Speaking the Truth in Love, Destroying Others, then Back to the Free Will Debate

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November 8, 2017

Started off with biblical discussions regarding how Christians are to interact with others, leading to some thoughts about those who wish to "destroy" others in the name of Christ. Then turned back to the Free Will debate that was the subject of the previous program, listening and responding along the way. 105 minutes today! More than a jumbo, less than a mega!

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00:33: And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. We have a lot to cover today. I'm gonna dive right into it.
00:39: Hope you don't mind if I skip over some of the pleasantries. By the way, there were a bunch of questions earlier on Twitter.
00:47: I just mentioned really briefly that I had read the section during the Radio Free Geneva on free will from,
00:55: I faith to confess, the modern 1689. I held it up. So maybe people didn't see it or weren't watching the video part, but I Think it's still available.
01:06: It's This is the 8th edition, 1997. It's just a modern language update of the 1689 and I don't think it really changes much in the way of meaning or anything like that.
01:20: So but people were asking, you know, where'd you get that and Someone put a link to Founders.
01:27: It might be the same one. There's actually I think a couple modern language versions. So Anyway, just in answer to that particular question on that that issue.
01:39: 2 John chapter verse 7 says, because many
01:47: Planoi, deceivers, those that lead others astray, have gone out into the world.
01:53: Oh, that's an interesting Looking version there. I, what are you doing?
02:00: I'm not sending it to you All you're putting up there is text commentary, not the text itself
02:06: So you would have had to have like let me know that you wanted to do that Then I could have put it over to the text one
02:13: Which would be that one there and and then maybe here I thought you just didn't let me know
02:19: No, no. No, I'm just trying to do that Same page here today trying to anticipate
02:27: Want me to change everything I can I can change everything. It's just sort of hard to do on you know
02:34: This thing over here. You got to got to change everything and then it's gonna change all the settings for the
02:43: Video when we get to it, but now it should be right Yeah, see but it's gonna take me five minutes to get back to the video now
02:49: Yeah, see people need to see that It's good stop it good anyway because many planoy deceivers
02:58: Have gone out into the world and then You'll notice planoy
03:07: Nominative plural polo a planoy and then you you have the nominative plural
03:14: Article again, so this is functioning a positively to identify who these are
03:20: They are the not confessing Jesus Christ having come in the flesh ones so this is the nature of their deception and the vast majority of New Testament scholarship believing
03:37: New Testament scholarship recognizes that this is in reference to the same individuals
03:45: That are referred to in first John those who hold to what would be called a proto
03:53: Gnostic dualism a form of docetism from the Greek term dachain it seems
04:01: It seems that Jesus had a physical body But he actually did not if you're a dualist then
04:06: Jesus can't have a physical body because that which is physical is evil that which is spiritual is good and you go from there and So you're talking about the same group of antichrist and false teachers
04:19: That is in view in first John the ones not confessing it. Jesus Christ has come in the flesh and So these the deceivers that have gone out into the world these the false teachers
04:32: But these went out from the church. This is the same group that we see in in first John chapter 2
04:37: They went out from us. It might be said demonstrated. They were not of us So these are people who claim to be
04:43: Christians Who claim that name of themselves claim to be teaching the truth about the
04:48: Messiah Jesus? And yet they deny a fundamental truth about him
04:55: And that is that he was in flesh that he came in flesh that they deny that the word was made flesh so This one switching to the singular.
05:07: So each individual one. This one is Haplan us the deceiver
05:12: Kai ha on Tichrist us and the Antichrist and so each individual that this is the point being that to teach this is to deceive and to stand against the
05:30: Messiah So this is the group that is in line. So Watch out for yourselves
05:39: In order that you may not lose what and then you'll notice there's a there's a textual variant here as a decimal symbol is here because you have a switching of of Numbers in order that you do not lose what we have worked or accomplished but You you may receive again a textual variant
06:05: So the subjunctive form or that you may receive the reward in full or the wage in full
06:11: So there would be a a loss of reward if you do not watch for these
06:17: False teachers and be led astray on this this issue So then it is said everyone going too far
06:26: Prahagon Ago to go prah beyond going beyond the border Everyone going too far and not abiding or remaining in the doctrine or the teaching of the
06:40: Messiah of the Christ Does not have God The one abiding or remaining in the teaching in the doctrine this one
06:51: Both the father and the son has there's a number of variants here There's a number of different ways in which the words can be ordered, but we don't have time to get into the textual critical stuff
07:00: I was looking at this CBGM on this. I'm sorry, not CBGM the ECM on this just a few moments ago
07:08: Didn't bring it in to because I knew we'd end up completely sidetracked whatsoever and Would never never get back to where we're supposed to be
07:21: So Going beyond so going outside of the realm of The doctrine of Christ not remaining in the doctrine of the
07:31: Christ if you remain in The doctrine of Christ that one has the father and the son and again
07:38: These these all take us back to first John and the discussions that were had there in Regards to how you have the father and the son if you deny the son you don't have the father
07:50: Very important Christological texts A very important insight into the early church and the struggles and the even during an apostate the period of the
08:03: Apostles the Teaching that was going on at that particular point in time and the false nature of the false teachers that the
08:10: Apostles had to struggle with including that incipient early form of Gnosticism, this is real
08:17: Gnosticism not not the type of Pseudo use the term that you have from latent flowers and and people like that accusing reformed people of being
08:25: Gnostics Which again is just simply silly So that is the context then of verse 10
08:35: If a certain one hence anyone comes to you and This teaching is not bearing and is not they do not bring to you that I can't bring to you this teaching this teaching that Jesus Christ has come to flesh that he
08:49: That you can have the father and the son And notice it's pros Humas and Humas is plural
08:57: So this isn't just some sort of general Idea of you know, you're out and about and you run into Somebody from a world religion from far far away and They don't carry this teaching maybe because they've never heard it or they have a different understanding or whatever else might be
09:21: That's not what's being referred to here. This is someone who's coming to you So again, the vast majority of New Testament scholarship has recognized the situation the early church these traveling prophets and They Are coming to the
09:40: Christian Fellowship, which would be home churches. There weren't any churches being built as point in point in time and So this is this is someone
09:51: Who is coming claiming to having to have church ecclesiastical authority within the body.
09:58: They're coming to the body and We're given here One of the many I would say
10:04: Doctrinal tests but a specific doctrinal test. It's extremely important for the Apostle John who recognizes this
10:11: Proto -Gnosticism is coming in from the east and So this this one comes to you plural and Does not bear this teaching
10:25: Do not receive him Ice oikion I see we automatically go.
10:32: Well, yeah Oikia is is into one's home and that is a possibility, but you also have to keep one other thing in mind it
10:41: It could be That in those days in the fellowship a traveling individual
10:48: Would come and you know, you didn't put him up at at the local Comfort Inn You didn't put him at the
10:55: Hilton or the melted Martell six or motel eight or whatever I'll see you end up at Because there was no such thing you were to extend hospitality and so It could literally be into the house of individual members the church met in homes
11:18: So it could be you will not give him that hospitality Because once you received him into your house
11:25: Then he could use that as the base From which he would spread his teaching in a particular area or And it's connected
11:39: It could be that this is since this is where the worship services are taking place into the house
11:45: He's not to have a part in Teaching in the Christian fellowship, you know, this person is to be
11:54: Excluded and Kyrie and Alto may legate and to greet him you are not to say
12:03: You are not to speak greetings to him. And again, the vast majority of Christian scholarship has recognized that this is a
12:10: Specific kind of greeting. It's not hey, dude It's not you're walking down the street and hi.
12:17: Have a nice day beautiful day, isn't it? Thank you very much I Know I think it's
12:23: I think when you exercise you get endorphins and so very frequently when
12:29: I'm on bike or running and I'll be passing someone who's walking a dog.
12:35: I don't know why I do it, but I normally wish the dog a nice day Have a nice walk must be really weird.
12:41: It's the endorphins from exercising. Okay Now I've never had to consider
12:47: Whether it was a heretical dog that was going by me. It might have been a Buddhist dog, you know a
12:53: Zoroastrian dog I don't know. It just never crosses my mind that this would be a violation of this text because To say this greeting.
13:03: It's very clear verse 11 says the one for the one Saying to him the one saying to him chyron coin and I from koinonia is
13:18: Having fellowship is participating in His evil deeds.
