Radio Free Geneva: The Choice Meats Analygesis of Leighton Flowers in John 10

You constantly hear people that are Calvinist harp on this. God's offering! God's offering!

God's offering! God's offering! They just keep repeating it, and they repeat it so much you start to think it's a Biblical truth.

Jesus stands outside the tomb of Lazarus, he says, Lazarus, come out! And Lazarus said, I can't,

I'm dead. That's not what he did. Lazarus came out. Do you mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ?

And then you take lessons from Judas White and Jeff Durbin.

It shows in this kind of sequential format. Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things?

Um, no. Some new

Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief.

A verse like that to him, you know what it would sound like if he were listening to it?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It wouldn't make any sense to him. A self -righteous, legalistic, deceived jerk.

You need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism, now he's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to...

I deny and categorically deny middle knowledge. Don't beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it.

Not always talking about necessarily God choosing something for no apparent reason, but you're choosing that meat because it's a favorable meat.

There's a reason to have the choice of that meat. Deep beneath the faculty cafeteria in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Safe from all those moderate Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book.

We are radiocasting the truth about God's freedom to save for his own eternal glory.

Ah, yes. Ah, yes. It's been a while. It has been a while since we have let that brother out of his cave to do his thing.

But there it is. Every time I hear just a couple of those quotes,

I just start losing it. Of course, the middle knowledge one will live forever.

There's no question about that. But choice meats are particularly appropriate for the program today.

Because that's what we're going to be looking at. Look, could

I fill an hour and a half with just stuff over the weekend? Easily. Oh, yeah. Sure. You bet. And, by the way,

I would like to think that video that I saw of Los Angeles at sunset on July 4th means something.

It just simply means that they're all just going, forget you. We're going to do this anyways.

Though, personally, I've never heard so many fireworks in Phoenix. I mean, it sounded like a war zone.

Didn't it? I don't know. Maybe not out your direction, but it sure was. Oh, really?

Wow. Yeah, well, unfortunately, people were doing it in the street, in the alleyway, in the places where you can catch everybody else's houses on fire.

But anyway, it was quite the interesting weekend. We could fill the time, and we have other programs to do.

We'll get to it. There have been some fascinating developments. I just saw a fascinating development from a

Black Lives Matter leader about the genetic superiority and supremacy of black people. Yes, indeed, there is such a thing as black supremacy.

And this is real black supremacy, not the fake stuff, the white supremacy fake stuff they do. This is actual people saying, yeah, we're genetically superior.

So exactly like the KKK and stuff like that, except you just reverse the colors. So, yeah, it's out there.

We'll get to it. But what happened was, I think, right as I was,

I think this was just yesterday, I got a tweet. And most of you know that Apology of Church meets in the afternoons.

We rent our facilities. And so we meet at 4 o 'clock. Man, we went long last night.

Jeff, bro, we got to work on that time thing. Yeah, we got out of there about 640.

Almost three hours by the time we wrap stuff up. But we meet in the afternoons.

And so I got something, I think, early afternoon, if I recall correctly, from Georgie Borman, who has a webcast, the 180 -degree cast with Georgie Borman.

So this was an interview with, of course, our dearly beloved Layton Flowers, just such a fan of the program, may be doing something live right now, as he has done in the past, which he may be extremely talented.

But I don't know how you can actually listen to what someone's saying and respond to it instantaneously at the same time.

But who knows? He might be doing it. He's done it before. And we'll probably go for a number of hours after we're finished if he does.

Anyway, had the dearly beloved Layton Flowers on, ex -Calvinist explains why he changed his mind.

And so Georgie sent me a tweet just, yeah, this is 23 hours ago.

Well, when I saved this. So it was right around the afternoon, noontime yesterday.

Sent it to you, aomin .org, and it says, I know Dr. Oakley is 1689, that's me, and Layton Flowers react to each other's content a lot.

Well, yeah, I suppose. We actually do all sorts of other topics, too, unlike Layton.

You might be interested in his discussion of passages in John 6 and John 10, starting at about minute 43.

To be quite honest, I found it challenging. And so, you know,

I hesitated a moment and then I grabbed it and then

Kelly and I listened to it as we were driving to and from church because it's a long ways across the valley to East Mesa from where we live.

So plenty of time to listen to something. And there wasn't anything new.

Certainly anyone who is familiar with Layton Flowers and his quote unquote provisionism and the rather unique perspectives that he presents is familiar with this.

But given that Georgie Borman said, I found this challenging,

I thought, well, all right, it's been a while, let's crack open the

Greek New Testament and let's deal with especially John 10.

That's a beautiful passage, gives us the opportunity of delving into it and then responding to what

Layton has to say. And so I would invite you to take your scriptures.

For those of you who are not familiar, some of you may have been watching, coming to watch The Dividing Line just over the past number of months.

And so you've not seen this segment before or heard that theme song, probably wondering what in the world is going on.

Radio Free Geneva is where we respond to attacks upon the Reformed faith. Now, initially, we were responding to really bad attacks upon the

Reformed faith, and we will be perfectly honest when we say that is the majority. The majority of attacks on the

Reformed faith are not overly concerned about accurate representation of the

Reformed faith or have a real understanding of what's being said. And so the first couple of years was really focused upon that because there's just so much of it to respond to.

But then we started responding to some of the better people, some of the more in -depth topics.

I've forgotten how many different interpretations, for example, of John 6, we have analyzed over the past—we started this, what, about 2004 -ish?

Somewhere around there. So, you know, 15, 16 years we've been doing Radio Free Geneva, and we've lost track, literally, of the number of interpretations that you could put together just simply from John 6.

That's not because there's anything unclear about John 6. That's what we do is we go through the text and demonstrate, well, see, they missed this here, they're incorrect about this, their assertion here misses that, whatever else it might be.

But we examine the claims that are made against Reformed theology exegetically on the basis of the original language texts.

We are not the only people who can do that, but in my humble opinion, certainly having worked in this area for many decades now, it does seem to me that Reformed exegetes have a significantly higher level of consistency.

In fact, that was one of the humorous but very serious quotations in the

Radio Free Geneva theme was with Layton Flowers, and I asked him during our debate in 2015 in Dallas, are you basically using the same hermeneutical methodology?

Are you interpreting scripture consistently in the same fashion when we look at the deity of Christ, the resurrection, inspiration of scripture, issues like this?

Are you using a different methodology in your interpretation of Romans 9, your interpretation of passages relating to this particular subject that you do when looking at other things?

And basically said, well, yeah. I had asked, is this the same methodology?

And he said, well, no. So he was saying, yeah, we use a different way of doing things. And that to me was the end of the debate for anybody who's looking for consistency, recognizes a consistency as a methodology of knowing truth.

But we pressed on from there. Anyway, so that is relevant to looking at Layton Flowers' claims today.

And so what happened was Georgie read from – well, in fact,

I'll play something for you here. Let me – I'll drop that down.

What she – interestingly enough, made reference to my fellow pastor,

Jeff Durbin, in regards to this. So let me play for you what sort of introduced this whole thing.

