Isaiah 10 and God's Decree, Jonathan Merritt Tickles the Ears of the Elite

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00:31

Greetings welcome to the dividing line. It is a Monday and Well, it sounds like things might be changing a little bit over the course of the next couple of weeks

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Let's hope that is the case understand Texas is starting to open up and Georgia and maybe a few of them do that and aliens don't come down and and cause problems then

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Maybe you show the people start doing that too, but we're still with you here in the midst of Certainly the weirdest year in my life probably in yours as well 2019 is looking really good right now.

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That was that was fun. Those are the good old days Those are the days my friend don't make me start singing.

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You don't want me to do that. Yep. Remember Remember when you let's not start down that okay, so I Got a lot to get to here.

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I'm gonna try to Not I'm not in any way seeking to Disrespect our truck drivers or anything like that today, but we're gonna try to Actually do a normal length program for once.

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I've got a little errand. I need to run Out to the East Valley and back again

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So which isn't as bad as it normally would be this time of day. This would really you know, normal days this would be ugly, but Not too bad right now.

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Not much in the way of traffic out there. That's gonna that's gonna start changing and I Was thinking this morning

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There's gonna be people making arguments because of all this that we just need to do this permanently because look how nice the air is

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Yeah, well Then then you have all the stuff about, you know running out of food which

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Yes, beautiful beautiful day outside honey, I could see the mountains and you fall over dead

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So yeah, that's there's there's a problem there, but we'll try to get things done and a good time here

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I just realized that I have been bitten by something that was I need I Wish I had put some

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Benadryl on that baby. Benadryl is nice to have too. It's a very isn't a wonderful can you imagine what it was like in the days the

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Patriarchs when you had to ride like a Camel or something the fleas that thing had you had no

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Benadryl Wow, man I don't know how I don't know how anybody I Would have been constantly writing imprecatory psalms

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Wouldn't have never have had any of those real upbeat psalms or anything like that at all speaking of not upbeat on The last program

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I had thought about getting to this particular text, but I did not manage to get there

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And so I apologize for that. And so we're going to try to get to it now Isaiah chapter 10 is where I would like to start what oh

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No, no, we don't need to put it up Isaiah chapter 10 will be where we will start

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If you want to grab your Bible and I want to Talk a little bit with you about you know, it's not it's not that we haven't been to Isaiah 10 before But how many new subscribers did you say we picked up over the past month?

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How many? Over a thousand new subscribers to the dividing line for the past number of weeks and so you all

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Don't have anything else to be doing so that means you can grab your Bible and we can We can look at this text together.

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I know we have looked at it before in various other contexts the context of this being the nature of Biblical of the biblical divine decree

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Because here's the problem One of the topics that we are addressing right now on the program on a long -term basis is

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The issue of what is called determinism now Almost every theist is a determinist

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Almost every theist is a determinist. You have to as a theist you have to Take some pretty radical

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Hard turns to avoid some form of determinism if If you believe that God knows the future at all

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Then you are in some form a determinist so even the open theist still falls into a category of determinism

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Because the open theist says that God knows what he is going to do in the future himself

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He may not knew know what other free creatures are going to do This is how the open theists at least used to I don't know.

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I haven't last debate I have an open theist was on unbelievable about what three four years ago So maybe they've come with something new since then but John Sanders and that group would define their position along the lines of God knows what he is going to do in the future but He does not know what free creatures will do in the future

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Now obviously I would sit here and go well if he's relational then what he's gonna do and what the free creatures are gonna do

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It's gonna have to change because the creatures might do stuff. He doesn't expect which in open theism happens a lot

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So an open theist might fall into the category of a determinist as long as God knows what he's gonna be doing but everybody else as far as Christian history would go would would fall into the category of a form of determinism if God and certainly if God has infallible knowledge of future events, which by Confessional definition

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Southern Baptists have to believe Presbyterians have to believe Reform Baptists, of course have to believe

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Then that future is determined now in that context the

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Westminster Confession London Baptist Confession and confessions like that The basis of that determination is the the positive expression of The purpose intention and will of God now in other forms

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That is not the positive expression of his will except in Maybe in in the sense of the final outcome but not the details as to how you get to the final outcome and then there's a lot of Christian theistic theories that basically say

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Well that either simply go well, we don't know Because they recognize if they say we do know then that puts them into a category they don't want to be in we just don't know or it's a mystery or Somehow God knows what's gonna happen in the future.

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We just don't know how he knows It's just all present to him, but you still have to you still have to deal with the reality

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That if you say and how was it I I put I put it just a couple of Programs ago.

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I said some long lines of does God know what I am going to have

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For dinner on Christmas Eve in 2021 or something like that if we're allowed to have

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Christmas in 2021 but uh, well, that's Holiday holidays are the most non social distancing thing that we do so You know, that could be the fourth wave.

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We may be just pushing You know, it's sort of like when you've got really badly installed carpet and you try to suppress the curve on one

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Over here Just keeps on going That's that's the problem with that theory is if you suppress it now, it just comes back up later on That's this this herd immunity stuff actually makes a lot of sense

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But anyway Let's let's not get into that right now if God knows

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What I'm going to eat for dinner Christmas Eve in 2021 Can I have something other than that Can I falsify

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God's knowledge and if God knows that did God learn it? Was there a temporal or a logical because those are not the same things.

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Was there a temporal time? Was there a time in time? when God did not know but came to know and then logically

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Not speaking temporally not not in a succession of timed events but in the logical relationship

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That would be descriptive of God's knowledge. Was there a point at which?

