Why Calvinism?
24 views
The Open Air Theology podcast guys join Andrew to talk about their conference on Why Calvinism. We will start an hour later and go shorter this week.
- 00:11
- Can you show me, because we're going to use some hermeneutics, can you show me anywhere in the Old Testament where that word perpetual is not perpetual?
- 00:20
- Because, again, I understand you're appealing, again, talking about God's laws, where any of God's laws...
- 00:26
- Hold on, hold on. Wait a minute. I thought I was going to get to have a talk here. You asked a question. Hang on a second, sir. Be quiet now.
- 00:31
- Hang on a second. Well, there you go. I will mute you because it's not your show. You asked a question. I'm going to give you the answer.
- 00:38
- Genesis 6 -4, the word olam is used, referring to those who are of old.
- 00:46
- Deuteronomy... I'll just rattle off all the ones where it's used, not referring to perpetual. Genesis 6 -4,
- 00:52
- Deuteronomy 32 -7, Joshua 24 -2, 1 Samuel 27 -8,
- 00:59
- Job 22 -15, Psalm 24 -17, and 24 -7, 24 -9, 25 -6, 41 -13, 77 -9, 90 -2, 103 -17, 106 -48, 119 -52, 143 -3,
- 01:19
- Proverbs 8 -23, Proverbs 22 -28, Proverbs 23 -10, and Ecclesiastes 1 -10.
- 01:27
- Should I go on for more? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is
- 01:34
- Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.
- 01:47
- Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I always love that one. That's a great theological response when you can't respond biblically to a claim you made.
- 01:55
- Just go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I love that. Well, welcome to Apologetics Live. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, here to answer your most challenging
- 02:03
- Bible questions. We can answer any question you have about God and the Bible. If you doubt me, well, you just go to Apologetics Live, click on the
- 02:11
- StreamYard icon, join us, give us your most challenging question. And remember, if I say
- 02:16
- I don't know, that's a perfectly good answer. Let me bring some folks in.
- 02:22
- We're going to do a shorter episode tonight. I'm going to bring in the man, the myth, the legend himself,
- 02:27
- Mr. Jeffrey Rice. Yo, yo, yo. We got his, I don't know, are these the three musketeers?
- 02:35
- We got Haps Addison and then Patterson. We like to call ourselves
- 02:41
- Open Air Theology. Yeah, well, and so you guys are from the
- 02:47
- Open Air Theology podcast. And you guys have a conference coming up.
- 02:54
- Hmm, that's what we're here to talk about tonight. So we're going to have a little bit of a shorter show tonight, folks.
- 03:02
- But we want to encourage you to go to check out OpenAirTheology .com.
- 03:08
- And on there, I'm just going to present real quick. I just want to share screen to show you what it is that we're going to be doing over there.
- 03:21
- And this, even though this is old information, by the way, just for the record. But because the schedule changed.
- 03:28
- But why Calvinism? It's going to be in Tennessee if you're in the area. But just to to go down and look at some of the we're going to talk about tonight.
- 03:40
- We're going to talk about the pre -conference. There's a pre -conference debate on the dangers of full preterism.
- 03:46
- Now, just for the record, that's what Jeffrey Rice holds to. I just figured
- 03:54
- I'd see the reaction. I hope that it's dangerous. I thought you really
- 04:02
- I thought you were a big fan of of that. No. Okay. I am a preterist, just like everyone else is.
- 04:11
- So this conference is going to be February 21st with the pre -conference starting at 6 to 830.
- 04:16
- This part has changed. It's moved around for some reason. Jeff didn't want to be first, so he threw me to the dogs.
- 04:23
- And now I'm the first talk. There's an advantage to that.
- 04:29
- Haps, don't laugh because I get to then relax and enjoy the conference. There is a get it done.
- 04:36
- You know, the advantage of going first is anything bad that I say. No one remembers, you know.
- 04:43
- And if I say something brilliant, which, well, that won't happen. But if I do say something brilliant, all the other speakers will refer to it again so that everyone will remember it.
- 04:52
- See, that's the advantage of going first. So the real thing is I just get to enjoy everything.
- 04:59
- Let's look at the topics we got. And this has changed because we've there's you guys have added some speakers.
- 05:05
- But Jeff, you're going to be talking on on the Calvinism of Jesus. Correct. Which will be dealing with regeneration, proceeding faith.
- 05:18
- So you are you saying that Jesus came up with that? It wasn't from Calvin. I thought
- 05:24
- Calvin came up with that. No, I truly believe that if Jesus was walking the earth today, you'd have people like Layton Flowers saying, you
- 05:32
- Calvinist. That's the doctrine of the devil.
- 05:39
- He's going to isn't he going to be at the conference? He's supposed to be coming to support Jason Brita.
- 05:46
- Oh, is that why he's coming? Yes. He actually wanted us to give him five minutes after each speaker to rebut us.
- 05:54
- Is he so is he coming to the whole conference or is he just coming for the debate? I'm not sure.
- 06:00
- I'm only expecting him Saturday. But I would love it if he said right in the front row during your message.
- 06:12
- It'll be good that I think it'd be really good. I mean, I'm just picturing
- 06:17
- Layton Flowers, James White, Matt Slick and myself getting together.
- 06:24
- Oh, my gosh. Well, the one good thing for Layton Flowers is that this conference is going to give him like two or three years of material.
- 06:34
- Oh, I hope you don't know in case there's someone that doesn't know Layton Flowers. So Layton Flowers, he claims he used to be a
- 06:41
- Calvinist and he his big thing is to speak against Calvinism, which every Calvinist that I know of tells
- 06:49
- Layton that he's misrepresenting Calvinism. That should be a warning sign. If everyone who holds the position tells you you're misrepresenting it, that's not good.
- 06:58
- Right. So so he's planning if he's planning to be there, that'd be great.
- 07:05
- But he's a really nice guy. That's the thing. He's a really nice guy. So I'm going to be talking on the on the history of Calvinism, basically going through.
- 07:15
- This may be a shocker, but Calvinism didn't start with Calvin. And I'm just going to say that, you know, we may have a different view of James or any
- 07:27
- Jacob Arminius. Was he actually a Calvinist or not? Just saying we could discuss it.
- 07:34
- R .C. Sproul's done a lot of work in that area. It's kind of interesting. But Jeff's like shaking his head like, oh, no.
- 07:43
- You know, I mean, I just think it depends on what you would call a Calvinist. Right. If you're talking about the the all five points of the tulip, then we'll see.
- 07:54
- That's the point. There was no tulip. Yeah, I know. I know what I'm saying. Like if you if you label it in that in that sense, then
- 08:01
- I would say no. But I would think that that if you're praying to God and you're asking
- 08:07
- God to save your neighbor, your mom, your dad, whatever it may be, your child, and you're asking
- 08:13
- God to grant them salvation to save them, then you're a Calvinist, whether you like it or not.
- 08:20
- Well, let me ask you a question. I'll ask this of Haps. I know you like to evangelize.
- 08:26
- Do you know anyone that prays like an Arminian? Yeah. Yeah.
- 08:36
- They pray. They pray for people to get saved like an Arminian or pray like a cow.
- 08:41
- Really? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't met anyone that prays like an Arminian.
- 08:47
- Yeah. I mean,
- 08:54
- I'm going to pray for you later, dude. For God to save people, you know, you had someone that once said he said to me that I pray like a
- 09:07
- Calvinist and I preach the gospel like an Arminian. And I said, well,
- 09:12
- I'm praying that God would change their hearts, but I don't know if they're one of the elect. So I'm going to preach to them that, you know, that they need to repent.
- 09:19
- Yeah. Yeah. Is there a different gospel that's been preached? I mean, I mean, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures were buried on the third day, rose again, according to the scriptures.
- 09:29
- I mean, is there a different gospel? Well, according to Paul in Galatians, yes, it's a false gospel.
- 09:38
- It's not really a gospel. He calls it an accursed one.
- 09:45
- But yeah, there is. So let's see. So we got.
- 09:50
- OK, so let's go through some of these guys. You got Claude Ramsey.
- 09:57
- Oh, yeah. Brady, I'm going to let you do this guy for people that don't know who he is.
- 10:04
- Does does he preach with any kind of compassion? Look, I'm starting to hydrate my body right now because I know that I will be crying during his message.
- 10:15
- Oh, yeah. So I'm getting ready for that day right now. Yeah, he he would out preach when
- 10:24
- I say out preach. I mean, bring passion to preaching Christ crucified in such a way that would put every preacher in his in the pew of his church.
- 10:35
- No one can bring the amount of passion that Claude does. It's amazing. And last year he sung a part of a hymn in his song, in his message.
- 10:43
- I really hope I hope I can see that again because I was bawling as he did that. Oh, yeah, I did.
- 10:49
- But but but right. And you cried during every message. I did. Right. During every message. Yeah.
- 10:54
- Of course, you had to bring that. Every time I looked at you, you was crying. I was like, man, he's tall. We had a counselor for a month afterwards.
- 11:01
- He was not. He was not crying during my message. He was sleeping. So just. No, I was crying during yours, too, man.
- 11:10
- Salvation is in Christ and that he saves a wretch like me, man. It'll it'll get me every time.
- 11:16
- So we got it looks like. So on the Calvinism Luther, you guys brought in Doug Wilson wannabe.
- 11:23
- Yeah. Harvard. Harvard. Great. Wilson. Harvard. Great version. None of the folks.
- 11:30
- If folks don't know who Keith is, well, you'll just have to go look him up to figure out why we say that.
- 11:35
- He was he was there last year just doing podcast interviews. Now you got him preaching.
- 11:42
- I didn't know him too well last year. I just knew him as the funny guy on the Internet. My wife really enjoyed him, and he contacted me about getting a booth.
- 11:52
- And then over the year, we got to know get to know one another. And he mentioned about, you know, if we were to ever do something on Calvinism, he wanted to do something on Luther.
- 12:02
- And it just kind of fell into place. Yeah. And Calvin, the
- 12:10
- Calvinism of Luther. Luther was a Calvinist, just like Jesus.
- 12:20
- All right. Well, I mean, everyone's inconsistent. I mean, look in the mirror. Come on.
- 12:28
- Right now, I'm looking in a screen and seeing you. So I guess you're right. Brandon, what are you going to be talking about here?
- 12:36
- The Calvinism, the Old Testament to the new? Yeah. A new covenant? Yes, I'm really going to be focusing on God's sovereignty.
- 12:44
- That has always been plan A, that he brought about the Christ through a progressive revealing of covenants to the ethnic people of Israel to bring about the
- 12:53
- Christ, the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Judah through just predestination, sovereignty.
- 13:02
- And ultimately, that is what enacted the new covenant, according to Hebrews chapter eight. And that is the covenant where sins are forgiven and iniquities are remembered no more.
- 13:11
- And it's just like how in the Old Testament, you were a child of Abraham.
- 13:18
- You are part of the old covenants through being born into the covenant. Likewise, you must be born again to enter into the new covenant.
- 13:24
- And it is salvific atonement just for the members of that covenant, that covenant alone.
- 13:33
- And then Brandon Scalf is going to be preaching. Now, if folks have not heard
- 13:38
- Brandon preach, Brandon, he's got the Cruciform Conference that he does.
- 13:44
- I've been privileged to hear him preach on multiple occasions, not just at his conference, but also at his own church.
