The Dividing Line PC&D and the SBC; BH and MB; Response to Shawn McCraney

And welcome to the Dividing Line, third Dividing Line of this week. On Tuesday we had what may be one of the most popular, at least as far as the positive feedback, programs we have ever done with Dr.

Michael Kruger on the subject of Sola Scriptura and the Canon of Scripture. Twitter and everything else has been extremely active in people saying, wow, that was really enjoyable, thanks for doing that.

So once again, thanks to Dr. Kruger for having joined with us, and I got the feeling toward the end there he'd be willing to do that again sometime in the future on some of the other subjects.

I'd certainly love to have him on to talk about the early text of the New Testament. He says the book he's working on right now is on the

Primitive Church, Church in the Second Century. Good stuff. So we will go that direction sometime in the future, but as I said, it took us about three months to get him on in the first place, so he's a busy guy, so we can't expect that very often.

Real quickly, breaking news right now, as started hitting the Twitter sphere, blogosphere, social media sphere, whatever, over the weekend and late last week,

I think, Phillips Craig and Dean are performing at the 2014

Southern Baptist Pastors Conference. And immediately people started once again pointing out, appropriately, the fact that Phillips Craig and Dean come from modalist backgrounds, non -Trinitarian backgrounds.

Randy Phillips, as late as 2009, was saying some pretty strong stuff about Constantine being the one who introduced the

Trinity and baptism in the formula of Matthew 28, and all the standard

Oneness Pentecostal stuff. That was only five years ago. Now, I would like to think that in that time period, some of the other members, they've left the

UPCI and stuff like that long ago, if they're even part of it, but they've left the standard

Oneness stuff. And one of the other members of the group in the mid -2000s was in a church that their statement of faith basically said, oh, we don't know.

You know, some people say Trinity, some people don't, you know, God's just really great.

And honestly, I have more respect for a Oneness Pentecostal than someone who goes, yeah, no, it's just, you know, that doesn't really help me very much.

So what I've heard this morning is that the group has signed—now, of course, it might be their representative—signed a document affirming the

Baptist faith message before performing at the Pastors Conference this coming summer.

Now, I know that the background of the BFNM is certainly

Trinitarian, obviously, but looking at it, I was rather disappointed. It certainly wasn't written by someone who was specifically seeking to weed out modalism.

The Baptist faith message in its current version, available at sbc .org,

says under God, it says, "...the

Eternal Triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being."

There's nothing about the eternality of the Persians here. Now, there's a section on the Father, the Son, the

Spirit, and I know what the background is. My concern is, could a modalist sign this by ignoring what the background is, just by going, well,

I believe that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? You know, a modalist could say,

I believe God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that He, you know, the

Father is the Deity, the Son is the Humanity, now He's the Spirit, etc.,

etc., etc., right? So there isn't much in the BFNM that would necessitate their saying otherwise, in light of the context they would bring in.

So, I would love to hear that in the past five years, in their interactions with people around the

United States, with interactions with godly leaders, that the members of Phillips, Craig, and Dean have come to understand and positively confess the truth of the

Trinity, and that they will affirm that the Son has eternally existed as a divine person. That would be wonderful, because they're extremely talented, they really are extremely talented.

I would love to hear that, but I haven't heard that yet.

And I hope that that will come to, that will really be focused upon here, and I hope that the people calling for some discernment on this will,

A, give room for them to do that, but B, that everyone will have enough knowledge of the doctrine of the

Trinity not to be taken in by a, you know, elephant room type silliness.

Because remember what happened with that, you know, here you've got Jake sitting there going, well, you know,

I don't really like the term person, you know, well, why not? And then when he explains it, he's still a modalist, and Driscoll and everybody else is sitting there going, ah, yeah, this is great, you know.

It's real simple to unmask modalism. Did the Son, as a divine person, eternally exist in the presence, not merely as a thought, but in the presence in communion with and communication with the

Father? Yes or no? Real simple. It doesn't, it doesn't take, you know, a

PhD, but unfortunately that's really, of all the areas of Trinitarian study, the area that the average evangelical goes about.

So, will there be clarity on this issue? Don't know, don't know, but it'll be interesting.

It's certainly getting some press, so we'll see what happens. And my hope, honestly, my hope is that we'll see a statement on the

PC &D website that says, you know, we've come to understand that, you know, this is what the Bible teaches, and that the

Son has eternally existed as a divine person. I would think that would be wonderful. I think

I've still got some CDs hiding someplace that I haven't listened to in since... when was that I wrote that Loving the

Trinity article for CRI? That was, I was in Chicago. It was, oh, it was before 2000, because I was speaking at the same conference with Norm Geisler.

So you know that hasn't happened since The Father's Freedom came out. So it was 98 -99, somewhere around there.

Wrote an article called Loving the Trinity for the CRI journal, and that's when I discovered that Phillips, Craig, and Dean were modalists.

And so there you go. So we hope that that happens. Next point on the three that I want to get to today.

This is the third dividing line of the week, which is unusual. We normally only do two, but it's the third dividing line of the week.

And I've been hit right and left by people saying, why aren't you talking about Michael Brown and Benny Hitt?

