April 4, 2006

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from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program, and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good morning. Welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a
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Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning, and we are back in our live studios, the padded cell as it's being called.
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And it seems hopefully everything is working today. I would like to document what happens when you, well, when you don't do your homework.
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Does anyone remember this particular little sound clip from a number of years ago? Well, first of all,
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James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. Yes, that was Dave Hunt in our first encounter on KPXQ Radio, where I had just asked him about the irony of the fact that even though we both debate
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Roman Catholics on the subject of the will and the grace of God, Dave would agree with my
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Roman Catholic opponents against the Reformers. And his initial response was, James, I'm very ignorant of the
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Reformers. I imagine they've written a lot of stuff. I don't read their materials. Then, scarcely six months later on his radio program, a few months after that, the first manuscript of What Love Is This began to circulate.
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And just a few months after that on his radio program, we heard this. I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves
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Calvinists. And so there's Dave's amazing turnaround. In a very short period of time, all of a sudden, he has become an expert, even though he had not read any of the
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Reformers during his life. Toward the end of his life, as an elderly man, in a matter of weeks, he becomes an expert on the subject of Reformed theology, which just demonstrates that he has no idea what it is, the depth of the subject, and has simply done the, well, let's go look at some books, get some quotes, and now
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I know everything there is to know. Well, then he puts the book out. And as all of you know, we have documented error after error after error after error after error in his books in What Love Is This on this particular subject.
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And he keeps putting out new editions and making changes. But you can't exactly fix things when you're unwilling to admit that you are in error in the first place.
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And so as I've been reviewing the Dr. Davis sermon, of course,
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I've already played this before, but let me play it again just so you have an idea of what the connection here is. The Calvinist, in his zeal to exalt the sovereignty of God, brings into question the love of God, the justice of God, and some ways even the holiness of God.
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Perhaps the key book on this subject, and a major resource for me as I studied on this subject, is
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Dave Hunt's book, What Love Is This? And the book is subtitled, Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God.
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Now, there, if I recall correctly on the DVD, it's been a while since I've seen it, he even held up What Love Is This?
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I don't recall. And if I recall correctly, it was the original edition, the white edition that was put out by loyal publishers, which
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I have in my hand. Now, as I was listening to the Dr. Davis sermon, I have been creating these cues that make it so much easier to review what someone has said in a sermon or presentation.
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I'm so thankful I started using these things. And as I was listening to particular ones,
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I started realizing, you know, I have a feeling that not only if I were to look these up would
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I discover that these are grossly out of context, but I have a feeling these came from Dave Hunt.
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These are the two segments that caught my attention specifically yesterday as I was preparing for the program today.
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The first is in regards to Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Even Charles Spurgeon, in spite of his claim to having been a staunch
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Calvinist, could not accept that regeneration came before faith. He said, if I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man being regenerated is saved already.
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And it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to him.
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Now, I heard that, and I thought, that's interesting. And then, you know, but I sort of chalked it up like,
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OK, well. And then a little bit later, there's a very close to that, there's another citation.
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I started going, you know what, I bet if I dig out the Hunt books. John Calvin himself wrote this.
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For there is scarcely a mind in which the thought does not sometimes rise, whence your salvation, but from the election of God.
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But what proof have you of your election? When once this thought has taken possession of any individual, it keeps him perpetually miserable, subjects him to dire torment, or throws him into a state of complete stupor.
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Therefore, as we dread shipwreck, we must avoid this rock, which is fatal to everyone who strikes upon it.
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You realize what he was saying there? The only way you can have peace, if you're Calvinist, is to turn your mind off.
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Because you just, if you start thinking about it, it's really going to bother you. And now, of course,
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I remember the first time I heard that while I was writing.
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And it was almost so distracting that I went off the road. And I'm like, you know, something tells me that if I were to look up the context.
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So I looked up the context, and I started digging through my books for Dave Hunt. Now, most of you know that we just moved into new offices.
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My old office is not even emptied out yet, because I don't have any shelves to put the books on.
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So they're still sitting there, and I was pretty certain. But most of the time, sitting here going, okay, did
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I pack that shelf that had that book on it, you know, right now? Which stack is it in? And so I started going through the stacks of books that are here at the new office, looking for Dave Hunt.
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I was pretty certain that Dave Hunt was here, not the guy, the book. And I had an idea where it was, but of course,
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I ended up having to go through all the boxes of books that are already here. And it was the third to last box that I was going to be looking for.
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And of course, it was as far away from where I started as I possibly could. But I found both of my copies of What Love Is This.
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And so I started looking. Now, it's not necessarily easy to find stuff in Dave Hunt's books. Even though in the new edition, he now has a minor index.
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For example, you could track down all the Spurgeon. He doesn't bother putting all the Calvin quotes in the back. I'm not sure why.
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Maybe he just doesn't want to give Calvin, you know, the benefit of the doubt or something. But I started looking around, and lo and behold,
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I found both quotes. Page 102 of the original edition has that exact Spurgeon citation.
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And then in the same context, in regards to Resting in God's Love, page 405 with the exact same set of ellipses, because that isn't exactly what
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Calvin said. And so what I'd like to do today is I would like to demonstrate what happens.
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Now, I've mentioned this a number of times before, but we've got a lot of folks who have just recently started listening to The Dividing Line.
