Upcoming Debate, Yes, Christ Is King, And Motivation And Action

Greetings and welcome to the Dividing Line. I said on X yesterday, I said, I've come to conclusion that it would be best not to interact with Dinesh D'Souza, primarily because it's a monetary thing when your account's monetized and accounts that have a large number of followers interact with yours.

I guess you get more money and stuff like that. I don't know how it works. Mine's not monetized. I'm not against that. I just don't think it's right for me. Anyway, and also because it just seems that the absurdities are getting much more extreme.

Dinesh D'Souza's Upcoming Debate and Criticism of Calvinism

And I think the reason for the absurdities getting more extreme is fairly obvious. There is a debate coming up on the 10th, I believe. Well, there is a discussion. Whether it's gonna be a debate or not, I don't know.

I think TGT is doing it. And I hope that it's moderated. I hope that it's even time, thesis, proper cross-examination format. I hope it's not gonna be any kind of free-for-all that sometimes happens and that would be bad.

But Dr. Bignon, who again, is a very nice man. I don't know that he's a forceful enough man for this debate because I just have a feeling I know how things gonna go. But it seems obvious to me that D'Souza is doing some reading.

Now, what is he reading? Reading reform sources? No. I predicted this. Once you have made your bed, so to speak, once you have taken your stand out of utter ignorance, complete, total, I haven't read anything.

I don't read Luther. I don't read Calvin. I don't read Turets. And I don't read Boving. I don't read Machen. I don't read Hodge. I don't read Warfield. I don't read anybody. I refuse to read original sources.

It takes too long. They're too scholarly. I can't read Greek. I can't read German. I can't follow any of this stuff. Anyways, once you've made your decision based upon abject ignorance, then you're going to use the sources that will play to your ignorance.

And there's plenty of those. I mean, my library, I've got dozens of these George Bryson level, Vance level, Peter Ruckman level insanities. And so you're going to, that's what you're going to be going to look for.

That's what you're going to be using. And so the absurdity just gets worse and worse and worse and worse as time passes by. And so the things he's saying now, again, are just beyond, I mean, there are people, I mean, look at this.

Fred Sanders, I know Fred Sanders. Fred Sanders wrote a book on the Trinity. I think he's pretty close to Biola, as I recall. He says, I'm not reformed, but if I were going to be, it would be to get as far as possible, as fast as possible away from certain kinds of really bad anti-Calvinism.

That's great, that is absolutely spot on. Bingo, right on the nose there. The people that are watching this, that are not committed to some kind of radical Calvinist derangement syndrome, are watching this and going, what is going on?

The level of argumentation. I mean, D'Souza comes out and says, Calvinism's an attack on the Reformation. You're just like, okay, zero credibility left. I mean, it's gone, it is just nuked. And I responded to that, and he did make a comment about my response, but I'm just like, Luther's over there screaming, I said it was my best book, and he did.

Luther thought his, On the Bondage of the Will was the best book he wrote, and that was the first written debate of the Reformation. And in that book, and I've quoted this in my books, but D'Souza doesn't read books.

He reads summaries of books that he wants to sort of steal from, I guess. That's what I'm discovering, anyways. It's sad, I had such a higher view when this all started, but that has been destroyed. Luther himself said to Erasmus, you of all my opponents have put your finger on the central point, the hinge upon which it all turns.

He's talking about the Reformation, and what was it? The will of man, the fallen will of man. And D'Souza's going, it's an attack on the Reformation. Okay, so we now know that D'Souza doesn't know anything about the Reformation, church history, theology, or anything else.

We still don't know what he actually believes. That's gonna be another really challenging thing for Dr. Mignon. What does this man believe? I mean, I predict that if you take the opening statement of D'Souza, and then the final comments he makes, there'll probably be a shift between the two.

I mean, seriously, a ship without a rudder, you know, no anchor, no foundation. It's amazing, but a lot of people, a lot of people online are starting to realize this, and there you go. So anyways, yeah, there was something else.

I wasn't gonna, let me see if I can pull this up real quick. Um, there was, I almost, I almost responded to this. Yeah, there it is. Okay, um, this was seven hours ago. So, you know, this morning sometime, or I don't know.

Brian Salve of Refuge Church in Ogden. There is only one way to feminism-proof your church. Now, they have a book on the long house, or feminism, or something coming up. It's, it's one of their big things.

There is only one way to feminism-proof your church. It's not affirming the confession. It's not expository preaching. It's not great liturgy. You must routinely blaspheme the gods of egalitarianism out loud, and obviously, you must make yourself a stink to feminists.