Well, because that happened after the last dividing line of last week, and the first dividing line of this week was already scheduled with Dr.

Kruger. And if anybody thinks that discussing this is more important than what we did with Dr.

Kruger, you and I are not on the same page, okay? I'll just I'll just tell you that right now.

Some of you Calvinists are just really hotheads. You really are. You need to chill out, okay?

And I'm telling you that as a person who's considered a hothead Calvinist. But balance, people.

Balance. Good thing. The second dividing line was an early morning dividing line to fit in with our

European guests. So this is the first opportunity. Secondly, the first person to respond to Michael Brown on Twitter was me.

I was the first one. I mean, my Twitter response was just Benny Hitt in all caps with about five exclamation points afterwards.

But then I clicked on, then I did something completely out of character for me. I went on Facebook.

Now, for those who know me, that was, wow, really?

You got to be concerned about something to go on Facebook. Yeah, I went on Facebook. And those of you who saw that know that the only person, at least that day that I saw, at least in that time period, that Michael Brown responded to on Facebook was me.

And I expressed my deep concerns in light of Benny Hinn's teachings, his obvious promotion of the prosperity gospel, his obvious pillaging of Christians to make massive amounts of money, flying around on Spirit One and doing all the rest of the stuff.

Now, let me just start laying out a few things here that I think...

I spoke about this yesterday on No Compromise Radio, so I may be blowing poor

Mike Cabedros' scoop here, but we talked about this whole situation on NOCO Radio yesterday, so I'm not sure when that's going to air, probably sometime next week.

A couple things. First of all, I have absolutely, positively no doubt about the status of Benny Hinn and Benny Hinn Ministries.

But interestingly enough, the very things that Michael Brown is saying about him not knowing much about Benny Hinn are actually true about me.

Now, for very different reasons. I do not consider that realm of sensationalistic, throwing the

Holy Spirit around like a basketball, knocking people over with your coat, that's not my religion.

Okay? I do not even begin to recognize that as having anything to do with what

I believe. All right? Inviting people into a sports arena and collecting money from them as if they are sowing seed to your ministry, doing a sermonette that is really just part of the process of the music and stuff to get people into an altered state of consciousness, and then manipulating them and knocking people over and having them twitch on the stage.

I don't understand what that is. I don't know what religion it is, but it's not New Testament Christianity.

It's not even a faith club. The Bible is very clear. The presence of the

Holy Spirit in a person's life brings paideia and sofranismus.

Both terms are translated in various modern translations as discipline, sound mind, sober mind, self -control.

It doesn't bring people flopping on the ground, getting slain in the

Spirit. The Spirit brings testimony to Jesus Christ.

It causes people to have a greater understanding of who he was and is and what he accomplished.

It causes people to have a greater passion and love for the work of Jesus Christ, to want to be disciplined in their study of the gospel and the application of the gospel to all of their life.

It doesn't make them flop around on the floor. I consider it a gross blight upon the name of Christianity that Benny Hinn is normally what people think of when they think of Christianity.

He has been exposed. He has clearly and completely disqualified himself for any kind of ministry by his outrageous lifestyle.

Standing up there in his multiple thousand dollar mondo expensive suits, flying in on Spirit One just to whip around his coat and dispense the

Spirit, and then he gets back, well, then he goes to his his hotel with the multi -thousand dollar per night rooms and then back on Spirit One to go the next place to collect a few more million dollars.

That's not Christianity. The man's a false teacher and this has been known for decades.

This is not something that's new, but I have never ever taken the time to study the man.

I don't have to. I mean, just simply by going to the conferences

I've gone to, as a speaker, I have seen the presentations,

I've listened to the quotations. You go on YouTube to research something.

You're looking up information. Oh, is it Dove One, not

Spirit One? I don't know. Algo is saying it's Dove One. I don't want to disagree with Algo.

Whatever it is, Dove One, Spirit One, I don't care what it is. I know what it looks like, but I've seen that.

Just going on YouTube, if you are doing searches for Christian subjects in the recommended videos,

Benny Hinn's gonna come up all the time. And sometimes you just look at it and go, well, that looks weird.

And you click on it and you just sit there. I did this. When was that?

I sort of live tweeted watching a... Oh, the reason it was, was it mentioned

Kyiv and I'm going to Kyiv next month. So Benny Hinn passes out the anointing in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Something like that. So I clicked on it and I was repulsed.

Here is a mean -spirited man. He was in a bad mood that night. Bad mood.

I don't know if his five -star restaurant food wasn't as good as he was expecting it to be or just what it was, but you could just see he was angry.

And he's strutting around up here and he's in control. And he's telling his music people, change key!

Just like that. Change key! And all of a sudden he looks over and says, that security guy over there!

Out! Out! Never come back! Out! And I'm sitting here going, whoa, this is weird.

And then he goes sort of back into his trance -like state. And he says, hold your hand up.

Hold your hand. And about 30 seconds later, do you feel the tingling in your right hand?

That's the Spirit of God. No, it's not. It's the blood rushing out of your right hand. If you hold it up long enough, that's what's gonna happen.