13:23: So obviously just going yo, hey, how you doing? Have a nice day, whatever That's not what is in view here.
13:30: It is Christian greetings It is the greetings that you would give to one who is a part of the fellowship maybe
13:39: Given that the term did a K is used here teaching or doctrine Maybe a recognition of this individual's authority as a teacher and so the point is you do not give a basis in the fellowship to false teachers
13:58: You don't give them a platform Then these are people who claim to be Christians.
14:03: They're claiming Christian authority and John is saying here's a test if they don't have this
14:10: They don't they don't get to know you don't you don't do that okay, so That's through verse 11 now,
14:23: I just walked through that text and Applied it historically
14:37: Contextually and I have invited those critics primarily
14:47: Who spread their rather venomous personal attacks against me on Brannan House's network
14:56: I've invited them to provide a counter exegesis Because if all they could say is well, it doesn't
15:05: Necessarily say that when you say when your response is it doesn't necessarily mean that we're just saying is it could mean that I will confess that that is a inappropriate and possible meaning of the text
15:21: That doesn't seem to be what they're actually saying if they're if they're actually going to say as they have said as Brannan House's plainly said when you attacked the speakers at G3 just I don't know month month and a half ago
15:36: He made it clear These men should not associate with me because I'm a sinner I am guilty of sin in light of second
15:45: John So they can't just go. Well, that's one interpretation. But here's another
15:52: They have to be able to demonstrate that the specificity of the terminology is no longer relevant
16:01: So that Christians, I mean you're gonna take this seriously Christians should not greet anyone without knowing their absolute theological perspectives
16:14: How else could it be if you take chyron as just simply to greet someone that we should never say hello to anybody
16:22: Because unless they are an Orthodox Christian we would be participating their evil deeds see that interpretation turns second
16:33: John into an absurd text With meaningless verbiage in it.
16:41: That's not how the Apostles dealt with things. That's not how the early church dealt with things There was a recognition making of proper distinctions between those who claim to be
16:51: Christian teachers and Those who were of different religions or faiths or whatever else it might be.
16:56: The church was a small minority in a flood of pagan teachings and pagan
17:06: Concepts and so they would have had to have just withdrawn into Into a commune someplace and we know that's not what the early church did and so I Have invited these these people to provide a meaningful response you remember that early on I Didn't queue up the audio of this but you remember that Earlier on We played a segment where?
17:39: This Jimmy DeYoung this doctor prophecy Bran house goes to him and So what do you think about white's interpretation?
17:46: Why is a heretic? He doesn't believe the Word of God is a false teacher doesn't provide the slightest bit of Exegetical content or argumentation or reasoning it's just bluster and and and you know
18:03: Condemnation and and and for the audience that they have that seems to be
18:11: You know the best way to go I guess to make that to make that work, but So I put out an invitation
18:21: Just this morning to all of the people on On Brannon house's network
18:28: Brannon house and Jimmy DeYoung and Osama dak -dak and The fellow whose name from from Iran just the former
18:39: Shiite just always I Didn't have it in front of me right now escapes me Jeff Dornick All these people who have a
18:55: Voice a Public -voice that they are using to anathematize me
19:02: Which one of you will come on the program we'll have equal time
19:09: We'll have a certain amount of time to exegete the text. It only took me what? six seven minutes, maybe
19:14: I Said I think 15 plenty of time to provide all the context and Yeah, Sharam Hadean, thank you,
19:24: I don't know why that name doesn't stick but anyway If it was Haiti and Sharam, it would remember Anyways Equal time plenty of time to exegete it then time to respond to the person's exegesis
19:41: Not even lot interaction but questions 30 seconds to ask a question two minutes to respond
19:49: That type of thing and Then You go from there to closing statements as I recall and So it would be absolutely fair people could really just evaluate both sides right there the response
20:19: That we got well, it wasn't obviously these folks are so They they will not respond
20:28: It is it it's understood to be a sign of disrespect To not respond to the invitation, but to just throw something out in in passing
20:40: So as to you know, take a shot at folks in in the process, but the response that was offered
20:49: That was posted Here, let me give it to you from worldview weekend when a man wants to debate the meaning of a passage to defend interpretation that not one major scholar of record agrees with Then you know, he is desperate and an attention seeker, right?
21:08: We just had over 12 ,000 stream our live event not bringing our audience to a little circus
21:17: Now Most people have read that went Brannon house wouldn't know the majority view of interpretation of anything
21:24: The man has absolutely no scholarly credentials at all. He he can't read the languages. It doesn't deal with that kind of stuff
21:31: He's a singer And a seller of dried food. What's he what's he talking about?
21:38: But that's what you get from from worldview weekend and and Brannon house. So I guess he's representing all of them
21:45: I've tried to get I I've tried to get you know,
21:51: Jeff Dornick Andy Wood, you know, Andy what I think is a Dallas grad But they just Evidently their position is we will tell you what the text means and You simply have to agree and we won't defend it.
22:11: It's it's like what Jeff Dornick did, you know he gave his interpretation of Some passages and then said and we're not we're not gonna look at what anybody else has say they're they're they're just playing
22:21: That's this is good enough Okay There's there's no reasoning going on there.
22:29: There's certainly no ability to defend these these things. So why should anyone take anything? They're saying seriously
22:36: You know, this is what they do to Muslims to This is what they do when they interpret the Quran Well, it just means this that's all there is to it and I'm not gonna
22:43: I'm not gonna argue about that You're just dumb if you think otherwise Okay There you go.
22:50: What what can you even say? There's there's no way to reason with someone like that at all and So when
22:58: I hear these folks saying well, you know, I disagree with this IFD stuff You know that IFD stuff came up long after Memphis We Purposefully plainly honestly distinguished from the start our
23:15: Motivations intentions and what we were doing that evening and everybody who has attempted to parallel what we did with the historic use of interfaith dialogue in the sense of ecumenical
23:29: Compromising liberal based stuff. It's just being dishonest It's all there is to it and you've been caught being dishonest, but you don't care
23:37: You just figure if I repeat my design you've learned from the left well Repeat the same mantras over.
23:44: It doesn't matter if you've been refuted if you repeat it enough times Shallow thinking people will agree with you and That's that's what has has taken place.
23:57: And so that's the kind of response you get When you put it out there and say hey Come on my program so Brandon house put this out here.
24:09: Didn't tell you I was gonna do this and rich is looking very worried Put the microphone down Brandon house you offered an invitation
24:21: Back in May and I'll accept it. Here's the basis.
24:27: Here's here's the grounds I'll come to Memphis I'll be on your program
24:36: I'll take on as many people as you want. You can have 20 people on the other side. I don't care only one thing
24:41: You'll be moderated by someone else Not associated with your organization.
24:47: Maybe not even a Christian but it will be moderated and It will be absolutely
24:56: Equally timed I Will have just as much time as the entire other side because I'll come alone
25:04: I don't care how many people I have to take on it's easier for me to be by myself
25:10: You want Osama dak -dak? You want Hadean? You want
25:15: Andy Wood? You want to get Steve Camp and Sam Schmoon put them all on there.
25:20: I don't care As long as it's equal time and it's based on the biblical texts that you yourself have raised
25:31: So we'll look at Corinthians. We'll look at second John and We'll do it specifically informally if you guys want to yell and scream and run around the
25:42: Tables and and call me all sorts of names during your time Have at it have fun
25:48: During my time what people here will be balanced fair handling of the text and Application to what actually took place
26:03: It would be good because you could do this to have both
26:11: Evenings queued up So that anyone can at any time ask for please give me time index and Right to it.
26:23: I suppose we could just do that off of a Laptop sitting next to us or whatever else might be that would be easy enough to do
26:31: Because it's been so easy to refute the foolishness that has been that has been spewed
26:38: About the dialogues by just simply playing the dialogues because you'll have to skip so much much of what was actually said
26:47: So you don't have to fly me to Memphis I'll fly there myself I got plenty of miles I got lots of miles
26:55: Executive platinum man, I can get anywhere I want these days You don't have to put us up But it has to be even and it has to be a minimum of two hours
27:07: Has to be a minimum of two hours or we can't we can't because that's that's actually only an hour and if we only do two
27:15: Texts let's say we do the Corinthians text and second John text. That's actually It keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller so it's actually a very minimal amount of time
27:27: So if we did two texts, I'd only if that only be half an hour on each text for each side grand total
27:35: You uh, you said come on Okay, when do we do it? Let us know
27:44: You can contact us talk to Rich and you can get a hold of us and and let us know
27:52: So it'll be biblical based and it'll be based upon the original languages meaningful exegesis
28:01: There you go And if you don't Then you need to shut up Because it'll be demonstrated that you've just been screaming into an echo chamber and you will not back up what you're saying
28:15: So, how about it? Look forward to hearing from you. Okay Yes, as someone in challenges says taking away all the excuses.