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Some of you think that I'm really hard on Dave Hunt. Well, I am. There's a number of reasons. First of all, we've both spoken at the same conferences, and in those conferences, we've both said that we need to be accurate and truthful and so on and so forth.
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And so I'm just simply holding him to standards that he himself has enunciated, and I think that any Christian should be held to. And it amazes me that I seem to be the only voice out there pointing out in the counter -cult ministry, maybe that's because I'm one of the few reformed folks out there, that this man's work in this area is so horrifically bad and demonstrates such a complete and total disregard for truth that it throws everything else he has done into question.
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And anyone who is really, really concerned about truth would have a hard time looking at anything
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Dave Hunt says without a jaundiced eye any longer. But be that as it may,
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I, early on, after we had had that radio program, when I heard he was going to be writing this book,
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I took the time to write to him. I wrote him, not just in an email,
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I sent him a formal letter on that stuff called paper, you know, it goes through a printer and you fold it and you put stamps on it and, you know, through the mail and all that stuff, snail mail.
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And I expressed to Mr. Hunt the fact that in light of his own statements in regards to the radio program, that he's not read the reformers, he really doesn't know what he's talking about, that to go to print on a subject such as this was simply reprehensible, that it was something that he should not do, that it's something that Christians should not do, we need to be accurate in what we're doing, et cetera, et cetera.
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So from the beginning, before he ever published this book, I had told him, you need to recognize the importance of being accurate in the work that you do as a
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Christian writer. Well, of course he chose to ignore that exhortation from me and from many other people.
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And so he's gone to print and not only did he go to print, but beyond that, he has then insisted upon continuing his campaign when refuted.
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He has refused to accept correction. When he has produced documented errors, he refuses to accept the documentation of those errors.
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And so he puts these books out, what happens? Well, here's Dr. Davis. Dr. Davis is the pastor of a church.
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He is big in the homeschooling movement. He speaks at various conferences. And so here he stands before his people and he utilizes a resource that he feels he can trust, that he feels has credibility behind it.
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Now, is Dr. Davis to be rebuked for not checking his sources? Well, of course, of course.
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I mean, I'm not saying that this is all Dave Hunt's fault, that everybody who uses Dave Hunt's materials gets a free pass when
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Dave Hunt is the one who's misrepresenting somebody. The point is it's a domino's effect. It is what happens when one person who claims to have a certain level of credibility doesn't exercise that credibility, then other people drawing from other former works where they feel that he did do a decent job, now assume he's done the same level of job here.
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And so you've got this problem as far as people trusting it and then just passing it on. And now you've got all the people in that church and all the people who picked up these
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DVDs repeating these same lies. We've already mentioned, for example, the fact that Davis says that Charles Hatton Spurgeon denied particular redemption when he preached entire sermons in defense of particular redemption.
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It's the same error that Hunt had put in his book and he still refuses to repent of it and admit, okay,
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I was wrong. That sermon actually promotes particular redemption. I didn't read it. I was utilizing secondary sources, blah, blah, blah.
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He won't do any of that. He's personally infallible and never admits error. So now you've got other people going around repeating the same error over and over and over again.
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This is what happens. And so here we have two citations. I'm gonna start with the
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Calvin citation. And let's listen again to the citation because it's a pretty amazing one.
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It's amazing to me. I wonder how many of these folks have ever even read someone like a
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Warfield or a Machen or an Edwards. So it's like these folks never existed who could actually sit there and say, a
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Calvinist believe you just have to turn your brain off. That's what he says. John Calvin himself wrote this.
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For there is scarcely a mind in which the thought does not sometimes rise, whence your salvation but from the election of God.
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But what proof have you of your election? When once this thought has taken possession of any individual, it keeps him perpetually miserable, subjects him to dire torment or throws him into a state of complete stupor.
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Therefore, as we dread shipwreck, we must avoid this rock, which is fatal to everyone who strikes upon it.
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You realize what he was saying there? The only way you can have peace, if you're Calvinist is to turn your mind off.
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Because you just, if you start thinking about it, it's really gonna bother you. Now, obviously, as soon as I heard that,
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I knew that that was not what John Calvin was referring to. This is from his discussion defense of election in the
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Institutes of the Christian Religion. And unlike Dr. Davis, I'm going to read you the context.
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I can guarantee you, because the citations identical what love is this. So he just took it out of what love is this.
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He didn't read, he didn't. Does he have Calvin in his library? I don't know.
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I sort of doubt it personally. Did he bother to look at the context? I sort of doubt it personally.
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But I would be gladly corrected. But if so, then why isn't this context included, which completely changes what he's saying.
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Here's what Calvin actually says in his defense of election. Two errors are here to be avoided.
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And it's interesting, by the way, before I start this, both Calvin and Spurgeon in these two citations are addressing almost the exact same issue.
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And it's interesting that they are. So even though the application ends up being different as to how
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Davis works on it. Two errors are here to be avoided. Some make man a fellow worker with God in such a sense that man's suffrage ratifies elections so that according to them, the will of man is superior to the counsel of God.
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Now I stopped there. And is that not exactly what Davis and Hunt and all the others do?
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Any synergist is making man a fellow worker with God so that it's man's will that becomes superior to the counsel of God.
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So that is an error that Calvin is addressing. I continue with Calvin. As if scripture taught that only the power of being able to believe is given us and not rather faith itself.