- 13:50
- I had the privilege of being in his church and listening to him preach. Would you say he's a good preacher?
- 13:57
- What do you say, perhaps? Oh, yeah. Scalf. You know, C .H.
- 14:03
- Scalf, man. Let me tell you that he can preach. He is one of my, actually, one of my favorite preachers.
- 14:11
- You know, like he really, really gets into it. And I love him as a brother, too. And so it makes sense that he's preaching on the preaching of Calvinism.
- 14:20
- Yeah. We got the dark horse. And I say this because you got
- 14:26
- Kevin Hay. And the reason I say he's the dark horse, if anyone hasn't watched the Q &A from last year's conference,
- 14:32
- I'd encourage you to go back because these guys all thought at this conference I was the only dispensational guy on the page.
- 14:43
- And all of a sudden they found out, wait, they had a closet dispensationalist. He was smart and just kept it quiet.
- 14:52
- It was like, you just watch that Q &A, folks. Go back to Open Air Theology Conference from last year.
- 14:57
- Watch the Q &A. And when all of a sudden Kevin reveals he's a dispensationalist, everyone's like, what?
- 15:05
- Didn't we end the Q &A right there, too, Jeff? We're done. We're done.
- 15:12
- I laughed because I knew it the whole time. I mean, because we were making fun of, well, actually we were making fun of Greg the
- 15:18
- Presbyterian. And then when Greg found out that Andrew was a Presbyterian and he was a dispensationalist.
- 15:27
- This started the very first night. And, folks, I'll give you the real reason to attend this conference because you can watch the videos later.
- 15:35
- Granted, it's the fellowship. Yeah, definitely. Jeff, I've said this to you.
- 15:41
- I'm not saying anything I haven't said to your face. But the way this conference has been organized is outstanding.
- 15:48
- I think I love the structure of this conference more than any other conference I've been to. It's a little bit more days, okay, because you've got the 22nd, the 23rd, the 24th, so it's three days.
- 16:02
- But it ends by 5, 6 o 'clock. You go out to dinner. Every night is like a theology throwdown.
- 16:10
- Oh, yeah. Gloves are off. We actually went to Buffalo Wild Wings.
- 16:16
- There was, I think, a hurricane warning or tornado warning. We couldn't leave there. We were trapped inside.
- 16:23
- And you guys were ripping on me for being a dispensationalist. Then all of a sudden you all decided to rip on Greg for being a
- 16:31
- Presbyterian. He was the only Presbyterian there. At dinner I was the only dispensationalist.
- 16:37
- And all of a sudden Greg realizes everyone's piling up on him. He goes, what are you digging on me for?
- 16:43
- He's the dispensationalist. And you all just turn your guns right back to me. Greg and I were sitting right next to each other.
- 16:50
- It just goes to show, you know, look, you get two people against everyone else, you would think that they would bond together to fight everyone.
- 16:59
- No, Greg just says, hey, throw him under the bus. And Greg's going to be the host this year.
- 17:07
- So he'll be introducing everyone. He's going to play a big part in it just to show that I love my
- 17:14
- Presbyterian brothers. I really think they need to keep reforming, but, you know, it is what it is.
- 17:23
- Yeah. Okay. So we got Kevin Hay speaking on the wrath of God.
- 17:29
- Yeah. And then we had a speaker come last year, digging you out.
- 17:35
- You had a spot to fill. You had a guy. You didn't know that. just preached like great.
- 17:46
- Yeah. Just the surprise of the conference last year. And he's going to preach about Calvinism and the love of God.
- 17:55
- Interesting topic. Jeff, why, why that one? What, you know, I thought Calvinists don't believe in that God loves
- 18:03
- God. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.
- 18:09
- Yeah. His only begotten son. Right. So, so how can we say that, that God does not love.
- 18:15
- Right. And you know, that word for world there, it's not. He's not saying that God just loves the, the
- 18:23
- Jews on the edge of the Mediterranean sea, but God so loved the whole world so that every ethnic group, red, yellow, black, or white.
- 18:35
- Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. You see, there's the truth, two truths that run through the
- 18:41
- Bible and a true Calvinist would hope to these two things. And it is that God is sovereign and that, and that man is called to repent and believe.
- 18:53
- Now the deal is, is how can a man repent and believe if God is sovereign? And that's why the conference is coming up as called.
- 19:00
- Why Calvinism? Why it's important to have this understanding. You got to have both understandings.
- 19:05
- You cannot just, if you ride one side of the fence, you're a hyper Calvinist. And if you ride the other side of the fence, you're an
- 19:12
- Armenian or a provisionist. So yeah.
- 19:17
- Calvinist believes in both that John three and excuse me,
- 19:22
- John six 37 for all that the father gives me, there's sovereignty will come there's a, so we will,
- 19:32
- I actually came to Christ, right? So in my experience, if you ask me my testimony,
- 19:39
- I'm going to give you the testimony of what I experienced and I experienced myself coming to Christ.
- 19:44
- When I got into the word of God, I understand why it is. I came to Christ. And that's why
- 19:52
- I say in my book, what do we believe? I say experientially we chose Christ, but theologically
- 19:58
- God chose us. Right. And that's the differences. And I think the big problem, a lot of people have is they're stuck in their experience and not the theology.
- 20:10
- Who's this next guy preaching on the Calvinism of Paul. Brandon, who is this guy? James White.
- 20:18
- Who's he? I don't know. I don't know. I think,
- 20:25
- I think, I think he was a guy that had Brandon stumbling last year.
- 20:31
- Who's this? Who's Brandon? Who do you keep calling? Brandon. Sorry. He had,
- 20:38
- I think he had you stumbling there as, as he came in as an elder. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
- 20:44
- Last. So last year, elder Lucas, I converted him out of Mormonism and now he's known as James White, which is pretty exciting.
- 20:54
- So it could be said, I converted James White to Christianity. Pull them right out of Mormonism.
- 21:02
- So, so you have a, you have a background of Mormonism and you, you defend
- 21:08
- Christianity against Mormons all the time, but James White came in acting as a Mormon elder.
- 21:15
- Yeah. And he kind of had you in pretzel mode there, I think for a little bit, but you know,
- 21:21
- I think it just had to be with your, your busy with, you know, the fact that you were having
- 21:29
- James White challenging you. I mean, look, no, who wants to debate James White anyway? Right.
- 21:35
- That's a fact. I don't, I feel bad for Jason. This debate that we're going to talk about here in a second, but man, it, you know, it was, it was really fun to sit there on a stage talking about trying to convince
- 21:47
- James White of the gospel. I was like, dude, this is weird. This is really weird, but he did a good job playing the part.
- 21:53
- It was, it was lots of fun. Yeah. So the next day, at least the ones you have, you have
- 21:58
- Sam Waldron on the will of man in Calvinism. My homie.
- 22:06
- He's your homie. Well, I don't know. Right. And he's always, he's always cool.
- 22:14
- He's always quote, quote him. He said, well, Sam Waldron said, well, Sam Waldron said, is he going to be sitting there and like star?
- 22:23
- Yes. Yes. Sign my Bible. Sign my kid's
- 22:28
- Bible. Yes. No. So the next, the next guy we got, we got this heretic preaching on Calvinism and evangelism.
- 22:38
- What were you, what were you thinking? Having a haps at who's this haps Addison guy. I mean, you gotta put them in somewhere.
- 22:45
- Right. I mean, well, you know, this, this is what Melissa says.
- 22:50
- Melissa says this, uh, he looks like ZZ top. Thank you.
- 22:58
- I'm, I'm, I'm shooting for it, man. I want it down on my belly. We got to live long enough.
- 23:04
- So, so haps, what's your message going to be on? And will it be longer than 20 minutes? Oh, you're going to get an, are you going to let, are you going to let
- 23:12
- Andrew see your, uh, your notes? No, I'm not going to let him see it this time. Let me, maybe you should let me see it like this week.
- 23:19
- Just saying, let me tell you what, what, what happened. Yeah. Everybody just real fast.
- 23:25
- So me, Brayden and, uh, our, our, our, our big brother right here. We, uh, we had an
- 23:31
- Airbnb and, uh, you know, you know, everybody's just kicking in and Andrew's sitting on the couch.
- 23:38
- And, uh, I go, Hey, Angie, would you mind like, you know, checking out my, uh, you know, my sermon?
- 23:44
- He goes, yeah, sure. And I give him my iPad and he breezes through it. And he goes, um, how long do you plan on preaching for?
- 23:52
- And I go, why? He goes, did you use a word counter? I go, what are you talking about? And he goes, you didn't use a word counter.
- 23:58
- How many words is this? And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, is there going to be filler? And I, you know, for a second,
- 24:04
- I didn't know what filler was. I go, yes, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He goes, he goes, he gets up and he hands me back and he goes, what you only plan on preaching for like 20 minutes.
- 24:18
- And I go, Andrew, don't do that to me, dude. And don't, don't. And he just got this big smile on his face and he walks right to the bedroom laughing as he shuts the door behind him.
- 24:28
- And I'm freaking out, freaking out. I just wanted the rest of the message.
- 24:36
- I'm not good at writing it down. You know, how long did it take you to preach through what you had in your notes?
- 24:45
- 35 minutes, 35 minutes. No, no. That was the filler six and a half minutes.
- 24:57
- You know what? I mean, I'm really excited about this topic right here because this, this is
- 25:05
- I mean, I mean the name of the conference is why
- 25:10
- Calvinism, you know? So, so really my appeal is to those that aren't
- 25:15
- Calvinist, but a reminder to Calvinist, you know, that we don't have to talk anybody into anything.
- 25:23
- You know, what we need to do is stay faithful and preach the gospel because this is why the gospel was preached even to those that are dead.
- 25:31
- So we just need to bring our shovel, you know? And that's, that's, that's, that's it right there.
- 25:37
- You know, I would have, I would have taken this topic if it was offered to me, but it was already taken.
- 25:43
- Thanks. Rob, Rob. So, I mean, if y 'all want to switch, y 'all can switch.
- 25:51
- No, no, no, no. Yeah. Let's make him switch last minute. Yeah. Uh, Jeremy, Terry.
- 26:01
- So Jamie, Terry had to, uh, uh, call out. And so you replaced him with seriously on Calvinism in the gospel and you replaced him with some slickster, some guy.
- 26:15
- I've been telling him it was a bad idea. Oh, dude, I will jack you up, son.
- 26:21
- You of all people. Yeah. No, you, you're, you're friends with the slickster.
- 26:28
- I, I was the one that suggested them. I actually called Matt and we were chatting and he was like, Hey, it was actually kind of funny.
- 26:35
- I was like, yeah, you should come to this Calvinism conference. He was like, yeah, you know, I can see if I can do that. But you know, if only you knew somebody that has dedicated their whole life to Calvinism.
- 26:42
- And if you had invited him to preach, I bet he would have said yes. And I was like, Oh, I feel like a dirt bag right now.
- 26:51
- And so I called him Jeff and asked, I was like, Hey, you remember how Jamie isn't preaching anymore? Uh, which Jamie is a wonderful preacher.
- 26:58
- Uh, and I was like, Hey, I, I think I got a suggestion. Matt Slick. I think he would love to come.