28:26: Yep. You got you got none You got none Got nothing at all.
28:35: Yeah. Yeah put up or shut up There you go, and it's already appearing on on Twitter There you go
28:46: Cuz there's other things I can do in Memphis so we can we can make the trip worthwhile for other reasons and We'll we'll go from there
28:55: All right before we go back Before we go back to the debate because that's what we need to do and there's some other things that we'll see what time looks like man
29:06: There is stuff going on with Roman Catholicism right now, it's just amazing
29:13: Every week there is new stuff about the reality of Francis's beliefs and It I just it just makes me
29:25: Makes me go what I wonder what Bob St. Genes is thinking right now No, no, no not not well, yeah, okay,
29:36: I get that I get that but I'm just I'm just because I'm I'm thinking back to the papal infallibility debate in Clearwater and I'm I'm just because I remember what it looked like sitting from you know
29:51: I'm sitting here looking look in this direction at him and the audience is out here Remember, it was the self -moderated debate.
29:57: It was where the pastor the church said I'll moderate it and then we got started like, okay you guys just You you go do your thing
30:07: But anyway, I'm looking at him and I can remember him saying that The Pope doesn't have to be a
30:16: Christian The Pope can be a heretic that there were lots of unsaved Popes But they would just not be allowed to teach heresy to the church as a whole that's that's all that was said and I'm I'm just wondering what old
30:32: Bob thinks of Francis now because oh Goodness the stuff he's coming up with is is pretty pretty amazing
30:45: Anyway I Like to get that we'll see we'll see if we get that and I and I want to get
30:53: I want to have plenty of time To thoroughly Finish up looking at the debate that we started in the radio free
31:02: Geneva because I was taken aback by some of the some of the responses to to a an honest attempt to fairly
31:13: Deal with the issue and man for a lot of people You cannot sit back and go
31:22: I found the people on my side to be completely distracting from really inconsistent with what they were saying by the way they behaved and I do not believe that this adorns that message and and I I warn that this this seems to be heading toward hyper
31:41: Calvinism I I really wonder if if these if at least one of these gentlemen isn't a hyper
31:49: Calvinist at least that was the Indication he seemingly was given when he when there's a denial of Human will
32:02: Not autonomous will but creaturely will There's a there's a assertion we're not compatibilists, so what are you?
32:15: What what's where are you coming from it it was very difficult, but the idea is
32:24: That most people watching that I either have to Condemn Both either side to the pits of hell, which
32:34: I can't do. It's not my Prerogative, and it's not yours either or how dare
32:43: I for example Respond fully to latent flowers and misrepresentations of my position
32:49: You shouldn't have done that you spent all your time well Yeah, I took his presentation because it was filled with so many straw men, and I'm trying my idea is to make this a learnable teachable moment actually try to Benefit people by doing things like this
33:12: Should have just condemned those hyper Calvinists they deceived the other side and all the rest of stuff. I'm just like I'm gonna take plenty of heat
33:21: You know pulpit and pens gonna be all over me for you know being a bowtie of namby -pamby bowtie wearing
33:27: Calvinist Because I don't think that flame -throwing is the best way of presenting the doctrines of grace
33:36: Okay Now you should have been tougher on that or then you got people on the other side You know it's just like well
33:42: I guess it's sort of have to figure if I'm getting if I'm getting shots from both sides that Maybe I'm somewhere in the middle and that maybe is where I should
33:49: I should be I don't know But I want to make sure that everyone understands
33:59: Exactly where I am coming from on this and And Especially address the idea of so many people on The extremes of both sides that have to say those people on the other side
34:16: Are not my brothers that's what I that's what we need to address because I I'm absolutely convinced what we're watching in our culture and in the church in our culture is
34:33: Is a collapse of the ability to have civil discourse or to even disagree and Discuss what our differences are
34:48: It's frightening It really is the extremism on both sides ends up being very rationalistic by the way
34:55: Not reasonable rationalistic. There's a there's a different. There's difference between those those two things
35:01: So I do want to get to that but there is
35:08: Something else I want to get to before then and That is
35:18: I Want you to think about?
35:25: This thought when we engage when we engage others
35:34: In Theological Realms and we are
35:41: I need to be careful how I put this not because I'm fearing the face of men or something, but because I I Want to be understood clearly here
35:56: And I want to I want to use the proper proper terminology Let me see here in Ephesians 4 15 we are specifically instructed as to how
36:19: We are to speak in this world and it is
36:29: Not given to us that we have perfect freedom in this matter Instead we are given guidelines in Scripture because our tongues are as James tells us a a dangerous dangerous thing
36:45: Listen to what starting verse 14 as a result. We are no longer
36:52: To be Napier Children and then it's it's it's a very descriptive
37:03: Descriptive Participial phrase Tossed around here and there by waves and and carried about by every wind of doctrine
37:16: So it's it's the picture that you would You would certainly have seen with the disciples when the storm came up and Jesus comes walking on the water
37:25: So it's that it's that jumbled Surface of the of the water and it and it's it's unpredictable
37:33: It goes every which direction can never can never tell where it's gonna be coming next So tossed here and there by waves and and carried about by every wind of teaching and doctrine by the trickery of men the the
37:49: Kubaya the Cunning The very it assumes that there is a deceptive
38:00: Background to it By by craftiness and Deceitful scheming to try to get people to go the wrong direction
38:12: To lead them astray So we're not to be like that.
38:18: We're not to be as children or to be mature So, what does it mean to be mature? Well, there is this fascinating term that Paul utilizes and He uses it in Galatians 416 when he talks about Have I become your enemy because I Spoke the truth to you.
38:43: It's it's literally speaking truth and And He uses it the same thing he uses as the same here in Ephesians 415 and It's speaking in such a way that the the spirit of love is maintained while being truthful so Ephesians 415 the opposite of the being blown about and immaturity is
39:14: Speaking the truth in love We are to grow up in all aspects
39:24: Into him Who is hey Kefale the head
39:30: Christos Christ, so Rather than all of the jumble that let's be honest is what we're seeing today the jumble of voices and and Inconsistency of teaching and all the rest that stuff if we are if we are growing up in all aspects
39:54: Into him who is the head even Christ the transition between Crafting this deceitful scheme and all this stuff beginning of verse 15 is
40:08: Speaking the truth in love and We have discussed this in the past But we need to discuss it again
40:22: How high of a priority is this? How high of a priority is it for?
40:31: believers to speak the truth in love and It's literally truthing because the word speaking
40:47: Really isn't isn't there it's it's it's being truthful. It's it's being Lovingly truthful and it seems in our society and in the church today
41:03: That a division has taken place between being loving and being truthful and so one of my criticisms of my brothers in the debate and if I'm wrong about that if Ten years from now any one of those four men
41:30: No longer claim the name of Christ I'm not That's no skin off my nose to have called them brother.
41:39: I can't see into people's hearts. And so you've got one of two choices
41:46: You can either not call anybody brother. Just live on an island build build walls around yourselves or you accept the profession of Those who bring this teaching to you
42:04: The Jesus Christ has come to flesh that he's died for our sins according to scripture that he rose again the third day
42:11: That in as book of Galatians puts it we are justified by faith in him
42:17: Not by any of these other things so that you know If they're not the Judaizers because because Paul identified them as false brethren, but if they bring those teachings
42:30: We may have other differences But there are only a certain number of core definitional teachings and as far as I can tell despite how strongly
42:46: I disagreed and yes if Taken to its consistent conclusion
42:55: What both Leighton Flowers said and Jonathan Pritchett said would? violate Justification by faith alone it would but they don't take it there yet.
43:06: I hope they don't in fact. I hope they go the other direction But I would like to be a part of helping them to go that other direction and you don't do that by slapping them in the face
43:19: You want to try to communicate? So anyway, it seems that in dealing with brothers that if you speak the truth
43:33: You'll lose the love part and everyone seems to know that if you
43:39: Speak the truth and love if you if you truth in love that love is
43:48: Going to provide the context and the matrix in which we speak When I speak to a person that I love it is going to prioritize
44:01: My words and my actions in communicating truth to them. I still because I love them.
