Radio Free Geneva: Stanley/Flowers Concluded, Adam Fannin Refuted

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00:22

I constantly hear people that are Calvinist harp on this. God's offering, God's offering,

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

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Jesus stands outside the tomb of Lazarus, he says, Lazarus, come out, and Lazarus said,

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

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Well, I can talk over your head like that. I know the Hebrew, the Greek, I've done theology, you can tell I know. Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things?

01:21

Um, no. Some new

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

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Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief. A verse like that to him, he wouldn't even sound like it if he were listening to it.

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He wouldn't make any sense to him. A self -righteous, legalistic, deceived jerk. And you need to realize that he's gone from predeterminism, now he's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to.

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

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Leave my book. And now from our underground bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, safe from all those moderate

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

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Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to save for his own eternal glory.

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Yeah, you know, that Steve Tassi thing, every time I... Did he really think he could force me to believe that?

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It's hard to follow, it really is. And yes, we do know that there are a few non -anti -reformed folks at New Orleans.

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We just like the food, just relax, it's okay. Anyway, welcome to Radio Free Geneva.

03:38

On a cold day in Phoenix, I got to wear my thickest, biggest, fluffiest, makes me look like I weigh 500 pounds, coogies today, because it was 41 when

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I got to the office today. Now, some of you back east, like, big deal. You gotta understand something. There are some winters when we hardly ever have a day where the high isn't in the 60s.

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I mean, the average for today is 65. So it's 24 degrees below normal right now.

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And I was just looking at the National Weather Service. They're talking about snow flurries in the northern parts of the valley.

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I'm toward the north, not as far as Rich is. You could end up with snow out there. That'd be pretty cool.

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I don't think we're gonna get it. But 41 degrees for us, with rain and precipitation, all sorts of snow up north, inches of it up in Flagstaff and places like that.

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Yeah, it's a winter storm. And so, oh boy, here comes the...

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And by the way, everyone keeps asking me, you've factored in the Rich Cam to the new situation, right?

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No. Anyway, I want to apologize to those whose ears are currently bleeding.

04:58

One of the buttons on the audio board got bumped in between the last time we were on.

05:04

Bumped? I'm sorry. Let's just say... I ran sound for years. Buttons don't get bumped.

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Well, let's just say... The operators mess up. Poor Tanner on Twitter is...

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He had the headphones on and he had the volume up, waiting for it to start. He's probably waiting in the emergency room right now.

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So I'm really sorry about that, Tanner. Hoping that it doesn't continue.

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Bumped is a technical term for you didn't do the necessary testing beforehand. That's what happens in situations like that.

05:42

But anyways, here we are. We're continuing Radio Free Geneva from the last time because we didn't finish up the

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Stanley Flowers thing. But before we get back to it, I was informed the evening that we did the last program that Leighton Flowers had already responded to it.

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He doesn't realize that that just so feeds into the very meme of what we're always talking about.

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This is his life, man. It's destroying Calvinism. This is what I do, man. 24 hours a day,

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I won't sleep until I've put out a response and it'll be five times longer than the original.

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So I was like, oh, really? Well, that's interesting. Not that I'm ever gonna listen to it.

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So last night, someone posts a...

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I don't know how they did this. One of those GIFs on Twitter that has sound a lot of them don't, but it had sound and it was a part of this response.

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And I tried to bring it up beforehand and my system wouldn't bring up my audio stuff but I've got it up now and I'm gonna have to try to find it and I'm sorry for that.

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I think it was around here. We have this up? ...that people could do every possible contingency ...every

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possible... Okay, he starts off by reviewing the new theme.

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All the clips in a new theme. Wow. Someone has a lot of extra time on their hands.

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I just... ...even Jesus cannot override your unbelief.

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Sounds horrible. I don't want to see a move down the road quick like that.

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Let's see this one. Here it is.

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Whoa, whoa. Now listen to this. It's right at 19 minutes in so I want you to hear the whole thing.

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Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

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He categorically denies middle knowledge? I don't... You believe that...

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James White doesn't believe that God knows every possible thing that people could do? Every possible contingency?

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That seems to me to be lessening the power and knowledge of God not increasing it. I haven't heard that one before.

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That's interesting. Okay, I'm sorry.

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Look, if you're gonna be a one -string banjo you need to at least have something on that string that is relevant.

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And the concept of middle knowledge is not the idea that God knows possibilities.

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Obviously, Professor Flowers has not taken the time to listen to any any of the many programs we've done on Molinism to the two -part

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YouTube series that we did responding to Molinism at a

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Reformed Baptist church right next to Biola in Southern California. We laid all of this out. I've lost track of how many programs we have done where we have played

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William Lane Craig, presenting some type of Molinistic understanding of something. We've walked through it.

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We've talked about natural and free knowledge. We've talked about...

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I've read from... In fact, didn't we have... I'm looking at channel.

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I think we had Turretin on. TurretinFan on to discuss a series of articles he'd written years ago on the subject of middle knowledge and to summarize for us what

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Francis Turretin, the now -dead guy, had written in his

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Institutes of Elenctic Theology long, long ago. We have talked about the grounding objection.

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We have talked about the great card dealer in the sky. We've played the clip from William Lane Craig where he says,

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God's gotta deal with the cards He's been dealt. It's like, I need to find out who the card dealer is because He's in charge.

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Because if God's dealt cards based upon middle knowledge which is placed between the natural and free knowledge of God, which was good enough for theologians up until the

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Reformation and still is, by the way, then that's the guy who's in charge.

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Because if middle knowledge can constrain what God can do See, Leighton Flowers doesn't know what it's about.

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See, this is the imbalance. This is the danger of imbalance. Because when you don't do the rest of the stuff then you end up with this guy

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Oh, it sounds like you're diminishing God's knowledge. It has nothing to do with it at all. It definitely has to do with understanding that middle knowledge constrains the choices that God has based upon what free creatures would do and who determined the characteristics of those free creatures.

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It wasn't God and His divine decree. So, who did? Don't know. We need to find out.

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But that's what Molinistic middle knowledge is all about and clearly, Leighton Flowers has managed to do years now years of anti -Calvinism without even knowing what that's all about.

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Hey, I'm glad Tim Tim Beauchamp is probably going

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Wow, I have exposed a fundamental area of ignorance in Leighton Flowers by putting a certain clip from Steve Tassi.

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Who knew that the Steve Tassi debacle would be used to expose

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Leighton Flowers' lack of meaningful study into the historical ramifications of the development of Molinism and stuff like that.

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Yay. That is just that's precious.

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That's cool. Anyway, let's get back to where we were.

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There was a whole section where they talked about John Lennox's book and I have that on the list. Um Uh Let me just say

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John Lennox is a brilliant guy but not an exegete and not one familiar with the historical issues on this subject either.

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And so it makes sense that Leighton Flowers, who just demonstrated by that criticism that he isn't

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Andy Stanley goes, I'm ignorant, I don't know. Um, so you put all three of them together and it's just no wonder they all like what each other is saying at that particular point in time.

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But there is more that we wanted to get to, so let's go back to the video if we've got that ready to go and pick up with this clip.

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Okay, I didn't hear it. Try it again. It's so clear and when you try to spin out of that, some of the things that you address all the time,

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I just don't know how you do honest ministry. But again, there are men and women who pull it off all the time, so I'm ignorant.

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Now did you catch that? I don't know how you do honest ministry but there are men and women who do it all the time, so I'm ignorant.

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Um, I don't even know how to respond to that. I mean, if you point out the inconsistencies, then you just go, well,

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I said I was ignorant and I said people do it all the time. I just don't know how they can do it consistently because I'm ignorant.

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Okay, um, maybe instead of going on programs with people who agree with you, who criticize

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Reformed Theology, I'm sure there's some people that would sit down. You're not going to do it with me. I'm that terrible, horrible, mean, nasty guy, but there are lots of nice Calvinists out there that you can sit down with and find out how they do it consistently.

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We've already pointed out that you have fundamental misunderstandings of what Reformed Theology is all about that are not going to be corrected by hanging around with Layton Flowers because so does he and refuses to be corrected about it.