So here we go. Like John 6, for instance, I think

I heard Jeff Durbin say it. It was either John 6 or John 10. And he goes, this is 110 proof

Calvinism, which is quite the claim. But, you know, for the listener.

So 110 proof Calvinism from Jeff Durbin regarding either John 6 or John 10, either one of them.

I'll defend either one of them as 110 proof Calvinism. But that's what led this – led to the discussion in the course of the interview.

And so before we listen to what Layton Flowers had to say about John 10,

I think it would be a good idea for us to actually spend some time looking at John 10. It is a tremendous text.

And just as Layton said, well, go to my website and get this, that, and the other thing.

I, just a few years ago, preached through John chapter 10 and John chapter 11 as part of a sermon series based on P45, which is there.

It's hard to do that. There. In fact, that's the John 10 passage right there on the wall.

People always ask me, what's the thing on the wall behind you? That is a page from P45. And that is the

Good Shepherd section right there that is on the wall back there. It's one of the largest sections, largest – the physical pages that have survived of P45.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the manuscript, especially in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, is only maybe half that size.

So you get a lot of missing text. Anyway, so I was preaching a series using

P45 as the foundation. And it contains portions, tiny portions from John 4 and 5.

I had done those. And then we were doing John 10, 11. And so I have addressed these issues more fully in those contexts.

But we will look at them today. So John 10, you're probably familiar with the text.

You have here the issue of the shepherd and the sheep. Jesus is the

Good Shepherd. And so he starts off with that assertion. He says,

He who does not enter by the door in the fold of sheep but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber, but he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.

To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

Now, I don't have time to go into all of the very interesting background discussions.

There have been many people who have gone and observed shepherding, especially as it's still practiced in the ways that it was in the days of Jesus, the common folds, the fact that shepherds would bring their flocks, and all of a sudden you've just got all these sheep in the same common fold.

And yet the shepherd could then come, having transacted his business, done whatever he needed to do, and would call his sheep by name, and his flock would come out of the rest that were in the common pen, where they would be being held.

So they know his voice. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

And so there is an intimate relationship that exists. But it's obvious, I would think, that sheep do not choose shepherds.

You do not have a situation where you have a line of shepherds, and the sheep are paraded by, and the sheep look over each shepherd, a little bit tall, a little bit swarthy.

No, I'm not doing that one. And then, oh, this one's good. I'm going to, no.

Behind all of this would be the rather obvious reality that the shepherd is in charge of the sheep, that the shepherd chooses the sheep, the shepherd leads the sheep wherever the shepherd wants to take the sheep.

The shepherd's in control of the shepherd -sheep relationship, and even when a sheep is lost, as in some of the parables of Jesus, this is because sheep are not the brightest creatures

God ever placed upon his planet. I've never seen a relative

IQ analysis of sheep over against other animals, but I don't think they'd do well if we somehow figured out exactly how to do that and compare it with others.

I think they'd be really down toward the bottom quarter of commensurate wildlife, shall we say.

And so it's very, very plain, very, very obvious that it is the shepherd who chooses the sheep, the shepherd that is in charge of the sheep.

The shepherd is the one who defines his flock. This is going to become important because one of the elements of Leighton Flower's presuppositional methodology of getting around just doing straight exegesis is he is going to, again, as he always does, utilize analogies to introduce parameters into the text that are not in the text initially.

And so what we're going to get here is that sheep, the sheep in Jesus' context, are actually

Jews who have shown themselves to be more godly than other Jews in that they have listened to the voice of Jesus' Father.

So in other words, these are obedient Jews. These are the Jews who are obedient to God's Word that has come from the

Father, and because they've listened to the Father, then they follow the Son. And so he wants to place, as he has to, his is a very man -centered, totally man -centered idea when it comes to how the identity of the saved and the lost is determined.

It's all of man, it is not of God. God tries to save everybody, but he cannot, it's up to man, and so it is totally and completely in the human realm.

Even more so, and he did in this interview, even more so than in the Arminian perspective, because in the

Arminian perspective, you have prevenient grace. And at least in the

Arminian perspective, that's an actual exercise of supernatural power. Now, I would say prevenient grace is to be found nowhere in Scripture.

It is a complete misunderstanding of what grace, the power of grace in Scripture.

But at least the Arminians understood enough about biblical anthropology, understood enough about what

Jesus taught and what the apostles taught about the deadness of man and sin, which is not just, which is not, not, not an inability to respond to God.

It is an inability to submit to God. Mankind, in a state of spiritual deadness, always responds to God, but he does so negatively by suppressing the knowledge of God.

Again, Leighton presents himself as a former Calvinist. His, the people who knew him during that period of time go, really?

We didn't notice it. And this comes out in his repetitious misrepresentation of Reformed theology and saying, well, they just believe that mankind cannot respond to God.

No, mankind responds to God all the time, always negatively, as a slave to sin.

That's the whole point. It's not a, it's not that he's just a corpse sitting there doing nothing.

There is a negative response. It is a suppression. This is well known.

Anyone who was once Reformed would know this. But anyway, so the important thing here is that Leighton wants to, by analogy, bring in the presupposition that sheep choose the shepherd and that sheep are sheep by their own nature.

They are the good people rather than the goats. And that's because they listen.

They're listening to the fathers. That means they are obedient to the Old Testament scriptures. And now

Jesus comes along. Then they are going to be hearing Jesus' voice as they heard the father's voice.

That's not anywhere in John 10. That's, there's nothing where sheep heard one shepherd's voice and then there's a new shepherd, but that shepherd speaks the same words and therefore they follow that shepherd because it's the same voice.

None of that. The emphasis in John 10, just as it is in John 6, sovereignty of God, initiative of God, not just in putting out a gospel and then leaving it up to man, but in actually accomplishing salvation.

And so that idea would just never have suggested itself. When he puts forth all his own, his own, notice his own, not those who have chosen him.

When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger that simply will not follow will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.

And so there is this intimate knowledge of the shepherd on the part of the sheep because the shepherd has formed one flock.

This figure of speech, Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were, which he was saying to them. So Jesus said to them again, truly, truly

I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.

I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved. And he will go in and out and find pastors. So as John 10 functions in the gospel, all the way back and beginning in really chapter 5 at least, you have

Jesus making himself the central aspect of his teaching. His person, who he is, becomes very plain in chapter 6 and that's where the offense comes in to Jesus.

Unless it's grand you're the father, you're not going to come to me. Unlike any of the

Old Testament apostles, I'm sorry, prophets, Jesus makes himself central to the message because of who he is.

He is the incarnate one. But he's also the door here. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.

I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pastor. Again, a statement that could never be made by a mere prophet.

These are blasphemous words unless Jesus is who Jesus claims to be. Very, very important to know these things.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Now again,

I am rushing through this because we want to get to the key texts, but we want background as well.

Who is they? Who is they? I have come,

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. So it's a, it's a very different thing to say that Jesus came to, and remember

John 10 comes after John six. We've already had the teaching that the father has a people that he gives to the son.