44:07: I want them to know truth But I will I will bend over backwards to be able to communicate with them in a meaningful fashion
44:16: I will be trying to get myself out of the way so the truth can be what is being presented rather than my ego or whatever else it might be and so in debates with Muslims This is my motto speaking the truth in love it's not in love
44:41: When you look at this all a few on test day in agape that Depends on how you were taught the olden days you taught five case or eight case systems and so you had stuff like You had the genitive ablatives and Then you had the locative instrumental datives and then you have all of the semantic categories to go under those even you know how you divide those things up the genitive and the ablative and locative instrumental data and stuff like that and When you look here since the participle is a
45:23: Part of simple of action true thing. I know I know in English. We don't do that, but Greek does things a lot better than we do in many things true thing in Whilst while surrounded by love
45:42: You can't separate them out if if you do not do this in love for God love for his truth and Love for your fellow man, you're not truthing
45:54: You may be mouthing words of truth, but it's not God's truth. It's become your truth and generally that makes it ugly and repulsive and not used by God and so This isn't just and this isn't these these
46:15: We are to grow up in him and all aspects into him who is the head even Christ this is this is for all believers
46:22: This isn't just apologetics. This is all this is should mark Everything that we do every aspect of our communication especially with one another
46:35: Especially with one another and so with that in mind I want to just comment on the fact that There are certain individuals out in the world
46:57: Claim to be Christians Claim to be reformed who have made it plain that it is their intention to destroy me and destroy this ministry and They claim to have the capacity and power to do so now most of you know that I'm Working on New Testament issues right now fascinating stuff
47:29: Challenging stuff Things changed since I was in college and I'm I'm running hard to catch up We're starting to work on Possible debates for next year around the world literally
47:50: South Africa and places like that I Got a lot to be doing and and hopefully a lot of people feel like it's important stuff and I'll admit it is a
48:09: Regular feature of my thinking to wonder why it is That there is more incoming fire from behind me
48:19: From what's supposed to be my side than there is from in front of me and I am trying as best
48:31: I can to Practice what
48:37: I preach in the sense that I have to recognize that there may well be true believers
48:47: Who become so? Imbalanced Traditionalized Radicalized that They would actually think that it's a godly thing for them to Seek my destruction
49:14: That that I'm so evil and such a dangerous person That they would actually think that it's a good godly thing to seek my personal destruction, you know, we talked about the
49:28: Politics of personal destruction remember the left made up that line back during the Clinton years when
49:34: Bill Clinton was Doing all the stuff that he was doing in the White House But it is descriptive of a mindset
49:44: That says you don't just disagree with someone you don't argue against someone very few of my opponents
49:49: Actually step up to the bar and try to argue Instead it's personal attack.
49:57: It's Rumor -mongering, it's whatever else it might be And I just want to invite all of you who
50:07: Have been praying for the destruction of this ministry Me personally if you claim yourself to be a
50:13: Christian, would you would you consider well? What it means that you desire the destruction of a person who names the name of Jesus Christ in that way
50:25: My prayer for you is that God's Spirit will convict you will drive you to his word and Will cause you to consider well
50:37: Just where you lost your balance You do not have the ability from afar to judge the thoughts and intents of the hearts of others
50:48: The scripture says that we stand or fall before our own Lord He is our judge not someone else and so when it comes to so many issues
51:03: There are many people who are willing to absolutely judge the state of your soul based upon some type of external observation of Something that is purely adiaphora.
51:19: It's not something that's definitional the faith and so Whatever it might be
51:29: There's a tremendous amount of discussion about How people dress suppose now if it's a
51:39: I Used to say no one ever think that and then the internet came along and is pretty much made that an impossible thing to say but the reality is
51:49: I Stand before my Lord and If you usurp his position he doesn't take that real well, so Who To really consider your own walk in your own life
52:13: Because I I consider that to be a sign of serious spiritual trouble on your part and I hope
52:24: I hope the Lord's merciful to you along those lines Okay, um, let's get back to the video and Got a fight.
52:37: Oh, well, wait a minute. Yeah, this is this is the other part because I had the video already to go but Someone wanted to do something else and so I'm gonna go back here and then go back to there.
52:49: Hope it's still there Where'd it go? There it is And then you have to do that Hey, okay, so it took a while, um, we were in the middle that's loud we were in the middle of the cross -examination and Then I started looking around Because I want to address and I thought both of them did it.
53:14: I couldn't find where Sonny did it Maybe he didn't I had recollection that he had but here's where Theodore did
53:21: I Want to play this segment and then we'll go back To the cross -ex where we were because I made a mark as to where we were in the in the
53:32: In the cross -ex and we'll continue on from there, but I wanted to I want to comment on this So let's let's pick up at this point there is a
53:40: Baptist preacher that has gone on record and has said that hell is the eternal monument of Failure of the triune
53:49: God I Asked my brothers here not brothers. I didn't want to say that.
53:55: I'm sorry. I Retract that statement. I has my opponents here.
54:00: Will they? Will they stand up? Will they stand up and Accept that this is the true inevitability of their position that hell is the monument to the failure of the triune
54:19: God now Have you heard me state that very argument sure have
54:30: It is Astounding to me that Anyone would ransack the
54:40: Bible Looking for evidence of Jesus's failure They tried but man's almighty will
54:49: Frustrated from doing that I agree 1 ,000 % that it is fundamentally necessary for the maintenance of the position that Leighton flowers presents to Want to find places where Jesus fails and I find that absolutely
55:16: Reprehensible here's the problem what Theodore just did by saying my brothers
55:24: I Didn't mean that I retract that statement is now.
55:30: He has made a full -blown understanding of particular redemption necessary for salvation itself
55:37: Which means I wasn't saved until 1986 somewhere around there,
55:46: I think Somewhere around there. I we we did that radio program out at that that Trailer home of a of a studio.
55:55: Where was that way out in? Tullison or someplace wasn't in Tullison. Yeah near the train tracks and at the floor was warped and oh, it's terrible smelled and Yeah, yeah.
56:08: Yeah. Yeah, but that's when Mike and I did that program on Particularly no, we had somebody call in and ask about the nature of atonement and that's when
56:19: I started going Hmm so is that when I was saved once you make once you start down the road to hyperism
56:33: It's it's hard to stop now If all that he's wanting to say is
56:41: I don't know everybody's heart then you shouldn't call Sonny your brother either because you don't know his heart 20 years from now.
56:51: He could he could be a Buddhist You don't know Well that somehow made you a liar 20 years earlier because you accepted his profession
57:05: This is what and the result is that the point that was being made which is an absolutely valid and important point is completely lost completely lost
57:20: Because now all anybody's thinking about they're not thinking about your point. I'm worth it that it's like you stop speaking right at that point because all they're thinking about now is
57:30: Wow This is this this means they're not Christians Which means the vast majority of Lutherans aren't
57:38: Christians and so on and so forth and so on. Yeah that becomes Rather problematic
57:46: And this is what a lot of people caught Was that? That's an issue and it is an issue.
57:54: It's it's it's problematic. So let me Go to where we were if the mouse will
58:04: Let me do so it's what you know, I think Seven five seconds that's closer.
58:12: We can we can relisten to five seconds worth of what we heard last time We'll go from there and From the beginning this is acts 15, this is
58:22: Isaiah 46 So there is no free will at all under you. I've said that already, please.
58:28: Let's move on All right, but do you believe there is a free will according to no, I don't believe in free will Okay So you disagree with the confession your own confession?
58:35: I believe in the confession as I said before a summarization of faith and affirmation of worship. We don't look at it We don't view.
58:41: Okay. I don't I do not understand what Sonny is doing You it's so easy to say, of course,
58:47: I believe in free will creaturely free will That's not the same thing as autonomous free will which God possesses and our will is enslaved to sin
58:56: That's what the confession says. It makes perfect sense. It's biblical. It's logical it ends all this selling
59:01: Well, it doesn't end for them but for the person and say you can't You can't debate for the person who will not think if you try
59:13: You will lose your mind There are gonna be people who are gonna listen to your debate who will not think they will not listen to a word you have
59:21: To say they will not follow a proper context. There's nothing there's nothing you can do about that If that's gonna drive you insane they need to stop debating
59:31: Because it That is the reality of the world we live in it's a fallen world And that's how people are gonna be you you can only debate for the people who will listen to you
59:40: Allow proper categories to be to be utilized look for consistency and go Okay, that side was consistent.