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Um, but there's the problem with doing a program like this when you go, hey,

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I don't know, I'm ignorant. Um, and I appreciate the admission that that's the case.

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The only way they would have any freedom. So that whole idea of God's a benevolent God, depends on where you live, depends on how old you are, depends on who you're surrounded with, but for most people in the world who barely get by, who barely have enough to eat, life is not loving.

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And the whole idea that they could even begin to believe that God is love and then to say, oh yeah, but by the way, I know your life has been hell on earth, and hey, there's good news.

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You're going to live forever somewhere and if you think this has been bad, it's going to be worse, but you know what? God's going to receive the glory.

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It would be better if there were no God. But again, maybe I'm missing something.

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Yeah, evidently, clearly missing something in a major way. Um, because I don't see how does your quote unquote free will theism solve any of this?

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Because again, unless you're an open theist, God saw all this coming and God set it up, but it's not to his glory.

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That's the only thing you've fixed, is it's the exact same outcome.

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God has the exact same knowledge and well, but he didn't have any purpose in it.

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He had no intention to glorify himself or anything else in that. So even my suffering,

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I can't take as Christians have taken down through the years, down through the centuries, when

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Christians suffer, they do so with this deep confidence that there is a reason that God is causing all things to work to their good, which is to the glory of God.

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Remember their good and the glory of God are actually the same thing, but their good could include the suffering of disease and an infirm body and persecution.

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I mean, there are Christians I'm going to be preaching at Apologia on the 13th, and I'm going to be preaching out of Hebrews chapter 13, the classic passage on the persecuted church, and we are to consider ourselves bound together with them as if we're in prison with them, and everyone,

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I hope everyone has seen the transcription of one of the recent sermons before his arrest of the pastor in China and his discussion of just the otherworldliness of his perspective that gives him joy in the midst of being separated from his wife and his children and his friends and his family.

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All of that, they consider what they're going through to be glorifying to God.

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That's the most important thing to them. God is being glorified in what

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I am experiencing. And that means the world to them. And here you sit there with Andy Stanley ...

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Better to be an Atheist. Wow! Andy, I wouldn't want to have to answer for that.

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I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't have to answer that. Better to be an Atheist, huh? Just go back to better if there was no

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God. Okay, well, there you go. Stunning.

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I, yeah, okay. We press on. Well, I mean, this gets into theodicy, the problem of evil.

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And I'm sure reaching people that are unsure, just as the things you deal with quite regularly, of people asking,

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Andy, if God's good, why are there so many people suffering? Why is there so much pain? How do you begin to even respond to those kinds of questions?

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To which I could say, hey, you ain't seen nothing yet. Hey, at least you can go get a cup of coffee. Once you die, it's just pain and suffering and torment forever.

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So, that should be the Calvinist answer. Pain and suffering? Are you kidding me? You ain't seen nothing yet.

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Well, wait a minute. How is that the Calvinist answer? Why isn't that your answer? Do you no longer believe in hell?

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There's no eternal punishment? What do you mean? Again, unless you buy into open theism, where God goes, whoa,

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I didn't see that coming, then you're stuck.

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There's no way out of it. How is this an answer to anything?

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How is this an answer to anything? Hold on just one second here.

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Someone who calls himself Luide Molina on Twitter has said that the card dealer is

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God, which is, of course, impossible. Because if God determines the content of middle knowledge, then it's no longer middle knowledge, and it cannot constrain

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God's actions. So, he has a quotation from, evidently, from Molina.

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Through his natural knowledge, God comprehends himself, and in himself he comprehends all the things which exist eminently in him, and thus the free choice of any creature whom he is able to make by his omnipotence.

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Therefore, before any free determination of his will, in virtue of the depth of his natural, i .e.,

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middle knowledge That's not what natural knowledge is. This is switching categories.

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By which he infinitely surpasses each of the things he contains eminently in himself, he sees through to what the free choice of any creature would do by its own innate freedom, given the hypothesis that he should create it in this or that order of things.

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What's an order of things? Does that mean that God decrees to create person X in such a fashion that he is going to act in such a way?

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How does that defend human autonomy? This isn't middle knowledge if it's a result of God's decree.

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And right there, it says that he should create. That's the decree. This isn't middle knowledge anymore.

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This loses the entire ability that Molinists think is the wonderful element of their system that doesn't blame

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God. Because if now God decrees to make someone in such a way that they do such things, what's even the reason of doing this whole exercise?

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It means nothing anymore. For it would be insulting to the depth and perfection of divine knowledge indeed impious and not at all compatible with so great a comprehension of the free choice of each creature, to assert that God is ignorant of what

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I would have done by my freedom of choice if he had created me in some other order of things. Created me?

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That's no longer middle knowledge. God has perfect knowledge of himself and that which he chooses to accomplish or could accomplish or might desire to accomplish, that's not middle knowledge.

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That's not... Explain to me how that has anything to do with how middle knowledge constrains the possible worlds that God could create.

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Because now he can just change it. Because it's a part of his decree. Sorry. If that's

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Molina, then modern Molinists don't know anything about Molina and Molina stuff didn't actually answer the question. So, there you go.

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Just thought I would respond to that. I mean, I don't know. You didn't say who it was, so it's just a graphic.

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Hard to read graphic. But, there you go. Okay, we continue on here.

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And we're fairly close here. For the reprobate, obviously. Now, they wouldn't say that obviously for the elect.

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Yeah, but most people are reprobate, right? Most people never hear the gospel. Yep. Again, most people are reprobate, right?

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We don't know the percentages. We don't know when Christ is going to come. We don't know what percentage of people are going to be saved.

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It promised Abraham as the sand of the sea and the stars of the sky. So, I don't know what the percentage is.

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I mean, the closest you can get is maybe broad way, narrow way. But that's more a discussion of the worldly, easy way of doing things versus the narrow way of the follower of God than it is numbers.

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People try to extrapolate from that and say, well, there's just, you know. But, let's back up from there.

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During from Abraham to Christ, Pastor Stanley, numerically, how many people were sent messengers from God that gave them light that they could follow so as to obtain salvation by faith in Yahweh?

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The Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians. Who received those things?

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Percentage -wise. That might be one reason why Pastor Stanley wants to unhook us from the

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Old Testament. That's not a worry about that. No, it's not good yet.

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Yeah. That might be one of the problems. Yeah, yeah, move on, yeah.

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But they would argue, they would say, I think a Calvinist would say, but we don't know who those people are. Let's throw it into the bucket, mystery bucket again.

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A slight. Right. Mystery bucket, i .e., God has a sovereign decree and God has a prescriptive will.

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And we are held accountable to the prescriptive will, not the sovereign decree. And that's stated for us directly in the sense of the secret things and the things revealed.

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But, and then you'll see the look on Pastor Stanley, it's just incoherent.

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And then, of course, Layton Flowers down there, I've got him! And all of it based upon, we're just not going to listen to their parameters, we're not going to let them do that stuff, even though they've established it biblically and stuff like that.

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Again, to your question, because it's a great question, and I'm pleading ignorance.

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I don't know how I'm pleading ignorance, but I'm going to continue on. All you do, pastoral ministry, children's ministry, student ministry, evangelism, you don't have to do apologetics, because again, you just throw out the gospel and the elect will respond.

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Mmm. Wow. You don't have to do apologetics.

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Which is why Reformed people are known for doing apologetics, but we

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I guess it's just because we like to argue because all you got to do is just throw it out and the elect will respond.

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Well, once again, when you are utterly ignorant of the subject you're addressing, you will make incredibly ignorant statements.

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Why do we do apologetics? Because the elect will be saved, because God ordains the ends as well as the means, and when

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He changes your heart, you want to do what is glorifying to Him, and He commands us to proclaim the gospel, and He commands us to be ready to give an answer for the hope that's within us, yet with gentleness and reverence, and to refute those who contradict those who are leaders in the church.