- 27:05
- Dude, the slickster, man, dude. I was so, dude, I reached out to Michael Schultz right away. You know, he's the, the
- 27:11
- Dean, Dr. Schultz of a Forge Theological Seminary. And I told him who we got. And he was just so taken back.
- 27:19
- Because that's what got him started off in school. He started off in, you know, just like with me too.
- 27:24
- You know, I started off at CARM and I did all those certificates, all of them, you know, but, uh, yeah, it's just really neat how
- 27:31
- God brings it back full circle, you know? Yeah. You know, when I was at the, on the board of CARM, I, uh,
- 27:37
- I used to tell people when I'd speak, I'd say, I'd say, CARM has trained more pastors than any seminary because every single seminary student went to CARM.
- 27:50
- So Matt, Matt has actually had a greater influence. I would argue, uh, you know, when you look at how many, how many people
- 27:58
- CARM has influenced, uh, of seminary of pastors, uh, than any one seminary, because everyone went there.
- 28:07
- I, I put, I put so many people through his, his, uh, his school through, uh, that, you know, that was in my program over the years.
- 28:16
- And I'm talking years and years of putting people through CARM. And it was just, it was just so helpful.
- 28:22
- but I do have to say, Andrew, you know this because you and I are in the same boat when it comes to Matt, we know him in person.
- 28:28
- So like Jeff and Haps are like, Oh man, we're so excited. The guy from CARM, Matt is going to be here. I'm like, dude, he's ample.
- 28:35
- Just wait. You don't know what they're in for, you know? And, and okay. So someone's correcting me.
- 28:41
- Cause I said, Matt has trained, you know, more seminary, more pastors than anyone seminary.
- 28:47
- So, um, J three 16 ministry says probably not more than Rick Warren. You got to give credit where credit's due.
- 28:58
- Yeah. More, more pastors than there are pastors.
- 29:04
- He trained the apostles. He probably trained Jesus. Yeah.
- 29:10
- Also spent three and a half years of Rick Warren. Yeah. He'd probably argue that, that Jesus came, to him for, you know, for three and a half years for discipleship before he started working with the disciples.
- 29:25
- So what's, what's the debate topic, the closing debate with James White? What's that? The topic going to be?
- 29:33
- Um, did I, I don't know if I wrote it down. Let me see. Is the doctrine of limited atonement, biblical and important.
- 29:41
- Yeah, right. That's it. And I, you know, I actually found this interesting because the way it's, it is worded, it's, you know, because if, is atonement biblical and important.
- 29:57
- It's basically going to be speaking about limited atonement. Like that's kind of like a Puritan version of limited atonement.
- 30:05
- But I think, I think the good part about how this is worded is that then you can now bring into it a little bit more stuff with penile substitutionary atonement and, and, and some of the, the other limbs that are attached to limited atonement.
- 30:19
- Right. So I think if you had said limited atonement, it would have narrowed in the debate more, whereas this is, is going to go more broad and it's reform doctrine, which
- 30:28
- I think is going to be really, really good. I'm very excited for that. Okay. Just to go back to a previous topic though, you mentioned people that know
- 30:35
- Matt slick personally. Yeah. There's an individual who that's like was coming through town.
- 30:42
- His car broke down and there's a guy that helped him out and Matt speaks highly of him.
- 30:48
- And this is what Mr. Honhold says about Matt. Matt's a handful, just saying.
- 30:56
- I'm telling you, everybody that knows him. We got someone that speaking of Rick Warren says,
- 31:02
- Warren be taking people's credit cards. Good point there.
- 31:10
- So this is kind of a long, someone says, if I'm saved because of the, of the, the gospel is irresistible to me, then how is this topic important?
- 31:22
- Ooh, who wants to tackle that one? if it's in God's word, it's important by the very fact that it is
- 31:30
- God who's speaking. And I think that's the, that's where I would start. I'll pass it to one of these brothers, but that's the, where I would say is if God teaches it, it's very important right then and there.
- 31:38
- Yeah. I mean, anything that's in his word is important. And I, and I would just echo some things.
- 31:44
- Like I know that the word Biblicist is catching a lot of heat these days. Right. And I would say that if you're a
- 31:51
- Baptist by definition, you are, and you're not the, like the churches of Christ who would say something like no creed, but Christ, which is a creed, but it's, it's just the whole idea that if the
- 32:04
- Bible doesn't say it, then it better teach it. If it doesn't do either one of them, then what are we doing?
- 32:10
- Right. And the problem is, is we have a lot of people out here reading their Bibles and yet they're missing the, the rich teaching of Calvinism.
- 32:20
- Right. And so what we want to do is it's kind of like, go back to John, John, I just mentioned earlier,
- 32:25
- John 6, 37, all that the father gives me will come. People read over that and it's kind of like, well, what are you doing?
- 32:33
- Like John 17, three says the same thing, or no, John 17, two says the same thing.
- 32:39
- It echoes the same thing. All that the father gives me and they read that and they just, they don't understand what it is that they're reading.
- 32:46
- And so we want to, to, to not only show them exactly what they're missing, but actually how it's applied and how it's good for the church.
- 32:57
- Hyper Calvinism bad for the church, biblical Calvinism good for the church, which
- 33:04
- I think, I think you even said it earlier is that all that the father gives me will come to me.
- 33:09
- Right? So part of the irresistible grace is the fact that we are coming to a knowledge of God. That is a one that one would not ever reject.
- 33:17
- We're going to come to it. And it's also, I recently just gave a message somewhat dealing with this.
- 33:23
- If, if God was a, was a fisherman, every time he cast his hook out into the sea, he gets the fish that he wants.
- 33:30
- He's not a failed fisherman. He's not a 50 % catch rate fisherman. When the father draws you, you will come to him because he's effectually doing it.
- 33:39
- He doesn't have a failed work in his hand. He pulls you in, he draws you in.
- 33:45
- And it just so happens that you do so because you want to, because you want to come to be a part of that fisherman's net. Yeah. I mean, when you look at the text, so you have a text that, that puts
- 33:53
- Jesus and the father in the same position. And it says that they dwell in unapproachable light.
- 33:58
- So what does it mean that they dwell in unapproachable light? Well, it means that you cannot approach them.
- 34:04
- And then when you go through the book of John, it says that no one can come to the father unless they're drawn. I mean, no one can come to the father unless they go through Jesus and no one can get to Jesus unless they go through the father.
- 34:13
- So how do we get to Jesus? No, we can get to Jesus. No, we can get to the father and they dwell in unapproachable light. Well, that's what
- 34:20
- Calvinism teaches. The teaching of Calvinism is through the gospel, right?
- 34:26
- We're not saying that you don't have to believe you have to believe, but how is it that you believe?
- 34:32
- Yeah. Well, go ahead. Well, you know, it's also, what it really does is it humbles man.
- 34:40
- And so what it does is it elevates God and it lowers man.
- 34:47
- We're not on the same, you know, a lot of people, they take God and they bring them down to this surface.
- 34:55
- Understanding is that they build a Jesus. And so they build this old, this Jesus in their own mind.
- 35:01
- And they think that they have some, you know, they're helping God out somehow. And so what this is a glorify, a glorify
- 35:09
- God's and I mean, God and not us. And so for a lot of people out there, they have always been preached to, but they have never been taught.
- 35:19
- And so going through each one of these really, I think that would be an absolute blessing, you know?
- 35:26
- Yeah. I think, I think the reason my answer to this would be the reason why it's an important topic is if you think about it, it comes down to, to really who's doing the saving.
- 35:37
- Because if, if God is the one saving us, then he's, he's doing that.
- 35:44
- But if it's, if it ultimately comes down to me, like the choice that I make,
- 35:51
- God, the Billy, Billy Graham said, God did 99 % of the work.
- 35:56
- And it's up to you to do the 1%. That means you are the ultimate one who saves you.
- 36:03
- Yeah. If you just take it in that bare minimum, what you just said, that the word salvation means to be rescued.
- 36:09
- My Brayden here, he's he, he works for a fire department, right? He, he is a fireman.
- 36:15
- He rescues people, right? Now imagine if someone's house was on fire and Braden's truck pulls up and the ambulance get there and the police get there and the house is on fire.
- 36:25
- They know that there's five people in there who are smothering from smoke and being licked by the flames, right?
- 36:31
- And Braden gets on the amplifier, whatever you call it, the speaker. And he says, we have the fire truck here.
- 36:39
- We have the ambulance and the gurneys are out. We need you to exit the house and get on the gurney.
- 36:46
- And we will put you in the ambulance and take you to the hospital. No. What does Braden do? He kicks the door in, he risks his life and he goes in with them baby hands to save a people.
- 36:58
- Little babies. That's what salvation is.
- 37:03
- It means to be rescued. And what we're saying is, is when God entered into time through this person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the
- 37:11
- Trinity took on flesh, lived the life we could not live as a substitute and died the death that we should die, taking our punishment as a substitute, he rescued us in through the preaching of the gospel.
- 37:24
- We are given repentance and faith to believe. Now, you know, the only thing
- 37:30
- I would disagree with you on there, I mean, based on his baby hands is when, when you said that he's a,
- 37:37
- I think you meant to say he's a fire woman. How dare you?
- 37:44
- You guys bring up my small hands in this conversation. We're talking about Calvinism. God predestined me to have these small hands.
- 37:51
- Okay. All glory to God. And then you call me a fire woman. I'm about to become a fire
- 38:00
- Karen here in a moment. Yeah, you do. I mean, just for the record, like, you know, the guys were busting on you last year, about the size of your hands.
- 38:10
- And I didn't quite notice until you put your hand up against everyone else's hands. And okay,
- 38:16
- I'll admit my wife's like, you know, five to 110 pounds. And I think she's got a hand bigger than yours.
- 38:22
- I'm just saying. Yeah, no, we don't have to talk about this anymore.
- 38:29
- Yeah, it's fine. Hey, look, okay. Here, here, you know, someone is saying small hands for the glory of God.
- 38:35
- So there you go. Well, you need to find that word in Latin and it needs to be like small hands for the glory of God.
- 38:41
- That'd be, I would get a tattoo of that. That sounds great. Everyone loves the firefighter when the firefighter, not so much when the police show up.
- 38:50
- That's a fact. So Humble Clay here says, if you're a one percenter, you're going to hell.
- 38:58
- Yep. Just something to think about. Now, so Mr. Tracy asked this. He said, so he'll draw me even if I don't understand
- 39:07
- Calvinism. Absolutely. Yeah. You don't have to be a Calvinist to be a Christian, but if you want to be,
- 39:16
- I don't want to say because, if you don't like the world and the words these days, you have to be really careful what you say.
- 39:27
- So you don't have to be a Calvinist to be a Christian, but if you want to be learned,
- 39:33
- I think you need to look into Calvinism. Yeah. If you really want to know how it is that God saves us,
- 39:40
- I think Reform Theology and Calvinism has the answer. It's like when I did the debate here for folks who are regulars on Apologetics Live, remember the debate
- 39:49
- I did with the Filipino, R .A. Fuentes, when he wanted to debate the topic that Calvinism is useless and dangerous.
- 39:56
- And the reality is over and over again, I kept pointing out that when you look at what
- 40:03
- Calvinism is teaching, it's the gospel. So to say the gospel is dangerous, right?
- 40:09
- That's really what you're saying. It's useless and dangerous. And if you haven't seen that debate, go back and watch it.