59:46: That side was not are they the minority? Yep Well, then you better you better be debating for them because they're the only ones are gonna get anything out of it, too
59:55: But is equally authoritative scripture We're not traditionalist you're the traditionalist. We don't want to take a secondary vote.
01:00:02: Please. Let's get back to the Bible. Let's honor the debate. We are no free will
01:00:08: Calvinist. Now here's what here was one of my problems Maybe Layton didn't understand this until later
01:00:18: But at this point they're so focused upon each other. The audience doesn't matter anymore This isn't accomplishing anything for the audience
01:00:27: Besides that since they're not using they've only got one microphone per side If you know those microphones and these guys are public speakers, they should know this
01:00:35: These microphones have been around forever. Okay, these are the microphones we used when I was singing in Liberation And my senior year in high school and church
01:00:44: Okay, they've been around for decades Layton is too far away from it to be heard.
01:00:50: It's a very echoey room and there are times I can't understand what's being said That shows you you don't you're not caring about your audience anymore
01:01:00: You're so focused on the other side and your own position. You're not even trying to bring the audience along I find that disrespectful on both sides
01:01:15: Which is a presumption that there is a biblical view of free will that's the question that we propose First rate and there is
01:01:30: See here's the thing. We've already made it very clear. The confession is a summarization of our faith We're not here to defend the confession.
01:01:36: This is not a debate about No, I never said I do screw with the baptism never said that so I'm saying the difference between the
01:01:44: Westminster confession in the 16th again, we're getting off topic. This is a topic about free will you guys should ask questions? We're here to debate the
01:01:50: Bible. That's what we're trying to explain many many apologists use the theodicy defense of free will rabbi
01:01:55: Zacharias William Lane Craig CS Lewis But what
01:02:00: I'm trying to ask is what is your theodicy in other words How do you explain the problem of evil as an apologist whenever you deface a somebody who's objecting?
01:02:08: We've already I've already explained that up here when I spoke I said that God has decreed from himself according to the most wise and holy counsel of us
01:02:14: All things whatsoever comes to pass so everything's done by sovereign decree to demonstrate his power
01:02:20: Even the Holocaust rape everything He decrees it to demonstrate his power.
01:02:27: Everything comes to pass So your view of Providence then if I if I understand your selective choosing from the confession, which you just quoted is that God has decreed and in that sense that means that he is meticulously
01:02:41: Determined all thoughts words and deeds and events that take place in the cosmos that are
01:02:48: Necessary events. I've already explained the definition God had to create from in himself all things whatsoever that comes to fight.
01:02:54: That's a statement Okay, I'm asking for your explication of the statement. You're my what kind of my what you to explain your view of that statement
01:03:03: My view of that statement is that God decrees everything nothing comes to pass that God did not decree, right?
01:03:09: So does that intend Sunni right this point if you don't have a compatibilistic understanding
01:03:16: If you cannot affirm that God's decree grounds and makes real all events in time that they are meant to have meaning ie the incarnation
01:03:27: Jesus didn't just Show up for the fun of it but that it was a true entering into flesh and it's truly meaningful and then it's it's it's part and parcel of God's intention for Eternity and that therefore you can you can affirm the value of actions in time and that God shows himself glorious in that aspect
01:03:49: And that's why he holds men accountable because they're they are true creatures and they're actually if you can't do all that.
01:03:57: I Don't I don't know what you're accomplishing. I I really I don't I don't see what's what's going on If you just simply keep repeating well, you know,
01:04:07: God decreed everything God to create everything. Okay flesh it out because the Bible does Exegetically the
01:04:13: Bible does jump back into Isaiah chapter 10 Let's see how it fleshes out jump back into Acts chapter 4 jump back into Genesis 50
01:04:19: There's so many places you could go to flesh this out and say see here's how this is compatible
01:04:26: With everything else in Scripture Scripture is a beautiful harmony rather than well we've got our text you've got your text and you have to end up with the idea that You know, you've got to take yours versus theirs rather than you take it all.
01:04:39: Oh that all things that come to pass are necessity of necessity
01:04:46: We're not famous. We don't affirm necessity. Okay, we have gone on record to tell you that we don't hold to free will
01:04:52: Yeah, we have ideas. Okay in the spectrum of ideas you start off with Pelagianism then semi
01:04:58: Pelagianism where you guys are then semi Augustinianism Augustinianism and semi Augustinianism Semi -narcissism where you guys are
01:05:05: Molinism Now right there Some people would say I well, you know, you should just be attacking the
01:05:11: Calvinists You know and it looks to me like Layton is smiling
01:05:18: But as I said in the last program, I have zero respect for anyone who can so twist
01:05:29: Reformed theology and so twist ancient Gnosticism as To make the connection between the two.
01:05:38: There's lots of people who do it I know that Pelagian guy full -on Pelagian guy Street preacher guy on YouTube does it what you're doing is you're you're mixing two completely contradictory worldviews
01:05:51: Pretending there's an intersection go. Ah, see see you guys are Gnostics When the reality is that I think
01:06:00: I still have yeah, you know I've got to the gospel of Mary of Magdalene. I don't have all of my
01:06:08: Nag Hammadi library and the Gnostic Gospels and stuff in here, but I've taken the time to actually study
01:06:17: Gnosticism and its worldview and And To make that application shows that either you haven't taken that time and you are just really badly ignorant which is possible or You don't care about being truthful
01:06:34: Either with Gnosticism or reformed theology. So Layton, there's no way out of this
01:06:41: That's misrepresentation You may feel that you were
01:06:48: Justified in doing this Because well, you know, he's putting us in these these artificial categories and we don't really fit in these artificial
01:06:56: Whatever you might want to say if you think that there is a justification for misrepresenting the other side just because they're misrepresenting you
01:07:03: Then yeah, you know that is sort of a pretty common view. That is a common view out there.
01:07:09: There's no question about it and That's why most debates end up driving off into a ditch
01:07:17: Because both sides give in to this Well, if you're gonna misrepresent me, then I'll go ahead and misrepresent you and so I'm gonna throw out red meat to my guys and and they'll throw out red meat to their guys and and Everybody goes home and nothing was accomplished and I'm I'm just gonna say that's not why
01:07:34: I debate That's not how I want to debate. I don't think that's that's that's wise but You know, if you think that's the way to go then then there you go.
01:07:44: I'm not gonna do it And then you have soft determinism, okay, then you have determinism then you have fatalism people like What's his name
01:07:53: Hugh McCann, you know, he's a determinist. These these are different positions. That's not what we're affirming We don't affirm that this is the only way things could be because we affirm a personal agent behind but behind Just stop me for a moment because of the chat channel
01:08:08: This is the chat channels fault I Did not realize until this morning that Theodore Zachariadis Has written a book called the
01:08:22: Potter's prerogative Because remember Leighton put out this ebook in response to the
01:08:28: Potter's freedom and So now there's a third book.
01:08:36: Oh actually there's that other guy That other dude from over in France or something it did something about the
01:08:42: Potter something as I recall I Remember what it was. But anyways What's interesting is
01:08:49: I just saw this this just popped up on the screen So I didn't but I had noticed that solid ground is putting this book out from The fellow we just played going you start my brothers.
01:09:00: Sorry. I didn't mean to say that and And Tom Askell who is no hyper
01:09:06: Calvinist by any stretch the imagination Has written an endorsement for it and it says it is never a pleasant task to expose the errors of well -meaning
01:09:14: Christian brothers But when those errors are publicly being championed as faithfulness to God's Word Then they must be examined in light of Scripture and this is in response specifically in response to Leighton flowers book so I find that Interesting Very interesting
01:09:39: So then there's this other quotation, I'm not sure what it's what it's from There's a quote at the end of it in what
01:09:48: I'm seeing in channel, but there's I'm not sure who wrote it But Anyway, so I I do find that rather intriguing that There is a willingness to confess that these are
01:10:04: Christians in that context, but not during the It's a summarization of faith, it's a summarization of faith
01:10:20: Debate topic is what is a biblical view of free will that's the debate topic. What is a biblical view?
