The Blasphemy Challenge then Chuck Smith and Calvinism

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. Good morning, welcome to The Dividing Line. On a

Tuesday morning, a day to make sure that you stay hidden safely inside the house. Do not venture out upon the streets or whatever you do, stay far away from Target.

Yes, today is that day. It's always odd, I always feel like I have to go get something, like our fire alarm, our smoke detector battery croaked and I didn't have any more nine volts to replace it with.

So that's why you saw me digging down behind my desk for that nine volt that fell down there about two months ago.

Because I'm not going to Target today. No, no, there's that line going out the door of all these folks with stuff they don't really want taking it back.

And I just never do that kind of thing. I just, you know, if you get something you don't want, I only got two things anyway.

So how could it be something I don't want? Especially since I knew what I was getting. So anyway,

I'm staying away from those places, staying out of those areas.

I was going to, I have many good intentions of things that I would like to put on the blog and there's just only so many hours in the day and it just, it takes too long.

And one of them that I want to get to that I think someday we're just going to have to take the

DVD and play it piece by piece and take it apart here on the program.

It's about the only way to do it, I think. Some of you may recall, I don't know how long ago now, when would this have been?

It would have been quite some time ago now. I don't think it was in 2006.

I think it was in 2005 that I played a couple clips, didn't go in depth on it.

I have used it in presentations when I was at Auburn University. I used it in,

I even played some of the video in my lecture on the resurrection there at Auburn University.

But there is a DVD out called The God Who Wasn't There. And it is an attack upon the

Christian faith, of course, and I addressed various sundry elements of it.

On the dividing line, as I said, I've lectured on it when I was in London. I played portions from it and responded to sections of it as well.

And at the end, the specific portion I played on the program was where the filmmaker,

Brian Fleming, goes back to the Christian school that he was raised in, basically.

And he goes back into the chapel and he takes the camera and he zooms in on various places in this chapel.

I sort of made the, this is why theology matters comment. Because he zoomed in at least two, maybe three places and said,

I accepted Jesus here. And then I accepted him over here. And he kept getting lost and saved, lost and saved.

Another illustration, like I said, of why theology matters. And then he sort of held the camera out so he could get his face into it.

And on camera says, I deny the Holy Spirit. And he explains that this is the unpardonable sin and I'm not afraid.

And that's how the whole thing ends. Well, now there is a website called

The Blasphemy Challenge. Do you have a soul you're not using? From the

Rational Response Squad with a universal negation symbol over God.

And here's what it says. The Rational Response Squad is giving away 1 ,001

DVDs of The God Who Wasn't There. It must not be selling well or something. The hit documentary of the

Los Angeles Times calls provocative to put it mildly. Well, yeah. There's only one catch.

We want your soul. It's simple. You record a short message damning yourself to hell. You upload it to YouTube and then the

Rational Response Squad will send you a free The God Who Wasn't There DVD.

It's that easy. And then they give you instructions on how to damn yourself to hell. You may damn yourself to hell however you would like.

But somewhere in your video you must say this phrase, I deny the Holy Spirit. Why? Because according to Mark 3 29 in the

Holy Bible, whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He is guilty of an eternal sin.

Jesus will forgive you for just about anything. But he won't forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit ever.

This is a one -way road you're taking here. Once you have shot your blasphemous video, then they tell you how to upload it and blah, blah, blah.

And you can click on links and they'll have all these people who have already done this, mainly young people I noticed.

So I was looking at this and I could not help but point out, and I think pointed out briefly on the blog, the fact that, once again, theology matters.

These folks don't even know what they're talking about on this level either. They really don't have any concept at all of what it is that they're talking about, or what the blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit actually is. Many of these people would not even begin to fit into the category of those who committed the blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit. I addressed this issue just a few weeks ago in the

Sunday school class at the Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church. We went through the synoptic section that contains this text.

As I pointed out, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is committed only by people who have a tremendous amount of light.

They are exposed to God's truth on a regular basis, the scribes and the Pharisees. Yet, then seeing

God's work, specifically in the life of Christ, his casting out of demons, they then called darkness light and light darkness.

They called black white and white black. They said that he cast out demons by the power of Beelzebul.

So they were identifying the Holy Spirit with Satan himself. So just simply having someone who probably has never even read a single book of the

New Testament, let alone have a tremendous amount of light that they are sinning against, put up a video on YouTube is hardly the same thing.

But it just gives you an example of the radical nature of this form of atheism.

It's the same type of radical atheism you see with Richard Dawkins. This is the type of material that is promoted by many people in the

Jesus Seminar these days. And they're getting much more in your face because, of course, it's politically correct to bash

Christianity in our society. And so we may just need to take some time to go through the

God who wasn't there on the program sometime in the future. Like I said, I might be able to get –

I'll have to ask my brother Roger over in London if the recordings of the presentation that I gave there on that particular subject where I played some portions of this would be available.

Maybe we could just make that available for download, stuff like that. But it's specifically designed to be shown to young people.