- 40:15
- It's really funny because I actually gave first round of cross -examination, I asked him the definitions of Calvinism and he's a
- 40:23
- Calvinist. Then I asked him to set round two, like I used the labels, he misrepresented every one of them.
- 40:29
- So it was like, he doesn't understand what the topic is, but he wants to debate it. Bad move. But so, oh, here,
- 40:37
- Brayden, just for a level. My hands are bigger than Brayden's. Way to go having average size hands.
- 40:45
- I'd like to get a picture. Okay, so -
- 40:51
- You're not supposed to be boasting. Okay, guys, stop boasting in the flesh. You guys got big hands. Good on you.
- 40:57
- Greg Moring Jr., who spoke last year, says about the conference from last year, it was a hoot. And so, yeah, it was.
- 41:08
- So, Kathy is saying that she just saw you on Truth Be Known podcast on YouTube.
- 41:15
- I think she must be talking about Brandon Scalf. Okay. Yep. Unless Truth Be Known did something without me knowing.
- 41:22
- That happens sometimes. No, with you without you knowing, that'd be good. So yeah, maybe - He was just on Iron Shopper and Zyra with Chris Ornson.
- 41:30
- I was, yeah. But it wasn't on YouTube. Oh, okay. Yeah. So a question from Melissa for you,
- 41:37
- Jeff, is will the conference be live streamed? We don't know for sure yet.
- 41:43
- I'm trying to figure that out. I am, if you ask my wife, she'll tell you straight up,
- 41:49
- I am not technologically, technologically, how can you say the word, savvy, right?
- 41:55
- Like, you don't have to have her to do everything for me. No one has to ask her. I'm more than willing to let people know that you don't have a clue, technology -wise.
- 42:03
- I have no clue, like - Well, and I would also echo that we're really, the thing that worries us about, worries me when
- 42:11
- I think about the live stream is like Andrew already pointed out, the whole point of what is really edifying in this conference is the in -person fellowship.
- 42:18
- Listen, yeah. And you're gonna miss out on that if it was live streamed big time. I'm gonna tell you what, if you just come to the after parties -
- 42:27
- Oh, yeah. You're gonna have the time of your life. Listen, I'm an ex -gangbanger, okay?
- 42:34
- The most fun I've ever had was last year at the conference. It was so much fun.
- 42:40
- You don't think Christians can kick it? You hanging out with a run of Christians, right? We had an ex -gangbanger, an ex -Jehovah
- 42:47
- Witness, and an ex -LDS member all around one table smoking a cigar together one night.
- 42:52
- It was like, what is going on in the world? Like, this is the beginning of a joke. Yeah. So, all right.
- 42:59
- So the thing is, the one thing, I talked about this earlier, the way you organized it. I should mention this.
- 43:05
- The neat thing, Jeff, is - I just freaked out. At most conferences, it's like, you have the speakers, they line up, and it's speaker, speaker, speaker, speaker, speaker, break for lunch, breaker, speaker, speaker, break for dinner, speaker, speaker, speaker.
- 43:17
- I mean, it's just, everyone tries to pack it in. You'd have someone preach for an hour and an hour break.
- 43:24
- Preach for an hour, hour break. 30 minute break. Yeah, so it was like, there was,
- 43:29
- I mean, there was so much fellowship time. I mean, look, there was enough time that after every speaker got done, they could go over and do a podcast recording with both
- 43:39
- Keith Foskey and Greg Moore. I mean, both of them, you know, so -
- 43:44
- And again, we're out by six o 'clock. We go and eat a meal. We make, I mean, we have a blast.
- 43:51
- I'm telling you. I will say, let's not do Buffalo Wild Wings this year because that place was loud.
- 43:56
- London, London. Although it did get a good, you know, video that Keith Foskey came up.
- 44:05
- For folks who don't know Keith Foskey, he does these, you know, these denominational gatherings. It's a humorous video.
- 44:10
- So we were sitting there and someone just turns, you know, what would a Methodist, how would a
- 44:16
- Methodist order at, you know, Buffalo Wild Wings? And so he, we ended up coming up with,
- 44:24
- I will admit, even though I'm dispensational, and at the end of that video, if you haven't watched it, just go look up Keith Foskey, Buffalo Wild Wings, even though I'm the dispensationalist and I get, and the dispensationalist gets made fun of at the end,
- 44:38
- I'm just saying it was hilarious, even if it was me that, you know.
- 44:44
- So just real quick, I see you say that Haps is backstage, but I don't see him.
- 44:51
- Oh, he must've clicked on the wrong link then. He sent us a message saying he's in the backstage. He clicked on the wrong link again.
- 44:56
- Gosh dang ass. All right, so let's see.
- 45:03
- Brother John, and I'm gonna put both quotes because he corrected it, but he said, did you watch Daniel Kola, I don't know who this is, so I'm probably mispronouncing the last name,
- 45:12
- Kolinda podcast regarding his teaching Calvinism heresy.
- 45:18
- And then he afterwards corrected, said, forgive me, Daniel Canola, Cananda, whatever his name is, did a bunch of podcasts regarding not
- 45:28
- Calvinism, but rather cessationism as heresy. So no, I haven't seen it yet.
- 45:35
- We will, the plan is for next week, we do have an episode that we're gonna respond to from the
- 45:45
- Remnant Radio podcast, where they did an episode where they're basically arguing against what they called was bad cessationist arguments.
- 45:56
- And we're gonna evaluate some of those arguments and see whether they're bad or straw men. Just saying it's good to be accurate in what we say.
- 46:07
- You know, we were - Those guys are really good dudes. I mean, I think they're wrong with some things, but they are really good dudes.
- 46:13
- So I had not known them at all, but I will say this, I'm gonna say it next week when we review it.
- 46:18
- I've been pleasantly surprised with their podcasts. I really enjoy the manner in which they deal with things.
- 46:26
- And I'll tell you this, I find it very interesting because I think that a lot of the things that people would say toward those that believe in the continuation of gifts, they're really trying to be fair,
- 46:42
- I think with people that disagree with them. And I like that. And they try to go out of their way to, they try to go out of their way to not misrepresent.
- 46:52
- Now, I think everyone, all of us are prone to that. So, yeah.
- 47:00
- So, you know, Brayden, we were talking about this Slickster guy.
- 47:06
- Mr. Honhold said this, maybe you could verify if this is true, but - It most likely is.
- 47:13
- He says, regarding this story about, you know, Chris helping
- 47:18
- Matt with the car, he says, Matt has way overblown that story. It gets more heroic each time he tells it.
- 47:26
- Now, would you say that when Matt tells stories over and over again, they kind of get bigger like a fish that he caught?
- 47:35
- Well, you know, like in how the Bible, how sometimes people are given names because of who they are and like the qualities they possess as a human, right?
- 47:42
- God, however it worked with Matt's mom, like in the dad and his forefathers and getting that last name
- 47:48
- Slick, it definitely is applying to Matt Slick. Like that is spot on.
- 47:54
- He just, it changes every time with him. I'm just kidding. I dearly love Matt. He's a great brother.
- 48:02
- So, Humble Clay says, Calvinism equals guaranteed success.
- 48:10
- All right, so we got another question for you guys and I'm gonna, I gotta go check the other questions we got. Question, can you explain, and Jeff, I think you use the term hyper -Calvinism, so maybe we'll let you start with this.
- 48:22
- Can you explain hyper -Calvinism? Is hyper -Calvinism taught today in any churches?
- 48:28
- Well, no churches that I know personally, but I know of churches that have died out because of hyper -Calvinism, the refusal to obey the command, to evangelize.
- 48:40
- And I did believe that some hyper -Calvinist churches won't even partake in the Lord's Supper, right?
- 48:46
- And so it's just, it's a death blow to the gospel. So in order for a hyper -Calvinist to evangelize to you, they would have to see some kind of fruit in your life that you're ready for the message.
- 48:59
- It's kind of like in order for someone to plant a seed, they're gonna go out there and fill the ground to see if the ground's ready, instead of tolling, fertilizing the soil, tooling it, whatever it is that you do with the farm.
- 49:13
- The little hand tools, right? Instead of prepping the ground, they want the ground to prep itself before they give the gospel.
- 49:23
- And it's a death blow. It's a death blow to the gospel. It's heresy. It should not be taught.
- 49:30
- If you know someone that hoes to it, you should preach against it. That person is not our brother.
- 49:36
- He is the mission, our sister. They are the mission pillar. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean -
- 49:41
- Is there anything you wanna add? I would just echo that. It's just, it is not one of the indicative things of being a
- 49:49
- Christian is that the law of God is written on your heart and on your mind. And if you're not willing to obey the words of Christ by going out and baptizing and teaching, making disciples of the nations and baptizing them,
- 49:59
- I question all the claims that you're making if you don't have that law evident.
- 50:05
- So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so hyper -Calvinism, let me try to give it kind of a definition.
- 50:14
- Hyper -Calvinism would be, in my mind, where you have people that believe in complete determinism, right?
- 50:23
- So, my wife's Sunday school teacher, before we got married, he believed in a hyper -Calvinism.
- 50:32
- I asked him, I said, let me ask you a question. If I just pulled back and cold cocked you, did I do it?
- 50:38
- He said, nope, God did that. So, he removed all human responsibility.
- 50:45
- Humans were just puppets in God's game. So, he's saying, like I would say that, again,
- 50:52
- I don't think Calvinism touches on the question of determinism, right?
- 50:57
- Reform theology does, the confessions do. Calvinism more so just focuses on soteriology.
- 51:04
- So, he would say that God is the puppet master forming our hands.
- 51:10
- As reformed folk, we would say that God predetermined all things that are going to happen in eternity past.
- 51:18
- And he's not actively causing things to happen, but he predetermined things to happen in eternity past.
- 51:25
- And through means, these things take place, right?
- 51:31
- Like you can just look at Joseph and his brothers and all that other stuff. All that took place because of the prophecy given to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15, that his descendants are going to be enslaved to a people.
- 51:47
- And then we see how that takes place. So, God tells him something's gonna happen. It happens through Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery.
- 51:55
- And at the end there, Joseph recognizes God's hand on this. I think he does so because he understood the word of that prophecy given to Moses.
- 52:06
- Yeah, I mean, what he would do is he removed all human responsibility. And Calvinists don't believe that humans don't have a responsibility.
- 52:17
- It's just that they don't have an ability to save themselves. Big difference there.
- 52:23
- When you start removing, okay, step out of the area of salvation.
- 52:30
- That's why I asked him the question, if I punched him, did I do that? When you say that God made me do that, which is what he said, like,
- 52:40
- I can't work with that. Then you can't, then God is the cause of everything, including sin.
- 52:47
- Now we would say God is sovereign and he works through everything. So everything that happens does happen according to his will, but he doesn't remove human responsibilities.
- 52:57
- Right, it's one of those, even in the confession I hold to the 1689, it calls it a doctrine that is a mystery and then it should be handled with the most prudence and care.
- 53:08
- It's one of those things that, and I would encourage anybody, when we talk about sovereignty, if we talk about any doctrine, we should look at the character of Christ for our example in those things.
- 53:16
- When you look at Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ did not have a sin nature, right? He is the most free in the definition of free will,
- 53:26
- I think, in humanity that we can see. Jesus was the most free. He was not bound to do that, which we are inclined to do within our fallen corrupt nature.