01:10:31: So I'm asking you We're from that the biblical view of free will is that there is no free will and that presumes
01:10:38: There is a biblical view of free will I don't I just don't well, first of all, it's like I'm starting to get nauseous from the spinning around in circles, but I just don't know why
01:10:52: Leighton has such a lack of stage Understanding that he doesn't recognize that because he's standing a long ways away from the microphone that Half of what he's saying probably in that room is not understood and even if it was it's at a volume.
01:11:12: That's that's 60 % of the response coming back Think of the audience think of those are people you're there for at least okay in my view of doing debates and The folks of pulpit and pen think that I'm just the most arrogant person on the planet that I would even dare to review this
01:11:33: Do you know of anybody else who's done more debates on this than I have that's alive right now? How could it be arrogant for me to review something like this?
01:11:41: I don't Don't get it. But anyway From my perspective
01:11:48: Just look right right there Do you see the body language of the moderator the
01:11:53: Lutheran moderator? He is ruining the day this this has been in the
01:11:59: YouTube chat. People are looking at going either his neck's broke or He doesn't want to be there and is asking himself.
01:12:07: Why did I agree to why? That's what I'd be thinking if he's on staff in that church
01:12:14: The thought that the thought is what a waste I am going to have to explain that I did not see this coming
01:12:22: I feel sorry for somebody like that. I really do I mean
01:12:27: I've been in some nasty debates But it was always because the other guy was the one that lit the fire not me
01:12:35: I was the one trying to put it out and try to rescue something out of it But yeah that the body language there is
01:12:51: You do I did not I did not send you anything I don't know what he said.
01:12:57: I'm not privy to that. No, it's no we're not here to do so Opposition is that the
01:13:03: Bible teaches man's will is enslaved Okay Sure would have been nice if The Lutherans are going could we just like quote from the bondage the will for a while I mean this there's some flamethrowers in the bond as well, but that's the way things were done back then
01:13:20: If you know Erasmus and Luther you've read any of Erasmus and Luther you go. Yeah But all the
01:13:26: Lutherans are just going this is going nowhere. Talk about a waste of time
01:13:34: Exegete and and let me say to Sonny and Theodore You played into this.
01:13:40: Oh, they kept going back to the same thing then go to the scriptures When they said what's your view of free will?
01:13:46: Well, let me show you my view of free Will let me could we turn to Isaiah chapter 10? Let's but so He did not intend
01:13:54: I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that But he did not intend and I'm the one that lifted the axe and there's so many ways you could have done this instead of just Around and around you can just see the people in the audience just are going
01:14:08: And I could have been doing something else Did you say you're not here to debate? No, I said we're not here to debate.
01:14:14: No, that's fine I was just asking for clarity because you gave us a spectrum from Way actually goes from hard libertarianism.
01:14:23: Yeah, whatever But you say you don't like the whole spectrum. No, I said that I'm not a fatalist.
01:14:30: I'm so weird You are a hard determinants. Okay, so I'm a consistent Calvinist I have heard what
01:14:35: Layton said about John Calvin right that there is no permission Soft, you know
01:14:41: But you did argue in your opener that God restrained the
01:14:50: King from committing adultery, what is he restraining? It's not the free will of the King. No, I didn't presuppose that. Yes, free will
01:14:59: Restrained it now you see Interesting question right we're talking about him a bimlick and we're talking about Genesis 20 and What is he restraining if he's not restraining the free will of the
01:15:13: King well The point of bringing that up is that God can keep an individual from sinning the assumption is that of course a bimlick has autonomous free will whereas it is
01:15:30: God's intention That he not mess with his plan in regards to Abraham and Sarah and the line of the
01:15:39: Messiah and Therefore he keeps him from doing the desires heart, which was not a sinful desire by the way
01:15:47: He had been lied to Abraham lied Sarah lied.
01:15:53: The king was allowed to have more than one wife But God had an overarching intention and he didn't care about a bimlick's
01:16:03: Free will he had an intention that he was accomplishing and so he restrained him from doing something that would have interfered with that That's why we have a
01:16:11: Messiah is that God did that over and over and over and over again down through the course of history
01:16:21: That's called Providence wouldn't have been nice right at this point for the colonists to go.
01:16:27: Well, you need to understand that God's sovereign decree Is Acted out in time and something called providence and while there's a bunch of that decree that we don't get to see
01:16:41: What we do see is called Providence and God is providentially acting to accomplish his purpose
01:16:52: Why not just you know Explain it there might be folks there that don't get it just because these guys
01:17:00: Intend not to get it Again you have to have in mind if you get focused just on these guys, you'll lose the audience you lose the audience and So often even when the the guys you're debating or the guy you're debating just intends on being
01:17:18: Dull Use that to your advantage communicate to the audience communicate to the audience
01:17:25: Now if your view is correct, then why didn't he let him do what he wanted to do? So God restrains the sins he never decreed to take place in the first place.
01:17:34: God restrains his own No, no, no, you misunderstand the point. You just said that you're a determinist so that God determines everything.
01:17:39: So God determined to restrain someone from sins, including the... Now see what happens when you don't explain the difference between God's decree and the resulting
01:17:49: Providential interaction of God with creatures in time these guys again, they will not allow for God's decree to function in such a way that it's anything other than two -dimensional just Simple puppet, you know the the idea
01:18:09: What we have in Genesis 50 that the hateful desires of Joseph's brothers were really hateful desires
01:18:16: Oh, but he determined that in Time God holds men accountable those feelings on their part were absolutely positively real
01:18:25: They weren't just they weren't just wonderful brothers that that God God forced him to be mean no
01:18:34: He restrained their murderous desires and if you say well, but he determined that what you're saying is
01:18:41: God cannot act in time God cannot have both an eternal purpose and act in time.
01:18:48: That's what you're saying I mean, I really question the consistency of your
01:18:53: Christian theism at that point But that's how far people are willing to go to try to protect the idol of free will and it is an idol ...the
01:19:00: destruction of Jericho, including when a person falls, yes, all of these things So you believe that God...
01:19:05: I believe God determines for Adam to fall. Yes, and you believe that God Restrained The sexual intercourse that God never decreed to attend
01:19:18: See this is now on on on Jonathan Pritchett's part, this is sophistry
01:19:27: There was a natural course of events that a king taking a woman a beautiful woman what would follow in that culture at that time and God did not allow that what would be natural course of events take place because he has an overarching purpose.
01:19:45: This is Providence This is the decree interfacing with time. It's all there is to it. You can What's fundamentally if if if if if the other side had wanted to if they had time to develop it
01:19:56: They could have demonstrated that Well, they should have asked. I didn't ever hear him ask
01:20:02: I really wonder what Pritchett's view of foreknowledge is if even has it almost sounds almost open theistic to me
01:20:09: But you could absolutely mock the idea of foreknowledge If you can push it far enough you always have to take it back to the nature of God You've always got to take it back there.
01:20:20: That's your starting place The other side starts with the nature of man, not the nature of God They make they make up the nature of God as they go to protect their nature of man
01:20:29: That's how it works. And that's that's I'm saying that at this point in the narrative
01:20:35: We don't know what God's decree is. You don't know what God's decree is and I don't know what God's decree is Nobody knows what
01:20:41: God's decree is What I'm saying is under your view, how do you make sense of a passage like this?
01:20:48: Let's ask the question Okay, when when Jonah wanted to fill in Innova God Interrupted sent a big fish a storm to make him change his will that demonstrates freedom of the will because God is changing
01:21:01: His will his will is to run God's will is for him to go to Nineveh God uses people's will correct
01:21:07: God can and he does sometimes convince persuade through natural means Blinding lights big fish then went to real you're arguing for freedom.
01:21:16: He chooses one way So just you begin with a definition of free will so I don't understand the question.
01:21:24: Okay, I think our time is Well, I I do understand the question
01:21:29: I'm not sure why Theodore didn't understand the question to be honest with you And yes, God Decrees the ends as well as what?
01:21:39: the means and So he can either directly suppress a person's desire keep a person from acting so or he can use means and The Jonah story hmm three days three days.
01:21:57: What's up? Oh Yeah Whole New Testament thing, you know, you know Jesus in the in the grave.
01:22:03: Oh, hmm. Maybe he had a reason for that Yep, God can do both doesn't have to do either one.