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Others, although they do not so much impair the grace of the Holy Spirit, yet induced by what means
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I know not, make election dependent on faith as if it were doubtful and ineffectual till confirmed by faith.
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There can be no doubt indeed that in regard to us, it is so confirmed. Moreover, we have already seen that the secret counsel of God, which lay concealed is thus brought to light by this nothing more being understood than that which was unknown is proved.
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And as it were sealed. Now, let me stop there. What he's talking about is the fact that again, the secret counsel of God election we cannot know.
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How do we know anything about election? This is important because Davis and Hunt both go after this. Well, Davis does because Hunt does.
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But what Calvin is saying is we don't know of our election. So we believe our faith in Christ is what demonstrates because it's a gift of God that we are of the elect.
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This is something that neither Hunt nor Davis can even begin to understand and have not even fairly listened to Calvin.
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I continue on. But it is false to say that election is then only effectual after we have embraced the gospel and that it then strives its vigor.
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It is true that we must look there for its certainty because if we attempt to penetrate to the secret ordination of God, we shall be engulfed in that profound abyss.
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But when the Lord has manifested it to us, we must ascend higher in order that the effect may not bury the cause.
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For what can be more absurd and unbecoming than while scripture teaches that while that we are illuminated as God has chosen us, our eyes should be so dazzled with the brightness of this light as to refuse to attend to election.
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Meanwhile, I deny not that in order to be assured of our salvation, we must begin with the word and that our confidence ought to go no farther than the word when we invoke
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God the Father. For some to obtain more certainty of the counsel of God, which is nigh into our mouth and in our heart,
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Deuteronomy 30, 14, absurdly desire to fly above the clouds. We must therefore curb that temerity by the soberness of faith and be satisfied to have
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God as the witness of his hidden grace and the external word provided always that the channel which the water flows and out of which we may freely drink does not prevent us from paying due honor to the fountain.
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Therefore, as those are in error who make the power of election dependent on the faith by which we perceive that we are elected, so we shall follow the best order if in seeking the certainty of our election, we cleave to those posterior signs which are sure attestations to it.
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Let me stop right there. What's he saying? We can't see into eternity. We cannot go where God has not designed us to go.
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And so just as 1 John says, what's the teaching of 1 John? This is an area where again, Davis just has this human tradition that's utterly without any external foundation as does
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Hunt. 1 John tells us by these things, you may know you have eternal life. What things?
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All of 1 John. You love your brother. You keep God's commandments. These are the things you look at in your life that demonstrate that you have believed in Jesus Christ, that you have a true and abiding faith.
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Well, what he's saying is that's what we look to. We look to that faith that we have in Christ. We don't try to dive into the eternal councils of God because we weren't made to be able to gain that kind of access.
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So I continue again with Calvin. Among the temptations with which
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Satan assaults believers, none is greater or more perilous than when disquieting them with doubts as to their election, he at the same time stimulates them with a depraved desire of inquiring after it out of the proper way.
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By inquiring out of the proper way, I mean when puny man endeavors to penetrate to the hidden recesses of the divine wisdom and goes back even to the remotest eternity in order that he may understand what final determination
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God has made with regard to him. And this way he plunges headlong into an immense abyss, involves himself in innumerable inextricable snares and buries himself in the thickest darkness.
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For it is right that the stupidity of the human mind should be punished with fearful destruction whenever it attempts to rise in its own strength to the height of divine wisdom.
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And this temptation is the more fatal that it is a temptation to which all of others, almost all of us are most prone.
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Now let me stop right there. What's he saying? Is not the context clear? The context is very clear.
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He's saying we cannot find as the basis and foundation of our election, some means of penetrating into the eternal decrees of God.
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To attempt to do so is to go the wrong direction. It's not the direction the word of God has provided to us, all right?
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Now, that is the exact context up to the very beginning of the citation provided by Dave Hunt.
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In the middle of a paragraph, in the middle of an extended discussion, here now is the paragraph, is the section that Hunt cites with an ellipses.
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For there is scarcely a mind in which the thought does not sometimes arise whence your salvation, but from the election of God.
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But what proof have you of your election? Whence once this thought has taken possession of any individual that keeps him perpetually miserable and subjects him to dire torment or throws him into a state of complete stupor.
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I cannot wish a stronger proof of the depraved ideas which men of this description form of predestination that experience itself furnishes since the mind cannot be infected by a more pestilential error than that which disturbs the conscience and deprives it of peace and tranquility in regard to God.
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Therefore, as we dread shipwreck, we must avoid this rock which is fatal to everyone who strikes upon it.
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And though the discussion of predestination is regarded as a perilous sea, yet in sailing over it, the navigation is calm and safe, nay pleasant, provided we do not voluntarily court danger.
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For as a fatal abyss engulfs those who, to be assured of their election, pry into the eternal counsel of God without the word, yet those who investigate it rightly and in the order in which it is exhibited in the word, reap from it rich fruits of consolation, end quote.
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Quote, you see what was left out? The immediate context beforehand tells us what we're talking about and it isn't what
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Dave Hunt applies it to. Then he removes with ellipses this line.
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I cannot wish a stronger proof of the depraved ideas which men of this description form of predestination than experience itself furnishes since the mind cannot be infected by a more pestilential error than that which disturbs the conscience and deprives it of peace and tranquility in regard to God.
