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

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

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

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

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

James White. Good morning, welcome to Radio Free Geneva, the program that exposes the worst of the worst in anti -Calvinism.

Yes, we're doing a special Dividing Line today, not only because we're not going to be able to do one for a while, and yes, please forget the phone number.

Thank you, Gary, appreciate that deep insight on your part. That will be Gary's sole positive comment on the program today.

Nope, no phone calls today because we are simply reviewing some of the worst of the worst in sermons preached by men who should know better, men who stand before the people of God, claim to know much about the

Word of God, much about the subject, and yet, for some strange and odd reason, what they say to the people of God is untrue.

Today we're going to be reviewing a sermon that I listened to yesterday as I was driving to and from church.

I'm not sure that was overly wise, to be honest with you. And as my wife and I were driving along, my wife was pointing out the numerous errors in this sermon by a man, a seminary trained man, who, as you will hear, claims to have spent a great deal of time studying the subject, but the problem is, and that's what has led me to do this series because there's some really bad stuff out there, and I imagine some folks will be sending me some more bad stuff as we go along,

I don't understand the need for dishonesty and misrepresentation in discussing this issue.

If you have to misrepresent your opponent, if you have to lie about your opponent, if you have to try to make the people listening to you think you know a lot about the subject when in point of fact you know almost nothing about the subject at all, if you will not respond to the best your opponent has to give, then why are you doing it in the first place?

Simple question. I don't think there's anything, anyone can take offense at my consternation at hearing my beliefs constantly misrepresented, constantly caricatured, constantly turned into straw men.

I don't understand that. There is no reason for that to exist amongst Christians.

I'm accustomed to cultists doing that. I'm accustomed to those who believe a lie misrepresenting the truth.

But that's not how this conversation should take place. That's not how it should take place within Baptist churches, and that's normally where this is taking place.

I mean, let's face it, if you're a Presbyterian arguing about the doctrines of grace, you've got a problem. This doesn't take place in Reformed Baptist churches, because the issue is already settled there.

It's already a given. However, within Baptist churches, where you have two different streams, you have your your

General Baptist and your Particular Baptist down through history, this conversation should take place on the basis of Scripture, not on the basis of the bully pulpit.

But that's exactly what we have. I want to play you just a little clip. We're going to play the whole thing, but here is a little clip to give you an idea of the caricature, let's try it again, character and tone of the sermon that we will be listening to today by Danny O 'Gwinn of the

Tower Grove Baptist Church in St. Louis. I ask him another question.

I mean, I just, I have fun with Calvinism. I mean, it's a I could dance up here for a little bit.

All right. I have a ball with it. I asked him, I said, now, these elect that you say they're not, but that you say are elect, do they have to repent?

I said, you know, Jesus said, except you repent, you shall likewise. But this unconditional election, those who are elect, do they have to repent?

Oh, yeah, they have to. I said, there's another condition. It's not unconditional.

And they can't do anything with that. Okay. That's the way it is with all man -made doctrine.

You say, Brother Danny, would you let a Calvinist come in here and explain their view? No. I expose

Mormonism. I'm not going to call a Mormon in here. Let him explain that. I expose Jehovah's Witnesses.

I'm not going to let a Jehovah's Witness come in here. I'm going to preach the truth from the Bible, keeping the

Word of God, okay? I'm not going to let, I don't want a Calvinist preaching behind this bullpen. All right?

It's false. Unconditional election makes God more than a monster and man less than a robot.

Well, there you go. There is a good indication of the character of this attack upon Reformed theology.

And that's what it is. It's a one -sided straw man attack filled with enough logical errors to take up a couple of different classes in a logic class.

It is filled with misrepresentation. It's filled with straw men. And yet, sadly, it is representative of much of what we see being presented as if it is a response, as if it is an answer to Reformed theology.

And so we're going to play this sermon today and we're going to be responding to it as we go along. We're going to go a little bit long today.

We're going to go as far as we can go and still cram it onto one CD. And we're not going to worry about breaks and things like that.

That's what we'll be doing tomorrow on the regular dividing line when the phones are open and you can call in.

In fact, obviously, obviously, this is one difference. As you heard in the clip

I just played, Pastor O 'Guinn does not want a Calvinist preaching behind his pulpit.

And he does not want a Calvinist to be able to explain his position. I, of course, would be more than happy to dialogue with Pastor O 'Guinn.

In fact, I'd be more than happy to travel to St. Louis on quote -unquote neutral ground, discuss exegetically the doctrines of grace with Pastor O 'Guinn.

And there are many questions I would like to ask him because I can honestly say, having listened the entirety of his sermon, that he never once raised a single issue that demonstrated either a serious examination of Reformed Theology, nor an objection that has not been answered over and over and over and over again.

What we got was tradition, not the Scriptures. And I would be happy to dialogue on that subject, would he be willing to do so as well.

So, with that, this sermon started off the first seven and a half minutes, why every

Christian ought to be a soul winner. And if you've ever sat in a Southern Baptist Church, you've heard those seven and a half minutes numerous times before.