Every student knows that. I know, teacher. I know, teacher. That's the anointing.

Oh, no, that's not the anointing. That's tingling in your fingers. The anointing makes you holy over a lifetime, okay?

That's what the anointing does. The anointing gives you discipline to stay firm in the faith.

That's what the anointing does. It's not feelings in your finger at a Benny Hinn crusade.

Anyway, so everything

I know, I've gotten from, you know, sometimes you're trying to go to channel 28, your finger slips, you go to 21 here in Phoenix, and you end up on TBN, and there he is!

And, you know, he's hawking this out of the other thing, and I recognize that there are times when he's on for a long period of time, and he's actually got to read the

Bible. He's actually got to say things about religion, and he's gonna talk about Jesus, and he's gonna talk about believing in Jesus, and all sorts of stuff like that.

I've seen all that, but I've never spent the time, like Justin Peters has, going to these things, and watching, and interviewing people, and buying the books.

I would no more read a Benny Hinn book than drop a 35 -pound dumbbell on my toe.

And I can say that because I've done that in the past, and I'm pretty sure I broke it, but they can't do much for you anyways, so you just let it heal up.

I have no, zero, nada interest, because he has disqualified himself by his behavior.

It's just so obvious to me, alright? So that's not even, that part isn't even questionable.

But what happened was, Michael comes on Facebook and says,

I recorded five episodes with Benny Hinn, and I think they start on the 13th, so I think it's

Monday. I think they start Monday. I might watch those. I might, yeah, record them, if I can, you know, figure out when they're on or whatever.

I might go ahead and watch those, because people will ask. And I would not doubt that Michael got an opportunity to talk about things that are important to him.

He just put out a book on hyper -grace. I assumed it was the non -lordship salvation stuff. Evidently it's not really that.

It's something else, primarily in charismatic circles, that I know next to zippity -doo -da -nada about, though I have a feeling that, philosophically and theologically at its foundation, it's related to the non -lordship, no -repentance stuff.

I don't know. I don't know. We'll find out. He's got a book out called Hyper -Grace and Authentic Fireball at the same time, and so I'm sure those are the things that he wants to be talking about, and he probably got the opportunity to do that.

I imagine Benny's just sort of sitting back asking questions. He's filling airtime. He's got to fill a lot of airtime.

And so I'm sure Michael got the opportunity of doing that. But here's the things that really bother me.

Let me get to the things that bother me that I'll be raising with Michael directly in Spain in a couple of weeks first.

We will be debating each other twice. We are already scheduled to do that. And we will be opponents in both debates.

One's gonna be on healing, one's gonna be on the extent of the atonement. There's actually a connection between the two when you think about it from the

Pentecostal charismatic side of things. But anyways, I'm not sure if that'll come up. They're short debates and you can only get certain things.

Anyway, first of all, social media is a wonderful thing, but I think it really makes our conversations shallow.

Not just the 140 character limit in Twitter, but Facebook and all these things. Things happen so fast.

Word travels so quickly that people begin to assume that if somebody hasn't said something within an hour of it happening, oh you're covering for somebody.

Oh you're this. If I decided not to say anything about it until I could sit down and talk with Michael in Spain, would that really matter?

For a lot of folks, yep, yep, gotta do it. Gotta do it right now. I don't really care how in -depth it is, but right now.

I'm getting tired of that, to be perfectly honest with you. I really am. I don't care which side of the matter you're on. There's people on every side of an issue that just are far more concerned about the speed with which the knee jerks than the substance with which the response is made.

I really get tired of that. What concerned me initially was obviously

Michael has a nationwide radio program. His work on homosexuality is just sterling.

His debates against homosexuals and promoters of homosexuality are just the best out there.

There isn't any question about any of that. His stuff on Jewish apologetics is solid and sound.

And this is what's driving a lot of people crazy. This is what's driving a lot of people crazy. You see that, you hear that, and you go,

I sense discernment there. And then you see this and go, I sense no discernment there at all. How can it be the same person?

How can it be the same person? That's what's driving a lot of people right up the wall. There is a massive inconsistency here.

Secondly, Phil Johnson's response to Michael Brown on this subject at Strange Fire was, there is no baby in the bathwater.

And within what? Four months? Three months? Michael does something that basically says to everybody on the

Strange Fire side, there you go! There it is!

We were saying that people from that perspective don't have much of a way of discernment and there you go!

The one guy everyone puts out there as the example of discernment goes on Benny Hinn to talk about his issues.

And of course, from our perspective, the only reason to be talking to Benny Hinn is to call the man to repentance for the wild and crazy things that he's done and to expose him as a false teacher.

But what troubled me more than that? I mean, that troubled me. And that's why I said it immediately to Michael. I said it on Facebook.

I said this man is just one of the best -known examples of the worst of the charismatic movement, the worst of word -faith, the worst of prosperity, the worst of violating everything the

Bible says about what an elder is supposed to be like. Paula White, divorce, reconcile.

I'm glad he's back with his wife. That's great. Did he step down for any period of time?

Or is he just right back into where he was? I mean, there's all sorts of issues there. The main thing is the money, the money, the money.