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Now folks, that sentence demonstrates that first of all, Calvin's talking about someone other than his audience and other than himself and the people in his church.
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He's talking about people who have wrong ideas, but by taking that out,
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Hunt allows people to think that Calvin's talking about Calvinists and people that are following his perspective.
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It is dishonest to remove material from citations that directly impact the context and meaning of the citation and allow you to misuse it.
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That is dishonest and Dave Hunt is dishonest. The Berean call needs to be called on these types of things.
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And when we do call them on it, they of course just simply come up with excuses that are as lame as the day is long, but people need to keep doing it.
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And the word needs to get out. You cannot trust what this man writes. It is dishonest.
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But then to stop the where he stops and ignore the rest of it.
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And though the discussion of predestination is regarded as a perilous sea, yet in sailing over the navigation is calm and safe, nay pleasant provided we not voluntarily court danger.
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For as a fatal abyss engulfs those who, to be assured of their election, pry into the eternal counsel of God without the word, yet those who investigate it rightly and in the order in which it is exhibited in the word, reap from it rich fruits of consolation.
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Remember Hunt is citing this on the chapter where he says that Calvinists can have no assurance because Calvinists believe that the ground of their assurance is knowing they're of the elect.
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And what's Calvin saying? The exact opposite. He's saying the exact opposite.
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And so you don't quote the section where Calvin is contradicting what you are demanding Calvin say. What amazing misuse of material.
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What utter dishonesty. This is reprehensible. Absolutely reprehensible.
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Is this gonna result in edition number seven of what love is this one? This quotation gets taken out without any citation, of course, without any explanation, of course.
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I don't know. I don't know. But then what happens? Total misrepresentation of Calvin, put into Hunt's book, comes into the possession of people like Dr.
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W .D. Davis, and he stands before his people. And what does he do? Repeats it and then interprets it.
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Can you believe that? Calvin's actually saying you got to turn your mind off. You know, maybe
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I'm so sensitive to this type of thing because I write books too. And sometimes when I see how people so completely misinterpret something that I've said, it leaves me stunned.
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How can people read that? And even when I disagree with people, I try to read their material in such a way as to be fair to them.
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I mean, I'm always assuming if I were to debate this person, if I were to have to engage this person in debate, and I'm going to use this citation,
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I'm going to use this quotation, I need to make sure that they're not going to come back and say, look, the whole context here is all wrong and you didn't understand what
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I was saying, blah, blah, blah, blah. I need to be very careful. And so it is natural for me to use that mindset and to very carefully address what somebody is saying.
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I don't understand how this citation ended up in Dave Hunt's book.
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Where'd it come from? Dave Hunt wasn't just sitting there reading along in the Institute of Christian Religion. I'm sorry,
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I don't think that was happening. And if it was happening, then he is directly responsible for his gross misrepresentation of it.
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Because if he was just reading along and then, oh, this sounds good. If I just take this out, this out, and isolate it from its context,
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I can make this sound like what I think Calvinism is. Well, at that point, the man should just be completely dismissed if that's where it came from.
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I doubt that's where it came from. I imagine that someone sent this in just like the
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Spurgeon citation about quote -unquote particular redemption. And it's like, ooh, it looks good, let's use it.
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And maybe they pulled a book down off the shelf, made sure the words were there and said, yep, that's what it said, go from there without any concern whatsoever about the context, what's before it, what's after it.
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The only problem I have at that point is the quote would have had to have been provided without that center section.
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The ellipses would already have to be there. Because if you put the ellipses in, if you take that out, you knew what you were doing.
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Somebody somewhere along the line knew what they were doing. They were, somebody was purposely misrepresenting this citation.
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They knew it wouldn't work if they kept that material in it and they pulled it out. Somebody's dishonest. Everybody else has used it is just a scholarly slacker.
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Okay, you know, I mean, I looked at this stuff and did I come running on the air going, oh, I know it's misrepresented.
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Of course, I've got this stuff. I could have looked it up, but I didn't bother looking up. No, I looked it up in Calvin. I read the context.
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I looked up in Spurgeon. I read the context. We'll get to that in a moment. I dug through all my boxes. I pull out
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Hunt and I start digging through it because he doesn't have a meaningful index.
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And I've got to spend time and invest time looking this stuff up, making sure that it's right before I bring it to you.
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That's what you're supposed to do if you're engaging in this kind of work. And that's what
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Dave Hunt won't do. That's what Dr. Davis didn't do before he presented this to his people. I would like to think, and I'm going to write to Dr.
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Davis this afternoon and I'm going to link to this program, which means we need to get it up, you know, right afterwards.
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I'm going to link this program and I'm going to say, Dr. Davis, I've documented that what you said, and I know you're following Dave Hunt and I know you may have had great respect for Dave Hunt, but the fact of the matter is that you were misled by Dave Hunt.
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You were misled about Spurgeon. Already the citations you used where you followed
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Spurgeon on particular redemption, you need to actually read what he said. And I think you need to go back to your people and say, you know what?
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I still don't agree. I'm not saying to Dr. Davis, you need to become a Calvinist and preach this to your people. I'm not saying that.
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Obviously I would like to see an openness to dialogue in these things. I'd love to see reformation come to that, to a particular church and so on and so forth.
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But the point is, I think there needs to be the level of honesty that comes to that church. And that pastor stands for his people and said, you know what?