And then all of a sudden, the sermon took a hard left, never came back to the subject really, just went that direction.

At seven and one half minutes into the program,

Pastor O 'Guinn began his attack upon Calvinism.

And that's what we're going to be listening to beginning right here. Right here, before we go any further, and look at the other points,

I'm going to come back in just a moment and share those points with you. And I'm going to share with you something right now that is causing a great deal of division in the

Church and in Christendom today. And it is also a hindrance to evangelism.

It is a hindrance to soul winning. And it is a teaching called Calvinism. It's called

Calvinism. Now, before I go any further, let me share with you what I'm talking about.

Now, there is a precious doctrine that is taught in the Bible, and it is the doctrine of election.

And I believe in election, but I do not believe in the Calvinistic interpretation of election because that's false.

There's a precious doctrine in the Bible called predestination. I'm a strong believer in predestination.

I do not believe in the Calvinistic interpretation of predestination. I just stopped just for a moment to note the fact that for some odd reason, not only are these anti -Calvinists unwilling to utilize terms that describe their own beliefs accurately.

And this is going to become a major portion of Pastor O 'Gwynn's presentation. He is going to spend much time talking about how

Calvinists, if they use that term, are followers of men. And he, of course, is just a follower of God in the

Bible. The old, well, if you use a term to describe your theological beliefs, that's somehow an error.

There are terms that describe Pastor O 'Gwynn's theological beliefs. Whether he's willing to use them or not is sort of irrelevant as to their accuracy or the application of them to his position.

But why is it that anti -reform people don't want to use words to describe their theology?

They don't want to allow their theology to be examined on the same basis as that of John Calvin or Spurgeon or Edwards or B .B.

Warfield or whoever. This inconsistency, seemingly coupled together with the vitriolic means of denunciation, is meant to stifle discussion within their congregations of this issue.

And we need to recognize that's exactly what the desire here is. There is a tremendous fear on the part of pastors like Pastor O 'Gwynn of Reform theology taking root within their fellowship.

That's very, very clear. Very, very clear. He's going to say that it's always, and this really goes back to another section we're going to be playing in future episodes of Radio Free Geneva, comments made by Paige Patterson when

John Piper spoke at his school and the students had many questions afterwards. One of the reasons that he lists for opposing these movements, opposing the

Founders movement, things like that, is that it's detrimental to evangelism. And of course they have a very specific, very narrow, and in most cases very unbiblical definition of what quote -unquote evangelism is.

But this becomes the modus operandi. There is a fear of this theology and therefore by attacking it vociferously you try to keep it from being discussed.

If someone raises a question in a Bible study class, after listening to this sermon, automatically eyes will turn to that person and people will tell other people and staff people will talk to you after service and so on and so forth.

Fear of discussing the biblical truth of the sovereign freedom of God in the matter of salvation.

Fear that their traditions will be overthrown because they are unwilling to honestly examine what the issues really are.

I'm a strong believer in the sovereignty of God and in the providence of God. Election, predestination, sovereignty, providence of God, precious truths that are taught in the word of God.

And I'm a strong believer in those truths. Except, of course, when they are defined historically, when they're defined according to the meanings of the original language of the scripture.

In other words, they recognize these words are there. You can't read Ephesians 1, you can't read

Romans 9 without seeing these things. But one thing that is utterly absent from this sermon is any exegetical attempt to actually interact with any of the key passages.

And so to try to head that off what you do is you say you believe all those things but you just leave it undefined as to exactly what it is you believe in the first place.

But we reject the false teaching and the false interpretation of Calvinism.

Now, notice already Calvinism has been said to be false at least twice, maybe three different times, and it has yet to even be defined.

There has not even been a single definition offered but the people in the pew know one thing. It's false, whatever it is, it's false.

And our pastor is very exercised about the fact that it's false. And the result of that is an unwillingness on the part of those who view this man as their ultimate spiritual authority on earth today to actually seriously interact with any of the doctrines of grace themselves.

You know what Calvinism teaches, now listen to me carefully, I'm going to give you five brief points in just a moment or two and then we're going to move on with things that are important, okay?

You say, why are you addressing this? Because it causes division in the body of Christ.

I have over 50 volumes, over 50 volumes on Calvinism in my library.

Now how many times have we heard that? You may recall when I reviewed a sermon offered by Pastor Revis down in Florida that there was much discussion of how many volumes he had in his library.

Remember Dave Hunt? Dave Hunt talked about reading all these books and his library being filled with books on Calvinism and he's read all, he knows more about Calvinism than 90 % of the

Calvinists do. And we encounter this over and over again, the assertion on the part of these individuals,

I've talked with Calvinists all over the place. Well the problem is, and he's about to even expand upon this, claiming to have spent an entire year studying this issue, wanting to become a

Calvinist. Eventually, I'm not sure if he meant to say this, but he's going to say God told him that this is fault.