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And so, when you change someone's heart, they will have a love for the truth, and therefore when the truth is being denied and attacked, then they will desire to give an answer for that truth, not out of fear that the truth is going to somehow disappear or be destroyed or something, but because that truth came from my

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Master, who now owns me and whom I serve. And again, if they would just drop the silliness of Calvinists think they know

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God's divine decree, because we plainly say we don't, if they just drop that and recognize that God gives to us in His prescriptive will

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His commands, evangelize, God commands all men everywhere to repent, do what

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God calls you to do, do justice, love mercy, speak the truth, refute error, expose falsehood, do all of these things to my glory and your good and the good of the church.

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How is that inconsistent? I don't know how you do pastoral ministry. I don't know how you do pastoral ministry.

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I'll be honest with you, you and I have both been in the sick rooms of people with cancer in our churches.

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What do you say to them? Do you say, God saw this coming, but you know what?

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There's no purpose in it. So, you know, you just need to pray that God will make the best come out of this, because He doesn't, but He's going to have to sort of do that on the fly, because He had no purpose in this.

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Didn't see it coming, or yeah, okay, He did see it coming, but it's all just the result of free will choices.

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Well, how can cancer be, you know, sometimes cancer is just cancer. Sometimes people can get cancer walking down the street when a cosmic ray makes it through the atmosphere and all the natural protections and just happens to hit that one particular cell and disrupts the genetics and starts a mutation that results in cancer and you didn't do that?

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So, what do you say? When I'm in that situation, we have the assurance that we may not know in this life why things happen the way they do, but we have the assurance of God that He's working all things together for good, for them that love

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God, for them who are called the elect, according to His purpose, not our purpose.

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And so, there's a theology that lies under that, that these men reject.

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And theology does matter. And it matters in the hospital room. It matters pastorally speaking.

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We have to deal with so much sin and broken relationships and things like that.

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And you just go, well, why would God do that? Stop asking His purposes in His secret decree.

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He's told you I'm not going to tell you. You are held accountable for what the

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Word of God says to you to do. And ultimately, it's going to be to His glory.

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But if you are so foolish as to think that in this life you can stand up on your two little feet and judge what

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God's eternal purposes are, when you are ignorant of 99 .9999999

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% of everything going on around you, well, I don't want to answer for that either.

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Good luck. Might as well say luck to you, because I don't believe in it, but I don't want to be there.

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I don't want to go through that. So we don't have to do apologetics.

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Well, actually, let's tell that to Francis Schaeffer and Greg Bonson and R .C. Sproul and all the rest of us that have been doing this stuff for a long, long time.

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But there is a huge difference between Reformed Apologetics and Non -Reformed

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Apologetics. And we have pointed this out over and over again. We will play the debates of Non -Reformed folks and we'll play the debates of Reformed folks.

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And the difference is stark. It is stark.

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And there's reasons for that. I can't even daydream and imagine what ministry would look like.

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But again, it's just not my context to even try. It's not even my context to even try.

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So why are you on this program? Why are you discussing these things? We don't understand.

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We'd like to understand, but we don't understand. It does not make a lick of sense to us why you're doing this, but you're doing it anyways.

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I'm going to have to find a way to increase the size of the fonts on this thing sometime. It would help.

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...who have questions about theodicy, for example. Why is there evil and suffering? Why is there struggle? And of course, free will is the basis of our theodicy, is that God has created us with the freedom of the will and that's why there's suffering, that's why there's pain, that's why there's a fallen world.

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And that's the basis of our theodicy. If you take away free will and remove that and put everything under a divine decree, determinism, then that theodicy goes away.

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Well, glad to have it being put straight out there. You can either have

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God in control of all things, glorifying himself and working out his purpose and his people, or God has sovereignly capitulated and it's all because of man's free will.

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How? If you want the mystery bucket, listen to Layton Flowers explain how

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God can know for certain all future events in light of autonomous free will.

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I would argue he can't. I would argue that he can't. If you actually believe in autonomous free will,

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God could not... The open theists are right. If autonomous free will exists, God could not know what people are going to do, and if God does know what people are going to do, autonomous free will does not exist.

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I agree. The open theists are right. But there's a difference.

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And so the theodicy of Layton Flowers and Andy Stanley becomes an anthropodicy because the existence of evil is not a part of God's good purpose lambslain from the foundation of the earth, any of that type of stuff.

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No. It's because of man. All because of man. And so the best

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God can do is to bring out secondary good. Not primary good, secondary good. To try to work external circumstances to try to what?

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Shall we say milk the most good out of man's mess?

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That's pretty ugly. That is... No, that's not pretty ugly. That's ugly ugly. That's really ugly.

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And there you go. Okay. Now, here's...

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They get into how this impacts ministry in the church as far as what they do at Stanley's multi -site wabba -wabba -wabba thing.

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This is the part that I was just like somehow you zoomed in and cut my head off. But... Let's not get any closer.

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He's playing with the remote. He likes gadgets.

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Check this out. ...just doesn't do very well. The other way I say it is that following Jesus will make your life better, and following Jesus will make you better at life.

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So our constant invitation in terms of our apologetic is to come follow

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Jesus because we believe every single person, regardless of what they believe about Jesus, can take a step in following Jesus.

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This was his original invitation, and we have found this to be very, very effective in terms of a way of presenting evangelism in the modern world.

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Come and try it. Come and follow. At least read. Explore. Anytime I can leverage the words of Jesus in a way that makes an unchurched person go,

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I buy that. I buy that. I do that because, again, we're trying to create a place where people can dispense with some of the things that they've been loaded up with in terms of a version of Christianity, and to the best of my ability, just present here's what

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Jesus said. Here's what Jesus taught. Hey, why not take a step? Why not follow Jesus? Following Jesus will make your life better, and will make you better at life.

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And perhaps in the journey, you'll discover that he is, in fact, the Savior of the world, the Son of God. So, it's pretty simple apologetic, and anything

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I can do to clear away anything that distracts from that simple message, we try to do.

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And... If you've never heard pragmatism before, you just heard it. You just heard it.

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Try Jesus. He says,

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I try to leverage the words of Jesus so that the unchurched person says, I buy that.

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So, the rebel sinner has it within himself. This is... When you don't have a biblical anthropology, when you don't take

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Romans 3 seriously, that there is no God -seeker, this is the result. And it's the idea that, just try

37:33

Jesus, because, you know, if you follow Jesus, it'll make your life better. Really? Really? If you follow

37:40

Jesus... This is moral Reformation Deism stuff.

37:47

Because when he means follow Jesus, well, do the things that Jesus would suggest you do in being nice to people and stuff like that.

37:56

I cannot possibly have any thought at this point other than to go, um...

38:08

Do you remember Mark chapter 8? Pastor Stanley, when...

38:14

What do you do, Pastor Stanley, when Jesus calls the disciples and the crowds to himself?

38:23

They don't come to him. He calls them. He gathers the disciples and the crowds to himself.

38:30

Remember you said something about how many chapters the word crowd appears in, right? Well, here's one where he...

38:37

the... the... the he calls to himself. And he says, you want to follow me?

38:44

Um... Did the rest of your statement follow from what Jesus said there when he said... So, if I were to look up Mark chapter 8, what

38:52

I'd find... Come follow me and try me out. And your life will be better, and you'll be better at life.

39:01

And somewhere down the road, you might find that I'm savior of the world. But try me.

39:07

Is that what Jesus said? Um... No. He said, if you'd be my disciple, you're going to follow me, take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me.

39:24

Not try me, because to take up the cross, everybody in that context knew.

39:31

Meant to pick up the Roman cross, which was only carried by the condemned, and begin the death march.

39:43

Deny yourself. You're not talking about deny yourself. In fact, when you appeal to people, it'll make you better at life.

39:50

To the sinner, that sounds like better at fulfilling their desires. That's not denying self.

39:59

Jesus' call was, die and rise again.

40:07

You're saying, try me. How do you try me in a resurrection paradigm? How does this work?

40:13

I don't get a bit of it. I don't understand any of that. I understand the pragmatic stuff.

