REFORMCON2016 | Live Stream | Q&A w/ White, Durbin, Samson

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because it goes to this. And this is an endeavor that, if you talk to Jeff, how this all came about is really an amazing thing.

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But the island of Kauai, as of about 2013, you had a population just shy of about 70 ,000 people.

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And they're on an island that's roughly about 600 square miles, and about 70 % of that island is uninhabited, you know, your population centers are really around the coastline of the island.

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And what we've been tasked with, among many other things, is there's issues with addiction, that you would, you know, we see that here in metropolitan areas, but there it's different because it takes on a different, it's a different animal in the aspect that you have people on an island, and so because of that, it takes on a different,

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I don't know the word I'm looking for, it just takes on a different feel.

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And the studying we've been doing about addiction on the island is, it tends to be more of a, it's more accepted within the family members of people that deal with it.

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My wife and I, Shelly, and she's in the back, we, for the past several years, have been involved in addiction ministry, and when this whole mission came about, it was something that we really felt called to, and so part of our job and the mission is to approach that, and to approach that, obviously, in a biblical manner, and what's interesting, something that comes to mind,

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I was listening to Jeff talk on the video, and part of our training going into Kauai, is we're doing some advanced theological training.

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Right now, we're going through Herman Boebing, and he says something in the second volume, God and Creation, that really stands out to me, and we really,

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I think we talked about this in the last class that we were at, was that Boebing says something about how God reveals himself in creation, and he calls it the theater of God's glory.

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So you, when you're in a place like this, you see creation in such a way that it's just absolutely gorgeous, you know, it's beautiful, but when you then turn around and you look at the culture on the island, you see the fall, and so it's, the

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Reformed church that we know of that was there, it no longer exists, and we were there five, six months ago, and attended that church, it's no longer there anymore, so from our understanding, there's no

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Reformed church on the island, it just, one doesn't exist, so again, I wanna thank you for your service, your money, your time that you've spent here today and this weekend, because it's going to a worthy cause.

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Thank you, Clay, I am Dustin, excuse me, and I have never been to a place so beautiful that was in need of light.

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There's some light, I mean, I met, we met a number of people there who were Christians, we got a lot of information from them, and one in particular, we were at a shop, and everybody asked, everybody's super friendly, you can walk up to anybody on the street and just start talking to them, and they will want to talk to you back, and I'm talking to the three people working in there, and one of them's saying that, oh, it's great, you know, planting a church, that's awesome, you know, good luck, they see a lot of churches come and a lot of churches go, and I asked them, well, are there churches around here?

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She's like, yeah, there's churches around here, there's the big church, I can't remember, but the kids, you know, kids all love it, it's basically a circus to entertain the children, and then the adults go and ask for forgiveness for the week of sin they had just lived on Sunday, and then they live the next week exactly the same.

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So, I don't know, social club or something, those are there. I did hear of other good,

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I don't even know how to define that correctly, good churches. I'll say there's good churches, there's good people, and I've been to Liberia, Africa, Nairobi, and Kenya, and Haiti, and in Liberia, in the jungles of Yekepa, I led a team of dirt bikers with strapped boxes of shoes at the back of the bikes and rode into the jungle and delivered these shoes to these villages, and mostly we delivered them to pastors, to local church plants.

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We gave them to the pastors so they could minister to their flock, they could take care of their people and their needs, but there were churches everywhere.

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In Haiti, prior to the earthquake, voodoo is huge on the island, and what they would do when they built their homes, they put their voodoo dolls in the foundations of their homes, so when the earthquake hit and their homes came tumbling down, their gods came tumbling down, and now

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Christianity is on the rise, actually, in Haiti. I went there,

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I can't remember how many times, and there's an orphanage there that my old church had adopted, and right on the other side of the wall of this orphanage,

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I can't believe it was actually there, was a voodoo temple, and there are children in here, and children are watching, so bad stuff in this building, and after the earthquake, it was then abandoned.

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That voodoo temple is now a church. Praise God, that's awesome.

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We couldn't believe what we were hearing. There were pews in there, I helped rebuild some of them, but it's now a church.

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Christianity's on the rise, and then we go to Kauai, and like Claudia said, we're in the theater of God, and then you turn around, and it's just a bunch of blind people walking around.

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They can't see where they live. They can't see God clearly.

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Romans says they're without excuse, and we were looking forward and scared to how hard this is gonna be, to pull blinders off, or try, by the grace of God.

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Part of my family's ministry, my wife is degreed and has certification in homeschooling, and so we're gonna start homeschooling programs, curriculum for either moms or dads that come from all over the island to come and get resources or drop kids off.

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We're gonna do something, but we're gonna educate the youth in biblically -based knowledge, a reason to have knowledge.

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I'm about to start preaching. Okay, sorry. But we wanna do that.

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That's the important part, and we think within a generation, we will have that island. The youth will know how to think, think logically, think coherently, have reasons, and they'll know

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Christ. They'll know the reason for the sunset. They'll know the reason for the sunrise and beautiful, clear waters.

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So, again, I wanna thank you, too, for coming, being here. I hope you guys are being edified and learning a lot from all these different brilliant minds we have here up until now and through the rest of this weekend, and thank you for every dime you spend out there, because it does, it goes towards this church plant.

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It's a great help to us. Thank you very much. John, Dr.

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White, can you guys come on up and take a seat? There you go, sir.

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So, we're gonna have an eschatology round table. Yeah. Wake me up when you're done.

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All right, so, Pastor Luke is gonna roam around with a microphone, and at some point, we'll turn it over to you guys to be able to ask questions, but for now,

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I will keep these guys in the hot seat, and we'll just talk a bit about Reformed theology.

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Sound good? Microphone's working? Well, it's not on my head, so it's working quite well, actually.

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So, again, thank you guys for staying for the whole day.

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I know that it's a lot of work to hang out and to listen to this many messages, and we wanted to make it something you guys would enjoy, and I hope you guys have, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow and Saturday, as well.

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I wanted to talk about Reformed theology in terms of practical stuff, the why, okay?

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So, oftentimes, Calvinists can be caricatured as very heady, in love with knowledge, you know, and then oftentimes, you might have people who are

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Reformed or Calvinists, they identify as that, and they might be kind of haughty and prideful. We get that label sometimes.

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You see that especially on the internet, and so I want to talk to you guys about the practical why of Reformed theology.

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Is it just something that you need to hold together in your head because there are these abstract ideas and propositions out there, or is this the stuff that meets us in the real world?

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Why is Reformed theology so important? Well, I'm gonna be doing that a lot, just.