The problem is, of course, that's why I'm doing this special edition of The Dividing Line.

What are we going to do with that claim? You have to do one of two things. Either you have to reject it and say, I'm sorry you're being dishonest, you didn't do that, you may have 50 volumes in your library, but doesn't mean you've read them, it doesn't mean you studied them, it doesn't mean that you've examined them with any kind of meaningful academic scholarship at all.

Or, if we accept the statement, then we have to say you are dishonest. You're dishonest because the definitions that are going to be offered, the arguments that are going to be offered, are misrepresentations of the position under discussion.

So it's one of the two. Either you didn't read the books you claimed to have read, or you read them and now you are purposefully, willfully misrepresenting.

There's only one of two ways of doing it. I guess there's a third. He read the books and cannot understand them, is incapable of following basic argumentation.

There's three options. Either dishonesty in reading them, dishonesty in misrepresenting them, or a lack of ability to understand what the issues are.

But none of those are positive things. None of those are positive things. So this is the kind of thing that truly bothers me deeply, that individuals,

I think if I stand before the people of God and I say to them, I have done this, I better,

I need to have done it. I have a responsibility. My feelings are irrelevant.

Utterly irrelevant. People say, you know, you might offend someone. I think we need to be more concerned about God being offended and his word being offended in its misuse.

And I think we should be offended when people stand before God and they don't argue properly.

That should be offensive to us. When someone stands before the people of God and says, I'm a man of God and I'm going to use the worst possible argumentation

I possibly can on something as important as whether God is free in the matter of salvation. That should be offensive.

It isn't to most people. The idea in our society is, well, you know, you may disagree with them, but everybody's got to be nice.

Now, you know, some of these that we're going to review, you could have a nice conversation with some of these folks.

I think I could have a nice conversation with Paige Patterson. I really do. But this fella, as you're going to hear, is going to get downright nasty and he's going to do so.

And at one point, he is simply going to repeat an error that we've heard over and over again, and there is no excuse for it.

None. But he's going to repeat it anyways. When I graduated from seminary, I wanted to be a Calvinist.

When I graduated from seminary, I set out to be a Calvinist and I started studying. And my wife, she was in the early service, she was in here, she testified of this.

I would get up at four o 'clock every morning. I did that for almost a year.

I'd get up at four o 'clock every morning. Listen carefully now. I gave my quiet time to the study of election, predestination, sovereignty of God, and Calvinism.

And it was there, in that quiet time, in the wee hours of the morning, when God caused me to see the fallacies of Calvinism and the fact that although election is true in a precious doctrine, predestination is true, it is a precious doctrine, yet the

Calvinistic interpretation of it is false. And it's Paul's division, J. Dwight Pentecost.

Now before we listen to J. Dwight, I thought it was Dwight, but it was J. Dwight Pentecost, notice what's said.

Almost a whole year, 50 volumes, graduate, this is a seminary graduate, this is a man with a graduate degree, a master's degree in theology, maybe a master's of divinity,

I don't know. But a year's worth of study on the doctrine of election and predestination.

Now if you're going to stand in front of people, make that claim, then aren't there certain minimums that could be expected here?

Aren't there going to be certain minimum levels of honesty, certain minimum levels of accuracy in your representation of others?

Yes? Am I asking too much there? I don't think so. That's not what these folks are going to get.

That's not what they're going to hear, and it's amazing when you recognize that these individuals are standing before the people of God, and what they say in a sermon is so much different than what they say in, you know, well for example, listening to Paige Patterson speaking to the students and listening to Paige Patterson speaking at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, two different things.

A little more fire and a little more honesty. I'm the same way. I'm the same way.

I get rolling when I'm talking to folks. I'm probably less guarded at that point than I would be in other situations.

I fully understand all of that. It's in the sermon, however, that we hear what a person really is thinking.

So here's a man, graduate of seminary, wanted to become a Calvinist. Notice God led him to realize that Calvinism's wrong.

He's later going to put that in more blunt terms, probably about 15 -20 minutes into the sermon, but there's the assertions are being made.

And his volume is one of the over 50 volumes I've got on Calvinism in my library, deals with this subject.

J. Dwight Pentecost, who is, by the way, a partial Calvinist, not a high Calvinist, but he said as I approached this subject, he said, and I quote to you, he said,

I must admit that this subject has caused more division in the body of Christ than anything else

I can think of. I'm going to tell you something, dear friend. Let me address that. More division in the body of Christ than anything else.

Well, you know what? Does that, evidently, that's supposed to mean that Calvinism's wrong.

That what you've got's the body of Christ, and Calvinism's coming in and causing division. Of course, assuming, then, the non -reformed position, which he never addresses, is very much in line with Rome's view of the will and the grace of God, that becomes the default position.

That's the default position. So, if something causes division, for example, in the first centuries of the

Christian Church, the first centuries of the Christian Church, there was great division, and it wasn't about Calvinism, was it?

No, it was over the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the

Trinity. So, could it have been a valid argument back then? This doctrine has caused much division in the body of Christ.