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I misled you about these things. I misquoted Spurgeon more than once.
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I misquoted John Calvin. I was following somebody else, but you know what? I should have checked them out.
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I should have checked them out. I didn't. I'm sorry, I'm wrong. And that would be wonderful.
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That would be great. It really would be. We'll see what happens when we come back from a hopefully somewhat lengthy break, because you know what we got to do right now?
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We've got to open the door and blow air in here because the AC is not working and it's getting a little bit warm in here.
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So we're going to take a break and be right back right after this. ♪ This all works righteousness you know ♪ ♪
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Can I manufacture grace myself tonight? ♪
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Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at aomin .org.
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What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
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No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but the Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself in a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate.
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James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme Calvinism, defines what the
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Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture.
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The Pottish Freedom, a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the
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Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomin .org. ♪
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He understands ♪ Documenting today, more errors on the part of Dave Hunt.
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Some of you might get tired of that, but folks, you have to be consistent. And if you're going to document errors in misrepresenting
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John Calvin on the part of a Roman Catholic, or a Muslim, or a Mormon, then
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I think even more so you have to be consistent and take the lumps and the slam the doors in your face and hold those who profess to be evangelicals to a higher standard than anyone else.
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And in the process, hopefully, likewise learning some things. I think what Calvin had to say about the grounding of our assurance is an important thing.
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Let's go back to the Spurgeon citation because I want to read what he had to say as well.
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Let's listen again to Davis following Hunt in his errors. Even Charles Spurgeon, in spite of his claim to having been a staunch
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Calvinist could not accept that regeneration came before faith. He said, if I'm to preach faith in Christ to a man who has regenerated, then the man being regenerated is saved already.
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And it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to them.
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Now, once again, that's exactly as it is found in Dave Hunt's book. That's again, in the original edition is on page 102.
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And then let's see, that was also found on, all the pagination changed in the hardback edition.
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In page 126, you have the same beginning of the citation found there.
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And there may be others, but once I found it, I just had to mark it and start searching for the Calvin one, because unfortunately, there were no indexes to help me find anything on the
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Calvin one. There may be even more than that. I've found he utilizes citations repeatedly more than once in his work.
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Now, what was Spurgeon talking about? Well, this is from a sermon called the
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Warrant of Belief, Warrant of Faith number 531, a sermon delivered on Sunday morning, September 20th, 1863 at the
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Metropolitan Tabernacle. And I go down to the second portion of the sermon.
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The Warrant of Believing is a point upon which I shall spend my time and strength this morning. According to my text, the warrant for a man to believe is the commandment of God.
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This is the commandment that she believe on his son, Jesus Christ. Self -righteousness will always find a lodging somewhere or other.
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Drive it, my brethren, out of the ground of our confidence. Let the sinner see that he cannot rest on his good works.
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Then as foxes will have holes, this self -righteousness will find a refuge for itself in the warrant of our faith in Christ.
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It reasons thus. You are not saved by what you do, but by what Christ did. But then you have no right to trust in Christ unless there is something good in you which shall entitle you to trust in him.
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Now, this is legal reasoning I oppose. I believe such teaching to contain in it the essence of popish self -righteousness.
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The warrant for a sinner to believe in Christ is not in himself in any sense or in any manner, but in the fact that he is commanded there and then to believe on Jesus Christ.
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Some preachers in the Puritanic times, whose shoelatches I am not worthy to unloose, erred much in this matter.
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I refer not merely to Elaine and Baxter, who are far better preachers of the law than of the gospel, but I include men far sounder in the faith than they, such as Rogers of Dedham Shepard, the author of The Sound Believer, and especially the
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American Thomas Hooker, who has written a book upon qualifications for coming to Christ. These excellent men had a fear of preaching the gospel to any except those whom they styled sensible sinners and consequently kept hundreds of their hearers sitting in darkness, when they might have rejoiced in the light.
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They preached repentance and hatred of sin as the warrant of a sinner's trusting in Christ. According to them, a sinner might reason thus,
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I possess such and such a degree of sensibility on account of sin, therefore I have a right to trust in Christ.
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Now I venture to affirm that such reasoning is seasoned with fatal error. Whoever preaches in this fashion may preach much of the gospel, but the whole gospel of free grace of God in its fullness he has yet to learn.
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In our own day, certain preachers assure us that a man must be regenerated before we may bid him believe in Jesus Christ, some degree of a work of grace in the heart being in their judgment the only warrant to believe.
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This also is false. It takes away a gospel for sinners and offers us a gospel for saints.
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It is anything but a ministry of free grace. Others say that the warrant for a sinner to believe in Christ is his election.
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Now, as his election cannot possibly be known by any man until he has believed, this is virtually preaching that no one, nobody has any known warrant for believing at all.
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If I cannot possibly know my election before I believe, and yet the minister tells me that I may only believe upon the ground of my election, how am
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I ever to believe at all? Election brings me faith and faith is the evidence of my election, but to say that my faith is to depend upon my knowledge of my election, which
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I cannot get without faith is to talk egregious nonsense. Now, let me stop right there. Did I not mention that Spurgeon was addressing pretty much the same topic that Calvin was?
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That paragraph there, if I didn't tell you who had written that, and I just mixed the two of them together, you probably wouldn't have been able to tell which one was which.