40:22

I understand the trying to get people to you know, get them in, and you know,

40:27

I like the music, I like the entertainment, you know, and some nice people befriend me, and so, yeah,

40:35

I'll do this Christianity thing for a while. But the idea of repentance, the idea of the lordship of Christ, this is, folks, you want to see what the long -term result is of rejecting the lordship of Christ and the call of the gospel to repent and believe is?

40:55

There you go. This is not the Christianity they're preaching in China right now.

41:03

The churches that are being closed down in China are not presenting the try Jesus version of Christianity because everybody in China knows if you're gonna try

41:15

Jesus, you might end up in jail and never being seen again. So there's this thing about dying to self first.

41:25

That's the Christianity that is still alive in the prisons in Islamic countries and communist countries and maybe coming soon to Western countries when the totalitarians take over.

41:40

It won't be the, I'm gonna try it for a while because that won't make your life better.

41:45

It will make your life stink from the world's perspective. But if there is not a radical change in your own perspective, you never understand what it was

41:55

Jesus was calling for. I heard that part and I was just like, wow.

42:07

Following Jesus will make your life better and make you better at life. That sounds so cliched, doesn't it?

42:14

I mean, that is just as much of a cliche as you could possibly, possibly get. And clicheing the gospel is a bad thing.

42:23

Alright, just a few more. Just a few more. Every pastor understands that regardless of their theological framework.

42:31

Well, either you're doing it right or God has ordained you to do it wrong. Either way, you're doing God's will, so you're safe on either side of that.

42:39

He gets credit for all the good. I'll take the blame for all the bad. So, once again, and I mentioned this earlier, the only reason

42:45

I play this again, we already dealt with this in the last time. By strawmanning the position that you're attacking, pretending that we can know what

42:56

God's decree is, ignoring His prescriptive will, then Leighton loves to mock. Well, you're either predestined in one way or the other.

43:02

Why are you predestined to this? Why are you predestined to that? As if we can actually ask God that.

43:08

It's a very deeply blasphemous thing. He doesn't understand that. Because this is a shtick. It's a thing.

43:14

It just, you know. But it is. And he will answer for it. One way or the other, he's going to answer for it.

43:22

Who are you? Oh, man. Who answers back to God is what he's going to hear. And I wouldn't want to be in that position.

43:33

Then this one was weird. I didn't get this part. This was very strange. Let's listen here.

43:42

You know what they immediately do? They say, what about Paul? I'm like, well... He's talking about Jesus' teaching and talking about the

43:51

Calvinists and saying, well, what about Paul? So in other words, while there is a tremendous amount, which obviously

43:59

Pastor Stanley doesn't know about or has ignored or something. Tremendous amount of teaching on this subject, especially in the

44:05

Gospel of John. But hey, ever been through Matthew 11? It's right there in Jesus' teaching there as well.

44:12

But yeah, John 6, John 8, John 10, John 14, John 17. But he says,

44:19

I talked to Calvinists and they say, what about Paul? Well, because you have the book of Romans, you have

44:28

Galatians, and you have Ephesians, and you have got all this stuff about predestination and election and the called and you can't walk through the golden chain of redemption and miss this stuff without trying really, really hard.

44:46

So I didn't understand. This was sort of weird, what he says here. You know what they immediately do?

44:54

They say, what about Paul? I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's just stick with Jesus. I mean,

44:59

I don't think Paul contradicts Jesus. I think Paul elaborates to a Gentile audience what Jesus was teaching because taking this very narrow Jewish teaching and dropping it in a

45:08

Gentile context, it was like a bomb. But hey, let's just, why can't we just hang out on the words of Jesus?

45:14

That sounds like hyper red letterism to me. So the Holy Spirit didn't need to give us all that Paul stuff?

45:23

I mean, don't you think in the providence of God, the New Testament as a whole has a shape that it's supposed to have to give us balance?

45:32

Are you going to unhook us from Paul pretty soon, too? Because, I mean, he quotes a lot of the Old Testament.

45:37

I mean, there's this stuff. We need to unhook from Hebrews, unhook from Paul, and Matthew. I think we need to get just constant citations of the

45:45

Old Testament, too. Marcion, Marcion lives again.

45:51

He's wearing a plaid shirt and a jumper, as they say, over in England right now.

45:59

Then again, so am I. When you create environments that put the good news of the

46:06

Gospel out front, people are attracted. I love Luke 16, 16. I love that verse where, this isn't a quote, where Jesus says, you know, up until the time of John, the

46:15

Law and the Prophets was preached, but after John, the Kingdom of God has been preached, and people are struggling and fighting to get into it, because I'm convinced that people who understand the

46:25

Gospel will want it to be true before they believe that it's true.

46:32

Do you hear what he's saying? This is another result of not reading

46:39

Paul, or not understanding Paul, or something. What is the natural man's response to the

46:46

Gospel according to Paul? Now, I think that's a wild stretch on the

46:52

Luke 16, 16 thing. That's not even what's being discussed there. In fact, Jesus himself often addressed the unbelief of the

47:03

Jews, their unwillingness to submit to God's truth, and why the reason of that was.

47:08

Just read John 8. And he even, for example, with people to whom he was proclaiming that message in John 8, he said, if you continue my words, then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

47:24

And as soon as he said, the truth shall set you free, which I'm not sure why they need to be set free, because you think they were free already. They were free, but they had autonomous free will, right?

47:32

Well, their response was, we've never been enslaved to anybody, and by the end of the chapter, they're picking up stones to stone him. So, it doesn't seem like they had a real positive view of the gospel if they're picking up stones to stone him, but so,

47:44

Jesus did address that, but what do you do with Paul? What do you do with the rest of the inspired scriptures that make it so plain that the cross is a stench in the nostrils of those that are perishing?

48:00

I seem to recall this letter to the Corinthians, the message of the cross is to them that are perishing, what?

48:09

What, Pastor Stanley? Foolishness. Not attractive. Not, oh,

48:15

I, that's great. That's wonderful. I like that. Don't you realize the only person that ever, ever, ever looks at the gospel and says, that is true, and I want to commit to it, is a person who's been raised to spiritual life by the spirit of God.

48:32

I mean, this is, this again is the massive difference. This is why there is different apologetics and everything else, because one is absolutely smack dab center in the will of man and the other in the will of God.

48:46

That is the massive difference. I was just, I was, there's anthropology illustrated.

48:56

Just a couple more quotes, believe it or not, but we do have other stuff to get to, so don't freak out that it's going to be some super short thing, because it's not.

49:06

Besides, we've got to wait for the snow shovels to come by, right, Rich? I haven't looked outside, but could happen.

49:14

That'd be pretty cool. yeah, yeah, you know, we've got a little food here, don't we?

49:21

Enough to make it, you've, oh, you've got food. I do too, come to think of it. I'll keep mine and you keep yours.

49:28

Fine. Fine, that's going to happen, Calvinists, I tell you. Well, yeah, there,

49:35

I'm seeing pictures of snow on, well, I know, but you'd expect that up there.

49:42

I broadcast online, you know, that's what they got, but can I just say one thing about what you just said?

49:48

Sure. While it's true that the gospel is out front, here's what

49:54

I've discovered in preaching, that actually it's sometimes easier to put the application of what

50:01

Jesus taught out front. Because when a person actually does what

50:06

Jesus instructs them to do, it, and I know this sounds so pragmatic, it actually works.

50:12

It is a better way of living. It's just so pragmatic, even I have to say it's pragmatic, because I actually believe that unsaved people, spiritually dead people, can really do what

50:24

Jesus said to do and do it right. Was that focus group tested?

50:33

I don't know. Oh my, it's painful to watch.

50:39

It's painful to watch. It really is. Here are some things you're doing that it's really making it difficult for the lost to come to Christ.

50:51

Here's one of our statements that we build off of. Assume they are in the room.

50:58

Assume they are in the room. Okay, so what we've got here, this gets, this actually touches on some stuff that's going on right now in social media.

51:10

Because J .D. Greer, the president of Southern Baptist Convention, his church took yesterday off.

51:19

Did not meet for worship. And ostensibly the reason is they were, they're just so burned out and tired from these huge, massive productions that they've been doing in December.