Therefore, you shouldn't talk about it. Therefore, it's not important. Therefore, we shouldn't even think that we can come to conclusions about it, right?

Here's one of the dangers, folks, of having no functional recognition of your place in the history of the

Church. This is a problem that afflicts many Baptists. Baptist history lasts about 50 years, and many of the mistakes that Baptists make is because they have no sense of history whatsoever, and they don't take their statements and plug them in someplace else, and go, hmm, that wouldn't make much sense, would it?

And why does Calvinism, quote -unquote, create division? Well, in this situation, it's because we have a pastor who detests and misunderstands

Calvinism, who has decided that this tradition that he holds, an unbiblical tradition,

I would argue, and could demonstrate, is going to be allowed to stand in his church without question.

Without challenge. Well, that's going to cause division, right? So, whose fault is it that it causes division?

Doesn't the biblical exegesis of the text cause division when there are unbiblical traditions being held by people?

Now, he's gonna say it's Calvinism that's unbiblical. Well, how do you discover that? Not by simply squashing all conversation.

If he truly thought, if he truly believed, that biblical exegesis would demonstrate the errors of Calvinism, as he clearly indicates he does, then what would he have to fear from it?

Well, not a whole lot at all. That isn't the case, however, as we will see as he goes on.

And it's hard for me to believe that God would be the originator of something that would cause division in the body of Christ, and cause the body of Christ to get all cracked, as far as reaching souls for the honor and the glory of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Apply that to the early centuries of the church, and what do you have? They shouldn't have been arguing about the

Trinity back then. I was talking with Dr. Larry Lewis here some time ago, and he said, Denny, he said,

I've just moved to San Diego, and he said, all of my works and my materials are packed up.

But he said, I'm going to send you a paper by Dr. Cal Guy, one of our seminary professors at New Orleans Seminary.

And he said, I'm going to send you a paper. And he said, it's the best work I've ever seen on Calvinism.

And he said, in that paper, he said, Dr. Cal Guy just refers to Calvinism as a cult. He said, he calls it a cult all the way through.

Now, let's make sure you're understanding that, because, you know, the quality isn't the best. And as I was driving, listening to this,

I had to stop and go, what did he say? Yes, he's using the word cult. Calvinism is a cult.

Well, you know, I know a little something about cults. In fact, I have a feeling

I know a little bit more about cults than Pastor O 'Guinn does.

And he's going to mention Mormonism, Jehoshaphatism. I know a little something about those movements.

And to make that kind of a comparison is, of course, utterly ahistorical and absurd.

Ahistorical and absurd. That's the best that can be said about it.

The only reason to raise such an assertion in light of the true definition of a cult, given the fact that the greatest defenses of the doctrine of the

Trinity, deity of Christ, justification by faith have been written by Calvinists, not by Calvinists, to say that it's being used to create emotional demonization and emotional response to the very term

Calvinism. This is all designed to stop biblical and critical thinking. It's designed to stop sound thinking and simply replace that with emotion.

That is what you're listening to going on here in the Tower Grove Baptist Church in St.

Louis. Think about that one for just a moment.

The only logical way that that kind of argument can have validity is if a truth in the

Word of God could never be described by or attached to the name of a man.

And so Pelagianism must be wrong simply because you can call it

Pelagianism. Is that logical or rational thinking? Of course not.

It's utterly irrational. There's no logical argumentation that can be mustered to defend such an assertion, but you don't hear too many people objecting in the background.

I'm gonna tell you something. You stay away from man -made doctrines. You get hooked up and lined up with Jesus, and you stay with him, and you don't let

Calvin, Arminian, Ogwin, or anyone else deter you. Amen? That's right.

You need to stay focused on Jesus Christ. So if I identified his theology as Ogwinian, then by definition it's wrong, right?

The Son of God. I have people say, well, what did they do before Calvinism? And they don't know what they did.

Excuse me? You ask Calvinists about their beliefs before Calvin, and what is it they say?

They say nothing? They have no response? Excuse me? Pastor Ogwin, if the

Calvinists you've talked to have no response to that, I'm volunteering my services.

I would be very glad to help you and to disabuse you of the many straw men that you have picked up from these extremely ignorant

Calvinists that you've been talking to. Because we're gonna, you know, as you know, actually before that, we would trace the dialogue and discussion all the way back to the centuries.

You know, you can sort of take a stop off there around the turn of the millennium, a little bit beforehand with Gottschalk, and you can go back to the

Council of Orange, you can go back to Augustus and Pelagius, and you can go back to discussions even before that.

And of course, we like to go to the Bible personally. We like to go to Romans 8 and 9, and we like to go to John 6, passages that you didn't go to, and we like to go to those issues.

These Calvinists you've been talking to, I don't know who they are. I've not met them.

It's an odd thing. So I said, well, now a thousand years, one thousand years before Calvin lived,

Augustine lived. Yes, he did. And I was looking at the early works of Augustine the other day. I have part of those and the latter works of Augustine, and he changed his views so often.