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If I had stuck that in the middle of the Calvin citation, you probably wouldn't have even noticed it as it went by because they're addressing the exact same thing, but they're not addressing the
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Ordo Salutis. They're addressing who we preach to and how we preach to them.
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There is a man who I don't even bother mentioning his name. He's not the one, however, who painted with pretty trees, who's running around out there, despite my repeated correction of him, writing to him personally, telling him of my confession, the 1689
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Lennon Confession, who tells people that I don't believe that God uses means to bring about regeneration, the preaching of the gospel.
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And he also has a real big problem with the idea that logically the relationship of regeneration and faith is as we have seen in Calvin, and as we're even seeing here in Spurgeon, that it's my election that brings me faith, which was just said here, and that logically the one precedes the other, they assuming that it's all temporal and therefore he's got all these problems and so on and so forth.
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Notice that's not what Spurgeon's talking about. He's not even addressing that. He's talking about those people who are saying,
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I'm only gonna preach to these people who can demonstrate that they possess this, or the only people that I'm gonna call to believe in Christ are those who've been regenerated.
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Well, how in the world do you know they've been regenerated? How can you tell that? That again requires you to somehow have the capacity and ability to peer into and to pry into the eternal decree of God.
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And we can't do that. We preach Christ crucified. We call all men to believe.
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We don't say, get yourself regenerated, then believe. Now, I believe that the person who believes and truly believes does so because of his election, which results in his regeneration, which results in faith and repentance.
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And that's exactly what Spurgeon's gonna say here in a moment, but I don't know that when
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I preach the gospel. And so I don't lay out some type of a warrant, look in your heart, and if you've got enough goodness in there, then you can call upon Christ.
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No, Spurgeon is exactly right. So I continue on because this is now going to become the context of the citation, once again, misused by Dave Hunt and by those who follow him.
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I continue now with Spurgeon's sermon. I lay down this morning with great boldness because I know and I'm well persuaded that what
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I speak is the mind of the spirit. This doctrine that the soul and only warrant for a sinner to believe in Jesus is found in the gospel itself.
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And the command which accompanies that gospel is that I shall believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
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I shall deal with what matters first of all, negatively and then positively.
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First, negatively. And here comes the citation. You'll see how it fits in here. And here, my first observation is that any other way of preaching the gospel warrant is absurd.
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If I'm to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man being regenerated is saved already and it is an unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach
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Christ to him and bid him to believe in order to be saved when he is saved already being regenerate. But you will tell me that I ought to preach it only to those who repent of their sins.
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Very well, but since true repentance of sin is the work of the spirit, any man who has repentance is most certainly saved because evangelical repentance never can exist in an unrenewed soul.
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Where there is repentance, there is faith already for they never can be separated.
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Now let me stop right there. What did he just say? If repentance and faith cannot be separated, listen again to what he just said.
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Very well, but since true repentance of sin is the work of the spirit, any man who has repentance is most certainly saved because evangelical repentance never can exist in an unrenewed soul.
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So if repentance and faith cannot be separated, who's running around saying that Spurgeon taught that an unrenewed soul can exercise saving faith?
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That's not what he said. And that's not what he's talking about here, is it? Where there is repentance, there is faith already for they never can be separated.
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So then I am only to preach faith to those who have it. Absurd indeed. Is not this waiting till the man is cured and then bring him the medicine?
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This is preaching Christ to the righteous and not to sinners. Nay, saith one, but we mean that a man must have some good desires towards Christ before he has any warrant to believe in Jesus.
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Friend, do you not know that all good desires have some degree of holiness in them? But if a sinner hath any degree of true holiness in him, it must be the work of the spirit, for true holiness never exists in the carnal mind.
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Therefore, that man is already renewed and therefore saved. Are we to go running up and down the world, proclaiming life to the living, casting bread to those who are fed already and holding up Christ on the pole of the gospel to those who are already healed?
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My brethren, where is our inducement to labor where our efforts are so little needed? If I am to preach
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Christ to those who have no goodness, who have nothing in them that qualifies them for mercy, then
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I feel I have a gospel so divine that I would proclaim it with my last breath, crying aloud that Jesus came to the world to save sinners.
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Sinners as sinners, not as penitent sinners or as awakened sinners, but sinners as sinners, sinners of whom
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I am the chief. And so what's he saying? He's saying that these people, and he named names, by the way, for those of you who think, oh, that's very mean, you shouldn't name names, you shouldn't talk about Dave Hunt, you shouldn't talk about Dr.
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Davis, you shouldn't tell these people who these people are, you know, you shouldn't do things like that. Calvin, Calvin did too,
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Spurgeon named names. And do you notice how he did it? When he was disagreeing with them, this is one of the things that I've taken
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Dave Hunt on about because he won't do this. Who does Dave Hunt like? He likes to go after Calvin.
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Who's older? Augustine, loves to go after Augustine, the original Roman Catholic. Now this man doesn't know church history in the slightest, and he doesn't treat church history with the slightest bit of respect, and that's one of the things that's really bothered me about this, is here,
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Spurgeon, I think, also gave us, I think we can learn something from Spurgeon here. He was just about to pretty strongly disagree with people, well, some of the
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Puritans, some of the Puritans did go way off. There were some of the Puritans that had a very bad doctrine of justification, no question about it.
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Just because there was a period in time where you had quote unquote Puritans, did not mean all those folks believed all the same things.