That's the whole tweet, the whole text post. And, you know, the first thought that crossed my mind was when Paul met with the Ephesian elders when he was on his way to Jerusalem, Acts chapter one. And I've, I've preached on that text.

I've done studies on that text. I, for some reason, I remember so clearly getting to open that text to the students in the school that I was teaching at in Zurich, Switzerland, and to encourage them to think about what Paul said there.

What Paul said is I am innocent of the blood of all men. Why? Because I did not shrink back from declaring to you the full counsel of God. Now, does the full counsel of God include the godly roles of men and women?

Yes. And how do you proclaim the full counsel of God? You preach the entirety of scripture, what God has revealed to us. It's not having conferences that this man is gonna be speaking at where you're charging 250 bucks to come and listen to a complete insane man by name of Alex Jones or Alex Stein, another completely insane man.

Look, guys, if you think that someone like Alex Jones has the answers to this country, you have just demonstrated better than I could ever hope the reality of what Christless nationalism is all about.

Because Alex Jones is not the hope of America. Alex Jones is one of the problems of America. And asking people to pay money, I mean, maybe this is what they're doing. Maybe they're gonna get everybody to come and then afterwards go, see, that guy is crazy.

And you paid money to come hear him. Maybe that's what it's all about. I've seen crazier stuff happen pretty much anytime you listen to Alex Jones open his mouth. But hey, my understanding is that Joel Webben did a yelling, screaming, profanity-filled, not from him, but everybody else, debate between his side and the MAGA side or, I don't know.

I do not know, and I do not care. Webben is a politician now. He needs to just go be a politician, quit pretending at the Christian stuff. Just put it aside. It served its purpose for you. Got you where you need to go.

Let it go now. But evidently he's sitting there near Alex Jones with a gun in his waistband. Says something about, I always carry when I'm debating Zionists or something like that. And I don't know how much crazier it can get until you just have to go, I can't believe this is really happening.

This is so insane. It's just like, I don't know. But yeah, it was that same Joel Webben who said to me last week, made a comment about, we should just do more conferences on the solos. And that'll solve everything.

And given his collapse with Robinson, and what I see coming with this group, and then of course, Dale, I'm an Anglican today, Partridge, which is still just so absurd that all the Anglicans are sitting around going, what?

“Christ Is King” Conferences and Political Platforming

When you look at what's going on in this motley crew of the new Christian right, why call it Christian? Why call it Christian? What is Christian about it? What's Christian about Alex Jones? What's Christian about Alex Stein?

What's Christian about that Harrison or Henderson or whatever, Harrison Smith or whatever it is? What's Christian about these people? I have no earthly idea. I mean, more than sufficient video documentation has been provided to help you understand who these people are and what they're about.

So Webben puts up a video. I have it here someplace, but I'm not gonna pull it up right now. Clearly they're being impacted by the posting of this stuff from Jones and Stein and stuff like that. And they've heard, I've said it, and I'll say it again.

You wanna have a political get together? If your politics line up with Alex Jones, which I'm sorry, I don't know how that's possible, but okay. You wanna do politics, do politics. Just take the title off.

It is a mockery to Christ and to his kingship to have Alex Jones standing under a banner that says Christ is king. And so Webben sticks a phone in front of his face and records a response. Clearly they're getting hit.

Any Christian with a conscience that has some recognition of the Bible's word of God is going, yeah, this is starting to look weird. I think I need to cancel that. And so he gives us this pious, wonderful explanation.

He says, yes, this is a political conference. Well, we could tell that. So are we gonna change the name? No, because Christ is king. Christ is even king when I tie my shoes. Well, yeah, okay, that makes perfect sense.

What does it have to do with you charging people 250 bucks to come listen to a pagan? Not just a pagan, an insane pagan, a complete nutball who talks to space aliens under Christ is king. Your recognition that Christ is king when you tie your shoes has something to do with this?

I mean, the guy has completely lost touch with reality. When I think of where we all were in 2020, 2019, 2020, I know what all these guys would have said if somebody else did what they are doing now. Every single one of them to a man would have been, you've got to be kidding me.

No, you don't sit there and say Christ is king and then platform people who plainly not only don't believe that, but who plainly promote the exact opposite. No, you don't do that. That's hypocrisy on steroids.

And now they're doing it. That's what happens when you decide you're going to be platform building. And that's how you determine what, that God's blessing. God's blessing us. We're rebuilding the nation right here.