I thought, my goodness, if they're based on the Bible, you don't have to change your views. Wow. Think about that one for just a moment.

Think about that one for just a moment. Augustine, one of those few folks that you can look back upon in history, who were so towering in their intellect, and yet the mature

Augustine could look back upon his earlier writings, and he had the temerity and the humility to go, you know what?

I was wrong. I was wrong. I wrote this, and as I have matured over time,

I have come to understand that there's a better way of seeing that. I was in error.

I retract what I said before. I really appreciate that.

You know, the people who don't do that are called the infallible popes and some

Southern Baptists. Isn't that odd? Isn't that strange? I'd like a little consistency, just a little consistency in the application of the standards here.

We don't get much of that. But that's what happens when you follow man. Augustine's conversion experience was vague.

He was awful in baptism. He was awful in the church. He was awful in the Lord's Supper. He was awful in many cardinal doctrines.

Why would anyone follow him today? Also, now this is where... Let me just stop right there.

You know, I really, really wonder if Pastor O 'Gwynn is suggesting here that he would be able to offer a meaningful, exegetical critique of Augustine on these issues, or if he's just simply going with what somebody told him once.

That's what I really wonder. What we have here is Pastor O 'Gwynn's tradition versus Augustine.

And it's real easy to preach that way. It's real easy to get people all excited that way. And obviously, I disagree with Augustine on numerous issues.

But at least when I do so, I can recognize that I'm standing on the shoulders of giants.

I have many advantages that Augustine did not have. And this man doesn't even seem to begin to recognize that.

It's not a good attitude to have. You don't learn much from history in that way. I had some fun with him, okay?

This is where I had some fun. It's not funny, but I couldn't help but chuckle as I studied this.

In the area of, of course, Calvinism believes that God elected certain people to go to heaven before the foundation of the world, and he elected certain people to go to hell.

Now, there you see it again. I see that this is probably the single most consistent.

I get the feeling when you see a particular area, a particular error repeated with the very same words over and over and over again, it's probably due to the fact that these individuals are not doing any original thinking themselves.

They are borrowing from one another. They're just simply repeating what other people have said.

They've not thought about themselves, and they're just running with it. It is constant, absolutely constant, to hear people assume that if you believe in double predestination, or they like to throw out, sometimes like one particular author misunderstanding it, they like to throw out superlapsarianism, and everybody goes, superlapsarianism, wow, you're smart.

They throw it out there, and what they want to do is they want to make election and reprobation equivalent terms, and so you just heard it.

He said some are elected to heaven. The rest are elected to hell. That is not true.

That's not true. There is no equality between the two actions.

Election is always unto salvation. Election is gracious.

Election is free. Election is merciful. Reprobation is not the equivalent.

It is not the other thing on the other side of an equal sign with election.

Election is positive. Reprobation is not. It does not take a positive action of God to reprobate.

It does not take an extension of grace to reprobate. Reprobation involves the exercise of justice and holiness.

Election to salvation involves the exercise of mercy and grace.

They are not equivalent terms, but O 'Gwinn,

Patterson, Rogers, all these people just want to throw it out there, misrepresent it, for the sake of the impact that it has, and you're going to hear this over and over again.

Now, in those 50 volumes, didn't somebody say this? Didn't somebody bring this out?

Isn't this a logical understanding of what the issues are? So why misrepresent it?

What is gained by that? Emotional confusion is gained by that, not the truth.

Before the foundation were a meaning, if that's true, it's not, but if it is, there are people in this world who have no chance, no opportunity, if you don't want to use the word chance, of going to heaven whatsoever, but that's what some

Calvinists believe, not all. In Calvinism, you have what is called single predestination.

Single predestination is where God just elected certain people to go to heaven, and he didn't elect the others to go to hell, but the fact he didn't let them go to heaven, they automatically go to hell, okay?

Double predestination in Calvinism is where God elected certain people to go to heaven and certain people to go to hell.

Notice again, the error of equating the two. Again, I just throw my hands up and go,

I don't know why these people don't know what they're talking about. I don't know what motivates a person to stand in front of people and make this kind of false accusation when they've also stood there and said,

I've studied, I've studied, I've studied, I've studied. I don't understand it. It makes no sense to me, but it is what we have to deal with all the time.

And so the question came up, well, what about infants? Now here's where it gets juicy and funny.

Augustine, the originator, now Calvin came along. Juicy and funny? When you get to the issue of infants?

Excuse me? Picked up his works and revised them. He didn't have enough sense to do that, but Augustine in his work said that all infants went to hell if they died in infancy.

Can you believe that? Can you believe that people would follow someone that stupid and ignorant?

To say that Pastor O 'Gwin's reading of Augustine is less than nuanced might be a tad bit nice on my part, but you know,

I don't remember. Something sort of tells me that 1 ,600 years from now, no one will be reading the works of Danny O 'Gwin, but 1 ,600 years later, people are still reading the works of Augustine.