He entrusts their salvation to the son and that the son will never, ever fail to bring them into the fullness of eternal life.

That's the message of John chapter six. So the, they are the sheep and the, they would not be the, the original reader would, would never have thought of.

They are the ones who, because of their goodness have been identified as sheep.

They made themselves sheep by their goodness. They made themselves sheep by their listening to the father and now listening to the son.

If they are the sheep, I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. So I would imagine a provisionist would say, well, this, this could be for anyone, which, which means in the provisionist scheme that Jesus came, that every person might have life and have it abundantly.

But so far that has not worked out very well. Percentage wise, a majority have rejected that particular message, at least at this point in time.

Just point that out in passing. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Now, there is clearly a specificity in the definition of who the sheep are.

And the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Now, a universal atonement proponent would say, well, he doesn't just lay down his life for the sheep.

He lays down his life for all sheep everywhere. And goats, for that matter.

But notice this comes around the heels of the intimate. They know me. I know them. They hear my voice and they follow me and they won't follow anyone else.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Here is a positive statement of substitutionary atonement for a specific group.

The universalists say, yeah, that is improved. It's only for that group. That results in, as we have pointed out in our rebuttals of David Allen, that then results in the impersonal nature of a universal atonement and the non -accomplished aspect of a universal atonement.

He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

Please notice it says owner. This is not they are his own idea.

So that's the same term that Jesus uses of his relationship with the Father. It's an intimate relationship.

They are his own sheep in comparison to the hired hand that does not have that intimate connection.

So just as the Father has a certain people he entrusts to the

Son and draws them to the Son, and the result of that is that they are raised up to eternal life in John 6, here too, the owner of the sheep is the one who has sovereignty over them.

And so the hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, is not concerned about the sheep.

I am the good shepherd in contrast to that. I know my own and my own know me.

And so I am the good shepherd. Ta -Emma are simply the ones of me, so my own.

And Ta -Emma, those ones who I own know me as well.

So there is a personal intimate relationship that exists between the sheep and the shepherd.

I don't know how those who hold to universal impersonal atonement can figure this out because this would only be true after the free will choice of the individual to unite themselves to Christ, whatever else it might be.

And then notice the parallel, even as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And so an amazing parallel that will then be pointed out even more fully, John chapter 17, the

High Priestly Prayer. Just as the Father knows me and I know the

Father. The intimate relationship between Father and Son, we've already seen in John chapter 6, the

Father and the Son's intimate relationship and bringing about the salvation of God's people. That's going to become extremely strong.

Probably the strongest place I can think of, certainly in Johannine corpus, 6, 10, 17, but just explicitly stated here in John chapter 10, is the unity of the

Father and the Son in accomplishing the salvation of God's people. And that is stated with,

I lay down my life for the sheep. So this is personal. He knows for whom he gives his life.

The provisionist who affirms exhaustive foreknowledge of future events has to say, well,

Christ only knows this because he looks down the corridors of time and sees the free will actions of men.

And, but it doesn't change the reality that when Jesus says, I lay down my life for the sheep, he is saying,

I do not lay down my life for the non -sheep. Now you can make the identity a human determined thing.

It's going to go against scripture, but you can do it if you want. But the fact is a distinction is made in Jesus's own statement.

I lay down my life for the sheep and the universal atonement advocate has to say, well, yeah, but he could have just as easily said,

I lay down my life for all sheep or for sheeps and goats. I lay down my life for all quadrupeds.

That would have been, that would have all quadrupeds, kitties and doggies and sheep and bovine humanity.

I mean, the whole nine yards, that would really show the greatest level of love.

Not really. Instead, I lay down my life for the sheep in this context is addressed to a particular people.

We've already, remember John chapter 10 does not exist by itself.

We know what's coming toward the end of the chapter. We know there's going to be conflict. There's already been huge conflict beginning in chapter six.

And chapter eight, it leads to people picking up stones to stone Jesus. Chapter nine, you've got the blind man and they're really unhappy about what

Jesus did in that situation. And here we are in chapter 10, and we know what's going to happen down in the, you know, in verses 30 and following when

Jesus proclaims his deity in light of his oneness with the father in bringing about the salvation of God's people.

They're going to pick up stones to stone him again. And so this is coming and he is going to be making a distinction between those who are his sheep and those who are about to pick up stones to stone him.

He says, I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will hear my voice and they'll become one flock with one shepherd.

Now there were numerous instances in the Old Testament text where the idea of shepherd and flock

Yahweh with Israel was already an established paradigm of description.

But here you have the Gentile mission. Most people would recognize this is the

Gentile mission. The reality that this body, this one flock that is going to be created is not made up of only

Jews, but that the Gentiles are going to be the recipients of this great blessing. And that's an extremely important element of what this text is all about.

But notice, they will hear my voice. So their relationship to the shepherd is not a secondary one.

It's not a lesser one. There is no basis for any kind of idea of a lower

Gentile Christianity, a higher Jewish Christianity, none of these things. Instead, they become one flock, one shepherd, not multiple flocks.

And for this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it again. For this reason, the

Father loves me. Now, is this the only reason? No, but this is a specific reason that the

Father loves the Son is because of the Son's voluntary self -giving. That he lays down his life in order that, again,

I might receive it. So, there is, in the eternal purpose of God, the resurrection is just as important as the laying down.

And this is in the context of the sheep and the shepherd. Now, verses 17 and 18 are the two verses that I strongly recommend you emphasize in speaking to your

Muslim friends because it is the content of 17 and 18 that is missing from their understanding of the cross.

For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down,

I give it of myself. This authority,

I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to receive it back again, this commandment

I received from my Father. So, what needs to be seen is the voluntary nature of the self -giving of Christ.

His life is not taken from him. This is, of course, one of the arguments that is made by leftists and liberals against the consistency of the

New Testament. They will say that's not the view of Jesus you have in Mark. This is only the view of Jesus you have in John.

I would firmly disagree with this in both the reading of Mark and John at that point.

But there's no question that in John, you have the statement, No one has taken it from me.

Now, who can make that kind of a statement? Only God can make that kind of a statement. God is a giver and granter of life.

Jesus started claiming in John chapter 5 that the Son gives life to whomever he will.

There is a consistency throughout the Gospel of John on this issue.

He has authority to lay it down, he has authority to take it up, and he does it on his own initiative.

There is an element of freedom in Jesus' self -giving.

This is not something he is forced to do. There is perfect unity in the intention of the

Father and the Son, but the Son does not do this against his will. You might say,

Well, what about in the garden? You're misunderstanding what's going on in the garden. The heavy weight upon Jesus in the garden is becoming sin, not the giving of his life.

It is the transactional nature of bearing the sins of God's people in his own body. The one who has eternally been holy taking on that sin.

That is the issue that is to be found there. So, a division occurred among the Jews because these words, many of them saying he has a demon is insane.

Why do you listen to him? Others were saying, These are not the sayings of one demon possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?