It's going to be, well, for some people, white and delightsome, but we're getting it done. And you're building your platform. And now you're going to stand on that platform with those blasphemers under the title of Christ is king, which in case you don't understand this, empties the phrase of its meaning, that's really the problem.

I mean, you would think you wouldn't have to explain that to people, but we do now, we do now. It's astonishing. It really, really is astonishing. So first of all, I am very proud of myself that finally, now, whether this is going to stick after we shut the computer down, I'm not certain.

I'm glad you moved the thing back there. That reflection on P1 was bugging me. I kept seeing it in the monitor there. And it might've been just, you didn't mean to do that. You just stuck it there and it didn't reflect this time.

I don't know. Anyway. But I remembered to change the colors on the fonts on the Old Testament display of accordance after all this time. I mean, we've been in this studio in its various manifestations.

And if you like the studio, I like the studio the way it is. I like the blue. I like the background. But here's the problem. By the way, let me throw this out, by the way. I have not put together my end of the year trip.

See, look at that. Isn't that pretty? I haven't put together my sort of toward end of the year trip. I want to do a road trip after the debate with Craig Trulia. So it could start as early as like the last week of October into early November, that time period there.

And I'd like to go north before the real end of the year until frigid stuff hits. But I'm thinking about trying to get hold of old Mutato and seeing if we could head up that direction. But let me throw that out there because sometimes it's the best way to do it.

If you're Northern Colorado up into Nebraska, South Dakota area, that realm of the upper Midwest, and you'd be interested in putting something together before Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, get in touch because I'd like to put that together.

Not looking for debates or anything like that. I mean, that sometimes works out, but you know, have RV and we'll travel. So throw that out there. We've had people like write to friends and churches in areas and go, hey, James White just said, get in touch.

And to my friends who drove all the way to Denver to hear me preach, I haven't heard from you yet from St. Joseph, Missouri. Want to throw that in there. If y 'all are still out there, they may have heard me preach and decide, well, that was enough of that.

Not gonna bother with that again. That's possible.

Wouldn't put it beyond me. Why? Now the thing they need to remember is you're telling them to contact us, but roadtrip. Roadtrip at AOMN .org.

At AOMN .org. So send your email in there. Send an email to roadtrip at AOMN .org and mention that you heard me talking about this. So we know you're talking about this timeframe. So, you know, October, say 23rd through November 15th, something along those lines.

So that it gets forwarded and we can put that stuff together. So yeah, let's put something together. I think that would be great. Anyways, okay. So we've got the colors all right. I'm not, I think the blue on the septuagint I'll need to change.

You know, it doesn't look too bad. It's definitely readable, but this is more readable. The Hebrew is more readable than the Greek is. It's almost like the Greek, I don't know, that color sort of fuzzes a little bit.

See, but it doesn't there. Isn't that weird? It's nice and tight in that one,.

But the other one. None of that has to do with the angle of the camera. I can't do a square on flat shot of the screen or it reflects all kinds of wild things. So I have to kind of have an angle.

Yeah, well, anyway, it's readable. I mean, if I can read it from here, then it's definitely readable for those who would want to be looking at it. So why do I have this text up here? Okay, in commenting on various of the weird D'Souza-esque comments, and man, has he brought the CDS sufferers, Calvinist Arrangement Syndrome sufferers out.

God's Decreed Will and His Revealed Will

They are just storming social media right now. In looking at what was scrolling through my feed and stuff like that, I ran across someone, because I had mentioned Joseph and his brothers. D'Souza made some absurd comment about, I'm having real fun with the Calvinist idea of two wills and God, a schizophrenic God.

Again, any serious person, and Dinesh D'Souza is not a serious person. That is what we have discovered very clearly, would have some hesitation to make that kind of statement given his ignorance of historical theology and the fact that almost every aspect of the Christian faith has had to, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and all the different permutations that you can put into there.

I mean, there's differences between Dominicans and Franciscans and all the rest of that stuff within Roman Catholicism. Remember, Molinism developed within Roman Catholicism as a response to the Reformation.

The issue of God's declared will, that is his, in the law, he says, this is my will for how human beings are to exist. Okay, and then you have his decretive will, that is the element of his decree. So the most obvious example of this is God's revealed will is you shall not murder.

You shall not kill. They're not necessarily the same thing, but. And then as a part of his decree, you have the death of Christ. You have the Israelites going into Canaan and wiping out the Canaanites.

And this is part of the discussion of God's knowledge of future events. And this is the thing that is so frustrating about trying to deal with someone like D'Souza. He doesn't tell us what he actually believes.