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God came to know What I would have for dinner on Christmas Eve of 2021 all of this

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Shows the interrelatedness of Our confession that God is creator.

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That's one of the reasons remember on Friday. I was talking with Jason Lyle and He mentioned that he wrote his book on presuppositional apologetics to sort of introduce it to the creation community well, the reality is the creation community is a community that is

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I think just very logically to be reformed

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Because the relationship of the truth of God being creator

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With the reality that God has a decree It makes perfect sense the idea that God would create

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Without knowing what he was going to do with his creation that he would create and go. Oh, man, I didn't see that Thank you,

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I can't believe they did that that kind of a perspective really

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Doesn't ring true with much of what you read in in the text of Scripture. And so That that community recognizes

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That when you talk about God as creator when you say that all things hold together

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Soonest akin in him that is a well that implies purpose

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Intention decree and then what is what is sovereignty worked out in time

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Providence? Providence God acting within time and so When we talk about The eternity of God the decrees of God and we talk about determinism

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The problem is that term comes to us from philosophy and it carries a lot of baggage with it That defies being defined by the only way we should define things in this context

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And that is of course not the Enterprise II but the Bible Grab my

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Says solo scripture around the front grab my Bible there. This should be what defines for us the parameters of what we could meaningfully be defining as determinism the problem is

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When we look at the early church It's very easy again

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Very very easy for us to look back upon the early church and be so hyper critical

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Because we do not see ourselves in the context that we're in right now. I mean When you think about the things we're emphasizing right now

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Nobody two years ago could have understood why we would be emphasizing the the set of Realities that we're emphasizing right now.

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I couldn't have couldn't have understood We've never experienced anything like what we're experiencing right now so some of you think that I'm a

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Raving liberal or something because I tend to be so well, hopefully gracious toward those who've come before us in not just blowing everybody out of the water who had any belief different When we're talking about early church history we're talking about medieval church history for that matter

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You have to be gracious well, let's just put it this way If you knew as much about the

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Reformers as I know about the Reformers you'd have to be gracious toward the Reformers to remain reformed I've stood on the bridge in Zurich whereas Wingley Chucked Anabaptist off and gave them their third baptism.

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I I I've read some of Luther's anti -semitic

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Sermons I know Those those issues and I also know that when it comes to certain elements of theology

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That we would have found some of the things some of the Reformers said on Somewhat adiaphora, but then some other things that we'd go what really they they really held that kind of view and so If we have to do that with people as close to us in history as the

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Reformers and they wrote they are relatively close to us Then we look back at the earlier periods of history you have to be more gracious and when you look at that first It's hard for us to imagine what it was like when the early church attempted to take this amazing

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This amazing teaching about a resurrected Messiah Who's actually the creator of all things out into the

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Greek speaking world? Which was the Roman world, but a world really that had been

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Formed in a matter of years by just one of the most amazing figures in church in human history

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Alexander the Great and The all of the competing ideas and theologies that already existed at that time and the philosophies and everything else and then

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Here you go Marching into this Greek culture with this strange message of a crucified

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Messiah and there's a lot of questions that have to be asked and answered and we can sit here in our modern day and and Just go well, man, did they mess that up?

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Well some I think did I mean you can't when I when I Neither of the of the of the

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Cyril's do I really either Alex the the first earlier serial of Alexandria the later one

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Yeah, I'm just Try to read them Just it's tough for me to do

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I will confess and so it'd be easy for me you know, there's certain people in in church history that just Just does just doesn't strike you as somebody you'd want to have a hamburger with But then others seem to really try to strike a balance and really it you know, you they were trying to get the message out there and answer the questions in a way as faithful to Scripture, but Sometimes they messed up.

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I mean What if you didn't have anybody to look back to to see how they did it?

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It can be it could be a real challenge So you look at that early church and you you see what they were up against and You see the concepts of determinism that already existed in the first century in the

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Roman world and They could see how that impacted The fights the the arguments that were being had and the enemies of the church

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These are all things that have to be taken into consideration when you when you think about What early church

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Writers were saying and thinking on these issues and then most importantly is

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The split that takes place between the synagogue and the church

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Necessary in one sense, but what it resulted in was a

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Decentralization of The Necessary and intimate connection between the

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Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek Scriptures the fulfillment The the the threads of fulfillment the dependence that the

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New Testament writers have upon the Old Testament text Especially after origin but as far back as Even before him

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Clement The that's what I was I said Cyril Cyril Alexander comes later

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Clement of Alexandria both It was the Alexandria that I wanted to refer to not the Cyril part Reading Clement of Alexandria or Cyril of Alexandria either one of them

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Though Cyril was just just on a personal level. It's just not a nice guy. Anyway You could you could go back to to to to Clement of Alexandria, which is different than Clement of Rome by the way and you'll see this dangerous diminishment of The Old Testament and of course then with origin with the allegorical interpretation one of the primary problems one of the primary reasons there is there is such a difference between Augustine and Calvin is

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That Calvin is writing from a significantly better Exegetical position than Augustine was because Augustine is too close to origin and Augustine's understanding of the meaning of the

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Old Testament is greatly to be flawed and greatly to be questioned and That in that impacts everything

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And it is it is in the Reformation that you really get a recovery of a meaningful view of the

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Old Testament text and exegesis the Old Testament text and and especially the Intertextuality the relationships between Old and New Testament becomes

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Much more of a focus of study Sadly, we've lost a lot of that even in our own day but we've lost it not because of an abandonment not because we've gone back to some kind of a

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Allegorical view of the Old Testament. It's because we've lost a view of inspiration period Once you once you put this into a naturalistic worldview and it just becomes collections of people's errant thoughts

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Then it just becomes a badly edited mishmash of Human speculation and that's that's all you can do with it.