01:22:09: But if you'd explained what Providence was In its relationship as a divine decree, then you could have gone there, but Okay, I'll go with the first question
01:22:24: Given your view that God doesn't Predestinate anyone to hell. How do you account for Judas?
01:22:34: How now if I'm gonna be consistent I Guess I could sort of see something in regards to free will here
01:22:49: But man, I would just think there would be so many better ways of starting off here
01:22:58: I'd want I'd want an exegesis of Romans chapter 8 No one is able to submit themselves to God's law not even capable of doing so, please explain who do not
01:23:08: I? Get to the scriptures because these guys saying don't hold the confession while I go to the
01:23:15: Bible okay, then get them into the text because Layton doesn't do well there we demonstrated that The whole position doesn't do well.
01:23:26: I view that God doesn't predestinate anyone to hell. How do I account for Judas? Yes well with Judas It was foretold that Jesus would be betrayed
01:23:36: So I'm being told in channel that Pritchett is a Molinist. Well, there you go nothing like having
01:23:43: You know, it's about as equally good as open theism, but again, we don't believe that foreknowledge is causation
01:23:51: Foreknowledge means foreknowledge and so God and you understand that foreknowledge is not causation when you hear someone saying that what they're saying is you can
01:24:00: Disassociate you can disconnect God's knowledge of future events from his decree. He doesn't have a decree.
01:24:06: He just has this this bald Bare knowledge of future events, but no control over them.
01:24:14: That's what they're saying. I mean it is an inconsistent form of theism By any stretch the imagination
01:24:22: That Judas would betray Jesus and Said so centuries prior and by the way, if he really is a
01:24:28: Molinist that wouldn't make any sense Because middle knowledge is determinative Middle knowledge tells you exactly what someone's going to do.
01:24:35: It's determinative In a way that even Calvinism isn't determinative when you think about it
01:24:44: That we believe that God has omniscience and that's that's a divine attribute of God Okay.
01:24:53: Well You claim that you believe in libertarian free will I don't believe that you've demonstrated that that philosophical
01:25:00: Definition is grounded in Scripture. It's not there. How did that's not a question, by the way It's it's a violation of the rules, but they did the same thing
01:25:08: I mean the rules haven't been followed for quite some time at this point Okay How does your definition of free will line up with passages like Romans 9 16
01:25:19: Which says it's not of him that wills of Ephesians 2 where we're dead in trespasses and sins in 2nd
01:25:26: Timothy 2 25 and 26 where it says that people outside of Christ are bound by the devil to do his will
01:25:32: Also in Ephesians 2 8 9 what we have is God saying that when you believe it is not of yourselves
01:25:39: So how does free will play into these verses the exact way that I said in my opening statement?
01:25:45: So we affirmed that man is dead in sin We affirmed that man is a slave to sin.
01:25:51: We also affirm what those metaphors mean So to say dead in sin, for example, okay
01:25:58: The body without the spirit is dead. Do you agree with that statement in the book of James? That is a way that they understood
01:26:04: I agree with every statement in the Bible. Okay good so they understood death as a separation of the body from the spirit because life was
01:26:13: The breath of life breathed in the dirt Okay So that sense of separation the body without the spirit is dead becomes the basis for the metaphor now in the metaphor for dead
01:26:23: Dead metaphor if you want to call it spiritual death or metaphorical death that Paul is speaking about is the same as you find in The garden where God said the day you eat this fruit you will surely die.
01:26:33: He lived 930 years later But he was immediately separated from access cut off from the tree of life.
01:26:40: Okay, you go to Jesus and the prodigal son He uses dead in the same way. The son was far off and then he had become brought near he was once dead
01:26:48: But now he is alive. Paul uses the same way as a metaphor if you look at Ephesians 2
01:26:53: What is dead me dead means you were dead in your trespasses of sin. You were far off. You were cut off you were excluded
01:26:58: You were lacked as excess what is being made alive brought near reconciled and so forth that the context of the
01:27:06: Bible Explains its metaphors You don't have to dump theological freight from outside the
01:27:11: Bible to determine what these statements mean in their context So keep that in mind whenever anyone defends
01:27:17: Molin ism open theism or anything else. They're being rather inconsistent We understand dead and sin means that you are cut off So it doesn't follow that when
01:27:24: God extends his grace to us that that means we have no capacity to respond to God's grace
01:27:31: So dead men can do things In fact in Ephesians 2 it says the dead do things the dead walk and the dead live
01:27:39: But the dead do not do anything that is spiritually subject to God's truth.
01:27:45: That's the point The point is obviously that it's not that the dead don't do anything
01:27:50: It's that the dead remain in rebellion against God and are not able to submit themselves to the law of God Which includes repentance see there that's where it should go.
01:27:58: This is that's where it has to go right now It's not where it went, so that's frustrating there would have been there's an opening go straight in didn't have
01:28:06: To say that the dead rebel What does it say that they walk? If you take the metaphor
01:28:14: If I follow walking in the course the power of the air so on so forth that's pretty straightforward, isn't it
01:28:30: So I don't think that you've answered the question in terms of the wheel because John 1 13 says we're born not of the wheel
01:28:36: I have Ephesians tells us we're dead Romans 9 says it is not of the wheel. Okay, Jesus said you will not come to me in John 5
01:28:44: That means that they don't want to do it Right. Everybody needs a refresher course on the issue of what it means to ask questions and to answer them succinctly
01:28:54: This wasn't cross -examination. This was food fight And the moderator needs to do something about it
01:29:01: There needs to be discussion beforehand. Look we learned this ourselves It took a while before we realized man
01:29:06: You really gotta nail this down and even when you try to nail it down There are gonna be people who are gonna take try to take advantage of you You will not come to John 6 as you cannot come to me right now.
01:29:15: Show me one person scripture Not an imperative place, but a verse that says you can come to the
01:29:20: Sun I have verses all over the place that tell you you cannot But where do you have one verse that says you can
01:29:28: Don't give me a verse that says you should because as I said in my opening statement You cannot turn an imperative into an indicative the scripture says
01:29:39: That we who can come unless they've heard so we can't come unless Revelation comes.
01:29:45: So in other words, we have to hear in order to believe so you're correct in saying No one can come to the
01:29:50: Sun unless they first hear and no one can hear unless there's a preacher So God notice Leighton has just mixed
01:29:56: Romans 10 with John 6. Whereas the actual Line in John 6 is that hearing from the
01:30:04: Father results in your coming? Because it's a part of drawing. It's part of regeneration, you know
01:30:10: Straightforward graciously sends a preacher. God graciously sends. Holy Spirit inspired messengers
01:30:15: God graciously sends the Holy Spirit down like fire to bring conviction sin that is sufficient
01:30:21: To enable the lost to respond willingly. It's not Effectual to cause certain people to believe.
01:30:28: Okay, we don't know it's effective because Jesus says he will come and I will raise him on The last day Okay, let me go to the next question
01:30:36: Please explain your exegesis of John 3 16 in regards to the believing ones or as the
01:30:41: KJV puts it whosoever shall believe it Huh? That all who believe all the believing ones.
01:30:48: Yes, right. Yeah, what is your exegesis of that? That all those who believe in Jesus will have everlasting life all those that believe in Jesus all the boy
01:30:56: Are they the believing ones? They're the believers? Okay, so What you're wanting to say is that that that is a descriptive not prescriptive statement.
01:31:06: No, I'm an invitation. That's for sure It's not an invitation. What about does a declaration?
01:31:15: How can a person believe how does the person believe is this something they do of their own their own self
01:31:22: Does God have to draw that person to himself? well, my understanding is
01:31:30: Okay, pre Calvary. The father is drawing The remnant to the son post
01:31:36: Calvary Jesus says he will draw all men to himself The spirit will come and convict the world of sin, but that doesn't ask my question.
01:31:42: I didn't ask that question I said, how does a person believe what I want you to explain today? A person believe does the does the decision is that have to be?
01:31:52: Is it your decision or is it God's that's the question. Is it your decision or is it
01:31:58: God's? Oh it to believe in the Sun. Yes. Okay. Well, I understand believing to be kind of more of a believing allegiance to the
01:32:05: Sun So that is that is Repentance of faith is something that agents do is not something that God does for himself
01:32:12: So I understand that When God Gives us his grace.