51:37

And I've seen some of the videos. These are Hollywood -style productions. Stages and lights and bands and orchestras and I'm sure probably some live animals, you know, pooping in the carpet as they're being dragged around.

51:50

It happens all the time. I remember, do you remember the first time, didn't we have a, what was that live thing they brought in at North Phoenix?

52:01

Right before I left. Didn't they have a camel once? I know

52:07

Phoenix First Assembly did, but I think they got the idea. I think there was a camel once. I think there was a camel once.

52:14

It would have been big enough. That's a lot of work. That is a lot of work to put on those productions.

52:21

And so the idea is, hey, we're going to take Sunday off. Now, of course, personally,

52:29

I'm like, why don't you just get together and I'm sure you could find one person to play the piano, sing some hymns and study the

52:41

Bible together. Yeah, yeah, I know. But that's what most of the rest of us do.

52:50

But no, they just said, eh, we'll skip it until next year. We're going to take a week off because everybody's burned out from maybe from doing a bunch of stuff the church isn't called to do in the first place, but this takes us back to the issue of what is the church called to do in the first place?

53:05

What is the church called to be? And there is a difference, once again, between those who view the church and the church's service as the primary evangelistic outreach.

53:21

You design the service not for the worship of God, not for the edification of the saints, not for the congregation to be instructed in the things of God, not for the ordinances, not for the supper, but to reach lost people.

53:44

That is a common understanding.

53:50

So the church doesn't go out and do that, but that would be ancillary.

53:56

The main thing is just bring people and let the professionals do it. Let the professionals put on the music, get them in the right mood, and basically trick them into a decision.

54:06

That's extremely popular. Extremely popular. Now most, most, not all, most

54:14

Reformed churches believe in something called the regulative principle of worship, believe that God defines how

54:21

He is to be worshipped, what is pleasing to Him as worship, but also teaches that the gathering of the saints on the

54:29

Lord's Day, the singing of hymns, the saying of prayers, and the preaching of the

54:36

Word of God is our primary mechanism of worship. And by the way, it's not watching other people do that.

54:46

It's congregational. It's the congregation singing. It's not professionals up there wowing us, even though they had to get there three hours earlier and then everything else that goes along with that, that's part of the issue.

55:05

Anyway, it's participation in the ordinances of the church, the prayers, the singing, and the ministry of the

55:17

Word. And so, these are important issues right now that need to be thought through.

55:26

But when you think about it, so few churches, even people in so few churches, even think through how the church should be organized.

55:35

Plurality of elders over against a single mega guy who's in charge of everything.

55:43

I remember years and years ago, back in the 90s, when

55:48

I was teaching a class on theology, I just sort of introduced in passing the reality that in Scripture you have multiple elders in the church.

55:58

And this one guy came up to me who also went to the same church that I mentioned earlier, large mega

56:04

SBC church, and he's like, I had, I mean, it's right there on the page.

56:11

I had never seen it. That there are multiple elders. It's not one pastor with deacons.

56:20

There are multiple elders with deacons. How come we had never seen that before?

56:28

And it's like, well, because we have our traditions. We have our traditions. But, so his whole thing is, assume they're in the room.

56:36

Make your presentation, your sermon. Don't trust the

56:45

Spirit of God to take whatever it is you are seeking. So, in other words, if you do a series, then you've got to make sure that one of the primary purposes of that series is to be evangelistic and to bring the lost people who are in the room to a decision.

57:05

So, for example, the series I did on the Holiness Code for a year and a half, that's not going to happen.

57:16

Hebrews? This is why you don't do verse by verse exegesis.

57:22

You don't walk through expositionally. This is why you have to have topical stuff.

57:28

So you can just get enough Bible in to keep the sheep from completely starving to death. But then get in all your evangelism stuff in the process.

57:37

So, there you go. Okay, one last clip from this. Believe it or not, one last clip from this.

57:50

That's why I'm hoping that the future version of this program will just be able to click it. And this is where our view with regard to election, predestination, and all these issues with sociology really plays in.

58:03

Because if you believe, as I think Paul clearly does out of Acts 28, when he spends all day long trying to persuade them, and some are convinced and some are not, that he's striving with them.

58:15

He's trying to convince them, the Scripture says. He, I think, is striving to convince them all day long because he really believes any of them could be saved.

58:25

And that he believes his persuasive words can have an impact on their hearts and lives.

58:30

Now let me just stop right there. I was going to play through a little bit further. Even an apostle does not know the decree of God.

58:39

And so, once again, we have what God has revealed, and that is, he commands us to proclaim the truth.

58:49

He gifts certain men, like the apostle Paul, to engage in apologetics, to engage in answering the questions.

58:56

Now, what Leighton's trying to say is, oh, I don't think Paul believed what Paul taught in Romans 8 or Ephesians 1, or, of course, he tries to find ways around those particular things, eisegetical ways, but still tries to do so.

59:08

There is a clear consistency. There is no inconsistency for a

59:16

Reformed person to be involved in apologetics and to engage in long -term dialogue with somebody because God ordains the ends as well as the means.

59:27

I've seen God place in the hearts of other believers a love for a particular group that sustained them in a way that I could never engage that group in that way because I would not have the patience because he has not given me that kind of desire.

59:44

And I have Reformed brethren who just don't understand how I can sit down over dinner and lunch while traveling in Birmingham or in Scotland or wherever with my

59:58

Muslim friends and talk to them about theology and demonstrate to them that I care about them and I care about their lives and I want to be consistent and loving in my proclamation to them without compromise.

01:00:14

I understand how there are some that don't understand that. So some of them will go,

01:00:22

I'm glad the Lord has given you that patience and I look at them and they're dealing with another group that I wouldn't have that patience with.

01:00:29

Sadly, some less mature ones are like, I don't understand that and I'm not going to support you in doing that.

01:00:34

So there's the difference there. But it is absolutely consistent to be

01:00:40

Reformed and to engage in apologetics in that fashion. To have the patience.

01:00:47

But it was Paul himself that he endures all things for, what was it again

01:00:53

Leighton? The sake of the elect. He doesn't have to know who they are.

01:01:00

We don't have to know who they are. But we endure all things for the sake of the elect.

01:01:08

I am done with this particular interview.

01:01:14

I hope that that has been of use to you all. We spent a significant amount of time on it.

01:01:25

So let me switch over now. I tried to get this screen to match up with the other one, but it's a little bit shorter.

01:01:32

So you might have to zoom a little bit on it. But I wanted to get to just a couple others.

01:01:38

Try to fit this in by the half hour. So keep this to a jumbo edition. Radio Free Geneva.

01:01:44

Finishing up 2018. Hey, do you see who's in the channel? You can't get to channel?

01:01:53

Because we what? Oh, oh. Lost the extra server. Oh. Okay. Logos is in channel.

01:02:00

Remember Logos? Walked up to me at church last night. And I'm like Oh, Kevin!

01:02:06

Yo, dude! Teenage kids going out and do a

01:02:13

PhD at ASU. So it's like Hey! How you doing? He had already said hey to Mike.

01:02:20

And it's like, wow. Dude, we're both getting old. I remember when that kid was like, what?

01:02:27

17? 18? Going up to Salt Lake City? Something like that? Yep. Not a kid anymore.

01:02:33

But he wouldn't claim to be. Anyways! Hi Logos! I'm not sure if he's listening or not.

01:02:40

But I'll see you here in a moment in channel. So we move from Layton Flowers to some of our

01:02:55

NIFBAs. The New Independent Fundamentalist Baptists who are an interesting lot, to be sure.

01:03:08

One of these fellas has started posting refutations of Calvinism.

01:03:18

And what's nice about them is they're about 2 minutes long. And when I say it's nice, they are horribly surface level.

01:03:27

But they really give you a good example of the standard really bad, refuted 47 ,000 times in the past year but the standard argumentation that is out there that you need to be able to respond to.

01:03:41

And I would imagine the vast majority of people in this audience can respond to, but it's always good to review.

01:03:48

Um type of argumentation is there. But that's not what this guy is.

01:03:56

I made mention of this guy when Jeff Durbin was in in the studio with me when we responded to some other stuff.