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Oh, no, I hope not. I think you have a lot of insights to offer to us, but sometime in 19,

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I think it was 1990, we had what we called the Ministry of, I think it was

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Black Monday, or is it Tuesday? It was a bad day, whether it was a

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Monday or a Tuesday. We lost, I think, 75 % of our very limited funding in one day, and I needed to find a job.

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We didn't shut the ministry down, but I needed to find something to feed the family and insurance and stuff like that, and the

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Lord worked it out to where I ended up as a hospital chaplain at what was then called

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Thunderbird Samaritan Hospital, now Thunderbird, Banner Thunderbird, or whatever it is. You know, you got gobbled up.

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Anyway, and one of my jobs as one of the two staff chaplains was to do a law support group on Sunday afternoons.

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I had never done anything like this in my life. I'm a Scotsman. You don't walk into people's sick rooms and be happy.

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You don't walk into people's rooms and just, hi, my name is, tell me about yourself.

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That was just not something I had ever done, and it was the most difficult work

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I'd ever done. I would rather debate 12 Muslims in a mosque, 12 Muslim debaters than have 500

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Muslims in a mosque, than what I did during those years that I was at Thunderbird. It was very, very difficult, and especially the law support group was,

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I was only supposed to do it every other week. I ended up doing 48 of the first 52 weeks for various reasons, and I had never been in a situation where I had to deal with life and death all the time.

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The very first night I was there, there was a code, a death, in the monitoring wing, and I was left this man whose wife just passed away, and he was not a believer, and he had no hope at all, and every book that I picked up that talked about how to deal with this situation was based upon bad theology.

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It was based upon a view of God that, you know, he was out there, but he really didn't have anything to do.

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He did not have a decree. He was just sort of, he was managing going from one crisis to another crisis, is the

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God perspective that was there, and I couldn't find anything at that time anyways that gave me any direction as to how in the world

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I was to deal with someone who would look at me and say why in this situation. Now, of course,

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I did learn that in the hospital, very often the best thing you can do is simply hug someone. Words are very frequently not overly helpful at that particular point in time, but I was tortured as to what in the world

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I was going to do because my theology forbade me from saying to someone, no,

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God had nothing to do with the death of your loved one, but at the same time, it's not a Christian hospital, so what do you do with the absolutely hopeless situations where you have a wife whose husband, a 32 -year -old husband, they finally get their house, they're finally getting ahead, and he drops dead mowing the lawn on a

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Sunday afternoon. And she's just, she has no hope.

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It's done, it's over, it's gone. She's built her house on the sand, and the storm came, and great has been its fall.

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Of course, I did see situations where there were wonderful believers who had walked with the Lord for years and years, and the testimony they had to the staff with their patience and their love and their confidence and the forgiveness of God was just incredible.

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So there was both ends, but the point is that how you handled life and death situations, how you handled funerals, how you handled cancer, how you handled,

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I mean, I got to the point where I could just, I could see death coming on someone. You just learned there was a smell, there was a look.

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It was a formative time for me, and I was forced to really recognize how central, you have to have a foundation to stand on, and if you don't have a foundation of recognizing that God is

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God and we are not, all you were left with were all the various theories and programs of man.

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You did not really have any type of hope to be able to offer to somebody. So that's when

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I discovered that this Reformed stuff was not just something you can argue with, well, the internet wasn't around at that point in time, but something you could just argue with the people at church or something like that.

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It has tremendous implications in all of life, and in death, and how you deal with death.

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And so, no, it's not just abstract ideas. It comes home, and it impacts how you live, how you die, how you deal with those who are dying.

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It impacts how you do church, and what church is supposed to be all about, and all of life.

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So if you don't see it that way, then you still have what I call the chicken coop mentality of Christianity, where you have your doctrine of God over here, and your doctrine of salvation, and your doctrine of life down here, and they all exist separate from one another, and you never bring them close enough to see that they're actually consistent or how they would inform one another.

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And unfortunately, there's a lot of people living with that kind of a theology. I'd just add of what

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I know about James is something unusual, and that is that one of your best -selling books, if not the best -selling book,

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I wouldn't second, is a book on grief. And the people that know of you because of your insights on textual criticism and defense of the faith would find it hard to believe you're the same person who wrote a book on grief, and yet you have.

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I think the only thing I would add to that is I talked about my journey out of the wacky word of faith movement, and I look back with so much regret.

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The people under my ministry, under my pastoral care were taught how to be healed, but not how to die.

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And many times, although we did see a good measure of healing, we also saw a lot of people who died as well.

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And looking back, I realize I prepared the family for the activity of God that would be the blessing of healing, but didn't really have anything.

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It's so shallow. That's what the word of faith is. It's so shallow at the time of the grieving.

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I remember some of the people, I looked into their eyes, and I realized my theology was of no help to them looking back.

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Nothing at all was of any substance. And I have deep regret over that, and that's why in God opening my eyes to see his big, huge sovereignty over all things, it is our comfort in the times of tragedy and loss, and that God has a purpose and a plan.

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And I look back with a lot of regret, and now, just with all my heart, wanna see

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God use my life to at least do something different, spread the truth of God as who he is,

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God as he really is, and the gospel as it really is, because that is our comfort in life and death.

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So, Dr. White, you have someone that holds to an Arminian perspective, and you have a

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Calvinist walk into a room. And they walk into a room.

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At least they didn't walk into a bar. Yeah, yeah, okay, so I'm shifting it a bit to make it easy. They walk into a room, and there's a tragedy, okay?

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It is a room full of family crying. There's a tragedy right in front of them. Just so everyone can get a feel for how important this is, and that it's beyond the doctrines of grace, it's beyond TULIP, what's the difference between the two perspectives?

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What does the Arminian pastor say? What does the, or even say, like a

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Molinist, an open theist, you know, versus the Calvinist? Give me some perspectives here.

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What do we say in that room that's different? Why is this so important? Well, in that particular situation, we may not say much differently, only because we end up not saying much at all.

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It's more, because you need to understand, the initial shock of loss lasts a lot longer than our society thinks that it does.

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We think you give somebody two weeks off, and all is well. That's normally when the shock begins to wear off, and the depth of real grief starts hitting at three to six months.

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And so, it's three to six months down the road, basically, is what you're really dealing with at that point.

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The three to six months down the road where they're coming to you, and their future seems to be dark to them.

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They cannot see purpose in serving others, and rejoicing, and so on and so forth.

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That's where you're gonna start having a difference in how you respond to the questions that are being asked.

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There are people that, for example, experience great anger toward God in the loss of a loved one, and they're afraid to express that.