It's sort of splashy, but at every point it is so easily challengeable and is based upon such wide -eyed, wild -eyed scholarship that it's truly amazing stuff.

And if I recall, I couldn't find it – sometimes I wonder about the search mechanism on the blog because I know

I put up a discussion at some point of Brian Fleming and the fact that in essence

I linked to – I even linked. I didn't search on Fleming, so maybe that's what

I need to do. But I even linked to a blog entry he had made or some comment he had made where basically for him to do a debate, you have to in essence agree to his worldview first.

You have to agree that miracles cannot happen before he'll debate you. Otherwise, you're irrational.

So okay, would you pull it up with Fleming? Fleming is what it was because I forget.

I think I used the guy – I used the broad search, the general search engine, which also searches the blog.

Where is that at? Under the term search in the upper left -hand corner of the – I thought that was dead.

Shamgar fixed it with a much nicer and more thorough search engine. It has a brand -new search engine in it.

It works great. Well, that's nice to know. I was using only the blog one, and that would explain that.

See, remember, as you complain about the 1980s look of our website, there are things –

It's the 1990s look of the website. Oh, okay. There are things that are happening behind the scenes.

Underneath the 1990s look. The 1990s veneer, yeah. And the reason those can't happen under a 2006 veneer is –

Patience, my brother, patience. Well, at least it's readable.

I suppose that's the important part. Some folks have gone to the point where they're starting to use fonts that are so stinking small that they don't want anybody over the age of 41 to read it.

It's kind of like that ringtone that people over 30 can't hear. You've heard about that, haven't you?

No. Yeah, there's a ringtone that only people under 30 years of age can hear that a lot of teenagers are using so that their parents and teachers don't know that their phone's ringing.

I see. That sounds like a real myth to me. Especially since I never listened to music so loud as to destroy my eardrums.

I can still listen to classical music and hear the minor tones. These people who listen to music so loud, they don't need a ringtone.

They need an electrical shock going through their body to know that their phone's ringing. Well, I think we're having the same problem with reading.

Oh, very funny. That's why lawyers use that.

You know that. People like us can't read it. Yeah, but a lot of them are older too. Anyway, there's

Brian Fleming in debating. It's 10th May and there's the links and so on and so forth.

He provides a statement of belief that anyone must sign if he's going to take him seriously. You have to say that,

I believe it is possible that Jesus did not exist. I believe there's no evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ that dates to the time of his alleged life.

I believe there are no written eyewitness accounts of the existence of Jesus Christ. I believe the names of the Gospels were added well after their composition.

There's no good reason to believe that these names correspond to the original writers. In other words, you've got to agree with him before he'll debate you.

I mean, the irrationality, or as I put it, the patent absurdity hardly needs demonstration.

Here is a man who knows he cannot begin to defend his position, but he's not willing to admit it.

And this is the man who is behind this blasphemy challenge stuff that is going on today.

So if you've heard of it, that's what that is all about.

Then, very briefly, I just want to respond to a statement that appeared on the oxymoronic website about why they're not an oxymoronic website.

And the term reformed Catholicism, let's remember what it is that these reformed

Catholics are constantly talking about. What are they talking about? They're talking about how the solas are outdated and they need to be re -understood.

They're talking about being under the Pope. They're constantly talking about Mary. They are frequently promoting views of justification completely different than reformers.

So in other words, while the reformers believed that their views were consistent with ancient

Catholicity, on the very issues that the reformers were the clearest about, these people deny the reformers, and yet call themselves reformed

Catholics, and then complain when we say that they're oxymoronic in their self -description. And so I just wanted to point that out in passing.

Some of you may have noticed the blog articles going back and forth on that particular issue.

And even Eric Svensson got into the act this morning. He has a whole series of links to articles where he's demonstrated that Paul Owen has no idea which end is up when it comes to theology and history and all sorts of other things.

And he's not the only one who has demonstrated that over and over and over and over again. Well, sometime last week,

I, yeah, I'm looking at the thermometer there,

Rich, 63 .5 in here. You're just not going to go get that jacket, are you? You're just going to sit there.

I'm in this nice warm silk and cotton sweater, and I can zip it up like this, and it's nice and warm, and it's very comfortable in here for me.

But you're just sitting there sticking your fingers under your armpits just so that you can keep from freezing.

There he goes. All right. Do not call over the next 30 seconds while Rich goes and gets his jacket.

I have just refused to turn, so far, the heater in this side of the office, and I control about three quarters of the office here, and Rich controls about one quarter of the office.

We have not turned the heater on. Don't even know if it works, to be perfectly honest with you, since it's never been on. I'm afraid it's going to, like, blow up or something if I do it anyways.

I hate the first time you turn a heater on. But I still have it on, and finally, since nobody was here for, like, two days, it got down to 63 .5

degrees in here. But normally, it's about 69 degrees, and that's, you know why, you know how we keep it warm in here? Yeah, he's got the hood up.