That's taking us back to John chapter 9. That then becomes the literary context, not the spatial or temporal context, because it says at that time the

Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. So, what was the exact time relationship between the beginning of the chapter and this?

We're not told, but it came about then that you have the

Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem. And it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.

The portico of Solomon. Again, a good, wonderful, historical location. We know where this is.

The Jews then gathered around him, and literally you'll see they surrounded him.

This is purposeful. You go that way, we'll go this way. You cut him off that way,

I'll cut him off this way, and we'll have him surrounded. They surrounded him, and they were saying to him, so this was multiple people at once coming after him at the same time,

How long will you raise up our soul?

This is literally what... Haos patei tein sukein heimon airais.

How long will you raise up our soul? That is, keep us in suspense.

If you are HaChristos, if you are the Christ, then tell us openly or plainly.

And so they want grounds of accusation, especially to bring to the

Romans. And Jesus' answer to them is, I told you, and you are not believing.

The works that I do in the name of my Father, these are the ones testifying concerning me. So this is going back to a number of the themes already brought out, beginning in chapter 5, found again in chapter 8, and now finding a summary statement in chapter 10, that to the

Jewish person with the Scriptures in their hand, who are not looking to seek glory for themselves, they would be able to see who it was they were speaking with, but they won't do that.

And then we're told in verse 26, but we're told in verse 25, verse 25, you are not believing.

This is the same phraseology used in John chapter 6. You do not believe. And that was said to the men who rode across the lake.

That's what Jesus said to the ones who came to him and rode across the lake to find him.

And he says, you're not believers. And that's what prompted John 6, 37. All the Father gives me will come to me.

When coming to me, I'll never cast out, but you're not believers. And so here you have verse 25, you're not believers.

And then verse 26, but you do not, you are not believers because you are not of my sheep.

You are not of my sheep. Now, the only way this works, the only way this works, you see, no one in that day would have brought a

Western individualistic methodology of interpretation to the idea of the sheep and the shepherd.

It would have never crossed any of them's mind that the sheep are autonomous, that the sheep are sheep based upon personal merit, that they chose to be

God's sheep over against something else. And when it says, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, what

Leighton's system does is turns that upside down because you choose not to believe you are not my sheep.

That's not what Jesus said. See how trying to force a

God -centered text through a man -centered sieve results in a royal mess, a truly royal mess.

What Jesus says is, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

So, the whole idea that, well, they're sheep because they were the better Jews who were already listening to the

Father, and because they were listening to the Father, then they choose to follow

Jesus too. That's not what he says. When talking to unbelievers, he doesn't say all you have to do is start following the

Father and then you'll start following me and you'll become my sheep. He says, you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

Now, again, we're jumping into the middle of a text, Gospel of John. Back in John 8, 43,

Jesus had said, the reason you do not understand what I'm saying is because you don't belong to God. You don't belong to God.

His words were foreign to them, and there was a fundamental reason for that. This is a biblical theme.

In 1 Corinthians 1, the Apostle Paul says, the message of the cross is to them their perishing foolishness, but to we who are being saved is the power of God.

So, it's your nature that determines how you interact with that Gospel message. If you're amongst those who are perishing, it's foolishness.

Being saved, power of God. And then he lays later out, he says, to the

Jews, a stumbling block, to the Gentiles, foolishness, but to the called, those that God calls to himself, whether Jew or Gentile, Christ, the power of God, Christ, the wisdom of God.

So, it is that divine action that determines the response to the

Gospel message. And in this case, you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep are not my sheep because they believe.

My sheep are sheep, and because they're sheep, it's their nature to believe. So, the man -centered system has to kick open a door someplace to let man's free will in to regain control of everything.

There just isn't any place, there aren't any doors to kick open here. You do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

If you make man's autonomous choice, the deciding factor, these words are just gibberish, they don't have any meaning.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

There's an intimate relationship. And the provisionist has to say, yeah, but that's after we have freely chosen to become sheep.

Which again, Jesus' original audience would have gone, what? What are you talking about?

That's not what the prophets taught, that's not how sheep work. If it's really up to the sheep, we're toast.

My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. And I give eternal life to them.

I give eternal life to them. Now if they were already listening to the Father and believing, didn't they already have eternal life by doing that?

Wouldn't that be enough? The fact is there wasn't anybody that does that outside of grace. And this again, this is another big area

I argue, will continue to argue, I think it's fairly easily defended, that the perspective that has been enunciated by Leighton over and over again regarding just men in the

Old Testament and things like that leads to the idea that there are, well, don't even have to go there.

Choice meets. Choice meets. The whole idea behind the choice meets debacle was that God chooses choice meets.

They're choice meets, that's why they're the sheep. They're choice over against non -choice.

It's all about us, it's all who we are, it's all man -centered. Very, very clearly.

But in Jesus' teaching, you have this intimate relationship between himself and his sheep. They hear my voice,

I know them, they follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

So, this makes perfect sense in light of John 6, 38, and 39. The Father entrusts the salvation of the elect people to Christ.

He says, I've come down from heaven to do the will of my Father, and his will is that I lose none of them.

They will never perish, I give eternal life to them, no one will snatch them out of my hand. And, yes, this subject is important enough to be taking all this time, but we dare not handle texts like this without, once again, the reminder of what this means about who

Jesus is. This is one of those many, many passages, I've credited

B .B. Warfield with this many times, Son of God, Lord of Glory, great little book, but we look over so much of the evidence for the deity of Christ, because we know the end of the book, we know who he is.

And so, we expect words like this out of his mouth, but you have to understand the people listening to this did not expect these words out of his mouth.

And when they pick up stones in a few moments, it's not like the last words Jesus said all of a sudden convinced them to do that.

They understand Jesus is talking about himself with such centrality. And I give eternal life to them.

Hear that. Not I make eternal life possible. Not I, as a prophet, point them to the sources of eternal life.

I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. Who can say that kind of thing?

Michael the archangel can't say that kind of thing. Some mere prophet or even highly exalted prophet can't say that.

Those are divine words being spoken by Jesus. And they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

He holds the sheep of God in his hand. Don't miss these texts as clear evidence of the deity of Christ over against those who would dismiss it.

But just as in John chapter 5, where you have that perfect balance, you're to honor the

Father, honor the Son, even as you honor the Father. The Son does nothing of himself, always sees the

Father doing. You have that interplay that Jesus isn't a renegade deity out doing his own thing.

Same balance here. So when you have my sheep hear my voice,

I know them, they follow me. I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Strong emphasis on the power, ability, exalted status of Jesus, right?

So you shouldn't be surprised that there is a balancing statement right afterwards.

My Father who has given them to me, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the

Father's hand. I and the Father are one. Now, what would be the natural understanding of both

John 6 and John 10 when you have the Father giving a people unto the Son? When you follow through with the

Old Testament prophetic narrative, it is very clear that God has an elect people, a remnant, and that remnant becomes more and more important the later you get in the

Old Testament narrative, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem. But even before them, what does

Yahweh say to the prophet? The prophet is like, I'm the only one left, and cool it, dude.