Come on, it's so obvious. It doesn't take a great amount of discernment here, does it?

Really? And you see, those are all things that Michael isn't...

I don't see a bit of evidence that Michael is a money grubber. He's not trying to get himself a private plane.

He's a grandpa. He's the polar opposite.

So why would the polar opposite not see these things? But what troubled me more than that was the next day,

I guess. That must have blown up on Thursday, was it? Because the next day would be Friday, and I listened.

I didn't get to listen live, so I listened a couple hours after it aired to Michael's program where he talked about...

someone Justin Peters called in on, and Seiko Woods called in on. And that was more disappointing, because basically what

I was understanding Michael's saying was, hey, you know, if these things prove to be true, maybe

I'll have an opportunity to talk with Pastor Benny about these things. Michael, it's been 30 stinking years.

It's past the talking stage. I mean, seriously. If Benny Hinn does not fulfill all of the criteria the

New Testament says, watch these people. These people need to be marked out and avoided. What would it take?

And what concerned me was he played sections where Benny Hinn was speaking Orthodox words. Michael, I can get the

Mormon prophets speaking Orthodox words. I can go to every single

General Conference of the Mormon Church and find Orthodox words. False teachers always speak

Orthodox words, don't they? I mean, isn't that how they get in?

False teachers don't show up at the doorway of the church wearing pink and purple polka -dotted clown suits.

They dress like us and talk like us. And the Galatian false teachers, nowhere are they faulted.

For their Christology, their view of the doctrine of God, they're never said to be polytheists or anti -trinitarians, and yet they're anathematized, aren't they?

So you could have pulled from the Galatian teachers preaching sound words. That's not the point.

That's not the point. That's not how you recognize these things. I can pull sound words from Anthony Buzzard, Mike, and yet you and I debated him, right?

So is that the only way that you can identify false teaching? That's what really concerned me.

That's what I went, what? Well, maybe I can talk with him now that we have a relationship.

You don't think he hasn't heard the truth over 30 some -odd years? You don't think he doesn't know?

And basically the words from everybody has been, you can't be that naive.

You cannot possibly be that naive. It's not possible. Especially if I know this much about Benny Hinn and he is in circles that I don't, that I am not in at all.

Michael, you're in the circles he's in. So I cannot possibly see how you do not know where he's coming from.

I can't see it. Don't know, don't know how it's possible, don't know how it's possible. So I'm gonna ask,

I'm gonna ask directly, how do you recognize a false teacher?

How do you do that? Don't know. Don't know from that perspective. Obviously, my concern is that amongst charismatics, since your personal experience becomes an element of divine revelation, the

Spirit did this, the Spirit did that, then it pretty much leaves you without any practical, meaningful way of holding somebody else to an objective standard.

Well, maybe that's just, you know, I hate, I hate to question whether the Spirit's moving that way when Brother Benny starts swinging his coat around and knocking people over.

Wow. If the word isn't objective enough to point out, that's not the result of the

Spirit of God. Mesmerism, whatever else you want to call it, fine.

Just don't call it the Spirit of God. Just don't call it the Spirit of God. So, there's that.

Next thing, third thing, real quick, real quick, haha, I'm not even gonna be able to, this is gonna be, this is gonna be tough.

I am very happy to announce that Sean McCraney, Sean McCraney called me, no he didn't call, he wrote to us, wrote to us.

Said, hey, I heard that Brother White's gonna be talking about what I said about Calvinism, I'd be glad to call in with the show. Hallelujah.

That's awesome. It really is. I think that's great. I mean, how many Radio Free Geneva's have we done?

Where I'm going, so rich, the phone line working out there, you know, and he pots it up and, you know.

Vast majority of people who say things about Calvinism, they just run in hype.

Now, Brother McCraney said some pretty tough things.

Here, you got popped up, this is the spot that I'm gonna,

I'm gonna be real honest, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask him, because we'll have him on.

I said, I think the best way to handle this is, let me explain where you were wrong. Let me try to enlighten you on this subject.

I think you've got some real bad understandings here. I think they came from George Bryson or people like him. Let me explain what the problems are, and then let's find a time and I'll invite you on.

We'll do a dialogue on it. We'll do it. Because, have you seen, have you seen the videos? Okay, once you pull up, pull up Sean McCraney on YouTube, and what

I'm gonna tell you is, he is Mike Munoz with light -colored hair and bigger.

He's Mike Munoz. I'll have to do that later, because if I pull up YouTube now, everything else crashes. Yeah, game over.

Well, well, you could, you didn't bring your iPad or something. But anyway, when you get a chance to do that, he, and you know, the guys up there dealing with Mormonism, when

I went up and recorded with, with Jason, and I think the program we did was on Calvinism, if I recall correctly.

It might not have been, but I think it was. But when I record with Jason, Sean's set was right across the studio, in the same place.

They're recording in the same place. And I had asked about it at that time, because it was an interesting looking thing.

And he seems like a down -home guy, seems like a guy that I could sit down. If I ever go to Salt Lake, I'll contact him.

If I ever go. I mean, as if, you know, if Jason ever decides he wants me back up there in Salt Lake City again to do something.