You can see his breath. Yeah, right. It's the computers. The computers are excellent heaters.

They truly are, and, of course, that's what we're fighting during the summer, and we spend so much money on air conditioning during the summer that I'm just one of those folks who goes, look, we live in Phoenix.

It's a desert, for crying out loud. Let's not worry about the heat. That's just, you know, let's not worry about it.

Anyway, sometime last week, I got an e -mail directing me to a pastor's perspective, pastor's something from the,

I think, the 11th of November, 11th of December, so just about two weeks ago, with Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel.

Now, I realize that probably the vast majority of what Chuck Smith believes about Calvinism, he has imbibed directly from George Bryson, who we've been listening to recently and, you know, demonstrating various and sundry errors on his part, things like that.

And so here's what happens when you uncritically accept muddled thinking is a phone call comes into this program, and it's one of these situations where Chuck Smith is sitting there, and in the same section, he answered questions on tattoos and various and sundry things.

You know, that's what happens when you don't screen your calls. It was all over the road.

But what really, one of the reasons I want to play this, aside from the fact that Chuck Smith is far better known than George Bryson is, and far more people listen to Chuck Smith than to George Bryson, is that this gives us an insight into how

Bryson himself is being interpreted within the Calvary Chapel movement. I mean, Chuck Smith is the

Calvary Chapel movement. So, you know, sometimes George tries to,

I don't know, nuance what he's saying, tries to exercise at least a little bit of care in coming to a conclusion.

Is that being heard? From what I hear from Chuck Smith, it isn't. In other words, just listen to the words.

I mean, he uses terms like blasphemous to describe the reform position.

This isn't, well, you know, we disagree, but we're all, you know, sort of going the same direction.

Now, this is you can tell given what Chuck Smith says here. Now, of course, I've also listened to Chuck Smith highly praising

Gail Riplinger, too. So as far as discernment goes on certain issues, it's sort of hard to give

Chuck a real high grade here. But this call was interesting.

Let's just start listening to it and just catch some of the attitude that is expressed by Chuck Smith here.

Laura calling from Yucaipa, California. Hi, Laura. You're on Pastor's Perspective. Hi. Blessings to you, gentlemen.

Thank you, Laura. Thank you. Pastor Chuck, you actually answered my question in detail on the

Calvinist movement. There is a second part of my question I'm glad I have.

The church that my husband and I attend, the youth, the leaders of the youth have been, oh, another doctrine has come in.

It's nothing new. But they're leaving our church, and it's a five -point Calvinist. They're being taught that God created some for heaven and some for hell, and so they're not satisfied with the teachings now.

I know that's not true, and I've been trying to counsel with some of them.

And I said my problem is that, and maybe you can help me on this one, even my study

Bible, I don't even want it any longer. And I told my son, I wish Pastor Chuck had a study

Bible, because I know that he's teaching the truth on here. The nature of God has now been made into a

God instead of love that we know is true, into a God of hate. And at the

Great White Throne Judgment, I could just, the vision of God laughing and mocking these people, they didn't have any choice anyway.

So, you know, it puts contradictions into the Bible. Now, let me just stop right here and just go, wow,

I mean, what on earth is this poor lady talking about? This is what happens.

Remember when we started reviewing Bryson? What did he say?

Let me get to somebody before the Calvinists do, and I can keep them from becoming a

Calvinist. How does he do that? You just heard by so twisting the mind, so twisting the position, so poisoning the mind with falsehoods and false applications and everything else.

This is all that this poor lady could hear. And I, you know, I cannot guarantee, obviously, that whoever she was speaking to, whoever's talking to her, you know,

I mean, there are such things as cage stage Calvinists. OK, and if you've never heard that phrase before, a cage stage

Calvinist is that Calvinist when he first comes to understand the doctrines of grace and he gets so excited and he's just, you know, jazzed out of his mind.

And, you know, all he can do is pass out copies of The Sovereignty of God by Arthur W. Pink. And there's no balance.

And we call them cage stage because they'd probably be best in a cage at that point rather than hurting other people in the process.

And when they get some maturity, get some balance, then you let them out of the cage and they can do what they need to do.

But we recognize that there are sometimes, you know, people get all excited about something and that's just all they think about.

And that's all there is to their perspective. And there's no balance. I'm not saying compromise.

I'm saying no balance in recognizing that, hey, if it was God's grace that opened your eyes to these truths, who are you to become the one that's going to demand that God's grace to open this person's eyes right now in the exact same way they did for you?

So anyway, maybe it was a cage stage Calvinist who, you know, was talking to this lady and just doesn't know how to accurately present what he's saying.

But there is a far better chance, far better chance that the reality is that there is an accurate exposition given.

But there was absolutely positively no willingness because of the poisoning of the mind by Bryson, by Chuck Smith dishonestly without accuracy.

That's the only way we can put it. We've been documenting that as we've been going through George's stuff. There's been a poisoning of the mind.