Now there's a reason for that. The reason being that there are so many of them and there's significantly more to Augustine's view in regards to infants that it is very clear to me

Pastor O 'Gwin has no concept of, no idea. Humility would require

Pastor O 'Gwin to say what I would say. I am not an expert on Augustine's doctrine of infants.

I know a good bit about Augustine's doctrine of the sacraments of the church, his argumentation with Pelagius, the contradictions created by his argument with the

Donatists, and the resultant sacramental theology he developed, but at least I've taken the time to listen to the man.

I really doubt that Pastor O 'Gwin would want to be treated the way that he just treated

Augustine. I can't, don't mind calling, now hear my heart, I'm speaking in love, but I'm going to tell you something dear friends, when

I reveal something that's false, I get excited about it if it's not in keeping with the word of God, but Augustine, Augustine, and like I said,

I've got his early writings, his latter writings, and Augustine said that every time that an infant died, that infant went straight to hell.

Now because people, a thousand years later when John Calvin came along, and by the way, listen to this now.

Have you noticed it's a little bit hard to follow this sermon? That's about the tenth partial sentence that started going one direction and then stops and goes a completely different direction.

That's okay, I do that, that's understandable, but it does make it a little bit difficult to respond to all the different directions that people go.

Listen to this, John Calvin was born in 1618, died in 1658.

I'm sorry, at this point I started laughing. Um, Calvin was born in 1509 and died in 1564, so we're a hundred years off here.

I, something tells me that probably, um, probably one of those 50 volumes actually contained this information, uh, but somehow it didn't make it to the pulpit that morning.

He died in 1609, and James Arminius on the other end of the spectrum, another false leader there, was born in 1560 and died in 1609.

He got the 1560 right, because as I've said many times, I've, I loved, uh, Peter Ruckman's, uh, arguments against Calvinism, wherein he said that Arminius out -debated

Calvin, uh, and I've pointed out a number of times that Arminius was four years old when Calvin died.

So, hey, it's just church history anyways, doesn't really matter, does it? And, uh, you know, what did people do before then?

Huh? Before those men. Don't follow men. Don't follow men.

Go to 1 Corinthians right quickly. I want to show you something right out of the Word of God, okay? Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 right quickly.

I want you to see something here, okay? And I'm pleading with you, because I see,

I see the division, even as Dr. Pentecost admitted, he said, I don't know of anything in the body of Christ that's caused more division than this subject.

Now, look at verse 11 of 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Paul said, For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions, or in other words, divisions among you.

Now I say, now this I say, that every one of you say of, listen to this now, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ.

Look at verse 13 there. Paul says, Is Christ divided among you?

Oh, and I want you to name, to add two names to that list. Paul says, some of you say, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ, I am of Calvin, I am of Arminius, I am of Ogwin.

Friends, when you put those things in there, those names in there, you're following men, and there's division.

It'll cause division every time. Now go right over to chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians there, chapter 3, and look at verse 3.

Paul said, For ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is divisions among you, and in being strife and divisions, he says, are you not carnal and walk as men?

For one saith, I am of Paul, another, I am of Apollos. You could go on and say, another says today,

I am of Calvin, another says, I am of Arminius. Listen to me, dear friend, for God in his word right here is warning us about following after false leaders and false teachers.

Now, did you catch that? You might have started to wander just a little bit there, but listen to what he just said.

Paul, Apollos, Christ are false leaders and false teachers?

No, Pastor Ogwin, that wasn't his point. You missed it there. They were not, and the point is not that they were false teachers promoting false doctrine.

I'm sorry. Sometimes, you know, when folks get all fired up, they say some really silly things.

And some of these right here that he mentioned weren't false, but he's just warning us here about following after him.

He caught it himself. Oh, wait a minute. They weren't false. Well, who are you going to stick in there?

Who were? Where did your point just go? You missed the point totally.

Period, okay? And so then, you know, you don't need to follow after Calvin.

You don't need to follow after Arminius. You don't need to follow Ogwin. You don't need to follow anyone else.

You don't need to follow Billy Graham. You need to follow Jesus. Jesus said, follow me.

Well, that's all very, very nice. That's all very warm, and, you know, there's nobody who is going to disagree with that in any way, shape, or form, but it has nothing to do with, quote, unquote, following Calvin.

This is completely fallacious argumentation that would never stand up for a picosecond in cross -examination, and that's why you'll never find these people interacting with anyone or putting themselves in a position of having to respond to someone in a logical or rational manner.

And he's the only one who, with authority, could make that claim.

And so then, listen carefully, Calvin is saying that election means this, that God elected certain people before the foundation of the world to go to heaven, and that he elected certain people to go to hell.

Folks, that is as false as a $3 bill. And none of you would want a $3 bill if I were to hand it to you, and dear friend, you shouldn't accept that teaching either, okay?

Calvinism says about predestination. I mentioned to you a few minutes ago the single and the double predestination.