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And if you speak to someone, if you speak to a minister who believes that God has a sovereign decree, and that he has a right to deal with his creatures as he sees fit, and that that's right, and that it's good, and that we need to recognize that we are creatures, and that our days were written in his book before we ever took our first breath, and that he has the right to deal with his creation as he sees fit, and that he needs to be worshiped as that God, and not, when

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I encounter someone, just a slight side trail here,

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I remember years ago, back when I had lots of hair and big glasses, before that amazing music we heard today, this is the 1980s, this lady from what was called the

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Kino Institute here in Phoenix, Roman Catholic Institute, had an assignment in a master's level class to interview a fundamentalist.

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I don't know if they expected to find us in a zoo or just what, but somehow she found me, and she comes in, and I start explaining to her what

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I believe, and I was reformed already at that point in time, and the ghastly look on her face, and she said to me,

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I could never worship a God like that. And my response to her was, that's exactly right.

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Until God changes your heart, you will never worship him in truth. And she was just totally offended.

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When I encounter someone who has a visceral response against the idea that they are a creature, and God is

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God, then I know that I'm gonna be dealing with a person who is truly in need of hearing the message of the gospel and the message of who they are and who

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God truly is. And I can't change hearts. So in that situation,

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I do want to point to the blessed inconsistency. In that situation, I saw men whose theology was not really good giving proper answers because they were

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Christians, and therefore, even though on paper, they would have said

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X, they didn't see that the comfort they were giving, which was appropriate comfort, based on the goodness of God and the sovereignty of God, wasn't consistent with their theology, but they did it anyways.

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So many people like Whitfield have pointed out that, you know, what's the old saying?

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Preach like an Arminian and pray like a Calvinist or something along those lines. I forget exactly what it was, but the point being that very often, our practice is better than our theology.

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And the hope that we offer, they're really not consistent in following through on that theologically speaking, but as a true follower of Christ, they give the right answer.

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But in answer to your question, it's whether God truly has a purpose that calls us to trust in Him, or whether we will put

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God in the position of having to answer our demands. And that's really where we start meeting,

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I think, the heart of God is when we learn to trust Him when we don't have the answers for all the whys.

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We need to recognize we are so much smaller than God. We know so little, we don't see the whole picture.

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We have just this little teeny slice of information. And on that basis, we stand up and we judge God and we question

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His goodness and we question His power. It's foolishness, it truly is foolishness.

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But thankfully, many of my Arminian friends are inconsistent at that point.

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They counsel and give hope like a Calvinist, and then in their theology, don't see the connection between it.

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You've mentioned a bunch of times the decree of God. And I think a lot of times we hear those words, we get into the

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Calvinist ghetto and we catch the lingo, we're supposed to say sovereignty, we're supposed to say providence, we say decree, we say total depravity and those sorts of things, but we may not really understand what we mean by decree of God.

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You bring it up a lot, because it's a really, really important foundational thing. So what do we mean when we say the decree of God?

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Yeah, some people even say there is no such thing in Scripture. Job chapter 23 verse 13,

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Job says that his God is a God, he is unique, no one can change him.

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He has many decrees with him, and he specifically says, and he has them concerning me.

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Job understood that God had a purpose that he was accomplishing and he was under no obligation.

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Well, his eventual conclusion is that he's under no obligation to reveal those things to him.

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You simply can't read Isaiah, you can't make heads or tails out of the theology of the

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Scripture unless you recognize that when the Scripture says God is with the first and the last, he is accomplishing his purpose, his entire argument for the fact that he's the true

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God and his other idols are not, is his ability not only to tell you what the future is going to be, but to tell you what the past was and why the past was the way that it was.

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You either have to postulate a God who's learning all this stuff, which is not the God of the

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Bible, or recognize that he is accomplishing his purpose, which is what he says over and over again.

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John mentioned all the texts, he went through almost all of them, Daniel chapter four, and the texts in the

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Psalms, and over and over again, God's statement that I am accomplishing my purpose.

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I love Psalm 33, I'm not sure, I think you quoted from Psalm 33. I got into a little

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Twitter war with the Evangelical Armenians on Twitter over the weekend, and I even said to them,

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I said, Psalm 33 is just such a glorious refutation of what you're saying, because there in the

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Psalm, you read, man plans this, and man intends to do this, and the very next verse is, but God's plans are gonna be established, and God's intentions are gonna happen, and man's are frustrated,

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God does away with them. The idea that God is the one responding to us, and that it's our decrees that are gonna determine what

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God does is just completely opposite of the God of Scripture. And so, we do use those terms, because they're biblical terms, and I think of people who recognize that we are creatures,

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I mean, I think this is absolutely key to Christian apologetics in our culture today. What we're seeing in this moral revolution is the assertion of the autonomy of the human being that is filling the vacuum created by the fact that we no longer have a creator.

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This next generation is the first generation that has been thoroughly secularized, and so there is no creator, there is no longer the leftover restraint of the

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Judeo -Christian worldview, and so now, hey, if a grandfather gold medal winner wants to all of a sudden decide that he's not a male anymore, but is a female, not only is that cool, but hey, let's use the power of government to penalize anyone that would disagree with him.

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What kind of a worldview does that come from? It is a worldview that could not have existed as long as people viewed themselves as being made in the image of God, as being creatures.

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It is a creator -less worldview, but you need to realize that creator -less worldview is nihilistic, it's a black hole.

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There is no meaning, there is no purpose. You can't come up with anything in there. As you say, we're stardust bumping into other stardust, so these are things you all have heard many times before, but you can see that, again,

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I think on an apologetic level, the reality of Reformed theology is the only consistent

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Christian perspective. I don't see the Armenian synergistic, apologetic, being able to provide a full -orbed worldview to respond to what's going on in the secularization of our society.

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I just don't see that they can do that. I know amongst Roman Catholics that it's only the

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Reformed response to Rome that has really any power, because we have the concept of atonement, a finished atonement.

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Very often, the Armenian is totally compromised in dealing with Roman Catholic, because they have collapsed on many of the very same issues that were the very issues of the

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Reformation itself. And so, again, it's the beauty of the consistency of the

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Christian worldview, but that Christian worldview is based upon a God who, when I say

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He's sovereign, I don't mean that in the ridiculously facile way of saying, well,

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He's sovereign enough to give man his own choice. Some people say, well, why is that wrong?

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Well, think about what it's saying. He's sovereign enough to cease being sovereign.

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Sovereignty, define it as kingly freedom. So, He's free enough to stop being free and to make creatures the ones that are gonna determine what happens in time.

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Think through what that ends up meaning. How does God know what man's going to do? When God created, then

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God learns. Are you really comfortable with the idea of a God who learns?

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And many people today are, but that's because they have not been constantly under the impression of Psalm or the

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Psalter or Isaiah 40 and 41 and those tremendous texts. Who has ever counseled

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God? The nations are but a dust in the scales, and they don't have that vision of God.