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So All of that big long introductory background to the reality that When we talk about determinism when

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Ken Wilson and Leighton Flowers talk about determinism there are all sorts of meanings to that term and We need to understand

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What the categories the meaningful categories of understanding that term? What they are and therefore what could in any way be connected to a biblical understanding of God's kingship over his creation and So when you say a

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Calvinist is a determinist, well, of course almost any Christian is a determinist But you might say well, there's soft determinism and strong determinism.

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Well what you're getting into there is the Expression of the divine will and the relationship of God as creator to the very fabric of time itself and part of what you have to think about at that point is is

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God himself Subject to the parameters of time. Is there anything outside of God?

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Are we talking about monotheism first of all? that's that's important because when you're talking about Gnosticism and Manichaeanism, especially you're not talking about monotheistic systems

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Not in any meaningful sense at the very very very very very best you're talking

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You know theism, but you're not even really talking about classical theistic systems here And you're certainly far removed from anything that would be related to what we will be reading here in Isaiah chapter 10 so there are external

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Forces that can in essence call God's hand in These systems that are just simply not a part of a

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Christian Understanding of God and divine revelation and things like that all of this will have fundamental defining characteristically defining

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Impact upon what you're talking about when you talk about determinism and just if it's going to be meaningful

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I mean if the words going to communicate something You know you want to write and you want to speak in such a way that what you're saying

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Will make sense after you're dead Okay, or it'll make sense after The current controversy you're involved with or something along those lines and so if we want to say things about Augustine and And Manichaeism and Gnosticism Then they need to be true in this conflict and then in the conflict that comes five years from now and So you want to you that's why you have to be you know when someone says

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I've come up with this phrase I Sorry go So no one thought about this before you so you had to come up with a phrase because you're just you're just breaking new ground

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I'm concerned that someone in this conversation thinks they are and they're not that's that's the problem there so with all that said one of the things

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I want to look at is the nature of The divine decree and we are given in scripture a real strong example

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Because it seems to me that in most of the commentary and there's I have said before It seems in reading dr.

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Wilson's dissertation that Most paragraphs are notes quotes

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Unedited so and there I was looking at one section today it just Look I've done work like this before and I know what it is to have a note file

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You know you're doing research. Oh, I want to remember this put it in there you use your scanner or whatever it is you're you're using to your phone whatever to get a quote in there and then you

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Few things to remind you of exactly how this is related to something else and then and then two months later you're working through that material and Oh, okay, yeah, okay, that says that that's is that and So you could just sort of like take that and try to smooth out some of the sentences and turn it into something well

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Some people might be able to get away with it, but a lot of people can't and So I was looking at exactly that kind of a situation and I was reminded in so doing of The fact that over and over again it is assumed

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That there cannot that the one option that is not on the table is compatibilism you either

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Believe in an autonomous free will or you believe in a mechanical Divine decree that just Makes everybody marionette marionettes and puppets so for example you you look at the writings from Qumran and you have people acting and desiring and expressing things and Doing all the stuff that we human beings do and then you have a clear

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Acceptance of God's complete sovereignty over human affairs to the point of the beating of your heart or the the movement of your tongue and There are a lot of people that you just can't put those two together.

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It's got to be one or the other well What have we said long before I ever heard of Ken Wilson?

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Traditionalism whatever terms are using for themselves these days now provisionalism That perspective flattens out the multi -dimensional reality of Scripture It flattens it out says it has to be only in two dimensions can't be in anything else

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Said that I don't know the first time I use that analogy, but it's been a long long time

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You can't do that with Isaiah chapter 10. You can't do it turn with me

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Isaiah 10 5 Woe to Assyria the rod of my anger and the staff and whose hands is my indignation now you got to understand

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Assyria one of not only one of the most Violent Nations kingdoms empires in the ancient world but thoroughly pagan so you're talking an

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Evil nation here no concern whatsoever about God's law or anything else The rod of my anger the staff in whose hands is my indignation, this is

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God speaking this is Yahweh speaking I Send it against a godless nation.

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Oh that must have hurt for Assyria to be coming against Israel and Call Israel the godless nation and commission it against the people of my fury

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People of my fury hmm I think about that one for a second

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This is fulfillment of God's Anger against the people of Israel.

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This is a fulfillment of Deuteronomy 28 and 29 To capture booty and to seize plunder and to trample them down like mud in the streets

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So God says I'm sending a Syria against Israel and they it's like a club in my hand

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And I am bringing my judgment to bear upon this people my fury now

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We're gonna be talking very I just realized I needed to get to this too. So I'm just pick up the pace here, but We're talking about Christians who don't believe

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God has wrath or fury a little bit later on But then notice yet it that is a

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Syria This is verse 7 does not so intend Nor does it plan so in its heart?

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But rather it is its purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations for it says are

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Not my prince is all kings is not Colno like Carchemish or Hamath like Arpad or Samaria like Damascus by the way, you can track down all the names of these cities and realize that this is

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Being written at that time. These are cities that were captured and so on and so forth as My hand has reached the kingdoms of the idols whose graven images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria graven images

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Shall I not due to Jerusalem and her images just as I have done to Samaria and her Idols and so you've got

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Israel you've got Judah. You've got the Assyrians eventually. It's gonna be the Babel and Babylonians. Eventually.