And this is the result is this utterly twisted. I mean, think about it.

George has tried to use the illustration of Mormonism. You know, if he can get somebody to before they become a

Mormon, he can keep him from becoming a Mormon. And he tried to use that as a parallel. I know it's not a direct parallel, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But look, look at the difference. When I talk to somebody about Mormonism. And I'm wanting to keep them from becoming a

Mormon. And I do want to keep them from becoming a Mormon. I don't want anyone to join the Mormon church. I don't want anyone to be deceived in that way.

But what is the means by which I keep them from becoming LDS? By giving them a twisted, contorted view of Mormonism?

Or by making sure they really understood, understand everything that Mormonism is saying.

And know the truth of Scripture in opposition to the error of Mormonism. So what a massive difference for Bryson and company to create a twisted, grotesque, grossly in error image of Reformed theology.

And go, aha, see, I kept somebody from embracing that. What kind of apologetic is that?

Yes, sir. The other thing is you wouldn't be so arrogant as to say that you could keep somebody from becoming a

Mormon. This is a battle that goes way beyond ourselves, our fancy words, our even lying through our teeth to frighten someone, etc.

This battle is being waged on a totally different plane. And for someone to say that, well, you know, if I can get somebody before they become a

Mormon and I can talk to them, I can keep them from becoming a Mormon. I don't buy that.

Well, even just listening to him, it was sadly clear that his understanding of Mormonism is not overly in depth anyways.

But then again, he feels he has a very in -depth understanding of Reformed theology, and we've found numerous problems with that anyway.

But I just wanted to stop with this poor lady's call and just go, my goodness, here you go.

There's a clear illustration of the vast difference between the approaches of the two sides. One doesn't mind if it produces a grotesque.

And of course, if Chuck Smith has any scholarly acumen to him, he's going to go back and fix the things this lady has said before he then goes forward.

How many times have I on this program, when someone's called about a religion I don't agree with, corrected them in their misunderstanding of religion

I don't agree with? But guess what? That's not what we get. So what I know, I've written down some of the books that you've mentioned.

And I know our pastors have been giving them to these leaders. They said they don't want to be indoctrinated by our church's beliefs any longer.

And I said, well, you're being indoctrinated one way or the other. True. Very true. So maybe, is it okay if I hang up and listen to your response?

Surely. Okay, thank you. We do have detailed, you know,

George Bryson has written this long dissertation on it in which he covers these various positions.

But he has a shorter version. And it's John Calvin versus John 3 .16.

And, of course, we know that John 3 .16 says, Whosoever believeth in him.

And it leaves that open. Whereas Calvin more or less taught that it isn't whosoever.

Now, of course, again, the regular reader, regular listener will go, how many times have we gone over that?

We've gone over it many, many times. But I once again, for the new listeners, remind you that when you look at John 3 .16,

take it out of context, I would first of all recommend you read the fuller discussion of this in my open letter to Dave Hunt on the subject.

But the term whosoever is actually translating from the original

Greek, all the believing ones. Everyone who believes receives eternal life. That's what it's saying.

Their emphasis, the emphasis that Chuck Smith just used, is not a part of the inspired text.

It is a tradition of men. Period. End of discussion. End of discussion. If you're trying to assert that there is something in the text that he just said leaves it open, in other words, denies election, it isn't there.

And every time someone tries to say, oh, yes, it is. It's amazing. Paul Owen, again, as I said in an article this weekend, if an atheist was arguing against me,

Paul Owen would take the atheist side. An Arminian takes the Arminian side. A Mormon takes the Mormon side. A Roman Catholic takes the Catholic side. If he was a

Buddhist, take the Buddhist side. That's just how vacuous his personal theology is. And even he tried to say, oh, yes, whosoever is a perfectly fine translation, he's playing with the

Greek, blah, blah, blah. But, again, it's not the word whosoever. It's what it means.

And in the original language, it's so that all the believing ones.

Now, he can't argue that, and I don't think he'd even try to. Then again, maybe he would. Who knows?

But it's all the believing ones. There is no indefinite term floating around in here that says there's no election, there's no sovereign decree, there's no specificity here.

It's simply saying all the believing ones. That's what the text says.

And people say, well, why doesn't it translate it that way? Because whosoever can have that mean. Whosoever believes.

So if you believe, this promise is for you. But the point is, who's going to believe?

There is nothing in there that says, and who's going to believe is just general for everybody. It's just everybody has equal access to this concept of believing, which is the tradition that these folks read into the text.

But it's not there. It isn't even what John 3 .16 is attempting to address. It is pure traditionalism.

It is eisegesis, not exegesis. And we've covered that many times before. You would have to add, whosoever is chosen and believes in him.

Well, again, he's thinking, and I don't know this, but anyone who can promote

Gail Ripplinger, this would seemingly fit. It doesn't seem to have any specific knowledge of the original languages, or if he does, it's very limited.

