus

substitutionarily dying on behalf of other people.

If Jesus' atonement actually paid a debt, then the debt is actually paid,

and that person who was paid for can't suffer for their own sins.

So that means you have two options.

Either everyone goes to heaven and we're universalists, or Jesus only

died for those same people who he elected, who the Father elected before the foundation

of the world, and those same

people who the Father

would.

The Son then pays the debt for that same group of people, and

then the Holy Spirit comes in time, in our lifetime, and comes and opens our eyes.

So now we have the Father electing, the Son paying the debt for those elect, and then the Holy Spirit

regenerating and opening the eyes of those elect.

So they all have this, they're not contradicting each other.

They all have the same group of people in mind, and they're all working on the same group of people.

So it's not that Jesus is trying to save everyone, but the Father hasn't elected everyone, and the Holy Spirit

refuses, you know, to regenerate some of those people that Jesus died for.

And as far as that quote from Isaiah goes, just keep in mind that sometimes in

Scripture, you have to remember who the audience is, and

that's God's people.

Isaiah 53.

Yes, Isaiah 53.

So he's directing that to the people of God,

and he's assuring us, we are now the people of

God.

They were actually placed on Christ,.

And the Father was pleased to crush him as our substitute.

Yes, you said something very key here, because some of the verses that non -Calvinists use

trying to attempt to exegete a universal

understanding of the death of Christ and the redemption that he provided, they fail to even

recognize, and sometimes in the beginning of those letters, like in the New Testament, you will have a greeting to the

brothers and sisters in Christ, and so on.

So the audience that is being spoken to is very key in understanding when the

words all and so on are used.

And also, especially when you're talking about the New Testament, I'm sure you would agree that

since we have John describing who will be worshiping the Lamb in the book of

Revelation as those from out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, that is a very

frequent way that people use the word all when they're describing all kinds of men, all

kinds of people, and not every single person that has ever lived.

But the key of the matter is, which you mentioned, is what did Christ do on the cross?

Did he make men redeemable, or did he redeem them?

And if he redeemed people with certainty, then everybody

is going to heaven if he died to definitely redeem everyone for whom he died.

And you have the problem of the universalist, as you said.

So as my former pastor, Mike Gadosh, who you met, used

to say in regard to John the Baptist, saying, as

Arminians have said to me, John the Baptist said,

behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And Mike Gadosh said, yeah, but he also said, who takes away,

who taketh away the sin of the world.

So what do you want to fiddle with?

What he actually did or the way someone uses the term world, which

even in common ordinary speech, people use that phrase word and

the word world and the word all and so

on in different ways.

So anyway, in fact, D. James Kennedy does a very

humorous explanation of that in the other documentary that we were mentioning, Amazing Grace, if you may

recall, when he says people use all, all the time,

and he said, I just did it there, all the time.

Well, are they saying it all the time?

If you may remember that.

Well, thank you, Anonymous, from overseas, and

keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and sending us questions.

We have Grady in Asheboro, North Carolina.

In your research, are the younger Calvinist reading, or I

guess you should say, are the younger Calvinists reading the Reformers?

And if so, who did they read the most?

I guess he's talking about like a poll or something that you might have taken amongst younger Calvinists.

There was kind of reading,

and kind of like the

Driscoll thing happened, there's a big controversy that happened in Seattle with Mark Driscoll, and there was this

tension that came upon the movement, I would say, that caused people

to go one of either way.

You can, you either like sort of take your tulip, and you go back to your non -denominational sort of

church, and you're a little Calvinist -y now.

And I would run across all these young people, and I would ask them, are you a Calvinist?

And they would say no.

And then I would ask if they'd ever heard of Reformed theology, and they would say, oh yeah, I'm Reformed.

And they weren't, you know, they were going to non -denominational churches, and so

they grabbed onto that word because of sort of this movement.

So people really embrace, it seems in my generation, they're very

much more comfortable embracing it, but they weren't chasing after

Reformed theology, which I think is a mistake.

That's the wrong way to go.

If you're going to embrace this thing, you have to understand that it belongs

in the tradition it grew in.

You can't just sort of take the parts that you like and leave everything else.

Our mission, Reformed people,

Reformers, trying to Reform the church, or at least our own theology, we want to keep

Reforming.

And that means we want to Reform our view of the church, we want to Reform our view of our family,

and our view of work, and of every aspect of life.

And that happens through looking at what the Reformers were saying, and looking at what the

Bible actually says through the lens of these doctrines.

To answer the question, some of them, and I think

Calvin is probably the most popular, one guy,

his work was just released a few years ago, and I would say it

was one of the biggest instrumental things that convinced me of

Bovink.

I'm sorry, we're out of time!

Only kidding, go ahead.

Bovink translated into English, and he has this amazing four -volume set

that everybody's getting.

It's like $120, and everyone got one for Christmas, that I

know online.

So yeah, people are reading Calvin, and Bovink, and obviously people like A .W. Pink, and

so yeah, I mean, a large group of these people decided

that Young, Restless, and Reformed is a stepping stone into confessional,

you know, truly Reformed theology.

By the way, I want to thank Patrick for letting us know that he's from Kentwood, Michigan, our

previous listener who wrote in for the first time.

And now you need to give me your full mailing address, Patrick, if you want to get the free DVD that Les Lanphier

and his ministry have provided for us.

Before we run out of time, I think that we should give some appropriate words

of caution and warning to our fellow Calvinists.

We may have mentioned this already, but I think it deserves, or warrants repeating, that we should never

allow these precious truths that we have come to embrace and have become so excited

about to elevate our pride as if we figured this out through our

own intellect.