I've got 7 ,000. I have reserved to myself 7 ,000 if not bound to be in the veil.

He didn't go, well, we're really lucky, but there's 7 ,000 who have autonomously remained just and righteous.

That's not what he says. I've reserved for myself 7 ,000 who have not bowed in the veil.

And so the Father, the idea of the Father being in possession of a people, very clearly understandable.

There was no emphasis upon human autonomy and individuality at this time in Jewish understanding,

Second Temple Judaism, et cetera, et cetera. So the idea that, well, yeah, when it says the

Father has given them to me, what that means is that they had proven themselves to be, well, choice meats.

I just keep using Leighton's own terminology. For those of you who go back,

I'm sure we put into the title of that one, choice meats, didn't we? It's in the title somewhere.

When was that? Give me a date on that. Sometime last year,

Leighton put out a video where Leighton comes up with these analogies, okay?

Bank robbers and all this stuff. He doesn't do exegesis, he does analogesis, okay?

He tells stories and creates narratives that you then try to fit the

Bible into the narrative to make it sort of smooth stuff out where it doesn't really fit. And he's the one that used the language of choice meats.

You choose choice meats, they're better meats. And that's who chooses to follow

Christ are the choice meats, the better meats. Sort of hard to avoid what that means, but I didn't make up the illustration, he did.

So that choice meats. And so what the provisionists have to do is say, my father who has given them to me because they gave themselves to the father and enabled him to do so.

That was the unstated presupposition. We haven't even listened to what

Leighton had to say. Sorry, I've been almost an hour just in John 10 and I haven't even played what he said yet.

But we'll see the errors once we've dealt with the text. That's the argument that he's going to make, is that the sheep are the ones who've been listening to the father.

And so because they have come to the father, then the father can give them to the son.

So my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.

Except themselves, I would assume, but that's another issue. I and the father are one.

And again, the first and primary fulfillment of I and the father are one in John 10 .30

is in the salvation of God's people. It's a satirological text. There's a question about that.

So when Jehovah's Witnesses say that, don't argue with them about it. Just make sure they don't go beyond that to say that means

Jesus is a mere creature. Because Jesus is literally saying, I and my father, we are one in bringing about the salvation of God's people.

They can't escape from my hand, they can't escape from the father's hand. Why? Not because Jesus is the father. And this is the important thing to say here.

Jesus does not say, I and the father, I are one. He uses a plural noun.

Esmen, we are one. Ego kai hapater, hen esmen, we are one.

One in bringing about the salvation of God's people. So is that relevant to the deity of Christ?

It is. Is that as clear an ontological assertion of participation in the one being of God that is often made out of it?

No, it's not. So just be balanced. When Jesus says this, however, the

Jews pick up stones again to stone him. Again. This already happened in John 8 and now it happens in John 10 and once Jesus raises

Lazarus from the dead, they're going to find better ways to do this than stoning, eventuating when the hour had come in the sacrificial death of Jesus.

But they pick up stones again to stone him and in John 8, it was because Jesus had said before Abraham was,

I am. They understood exactly who the ego I me was and they knew that he was saying that before Abraham was,

I am. And so they picked up stones to stone him. Now Jesus says, I and the father are one.

Pick up stones to stone him. And Jesus answers them. I showed you many good works from the father.

For which of them are you stoning me? And their response is not for that, but for blasphemy because you being a man, make yourself out to be

God. And so they understand that when Jesus identifies himself in this way, being one with the father and giving eternal life to the sheep, these are divine prerogatives.

He is claiming divine prerogatives, just as he did back in John chapter 5. When he healed in the

Sabbaths and said, I am working, my father is working until now and I am working. He's claiming divine prerogatives.

Doing so repeatedly in the gospel of John. That's why even unbelieving scholars look at the gospel of John and go,

John's presenting the deity of Christ. That's just a given. That's just obvious. And so I'm not going to go into 1034 and stuff and Psalm 82.

And we've done that many, many times. Look up Psalm 82 on the website. Did you get a, couldn't find the choice meats, huh?

Oh, you're zeroing in. Okay. All right. All right. So there is a,

I was going to say a quick run through. Okay. Not so quick, but there is an analysis of John chapter 10.

And yep, that's, that's 100 % Calvinism. 100 proof Calvinism simply because Calvinism is just recognizing the father and son are capable of saving their elect people perfectly.

I mean, that's John six, that's John 10, that, that is John's purpose. And so there you go.

So let's hear what Layton had to say.

Having covered it now, hopefully this will make it a little bit easier for us to just sort of zip through this fairly quickly and listen to what is said.

Let's start with the sheep first. If you, if you hear the word sheep and you think, oh, those are people who were chosen before the foundation of the world for reasons that we just don't know.

God in a secret council pick certain people and those are his sheep. If that's what you think sheep means.

Now just notice when Jesus said this to the Jews, was that the first thing they were thinking about?

They understand what sheep are. They see sheep all the time. The cities, even in those days were relatively small.

They all left the city at some point and they were immediately in the rural countryside and they saw flocks everywhere.

They knew all about sheep. And so they, they know that shepherds choose sheep.

Sheep do not choose shepherds. It's just, it's given. You can't, can't get around it.

And notice what he's doing is trying to say, oh, but you're, we, do you really think they're talking about these grand eternal things and stuff like that?

Well, given that he's explaining, he's going to be explaining the unbelief. He's saying, you are not believing.

He's explaining just as in John six here in John 10, explaining their unbelief.

Then yeah, it sounds like Jesus is saying, hey, you don't believe because you're not elect. You're not chosen.

I don't really want you. In other words, you don't believe because you are not of my sheep.

Notice he said, then adds, I don't really want you. That is an attempt to throw in an emotional thing. Layton understands his audience.

And so he knows that in our day to throw in that emotional thing,

I don't want you, especially with, when you're your congregation or your, your listenership made up mainly of people who have been taught to emote rather than to think, which is the younger generation today.

Then that creates an automatic prejudice rather than just, just, just quote what

Jesus himself said. You do not believe because you're not of my sheep. I didn't really die for you.

I'm not going to really die for you. Jesus is kind of in the back of Jesus's mind is the reason you're not coming is you're not really wanted.

I don't, I don't really love you in a saving way. And that's, and that's what is in the mind of Jesus from the

Calvinistic perspective. And I don't think that aligns at all with what we see throughout the text. So notice he's brought in four or five extraneous issues from outside to try to poison the mind, especially of a person who has imbibed a, um, imbalanced concept of omnibenevolence to where there is only one attribute of God and that's love.

And so God cannot have any differentiation in love, all that old

Testament stuff about Israel over against Egypt or Babylon, That just doesn't worry about that.

Um, and so you've, you've, you're introducing this prejudice. You have to, because the definition is going to give of sheep here is going to be so a contextual, so outside of the context of, of the gospel of John that you have to lay some foundation for it.

And so what you want to do is you want to make somebody recoil from, from the, uh, conclusions and the way you're stating it.

Okay, I don't want that. And then once you provide something, it's plausible, not contextual, plausible and contextual, not the same thing.