And hence probably can't translate the text himself so as to recognize that there is no specific

Greek word whosoever in the text. It's just not there. So he keeps building upon it, and then you have this mockery of Calvinism based upon ignorance, based upon tradition, and this at the very highest levels.

This sort of goes back to what George Bryson was saying at the beginning of the talk that we've been listening to. Well, you know, we're at Calvary Chapel, and we're not into this.

You know, if you just read the Bible, it ain't going to make you a theologian type of a simplicity.

Could not perish. But that's not what John 3 .16 says. But I do know that this teaching is quite prevalent.

But again, what kind of a God would, you know, create a man deliberately to destroy him without giving him any choice or opportunity of being saved?

Now, that is purely Dave Hunt. That is Dave Hunt without any question.

If you know anything about Reformed theology, you know exactly why that is a canard, why it is a misrepresentation.

You also know why it is that Chuck Smith, who to my knowledge has not embraced open theism.

I mean, if he was going to be consistent with himself, I suppose he would have to do so to maintain this kind of a position.

But Chuck Smith has to answer the exact same question. God created every man, and he knew exactly where that man was going to go.

And even if he just knew that passively, it's not as a result of his decree.

How he would then know that is a good question. But even if he knew that passively, he just simply has foreknowledge of future events.

He tossed the cosmic dice and he knows. Why would he then not stop the process that would result in that person being condemned for eternity who had, quote unquote, no chance?

I mean, the system is just so incoherent. It is so inconsistent with itself.

And yet they have said it and taught it so many times, they just keep repeating it over and over again as if it has any real meaning to it.

Back in the Old Testament, when God was sharing with Abraham the judgment that he was going to bring against Sodom because of the sin,

Abraham said, should not the Lord of the earth be just? And that is really the question.

Is not God just? And of course, the question is not whether God is just.

It is whether God is just and merciful, whether God is sovereign and just and merciful.

And these folks can't give a coherent, consistent answer to that without inserting all sorts of Greek philosophy and the autonomy of human will into the equation.

And even then it's self -contradictory. And I do believe that that's one of the characteristics of God. And there is no way that you could convince me that God is just if he creates a man to be destroyed who never has a chance.

Because when he was created, he was predestined by God to be damned and thus he doesn't have any choice in the matter and he will be suffering forever.

This torment of being separated from God when he never did have a chance.

That isn't justice. That isn't fair. And I don't believe that the

Bible teaches that at all. And of course, nor is anybody else. And I think that teaching it is a perverting of what the scriptures actually teach.

And if anyone did teach that, they would be perverting what the scriptures actually teach. That's right. But of course, what we realize is that that straw man isn't what anybody is teaching anyway.

That men do have choices and that they are enslaved to their nature as sinners and they love the choices they make.

And all that stuff is basic one -on -one. And these folks just aren't interested in listening. They're trying to accurately – they basically show the same attitude.

This is the same group of people. This is the same audience that buys all the garbage stuff on Mormonism.

And there is garbage stuff on Mormonism. It's the easy stuff. It's the stuff that doesn't actually go into any type of depth as to accurately representing what the

Mormon church teaches and providing a biblical response. It's the stuff that says, oh, well, you know, there are certain Mormon leaders that have been rumored to be homosexuals.

They say, oh, that makes them bad and evil. It's all the sensationalistic stuff. Same crowd, same group that wants to buy that.

Then they're going to use the exact same methodology and respond to Calvinism they do to Mormonism. And neither one of them is going to honor the truth in how they do it.

And that's a sad commentary. Laura, the number is 1 -800 -272 -WORD.

And the resource Pastor Chuck mentioned is again by George Bryson. It's called Calvinism Weighed and Found Wanting.

It is, as Pastor Chuck pointed out, the shorter version of his longer treatise of Dark Side of Calvinism.

Actually, that's not even true. Calvinism Weighed and Found Wanting was out years before this velo -bound big thing that we've been looking at.

Oh, there's a – I saw a marking here. There we go. That's interesting. Ah, that's about me.

There we go. That's why I had it marked to say, hey, take a shot. That came out long before this.

So that isn't the shortened version of this. It's reverse. So anyway, continue.

Both of those would be great books for you to pick up and share with maybe some of those youth leaders and such.

And Pastor Chuck, it's really sad to me that we get calls like this from across the country of individuals who are really creating a lot of discord over issues that have been floating around for almost 2 ,000 years.

Hey, I'm at least glad he knows these issues have been floating around for 2 ,000 years. But why are we the ones creating the discord?

That's what I want to know. Why is it that they, since they're the ones doing the misrepresentation, why is it that they're the ones who are creating the discord?

Why aren't they the ones creating the discord? Why am I the one creating the discord? I don't quite follow that. I've never figured that part out.

It seems as though they really forgot what the essence of what we're to be doing as Christians. And it really is too bad that Laura and her church are having to go through this.

It's a very divisive kind of a teaching, Brian. And, of course, the problem with it is that, you see, they cannot convert the lost.