- 53:35
- But Jesus is the most free, yet we can look all throughout the Old Testament that predicts and prophesies the life of Jesus Christ in such a way that we can also say that in the life of Jesus Christ that's revealed in the
- 53:47
- New Testament, that he was also the most predetermined human. So not only was he the most free, he was also the most predetermined and it was there in Christ.
- 53:56
- Like we as Christians shouldn't try to say, well, there's so many mysteries in God's word that we try to elevate one thing over the other and it hurts other parts of our theology.
- 54:12
- Christ being fully God, fully man. How does that work exactly beyond me just saying that sentence?
- 54:18
- Difficult to understand. God revealing himself through fallen man in the 66 books of the
- 54:24
- Bible. How does that work? Very difficult for me to understand beyond that sentence. But it's in God's word. A virgin conceiving of a son that would die for me and rise again from the grave.
- 54:37
- I can't conceive that, but that's what the Bible teaches. That's an eternal truth. And so we need to just rest our heads upon what
- 54:44
- God has declared, which is that he is sovereign, he has decreed all things, yet we are also responsible and we should be telling people to stop sinning against God.
- 54:52
- These are the things we can't understand like a man with tiny hands. Can I say something real fast?
- 54:58
- For the record, hold on. Just for the record, Mr. Tracy says, Donald Trump has small hands. When they started, maybe
- 55:05
- I'm royalty in that way. When they started videoing him and saying he had small hands,
- 55:11
- I was like, nice. The light's taken off of me right now. Oh, absolutely. Happy props out again.
- 55:17
- I was just gonna say - He does that all the time, man. But this is what he posts.
- 55:23
- He's like, hey, this is Haps. Let me back on, let me back on. He clicks the wrong link and then he wants to say something and clicks himself.
- 55:32
- Okay, well, while he's waiting for Haps to give his brilliance that he had. Hey, Marlon Wilson's in the house.
- 55:39
- He's saying, what's up, fellas? So, okay, Marlon says, hey, he's got a guy that wants to debate.
- 55:45
- I think originally, this is going back a few years. I think the guy wanted to debate. It was a debate that Jesus was just human or whatever.
- 55:55
- I agree to it. The guy bails on Marlon, just like, nope, doesn't want it. So Marlon gets another debate with a guy that wants to debate the deity of Christ, asks if I'm up for it.
- 56:04
- Yeah, I'm up for it. And the guy bailed. So we're gonna see, because Marlon now set up a two -on -two,
- 56:10
- Matt Slick and I against two other guys on oneness, oneness Pentecostalism.
- 56:15
- So we'll see how that goes. I don't know. Oh, look who's backstage. Oh, oh, there he is.
- 56:22
- Stop. Let's let him speak so he don't skip out again. No, so look at this. When you guys were talking,
- 56:28
- Michael Schultz got on and he says, he says this, all right, pay close attention. You know, he's a doctor.
- 56:34
- All right. If it's about my hands, I'm gonna leave. He says, monas parvus ad gloriam dea.
- 56:43
- Translation, little hands for the glory of God. Can I show you my screen right now? Can you show, can
- 56:48
- I show you my screen? Is there a way for me to broadcast my screen right now? How do I do that? I don't know if you can. Yeah, share screen.
- 56:59
- Let's see. This is great for podcasting the blank silence. Bam. Look at this.
- 57:06
- Hold on, let me. Go ahead and accept it. Already had it up.
- 57:13
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I looked, I looked it up. You guys were talking, so that's awesome.
- 57:20
- Schultz did the same thing. Literally had it up right there. There you go. Well, all right.
- 57:26
- So, so Melissa says this. So, you know,
- 57:31
- Jeffrey Rice, we're gonna leave this one for you. This is gonna be your task. And I know that Chris Hong holds put her up to this, but she says, can you please, can you guys please make
- 57:41
- James White look cool? He needs to trade in the Bill Cosby sweater for a hoodie and a hat.
- 57:48
- We know that. I don't know if any of y 'all know this, but James White bought me one of those sweaters.
- 57:54
- A Coogee sweater. A Coogee, yeah. No, he has a bias. He can't say anything about it. I own one. I mean, what do
- 58:01
- I know about Dr. White is, you can't make him do anything. Right?
- 58:08
- Like, you're not making him do anything. He does what he does. Hey, let me tell you something.
- 58:15
- Let me tell you something. When I was down at Apologia a couple of years ago, and I partook of the
- 58:21
- Lord's supper, he was fencing the table. They had four pastors up, and I just happened to be in his line.
- 58:28
- And as I'm coming up to him, he looks so serious. I was repenting all the way there.
- 58:34
- All the way there. I was just repenting. I was like, he's really fencing the table, you know? He was afraid he was going to read your mail, huh?
- 58:42
- He thought you was back at a Pentecostal church. Yeah. I thought he was going to go, nope. So, you know,
- 58:47
- I said that Chris Honholtz put Melissa up to it, and like a good Democrat, he says, I most definitely did not, in all caps.
- 58:55
- But then, moments later, he says, I did, however, pass her suggestion directly to Dr.
- 59:01
- White. I don't know. I'm just -
- 59:07
- And I'm going to say this too. Like Dr. White, like, you know, I mean, so like, if I want to relate it, so my wife, my wife has a doctorate degree.
- 59:16
- She's like really, really smart. When I talk to her and she speaks back, I feel really, really dumb.
- 59:22
- You should. Right. No, no, I should. And so like, but having this relationship with my wife has really helped me with Dr.
- 59:31
- White, because when I get around Dr. White and I start speaking, I'm like, man, I sound like a freak. You know, I sound like a barbarian.
- 59:37
- And Dr. White says like great Greek, right? Very intellectual. And so like, and so what you have to do when you get around Dr.
- 59:46
- White, because he is so intellectual, is you have to get past that.
- 59:52
- And once you get past that, once you get past all the jewelry, which I wear a lot of jewelry, and the sweaters, he is actually a really down to earth guy.
- 01:00:01
- I mean, you can cut up with him, but you have to understand his cutting up is not the same as my cutting up.
- 01:00:10
- It's different. He's got this intellectual way of cutting up. And it's really hard for me to understand sometimes, but.
- 01:00:19
- I'm just happy I convinced him. But he's a really good dude. You're happy what? I'm just happy I convinced him out of Mormonism.
- 01:00:25
- Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if it actually worked that way.
- 01:00:32
- That's what is on my resume. So it's obviously true. That's what he's been turning in.
- 01:00:40
- Okay, so I think I triggered Mr. Hanholds. He says, how dare you compare me to a
- 01:00:45
- Democrat? I actually admit how ignorant I am. That's a good point, Democrats don't do that.
- 01:00:53
- That's good. I'm definitely a barbarian. He's saying I can testify to how different his cutting can be.
- 01:01:02
- Yeah. Yeah, can we talk about Buddy the Elf? So, all right, so go to openairtheology .com.
- 01:01:11
- If you have not gone yet, what in the world is wrong with you? Go and check it out.
- 01:01:18
- If you can be there, this is gonna be February 21st to the 24th, if you want the whole thing.
- 01:01:25
- But openairtheology .com is the link where you can get the information.
- 01:01:31
- You can register. I think it's on Eventbrite, right? Is the registration? So, and you know, do you guys notice earlier that Jeffrey was holding up a
- 01:01:42
- Bible? Well, hold that up again. Isn't that a nice looking
- 01:01:47
- Bible? I wonder who found that for you, Jeff? Who might've done that work?
- 01:01:54
- Well, from what I heard, he has a championship belt on the way. He's the king of rebinding.
- 01:02:03
- So, we're gonna have the king of amillennialism and the king of rebinding.
- 01:02:09
- Yeah, we're giving away a Post -Tenebrous Lux Bible Rebind. We're giving away like three or four full commentary sets, and we're giving away a tobacco pipe from Donner's Oak.
- 01:02:25
- So, the only way to get in that giveaway is you gotta be there. And I'm gonna say this, if I can make an appeal, if you call yourself a
- 01:02:33
- Calvinist and you don't show up to the Why Calvinist Conference, are you really a
- 01:02:39
- Calvinist, right? I mean, are you really a Calvinist? And we want
- 01:02:44
- Calvinettes to show up too, Calvinist and Calvinettes. Well, I mean, look, there are some people that may have a
- 01:02:54
- Jewish background and just need to win that put their name in a couple of dozen times, but your wife just eliminated those.
- 01:03:01
- She like filtered it. So, I was only entered once last year. Well, that's how it is. You buy a ticket, you're in.
- 01:03:09
- And rumor has it you're actually gonna have my Bible in time for the conference.
- 01:03:15
- Listen, don't believe the rumors. Rumor. You know I'm from the trailer park and those echoes come.
- 01:03:25
- So, yeah, so for folks for Apologetics Live, I know we started late.
- 01:03:31
- I said we'd do a shorter show. You guys were usually start, you guys started half an hour earlier.
- 01:03:38
- And I think, is this still streaming on your stream too, Brayden? Yeah. Okay, so I don't know, how long do you guys usually go?
- 01:03:46
- We usually go about an hour. Yeah. Okay. So, we just, we really wanted to just cut it up a bit and talk about the conference and encourage you guys to check it out and go.
- 01:03:56
- I really wanna encourage everyone. This is a, you know,
- 01:04:01
- I forget, I think Jeffrey, maybe it was you that I saw that posted this and said, if you're a
- 01:04:07
- Calvinist, you wanna attend the WhyCalvinist conference. And if you're not a Calvinist, you even more should attend the
- 01:04:14
- WhyCalvinist conference. Oh yeah, that's a fact. Because it's gonna answer a lot of questions. Yeah, definitely.
- 01:04:20
- You come to this conference, you're not gonna leave wondering. I wonder what they really believe. Yeah. And so let me answer this one.
- 01:04:28
- This is, I think a question toward me. Mr. Tracy B says, you don't have to call yourself a
- 01:04:34
- Calvinist to believe in the sovereignty of God. Amen. And that's true. And so, you know,
- 01:04:40
- I think though, what I think a lot of the regulars here know that I don't refer to myself as a
- 01:04:46
- Calvinist. Why? And the reason is, basically,
- 01:04:51
- I never know what someone means by Calvinist. Because here's the reality. I don't know how many people have told me that they think
- 01:04:58
- Calvinism is wrong. That what I do is I'll just ask them,
- 01:05:03
- I'll just ask them a question. Do you believe that when Adam sinned, was his thinking affected by the curse of sin?
- 01:05:14
- Oh yeah. Was his emotions affected by the curse of sin? Oh yeah. Was his will affected by the curse of sin?
- 01:05:21
- They say yes. And then later they're gonna deny total depravity, which is the discussion of whether the will is affected by sin.
- 01:05:31
- So there's so many people that hate Calvinism that are actually Calvinists. And so I don't,
- 01:05:37
- I personally don't use that label because I don't know what someone means by it. And therefore, the label becomes a problem.
- 01:05:44
- So if you wanna know what I believe, I'm a Rapportian. My last name's Rappaport. Raptureport.
- 01:05:50
- Yeah. But also I would say that, like he said that he believes in the sovereignty of God. And to that,
- 01:05:55
- I say, amen. But also you would have to get in, but what do you mean by the sovereignty of God? Yeah.