It's not derived from the text. It's plausible, but it's not contextual. Then someone goes,

Oh, okay, I'll grab that. So you see how the methodology works? Um, you're watching it.

Well, I guess you're not watching it. I guess you're listening to it. This is the same Jesus who weeps over Jerusalem, the same

Jewish audience who longs to get the same Jewish audience. No, it's not. It's not the same

Jewish audience. Uh, in, in fact, um, in math 23, he read math 23, that's

Jewish leaders. Probably the closest parallel you're going to get to the Jews here is the

Jewish leadership that he pronounces judgment upon. And it's the ones that they have put themselves over that Jesus talks about desiring to gather.

Uh, that's a, that's a whole different context. Like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but they are unwilling.

This is the same group of people that. They are unwilling. The leaders are unwilling that the chicks be gathered.

There's that, that, that distinction gets lost almost all the time. God says that I've held up my hands.

Now notice we're not staying in John 10. Our, we aren't even, we aren't even pretending to, and everybody who knows

Layton flowers knows this is his MO. Just, just watch the debate. We actually had a debate was supposed to be on a very limited number of verses and his opening statement was all over the planet.

And so was the prepared rebuttals and the repair prepared questions and the prepared closing all over the place.

The idea of focusing and let's, let's derive our theology from this text.

No, this is not what provisionism is by any stretch of the imagination. And the more it puts itself out there, the plainer that becomes to those who take time to actually interact with it to this people all day long.

Um, that the same group of people that he says, I don't desire the perishing of anyone, but all to repent and to believe and, and, uh, excuse me, uh,

Ezekiel 18. Um, and so just look up Ezekiel 18. Actually, you know what?

I think that's on my personal page. I think that's on Dr. Oakley, 1689. I did a couple of studies on Wednesday nights, a number of years ago, we went through the

Ezekiel 18 passages and stuff like that and dealt with the proverb that was being spoken of and how they're using it to avoid repentance and stuff like that.

Check that out. That, that thinking process doesn't align with other texts.

And so you have to ask yourself what, so what we've got, what we've done is we've jumped to a bunch of other texts, strung them together with, um, rhetorical bailing wire and said, well, it does sound like Jesus is teaching that he has his own sheep and he gives eternal life to his sheep and they'll never pray.

And so it sounds like, but that's not what the rest of the Bible teaches. And so here's going to be, here's going to be my suggestion, even though I didn't derive it from the text.

Could it mean if it doesn't mean what the Calvinists think it means? Well, the word sheep doesn't, doesn't connote or even imply this concept of unconditional election before the foundation of the world.

That's just imposed onto the text. Of course, the use of the term sheep wasn't meant to do that because we're not talking about real sheep.

Um, but it is meant to be an analogy. And it's meant to have some meaning to it.

And the idea that the shepherd chooses a sheep does remain very much a part of the text.

Yeah, it's still there. And once you put those lenses on and you think of sheep, meaning that it's really hard not to see it that way.

Um, and what you have to do is back away, be objective, take off those lenses and say, okay, what does he mean by sheep here?

What is the word sheep mean idiomatically in that culture? Well, that's not a hard one because it means the same thing in our culture.

I actually heard my teenagers calling one of their friends at school, a sheep. And what they were talking about obviously was he's a blind follower.

He just does what everybody else does in that group. Is that what anyone in Jesus's audience would have understood as a sheep?

Of course not. Um, Jesus was not talking to modern teenagers. And in fact,

Jesus had made it so plain. He's talking about the exact behavior of sheep and shepherds and enclosures and the calling out of the shop, the sheep.

I mean, he was focusing people on what they would have known in their day, which would not have been blind follower at all.

In fact, Jesus's emphasis is upon. I know them and they know my voice.

Is that blind follower? This is again, for those that are not, have not had to deal with the, um, analogy, analogies of latent flowers for as many years as we have, then you just, you just haven't heard this, but no matter what the text is, he's going to say, well, it's like, that's when, you know, you're not going to get any exegesis of the text from him.

He thinks this is exegesis. He really does believe that, that telling stories is exegesis.

That, that is, that is, that has sadly been demonstrated over and over and over.

Well, it's like this. Just go. You don't even have to listen to our interactions. Go listen to when he's on unbelievable and stuff like that.

It's the same thing. All the way along. And that's what a sheep does. Sheep were known to be followers.

And so what Jesus is saying is, you don't believe in me, the son, because you're not a follower of my father.

Where'd that come from? Did anyone catch where that came from? Because I didn't catch where that came from.

This is what, what you do is you, you demonstrate knowledge of some background things. You throw some verses out there.

You get people going, Oh, this guy knows more about the Bible than I do. And then you throw that one in there and whoa, wait a minute.

Where'd, where'd that come from? It didn't come from anywhere. It's, it's, it's ungrounded assertion.

Just, I'm, I can't get it from the text. So I'm going to bring it in real quick.

It's a sleight of hand trick. It's, it's how people do card stuff, but it's being done theologically because it's not a part of the text.

Over and over and over again throughout the book of John, you see Jesus saying, I am speaking the same words that my father spoke.

If you listen to my father, then you would know me. In other words, Jesus claims to have perfect unity with the father in his teaching.

That's true. Jesus does make the claim that he is not a renegade deity coming up with a new teaching and drawing people away from the worship of the one true

God. Well, that's true. If you listen to Abraham, you would know who I am because Abraham spoke of me, he says in the book of John.

In other words, well, he says in John chapter eight, Abraham, uh, rejoiced to see his day.

And that Jesus brings up many witnesses. This is one of the themes in John is the witnesses to who

I am. No, no question about it. If you recognize the father's voice because you listened and learned from him, then you would recognize the son's voice because the son's voice is saying the exact same thing.

That sounds extremely plausible, but he's strung together about three or four different contexts that are actually not related to one another.

The, it sounds like some of what he just said was from John six, 45. The problem is

John six, 45 is describing the drawing that the father does of those that he gives to the son.

And that's why they come to the son infallibly. All that the father gives the son, come to the son, all that are drawn by the father, the son come to the son.

That is a powerful act of God in John six, 45. He explains how that works.

There is a teaching. There is a effective act of the father, but notice what

Layton is doing. Layton turns that into the capacity and ability of the individual.

If you were just listening to the father, well, the problem is in John six, 45, that teaching is given to a specific people.

It's given to the elect that are given by the father to the son. So it's not just some general provisional,

I'm going to throw this out here. It's up to you thing. That's his thing that he's now trying to sneak into a text that nowhere contains any of this stuff.

And so what Jesus is saying is you won't believe in me, the son, because you're not a follower of the father.

If you were a follower of the father, then you would recognize my voice and you would believe in me.

Now, that sounds great. But where is that in John 10 again? Make sure you ask the question, where does this fit into what

Jesus says in John chapter 10? He says that the ones saved by him and the father are the same ones, but nowhere is there anything about this new definition of sheep.

Nowhere is there anything that, well, the sheep are the ones that choose to listen to the father.