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And so, they're willing to go, yeah, I'm more comfortable with a God who would give me the freedom to be me, that type of a thing.

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It's, anyway, I'm talking too much, I'm sorry. And poor John is just not. Actually, I got one for John.

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You wrote a book, 12 Whatabouts. You try to deal with a lot of the common objections to doctrines of grace, sovereignty of God, those sorts of things.

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And it's an excellent, excellent work, and it's easy, and it's not massive. And so, I think it's accessible to a lot of people.

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The issue of the atonement becomes a point of contention between the typical modern evangelical in the

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West and the Reformed Christian. The atonement, it's just a given that we have a free will, and it's just a given that Jesus died for everybody's sins equally, the whole world, everybody, from beginning to end,

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Jesus died for all, meaning every single person. And so, when you say something like, no,

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Jesus' atonement was effective, it accomplished what was intended, and it was for an elect people.

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John, why is that so important to hang on to? Why is that something that we should be willing to live and die for, definite redemption, limited atonement?

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We're speaking here of the effectiveness of the cross, and what was in the mind of God when he sent

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Jesus to the cross before all eternity, before the foundation of the world, it says he was the lamb slain, what was in God's mind?

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Was it to make salvation possible for everyone, but not actually by itself save anyone?

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That's the one choice. Or was it to actually accomplish salvation for the people to whom the sacrifice was made?

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And one of the key words in our New Testament is propitiation, and the ramifications of that are extraordinary in the sense that if Jesus actually did propitiate sin, remove wrath for people, and it was all people, then why are they who reject

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Christ still under the wrath of God if he has removed the wrath of God?

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Does that make sense? Why would there be anyone in hell under punishment if Jesus had borne their punishment?

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And the Arminian says, well, it's because it's only means by which he makes people savable by his death.

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He doesn't actually propitiate unless man cooperates and says yes to the call of the gospel.

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And so you've got man in the mix that makes the propitiation actual.

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Or you've got a Jesus who actually propitiates, removes wrath, and that is the biblical picture.

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He is the propitiation for our sins, 1 John 2. He actually removed wrath.

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Going back to what was asked before, I think just if I could speak as a pastor about those kind of issues,

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I was just in the break talking to a couple of guys who come from the East Coast, Colin and Brian, and they were asking certain questions about providence and how tragedy occurs, what you say, what you say when a baby is born and dies, and what does the scripture say.

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And I think we can go to where scripture speaks and then where it doesn't speak say, you know what,

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I don't know the answer. And I gave an illustration I hadn't come up with before. I said, if someone were to come to me and say, your wife,

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Linda, do you know what she was doing on March the 8th between the hours of four and 7 p .m.?

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I might say no. For those three hours, I have no idea where she was.

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I don't follow her around with some sort of video surveillance. I don't know where she was, but I'm not concerned about that.

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I haven't even had a waking, any anxiety about that because I know her character.

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And she being true to her character would not be robbing a bank at that time or doing other things that are unthinkable because it would not be true to her character.

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And because I don't know where she was in those hours, it doesn't cause me any fret or anxiety because I know her character.

37:42

And in the same way, if you can make that an illustration, there are many things we don't know.

37:48

And Deuteronomy 29, 29 is a verse that I think we need to take on board that says the secret things belong to the

37:55

Lord our God. The things revealed belong to us. I'm not responsible for the secret things because they're secrets.

38:02

God says that's mine to give or not give in terms of the knowledge of certain things.

38:08

But I am responsible for the things that he has revealed. And what I know about Linda causes me to trust her and trust what is true about her because of the character she is.

38:20

And so it is with the truth of God. When we don't understand and God hasn't revealed why certain things are taking place, we know that there are reasons, but they're known only to him.

38:30

But what we do know about the character of God allows us to trust him for what we don't know. To follow up on the atonement question,

38:39

I think it's vitally important to see how you view the atonement. The vast majority of people who object to limited atonement actually aren't objecting to limited atonement, they're objecting to unconditional election.

38:51

Because if God has elected a particular people for salvation, the idea of making perfect provision for all of man, the idea that the atonement would have a different goal than the actual triune

39:05

God's salvific intention doesn't make any sense. There's consistency there. But the dangerous thing in the synergistic systems is that once you deny that there are a specific elect people, once you, for example, do what

39:20

Norman Geisler does, where you no longer have elect individuals, you have a nameless, faceless group called the elect.

39:28

All God has chosen to do is to save people by faith in Christ.

39:34

So that's a completely different thing than to say that there is a specific people that God has foreknown, that he has chosen to enter into relationship with, that the elect are an actual people.

39:45

Once you make that statement, once you have depersonalized the elect into a nameless, faceless group, of necessity the atonement becomes impersonal.

39:57

The intimate connection that is biblical between the union of the elect with Christ so that his death is their death, his burial is their burial, his resurrection is their resurrection, that's broken, that's lost.

40:13

And so you end up with, well, no, no, it's not lost, it's just that as long as you do these things, then

40:20

Christ died for you, but he also died for all sorts of other people that will never experience these things.

40:27

And so that personal element that is so precious in scripture of the union of the elect with Christ, being in Christ, is lost.

40:40

And so you asked, why is it so important to continue to hold that, especially when so many people find it so reprehensible.

40:47

I remember an older lady coming up to me in the hallway at a church in Wandsworth, London, and I had just preached, or maybe just done a debate,

41:00

I forget which one it was. I think it was a debate, I had debated with a Muslim. And she comes up to me and says, I really appreciated so much what you had to say, but I just want to make sure, you don't believe in limited atonement, do you?

41:12

Yeah, you could just tell that she was just scared to death that I might be one of them, you know?

41:21

And there's a temptation to dodge things like that.

41:27

You can't, it's vitally, vitally important, it's absolutely central to hold to that, to continue to hold the highest biblical view of the atonement itself.

41:37

And on both sides of the aisle, in the Arminian and Calvinist aisles, both limit the atonement.

41:45

Oh, of course. One in its scope, the other in its power. And so we, unless you are a universalist and believe that everybody will be saved,

41:54

Christ's work on the cross is limited. It doesn't save everybody, right?

42:05

Thank you. There's one person still awake over there. There you go. I think that was your wife, actually.

42:14

Okay, so let's get ready for audience questions. I'm not sure where the microphone is at right now, but we'll do audience questions.

42:21

But let me, as we get there, I think actually Luke is outside, someone needs to notify him.

42:28

But let's just do a quick blitz here. People watching right now, live stream. I actually found this out, guys.

42:35

I have a lot, a lot of people who follow our ministry and are using the tools and resources that we have up.

42:44

And even my friends on Facebook that are Arminian. And so I realized last year,

42:50

I like just dropped a random post and it was very Calvinistic. And I had just, whoosh. I was like, ooh.