01:32:17: We have to respond in gratitude. That's healthy. Okay, but answer the question It's who causes you to believe is it you is it your belief or is it
01:32:26: God determining you to believe? You're not there's a chain here where you receive conviction you receive revelation and then you either repent and believe or you do not
01:32:34: Okay, but who causes you to do that? Is this something you do or is it something that God causes God enables us to believe
01:32:39: God and we're responsible, right? We trust in him It says in Colossians in Ephesians, sorry
01:32:48: Ephesians 119 Okay, that Paul is talking to the believers and he's explaining to them how they believe he's talking about the revelation of the exceeding greatness of God his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power if we if we are believers who
01:33:07: Result of God's work according to the same way. He raised Christ, which is the next thing
01:33:13: He says you're saying to me that God's power can be resisted Well, we don't assume that God is trying to irresistibly save people and failing
01:33:25: No, he's not saying the Bible irrespective of their choice No We believe that God wants to save those who believe and therefore you can impose your of your resistibility
01:33:35: Upon us and then say guys wait, wait, he's saying that he's saying that your question actually
01:33:40: Presupposes something that we reject the premise of the question you reject the premise of this test No, we reject the premise of your question.
01:33:47: No, the text says we believe according to the power of God, right? We believe according to the power of God you quoted the text and then you ask a different question.
01:33:55: That's what he's responding No, I'm following up from the idea of who causes you to believe this text says that it's the power of if there was no
01:34:02: Gospel, then no one would believe Okay, but it says here that God's power causes you to believe
01:34:10: So we don't deny the that God enables man to believe but that's the word enable
01:34:16: It doesn't say that he affectionately causes it. No According to the power of God according to the power of God which by he brings revelation
01:34:26: So he brings the light through his Holy Spirit. That's the first part of saying and therefore well, that's your interpretation
01:34:32: That's why we're having a debate because you have an interpretation and we have ours our interpretation The power of God and the salvation is the gospel according to Romans chapter 1 the gospel is what gives the person the ability
01:34:55: To believe but you are responsible as to whether you trust him or you don't otherwise
01:35:00: We're on earth does the Bible teach that the gospel gives you the ability to believe
01:35:07: What what the gospel is the message of what God has done in Jesus Christ, it's the
01:35:13: Spirit Again we already dealt with that on the last program the
01:35:28: Again mixing things up ignoring the orders that we ourselves present the flattening everything out, etc, etc
01:35:37: Actually this just does it just goes on and on I'm gonna get to the last thing here because we're we're out of time
01:35:43: We've been out of time for a while I did want to get this one last statement in In Layton's Presentation because I've said
01:35:52: I would and so we'll we'll get to people make determinations In the same mysterious way
01:35:57: God chose to create ex nihilo. He created something from nothing We can't explain exactly how he does that.
01:36:05: Nobody can explain how God creates something from nothing But so too we are given by God the ability to create our own choices
01:36:13: God is creative and we are made in his image as creative beings and Therefore we're given a level of creative ability the ability to make choices
01:36:25: So the mystery of libertarian freedom is similar to the mystery of creation itself
01:36:30: God created something from nothing in a similar way He has given us the ability to create something from nothing namely our desires and our choices as First John 2 6 has already said the desires of the flesh are not of the
01:36:44: Father but of the world Yeah, so he just said that because we're made in the image of God our desire our choices
01:36:54: We create X it's supposed to be X nihilo So we actually
01:37:06: If you understand what X nihilo means that wouldn't follow because our choices come from our nature's created human beings
01:37:14: But then he quotes first John which doesn't say which come from you but come from the world So you had the world and you had
01:37:21: God you didn't have us as the other source so he quotes a verse has nothing to do with what he's actually trying to argue as his proof text this is really what
01:37:34: Leighton does and The problem is Leighton You'll notice he's you know
01:37:41: Got that same price same notebook he used for our debate and he's he's got the points that he wants to make
01:37:46: Whether in this case, it really doesn't matter given the way the debate went so it doesn't you know, but It's sort of like these are the things
01:37:54: I'm gonna get across. I'm gonna preach This is this is my mini sermon at the end I have this amount amount of time and I'm going to preach this mini sermon at the end
01:38:02: And that's that's sort of what we're seeing going on there. But the idea that mankind can create anything
01:38:09: X nihilo either demonstrates you don't understand crash yo X nihilo and what its context is or you've got a dangerously unbiblical view of Mankind's allegedly autonomous will and I think that is what we have.
01:38:24: So some closing thoughts On on the debate not every debate goes the way you want it to I've had debates that were much more
01:38:51: Thermal hotter than I would have liked But the issue here is that it seems both sides
01:39:06: Had no real interest in engaging The other side's actual position or understanding it there did not seem to be any meaningful understanding going back and forth
01:39:22: That's one of the bigger problems I've had with Leighton Flowers is he claims to be in you know a former Calvinist, but doesn't give any evidence of it the
01:39:30: Very language he uses demonstrates a fundamental Misunderstanding of what he allegedly once believed and So But that went both directions
01:39:45: It was very plain that in Listening to what the other side was saying the
01:39:50: Calvinists really didn't provide an answer That was based upon the objection that was actually being made
01:39:58: The the unnecessary elevation of the temperature did begin with the
01:40:07: Calvinists and it did begin with sunny and then was only exacerbated by Theodore and I just I don't understand the motivation.
01:40:18: I don't I don't understand Why that immediately? shifted the focus from the topic of the debate to an unspoken thesis and that is if you don't agree with us, you're not actually a
01:40:33: Christian and So this is no longer a intramural discussion this is a debate with someone outside in fact
01:40:44: Someone point out that if you take that seriously it became an interfaith dialogue But we won't go there
01:40:53: What can I say anyway, I Leave each individual to their
01:41:06: Lord as to their motivations and as to their eternal destiny
01:41:12: I Will not cast anyone into the lake of fire because I do not have the right to do that I Do feel badly for the church for the audience and for the topic itself.
01:41:29: I don't see how this added anything To the discussion of the nature of the will I really,
01:41:36: I really don't see how it did and I would strongly Strongly argue that in presenting the doctrines of grace
01:41:49: We must seek to be those who have been won by grace We must recognize the doctrines of grace can never be forced upon someone
01:42:00: That we are always dependent upon the Spirit of God to cause his truth to be attractive
01:42:06: To be something we want to him to embrace and and hold These truths have great power but the power comes from the presentation of the
01:42:18: Word of God not by our Inserting ourselves and Getting in the way now
01:42:26: I was I would imagine that every Reformed person who ever presents on the subject in Some manner gets in the way we are imperfect through our
01:42:40: Ignorance our tradition our egos or wherever else it might be but There should always be a desire that the other side here
01:42:53: There should always be a looking to the people in the audience that may be confused
01:43:01: That may be being misled that maybe already have been misled Always has to be the focus always has to be the focus and so Obviously I spent more time responding to those that are opposed to my position, but if you didn't hear my criticisms of Hernandez and Zacariades then you weren't listening
01:43:29: I was very disappointed with the demeanor attitude and certainly the utter lack of focus
01:43:41: And the concerns that came up in regards to What you mean by saying you don't believe in free will?
01:43:50: even the definition used by the Westminster Confession of Faith or the London Baptist Confession of Faith You reject the idea of compatibilism
01:44:01: I'm not sure exactly where on the slope that that stops.
01:44:06: I really don't I really don't know So I've attempted to be fair, but I'm Reformed and so I'm gonna respond to the misrepresentations of the
01:44:17: Reformed Faith But I'm also going to express my deep concern that we need to present our
01:44:23: Reformed Faith in Such a fashion that it does not Unnecessarily because it's gonna it's going to necessarily but does not unnecessarily
01:44:37: Cause Scandal. It's scandalous in of itself to the natural man but when you add an
01:44:46: Inappropriate approach and attitude then it's very easy to cover over the natural scandal
01:44:56: With this other idea that well I just couldn't believe what they were saying or how they treated the other side or and it gives it gives you an opportunity to sort of dodge and duck the actual weight of any of the argumentation that was presented so Some people might say well, you just shouldn't criticize anybody else.
01:45:13: Well look I Let it I put it out there. I leave it for people to evaluate for themselves and go from there go from there
01:45:23: Tried to do so fairly but at least so There you go. Thanks for watching dividing line today.
01:45:29: We're gonna try to get back to Next week to The Pope and the
01:45:35: Pope's odd odd beliefs, but that and other things We'll see you next time.