Now, where did we hear that? Where did we hear that? Do you get the very strong feeling that Chuck Smith was sitting in the audience at the beginning of the

Bryson MP3 that we were playing, where it talks about how they're sterile and they cannot convert the lost?

I mean, anybody with the slightest bit of knowledge of history. But I'm sorry, again, going to offend some folks here.

But the fact of the matter is Calvary Chapel folks don't know a lot about church history. They're not deep in church history.

They don't identify themselves in such a way as to be deep in church history. And so to sit there and say what they're saying makes anyone who knows something about church history just want to scream.

But that's what you get. Because that's an impossible task.

If a person is lost, they're lost and they can't be saved. Now, it's difficult for me to to understand how if Chuck Smith has ever sat down and had any has spent five minutes.

Seriously, talking with someone who who believes in reformed theology, five minutes reading a serious book, reading

Sproul or or reading, reading a single Spurgeon sermon, anything.

How can someone say what he just said? How can

I? I can't believe to begin to conceive how you can take a theology that says that God, that Jesus Christ is a perfect savior.

He is not dependent upon mankind's cooperation. He is able to save the uttermost those that the father draws on to him.

He ever lives to make intercession for them. The father gives them to him. He is to lose none of them. He will lose none of them.

He'll raise them all the last day. How on earth can you take the proclamation of the perfect work of Christ?

And turn out and say, well, I can't save anybody if they're lost, they're lost or something, do about it. I mean,

I hope it will always amaze me.

I hope it will always amaze me. That people can be so cavalier in addressing issues like this.

You know, I mean, sometimes it bothers folks because people will ask me a question. I'll go, I don't know.

And they'll go, well, look, you've studied stuff like this. What do you mean? You don't know. Well, I'm hesitant to make some grand proclamation about something when

I haven't had an opportunity to really examine it. And, yeah, I could give you some, you know, educated guesses.

But people assume my educated guess is the result of really examining stuff because that's how you're supposed to do things.

And I just don't understand how someone can sit on a radio station and make this kind of commentary when it is so fallacious and so utterly worthless.

And just just go on, you know, like, oh, well, you know, I've already come to my conclusions on this. And I don't need to do anything.

I have died. So you can't convert the lost. So what do they try to do?

They want to convert. But what do they do? They try and convert other Christians to their position of, you know, of the five points of Calvinism.

And so they are busy arguing and and trying to prove that, you know,

Calvin in his in his five points has found the truths of God.

And because you can't convert the lost, then let's convert those that do believe to believe like we believe.

But it's a sterile doctrine. And I've discovered that Satan oftentimes doesn't try to dissuade us from believing in God.

But he often will lead people into what I call sterile positions, doctrinal positions.

And they're sterile because they sterilize you. They keep you from reproducing.

You become sterilized. And thus Satan has won a great victory because you no longer are fervent in trying to win the loss of Jesus Christ, because it's a futile kind of a futile thing to try to do to convince someone that if they just believe in Jesus, they'll be saved.

You know, listening to this, it's just so sad to hear someone who has preached for so many years and yet evidently, you know, came to a point where they decided they had it all figured out and there's there's no more challenges, no more thought process, no more growth.

There's no more. It's sad to listen to this. But at the same time, it's somewhat encouraging because, folks, if this is the best they've got, and it is, there ain't nothing to it.

It's no wonder that these folks do not want dialogue because they've learned dialogue will always lead to their own defeat because it would be so simple.

Can you imagine if I would love to get Chuck Smith to come on the program? I'd be happy to go on his.

How easy it would be to demonstrate the vacuous nature of these objections.

I mean, as long as you were at least given time to give an answer. That's why these folks won't debate.

Equal time isn't going to do them any good. They they are dependent upon the monologue here.

They can't do the dialogue part. The debate part doesn't work because they're stuck with straw men and straw men eventually, you know, burn up and there's not much left with them to beat anybody with.

And it'd be so easy to demonstrate that the fundamental understandings are completely missed, completely missed here.

That you've you've completely missed it at the most basic level. And therefore. How powerful then becomes the proclamation that we don't have to edit the gospel, that we don't have to change it so that men will go, oh, well,

I like that. It's not up to men in that sense. The gospel changes hearts as long as you don't change the gospel.

The gospel is the power of God and the salvation. It's the spirit of God that blows across those dead men's bones and makes them become alive.

The spirit of God that takes out the heart of stone gives the heart of flesh. And what a what a liberating thing it is for people to start realizing what the

Bible is actually teaching. That they've been focusing upon just one little section of the exclusion of everything else.

And therefore, as a result, they don't have to be pandering to sinful men and trying to entertain sinful men into the kingdom of God.

It doesn't work that way. So you can see why really these folks don't want dialogue and debate.

They just want to be able to continue to try to isolate their people, insulate them against these things. And you can see they can be effective.

Remember the color? Total twistedness. But even in that situation, a person with some patience can go,

Well, I don't know what you've been told or who's told you about Reformed theology. But they clearly don't have a clue as to what in the world they're talking about.