42:56

So you did something on your atonement. Yeah, recently, yeah. It keeps popping back up to the top of my Facebook feed. I really don't appreciate it.

43:02

That's right, I will confess, I am doing my very best to influence these thousands of new friends

43:07

I have with the truth. And so people might be watching right now that are friends of mine and new.

43:14

And so I'd like to have you guys just give quick little answers to some of the big ones as Pastor Luke gets around with that microphone.

43:20

By the way, raise your hand if you wanna ask a question and Luke will get the mic over to you right now. Just pop it up and he'll get to you.

43:26

So Dr. White, the problem with Calvinism is that if it were true, it would absolutely and utterly destroy evangelism.

43:36

Let's get to the popular ones. It would absolutely, utterly destroy evangelism. Of course, we continue on.

43:42

No, I can't do that. Wait, don't do that, no, no, no. That's not what we're trying to do here. Yes, I understand.

43:49

No, I remember years ago I did an entire series called Responses to Common Objections. That's the very first one you have to deal with.

43:56

And it's based upon the assumption that you do evangelism out of ignorance.

44:04

In other words, you just go out there, you just throw the seed out there, and if God has an elect people, then why in the world would you bother to evangelize?

44:13

Well, because God uses means. And he has commanded us, first of all, since we're redeemed people, he makes us new creatures, and therefore we long to express to others what we ourselves have found in the salvation of Jesus Christ.

44:29

And then he uses us as the means by which he then proclaims that message to other people.

44:35

The elect are drawn through the word and the spirit, and that word is proclaimed by the church.

44:44

And so we have this tremendous privilege to be able to go out and be used of God as the means by which he communicates his truth to his people.

44:52

And we can go out and do so, and we can proclaim the gospel, and we do not have to engage in all of the silliness that we see in our land today where you try to trick people into doing what's right or trick people into becoming

45:04

Christians. We can simply proclaim the gospel, trusting in the sovereign power of the spirit of God who raised

45:09

Jesus from the dead to also raise his elect people out of spiritual death through the application of the gospel to them.

45:16

And it's something we rejoice in doing. The idea that destroys evangelism is based upon the idea that A, we don't do what

45:26

God commands us to do, and B, that God doesn't use means. So I would actually turn that objection around and say, well, if you recognize that man is dead in sin, then if you actually embrace a meaningful biblical understanding of man, you're the one that's gonna have a problem evangelizing because you no longer believe.

45:48

If man's dead in sin, you're basically walking through a graveyard going, anybody who wants the cure, just reach out of the grave and get it.

45:56

It doesn't make any sense. You need to recognize that God's power must come first.

46:02

And of course, that raises the issue. I'm going too long here, but that raises the issue of the nature of saving faith and regeneration and things like that.

46:08

But it's just based upon a complete misunderstanding of how God brings about salvation in the first place.

46:13

He uses means, and we get to be the blessed means by which that takes place. I just add that I remember in my own journey coming to understand these things, seeing

46:22

Jesus being thrilled about election. It challenged me to the core because I thought,

46:29

I got a problem with this, and Jesus is thrilled about it. Matthew 11, at that time,

46:36

Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.

46:44

That's activity on God's part, hiding something and revealing something.

46:51

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my

46:58

Father. No one knows the Son except the Father. No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the

47:04

Son chooses to reveal him. What's the next line? Come to me, all.

47:13

That sounds like evangelism. That's the universal call of the gospel. Come to me, all.

47:19

You just said that your Father in heaven is thrilled. Well, actually, you're thrilled.

47:25

You're thrilled that he hides truth from some and reveals it to others, and in the same breath,

47:32

I remember, haven't we all heard this? Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Come to me, all who are, but the context is

47:39

Jesus being thrilled about divine election, hiding some truth from others, revealing, hiding truth from some, revealing it to others, and in the same breath says, come to me, all, and when

47:51

I see Jesus saying this, it makes me think, you know, it wasn't Mr. Calvin who invented this. It's actually our

47:58

Lord and Savior. Amen, all right, before I ask another question, I'll let the audience participate.

48:04

Uh -oh. Gentlemen, thank you all for what you're doing, putting this on, and for all the helpful information that you had.

48:12

In the context of everything that we're talking about and emphasizing, could you all please address? Excuse me? Yes, speaker privilege.

48:20

I want you all to see the questioner. If you have been blessed by the work we have done in Islam, the young gentleman with the microphone was extremely important in setting up the very first debate

48:36

I ever did with Shabir Ali at Biola in 2006. That's what resulted in all this stuff, so if you watched all those debates in the mosques and everything else, blame him.

48:52

Thank you, guys, it's kind of you. Something that I wrestled with a lot in the past, and as we're talking about emphasizing that reformed theology is the gospel, could you all please speak to the issue of our

49:04

Arminian brothers and sisters who deny reformed theology? If reformed theology is the gospel, are they therefore denying the gospel?

49:13

Can you speak to whether or not Arminians can potentially be saved, and if so, how, if they're denying reformed theology?

49:19

Thank you, guys. Well, you know, this is a big question, and this goes with what

49:25

I was talking about this morning in regards to, you know, the hyper -Calvinist says no. Hyper -Calvinists are very, well, again, there might be exception here, there, everywhere, but theological perfectionism and things like that.

49:38

How do I hold together the fact that I do firmly believe that reformed theology is biblical theology, it's the biblical gospel, it's vitally important for the church, and the fact that I believe that I have brothers who firmly disagree with me, and even at times, knowledgably disagree with me, and yet,

49:59

I believe that they're saved. Well, first of all, I have not been a Calvinist my entire Christian life. You may say, well, but it's the natural progression, but I believe

50:09

God chose the time in my life when he brought me to an understanding of these things, and it wasn't before then.

50:16

I can't shove these truths down someone's throat. There needs to be an opening of the understanding to truly recognize the interrelationship of divine truths, but the fact of the matter is,

50:29

I do believe that the ultimate end of taking Arminianism to its conclusion will be a very man -centered false gospel, but I am so thankful that many of my

50:42

Arminian brothers don't do that. I call it the blessed inconsistency. I believe they're inconsistent in their understanding.

50:51

I know men who will affirm salvation by grace alone, through faith alone.

50:57

They believe that the Bible is the word of God. They don't see that they're being inconsistent in their anthropology or their doctrine of God.

51:09

They haven't thought through how God knows what he knows. Very often, they have been introduced to faith by people who warn them against that terrible thing,

51:17

Calvinism, and so they really can't give it a fair hearing, and so they change what they think

51:24

I'm saying into something that it's not really what I'm saying in the first place, and so I recognize that all of those things are true, and so we need to be careful in trying to make a perfect understanding of every aspect of theology, the standard of defining the gospel itself.