01:04:05

And I wanted to play this. It's only 5 minutes 23 seconds long, so we will get through this before the end of the hour.

01:04:14

But this fellow, Brother Fannin is gunning to be as nasty and slanderous and angry as Stephen Anderson.

01:04:33

By the way, Stephen Anderson's full name is Stephen Lee Anderson. S .L. Anderson. Take the periods out.

01:04:39

Slanderson. There it is. It was providential, obviously. He's stuck with it.

01:04:47

And he's been cranking out. Not sure how many people followed over the holidays the stuff he's been cranking out, but it's been pretty amazing.

01:04:54

Anyways, Fannin seems to want to try to compete with that. And so he put out a...

01:05:04

Now remember, the NIFBs are absolutely convinced that if you say repent, you're talking about doing works to gain salvation.

01:05:14

I won't play it right now. We're going to get to it. But one of these guys just put out a three part series.

01:05:20

That means it's six minutes long. But a three part series on why preaching repentance means you're preaching works salvation.

01:05:28

Now, none of these guys have... I've never heard a one of them, not a one of them, show any knowledge at all of the different kinds of works that are described in scripture.

01:05:43

Works of the law, works of Moses, good works. These are men who struggle mightily in making category distinctions.

01:05:53

I don't know how they function in life because part of being an adult is recognizing category distinctions and making category distinctions.

01:06:04

When it comes to religion, they just won't do it. They just won't do it. And so, they just throw all of works.

01:06:13

One guy goes to a text in Jonah chapter 2 where God saw the deeds of the people of Nineveh and takes the...

01:06:24

since the King James says works, then God sees works and that somehow he then reads into the

01:06:32

New Testament discussion of works without ever dealing with all the different kinds of works the

01:06:38

New Testament speaks of. Works of the law, works of Moses, good works, the result of God's workmanship and all the...

01:06:46

It is such a case study in eisegesis. They are so often accused of this that all they can do is make fun of the terms eisegesis and eisegesis.

01:06:59

I'm not sure they know what they mean. I'm not sure they understand that eisegesis means reading out of the text its meaning.

01:07:07

Exegesita, to explain, to make clear what the original intends, eisegesis, reading into the text a meaning.

01:07:16

You're taking your own thoughts, putting them into the Bible saying, there's what the Bible says. You don't want to do eisegesis.

01:07:22

You want to do eisegesis. They don't know how to do eisegesis because they're too proud to think that there might be something they might need to learn from other people.

01:07:31

There is an accepted arrogance amongst them that you don't have to be taught anything.

01:07:40

They don't say, well, it's because the Holy Spirit will tell you, because they don't want to do that because it sounds like a charismatic or something. We don't want to do anything charismatic.

01:07:49

It is amazing stuff. Here is Brother Fannin. I live in Tucson.

01:07:59

My wife just asked if it's raining in Phoenix. Yes, honey, it is, at least where James White is driving. I posted a video of a very close call

01:08:07

I had. Did you notice, see how many people, how come you were recording your driving?

01:08:14

I'm like, I put a dash cam in over two years ago. That's how I got in trouble with the guy walking in front of me over on 35th

01:08:21

Avenue in Glendale. Everybody in Russia has them, which is why all the funny

01:08:27

YouTube videos of crashes come from Russia, because of all the insurance fraud. It's just a good thing to have.

01:08:33

It just made sense to me anyways. I posted a video of if I had been distracted in the slightest today,

01:08:42

I would not be driving a car right now. Maybe. Mine has

01:08:49

GPS on it. I was only at 30 miles an hour because I just accelerated away. Maybe. Maybe.

01:08:54

I think the airbags would have been deployed. If I had had my phone in my hand, boom, boom, that would be it.

01:09:03

There's texting and driving and all that stuff. You know who does it. That public service announcement was free.

01:09:13

Let's dive into this. We need to get this done. Hey, this is Brother Adam Fannin here at Steadfast Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

01:09:21

I wanted to show you guys... I think he's using a selfie stick. What do you think? Do you think he's using a selfie stick? I think he's using a selfie stick.

01:09:27

I think he's using a selfie stick. The production quality here is just...

01:09:33

I am on James White's website and I noticed that he has a tract. How does a

01:09:41

Calvinist evangelize? Take a look at this. It says the Christian message and notice of course he's got that fruity rainbow there and now that's the promise that God will destroy the earth with fire one day but he will not yet do it again with water.

01:09:53

The fruity rainbow. The fruity rainbow. Now you got this.

01:10:00

This isn't the one I took but man, it looks so much like it. When we first produced this in the 1990s

01:10:09

It might have actually been late 80s. We used a picture that I took.

01:10:15

I used to have a really nice 35mm. This was film back in the day. At some point

01:10:23

I live in Arizona. I haven't been to the Grand Canyon in ages because there's just too many visitors at the

01:10:30

Grand Canyon. It's just horrible. You can't see the canyon for all the buses. It's bad. Anyway, I hiked from the

01:10:36

North Rim to the South Rim in 1985. Somewhere in 1985. Almost died. Anyway, from the heat.

01:10:44

I took this beautiful picture of a thunderstorm over the canyon and there was a rainbow. It was glorious.

01:10:50

God made it, dude. This isn't a fruity rainbow. Why do you NIFBs constantly think of homosexuality?

01:10:57

I don't understand this. It seems like the only thing on you guys' mind is that you bring it up all the time.

01:11:04

It's weird. So he's picking on the pretty front cover. Now, let's continue.

01:11:10

In this track it's very interesting what he says. He says Jesus did not die indiscriminately for everyone.

01:11:19

That's Calvinism for you folks. He's saying... That is Calvinism, folks. That is exactly what

01:11:25

Calvinism is. And then you'll notice that there is these little numbers and it gives you references to these particular things.

01:11:35

Obviously, in a gospel tract, I'm not going to expand too much upon some of these things.

01:11:41

I can defend that very, very plainly. I think it is absolutely central to an understanding of the power and efficacy of the death of Christ.

01:11:53

And yes, that is in the Calvinistic system. Yep. That's stunning, isn't it? That not everybody can be saved.

01:12:00

God doesn't want everybody to be saved. Jesus didn't die for the sins of the whole world. This is the perverted gospel of Calvinism.

01:12:08

It's a very prideful, boastful, selfish, false gospel. How does any of that follow from the actual

01:12:16

Reformed theology? Well, none of it does. It's all contradictory. But these guys don't have to worry about that part.

01:12:23

Because they're not concerned about being truthful, honest, accurate. They're not trying to win us.

01:12:29

They're just trying to keep their people from hearing the other side. Because they know.

01:12:35

They know what would happen. Brother Fannin knows that he cannot debate me on this subject.

01:12:42

Or any. It doesn't have to be me. I've got a lot of experience in doing this. It doesn't have to be me. He cannot debate any meaningfully trained

01:12:50

Reformed minister on the subject of the gospel from the text of the Bible without being destroyed in the process.

01:12:57

He knows this. It's a fear thing. It's a I have to keep my people.

01:13:04

Because they know how many people. We see the comments. Every time we address the

01:13:09

NIFBs on YouTube, wherever it is, we get flooded with people saying

01:13:14

I was there once until I ran into your stuff. And I started listening.

01:13:20

And I started checking out. And when I first started reading it, I hated you. And I yelled at you.

01:13:25

And I thought you were this worst person in the world. But I kept reading.

01:13:31

And then I realized what I had been believing all along. They know.

01:13:37

And so this is a they're coming out with this video and this church is part and parcel of this video,

01:13:44

Calvinism, Doctrine and Demons. For their sakes, I'm sorry that they're fighting against the truth.

01:13:50

But you need to understand God uses this kind of stuff. Look at what happened when

01:13:57

Norman Geisler wrote Chosen but Free. How many there are entire, solid biblical churches that exist today because of Chosen but Free.

01:14:11

Because we responded to it in the Potter's Free. And so God uses this stuff.

01:14:18

And so I can, on the one hand, for their sakes, wish that they would not speak against God's truth and distort

01:14:27

God's truth and misrepresent God's truth and light up enough of these little straw men to keep us all warm here in Phoenix tonight.