And I'd love to do something. We'll sit down, I'll contact him. I'll bet my phone will start ringing in about 30 seconds.

Okay, well, I'd like, I'd love to do something. I'd love to get back up there. It's been, it's been a number of years since I've been up there. But we stood out there for so many years.

I know the Rose Tree here in Salt Lake so well. I've earned my merit badge in witnessing the

Mormons, okay? And I think he probably knows that. So we've got, we've got something that we share in common there.

No two ways about it. And so he's the type of guy I'd like to sit down at taco time with, okay?

Yes, taco time! I miss taco time. Or as people used to call it, taco time bomb is what we called taco time over there in Salt Lake.

But we could sit down and talk, and I would love to open the Bible, Sean, and let's just walk through John 6, you know?

Let's walk through Ephesians 1. Let's do Romans 9. Let's, because it is just painfully obvious to me that he's gotten some really bad information.

So I'm, I'm going to start playing here. I'm not sure how far I'm going to get because we only got half an hour, but I'm going to start playing the section that most people have been commenting on.

I'm going to respond to it. I may not be as in depth in my response as I normally would be, but it's because we're in a little bit of a hurry.

And then we're going to, I've got so much Radio Free Geneva stuff I've got to get to.

Everyone's asking when you can respond to William Lane Craig and the Paul Helm thing on Unbelievable. I'll get to it.

Yes, I heard it. I live tweeted my reactions to it while I was listening to it. You know, we're trying to see if maybe

I can sneak on to Unbelievable in just a matter of, was it

January, February? February, on my way back from Ukraine. Might build in a couple days in London there just to do some stuff there and maybe talk on similar subjects, things like that.

Yes, I would love to have a debate at Biola or in Atlanta where Craig actually lives.

Be happy to go there for some odd strange reason. Happen to have family there. Love to do all those things.

We'll get to it. We've also got to work on Alan's stuff on Limitless Atonement. We've got a lot to do.

We will get to it. Patience is a Christian virtue, it really is. So let's, I listened to this at 1 .6

% speed. And Sean sounds brilliant at 1 .6%. But then again, I sound like Einstein at 1 .6%.

Sounds like you've just got all your stuff. So I'm gonna be playing it at 1 .2%, especially for those of you who whine and complain because you listen to me at high speed and stuff like that.

So we're gonna be playing this at 1 .2 % speed. Let's dive into what

Sean had to say. Interestingly, Calvin paradoxically also taught that God loves all of his creations and desires that all might be saved.

He had to teach this, it's biblical by the way. But for some reason in his mind, this

God of love determined that most would not be redeemed. I don't know why.

Well let me explain a couple things. First of all, if you read Calvin carefully, he is going to discuss very carefully in a number of places the intention of God, the desire of God, issues along those lines on a level that I don't, that your comments,

Sean, and I hope you don't mind if I just directly address you, that your comments did not indicate you're familiar with.

If you'd like to, for example, see a brand new, very in -depth discussion of that in regards to the atonement in Calvin, the new book that is so very useful,

From Heaven He Came to Sotheart. It just came out, 950 -page work on the subject of atonement.

The chapters in there on that subject would be very useful to you. But when you say, I don't know why, let me tell you why.

We believe that God, well think about it, Sean, just this way. God can either save everyone or God can save some or He can save no one.

In which of those three, I suppose I should, if Sean's going to watch this, in which of those three does

God have a choice? If He saves everyone, He has no choice. If He saves no one,

He has no choice. Only by saving a particular people can God have a choice and exercise a choice.

Well, why would God want to exercise a choice? Well, may I suggest to you, Sean, that the reason is that God is desiring to demonstrate

His power. In other words, He's demonstrating His attributes. He's revealing Himself to His creation in a way that could not happen in any other way but in the way that God intended it to happen.

So, if He saves some, it's unmerited favor. They are not worthy of His grace and mercy.

We fell in Adam and hence are reprehensible to a holy God. We have personally committed sins which make us all the more reprehensible before God.

And so a just and holy God could condemn all of us. I think your anthropology is a little weak on that point, as we'll see here in a few moments as we look at some of the other statements you made.

But the point is, if God saves a particular people, then some are not going to be saved.

They are utterly under God's judgment. He is just to allow them to be judged.

They don't want to be saved. They love their sin. And in hell, they are going to be expressing their hatred of God.

Those individuals, in them, God's holiness, justice, power, and wrath are demonstrated.

In those that are saved, whose heart, that heart of stone is taken out, they're given a heart of flesh.

The dry bones that the wind blows over and they become living beings. In them, God's love and mercy, his tremendous grace is demonstrated.

So all of the attributes of God are demonstrated, but only because there is both mercy to the elect and justice toward those who continue to love their sin and continue in their hatred of God.

So you say, I don't know why. I think that would be the answer why. But in order to save some, here's the deal.

And again, according to scripture, that number is going to be very few. God, being sovereign, elected a group of people, of us reprobates, to salvation by his own goodwill and pleasure and well before any of us were even physical realities.