He doesn't give us a positive theology. It's sort of like dealing with provisionism. Their positive theology, and when I say positive theology, theology proper, doctrine of God. Okay, so there is a doctrine, there is a reformed doctrine of God.

You can read Stephen Sharnock's The Existence and Attributes of God. And okay, there's a good Puritan example of a positive theology proper, all right? So Trinitarian, it gets into how God has knowledge of future events, the relationship between the decree.

And he says, all the things that they want to take potshots at, but they never have to answer the questions for themselves. They don't put a positive statement out there that says, this is what I believe.

Here's my position. And I'm going to allow my position to be examined on the very same basis as I am examining your position. So that's when serious conversation takes place. You know, the best debates that I've ever done were with men who didn't play games.

And so you're able to apply the same standards to one side, that's the only way for you to really know which side is telling you the truth and which side is being consistent in their position. So when I debated Abdullah Kunda, no one questioned what Abdullah's position was.

It was, he made it very, very clear. And, you know, Mishpakwa, he wasn't trying to demur and hide things. And that's what makes those debates very useful because both sides state their case and you can then apply the same standard to both sides.

But that's not going to happen with D'Souza because he has not given us a theology proper or any type of confessional perspective or nothing like that at all. It's just not there. So that's going to, I think, very much limit the value of the debate unless he surprises all of us and comes out and says, here's my standard, here's where I'm coming from, which I just don't think is going to happen.

Genesis 50, Compatibilism, and the Problem of Divine Decree

And so anyway, in talking about compatibilism, in talking about Genesis 50 and Isaiah 10 and Acts 4, someone posted a link that basically said, if you want to know what Genesis 50 is about, listen to this.

And it was a 12 minute video posted by Leighton Flowers about two years ago. I had never seen it. And so I look at it and it reminds me of, and I need to find this, I have it somewhere. I don't remember when it took place and now that Unbelievable isn't on the air anymore, I'm not sure how easy it is to access old files, which is a shame because I was on it so many times.

But my recollection was that it was on Unbelievable. It might've been on some other place. That Leighton Flowers was on with Chris Date and Genesis 50 came up. And I just found Flowers' attempt to deal with Genesis 50 to be utterly fallacious in its nature.

And so I've never felt like there needed to be anything more said about that. But so I look at this video, like I said, it just popped up in my feed in the D'Souza stuff. I think, what's today, Tuesday, probably toward the end of last week.

And I'm listening and of course he mentions me. I wonder what percentage of his videos mentioned me. It's a massive percentage. If I didn't exist, I don't know that he'd have anything to do. But it was an interesting enough argument that I thought, you know what?

Let's deal with this. Cause I'm sure he's been telling her, he's never responded, blah, blah, blah. Let's deal with this. And then let's use it as a sort of a training exercise. Let's present the argument.

Unfortunately, I put together a little presentation that outlined it and left it on my home computer and didn't put it in either of the two areas that would automatically upload it so I could have access to it here.

Hate when that happens, but I'm certainly not driving all the way back home just to grab something like that. So I will, I do have, I'm not gonna play the 12 minute video. And one of the hard things about dealing with Leighton Flowers is he's never concise.

Trying to put his arguments, trying to take a video of his and isolating a concise statement of the argument is next to impossible. So there you go. So I'm not gonna try to play that. But I will do my best to present it.

Basically, I actually needed to change this over here. See if I can, yeah. Basically, he says, look, I agree that the event was predestined by God, but the motivations of the brothers could not have been predestined by God.

And the reason the motivations of the brothers could not be predestined by God could not be a part of a divine decree. And as far as I can tell, I don't believe Leighton Flowers has any coherent definition of divine decree.

I don't think there is a divine decree. It certainly is not the decree that forms the very fabric of time. It may be sort of a general basic outline of, well, I'm gonna create man and I'm gonna make the possibility of redemption possible.

See, again, there is, I don't think there is as yet, I don't think there ever will be a coherent theology proper from provisionism. When pressed, I think they just borrow ours. But that can't work because that raises the issues of God's knowledge and how God has knowledge.

And I just don't think their perspectives on an autonomous human will, that's why Flowers can jump into a conversation with an open theist or with a Molinist. Open theism and Molinism are about as far apart as you can get.

They're joined by their detestation of Calvinism and divine determinism and the decree, but Molinism literally says that God micromanages every single tiny little detail in one particular world based on middle knowledge, which is outside of his control, to get the best he can get given the cards he's been dealt.