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It's gonna be the Egyptians and that part of the world is the intersection of various empires so Here the people of Assyria beings viewed as a weapon in God's hand and yet They have no intention of glorifying

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God They're not doing this because Israel is sinning and they want to see God God needs to punish these sinners

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No, they're haughty They're arrogant all like all they're concerned about is power and riches and plunder in this world

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So they have one intention. They have one desire and It's not a good desire.

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It's a sinful desire and God says I'm using them I'm bringing them.

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Well, they think they're bringing themselves. Yeah, God says I know I know

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You can't flatten this out you can't squish this is one curve you cannot flatten out you can't squish this down This is multi -dimensional this this there is truth on different levels here

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And if you say you can only have one level you're never gonna understand scripture You're never gonna allow scripture to speak for itself

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So it will be that when the Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion on Jerusalem He will say

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I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness

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You go know what? Okay. Now, wait a minute How's that just? How is it just for God to use the the haughty arrogance

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Of the heart of the king of Assyria the pomp of his haughtiness Well, it's not sinful

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Yeah, but God used it. Yeah, so God can do things like that God can act in this world.

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If he didn't use sinners, he'd never who would he be using it? All of us are sinners and really that's where the

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Problem. Well, God can't do that. Why he's God Who do you think you are to put limitations on them in this way?

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Well, but shouldn't he like cut him a break because why? They were doing what their hearts

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Desired to do and that's what he judges on He doesn't judge you as to how you fit into his eternal plan

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Because he determined that so how could you be judged on that? He will judge you on what you do

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In regards to your own desires in your own heart, and it was the desire

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Of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria to be haughty And so God will punish the fruit

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Of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria For he has said by the power of my hand and by my wisdom

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I did this for I have understanding and I removed the boundaries of the peoples and plundered their treasures and like a mighty man

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I brought down their inhabitants and my hand reached the riches of the peoples like a nest as one gathers abandoned eggs

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I gathered all the earth and there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped and so here is

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You can find You go into the the stela and the things that have been found

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Inscriptions in the ancient world and you'll find this kind this very kind of language emblazoned on the walls of the kings of Assyria and other

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Nations of that day and so You better believe that the king was haughty

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But he did not realize that everything he did he did As literally the servant of the one true god

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This is this is the king who doesn't Experience what nebuchadnezzar experiences later on with daniel

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But nebuchadnezzar had the exact same thought look what I have done and I have done this and then you get judgment

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Did Daniel chapter 4 So listen to what god's word says is the ax to boast itself over the one who chops with it

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Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it That would be like a club wielding those who lift it or like a rod lifting him who is not wood

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So you're just a you're just a club in my hand assyria But you're exalting yourself over the one who wields you

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Anytime we rebel against god. That's you've got the creation acting like this against the creator therefore the lord the god of hosts

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Will send a wasting disease among his stout warriors You read that before?

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I wonder how many people When they read that stop and go it's not their fault

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They're just doing what the king told them to do no one who read this initially would have even

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Hesitated wouldn't have caused them any problems at all because they understand something called federal headship They understand what it means to be represented by another that that when you're a soldier

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You're a representative of the king And the king represents you

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Ultimately and so God sends a wasting disease among his stout warriors.

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I wonder how many people who call themselves christians Would actually believe that god would send a wasting disease among the stout warriors of the assyrian empire

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For having done what god decreed they would do to punish israel I can think of a lot of people that just Would never would never preach this never teach this

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Don't wouldn't believe it And under his glory a fire will be kindled like a burning flame

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And the light of israel will become a fire and his holy one a flame And will burn and devour his thorns and his briars in a single day and he will destroy the glory of his forest

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And of his fruitful garden both soul and body And it will be as when a sick man wastes away

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And the rest of the trees of his forest will be so small a number that a child could write them

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Down and then interestingly enough in the midst of all this You then have messianic prophecy now on that day the remnant of israel and those the house of jacob who have escaped

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Will never again rely on the one who struck them but will truly rely on yahweh the holy one of israel

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And then you have a remnant will return the remnant of jacob to the mighty god, etc, etc this is um

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And then verse 23 for a complete destruction one that is decreed Yahweh elohim of hosts will execute in the midst of the whole land.

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So the question is Could that be undone Is god's decree

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Um firm Is god's decree unquestionable? Will it be accomplished?

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What if god had not done this? Would you have any reason to trust or believe in anything that scripture says about anything

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So the point is you have one action the assyrians Coming against israel people died

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Cities were burned Horrible things happened children died

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And god had said this is what I will do if you break my covenant Deuteronomy 28 29

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And then god punishes the assyrians not because of what they did to israel But because of the attitude with which the king viewed himself

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And his refusal to give thanks to the god that he knew existed romans chapter 1 so one action

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On god's part perfectly pure motives on man's part perfectly sinful motives Accomplishing what god has decreed

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And this was a part of the creation of the remnant the remnant

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And that becomes of course extremely important In the

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The the lima which you see in romans the remnant people This is god accomplishing his purpose.

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This is what his intention was from the start Now you may not like that Uh, I don't you you can't wrap your your mind around a god that that's that is that big

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I get it but How wise is it for you as a finite human creature?