51:48

For the health of the church, we want to be constantly pushing to be as consistent as we possibly can to go deep into the things of God, but if that's the only way you can be saved is to have that level of theological knowledge, how many of us can really be overly confident of our salvation even to this day?

52:06

We need to be very, very careful that we do not confuse the fact that the gospel saves, and then a person who's been truly saved by that gospel wants to understand it fully and come into a fuller knowledge of it.

52:20

How many of us, when we were saved, had a full understanding of what the doctrine of the Trinity was in relationship to Father, Son, and Spirit?

52:26

In fact, I think a bunch of people in here were probably saved as incipient modalists. You probably didn't even really understand what the relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit was.

52:35

In fact, scarily enough, we might have some modalists amongst us this day if I were to give you a quiz on the doctrine of the

52:41

Trinity. Do I think that modalism leads you to a false

52:46

God? Yes, but there's a difference between being a modalist of ignorance and a modalist of conviction.

52:53

If you know what the doctrine of the Trinity is and you reject it in favor of modalism, that's a bad thing.

53:00

If you don't even know what I'm talking about when I say modalism, well, that's a totally different issue. Now, does that mean you should go, and I think

53:07

I'm gonna stay ignorant of this issue, okay? That's a bad thing. You wanna know what it is, you wanna know what to avoid, you wanna be pleasing to God, and you want to be willing to be subject to the

53:16

Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture. When a person rebels against those things, that's a problem.

53:22

If any of you heard the unbelievable radio broadcast I was on in London, it aired last Saturday. Two of the people who called in with questions would be an excellent example of people who clearly are not under the authority of the

53:36

Word of God. They want to change what the teaching of the Word of God is to match their particular perspectives.

53:43

That's a real problem. But the idea of ignorance, we have to leave that as an option out there, and I think many of my

53:54

Arminian brethren are simply ignorant of the inconsistencies that are theirs, and when you push on them, sometimes they become

54:01

Calvinists and sometimes they don't. But I'm not kicking anybody out of the kingdom of God. I can't, that's up to God.

54:09

I'm going to proclaim what the truth is, I'm going to try to live that out in my life, and you know what's interesting to me, folks?

54:16

Let me just word a warning here. Everybody knows that I have a dear brother in the

54:22

Lord named Michael Brown. There's probably people in this room that are right now going, yeah, that's one of your blind spots, and I've had

54:29

Calvinists say that. Okay. You've never prayed with him. You've never debated anti -Trinitarians together with him and finished each other's thoughts and words.

54:41

But the fact of the matter is that just recently, I did something that probably has closed a number of reformed doors for me, but I was invited to speak at his church and his school, and those students, knowing full well that I am a full -blooded, five -point

54:59

Calvinist, embraced me, loved me. I was not put under any restrictions as to what

55:06

I could say, how I could answer questions, and they listened openly. And you know what?

55:12

I think I probably have some type of an influence upon them. I would rather go in there and have the differences wide open than to sweep them under the rug or to just stay in our little reformed enclave and look over at them over there like, oh, those nastier minions over there.

55:31

I think the Potter's Freedom has created a lot of Calvinists. I know churches that exist today because of the

55:37

Potter's Freedom. Well, what was behind that book? Engagement, respectful engagement, not shutting the doors and pulling the blinds down and go, oh, no, there's a

55:47

Arminian walking by outside. We need to be careful. We've got to watch the attitude that we have there.

55:52

I think we really do. I'm sitting on the very edge of my seat, aren't I? You are on the very edge of your seat. I've got nothing to add.

56:01

I think that was awesome. Next question. Who has a mic? There you go.

56:07

Hey, Dr. White. I've listened to several of your debates with the Arminians and Dr.

56:13

Flowers last year. I notice one of the things they commonly do is assert that you have

56:18

Calvinistic presuppositions, and they never acknowledge the fact that they have a presupposition of autonomous, libertarian, free will.

56:30

I was just wondering, I never hear them actually give scriptural support for this position. What would be their position in scripture to come to this position?

56:40

Thank you. Please be an Arminian for a moment. Okay, I'll try to. Fundamentally, the argument is that it is necessary for man to be autonomous, to understand the texts of scripture that appeal to man to make decisions, and so choose you this day whom you will serve, or the text about, well, if God hadn't done such and so, then somebody would have done such and so.

57:05

These are the common objections that are raised by that kind of an

57:10

Arminian who is saying the only way that it's possible for these things to be true is if man has an autonomous choice.

57:18

If God has a decree, then it renders these statements of scripture to be empty.

57:24

So you could actually listen to an exact argument from that perspective. Again, from the

57:30

Unbelievable Radio programs, I did two programs in London a few weeks ago, and the first was a debate, sort of a redoing of a debate that I did in 2001 with Dr.

57:40

John Sanders, who's an open theist. And open theists are big on the autonomy of man and defending the autonomy, because that's their whole theology is based upon protecting the autonomy of man.

57:52

And you'll hear as John Sanders goes through the text that he thinks supports his position exactly how they focus upon man and man's abilities.

58:05

We have to reason from that upward, therefore, to how God relates to man.

58:11

Obviously, and I believe it was in your presentation, I think you were quoting someone who was basically stating exactly this.

58:19

Maybe it was in your breakout session. But the reformed understanding is you must start with the creator and what he's revealed about himself and then move down from that to his creation.

58:34

If you start with the creature and use him as the lens through which you determine what the creator's like, you're always gonna have massive distortion as a result.

58:43

And so I've said it many times, they object to it, but I think that it's quite true. One is a theocentric position.

58:50

You start with God as the center. The other is anthropocentric. You start with man and you reason outward to God.

58:57

And so that's really where they start from is the scripture presents man as making these kinds of decisions.

59:06

Therefore, God must be limited in these ways rather than starting with who God is and seeing the drama of redemption being played out in time and what you see in Genesis 50 and Isaiah 10 and Acts 4 in regards to the relationship of God's decree and man's responsibility in time.

59:26

All right, another question? Who's got the mic? I do. Sounds like a marriage ceremony.

59:38

In 2005, when you were debating John Dominic Croson, actually, I'm kidding, that's a joke.

59:44

Oh, yeah. Yeah, if any of you, okay, this is, okay. He wants his moment of fame.

59:51

I'm gonna have to give it to him. No, no, I can explain it. Or he's gonna be insufferable if you watch the video of my debate with John Dominic Croson in Seattle, there is this point toward thankfully the end of the debate where all of a sudden the lights start fading.

01:00:06

They start disappearing. And we're all just like, what's going on? What's going on?

01:00:12

And the gentleman with the microphone was in attendance and he decided to lean up against the wall behind him in the hotel, not realizing that the light panel was on the wall behind him.