But it's micromanaged, which is the exact opposite of open theism. I mean, Molinism said God knows exactly what every person's gonna do based upon this magical middle knowledge. And open theism says, no, he doesn't.

So when you can jump to the one and jump to the other and go out and have coffee afterwards, there's no coherence there whatsoever. So there is no coherent provisionist theology proper, especially when it comes to the issue of the knowledge of God, the decree of God, things like that.

So with that said, the idea is that the motivations of Joseph's brother, so we're talking about Genesis 50. We're talking about the act that is mentioned in Genesis 50. So remember what happens. Joseph has died.

I mean, Jacob has died and Joseph's brothers all figure, okay, we're toast now. This guy's the second most powerful man in Egypt. Now that dad's dead and buried, we will be next. He is probably going to lower us into some sort of pit where we get eaten by something that came out of the mummy, I don't know.

They figure they're toast. And so they come to Joseph and they're quaking and shivering and Joseph cries. He says, am I in the place of God? Joseph developed a theology proper over time. Joseph started in that pit and then with the Ishmaelite traitors, the Midianites, and then in Potiphar's house and then in the prison.

And he had a lot of time to be asking God, what did I do? What's going on here? What's your purpose here? And being able to ask the question, what's your purpose sort of assumes that there is one. And the Bible assumes that there is a purpose in all of these things.

Though modern man doesn't necessarily assume that at all. So anyway, Joseph, this is when Joseph said, he did not minimize their sin. He did not say, oh, it wasn't sinful of you to sell me into slavery.

It wasn't sinful of you to take my coat of many colors and dip it in animal blood and show it to our father so that he grieved me for years and you all just stood there knowing that I was alive. He didn't say, oh, that wasn't a sin.

Don't worry about that. Instead, he put that sin into the context of God's sovereign rulership over the events of man. And he said, you intended it for evil. God intended it for good. And to save many people alive today.

Now, it's easy to like get theoretical and say, well, yeah, we've got this one event and for whatever his purposes were, God wanted to get Joseph into Egypt because, I mean, he saved many people alive and Joseph is the one that interprets the dream and they store up the food and yeah, it's important.

That's how Israel gets into Egypt and that's what leads to their slavery. But then that's what leads to the Passover and the Exodus and the conquering of the promised land and all the stuff that comes out of that and all the display when Yahweh demonstrates his supremacy over all the gods of Egypt.

That's what the plagues were about. He's destroying the gods of Egypt. And as Paul expresses it in Romans chapter nine, he demonstrates his power to make his justice known. Something that very few systems of theology are concerned about at all.

At all. Anyway, yeah, that one event, okay, we can make an exception for that one event. God made sure that that would happen. Okay. But let's think about something. Well, let me finish before we do that.

Here's the latent flower's argument, all right? The latent flower's argument is, 1 John 2 .16 says, for all that is in the world, the lust of flesh and lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And the world is passing away, and also it's lust, but the one who does the will of God abides forever. And I'm just sort of sitting here waiting for you to go, huh? What's that about? Well, it has to do with motivations.

And no, the context doesn't really change that. Context is, do not love the world or the things in the world, but if anyone loves the world, love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of flesh and lust of the eyes and boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And so what he does, he says, well, look, the desires of the brothers, they were from the world. That was the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, boastful pride of life. It was actually hatred of your brother.

That's not really what this is about, but okay, if you just want to take the general idea is that sinful desires, such as the lust of flesh and lust of the eyes is not from the Father, but is from the world, here's the argument.

Then the motivations that they had did not come from God. Only the resultant action was certain from God's plan to get Joseph into Egypt in that particular way. So there is a division made between the action and the motivation.

And the idea is motivation came solely from them, but then God used that to accomplish his purpose. But it was just this one type of instance, this special instance, because Joseph needs to get to Egypt and needs to be in position of power and save many people alive.

And this is how God chose to do it. And so there you go. Now, here's immediately, okay, having read this, our audience is sitting there going, but wait a minute. There is an assumption being made here.

What this is talking about is the distinction between love of the Father and love of the world. It's talking about the contrast between the spiritual life and the earthly life focused upon the things of the world.

And yeah, when it says these things are not from the Father, it's not talking about God's decree. It's not talking about when God created, God created, not just knowing that there would be evil, God knew there would be a fall.

In fact, the fall was part of his purpose. And basically, what you do is you smuggle your conclusion into one of your premises. And that way, that's how you get your argument. And Leighton does that all the time.