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You may be made in the image of god But you flourish in the morning and you pass away at night You live for a very short period of time comparison to the god of all creation and you know

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Very little in comparison to the god of all creation. How wise is it for you? to go

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I'm not going to honor a god like that I i've told the story many times this roman catholic lady came to our offices years and years years ago 16th street

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And when I talked to her about the sovereignty of god when I talked to her about elections said I would never worship a god like that who chose who exercised his free will

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In the distribution of grace, I would never worship a god like that and my response to her was

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I know that's the problem That's the problem you're worshiping of god of your own your own making so This is one of those passages of scripture as we have in acts chapter 4 as we have in genesis chapter 50 where You have to do violence to the context and to the text itself

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To get away from the multifacetedness the multidimensional nature of the reality

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That you have a divine decree the term is used right there one that is decreed verse 23.

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You've got it right there It's decreed I got a divine decree. He's accomplishing his purposes

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And then you have judgment Which means that the attitudes of the heart of the king of assyria was relevant

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To the doing of justice that god then brings upon against the king of assyria

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Which means he wasn't just a puppet was he because god does not punish puppets So all of your flattened out two -dimensional ways of trying to deal

42:44

With something it's much deeper than that I'm not gonna be able to pull it off.

42:50

I'm not gonna be able to do it. You have to allow scripture to be deeper than Then these things and so when we talk about determinism

43:07

What kind of determinism are we talking about Well, one thing should be obvious There has never been an austic

43:17

There has never been a manichaean Who could read these words

43:25

And fit this god into their system not possible not possible

43:32

Can't be done now I said I would do this so I need to get to it

43:41

I've mentioned before that sometimes

43:47

I follow people in social media just simply to To avoid the total echo chamber because you can create

43:55

A complete echo chamber if you want to now at the same time. I don't Like having

44:03

Insane foolishness sitting on my screen for long periods of time either um So it's not like I try to be balanced.

44:12

I I would rather follow The majority of people I follow are people that i'm going to be sharing something with but still

44:19

I follow a few people Just so I can go oh, oh that's interesting um

44:27

And one of the people that I started following. I don't remember what the specific Thing was that that prompted it um

44:37

Why I specifically did so um but I started following Jonathan Merritt and Jonathan Merritt is

44:47

Well, I guess he's according to his own website has actually pastored

44:53

At some time in the past, I guess he's a graduate of liberty. Um in uh pastored in Georgia And um so uh

45:07

He has been on a journey shall we say I think that would be the kindest way of putting it

45:14

He has been on a journey Out of evangelicalism

45:21

He's been on a journey out of evangelicalism for uh quite a while Uh in company with others that we could name.

45:29

Um Who have joined him on that particular? trek out of the um

45:38

The confines of evangelical christianity And He is a writer he writes for a religion news service

45:48

He writes for some other uh places including the atlantic now the atlantic is not a christian source of um writing and insight but he

46:05

Mentioned last week after he had he had written an rns Shot um at al moeller

46:15

Uh the week before Which simply on a uh on the level of journalism was horrific.

46:25

It was just really bad and and I said because You you don't think that if you want to be taking if you really want to seriously engage with al moeller

46:34

Don't you think that you've got stuff you could be talking about that isn't 20 years old I mean, it's sort of lazy.

46:40

Um to be digging back into stuff from Long ago digging up stuff that that is in old videos that are sitting in youtube someplace um

46:51

Rather than doing serious journalism, but that's that's what he decided to do. He decided to take that kind of a shot

46:58

But it's very obvious that jonathan merit really really really detests the concept

47:08

Of not only the sovereignty of god But especially the concept of the wrath of god and he just can't help but taking shots

47:23

Specifically at john piper and so sometime Last week.

47:30

I even tweeted in response to something he had tweeted I I tweeted john piper said get ready for a shot heading incoming

47:38

Incoming warning john piper incoming Because it was obvious That he was writing something that was going to include taking a shot at john piper.

47:49

Well He wrote an article Christian cruelty in the face of covid19

47:58

Some of the most visible christians in america are failing the coronavirus test So what this is all about people failing according to jonathan merit, so jonathan merit is going to become the judge of what failure is but The real question to me is

48:20

Doesn't this article tell us more about jonathan merit than it does anything else? I think it does

48:25

Let's see why Consider the popular pastor john piper

48:30

Who was asked what he would say to pastors who claimed that the pandemic is god's judgment on sinful cities and arrogant nations quote god sometimes uses disease to bring particular judgments upon those who reject him and give themselves over to sin end quote piper responded

48:49

And that's it That's all he's going to say about piper Nothing about piper's writings theology work context nothing

48:59

This was yellow journalism it was I'm going to be writing to people in the atlantic that don't have a clue who john piper is

49:09

And so I can determine the context For anybody

49:15

I want to take a shot at And get everybody in this audience that will be mine to agree with me

49:23

And I don't even have to get my I don't even have to break a sweat I don't even I don't even have to do much in the way of google searching

49:30

Let alone actual reading I can just take shots all I want and that's what he did and so We we need to hear

49:41

This kind of a statement that is meant to be an argument But fails to actually function as an argument

49:52

Because evidently By titling it the way that it's titled This is a failure on john piper's part.

50:00

Well, what is the failure? in saying That god sometimes uses disease to bring particular judgments upon those who reject him and give themselves over to sin

50:10

We just read isaiah chapter 10, didn't we? Didn't god do that to the soldiers of assyria?

50:18

after using them to punish his wayward people israel Didn't this happen many times in the scriptures?

50:29

Didn't this happen even in the new testament? Didn't god strike ananias and sapphira down?

50:39

What happened to herod? Hmm so there is a worldview that is being brought into play

50:51

By jonathan merritt He doesn't have to define it and he doesn't have to defend it

50:57

But he can use it as a weapon against christianity And he gets the ears

51:04

Of the audience because he claims to be the christian himself So i'm on the inside.