And so they were the faithful Israel. They have the choice meats, the choice meat

Jews were clearly not pork, the choice meat

Jews. I woke rich up. It just looked like he needed, you know, you know, when the gaze starts going off way up there, and you just have to throw a little, little thing in there and it hits him upside down.

He's still hunting choice meats. How long ago was that? June 20th of last year.

So almost exactly a year that we've had the choice meats thing. Okay. So you can go back to the program of June 20th where we played.

This was, there's a what? Oh, a

Beth Moore segment. Oh, that'll make everybody happy. Great. So Beth Moore and choice meats in the same program.

Oh, went from Beth Moore into a radio free Geneva. That's, that's, that's, that was, that was a choice program.

So, so yeah, yes. So Layton's, Layton's analogesis does get him into deep trouble.

And the choice meats one was, it was deep, but only because it was so clear in what it actually says about what he's saying.

And really turns the light on. So you can see, this is what really he's saying is that these people are the choice meats.

And that's why God chooses them. And so that, so this is why they're sheep, they're choice meats.

So that would be choice lamb, I guess, would that be, would that be the choice meat would be the choice lamb.

And you're really good lamb. And it's because you've been listening to the father. And that's how you, that's how you get around this because without that, it really would naturally read just like John six and John eight.

It would naturally read as, you know, like we went over, um,

John Lennox is, uh, determined to believe. And we walked through his attempts to get around John chapter six.

It's the same kind of process going on here. Just not nearly as, um, it just with a lot more stories.

Uh, because I think obviously John Lennox deals with all sorts of other issues. Layton flowers does not deal with all sorts of other issues.

This is the one issue that Layton flowers deals with. So he has a lot more stories to tell than John Lennox would, because you have more time to develop lots and lots of stories.

Um, but the natural reading of the text would not lead you to this. Well, the sheep have made themselves sheep by listening to the father.

And therefore now they're going to hear, that's why they hear the voice of this other shepherd.

There's only one, there's only one shepherd that, that nowhere does it say that the son took over the father's flock that had chosen the father of their own free will because their choice meat.

Um, yeah. And so this has nothing about your inability to become a sheep.

This has nothing about your inability, your, your inability to become a sheep.

Think about that for a second, because see in, in a, in a, in the man centered way of looking things, whether you're a sheep or not is up to you.

It's your autonomous choice. You get to choose. You either get to be one of Christ's sheep or not want to cry sheep.

No one in that day would have understood it that way. That kind of, of Western individualism, just, just would not even be a part of the interpretation when he wouldn't even be there.

And so the whole idea of becoming sheep, Jesus had said in John chapter eight, why don't you hear my words?

Because you don't belong to God. Why aren't you believing in me? John six, because you're not chosen by God.

John 10, you're not of a sheep, but you can be right. Is that, that's what

Jesus said in John six and John eight and John 10, but you can be just do this.

No, that's not actually what happened in any of those passages at all. It's just not there, but it has to be there.

Once you have provisionism and analogies to come to recognize his voice, this is a rebuke of those who have grown hardened in their unbelief, because just like Hebrews warns against, when you hear the voice of God, do not harden your hearts.

These people's hearts had become hardened and they had not been listening and learning from the father.

So he grabs hold of a text in Hebrews.

That is addressed by the right of the Hebrews to the Christian congregation as a warning to the congregation.

And somehow, you know, it doesn't even blush to try to drag that into this particular context.

So you got a warning to Christians in the church who are facing people who are apostatizing.

And we're just going to go right over here and let's not worry about the completely different context.

And now we've got the Jewish people are the

Christian church, which couldn't be in danger of apostasy. But anyways, now the Jewish people, the

Christian church. And so we can apply those warnings here about the hardening of the hearts. This is what analogies to Sketchia.

They had grown hardened to his voice, and therefore they're not recognizing the voice when it comes from the son, their shepherd.

And so they're shepherds. So in a text, Regia says, you are not my sheep.

He says, well, if they're the Jewish people, they are his sheep. Maybe it's just a potential shepherd.

Then I don't know. It's really hard to figure once, once you have your conclusion that you have to have, but it doesn't come from the text.

The damage done to the text becomes extensive. It really does.

That's the context that John chapter 10 is speaking. And he even goes on to say in that context, if you don't believe my words, at least believe the signs and wonders he's pleading with them.

It, this is not an idea or a concept that Jesus doesn't really want them to believe, or doesn't really love them.

Do you know what that comes from? You know, which part of John 10, that comes from that was after they picked up stones to stone him.

Yeah. So Jesus is giving the defense. Against their allegation of blasphemy.

That's where he goes to. Remember, it goes to Psalm 82. He accused them being unrighteous judges. I said, you're gods.

You should fall like, fall like men. And he is actually rebutting their accusation of blasphemy.

And that becomes Jesus pleading with them to believe in him.

I, I didn't make up choice meats. I'm not making this up.

Layton flowers does not do exegesis. He just doesn't. And if you want the proof of this,

I don't know how many hours on his YouTube page. I know that my name is associated with minimally 40%, either in title or content, minimally, maybe more of hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.

I simply say to you, if you know what exegesis is, you will be able to see the difference between exegesis.

And allergies, allergies, if you will, but take the time.

I would not suggest it personally. I mean, there's only so much time in the world.

And I'm going to be doing an hour and a half to almost two hours today. The response will probably be four hours long.

It may be being aired even right now, for all I know. But yeah,

I wouldn't suggest it, but if you want to, it's there. He is, he is accomplishing his purpose through even their unbelief.

And that has to be understood within the context of the New Testament as well, is that when Jesus is down from heaven, he's not trying to get everyone to come to faith in him right up front.

It's just very, again, rather idiosyncratic. When Jesus is down from heaven, most of us refer to that as the incarnate state.

During the period of Jesus's humiliation, his, his incarnation, not down from heaven, but it's like,

I've got a friend right now who's down in Branson. Just going down and visiting.

Just don't know where this terminology obviously always comes from. But here the idea is, is that it's almost a dispensational idea that during the incarnation,

Jesus isn't trying to get everybody saved. That's going to be for later.

Well, yeah, in the sense that you have to have the message of the cross and the resurrection before you can start proclaiming the message of the cross and the resurrection.

But then comes Latins, and this is where all the judicial hardening stuff comes from.

Because that's, that's a tough thing for provisionists to deal with is, is all the judicial hardening stuff. And so he's come up with this.

Well, not he, but he utilizes this argumentation that it was necessary to blind people's eyes and deafen their ears to accomplish the cross.

And then once you've got that, then you don't have any of that type of stuff anymore. So this sovereignty of God thing and all those hardening and, and all the rest of that kind of stuff, that was just during that time.

That's not going to happen in any other, other context. That's, that's never happened. God has never guided history through hardening anybody else.

Okay. You know, Pharaoh during ministry of Jesus, but now it's just all human autonomy 24 -7 is, is what you're going to get.

He's not trying to draw everyone to himself until he accomplishes his purpose of redemption.