01:14:35

For their sake, but Christ's sheep hear His voice.

01:14:42

And they don't seem to understand how many times have I said Calvary Chapel, because of Calvary Chapel's misrepresentation of Reformed theology, will continue to produce

01:14:52

Calvinists until they get their act together. I can't tell you how many times

01:14:57

I travel places and people say, hey, I'm one of those you're right, I'm one of those folks.

01:15:03

That's what happened. And yeah, we can have that confidence. And right there it's saying

01:15:08

Jesus did not die indiscriminately for everyone. Now you look at the size of this thing and it's like you have to read four paragraphs to understand the doctrine.

01:15:16

Not one verse is actually quoted in this so -called tract. Not one verse is actually quoted in this so -called tract.

01:15:28

Which is in my hand. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

01:15:37

I think that's in the Bible. Yeah, it is. And it's quoted in the tract.

01:15:43

That's one. No man is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I'll raise him up on the last day.

01:15:49

That's in John 6. I just read that. It's quoted in... Believe in the

01:15:55

Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. Yep. Everyone who calls upon the name of the

01:16:01

Lord will be saved. Yep. God who has called you in the fellowship of the

01:16:07

Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. That's at least five. How careful are these guys?

01:16:16

Now, of course, on the back, let's see, I estimated that there were 57 biblical references provided.

01:16:23

Just in the notes on the back, approximately. Aside from the five citations. So there you have

01:16:29

Adam Fannin's deep scholarship and accuracy in the analysis of material.

01:16:35

Not one verse is quoted. And I just quote all those to you straight out of... Now, let me guess.

01:16:43

Let me guess what the answer is. If those weren't from the King James and they weren't from the

01:16:48

Bible. What do you bet? Hold what up real quick?

01:16:55

Why? Oh. Yeah, those are the reference notes.

01:17:02

Yeah. You can't really focus it, I don't think. But yeah, those are all the reference notes on the back.

01:17:09

You can zoom back out now. Hi! There we go. We continue on with this in -depth analysis.

01:17:17

Jesus did not die indiscriminately for everyone. Guess what? James White is teaching that God created some people to go directly to hell with no opportunity of salvation, no opportunity of forgiveness of sins.

01:17:32

This is a wicked gospel that they're spreading. Now notice, we could expand greatly upon the errors of this.

01:17:40

If he believes the Bible, he believes that there have been many people who have lived and died upon this earth to whom

01:17:47

God never sent a prophet. He would have to believe that there were women and children in Sodom and Gomorrah when

01:17:56

God destroyed it utterly. The inconsistencies here are astonishing, but the

01:18:05

NIFB mindset is our people aren't looking for consistency. And we will not teach them to seek consistency because it would empty the place out.

01:18:17

It would empty the place out because we're not consistent in our teaching. We're not consistent in our teaching.

01:18:24

It's possible they don't know what our responses to these things are because they don't read, they don't study.

01:18:30

To read and study what somebody other than them believes is to show respect for somebody else and they don't want to do that because that would be compromise.

01:18:38

The fear factor is always a part of the NIFB. The fear of what's outside being seen clearly here.

01:18:48

It says, and to whom does God give this life? The Bible calls them the elect.

01:18:55

Which simply means that these people, no more deserving than any others, are chosen by God completely on the basis of his own will.

01:19:05

What's he teaching here? He is saying that God picked you to go to heaven or God picked you to go to hell and there is no option.

01:19:13

Now, notice the error of equal ultimacy that he just presented. One we've pointed out many times and which he would understand if he took any time to actually honestly listen to the other side, but there is no desire for that.

01:19:26

Again, because there is no motivation. We have a motivation to do that when we study Islam or Roman Catholicism or Mormonism or Jehovah's, we want to be accurate to glorify

01:19:36

God and to reach those people. They are not trying to reach us. This is all inward stuff.

01:19:42

This is all protecting their people from what they are fearful because they can't actually deal with our real arguments and so you straw man stuff.

01:19:53

So, the equal ultimacy error. Ah, picked you for heaven, picked you for hell, it's all the same thing.

01:19:58

When, of course, there is a vast difference between the just judgment of sinners who love their sin, hate

01:20:09

God, rebel against God, do not seek after God. Romans chapter 3, there is no

01:20:16

God seeker. Read Romans 3, 10 through 18 for a description of these individuals. They are justly punished.

01:20:22

There is no parallel between that just punishment of these individuals and the extension of divine power and mercy and grace and the condescension of Jesus Christ to bring about the salvation of the very same kind of rebel sinners, but by raising them to spiritual life, taking out that heart of stone, giving them a heart of flesh, giving them the gift of the

01:20:45

Holy Spirit, the entire work of God in the life of God's people.

01:20:51

There is no parallel between these two other than they connect up here in the sovereign will of God.

01:20:59

That's all. But once again, these people either can't or will not make category distinctions and so they fall into these types of misrepresentations and errors because either they've been taught that to make category distinctions is a compromising thing.

01:21:15

That's what the liberals do. Or they're just not capable of it themselves. You cannot choose to hear the gospel and believe on the

01:21:22

Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot choose to hear the gospel and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I would like to ask

01:21:27

Adam Fanon, when Jesus was talking to the Jews in John chapter 8, he says, Why do you not hear my words? Why can you not understand what

01:21:35

I'm saying? What was his answer? Because you choose not to do so? No, because you're not able to.

01:21:41

You don't belong to God. You're not able to. Udunatai. The King James translated it correctly.

01:21:48

Not able to. That was Jesus speaking. I'd be interested in your understanding of that.

01:21:54

Choose to have a repentant heart when you hear the gospel and understand that Jesus had mercy on the punishment we deserve, that Jesus died and went to hell for our sins.

01:22:04

You cannot trust in the Savior as the Bible commands us to. Instead, the Calvinist gospel says...

01:22:09

Well, you tell me, Pastor Fanon. Romans chapter 8. Those recurring the flesh cannot please

01:22:17

God. They cannot subject themselves to the law of God. The law of God says repent and believe. Those who are in the flesh can't do it.

01:22:24

That's what Paul said in Romans 8. What do you do with it? I would imagine you try to come up with, it's about some group over here, or something like that.

01:22:31

I don't know. God picked you for heaven or hell. He goes on, he says, once God has given to them spiritual life, which the

01:22:39

Bible calls regeneration, or being born again, he also gives to them the gifts of repentance and faith.

01:22:50

Now, let me just point out, right there, on the screen, excuse me for just a second, please.

01:22:58

Do you remember that scene in the Wrath of Khan, when James Kirk was trying to read the control board, and I need his glasses.

01:23:08

Okay. Um... What's a larger font?

01:23:18

But still, the footnotes, the endnotes, not footnotes, the endnotes are...

01:23:25

If that's a four -point font, maybe five -point at most. Anyway, 35 and 36,

01:23:33

Romans 2 .4, 2 Timothy 2 .25, Ephesians 2 .8 -10, and Romans 12 .3.

01:23:40

So, are we wrong in the utilization of those texts? Could we walk through them and see how repentance is a gift?

01:23:51

See, if this was a serious refutation, then you'd go to these texts and say, see how these colonists are wrong?

01:23:57

That's not what these texts are about. You think, how much you want to take a bet?

01:24:03

All right, go ahead, what did you want to say? Oh, no, I was just kind of wondering if he might be watching the show today and wondering...

01:24:13

Oh, that's what those numbers were for! Oh! They refer to the back!

01:24:19

Yeah! We did reference those. Well, he did say there were no verses quoted, so I... I don't know.

01:24:27

Look what he's saying here. He's actually flipped the biblical gospel. He's saying, once God gives them spiritual life, or regeneration, or born again.

01:24:35

So, once God makes you born again, then God gives you the gift of faith.

01:24:42

Do you understand how contrary that is to the biblical gospel? The Bible says that we have to hear the gospel, then we can choose to believe it or not, and if we believe...

01:24:52

Where does it say, choose to believe it or not? Where is that? We believe that we choose, but our will has to be freed from slavery to sin.