- 01:06:02
- Because if you get down to it, what I mean by the sovereignty of God as a
- 01:06:07
- Reformed Baptist could be very different than what someone else believes about the sovereignty of God.
- 01:06:14
- Yeah, I mean, concerning the will of man, I mean, like Paul is speaking to Timothy in chapter two, and he's urging him as the preacher to go out and speak the truth and to convert folks.
- 01:06:28
- And so chapter two, beginning in verse 24 says this. And the Lord's slave, speaking about the minister, must not be quarrelsome, but kind to all.
- 01:06:38
- I think Calvinists need to wake up and take a chill pill because we are too kind to all, right?
- 01:06:45
- Able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps
- 01:06:55
- God may give them repentance, leading to the full knowledge of the truth.
- 01:07:03
- And right here, it's just now, open up some eyes about that full knowledge, verse 26. And that they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
- 01:07:23
- The will of the devil. If you're not in Christ, you are 100 % doing the will of the devil.
- 01:07:32
- And that will takes you back to Ephesians chapter two. You're following the course of this world. You're chasing after the desires of your mind.
- 01:07:41
- Anything you can think of, you're chasing after hoping you can get it accomplished. So we got a lot of Melissa's who watch the show.
- 01:07:53
- So Melissa Bond serving it for Jesus is saying, where did you say the conference is? It's in Tallahamma, Tennessee.
- 01:08:02
- Tallahamma, Tennessee. Melissa, that's a little bit closer to California than New Jersey.
- 01:08:10
- So I live in Tallahamma, Tennessee. So this is my stomping grounds. And for those that don't know, so we have a reformed
- 01:08:20
- Baptist church here, Plancet. And I am a shaker and a mover, right?
- 01:08:27
- I mean, it is what it is. A lot of people talk about it, I be about it.
- 01:08:33
- And so one of the things that, when the church got planted, we didn't have our own building.
- 01:08:40
- And then I was telling these guys, once we have our own building, I'm gonna start having conferences.
- 01:08:48
- So last year, we had a conference at our church. This year, the pre -conference will be at our church.
- 01:08:56
- And we rented out a pretty good size space, about five, 10 minutes away from the church.
- 01:09:03
- Now, it sounded almost like Haps was kind of mocking you there a bit, like saying that you weren't a mover and a shaker.
- 01:09:09
- But just for the record, did Haps not like pick up his roots where he's been for so long in California and move out there to your stomping grounds to stomp with you?
- 01:09:22
- That's right, because I told him to get down here. So let's not, just for the record, he's saying you're not a mover and a shaker and you moved him.
- 01:09:31
- Just saying. Well, you know, all three of us are best friends. Oh, hey, look,
- 01:09:37
- Brayden had disappeared and what's the response? Brayden just got raptured too, like Haps.
- 01:09:44
- I started going up and then God said, no. You didn't have your rapture helmet on?
- 01:09:50
- He said, you're not supposed to be here, return. He's like, wait, did we grab the small handed one?
- 01:09:56
- Send him back. You know what? You know what? I remember when we were doing our podcast, you know, a couple of years ago and Jeff, he didn't have a building yet.
- 01:10:09
- And we were, remember, we were all praying so hard that he would get a building. I mean, like we were praying hard and then it was like, well, when we get the building, he goes,
- 01:10:18
- I remember I came back from ReformCon and he goes, dude, when I get a building, I wanna have a conference.
- 01:10:25
- And man, we prayed so hard and then like that, like that, he got a building. And then like that, we're having conferences.
- 01:10:32
- You know, I was like, yeah, that's how God rolls, man. Okay. Don't put that on the screen,
- 01:10:37
- Andrew. What'd he do? Don't put that on the screen. You know, you got to. I mean, look, here's the reality.
- 01:10:44
- The reason I love doing this show is the audience. Okay. If you don't watch this live, you miss out on stuff.
- 01:10:50
- First off, we were talking about him, you know, being returned. Chris Honhold says, no, not you.
- 01:10:58
- Humble Clay says, you know. Okay. And then the best one, the best one, the one that, you know,
- 01:11:07
- I know Braden really wants up there. Yeah. Actually, you lost the grip because of the small hands.
- 01:11:19
- Can I make an announcement real fast? I'm looking for new friends.
- 01:11:25
- Hit me up. Do they have to have large hands or do you want small handed friends?
- 01:11:34
- I would preferably small handed friends. I'm looking for - None of us are misfits. Listen, I pastor a church.
- 01:11:41
- I have, I'm dyslexic and I stutter. Okay. No, no, really?
- 01:11:48
- Yeah. Braden's got small hands and in -halfs. We don't know about him.
- 01:11:56
- Yeah. I'm just that crazy wizard that lives off in the woods, you know, like in, what's that called?
- 01:12:04
- What's that movie? Deliverance. Get out of here, dude. Deliverance.
- 01:12:12
- Oh my God. Melissa has a request for you,
- 01:12:17
- Brandon. Sorry, I keep doing that, Braden. She says, Braden, you should hold up that huge Bible with those tiny hands.
- 01:12:29
- I had one of those little handout Bibles. I'm liking Melissa more and more every day, I'm telling you.
- 01:12:35
- I like it, Bob. Melissa, that's funny, man. It's a handy size Bible, okay? That's a really big
- 01:12:41
- Bible, dude. It is a handy size Bible. It's not a real big Bible. Mr.
- 01:12:47
- Honhold says that you have hobbit hands. That is the name. Hobbit hands.
- 01:12:54
- Hobbit hands, yeah. That's what I was referring to. There you go. See, but I'm taller than all you guys.
- 01:13:01
- This is - You are. You are. It's really confusing. I'm a foot taller. I remember when
- 01:13:06
- I had a preach at your church, dude, and I called Jeff up and I go, Jeff, he's taller than both of us.
- 01:13:13
- He's taller. I'm like six foot, you know? So Melissa said that it sounds like it'll be a great conference.
- 01:13:21
- May God be glorified. Yes, yes. That's gonna be so good. I don't remember where the comment was, but she asked where you guys are from.
- 01:13:29
- So we just revealed that two of you are from Tullahoma, Tennessee.
- 01:13:35
- I'm originally from Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm from SoCal. From what?
- 01:13:42
- SoCal, Southern California. Oh, I'm sorry. That's that communist country that's in the left. Yeah. And then where are you from?
- 01:13:51
- I'm from Boise, Idaho. I live in Hagerman, Idaho and pastor a church called
- 01:13:56
- Valley Baptist Church here. It's a small little town near Twin Falls. And you and I first met at a temple opening up in -
- 01:14:05
- Time out. You forget about all the times that I've met you. I met you while shooting guns with Matt Slick.
- 01:14:10
- And then I had to convince you, remember at the conference last year, you're like, I never met you before. I was like, yes, you did.
- 01:14:16
- I shot guns with you. And you're like, no, I didn't. I was like, yes, you did. Wait, and that, I think that was at the time that Matt left his
- 01:14:22
- ID behind? I think so. Okay, so that was a fun story for people to know. So we go shooting.
- 01:14:29
- Matt leaves his, when you go, for the folks who don't go shooting, you usually have to leave your driver's license or some
- 01:14:35
- ID when you go on the range. We go to leave and Matt left his ID there.
- 01:14:41
- So the guy gave it to me. And a friend that Matt and I have, this guy,
- 01:14:49
- Nathan, Nathan and I decided that we weren't gonna give it to Matt. We were actually, the plan was
- 01:14:55
- I would give it to Nathan before I left. And when Matt dropped me off at the airport, after I get through TSA, I was gonna say, hey,
- 01:15:04
- I just made it through TSA. By the way, I still have your driver's license. But Matt was telling the story about how he had, for folks who don't know the story, he asked this guy,
- 01:15:16
- Bill McKeever, to lunch. Bill was in the area. He said, hey, let's go to lunch. I'll buy you lunch.
- 01:15:21
- And they go to lunch and Matt goes to take his wallet out and realizes he didn't have a wallet with him.
- 01:15:31
- And so he's telling that story. And he's telling how the next time he's like, Bill, I owe you lunch.
- 01:15:36
- You're in town. Let me buy you lunch. And he went to buy him lunch the second time and realized he didn't have a wallet.
- 01:15:45
- And he reached for his wallet and paused and Bill smiled and goes, you don't have your wallet again.
- 01:15:52
- And Matt said he knew at that moment he was never gonna live that down. And I'm looking, now remember
- 01:15:58
- I had the agreement. We weren't gonna give the ID back. And I just turned and I said, now Matt, I mean, people really believe you're that forgetful?
- 01:16:07
- I said, oh, by the way, and I just slip his driver's license across the table. And he's like, no, you are not doing this on the air.
- 01:16:18
- So yeah, it was a good one. So you were shooting at that, I forgot. Yeah, yeah, it's been a hot second, but I just got off the phone today with Nathan.
- 01:16:30
- I just got off the phone with Nathan today. I love my Boise peeps. Yeah. So let's see,
- 01:16:40
- Drew says, Drew is usually here, but he was traveling. He just landed in, you know, from the plane he was on.
- 01:16:48
- He said, if you ever need to replace Andrew, let me know. I'm only an hour and a half away.
- 01:16:55
- I'm contacting him right now. In a way,
- 01:17:00
- Drew, you should come to the conference. You should. I'm telling you, the fellowship is second to none.
- 01:17:07
- Like it is. You wanna be there, Drew. So Bible Care and Share Fellowship is saying, who did
- 01:17:15
- Matt shoot, Dispease? Yes. Well, actually, let's put it this way.
- 01:17:21
- Terrible shot, Andrew lived. So for the record, at that time, I hadn't really shot, you know,
- 01:17:29
- I hadn't shot a rifle probably when we went for like 25, 30 years. And Nathan, who you know, and Nathan, you know,
- 01:17:38
- I'm pretty sure Nathan was born with a Glock in his hand. I could be wrong.
- 01:17:44
- Yeah. And so we go shooting. He just looked at me.
- 01:17:50
- He was like, after I went through a couple of rounds, he's like, okay, military or police, where were you trained?
- 01:17:59
- And so I was like, well, military. So I hadn't shot for a long time. We pull in the target and I'm complaining because my shooting wouldn't have qualified for marksman.
- 01:18:11
- I was just outside. And he's like, dude, I shoot all the time and I can't shoot like that. So Matt really felt bad because Nathan can out shoot
- 01:18:20
- Matt any day. Really upset. Matt came walking over with his target to show me.
- 01:18:26
- And he's like, look at this. And I pulled my target out and Matt just was like, I hate you.
- 01:18:35
- That's awesome. So, all right. Well, I'll give you guys any last minute things, any encouragements you guys have for the folks to wanna come to the conference.
- 01:18:44
- I'll start, actually I'll end with Jeffrey. I'll start with Haps. What was the question again?
- 01:18:52
- Haps just woke up. Anything you wanna share with people, especially about -
- 01:19:00
- Dave, open up. Yeah. You know what, I highly - He's backstage. Yeah, I'm backstage.
- 01:19:06
- For people who feel that maybe listening to Apologetics Live and don't know Open Air Theology, you should check out the
- 01:19:13
- Open Air Theology podcast because you can get these three guys every week. And we be clowning.
- 01:19:19
- Yeah. And you'll need blood pressure medication after you've been watching this. A lot of our stuff, we just argue with each other.