And when they really can't be saved anyhow. So I'm sort of mocking them and offering to them something that they can't have.

That's a very cruel thing. Can you believe that? And yet, you know, it's an unsaid thing.

But when a person once gets into this, and this is why I believe it's almost demonic.

Because once they get into that, they just can't seem to get out of it.

It's almost demonic. Because once they get into it, they can't get out of it. Well, you know, what he's probably referring to is the fact that they aren't overly successful in getting,

George Bryson admits, once someone becomes a Calvinist, I rarely can get them back out of it. There's a reason for that.

It's called your utter incapacity to deal with the text of the Bible. That's what it's about.

Oh, my goodness. But we'll call that demonic. We can't really argue the Bible with you, so you must be under demonic oppression.

Wow, that's pretty scary stuff right there, what you just heard. It's just a mindset, and they think that they're right.

They've been convinced that, you know, this is the intellectual position. Intellectual position.

You hearing something here? They're convinced this is the intellectual. No, we're convinced this is the biblical position. And that you should use your intellect to be consistent in your theology.

And so you're hearing someone here who isn't consistent in their theology. And so instead of being concerned about that, what you do is you turn around and you go, well, you're just being intellectual.

And in reality, it is a blasphemous position because it blasphemes the grace of God, the fairness of God.

Let's just make sure we understand here. If you say God's grace is sufficient to save, not just necessary to save, but sufficient to save, which was the foundation of the gospel pre -proclamation of the

Reformation. If you say that God's grace is sufficient to save in of itself, you are blaspheming

God's grace. Let's make sure everybody knows. Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.

If you say that God's grace is sufficient in of itself to save, you're blaspheming

God's grace. Just want to make sure everybody knows. The goodness of God, the love of God, it's against all of these characteristics and nature of God to hold to these kind of positions.

And there is the end of the call. What an amazing experience to listen to that.

And again, different than Bryson? No, not quite as nuanced and stuff, but obviously deeply influenced by Bryson's presentation.

But maybe because it's shorter and less nuanced, a little bit easier to see what the real intention of that proclamation really is.

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. And when we talk about this issue of Calvinism, it's not unusual to get a phone call from Pierre.

Hi, Pierre. How are you doing? Hello. How's it going? I'm doing all right. I couldn't resist calling when

I heard your statement about Pastor Smith and the caller on the program today.

It seems to me that their view, as I see it also, is in fact correct.

Is it not in fact the teaching of John Calvin that God predestined people either to heaven or hell?

You seem to say no. No. Over the past seven, eight years at least,

Pierre, I don't know how many times we've gone over these fundamental issues.

And every time that we do, we keep coming back to, I present biblical texts that present the full realm of God's sovereign decree.

And the fact that there is election unto heaven and that there are those who receive

God's justice who do not receive his grace. And that men love their sin and that there is no man who would ever choose to follow

Christ outside of the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart, changing his heart. We've gone over all these things.

We always end up coming back to the same thing. And that is, I believe the Bible is the infallible and inerrant word of God. You do not.

You're a Mormon. You have your sources of authority that reject the God of the Bible because you believe in a plurality of gods.

And I know that we've addressed this issue over and over again.

And what concerns me is that if you can't tell the difference between what I've said and the gross misrepresentation of what

I said by Chuck Smith and the caller, then you've never listened to anything that I've said.

And I'd have to say to you that means I have evidenced considerable more capacity to accurately represent

LDS beliefs than you seem to possess to be able to even understand the positions that you disagree with.

The reason that I keep coming back to this is that you seem to be consistently inconsistent in your declarations.

Either that or you're coming from a position of I don't believe in double predestination.

I only believe in predestination of the elect. No. How many times have

I explained it? Probably over the past six months at least 15 times I have addressed the fact that while I believe clearly that God's decree includes both the predestination election of God's people as well as the fact that by specific identity those who will experience

God's justice as sinners is known to God and is a part of God's decree, that that does not mean that election is the mirror image of election to life versus election to death.

Election is an act of grace that has nothing to do with justice. I've said that 15 times. Why can't you factor that in?

Why can't you factor that in? I do but you see it's inconsistent. That's what I'm calling about. And why is it inconsistent to recognize that election as an act of grace is different than the choice of an individual in regards to their receiving justice, that that is not an act of grace?

How is that inconsistent? I understand that part. Obviously it's not an act of grace. So they're not parallel to one another are they?

Not in the sense of where they end up. They're parallel in the sense that God makes a choice.

He chooses some for salvation and some for damnation. Again, since there is this issue of sin, justice, and holiness, how is it that you could say a judge chooses to be just to someone?

Isn't that what a judge is supposed to be? Isn't that by nature? The person is to receive what their nature is as a sinner?

So how can you say that God – see God's choice in grace is free.

He does not have to do that. But justice, he does have to. What's the third category? If it is a choice for grace and a choice for damnation, then there must be a third category that God could go to for the choice for damnation to be a choice.