51:12

Let me tell you how bad we really are To an audience that plainly and clearly is looking for every reason in the world

51:22

To believe exactly that He doesn't argue against what piper says Because it's self -evidently biblically true

51:34

Or perhaps look to rr reno the editor of the conservative christian journal first things who argued that it's not worth a quote mass shutdown of society end quote

51:45

Justified the virus Quote, there is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at any cost end quote reno wrote decrying the quote ill -conceived crusade against human finitude

51:56

And the dolorous reality of death end quote. Well, that sounds like reno is a real jerk.

52:02

I went and found his article And I read it It was insightful and wise and his argument was

52:13

We draw lines of necessity In regards to life and death every day

52:22

There have always been people in our midst Who are immunocompromised who have multiple underlying problems and for some reason 60 ,000 a year dying

52:40

Because their complicated situation becomes over complicated by influenza has never before caused us to shoot our civilization in the head before And he's right

52:55

If you take it if you think that mankind can control death, then we would all live in separate bubbles

53:03

We would never interact with one another we would never accomplish anything. We would never do anything

53:10

And we'd still die right But that's what he was talking about. But you see this is this is quote mining

53:17

This is how you you put together, you know who your audience is, you know, what's going to push their buttons

53:23

You know what's going to create emotion. It may not have anything to do with your target

53:30

So he did to piper so he did to moeller that's what he's doing here to reno This is a very popular form of non -journalism

53:43

And Merritt knows that he could never engage In any type of meaningful debate over these issues because Reno or any of these other people go well, wait a minute, but I said that in this context

53:58

I said this in this context. Are you saying this are you and once you get pressed? well, it's like You know unwisely going on Tucker Carlson You end up looking really bad by the time you get done with it

54:14

So Merritt continues covid19 has claimed nearly 50 ,000 lives in America thus far.

54:19

I stopped for a moment There was a lady on Twitter this morning

54:27

That went after me My first words to her is you cannot reason with panic and after I Still attempted to reason with her and her response was completely irrational and completely emotional

54:41

That proved that I probably could have stopped right after the first few words that I wrote But what

54:46

I did do is I tried to provide to her some numbers from the CDC From 2017.

54:53

So before all this stuff happened As to how many people are dying every day every hour every minute in the

55:02

United States and what they die of People don't know these things. I've shared them with you before on this program

55:11

Contextless numbers mean nothing They mean nothing nearly three times that number the number he gave right there will die of alzheimer's disease

55:25

In one year in the United States alzheimer's That's the same same group pretty much right same group and yet There are a number of things that have been linked to the onset of alzheimer's

55:42

Environmental things how many people are running around Focused upon avoiding any of those things most people don't even know what they are

55:54

But if your phone every five minutes Gave you push notifications about someone else who died of alzheimer's

56:03

You would be panicked about that And you'd be willing to shut down all of your life to avoid that That's what's happened here.

56:12

That's what's different and we could do that with influenza and we could do that with meningitis and we can do that with Um measles and we can do that with all sorts of other things

56:23

All you got to do is put the spotlight on that thing And then hit everybody On fox news and cnn and on your phone and in all your social media.

56:34

Can you even go to a website today? That doesn't start off with a splash screen about covid19

56:41

Good luck. I don't know where you'd find it everywhere I go Even if it has nothing to do with anything related it's still there

56:51

That's how you get keep the panic going keep the panic going keep the panic going so Covid19 has claimed nearly 50 ,000 lives in america thus far if you trust those numbers

57:03

Those numbers are changing. I heard about hundreds that were removed from various lists today because they had been added under pressure had been added without evidence

57:11

Most of those casualties died alone without so much as the dignity of a familiar face as they drifted into eternal rest

57:17

That's because of the lockdown stuff That many people in the medical community didn't understand either

57:25

Most of those who have died are grandparents and the immunocompromised the weakest among us We are a grief -stricken and disillusioned people like many others

57:34

I'm struggling to make sense of how those who follow the teachings of jesus known for healing the sick

57:40

Could shrug their shoulders at mass death and heap pain on the grieving did you catch that?

57:47

This kind of writing is not capable of making good old -fashioned honest arguments

57:58

So what it does is it slides them in Unformed Unsubstantiated but clothed in emotion bathed in emotion

58:16

And for our society today Emotion and thought are the same thing emoting

58:21

And thinking same thing. No, they're not and so you have

58:30

Emotional statements made And then without substantiation in purely slanderous form

58:43

The assertion that people who follow Allegedly follow the teachings of jesus

58:51

Could shrug their shoulders at mass death and heap pain on the grieving. Oh, who's that john piper?

58:59

Who's doing this? You see the idea is if you don't panic like us and buy our worldview and agree to Diving face first into worldwide depression, which leads to war and disease and famine and everything else

59:19

Then you are shrugging your shoulders at mass death and you want to heap pain on the grieving

59:27

Well, obviously john piper doesn't want to do that Uh, no one that was mentioned in the article at this point wants to do that.

59:34

It is a cheap general shot Unsubstantiated and a real editor would have pulled it

59:41

But this type of stuff doesn't really get edited Now and i've i'm pulling quotes myself here.

59:49

I'm not gonna read the whole thing Then he talks about his own experience In evangelicalism, which of course he's left and he concludes by saying but i'd i'd never predicted

01:00:02

That I would witness prominent christian leaders dismissing death So if you contextualize it

01:00:11

If you recognize How much death takes place every day worldwide 1 .8

01:00:18

people per second 2 .8 million in the united states each year

01:00:26

Break it down get out your calculator You'll get it You figure that out

01:00:34

If you put that in context, that means you dismiss death How did how was john piper dismissing death?