Calvinism says that predestination is that people are predestined before the foundation of the world to go to heaven or to go to hell.

Now folks, we're just about to get, I think, if I recall correctly, one of the only references to scripture in this entire tirade, and that's what it is, tirade.

I think that's a fair way of describing this. And we're going to go to a good passage.

We're going to Romans 8. We're going to Romans 8. And you go, oh, golden chain of redemption.

Foreknown. Oh, he's going to do the foreknowledge thing. Of course he is. Is he going to show any knowledge of the distinction between verbs and nouns?

Is he going to take seriously the reforms? No, of course not. I mean, you've heard enough by now. You know he's not going to do that.

But what you're going to get to hear is a portion of the passage. We're not going to hear the rest of Romans 8 about foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified.

That would make it very clear that predestination is directly about salvation.

As you listen to this, ask yourself a question. Because I know the majority of you who are listening to this are

Calvinists. I would like to think that someone would let other people know about this and they could listen themselves and go, wow, that is odd.

Why would, you know, I'm not a Calvinist, but why would anti -Calvinists so grossly misrepresent the opposition?

It doesn't make any sense. But I know most of you are Calvinists, and when you listen to this, your mind's going a certain direction, and you go, ah, misrepresentation, straw man, proves we're right again.

Okay, but think about this for a moment. What kind of attitude, not only toward the

Word of God, but toward the people who are sitting in front of him, is represented in the kind of eisegetical misuse of scripture we're about to hear.

As you listen to this, what must he think of his own audience? That they can't read the next verse?

That they're not going to read the next verse? That they would dare not read the next verse?

Isn't this kind of attitude very subject to abuse within the church? Listen to what happens.

That too is false. You say, how do you know? Go to Romans chapter 8 and verse 28, and I'll show you right out of the

Word of God, okay? Predestination has nothing to do, predestination has nothing to do with going to heaven or going to hell.

It has to do with being conformed to the image of Christ. Now look in Romans chapter 8 and verse 28 and 29, okay?

He says, and we know that all things work together for good of them that love the Lord, those who have called for His purpose, for whom

He did foreknow. You see, election is based on foreknowledge. Are you aware that before the foundation of the world,

God knew who would and who wouldn't, but He didn't select. He didn't select who would and who wouldn't against their will.

But before, because His foreknowledge, God knows all things, you're aware that nothing ever occurred to God.

Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurred to God? Huh? Because He knows all things, okay?

He says, for whom He foreknew, He also did predestinate to go to heaven or to go to hell.

Now is that what verse 29 says? Look at it there. Is that what it says? For whom

He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to go to heaven or to go to hell.

Is that what it says? No. What does it say? Listen carefully. He says, for whom

He did foreknow, He also did predestinate, watch this down, here's where predestination comes in, to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Yes! You know a few minutes ago when I said that I'm a strong believer in predestination? I believe that God predestined before the foundation of the world that every person, whosoever will, would believe in Jesus would be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

See, predestination doesn't have to do with heaven, doesn't have to do with hell. Predestination has to do with being conformed.

It has to do with becoming more like Jesus in your everyday life.

Listen to me, now listen to this carefully. Listen carefully. In order, and I wanted to be one,

I tried to be, but the Spirit of God and the Word of God wouldn't let me be a Calvinist. In order to be a

Calvinist, you'd have to rewrite the Bible and you'd have to rewrite the dictionary.

Now, he goes on from there. He never goes to Romans 830. He doesn't continue the thought.

He doesn't continue the chain, because to do so would be to refute his own point.

Everybody knows that calling and justification and glorification is the exact point he's trying to deny.

That the text says the exact opposite of what he said. And in fact, any thinking person sitting in front of him is going, excuse me, but are lost people?

Are those in hell being conformed to the image of Christ? You see,

I find it absolutely disrespectful to God and to his

Word to so lightly and poorly handle the text while standing in a pulpit.

Let not many of you be teachers, for you will incur a stricter judgment.

I know that there are those who think that the pulpit means nothing. There are those who think it's just a tradition of men, that to stand behind the pulpit, you know, you can just stand up there in your

Birkenstocks and Hawaiian shirts and, you know, we're just all one and there's really nothing special about the proclamation of the

Word of God. I don't believe that. And I believe when you stand behind the pulpit before the people of God, that you will incur a more strict judgment for what you say in that place, because you have been placed there by God as a teacher, as a representative of Christ.

Now, if you had an employee who was so cavalier, so surface level with your instructions as the

CEO, the president of the corporation, so cavalier, showed so little interest for even finishing a sentence so that he could turn your meaning upside down, would you as the

CEO of that corporation have much respect for this employee? Would you keep this employee around?

You would not. You would not. And would the employee be showing respect for the one who placed him in that position to act in such a fashion?

Surely not. Surely not. And so playing around with this kind, with a text like Romans 8, to not even listen to what it says.

Absolutely amazing. Utterly amazing. Of course, that's what Calvinists are doing. You know why?