Because imagine if 3 ,000 people became followers of Jesus like happens in Acts after Pentecost, after Jesus was resurrected.

What if he had 3 ,000 followers, loyal followers, spirit filled followers prior to the crucifixion?

They would have never crucified a rabbi or a teacher with that many followers, vehement followers. He has, he would have an army, you know, defending him.

I'm sorry. When, when I heard this, I was driving and I am very thankful for my

Subaru because, because my

Subaru can pretty much drive itself. And so it can keep me in the lane and, and I had the interactive cruise control on.

So it's going to, it's going to keep me from the car in front of me and slam on the brakes if I need to. And the whole, I'm very thankful for, for my

Subaru because I listened to Layton Flowers while I'm driving.

I, this was almost as good as the choice meats illustration because it tells you so much.

We can't have Jesus. We can't have 3000 people choosing to follow

Jesus because they'll make an army and then the crucifixion will never take.

Once you abandon and in fact deny, and I would say to the point of detest, the sovereign decree of God, and there is no sovereign decree of God in Layton Flowers world.

We, I think we all recognize that. Hopefully by now, there is no sovereign decree of God.

Once you abandon that, this is what you end up with is

Jesus isn't, Jesus can't have a, an army of 3000 spirit filled followers.

What was at the end of John chapter seven again? The spirit was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified.

okay, well, all right. Look, it's, we've got an hour and a half and there was still one more. Let me, let me just jump down to this one really, really quickly.

I'll try to be a little bit shorter because we went to Romans and Ephesians real quickly.

He was brief. I will try to be brief as well. Generally predestination, it's one of those words.

Again, it's been packed with a lot of theological backage, but we don't really, when you break it down, it's a very simple term.

It's, it's destination is pre -decided or predetermined.

Okay. So the destination for who has been predetermined? Well, the destination of those who believe in Christ, those in Christ through faith has been determined beforehand.

So for example, if there was an airplane flying from Dallas to Chicago tomorrow at noon, the airline has predestined, has destined beforehand where the flight will go.

Nothing there says anything about the airlines deciding who will and won't get on that flight.

The airline simply puts out the advertisement saying, anyone can come. Anyone can, can board this plane.

Okay. So what you end up with in attempting to deal with Ephesians chapter one, and we're not going to go back to today.

We've done it many times before. You can read Potter's Freedom and things like that. In Ephesians chapter one, you have the assertion that the direct object of the act of predestination, the choosing of God are specific people.

We see this because of the fact that they are predestined. And as a, as a result of being predestined, they experienced the fullness of salvation.

But the direct object of the choosing is not forgiveness, adoption, glorification.

That would be this use of predestination. That you're choosing the ends.

They will experience this. So God chooses that anyone who by their free will chooses.

See, that's where you're, that's where you put it in over here. You, you, you enter, you're not going to get this out of Ephesians one.

You put in over here, but what you do is it's an, it's another sleight of hand thing. It's, it's the, it's the move the cups around and where's the bean and, and the, the cards thing.

And it's, it's all done for theology too. But what's being said is what's been predestined is that those who believe will be conformed to the image of, of Christ, will be adopted, will be forgiven, will be all these other things indwelt by the spirit of God.

So this is the idea that you want to communicate. And a re, a reformed believer who has become reformed through doing sound exegesis should not find this to be any kind of meaningful argumentation.

This should be eye roll, really? type of argumentation. But there are people who have become reformed through less than appropriate means, or, look, you can, you can become reformed.

God can, can draw straight lines with a crooked stick. But you should want to become grounded as quickly as possible, even if your introduction was not the most long -lasting way of being introduced to reformed theology.

You know, if, you know, I know people who were introduced to reformed theology by people now that they go,

I can't believe I listened to that guy, but, you know, back then he was saying some good things, and they've matured and realized, look, the only reason to be reformed is because you're convinced that that's what the exegesis of the text consistently applied, using the same methods of hermeneutics across the board, consistently teaches, rather than going, yeah, no,

I don't, I use a different methodology for stereology, a different methodology, once you realize that stuff doesn't work, then any of the superstar things should be laid aside.

It's not because superstar preacher J .P. or J .M.

or R .C .S., or the other R .C .S. All of those things should be laid aside, and I am convinced of this because the text says this, because it's right there.

This is the consistent way of understanding the text, and I'm using the same methodologies. So when you do that with Ephesians 1, this whole definition of predestination is lost.

Or Romans 8, as we've demonstrated. But the direct object of this divine act are individuals who then experience these things, but the individuals are the ones that are chosen.

Is the final glorification of the elect a part of God's sovereign decree?

Of course it is. But what Leighton Flowers wants you to do is to believe that what he has predestined is just simply that anyone who will believe, and I'll leave that up to everybody else, will receive glorification.

That results in an impersonal concept of atonement, union with Christ, adoption, forgiveness.

It all becomes impersonal because what you're saying is God has chosen to forgive and adopt a nameless, faceless group, and it's all up to us as to who that's going to be.

Even though Ephesians 1 says He chose us in Him. Not He chose a plan in Him that we then voted ourselves into.

That's not the same statement by any stretch of the imagination. But that's what you've got in quote -unquote provisionism and the perspective that it presents to us.

So, there you go, folks. I can't predict how long the response video will be.

I can tell you I probably won't listen to it. I've got...

We have... We've listened. We've eaten the choice meats.

And... But... Yeah, just... We have.

We really, really have. Anyway, so I thank Georgie Borman for... I wouldn't have known about this.

And... I don't always click on links because I... It's not like I have a staff of people.

I don't send rich stuff. Here, listen to this. Tell me if it's worthwhile. I don't do that. So... But I'm glad I did because I thought, well, we haven't really done

John 10 in depth for a while. We have done it in the past. But...

Be a good time. Give us a little bit of a break from having to talk about... Well, let me...

I will... Here. I ordered this a couple weeks ago.

It took a little while. And I told Rich, I could probably make some money if I sold these.

I know, but I'm not going to. You just have to do this yourself. But I ordered this a few weeks ago. It has nothing to do with Radio Free Geneva.

Radio Free Geneva is done, even though we're going to play the music. But we... Who knows?

Maybe tomorrow I'll show up and try to do the program with this on. Probably not. I got my own personalized face mask.

Here's what it says. This is a stupid, useless, harmful violation of my health, person, and freedom.

So... I'm going to offer one to my wife. She's got to fly. And they just...

Allegedly, the exceptions are still there in the law, which really isn't a law.

No legislature has done anything about it. But the exceptions are there.

And exceptions are real. And exceptions are necessary. And exceptions are a good thing. But the cult doesn't care.

And so I may offer her one if she wants to make a statement.

You know? There you go. So we will have time to talk about some of that other stuff.

And the stuff going on with BLM, oh my goodness. The stuff going on in academia.

Wow. There's a lot going on. So we'll have plenty to talk about. But today, we got to put all that aside and dive into the text.

And hopefully it's been useful. I don't know if Georgie is going to listen to this. But if you do, there you go.

Hopefully it was useful and helpful. And helpful to everybody else as well.