01:00:45

Well, he wasn't He wasn't But you see what jonathan merit detests is a god who has a sovereign purpose that he's accomplishing in this world

01:00:55

He goes on to say a prominent church in texas recently paid for a billboard to ask commuters. Is coronavirus a judgment from god?

01:01:03

Why just stop that is a very valuable question That is a valuable question and my concern

01:01:14

Sorry, but it was 19 years ago That I sat behind this microphone not in this room

01:01:22

But it was 19 years ago that I on the day after september 11th

01:01:31

Raised the exact same question in regards to what had happened then

01:01:37

And anyone who has this in their hand Cannot help

01:01:45

But ask that question and seek to provide a balanced and meaningful answer

01:01:53

But that is that's only if you actually believe this to be the word of god If you don't well, that's a different thing.

01:02:00

And of course he's writing to people who don't Because he just let me read again a prominent church in texas recently paid for billboard to ask commuters

01:02:09

Is the coronavirus a judgment of god, but that's not as bad as so that's it one sentence no argumentation

01:02:19

See you can only do this when you are only writing for one spectrum of people and you don't care what anyone else thinks

01:02:30

And you don't care to be accurately representing The the actual topic

01:02:37

But that's not as bad as ralph drawlinger The christian minister who leads a bible study for members of president donald trump's cabinet

01:02:45

Who answered the question in the affirmative uh -oh he answered in the affirmative in a series of blog posts

01:02:55

He argued the disease is god's consequential wrath on our nation Worrying that whenever an individual or corporate group of individuals violate the inviolate precepts of god's word

01:03:04

He she they or the institution will suffer the respective consequences. Oh, no

01:03:11

Someone actually believes if you violate the precepts of god's word Judgment might come how can that be?

01:03:20

Robert jeffress now notice there's no argument against it That's just the argument is this is even worse than asking the question is coronavirus a judgment of god

01:03:31

You're actually thinking that god's law still has relevance today How dare you?

01:03:37

See, but you don't you don't you're stating it you're just Using the emotional approach to make the argument without actually making an argument

01:03:47

Robert jeffress Another christian minister close to trump echoed this idea by warning all natural disasters can ultimately be traced back to sin

01:03:58

Now i'm not a big fan of robert jeffress. Okay, i'm not I I have seen too much of the red white and blue flag waving

01:04:10

Stuff being confused for worship At his church. So I know I No, thank you but You you really want to argue that statement um

01:04:26

This is a fallen world That has to do with sin therefore

01:04:32

The statement is self -evidently true Their interpretation of recent events is not as uncommon as you might assume as you might as you and me

01:04:42

See the signaling, you know the little head nod a little winky winky and we we atlantic readers.

01:04:48

We're all yeah We're all in this together One recent poll reports that some 44 of americans say the pandemic is a wake -up call from god and signs of coming judgment

01:04:59

Well, that's actually encouraging We'll see how long that lasts probably not very long um, i'm not reading the whole thing, like I said, there's a whole thing about Well, check this out

01:05:11

Ironically the choice to emphasize these sorts of judgmental messages instead of stressing love and caring instead of So if if you believe in believe in god's law, then you don't believe in love and you can't care for anyone

01:05:26

You see how these arguments are made Um, it is costing the religion dearly according to lifeway research 70 of protestants stopped attending church for at least a year from the ages of 18 to 22

01:05:39

Why they leave 26 said it was because church members were judgmental or hypocritical An additional 15 said it was due to church members being unfriendly and unwelcoming christians bad behavior has propped up Has propped open their church's back doors.

01:05:52

Well there are tons and tons of articles about That subject but what does that have to do with coronavirus?

01:06:02

All that stuff was well before coronavirus came along, right? This is just an opportunity to take a shot at the church

01:06:07

This is just an opportunity to take a shot at what he himself has apostatized from Remember the same thing's operating here that operates when you read

01:06:19

Bart Ehrman. They're both apostates It's just one still pretending And the other one isn't so I could you know respond to a lot of what is said here, but but notice um being unfriendly and unwelcoming folks been an elder in a church for Decades now

01:06:45

And let me tell you something when you're on the inside I can guarantee you

01:06:51

What you're told as an elder by someone who leaves your church Will be very different when they tell everybody else

01:06:59

Um And there's always two sides that story always two sides that story

01:07:05

Uh, but the point is that is an irrelevant argument has nothing to do with coronavirus at all It doesn't help

01:07:12

That such high numbers of america's faithful particularly white evangelicals and conservative catholics

01:07:18

Continue to publicly support a president who is emblematic of the very attributes that so many loathe about believers

01:07:26

So let's take a shot at trump while we're at it um and in the process

01:07:35

Let's not talk about the real issues. This was the same thing. He did it with moeller Is he dug back into stuff from the 1990s

01:07:44

Rather than dealing with what moeller said What moeller said was not anything about oh,

01:07:50

I just think donald trump is a paragon of virtue. He didn't say that What he does recognize obviously

01:07:57

Is the fact that the other party? Is a barely disguised front organization for the ccp

01:08:05

And if you don't know what the ccp is you really need to get used to hearing that chinese communist party

01:08:11

They want world domination And they're accomplishing it They're accomplishing it financially.