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There was differences between them. You can appreciate what someone said in one area and disagree with them elsewhere.
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That's one of the things that just made me roll my eyes, that same person who's running around destroying his credibility, took shots at me because I have an article in the
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May 2006 Table Talk magazine, and we all know that R .C.
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Sproul's a paedo -Baptist. Ugh, it's just like, ah!
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If you're a real Baptist, then you're not gonna have anything to do with those paedo -Baptists.
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I just love the fact that I've done debates on paedo -Baptism against paedo -Baptists who are my brothers in Christ.
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Gonna be doing another one in October. I love to just take those debates and say, here, here's real ecumenism based on the word of God, no compromise.
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Now learn something from these people. Good grief, and here, what Spurgeon does,
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I'm not worthy to unloose the latchet of these guys' shoes, but on this issue, they were wrong by name.
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And here's where they were wrong. See, for Dave Hunt to say someone's wrong is to have to throw them under the bus.
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They must be going to hell in a handbasket. They're slated for the seventh level of hell, and they're headed there on roller skates.
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I mean, if they're wrong, that just must be it. That's the only way he thinks. It's black and white, there can't be anything else in there.
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And that's why he treats Augustine the way he treats Augustine. Oh, Augustine said this. Yeah, but have you ever read anything else that he said?
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Have you ever considered the context he was in? Can you imagine what you would be like if you lived in his day?
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Mr. Hunt, or anybody else who wants to go after him along those lines? Think you can learn something along those lines as to how we can appreciate what people say, and yet disagree with them on particular issues.
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That's something I think can be done. Well, anyways, if you would like to defend Dave Hunt, 877 -753 -334, and we only have about 10 minutes, but the back of the phone is ringing right now.
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If you'd like to defend Dave Hunt, if you'd like to defend Dr. Davis, if you feel that I've, and then again, how could you do so?
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I mean, I'll be honest with you. I've spent 45 minutes or more, and I've provided all the documentation, and I've read the context, and it's very clear, and it's very obvious as to exactly what's going on.
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And so sometimes it makes me chuckle a little bit when I say something along the lines of, would you like to defend this?
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You can't. It's not defensible. So maybe if Dave Hunt would like to call in and apologize, that would be certainly something that would cause me to fall off of my chair, but as you are doing that, as I said,
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I have been working diligently on this sermon while basically what I've been doing, just to give you an idea.
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If some of you think that we are these real fancy pants type folks that are running around, and got all sorts of money flowing all over the place, our offices are going to someday be really, really, really neat.
49:26
But right now they've got, I mean, there's stuff hanging out of the ceilings and cables coming out all over the place and tools everywhere.
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This place is a tool guy's paradise. I mean, you can walk 10 feet in any direction and find a hammer, you know?
49:40
Ha ha ha ha, I'm going to break something, you know? And so I've been setting up my desk, trying to get the computer working and stuff like that.
49:51
And so I'll literally be underneath my desk. You know how it is, you're reaching up, trying to get something plugged into the power director, you know, and you're hoping you're not going to electrocute yourself in the process.
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And I've got more than one computer at my desk. And so this one's playing the
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Davis sermon. And I'll be sitting there trying to plug stuff in and all of a sudden
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I hear something, and I crawl from underneath the desk, I stop, I roll it back, and I create a cue out of that section, you know, describe it, start it back up again, crawl back underneath the desk.
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You know, 30 seconds later, he does it again. That's how we do these things. It's called multitasking. Ha ha ha ha, in a major league way, how to multitask, it's sort of funny.
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Well, anyways, someone decided to sneak in here and take advantage of these last few moments of the program.
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Let's talk with Paul in Illinois. Hi, Paul. Hi, Dr. White. How you doing? Good, I wanted to remind you of the time that Dave Hunt spoke at the
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PFO conference in St. Louis, and he was noondropping left and right, making these wild statements, and he kept saying, oh, but I have that citation in my briefcase.
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Ha ha ha, well now, there was also a group of folks from a church there that he had gone after pretty strongly during his presentation.
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He came up to me afterwards and said, you know, we were there when that stuff was spoken, and he didn't mention this, and he didn't mention that, and that was before, that was the same
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PFO conference where his book had come out. Yeah, that was me. Yeah, that's what
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I thought, yeah, and I was, I wondered if you weren't the same individual and said, you know, I've got some problems with this guy's saying because he's not given the whole story, and now we have documentation, shall we say, that, you know, it's probably always been that way, sadly.
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I mean, I've never, people can tell you, I've never, ever recommended Dave Hunt's materials on Roman Catholicism, and even though I've heard some programs where he was on, for example, with Carl Keating, he did a fairly decent job with Carl Keating on some radio programs, the published material,
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I just always said, well, in fact, I may have told you this at that conference a few years ago, but I'll tell everybody now.
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I remember back in 19, oh, goodness. When did
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I first debate Jerry? That was December of 90. Okay, so this would have been the spring of 91.
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We're going back a ways here. Doesn't seem like it was that long ago for people like me and people like Rich, but for some people in the channel, when
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I started talking about December of 90, they were born in 89. It sort of scares me, but anyway, Long Beach was summer of 89.