Now, you keep using the term reprobate in a very non -theological fashion. The word has a particular meaning and it refers only to those who are passed over by God, who are condemned by God, who are not granted the grace of life.

So you seem to think that you're using that term in a way that I'm, as Princess Bride would say,

I'm not sure it means what you think it means. Something along those lines might be the way to put it. Okay.

In electing some, God also chose of his own goodwill and pleasure to place the remainder in hell or in the lake of fire where they will burn forever and ever and ever.

Okay. One of your major errors is the error of equal ultimacy. You are trying to make a equal mark between election to salvation and reprobation to damnation as if they're the exact same thing.

This is an extension of unbelievable grace and mercy and power towards sinners who hate

God, changing their nature. This is not. God does not have to extend power.

God doesn't have to extend grace to this group to make them what they are.

Now, he is extending grace to both groups in the sense that God could just bring his judgment to bear instantly upon everyone.

And furthermore, he is actually restraining the evil of this group.

God is restraining the evil of man. They would be more sinful than they actually are, but God does not allow it for his own purposes.

So he restrains their evil, but there is no equal in the sense that the power that is required and the nature of the action of God in saving the elect is completely different than sustaining the wicked in their wickedness, not calling them out of existence and restraining their evil, and yet then righteously judging them.

This equal ultimacy will come up a number of times in your comments here at the beginning. These are not people who are horrid murder serial killers, but they could be anyone

God has not elected. Little grandma who faithfully served the community, or 12 -year -old girls who love dolls and flowers before they're taken, and babies all created by God's goodwill and pleasure for hell.

That never ends. Now, you obviously have a problem with that, but so do I, because I don't believe that.

This is where your anthropology is all messed up. There are no little old ladies who are good.

If they are going to end up under God's judgment, they have lived their entire lives in hatred of God. They have taken

God's goods gifts, and they have abused them. They are sinners. And either you believe that sinners are worthy of the judgment of God, or you don't.

If you think little old ladies and 12 -year -old girls who play with dolls are somehow not worthy of God's judgment, then we're not reading the same

Bible. We're not reading Romans 3. We're not reading Romans 1. We're not seeing what God did in the Old Testament when he brought judgment upon the nation of Israel, and those are the very people who died.

So don't know where that's coming from. But your anthropology is not a biblical anthropology. It's not a consistent biblical anthropology.

You are talking here without realizing and bringing in, really, in this next section, you bring in what should have been said before you said this, which shows you're really not listening to what you're even saying here when you represent the before position.

Listen to what you said here. Now just in case those who have been elected start to think that they were elected to salvation because they're so good and they're all that,

Calvin clearly explains that the elect are chosen not because of any act of goodness present in them, but solely based on God's sovereign will.

Calvin suggested that by God saving some, we are given a tremendous example of his mercy, since we all deserve hellfire to begin with.

That's the thinking. Yeah, that's the thinking, because that's the Bible. We all deserve hellfire. The 12 -year -old girl, the little old lady, all those categories you came up with where you're trying to basically say these are moral individuals that would not deserve hellfire, they are enemies of God, they are not holy, and honestly, if you have a high enough view of God's holiness and being and a realistic view of man's sinfulness, these issues aren't going to be all that problematic to you.

But since they are, I really have to wonder where you are in the spectrum of having a biblical perspective on the nature of man's sin at this point.

If we sort of work it backward, not one of us deserves God's love and mercy, which I agree is true if you think about it in that way, but to show his great love and mercy, he decided to save some reprobates while leaving the rest to become eternal kindling in the lake of fire.

What is the reason that you think that God is under some obligation to save anyone?

Because that's clearly in your thinking. That's clear in your thinking. Your objection, obviously, is to God being the one that makes the decision rather than rebel sinners, as if the judge of all the earth won't do right, but rebel sinners will do right.

I want salvation to be in the hands of the just God of all eternity, not in the hands of mankind.

Why would you think that any of us, in light of the biblical teaching, Romans chapter 8, what does

Paul say? Those who are according to flesh, what can they not do? They cannot subject themselves to the law of God. They cannot do what's pleasing to God.

Repentance and faith, pleasing to God. Bible says, can't do it. So what do you do?

How do you understand that? I really think that part of the problem here is in your anthropology, your view of man.

Now, here again, the air of equal ultimacy comes up, where you're trying to draw that equal sign, which is not there.

This perspective teaches that the unsaved reprobates are unconditionally damned to hell for eternity, while the unconditionally elected, that's our topic for tonight.

Another way this point is presented is that the elect have been predestined to salvation, while the damned have been predestined to destruction.

You cannot alter that predestination that is upon each of us. So again, equal ultimacy, making the same thing, they're not the same thing.

The certainty of God's decree, no question about it. So unless you're an open theist, unless you deny to God exhaustive knowledge of all future events, which

I would hope that that's not where you're coming from. If it is, then that's what we need to be talking about.

This stuff's irrelevant, because I consider open theism a rank heresy. But if you are not an open theist, and God does know all these things, then all of your objections actually come back upon you, and you have to explain them, but without a divine decree, which gives purpose and meaning to everything that takes place in life.