01:25:05

Slavery to sin. Remember, Jesus said in John chapter... I keep going back to these Bible verses, I realize that, but in John chapter 8, when these men, who at first were like, hey, this is...

01:25:19

I like what you're saying. Jesus says, continue my word, then you'll be my disciples, you should know the truth, truth shall set you free.

01:25:27

We don't need to be set free from anything. And Jesus says, he who sins is a slave of sin.

01:25:35

So, you're telling us that slaves have the choice to just simply cease being slaves? That's not what

01:25:42

Jesus said. Jesus said, you don't hear my voice, because you're not of my sheep. You don't understand what

01:25:47

I'm saying, because you don't belong to God. You have it backwards, Adam Fanon.

01:25:53

You have it upside down and backwards. But because you're so in love with your tradition, you won't hear even what the word of God says.

01:26:03

All of our sins have been forgiven. James White, in this perverted gospel of John Calvin, teaches that God picked you,

01:26:13

God regenerated you, God made you born again, God gives you the Holy Spirit, and makes you want to repent of all your sins, and then when you hear the gospel, you'll have faith.

01:26:23

So, in other words, God makes... You separated the gospel out from that. The normative way that God does this is through the means of the gospel.

01:26:31

It's not like the gospel is some afterthought or something like that. This is, when we talk about the ordo salutis, we're talking about the logical order, not the temporal order, necessarily.

01:26:42

But what we are saying is, dead men, hearts of stone need to be made hearts of flesh, and hearts of stone do not choose of themselves to be made hearts of flesh.

01:26:53

Yeah, that is exactly what we're saying. No question about it. Born again, without faith, according to the

01:27:00

Calvinist's gospel. John Calvin was a pervert, so are most of the people that spread this heresy.

01:27:07

A pervert? What? What do you even mean by that? Why even use such language?

01:27:14

What is that supposed to mean? I mean, I'm sure you've never even looked at it, but in my office,

01:27:22

I have his biblical commentary. Sir, you haven't you haven't done one one billionth of what that man did in edifying the saints of God.

01:27:34

You don't know a thing about his life. You don't know how he lived.

01:27:39

You don't know his sufferings, or his long suffering. You don't know that it was his school that created an entire stream of martyrs that went into Italy to testify of the gospel, and were killed by the

01:27:54

Roman Catholic Church. You don't know what you're talking about. You are an ignorant man. And you rejoice in it, and will use your ignorance to attack others.

01:28:04

It's disgusting. And you think it's a great thing. Your people, oh, that's great.

01:28:11

Go ahead and call Calvin a pervert, even though you don't know anything about him. Why do you people think this way?

01:28:20

James White and Jeff Durbin, these mainstream Calvinists, both have recently attacked our church as we debunk the teachings of John Calvin and expose the heresy that contradicts the biblical salvation.

01:28:35

See the mindset? They can post tons of material accusing

01:28:41

Jeff and I of everything under the sun, including perversion. And if we respond and expose it for the foolishness that it is, we're attacking them.

01:28:49

That's sort of how it works in our society today, isn't it? He goes on, he says, it also involves a commitment to him as Lord in one's life.

01:29:00

A willingness to turn all of one's life. What's he saying? You have to be willing to turn from your sin to be...

01:29:07

Or, what we're saying is that the work of regeneration creates a new creature in Christ.

01:29:16

You're truly born again. You're made new. All things have been made new.

01:29:22

And now you want to obey God's law from the heart because he's taken out that heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh that loves to do good works, as Ephesians 2 .10

01:29:33

tells us. Yes, that's what we're saying. James White teaches you have to repent of your sins to be saved.

01:29:41

That's called lordship salvation. And it is total heresy. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:29:47

You deny it and you are the heretic, sir. That is so easily demonstrated in any public debate.

01:29:54

That's why you all won't do it. ...works salvation. You get to the back of this so -called track.

01:30:01

And again, no verses. Mind you, he's got... That's the second time, no verses. And just in what he's showing on that screen, right up here, zoom, zoom, can you zoom that up?

01:30:16

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Everyone who calls upon the name of the

01:30:21

Lord will be saved. And right down there, God who is called in fellowship with the Son, Jesus Christ. There's three verses quoted in the screenshot he has up.

01:30:30

And he's still saying there are no verses. Quoted. In this track.

01:30:37

Okay, whatever you say. Fifty verses referenced here, but he never actually quotes the word of God one time.

01:30:43

But notice what he says. Find a good, modern translation of the

01:30:49

Bible, such as the New American Standard Bible, or the New International Version.

01:30:55

Now look, the NAS... You know, I didn't think when we reprinted this,

01:31:02

I would put ESV today. But there wasn't ESV when

01:31:08

I wrote this. So, maybe in a future edition. And for how long now have we been exposing the use of language like delete and everything else, the standard

01:31:29

King James Only stuff? We've been refuting this stuff. I don't know how old

01:31:34

Adam Fanon is. Let's say he's 35. I don't know what he is. So, when he was 10, was about when we first put out...

01:31:47

10, 15, something like that was when we first put out the King James Only controversy. And answered all of these questions, all of these arguments.

01:31:55

Deletions, all the rest of this type of stuff. Been dealing with this forever. They can't deal with it, so they just repeat it over and over again.

01:32:26

So, look, James White with your rainbow tract, you heretic, according to the

01:32:32

Bible, you will burn in hell. According to the Bible, because you preach a work salvation, and you preach that there are some people that cannot be saved because God already picked them for hell.

01:32:42

The Bible says, let you be accursed. James White, go to hell. So, there's one of the primary guys putting together the 2019

01:32:53

Calvinism Doctrine of Demons, so we've got a pretty good idea how accurate that's going to be, huh?

01:33:00

Adam Fannin, there you go, the new independent fundamentalist Baptist.

01:33:07

Wow. Yeehaw. It's so much fun. So, that took us all the way down to the bottom of the hour, and so I'll hold off on the other poor fellow.

01:33:16

We'll get to him in time. That aside, my hope, of course, is that our regular listeners will have a wonderful beginning to the new year.

01:33:29

It's just a mark on a calendar. I realize that, but it's always a good time to... You may notice you didn't get any emails from us about matching gifts.

01:33:42

I mean, my email box has exploded with stuff from everybody and their second cousin.

01:33:48

We're just lousy marketers. Maybe we should do that kind of stuff, but we don't.

01:33:55

We don't appreciate your support and need your support. We do, but we just...

01:34:00

We figure, if you're watching this, you're either going to determine, yeah, it's useful to do stuff like that, or it's not.

01:34:07

And yes, it's useful enough that I'm going to support it, basically. We would ask you to do that. But, obviously, some of you know that I will be teaching the

01:34:17

Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary starting on Thursday. We'll be doing a fairly large class,

01:34:24

I just saw. Textual Criticism, so we'll be going over some of the things right there at the end of that last one.

01:34:31

But we'll be looking at various Greek texts, the history of the texts, CBGM. We're going to be doing the whole nine yards 830 in the morning to 5 o 'clock at night, so I would appreciate prayers for health and strength for that, for me and for the students.

01:34:46

But that also is going to make it really difficult. I might try to suggest something to see if maybe we might be able to sneak something in.

01:34:59

Because... I haven't gotten approval for this, but I'll just throw this out. We'll see if we can make it work. I have queued up.

01:35:05

Remember when I had you grab all those tweets from Texas Receptus? The stuff on Revelation 16 .5.

01:35:12

That would really fit in the class. If there's some way that we could put those two together later in this week,

01:35:21

I'd like to see if that's possible. If you're going to be around. I'm going to drop a note today and see if that's possible.

01:35:28

But if it's not, we'll be back the next week. And then after that,

01:35:35

I don't, for example, the whole week that I'm in Russia, I don't know what my situation is going to be as far as internet access or any of that kind of stuff.

01:35:44

And that's going to be 9 -10 hours off, which makes it really, really difficult to do anything.

01:35:51

But we'll see. We'll see what works out. Thank you very much for watching today to Radio Free Geneva.