- 01:19:28
- Yeah. I'm always right, so. No, you're not. In your own mind. Yeah. No, no,
- 01:19:33
- I highly suggest people come because let me tell you, this last conference, or this conference in February -
- 01:19:40
- Although, I don't know who this is, but I love the comments. Podcast Papa just woke up from his nap.
- 01:19:49
- I guess that's from, what's it called? Passing the Torts. Oh, that's what they call me,
- 01:19:55
- Papa Podcast. All the guys out there. All our young students.
- 01:20:02
- Yeah, why don't you talk about that real quick, what you're doing there? Oh, so this is
- 01:20:10
- Open Air Theology's first ministry, and it's called Passing the Torch, and it is a school of apologetics and discipleship for the next generation of apologists, pastors, evangelists, and teachers.
- 01:20:26
- And it's really, we really want to bring the best teachers that are seasoned in the faith, that walk in humility, that have had, that make disciples, and for its older generation, really yoking up with the older ox, yoking up with the younger ox, and showing them how to plow the field.
- 01:20:54
- And it's a free school, and we have Andrews, one of the teachers, all of us here are teachers there, but also
- 01:21:04
- Anthony Rogers, also Matt Slick, Claude Ramsey, he's actually, they just got done filming their second class tonight.
- 01:21:16
- But it's a free class, and if you want to grow in the knowledge of the
- 01:21:22
- Lord, we'd ask that you'd stop on by. And where could they find it? You can find it at Passing the
- 01:21:28
- Torch, on Facebook, on YouTube, yeah.
- 01:21:36
- You don't have a website yet for it? We're building the website right now, but we have,
- 01:21:43
- I mean, it was just so amazing how the Lord has just opened up every single door, and every single teacher that I reached out to said yes, automatically.
- 01:21:54
- And it's really just showing the next generation, how to follow this pattern, the sound doctrine that's been given to us, and how to go make disciples, and how to exegete scripture, and just a whole bunch, church history, and we're really excited.
- 01:22:16
- And yeah, we just want to glorify God in doing this, and look out for our younger brothers and sisters, not to get carried away in all this nonsense,
- 01:22:29
- YouTube Christianity, and that's actually why me and,
- 01:22:38
- I remember when Jeff and I first got started before we brought Braden on, our whole purpose was to, the reason why we started doing our show was to get people to go back to church because of 2020.
- 01:22:54
- And a lot of people, they were mixed up in their theology about everything that was going on, and we wanted to help them work that out.
- 01:23:03
- And then Open Air Theology was born out of that, and now out of Open Air Theology comes
- 01:23:11
- Passing the Torch. So, yeah. Yeah. Now tell people why they should come to the conference.
- 01:23:20
- This is why you guys should come to the conference, all right? I'm telling you, I have been to ReformCon, I have been to G3, but Open Air Theology was like a family reunion.
- 01:23:36
- I mean, it really was. I mean, I got brothers that I met there, they're my brothers for life.
- 01:23:45
- It was the best fellowship, the best encouragement that I needed.
- 01:23:53
- I mean, I really, really needed it, and I wanted so many other people to get that. And everybody that showed last time said the exact same thing, you know?
- 01:24:04
- So, and you know, it's fun, you know? Yeah. Especially the encouragement you got on your sermon.
- 01:24:18
- You're still not reading the next one, dude. No, no, no, no way, dude. Yeah, so just to give another shout out to this,
- 01:24:29
- Valley Baptist Church is Hagerman, Idaho. Come worship God with us if you live in the area. 11 a .m.
- 01:24:34
- on Sundays would be a real blessing to see you there. Hagerman Valley Baptist again. Also have a YouTube channel called
- 01:24:40
- Reformed Ex -Mormon. Go check it out. Have a Facebook page where I make custom smoking tobacco pipes called
- 01:24:46
- Donner's Oak Company. Go check those out as well. Give it a follow, share that around. And if you know somebody that, or if you yourself want a custom pipe, reach out to me, or if you know somebody that does, reach out to me.
- 01:24:56
- It'll be a blessing. I'm gonna hopefully sell some at the conference. But man, it's such a blessing to be a part of Open Air Theology.
- 01:25:04
- It's such a blessing to fellowship with these brothers. It's really exciting. This conference, last conference, the
- 01:25:10
- From Shadows to Substance, I really loved the topic that we were doing. I really loved the topic that we're doing this time.
- 01:25:16
- I'm sure I'm gonna love the topic next time. This is something that if you can make it, you need to make it.
- 01:25:23
- It cannot be encouraged enough. It's gonna be such a blast. The preaching, again,
- 01:25:30
- I am below all these brothers in this way. The preaching is phenomenal.
- 01:25:37
- Oh yeah. Tears running down my face. I kid you not, as Jeff already made mention of.
- 01:25:44
- And the fellowship, it was, the fellowship should have been the icing on the cake, but it was like the meat of the cake and the preaching was icing.
- 01:25:53
- It was fantastic. Yeah. And Melissa says, the real reason you should go, the masses should come to this conference to see
- 01:26:02
- Brayden's hands. Shake his hands in person. I'll shake your hands. And it's always insulting when you shake someone's hand and they say, well, wow, you do have small hands.
- 01:26:12
- Oh yeah, real funny. And Greg says, I love these guys. I can't wait to spend eternity with them.
- 01:26:19
- Yeah. It's gonna be fun. Yeah. So, Chris says, may all who attend be blessed mightily.
- 01:26:28
- So Jeff, give us your final encouragement. Well, I mean, a lot of great things have been said and I just wanna point out like a lot of these conferences that you go to, you know, and listen,
- 01:26:45
- I don't wanna like crap on any of these conferences, right? I would say that the biggest difference outside of the way that we have it scheduled, because there's plenty of fellowship, the after parties that we have, right?
- 01:27:00
- Thursday night, we're renting out a cigar shop where we can hang out and smoke. Friday night, we're renting out a restaurant that has a bar area.
- 01:27:08
- We're gonna be singing songs and reading songs and singing hymns, like we're gonna be getting together.
- 01:27:16
- And every time that we have like a set up shop at time, you're right, like we're eating or something, we're gonna be videoing our conversation.
- 01:27:25
- And a lot of these conferences, they have like these Q &A times, where we're going to receive questions and during our hangout, we're gonna talk, we're gonna answer the questions and fight and argue with each other, okay?
- 01:27:40
- And you can be a part of this, like you can be a part of me in your face telling you you're wrong, right?
- 01:27:47
- That's if you wanna do that. No, but for real, a lot of these conferences you can go to and it's all big hitters, right?
- 01:27:55
- You have James White, you have Votie Bauckham, Steve Lawson, Josh Bice, like you have all these big names.
- 01:28:03
- What makes this one unique is we only have two or three big names and the rest of the guys like myself are unknown.
- 01:28:13
- And let me tell you something, these unknown guys who pastor churches out in the country area that no one knows, no one sees, they don't have
- 01:28:22
- YouTube channels. Let me tell you something, these boys can preach. They can get it. These boys get down.
- 01:28:28
- Yeah. And the main thing is if you go to a restaurant and you're only eating the same meal every time, you're not experiencing the restaurant.
- 01:28:42
- We live in such a time where we have this plethora of ministers, right?
- 01:28:49
- And at this conference, we are introducing new speakers. Next year's conference, it's not gonna be the same speakers.
- 01:28:56
- The conference after that, it's not gonna be the same speaker. We're trying to bring nobodies into the light to where y 'all can experience what me,
- 01:29:04
- Haps, and Brayden experience all the time. Because these nobody preachers that you're probably not listening to, we listen to weekly.
- 01:29:12
- We listen to weekly. And so we just want to, at this conference, share with you the experience that we have weekly.
- 01:29:21
- Take, you know, like some of the names that were mentioned. He talked about Claude. Claude can preach.
- 01:29:29
- Oh man, if I just had half of the passion of Claude. And Kevin Hay, Michael Schultz.
- 01:29:35
- I'm talking about these boys can preach. Listen, I have some passion in me, right?
- 01:29:40
- Every one of these guys can preach me under my pulpit. And I was mentioning this past week to this lady at my church.
- 01:29:49
- She's a member, and she was talking about the conference. And I was just talking about how I am not a jealous person.
- 01:29:57
- Listen, if I was jealous, I would be having everyone to come speak. They would suck, right?
- 01:30:03
- They would suck. So I would be getting this highlight reel, right? Everybody's all, they're ready there for Jeff. I come out the screen.
- 01:30:10
- No, I'm the least person you want to see. These boys can preach. These boys know
- 01:30:16
- God. And I'm telling you something, if you're around them, if you're around at this time, the knowledge, the glory, everything is gonna be overflowing in such a way you might catch a little bit.
- 01:30:27
- You might catch a little bit. It might cause you to wanna go back at home and open your Bible and read a little bit, right?
- 01:30:33
- We're gonna be talking about why Calvinism? Why is it important? Why should you believe it? Why should your church adopt it?
- 01:30:39
- Listen, you're not gonna wanna miss this. And if you're a Calvinist and you miss it, you just went to a four -point in my view.
- 01:30:45
- You're not a five -point, you're a four -point. Have Brayden do that.
- 01:30:54
- Sorry. Sorry, can you see that? That's four -point. Oh man.
- 01:31:01
- No, I mean, look, this conference, I said it after the last year's, I've been saying it on this show.
- 01:31:08
- This is, the layout of it, the way it's scheduled, you know, it is a fun conference.
- 01:31:16
- There's a lot of back and forth. We all let Jeff think he's right because he's posting it.
- 01:31:23
- I mean, he's only got this lifetime to believe what he's believing. He's got the rest of eternity to be corrected.
- 01:31:29
- But believe it. Listen, if you don't like to laugh, don't come. Yeah. Yeah, there'll be a lot of laughing going on.
- 01:31:35
- Oh yeah. You know. You can meet these two, two different Baptists and meet a real
- 01:31:40
- Reformed Baptist. I've been saying this ever since I met these guys.
- 01:31:49
- I might as well say it again today. You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you cannot wipe your friends on your sleeve.
- 01:31:57
- That's what I'm stuck with. That's just that hillbilly lingo, you know? That's an old proverb, okay?
- 01:32:07
- Tennessee proverb. That's a Tennessee proverb. Camp 2013. Now, some people are listening to Jeff right now and going, and he's going to get up there and preach?
- 01:32:17
- Hey, Jeff can preach, dude. I listen to a preacher every Sunday. Yeah, I'm your pastor.
- 01:32:23
- You're going on church discipline. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, no, this has been good.
- 01:32:30
- We actually went longer than we said we... Jeff was like, all right, let's do it, but just half an hour. So yeah, we've had fun.
- 01:32:37
- I really appreciate you having us on, man. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's good. I'm looking forward to the conference.
- 01:32:43
- So February, it's going to be the 21st to the 23rd. 24th, sorry.
- 01:32:50
- So I encourage you guys to come out to Tennessee, check it out. Find a way to make it there, just saying.
- 01:32:58
- I mean, look, you may not need to go to the Open Air Theology Conference to get to heaven, but why take the chance?
- 01:33:07
- It gets you a front row seat, I heard. That's what she'll already know us when we get there.
- 01:33:14
- Yeah, I mean, I'm really hoping Leighton shows up. That's going to be a lot of fun.