So that's really the question we have to get to. Now, the basis for the perspective, if you really want to understand

Calvinism, in all five points, it's completely planted in the idea of the sovereignty of God.

He is completely sovereign, and so you will understand it better that his will is always done to the exclusion or inclusion of anything men and women do.

It doesn't really matter. Now, see, I'm gonna stop it right there, I wasn't going to. It doesn't really matter. Very shallow, inaccurate view of God's sovereignty.

God's sovereign decree forms the fabric of everything that takes place in time.

That's what gives reality and weight and meaning to all of our actions. We're not just under the control of cosmic spirits and fate and things like that.

The reason that our actions in time are so important is because they are a part of the very fabric that God is weaving to his own glory and majesty and praise.

That's what makes it meaningful. So, God's interaction with us in time is not a

God who's observing what happens and then trying to fix things. His decree determines what happens in time, but that's what makes it meaningful.

And since he enters into time itself, then to say that we're just—and you're going to use the terminology, and you're wrong—that we're just a bunch of puppets on a string, that is a very common misapprehension.

It's born of ignorance of what it is that we're saying. It's not like I am this morally neutral creature and God's got his gun behind me, you do this.

That's such a shallow, simplistic perspective, and it's not what we're presenting.

So, you can strawman this thing to death if you want to. I mean, that's what George Bryson does, that's what Calvary Chapel has been doing for a long, long time.

But basically what I'm saying is, hey, given that we both work with Mormonism, you've got to be accurate in what you say about the

Mormon Church. I know the good LDS apologists, and I know that if I say something wrong about Mormonism, they're going to catch me.

Well, I'm catching you right now. I'm calling you out on being inconsistent. I hope you're more accurate in describing

Mormonism than you were in describing Calvinism, because you're just about to get to the point where you did the ha -ha -ha, this is so stupid, it's ridiculous, it's as bad as the

King Follett funeral discourse stuff. And I'm sorry, Sean, but that is just absurd. It's indefensible.

There's no way you could defend what you did there. Well, let's play it so people know what we're talking about. So, in the doctrine of predestination, five -point

Calvinism affirms God's sovereignty and states that it is his perfect will, unaffected by deeds or actions on our part, which decides that some are saved and the rest will burn eternally.

The fact that God predestines some to eternal life, so here's one point, and another group to eternal damnation is known as double predestination, because he predestines to life and he predestines to hell.

Now, I just stop it right before the laughter to again point out the error of equal ultimacy. You're not recognizing the difference in God's action between the two.

That's a fundamental flaw in your presentation. But, having said that, we then have a brief pause and...

That was a terrible, phony laugh, but I cannot believe this stuff.

I mean, I have never heard a bigger pile of garbage in my life. In terms of ridiculousness, it runs right up there with Joseph Smith's King Follett discourse, who said

God was once a man. I mean, it's the same idiocy when you think about it.

Now, most of my audience just dismissed you, and you seem to know that because in the next comments you're going to sort of...

I think you knew you went way overboard, way overboard, and maybe it's being on TV or something.

I don't know. Sean, I know the King Follett funeral discourse.

I know it really well, and I know Reformed theology. And the reason that I'm not angry with you is because I know you don't know

Reformed theology. And hence, the massive category error that was just made there comes out of ignorance, just ignorance.

And my hope is that it's a correctable ignorance, that it's an ignorance where you go, okay, you know, folks,

I'm sorry. I got some real bad information there, and I apologize.

That's my hope, anyways. But to compare the polytheistic babblings of Joseph Smith in the

KFD, to compare God was a man living on a planet, you got to learn how to become gods yourselves.

Now, you were comparing that with your own misunderstanding. So, okay,

I understand that. It's not what I believe, and we're going to try to correct that.

All right? Then he at least went on and did give a nice quote from R .C.

Sproul. Okay, I'll get professional to try to impress you through my genteel articulation about how right

I am. In his explanation of unconditional election, R .C. Sproul, a scholar living today who's on the radio all the time, is respected here and far and wide in the

Christian community, said the following about unconditional election. Listen closely to the word choice in this quote.

Our final destination, heaven or hell, is decided by God not only before we get here, but before we are even born.

It teaches that our ultimate destiny is in the hands of God. Another way of saying it is this, from all eternity before we ever live,

God decided to save some members of the human race and to let the rest of the human race perish.

God made a choice. He chose some individuals to be saved unto everlasting blessedness in heaven, and others he chose to pass over to allow them to follow the consequences of their sins into eternal torment in hell.

R .C. Sproul. Now, did you notice? Sproul didn't make the mistake you did. He didn't present equal ultimacy.

He talked about God passing over them and they experiencing the just condemnation of their own sins.

That's not how you presented it. You may not understand that, but that's not how you presented it, and there is a major, major difference.

What has always intrigued me is the mindset of those people who love and embrace five -point Calvinism. First of all, the people who love it are never the ones on the eternal damnation end of it.

They always love Calvinism because they're one of the ones who were chosen, and it doesn't seem to affect them at all that most of this world, trillions of people, are going to burn forever in a literal fire of hell because of God's loving will, but they were elected so they just love it.