This is where, if you remember, this is where he used the cops and the sting thing. The cops try to get you to, they set up a sting to get you to do something illegal. They don't force you to do it, but they use your desires to do it.

That's sort of what's going, it's an analogy thing. Remember, he doesn't do exegesis, he does analogy stuff. And he responded to that, but the fact of the matter is, that's exactly what he does. And it's very, very clear here too.

This isn't a sting, okay? And Genesis 50, actually Genesis 37, was not a sting. I mean, if that's what he's really suggesting, then here's the problem. What if in their free, autonomous will that he believes so firmly in, they decide not to do what they did?

And Joseph doesn't go to Egypt. What now? What now, hero? How are you gonna save all those lives now? Well, there must be a plan B, and there must be a plan C. And maybe in fact, what happens in Genesis was plan D, and A, B, and C had already failed.

I mean, that's possible too. So you can't have any type of fixed plan on God's part. He's always going from one plan to the next plan, the next plan, oh, there, there, we got that one. Okay, now let's try to get this to work.

And when you think about how complex life is, this is a joke. It's just a joke that God's running around observing man, going, okay, all right, he didn't do it that time. Let's see if we can get him to do it this way.

Okay, oh, but man, now what about that guy over there? He's gonna die. Oh no, oh, that guy died here. I was gonna use him. Can you just see this? And I can just see some of the people going, God is big enough to make it all work out.

Let's not worry about that language in scripture about he does whatever he pleases into heaven and the earth amongst men, not Daniel four, stuff, oh, come on. Psalm 33, he frustrates the plans of the people.

His plans are established, but it's just poetry. Come on. Yeah, that's how it works. But you're looking at this and you're going, but that's not what 1 John is about. This isn't about where the, I mean, we know that the brothers were filled with hate.

And in fact, that's what's found back there. And that's why I was back where I was in Genesis chapter 37. And here, Genesis 37, three. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age.

And he made him a very colored tunic, a coat of many colors, as the King James put it, I think. And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers. And so they hated him and could not speak to him in peace.

Fallen world. Israel loves Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age. Well, you know, you can understand that. Doesn't make it right. So Israel makes an error. Israel sins in essence.

Sin builds upon sin. But evidently the assertion is, and that can't come from God. That was not a part of God's plan. God cannot decree that. Because unless God decrees it, then Israel would never have done that wrong thing, right?

You see the problem? Because what we're going to see here is later on, once they've thrown Joseph in the pit, what are they going to do? They're going to kill him. Well, no, actually they want to kill him even before they throw him in the pit.

But God keeps that from happening through Reuben. And so their desire was already hatred and murder. And God says, nope, not going to happen. Not going to happen. What if it had? Let's take provisionism at its face.

Ask, ask the provisionists. Could the brothers have killed Joseph? Did they have the autonomous will to kill Joseph? Because if the Genesis 50 action of saving many people alive, if what they're saying is, yes, that can be predestined, actions don't take place in a vacuum.

They don't take place in a vacuum. There are all sorts of other things connected to those actions. And so you can't just go, well, yes, they had free will. And yes, God kept them from doing what they wanted to do so that they would do what God wanted them to do.

So the big thing they want to say is, well, the hatred didn't come from God and the fallen state did, unless you're going to say God didn't know that Adam was going to fall. And, you know, maybe again, that's why the only, I've said it many times, the only consistent Arminian is an open theist.

The only consistent provisionist is an open theist. It's the same thing. So they hated him and could not speak to him in peace. And notice the term, shalom. They could not speak to him in shalom, in peace.

And then Joseph has a dream. And, you know, I remember even as a kid, and some of you, the older folks will remember this, but as a kid, I grew up, you know, GRB, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, and we had flannel board.

And I remember telling people about flannel board. You can always tell the old folks in there because they all start smiling, start nodding, oh, flannel board, yeah. Now it's all digital. It's all on a screen, but my mom would spend hours on Saturday night cutting out these figures to put on the flannel board for the Sunday school lessons.

And I remember Joseph's colorful coat and all this stuff and the pit that they threw him in. And, you know, all this, all this kind of stuff is going on here. And I remember the dreams and the sheaves bowing down.

And I'm just a kid. I mean, this was before he moved. I was probably seven. And I just remember thinking to myself, Joseph's a bit of a jerk, you know? I mean, you don't realize how your brothers are gonna take this?

You know, I mean, really? Wow, okay, you're not the wisest guy I've ever heard. And so, you know, bow ourselves down before you to the ground, all the rest of this kind of stuff. And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.