The doctrines of grace are meant to humble us to the dirt,.

Are they not?

Yeah, there's actually a section in the movie about how our zeal

can get out of control, and it's actually called the cage stage in the movie, which is, I think James White

coined that.

That just means that when you embrace this new set of doctrines, you

suddenly are so excited about it that that's all you want to talk about, and you start even questioning the

salvation of those who don't embrace it.

James White says that you'd be better served if you were placed in a cage for a few years until you were able to

cool off, so you couldn't hurt anybody in the meantime.

So yeah, it's a real danger.

I went through it pretty hard, and it's not a good

look,.

And you're absolutely right to humble us.

To make us aware that our only hope is God, and His mercy and grace,

and that we rely upon Him for everything, and that we cannot brag or boast about anything, and it's just

amazing how very often, and now again, I have to repeat, it's not just Calvinists that do this, but I think Calvinists

are the, what's the word I'm looking for, the phrase that I'm looking for,

we should know better than to be proud, because other theological systems, even within

Christendom, lend themselves to taking credit yourself for things

that you do, whereas the theology of Calvinism strips that away, and yet people still want to

take credit for it, and they want to look down upon brothers in Christ as if they are inferior or

stupid, just because they have had the great insight, and wisdom, and intellect

to figure these things out, as if that was the reason they figured these things out.

I'm saying that tongue -in -cheek here.

Yeah, good morning.

Now, I wonder if you have heard, and made me think of it

in the beginning of the documentary, where you have all these people saying, I'm a Calvinist,

I'm a Calvinist, I'm a Calvinist, and I'm sure that there are going to be anti -Calvinists who see that.

I'm not disagreeing with your use of that, I'm just saying that there may be Calvinists, even by the sheer

fact that you've made this video called Calvinist, or this movie, I should say, or this documentary,

they will say, see, they worship John Calvin.

How do you respond to that kind of thinking?

And there are even our brothers in Christ who are technically Calvinists, but do not at

all want to use that label, because they say, I only want to give glory to God, I don't want to give glory to John Calvin.

John Calvin didn't even want a marked grave when he died.

He would hate that we're using the term.

So how do you explain this, and how do you defend we who believe these things as not

being idol worshipers when it comes to John Calvin?

Of course, there may be many among us who are sinfully idol worshipers when it comes.

To John Calvin, but those of us who are not, if you could explain.

Sure.

You know, the

only title you can ever use for your religious stance is that you're a Christian, which

is great.

I love that title, obviously.

I love it dearly, much more than I love the title Calvinist.

But if I walk up to somebody and I say, I'm a Christian, and he says, well, he's a Christian, I mean,

we could just settle on that and call it a day, but if we spend any time together, then we're

going to start to understand that there's some differences in the ways we believe about things.

And so most people, even the people who say, I only claim to be a Christian,

you don't.

You would at least claim, probably claim to be a Protestant, if you're not a

Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or something like that.

Born again.

Yeah, born again, Christian.

So you're starting to sort of narrow down these beliefs, and you may be a

Baptist, or your denomination, or things like that, which most people don't really have a

problem with because there's not a name attached to it.

But the reason we use the word Calvinist is the same reason you would use the

word Baptist or any other word like that.

It's to distinguish your beliefs and give it a nickname that summarizes

them.

And with Calvinism specific, describing

a history within the Protestant world, and it's

very stark.

They were disagreeing on five major heads of

doctrine that dealt with salvation, and they were actually saying, I believe that

God does it all, and God and man work together in this.

So a very stark and

at the time, the person who was sort of explaining those things

the best, he was dead at the time, both of them were dead at the time, but the Arminians were following

after the most recent teachings of Arminius and the Calvinists, the person who had

defined their belief system the best recently, this brilliant theologian, John Calvin.

So they're not worshiping him, they're saying this, they're giving a nickname, and

you fall on either side of disagreement.

You're either an Arminian or you're a Calvinist.

And we could say reformed, but, you know, there's like the Reformation includes

Lutherans to a large extent.

There's even like the Arminians would say that they were,

we've won the day as far as the title goes, you know, Calvinist and reformed are somewhat synonymous.

But yeah, the only reason we use the title is because it's descriptive.

It's a nickname for a system of theology.

So I don't have to list off every, you know, 50 different doctrines to let you know what I believe.

I can just say I'm a Calvinist and.

You understand for the most part where I'm coming from.

And when you summarize this, Christians above all people have to be very careful about

slandering others.

And just because you think that somebody's worshiping John Calvin, it doesn't mean you should be saying that

publicly because most of the time you're a liar when you're saying it.

But we are out of time now.

And I know that one of the websites where people can find information about Calvinist, the movie, the documentary

is lesslandfear .com.

Your name dot com L E S L A N as in Nancy P H E R E dot com.

Any other website or information you care to give?

Yeah, you can go to, you can just type.

In Calvinist movie into Google or Calvinist movie .com.

And that will take you to that same website that you're talking about and that'll give you all the options to

watch it online.

Calvinistmovie .com.

Yep, you can watch it online, you can order a DVD copy and be on the lookout.

I just announced yesterday, a soft announcement that I am gonna produce

another movie and it's.

On the subject of worship and I'm very excited about it.

Oh great, we have to have you back on to talk about that, definitely.

Yeah, I'd love to.

It's gonna be called Spirit and Truth.

Great, well I want to thank you so much for being my guest again on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

I look forward to your return to talk about Spirit and Truth.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in.

I hope you all have a safe and blessed and beautiful weekend and Lord's Day and I want you all to always remember for the

rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.