It's a joy. Sean, the reason that I love it is because it's biblical. The reason

I love it is because Jesus taught it, Paul taught it. It is the consistent exegetical conclusion of a sober -minded, non -traditionally driven exegesis of the text of the

Bible. The misapprehensions you have,

I think, could be cleared up, if not by me, then maybe by sitting down with Jason up there or someone like that.

I'm sure they'd be willing to talk to you, and maybe you have that interaction. I don't know. I really don't know. I haven't talked with anybody up there in Salt Lake City about you or anything like that.

But you seem to also think that we think that, you've made the statement twice now, trillions will be lost.

Well, that's an awfully large number. I'm not sure we're ever going to get there, but there are a lot of Calvinists who believe that there's going to be many, well, you know, there's that sand of the sea, you know, as many as the sand of the sea.

I think God is perfectly capable of saving many, many people.

He has that power and ability. We may not be seeing it right now, but you don't judge God's works by what you see in your small corner of the world right now.

God may be doing a whole lot more than you recognize. Then, in light of the command to love, I cannot for the life of me understand anyone who is comfortable with the notion that while they have been chosen, trillions of other people are going to suffer eternally, burning alive in the flames of a second death, no choice of their own.

God just didn't want to save them. That is absurd. Okay, there you just right off the edge.

Those who are under God's wrath hate

God. Okay? They are not innocent people that only because God didn't choose them, they're going to go to hell.

They hate God. They are called God haters. They love their sin.

They are having to be restrained by the spirit of God in this life. I've said many times,

I think that if you go 10 ,000 years into eternity and then open the doors of hell, reach in and grab out a burning soul, whatever that would mean, and sit them down in a chair and say, here's your choice.

You either go and bow down and worship God in spirit and truth, or you go back to where you came from.

Every single one will stand up, say something vile toward God, spit in his face, and dive through the door.

We don't have the same anthropology. We're not reading the same Bible when it comes to the nature of man's sin.

You seem to think that man's got a whole lot better going for him. I think you have a little Mormonism still going there.

I think you need to be purged of that because that's just not where we're coming from at all.

What seems to truly comfort those who have embraced five -point Calvinism is the fact that since God has elected them without them doing anything, it's impossible for them to lose their salvation, you see, because they didn't believe.

They didn't have the will to choose. He just said, you, because of my will, are saved, and the feathered ten are in hell.

They say, I couldn't do anything to be saved. I didn't have to believe. He made me believe. I didn't have to have faith. He gave me the faith.

Everything is there, so I can never lose what he has given me. We're going to get to that in the end. Now, again,

I've been an elder in a Reformed church for a number of years now.

We've been attending a Reformed church for 25 years now, and I can tell you something.

That's not how we think. Okay, I just like this Calvinism stuff because I got it and you don't.

I've never met anybody. Where are you getting that? I don't know. You ain't getting it from Sproul.

You ain't getting it from me. You ain't getting it from Piper. You ain't getting it from McCarthy. You ain't getting it from any of these folks. That's not how we think.

That's not how we act. That's not why we're so ecstatic about it. We're ecstatic about it because of the glory of God and amazed at amazing grace, and we'll always be amazed at amazing grace.

Let me just summarize the last couple things here. Again, misuse the term, we are not culpable.

Again, misunderstanding completely what we're saying. Said that Smith detested Calvinism, that we're puppets, things like that.

Yes, Joseph Smith hated Calvinism, and Mormonism does this day. That's why one of the most interesting tracts we passed out in Salt Lake City at the

Mesa Easter pageant was grace plus works is dead. Another one called, no man is able.

We went right at the Mormon synergism, the

Mormon concept that man has a free will. When the Bible says, Jesus himself said, no one can come to me unless the

Father sent me, draws him. You got to deal with that, Sean. You got to deal with that in its context. It's Jesus' teaching.

We go right after the fact that Mormonism has a very man -centered system, and Reformed theology is completely

God -centered. There's no question about it. The fact of the matter is, my friend, you don't understand what we believe.

You haven't read balanced material on this. I hope that our interaction will help and assist, but I'm I'm looking forward to having that conversation.

We will do that in the midst of responding to David Allen and to William Lane Craig.

We just need to maybe do a jumbo

Reformed, Radio Free Geneva or something, I don't know, to catch up with all this stuff. We will see.

Obviously, I have to be focused here. If a certain debate works out in February, which right now has not been scheduled but would be part of my travels back and forth to Ukraine, and I'm going to be speaking at a church in Virginia right before that, by the way.

I need to let you folks know about that. Fredericksburg, Virginia. Hey, while I'm there,

I'll get to visit the Wall. That's great. That's a Civil War site I've not been to before, so I will have to get to visit the

Wall while I'm there. Long story, if you're not familiar with the Battle of Fredericksburg.

So much stuff going on, but I may end up with a major debate to be preparing for in February as it is, so if I don't get to all of your favorite topics quite as quickly, please, you've got to realize

I've got to make decisions as to what's best under the Lordship of Christ in these matters, so I think that's an important aspect.

But anyways, thanks for listening to Dividing Line today. Three programs this week. Who knows how many we'll try to sneak in next week or just make them longer.