01:08:18

They're accomplishing it by investment And that is an organization has millions of its own people in gulags

01:08:27

People disappear in china all the time the chinese communists are just as evil as stalin was or any of the rest

01:08:40

Just look at some history if you would please so Rather than actually dealing with substantive

01:08:51

Arguments what he's gotten away with because of who he's writing it to Is just to appeal to the prejudices of that group

01:09:00

And obviously what that means is the leftist elites Function not on the basis of logical argumentation, but emotion

01:09:10

But last one i'll look at Check this out. This is how we finished the article the earmark of christianity is kindness compassion and supernatural love

01:09:23

It's not fighting back attacking enemies settling scores or leveraging other people's pain for your own advancement

01:09:29

Some of the most visible christians in america It seems need to go back to sunday school and discover the loving roots at the core of this great religion's message

01:09:39

I wonder did jonathan reread that paragraph and realize that's what he had just been doing

01:09:46

That the last two articles i've seen from him Were fighting back attacking enemies settling scores

01:09:56

Leveraging other people's pain for your own that's exactly what he's been doing just in service of the left

01:10:02

That's what he's been doing And when people get that deeply into something

01:10:10

Sometimes they just can't even see it. They can't even see it themselves. So this is what passes for writing in um in our day and age and It wouldn't have

01:10:23

In many contexts in the past where there was some level of concern for journalistic integrity and Things like that, but the internet has unfortunately destroyed a lot of that kind of of a thing

01:10:37

So When you it just seems to me that the world loves apostates

01:10:47

The world loves apostates The world loves people who will give them reason not to believe they don't care whether you're a bart ehrman apostate

01:10:57

And you've given it all up Or whether you're a jonathan merritt apostate Where you're still in process of getting there?

01:11:06

um but there have been A lot of these people that have made a name for themselves, you know, jonathan merritt high connections to well -known southern baptist figures

01:11:17

But he's using that and he's using that as his entree into the world of the elite i'll give you the insights um

01:11:26

I wonder well where he will be In just a matter of uh of years Um, the trajectory is clear and inarguable

01:11:35

As it stands right now All right. So, um I didn't get around to this.

01:11:41

I don't want to do it right now. Um, but uh tomorrow um All depends on how much

01:11:48

I get done tonight But one of the things I want to talk about um tomorrow is a textual variant romans 5 -1 and I think you'll find it interesting and it it's not gonna be uber uber technical either

01:12:08

It's more How it is true That we are influenced by our context and I have been and i'll use myself as the example um and how sometimes

01:12:25

A controversy Or a study that you don't expect Coming from another angle sheds new light on something you go

01:12:35

Huh? Maybe We'll talk about that on uh on the program tomorrow and hopefully

01:12:43

Tonight i'll be able to get some work done on Moving forward in some other areas as well.

01:12:49

By the way I Was sent a link Uh to a

01:12:55

I think it was a two -hour um Program with Layton Flowers and Ken Wilson haven't listened to it yet.

01:13:01

I might Get a chance to listen to it. Uh tomorrow Morning, I intend to be doing gonna be trying to do.

01:13:10

Um, Something where I would be able to listen to something Uh, but i'm not in any like I said not in a major hurry um

01:13:19

I have been told that they continue to raise the canard of An unwillingness on my part to debate.

01:13:28

I don't know how more clearly I can express this How many ways

01:13:34

I can say it? But I will debate Ken Wilson We'll do it

01:13:40

We'll do it at the right time There aren't any debates going on right now in case you haven't noticed and no i'm not doing an internet internet debate

01:13:49

Uh, we'll do the real actual debate And we'll do it

01:13:56

Once we have rescheduled what we have already had to cancel. Thanks to the panic of 2020

01:14:03

But we'll do it What why is why is that not clear? Y 'all it's getting to the point where if I hear people saying it's being repeated.

01:14:13

It's just becoming a blatant lie Um, so I I hope that's not what it is.

01:14:19

So I'd like to ask you all stop the falsehoods Um, we'll set up the debate when it's appropriate to do so But I haven't even finished.

01:14:29

I haven't even gotten into Helping everyone else understand And maybe that's what they're afraid of but everyone else understanding

01:14:38

What is stoic determinism? What is gnostic determinism?

01:14:44

Is there a difference between? vanilla gnostic determinism and valentinian gnostic determinism

01:14:51

What would manichaeanism at the time of augustine Have believed about god

01:15:00

Was there any concept whatsoever of a divine decree from a

01:15:08

A personal god In manichaeanism. Well, no there isn't there wasn't but we need to document that lay that out

01:15:18

And there's a lot of people out there that are really wondering about the relationship of the manichaean god light

01:15:30

And going to the bathroom There's a lot of people that are really just sitting there going. I want to hear how all this relates

01:15:38

And who are the elect in manichaean And aren't you calvinists just the exact same thing?

01:15:45

as the manichaean elect were Because I mean it's all the same thing right because you're manichaean christians.

01:15:50

That's so ken wilson says you're a manichaean christian It's his own words. I'm just holding him to what he said.

01:15:55

That's all You know, he put it in print I didn't And someone sent me just recently um

01:16:04

I'm, not sure they said to me if they post it someplace, but um someone Arguing on the net saying and of course you calvinists are just simply manichaeans anyways, and so It's it's running around out there and so Let's get it all laid out on the table and then we'll be happy happy To debate the subject in person the way it's supposed to be done

01:16:31

So please stop saying that's not going to happen. So with that We will i'm not

01:16:38

Probably tomorrow should be the same time as today. I think Uh about the only way you can work it out.

01:16:44

Um, yeah, and then we'll take wednesday off and we'll be Back into it probably on thursday.

01:16:51

So that's the schedule right now Which could change at the drop of that As it frequently does well, thanks for listening.