What was he not choosing to do? Well, you're either missing or deliberately trying to avoid the issue is that the decision by God was made before the behavior took place.

I think that's the thing that people find repugnant. Salvation or damnation has actually nothing to do with behavior.

And that is where you're wrong. That is where you're completely wrong. That's where you simply refuse to allow the system you're criticizing to define its own terminology.

Nowhere in scripture is man's behavior and God's holiness left out of this equation.

That is the error. That is the falsehood. And I'm glad that we can now disabuse you of the falsehood.

And you can get this cleared up so you won't have to be misrepresenting people about this anymore.

Is that you seem – and at least you I can understand. Because you're a Mormon. You don't have a sovereign

God. You don't have a God who's eternal. You've got an exalted man from another planet named Elohim. I mean, I can understand how you cannot begin to conceive of a

God who is eternal and timeless and absolutely pure and holy. The man had to be redeemed from another planet.

I understand where you're getting this. But the problem is, and what people should be hearing here, is if you do believe in a timeless being, an eternal being, a being who has never been anything other than God, who is self -sufficient in and of himself, who is the sovereign creator of all things, not just things with this planet or this universe or whatever else.

But if it exists, this is the God who created it for his own purpose and his own glory. If you believe in that kind of God, then you have no grounds for being confused as to the fact that God's decree comprehends the entirety of his created order, which includes man's attitudes, man's heart, man's behavior, and he has a purpose in all of it.

I realize you have no foundation for that. You can't begin to have that, because the Bible's not your final authority,

Pierre. You and I both agree with that. The Bible's not your final authority. You've got Latter -day Prophets, right?

I do, but if I can understand you correctly, then if I could sort of maybe rephrase what I think

I'm hearing, then you're saying that God looks down the corridor of time. These people are going to misbehave, and then he says, okay, well, then

I'll make my reprobate. Okay, so how many times does anyone in the audience – how many times can we count?

Well, just over the past year, I have specifically pointed out that very error and pointed out that is not what foreknowledge means, that that's not what foreknowing means.

I don't know how much more clearly I could express the reality of God's sovereign decree over time and its inclusiveness of everything in time and that it's not based upon some passively looking down through the corridors of time and finding out what happens.

I don't know how many times I can say it, Pierre. I just – I don't know how many times I can say it. This is why I keep calling because I find that approach of yours to be very, very confusing.

Well, and the reason, Pierre, is because – It's illogical. Pierre, let me be as clear as I possibly can be here.

Our discussion here on this program is between Christians, and we don't believe Mormons are Christians. We believe that Mormonism is a false religion with false revelations and false prophets and a false

God, a false Jesus and a false gospel it doesn't save. And there will be no way, as long as you continue to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet and he saw

God the Father and Jesus Christ in the sacred grove in 1820, even though history demonstrates that's not when it took place and so on and so forth.

As long as you continue to believe those kinds of things, you don't have any ground upon which to even try to be unconfused about these things because these are all based upon presuppositions drawn from the

Bible that you reject. I mean, Joseph Smith said, we've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity.

I'll refute that idea and take away the veil so that you might see. By refuting the fundamental truth of Christianity, he separated himself and his followers, including yourself, from any participation in this particular discussion because it'll always be completely beyond your capacity to understand as long as you continue to believe in a

God who lives on a planet that circles a star named Kolob and has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as any man's that was once a man who lived on another planet and became a

God. You have no ground for understanding these things. This isn't your argument, basically, Pierre.

I understand what you're saying. However, you have quoted time and time again from individuals who are evangelical

Protestants who have the same confusion that I have, the same position. However, their confusion is because of their own inconsistency, because they would agree with me against you that God is eternal, that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future.

And the question then becomes, they don't want to address how God can have as a self -existent being, as one who is not dependent upon anything outside of himself for his knowledge or his existence, how that God can have knowledge of future events outside of a personal decree.

They won't address those issues. You deny that God has that capacity. They say he does, but are inconsistent in making the application of what it then means to believe in a

God like that. So my concern with them, like I said just a few moments ago,

I fully understand why you reject these things because your God can't do these things. But they say they have the same

God I have, and that's where the inconsistency comes in. And if you have heard anything at all, you should have heard that these individuals do not engage us.

If you've listened to the debates, they don't engage the text with us in anything like that.

This is the whole issue that we're raising, Pierre. So I do understand why you find the whole thing inconsistent, because you and I do not share a starting point in a

God who is eternal, and in the scriptures that are infallible and inspired and consistent with themselves.

But if we had that foundation, then the consistency would be exceptionally clear.

Thank you very much for your call, Pierre. And once again, illustrating for us that if you believe everything the

Bible has to say, and only, Sola Scriptura and Toda Scriptura, Scripture alone and all of Scripture, then why in the world are people like Chuck Smith saying the things they're saying?

Good question. Good question. Thanks for joining us on the Divine Line today. We'll be back on Thursday. God bless.

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