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Yeah, that was the first debate, and then when I debated Jerry on the papacy, that was at the
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City of the Lord in December of 90, and so I had sent the tapes of the debate to Dave Hunt, and I had just basically sent to him greetings, hadn't actually met him yet or anything like that, but I just thought he might want to listen to this thing.
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I got back a little note from him, and all it basically said was, you know what?
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I don't think we should use church fathers. I don't think we should use citations from history.
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I just argue from the Bible, and the entire debate is dismissed. Now, how you're supposed to debate something including the history of the papacy without dealing with history,
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I don't know, but that's what he did, and so yeah, you know, Paul, it doesn't surprise me a whole lot that even when the book,
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Debating Calvinism, came out, that Dave Hunt insisted that if any radio program, any radio station wanted to do free publicity on the book, if they wanted to interview the authors, they had to have
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Dave on one day and then me on a separate day. He would not go on. Even to promote our co -authored book, he would not be on at the same time
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I was on. That one time that he did, you could tell when it started, he didn't know
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I was gonna be there, and he was angry that I was there. Well, yeah, you could hear that in his voice. Yeah, very much so, very much so.
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The other thing that jumped out was when he was speaking at that conference, he was breaking bad on Jerry Falwell for jumping on the
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Benny Hinn bandwagon trying to pick up recruits. That really surprises me. Well, you know,
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I don't follow Jerry around much. I guess I'm gonna be meeting him, hopefully, in October.
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Then again, maybe not, I don't know. But I'm gonna be there, so I hope I get a chance to meet him.
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But, you know, they've gone, Jerry's gone the Southern Baptist route now. I don't know that back in, when did
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Jerry become a Southern Baptist? I don't even remember that. Do you have any idea?
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No, no, I don't. I don't either, but yeah, I remember that, and it was good to talk to you guys. We had some real nice conversations afterwards.
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There were some real neat folks at that conference, and, but you know what?
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Doing what I'm doing right now doesn't get you invited back to a lot of those things. Yeah, you know what I mean? All righty, man, thanks for calling.
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Thanks for having me. God bless, bye -bye. Yeah, that was, there were a number of folks there, and of course, there's this one fellow in the
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St. Louis area that has these shirts that has Calvin and Edwards and things like that on them, and he dared to wear them to the conference.
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And that caused, that offended some people, that the
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Calvinists would be so bold at a conference. And it's like, so you can wear all sorts of shirts that have all sorts of quote -unquote
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Armenian stuff, and well, anyways. Let's real quick grab one more call before we run out of time.
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Is this Pedro, Pedric in Yuma? How are you, sir? Pedric, how you doing? I'm doing well. Good. I have a question.
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I recently bought two books on Calvinism. I'm a newbie. And one, it's called
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Why I'm Not an Arminian, and Why I'm Not a Calvinist. And my question is, have you read those?
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And what is your opinion of the debate that went on as I engrossed myself in these books?
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Yeah, well, what you're gonna see in those books, you can go on, in fact, I got my copy of this debate online.
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I went on eBay. And if you search, for example, in the name Bruce Ware or Jerry Walls, you should be able to pull up copies of this.
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A debate took place somewhere near Southern Seminary a number of years ago, a two -on -two debate on this subject.
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And as I recall, the people who wrote the Why I'm Not a Calvinist book were the Arminian representatives in that debate.
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And the problem you're going to encounter in that book, and the problem you're going to encounter in the debate is when you encounter
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Arminians who are willing to call themselves Arminians because denominationally they are Arminians, you're not going to discover a real vibrant defense of the position on a biblical basis.
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You're gonna start with philosophy. You're gonna start with concepts of libertarian free will, the necessity of libertarian free will.
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Certainly, you're gonna have some biblical passages thrown in. But when you compare a Reformed presentation and the exegesis that it offers of John 6 and things like that, you're gonna see what
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I saw, for example, when I debated Dr. John Sanders, who himself admits to being an Arminian and doesn't have any problem using that term himself.
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When we were debating inclusivism, I asked him to comment on John chapter six.
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What was Jesus saying in John chapter six? And he says, all the father gives me will come to me. And he says, well, you know, that's the old
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Calvinist Arminian debate and no one's ever gonna get anywhere on that. And I said, but could you tell me what you think
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Jesus was saying in this text? I think it's important to the debate we're having. And here's a scholar, here's a man, an
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Arminian scholar, and he opens his Bible. And he's slowly turning the pages in his
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Bible and he says to the audiences, you can watch this on the DVD. We have that, we make this available.
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It's on the MP3 DVD, whatever. As he's slowly turning to John 6, he says, well, it's been a number of years since I looked at it, but, and I'm sitting there and I'm looking at the audience and the audience, their jaws are just dropping.
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The vast, the main difference between self -professing Arminians and the
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Reformed perspective simply is the foundation stone of exegesis and how deep you go into that.
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And I think you'll find that to be the case in the book. And if you've picked up maybe the Potter's Freedom or something like that, maybe pick up Norman Geisler's book, my book.
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I think you'll see that to be the consistent case in both situations. Okay, Patrick? Thank you.
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All right, thanks for calling, God bless. All righty, another one, another successful venture.
58:52
I certainly hope the next time we do this, there's gonna be a vent over my head with some nice cold air coming down. That'll help out a lot, but we will be continuing with the
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Davis Sermon. Your call's on the Dividing Line Thursday. See you then, God bless. And brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:59
If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
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that's A -O -M -I -N .O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.