- 01:33:20
- I mean, I hear he's a really nice guy, actually. He's an absolutely nice guy. He's really sweet, very graceful, but like Jeff said, he'll take, you give him 10 minutes, and he's going to turn that into three hours of material.
- 01:33:36
- So that's why he'll have a lifetime of material from the conference. Listen, Leighton Flowers is absolutely ecstatic that we're having this conference.
- 01:33:45
- He's happy that we're having this conference, because this is going to give him years of material. Yeah. Good. I can't -
- 01:33:53
- You're welcome, Leighton. I can't promise that I won't maybe drop a comment about Leighton in the message.
- 01:34:02
- Maybe I can refer to him as Jacob Leighton -ness.
- 01:34:09
- Well, the flowers fade, but the word of God stands forever. Every speaker should find a way to drop that in.
- 01:34:19
- Drop something in about a flower. If I was to follow a flower, it wouldn't just be a general one.
- 01:34:26
- It would be a tulip. All right. David, who is a member of Striving for Turing on YouTube, says, do we need to register for the conference?
- 01:34:34
- Yes. It's limited seating. Yeah. Limited seating.
- 01:34:40
- Make sure you get a seat. So go to openairtheology .com to register there on Eventbrite and make sure you do that.
- 01:34:48
- And listen, I don't want to talk about the finances, but I've been catching a lot of crap because there's like, why are you charging for the conference?
- 01:34:57
- And it's like, dude, just this building has cost me $2 ,400. All right.
- 01:35:02
- I have to pay for everyone's place to sleep. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.
- 01:35:07
- The sad thing about Christians is they want everything for free, especially from Christians.
- 01:35:17
- And yet you look at Muslims, you know what Muslims do? They hire other Muslims and they pay more.
- 01:35:23
- They pay them more because it's like, well, I'm taking care of my own. And the guys they pay do really good work because they figure, hey,
- 01:35:30
- I got to do this good work because I'm taking care of my own. Christians, it's like, oh, hey, you're a
- 01:35:35
- Christian. I'll do shoddy work because you're just going to forgive me. Oh, you're a Christian. I'll pay you a shoddy amount because you're a
- 01:35:44
- Christian and you'll forgive me. We got it wrong. It's sad that Muslims understand it better, but the reality is that, look, there's several guys coming.
- 01:35:56
- I can at least speak for myself. Jeff knows this. I don't ask for him to pay me anything.
- 01:36:02
- All right. He asked me to come. I love him. I go anywhere regardless without a speaking fee, but if he asks me,
- 01:36:10
- I'm coming, right? Even if it's going to cost me a lot of money to go, okay, because I know him.
- 01:36:16
- I know the conference he's going to do. His theology is wrong, but he'll correct that in heaven. And so other than that, but seriously, this is going to be a good conference.
- 01:36:27
- Whether you agree or disagree with Calvinism, I'll encourage you to check it out. If nothing more, if you disagree with Calvinism, it may at least sharpen your thinking of what it is
- 01:36:38
- Calvinists believe. Leighton may learn that. And it may actually teach you that you've been a
- 01:36:43
- Calvinist all along and just didn't know it. That's probably possible. So I want to encourage you to go to openairtheology .com.
- 01:36:52
- Check that out. And for you guys from Open Air Theology, I don't know if you saw the comments earlier, but we're the only,
- 01:37:00
- I must have like the only show where the listeners beg for commercials. That's just crazy.
- 01:37:07
- It's crazy. And they're like, hey, where's the commercial? Well, the reality is you missed it because sleep, you know,
- 01:37:14
- Haps was sleeping during the show. Did you see that when Haps just fell asleep? Look. With my eyes wide open.
- 01:37:20
- He just took off. He just fell asleep there. He's getting raptured again. He's getting, no, what it is, what it is is he's struggling because he doesn't get a good night of sleep.
- 01:37:30
- Okay. If he would get himself a good night of sleep, he wouldn't be dropping out like that.
- 01:37:37
- So he should go to mypillow .com and use promo code FFP to get himself a good night of sleep.
- 01:37:44
- So these two guys on the bottom of the screen would stop dropping out here, you know? And so, so yeah.
- 01:37:51
- So Striving for Theory podcasts are sponsored by MyPillow. Just go to mypillow .com.
- 01:37:56
- Use promo code SFE. You can get their pillows, mattress toppers, robes, slippers. They got a whole gamut of things.
- 01:38:04
- Nobody sponsors open -air theology. I don't know why, but. Did you ask?
- 01:38:12
- Well, no, but okay. I didn't think we had to ask. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Like you've heard of the rowdy
- 01:38:21
- Presbyterians. We are the crazy Baptists. Yeah. Yeah, it's true.
- 01:38:27
- We ain't right, okay? Yeah. Yeah, we do need medication, therapy, and a hug.
- 01:38:33
- because they don't know what we're going to say. Melissa, Melissa is saying here. Melissa is saying
- 01:38:38
- Haps needs more naps on his MyPillow. I do. I like that.
- 01:38:46
- Haps needs more naps. And I probably get less sleep than both of these gentlemen. Yeah. Yeah, because you won't stop talking.
- 01:38:54
- That's all you do. Talk, talk, talk. You gotta go to sleep. You gotta relax. You gotta meditate.
- 01:39:02
- Jeff, tell these guys. They can sleep. We can sleep when we're dead. That's right, that's right.
- 01:39:08
- So I'm dead with Christ already. Got all theological.
- 01:39:13
- I died with Christ. Yeah, I died with Christ. See who lives in me. Well, since you're going that way, we usually end with a gospel if it hasn't been presented throughout the show.
- 01:39:24
- So why don't you do that? Me? Yeah, finish the message. Yeah, yeah. The message is that you and I, everyone under the sun has sinned against God and God alone.
- 01:39:36
- And in order to have forgiveness, God himself, the one in whom we have sinned against, became flesh, died on a cross in a substitutionary, penile substitutionary atonement way, paying the price of our sins fully and completely on the cross, saying to tell us that he gave up his spirit, was buried, and on the third day he rose again, according to scriptures.
- 01:39:57
- If we place our faith in him, if we are drawn, if we are called and we place our faith in him, we have been crucified with him and it is no longer you and I who live, but Christ who lives in us.
- 01:40:10
- And that is the call to have faith in the gospel. And we're saved by grace after all we could do, right?
- 01:40:17
- Absolutely not. Just checking to see if he's still a Mormon. Hey, if righteousness comes through the works of the law, then
- 01:40:26
- Christ died needlessly. All right. Well, we appreciate everyone.
- 01:40:33
- And I want to encourage you guys to check out the conference. And so Jeff, Melissa is saying that she says her mother is her sponsor, pays for her podcast each month.
- 01:40:48
- So have you asked your mom? Try that. Why don't you? Well, my mom and dad have passed.
- 01:40:55
- So my brother's passed and my sister, she ain't right. Well, you know, for Haps, especially for Haps, cause he's going to church with you now and doing the podcast, this should be a warning to you.
- 01:41:09
- You notice everyone around him dies early. Dude, I should have went to Idaho.
- 01:41:18
- We need mom lives up here. I'm not in fear of my life with all these tornadoes.
- 01:41:26
- They're real. Well, you've seen all my weapons. They are real. I just purchased a 10 foot tall spear today.
- 01:41:36
- All right, so grab it, dude. It's behind you right now. I know it. I'm going to end on this.
- 01:41:43
- This is going to be, you know, if you want to know why you should be at the conference, especially Mr. Honholtz, he says, great stuff, guys.
- 01:41:51
- Praying you have a blessed conference. And Jeff, I'm loving my Bigfoot mug.
- 01:41:57
- Okay. Bigfoot's not real. And aliens are demons. Thank you.
- 01:42:03
- Thank you, Andrew. We're having a Bigfoot throw down one of the nights to save you,
- 01:42:13
- Jeff. Andrew, I can't believe you just said that blasphemy right there.
- 01:42:19
- I don't believe in evolution, man. It has nothing to do with evolution. What are you talking about?
- 01:42:25
- Dude, we didn't even know there was a silverback gorilla until the 1960s. He's called the missing link for a reason.
- 01:42:32
- No, he's not called the missing link. He's Sasquam. He's not called that by a true Christian enthusiast.
- 01:42:38
- If you're a Christian, you should believe in Bigfoot because of the evidence of two or three witnesses. There's thousands of eyewitnesses of Bigfoot.
- 01:42:45
- Stop it. And if you do not believe, you're denying scripture. If you want to hear the rest of this debate and watch
- 01:42:52
- Jeff have to recognize that he's wrong, you got to be at the
- 01:42:57
- Open Air Theology Conference. Just saying. You know how I get, okay? Okay.
- 01:43:03
- It's not that you believe in Bigfoot. It's that Bigfoot believes in you. And I don't believe like in the same sense as I trust in Bigfoot.
- 01:43:15
- I believe in Bigfoot because of the evidence of two or three witnesses. You believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ based on the evidence of scripture?
- 01:43:24
- And so you believe in alien abduction, right? I think aliens are demons.
- 01:43:30
- Hey, that's not the witness. I believe in demon possession. Don't get
- 01:43:37
- Andrew. Of course, I wouldn't deny someone's, I wouldn't deny someone's testimony. If it's based on two or three witnesses, we got way more than that that have been on alien ships.
- 01:43:47
- No, they were possessed by a demon. Man, I wish I could see them compete. They were possessed by demons.
- 01:43:53
- You got just echoed. Chris, if you don't go, you're not a Calvinist. I'm not gonna say it. I'm not gonna say it.
- 01:43:58
- Jeff, don't get Andrew started on aliens. He'll get all Chuck Missler on us and then it'll just turn into this.
- 01:44:05
- Oh yeah, I forgot he's a dispensationalist. How are you a dispensationalist and you don't believe in Bigfoot?
- 01:44:11
- I know, because I believe in the Bible, not evolution. Well, the Bible says you hold to the evidence of two or three witnesses.
- 01:44:18
- If I killed someone and y 'all three saw me do it, they would put me in prison on y 'all's testimony.
- 01:44:23
- And that's why - I guess they deny that there's alien abduction of people going to ships. See what you did, Andrew? We need another half hour on Bigfoot conversations.
- 01:44:34
- You got Jeff all upset. You gotta come to the conference. You gotta come to the conference. And Chris Honhold says he can't because he's got to work.
- 01:44:41
- He just retired. Listen to me - Listen, quit your job. The real reason
- 01:44:48
- Chris isn't gonna be there is because he's gonna stay home and watch Buddy the Elf. We all know it. Aw. So just saying.
- 01:44:55
- All right, with that, folks, we wanna encourage you, check out Open Air Theology podcast.
- 01:45:00
- Check out Open Air Theology podcast. And we do have an episode on Bigfoot. We do.
- 01:45:06
- Bigfoot's not real. Yeah. Obviously, Brayden, you needed some help on that conversation.
- 01:45:12
- You were outnumbered. You read the room correctly. Thank you for - It's okay that -
- 01:45:18
- Brayden, you've never been more of a dispensationalist until now. Shut up, Jeff. It's often the truth that's in the minority.
- 01:45:25
- I bet John McArthur believes in Bigfoot. Well, if he believes the
- 01:45:30
- Bible, I mean, the evidence of two or three witnesses. There you go. So I hope you guys all go out and -
- 01:45:38
- I love you guys. Start to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. And we'll check you out next week.