01:00:25

And inadvertently, during the course of the debate with world -renowned scholar John Dominic Croson, he turned the lights off.

01:00:32

No, they didn't go all the way off. So, as he's making reference to, he just wanted you all to know that so you could maybe go up to him afterwards, ask for an autograph from his shoulder blade, something like that, something along those lines.

01:00:45

I'm sorry I referenced it. Please don't do that. Yeah, you should be sorry you referenced it, yes. He's not just famous, he's infamous.

01:00:52

He's infamous, yeah, he's not famous. I actually, I have a question. Sure you do. I do.

01:00:57

It's on what's commonly called New Calvinism. And it's,

01:01:04

I guess the better question would be how does covenant theology inform our understanding of God's decree and Calvinism?

01:01:14

And you can tie it to what's called New Calvinism, which is a belief in the soteriology of Calvinism without any of the other more traditional aspects of reform theology, like confessionalism or covenantalism.

01:01:32

You see what I'm saying? So how would confessionalism and covenantalism influence our understanding of God's decree and the doctrines of grace?

01:01:40

Would you speak to their importance or their non -importance if that's what you think? Ha ha ha ha.

01:01:49

You've got a microphone in your hand there, John. It's not working. It's not working, right? Ha ha ha ha.

01:01:58

I will confess, I'm not 100 % certain what the question is. I don't know what

01:02:04

New Calvinism is. I don't know how to define that. And I have spoken many times in the past to the idea that if you isolate reform soteriology from the rest of the reform faith, you end up with a caricature of it.

01:02:23

In other words, I think it was, yeah, I was actually going to someplace back east.

01:02:30

I was scheduled to go and speak on the topic five points are not enough right before 9 -11 for you young folks.

01:02:39

That was 2001. And we had to move it back because literally

01:02:44

I couldn't fly. Remember, they locked down the airports for a long period of time and then flying after that has never been as fun as it was beforehand,

01:02:50

I can assure you of that. But anyway, and I've given that talk a couple of times. The five points is not enough because if you really believe in the sovereignty of God so that there is a divine decree, that's going to impact how you view the church and it's going to impact how you view worship.

01:03:07

It's going to impact how you view the purpose of the church and ministry and everything else.

01:03:13

If you believe in the total depravity of man, it's going to impact how you do evangelism.

01:03:18

It's going to impact how you do apologetics, obviously, in all of those things.

01:03:24

And so I think it's an artificial thing that you can actually separate soteriology, the soteriological points from the entirety of what is called reformed theology and the application of these things.

01:03:40

Now, there's room for disagreement. We have disagreement amongst people in this very room. I've done a couple debates on that one topic that we won't mention right now called baptism.

01:03:54

And every time, I was the one responding to the challenge to do it. We can have discussions about those things and exactly how covenant theology is to fit into all those things.

01:04:07

But I can't imagine anyone that I've debated on baptism disagreeing with me that isolating the five points from all the rest of these things would be a good thing or even a possible thing.

01:04:20

I just don't think, you know, the strength of reformed theology is the coherence of the entire theology and worldview.

01:04:27

Chopping up into pieces is just the opposite of what gives rise to the theology in the first place. As I've read a little of Luther and Calvin, Luther was the champion for sola fide, justification by faith alone.

01:04:43

Calvin obviously embraced that. And yet, there was no disconnect between the sovereignty of God and what happened in the church.

01:04:53

And what I read of Calvin informs me that his passion was to see the glory of God in the church, that God would get his church back, that it would be ordered according to his sovereign prescriptive will, that we would gather as God would have us gather under qualified elders, under the sound of the biblical gospel, which obviously included justification by faith alone.

01:05:22

But it had ramifications. And I think what the question is talking about is what happens when there's a disconnect?

01:05:28

Well, the obvious answer is there shouldn't be one. The sovereignty of God, as I've seen it in my own life, is like this huge rock being thrown into the lake of my theology.

01:05:38

And it has ripples. And what I thought would just be this little contained thing of God's sovereignty in divine election became this all -encompassing thing.

01:05:48

Well, if he's sovereign over this, he's sovereign over that, and he's sovereign in his church, and he has the right to ordain the right means of approaching him.

01:05:57

And so I would say that we need to have that lack of disconnect, the connection then between God's sovereignty and every aspect of church life.

01:06:09

All right, let's do one more question. I feel like Dr. White was avoiding this, but just curious what your view on eschatology is.

01:06:21

Is that like a big elephant in the room kind of thing? Is it?

01:06:26

Okay, hang on. Security? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Eternal security?

01:06:32

Funny thing about that is I just denied a request, an eschatological request, and then he asked another one.

01:06:39

Well, look, eschatology is a big subject, and there are elements of eschatology that are extremely important that we all be united on.

01:06:47

Let's recognize that eschatology is not just the millennial schemes. So the issues of heaven and hell, judgment, nature of punishment, there's a real strong conditionalist movement going on today.

01:07:01

I think most ministers are really not prepared to deal with the conditionalist movement and really not prepared to debate it at all.

01:07:12

It's a very, very difficult subject. So there are issues of eschatology, because eschatology is simply the study of last things.

01:07:19

And so the idea of judgment and heaven and the nature of all these things is very, very important.

01:07:27

And unfortunately, normally gets overridden in the thinking of most Christians by, well, the books that John was showing us.

01:07:36

I love PS, that's great, post -written, at the beginning of his talk and stuff like that.

01:07:46

I, again, have friends that don't think that I should, you know, on the one side,

01:07:52

I've got some folks that don't think I should hang out with any dispensational premillennialists.

01:07:58

Look, I was raised a dispensational premillennialist. It's all I knew for a very long period of time. In Bible college,

01:08:05

I was introduced to other perspectives, and as I was learning exegesis, came to the conclusion that the exegesis that I was using to substantiate my dispensational premillennialism was inconsistent with the exegesis that I used to defend the deity of Christ or anything else.

01:08:22

And so, personally, I'm an all -millennialist. Jeff's a post -millennialist, and John says he believes whatever

01:08:32

I tell him to believe. So, that's what he said.

01:08:39

Didn't you all hear him say that? I heard him say that, so. You know, there's room to discuss these things, and it does have an impact,

01:08:48

I think. So, it needs to be a discussion, it takes place. But the reason that I'm infamous, if we're gonna use a term for trying to avoid it, is because the reality is

01:08:58

I have seen so much unnecessary division and so much emotionalism, and of all subjects, it seems to be the one that, for some reason, people bring the most emotional tradition to the subject.

01:09:13

And so, I just, the Lord just has not placed upon my heart to make that an issue where I'm gonna try to fight through the battle.

01:09:23

So, I leave it to others who seemingly have far more interest in pursuing those things than I do.

01:09:29

I wanna say something to that. No, really, this, I think, is important. So, it's interesting, when you look at, say, there's a larger difference between, say, like post -mill, all -mill, and then premill.

01:09:44

Significant things come up that make it kind of a combat situation at times, and difficult. For me,

01:09:50

I wanna be as gracious in this area as I am in any area. I mean, even if I think that I'm right,

01:09:55

I have to understand that any truth is truth God gave. And so, I don't think it's anything anyone should ever be arrogant about in any area, or try to wound one another, or separate on this issue.

01:10:06

I just don't think it should be something you divide over, as strongly as I feel about things. But, what's interesting about, like, say, post -mill, all -mill, a lot of reform guys, post -mill, all -mill, kind of like a theme, in terms of eschatology, you see that.

01:10:20

What's interesting about even that distinction is that it didn't used to be that blown -apart distinction, all -mill, post -mill, as a massive distinction.

01:10:30

But, what's interesting about, say, in the case of myself and Dr. White, all -mill, post -mill distinction, for me, we believe the same thing about Christ as king.

01:10:41

For me, we believe the same thing about Christ bringing His kingdom on time. We believe the same thing about Christ ruling and reigning as Lord of lords,

01:10:49

King of kings. And, as far as I'm concerned, someone like Dr. White lives and breathes like a post -millennialist.

01:10:56

So, I could care less about having that discussion. No, I mean, really, you have, think about it for a moment, now, it's not such a blown -apart distinction, where there are these vast, difficult things to talk about.

01:11:10

In reality, what's the substance? Jesus is king. He brought His kingdom. He is reigning.

01:11:16

He gets all glory. He has all authority. And, Dr. White doesn't live like a pessimist. He's fighting constantly.

01:11:24

So, there might be some places where I go, we need to have a talk, and I think we need to look at, because these things impact us.

01:11:30

Dr. White's on the street. Dr. White's in debates. And so, to my mind, it's just not an issue that needs to be brought up, unless he wants to buy me dinner.

01:11:37

We can talk about it over dinner or something. So, in that kind of case, the distinction between post -millennialism is insignificant.

01:11:47

Some guys call themselves optimistic amillennialists as they stop pretending you're post -mill. Just admit it.

01:11:54

No, really, the distinction. I'm not an optimistic amillennialist.

01:12:00

No, who's the guy? Who's the professor? He's really solid. I can't even think of his name right now.

01:12:06

Is it Guy Prentice -Waters, or somebody, some reformed seminary, and he refers himself as an optimistic amill, and so, sometimes you won't even know the difference.

01:12:15

That's because it sounds terrible to say you're a pessimistic amillennialist. Pessimistic amillennialist.

01:12:21

So, what I. That's Eeyore's eschatology. So, what I mean is, sometimes, you won't even know the difference.

01:12:29

It won't matter, and I don't think it does really matter. What matters to me, personally, in this discussion is what you actually do in the world, in the real world, because that's what really matters.

01:12:41

Are you out fighting for the faith? Are you out being obedient? Are you out preaching the gospel, making disciples?

01:12:46

That's what matters. That's the substance of what matters in the eschatological discussion, and that matters more, almost more than a lot of times what you say, because what are you doing in the world?

01:12:56

Are you being faithful? And you've got a guy, real fast. Dr. White and I did a little film about when

01:13:03

SCOTUS said gay mirage, and we did a thing with Dr.

01:13:09

White, myself, and Dr. Michael Brown. Dr. Michael Brown is premill, amill, postmill.

01:13:15

It was a. Non -dispensation. Yeah, he's, yeah. So, it was a beautiful situation, pre, post, ah.

01:13:20

It was awesome, and. Ah. Yeah, awesome. But here's an interesting thing.

01:13:27

Dr. White, I think, is wrong in how he views the kingdom and everything else coming later, so there are areas of him that are wrong.

01:13:35

You realize it's two under one right here, you know. So, you're, okay.

01:13:44

But. What did you just say? I'm ah. He said, I'm ah. Ah. Someone said, are you a, pre, or post, and the other reaction was, that's a, pre, post, preposterous question.

01:14:02

A preposterous question. John is full of those all the time. But, what's interesting is in that little video we did, it's online, just go to Apologia Studios, you can watch that video.

01:14:13

I think it was very informative, it just blessed me. But you have someone like Dr. Michael Brown, who's premillennial, and he fights.

01:14:22

No, but he, I've told him many times, and he bristles when I do this. I've told him many times, you're a postie, what are you talking about?

01:14:30

Right. Yeah, he's, no, no, you're talking like one. Yes, yes.

01:14:37

That's what I love about him, is that he lives, and breeds, and fights in the world, like a rabid postmillennialist.

01:14:42

And so, in that case, something I'd wanna have a conversation with him, maybe as a brother, over a meal, but it's not necessarily something

01:14:50

I'd wanna. Anymore, that's gonna be rabbit food, trust me. Yeah. Not something I would wanna fight, and separate over.

01:14:57

It's just, it's not worth it. And so, yeah, that's my own personal perspective on it. Do you guys have a good time?

01:15:04

Blessed? Praise God. So, we are actually, check it out, like I think we said six o 'clock, five minutes early, right?

01:15:10

So, we're gonna end now, we're gonna pray. Before you pack up and leave, there is a plan for people to get together at Boulders on Broadway.

01:15:18

If you are headed there, to Boulders on Broadway, to eat, and to fellowship, would you guys gather in the back, with carpools, if you have rides, if you guys are renting cars, and you have a way to get there.

01:15:30

There are people here that would like to go that do need rides. So, if you would, just kind of gather back there, if you have cars, and carpool situations, just to connect with people, so no one gets left behind.

01:15:40

I'm gonna go ahead and pray, and we will see you. Left behind. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Okay. Always happens with John.

01:15:51

Always. That's what foster is. Yeah, so we're gonna pray right now, and just thank God for all he's done. Thank you,

01:15:57

Father, so much for our fellowship. Thank you for the unity of the faith, for all you've done today,

01:16:04

God, to bless us, Lord, with pleasure in you, delight, and love for you and one another.

01:16:10

Thank you, God, for the teaching. Thank you, God, for these men who have sacrificed so much to be here, to speak, and to teach, and time away from families, and God, we're just grateful.

01:16:20

We're grateful for you, most of all, in giving Christ to us. Lord Jesus, we worship you.

01:16:27

We thank you, Lord, that you have brought us to you, that you have saved us, and you've given everything for us.

01:16:34

Thank you so much, and God, thank you, Lord, that you will continue what you've started in our lives, God, and we give you all the glory for it.