You see, do you remember that I said a few minutes ago that Jesus died for all? The Calvinists say that his death is limited to the elect.

Now, I'm going to come to that just a moment. Write these words down, okay? Calvinists have formed a little five -point box.

They put God in that box. They won't let him out. They judge everything that they believe and do in light of those five points.

As a matter of fact, listen to me carefully. Now, I just point out in passing, Pastor McGuinn has his five points.

He just refuses to admit it. He refuses to examine them. He refuses to allow them to be identified.

He has his traditions, and his traditions overrule the word of God. That's why you just saw him.

I would like to think without malice, but certainly he did it.

That's why you just saw him torture Romans 8, because that's not his ultimate authority.

His position's not exegetically derived. It's traditionally drived, and that's what leads to eisegesis.

As a matter of fact, I was talking to an individual, a

Calvinist, here not long ago. Ah, here comes our Calvinist. I love how these

Calvinists are represented. Now, here's a man who says he'd never have a Calvinist as pulpit. Here's a man that, to my knowledge, has never interacted with any of us folks in any type of formal way.

Again, I volunteer to come to St. Louis. I'll come to the

Tower Grove Baptist Church. I'll put myself in the position of being in the minority. That's as long as I get equal time, and I will be happy to open the word of God and to dialogue with Pastor O 'Gwin about Romans 8, and about Ephesians chapter 1, and John chapter 6, and John chapter 8, and John chapter 10, and John chapter 7.

I'll be glad to do all those things. I'm being consistent here. Or if Pastor O 'Gwin would like to come out here, maybe we could find a place large enough to host.

I'd be happy to do this, but my experience over time is that the confidence that exists when you have the bully pulpit, that is you and you alone, have the opportunity of speaking without fear of contradiction.

The confidence that exists in that point, in that place, doesn't translate into a debate format.

You might say, well, you aren't even taking calls. I will tomorrow. You know that I do that all the time.

And if Pastor O 'Gwin would like to call tomorrow, we could have a great conversation.

If someone who believes as he believes would like to call tomorrow, we could have a great conversation. Ask Pierre how many times we have had conversations on these issues.

But here comes the imaginary Calvinist. And we were talking about praying for someone to be saved.

And do you know what that Calvinist said to me? Said, well, as I've considered praying for that person, she said,

I've wondered how that fits in with unconditional election. Well, you know,

I can hear a lady just identified as a female who maybe is unfamiliar with the issues surrounding unconditional election and prayer.

That's not a simple subject. You know, the sad thing is, at least we recognize the importance of discussing the relationship that exists between the knowledge of God, the perfection of that knowledge, the creation of time and prayer.

At least we will deal with the issue. It's real easy to just simply say, well, we've got the truth about it and then shut up at that point and not address these issues and not answer questions about how does

God have knowledge of future events? How does God know?

Pastor O 'Gwin says he knows. All right, Pastor O 'Gwin, does that mean you can do something else?

Does that mean that Pastor O 'Gwin, that God knows what you're going to have for lunch today? Can you have something other than what

God knows you're going to have? And what if something you eat for lunch today chokes you and kills you?

Does that mean God had no control over the date of your death? The Bible says that God does, that God not only knows, but that he appoints that time.

You see, Pastor O 'Gwin, your position seems to result in the idea that God created time, but he did not determine the events in time.

It just so happens he won. He rolled the cosmic dice and lo and behold, he won.

He could have lost, but it just so happens that God is lucky. And he rolled the dice and he wins and we now are supposed to glorify him for eternity for being lucky.

That's why God is to be glorified. He's lucky that he happened to win. Because you see,

God's knowledge of events in time is passive. He just sits back and it's sort of like a human being observing an aquarium.

You just look in from the outside and you see the pretty fishies and they're swimming around.

And you know what the fishies do. And since God's eternal, he always knows what all fishies will do.

And he's known from the beginning of time, but that's the extent of God's knowledge. Why would he be glorified for what takes place in that fishbowl?

He only passively takes in knowledge of it. There's no decree. There's no means.

There's no use of means to bring about his ends. So why are we going to be glorifying him for eternity anyway?

Can someone tell me that? That's just a little bit beyond the sermon we're dealing with today.

Doesn't matter how it fits in, dear friends. Doesn't matter how it fits in.

Now listen carefully. Let me give you the five points of Calvinism so you'll know them. And the reason why I want you to know about these is because we, by the way, we are 15 minutes into the presentation on Calvinism, 22 minutes into the sermon.

We're just now getting to the five points. Number one, they're causing more division, more infant strife, and more friction today in the body of Christ and anything else

I know of. And Dr. Pentecost even admitted that. Okay. And then number two,

I want you to know about it because it's false. It's not true. All right. And then in keeping with that, it is a hindrance.

Anything that sidetracks you is a hindrance to evangelism. If people are elected before the foundation of the world to go to heaven or go to hell, why preach?

There you go. Now again, you know, immediately we just, we sigh and we roll our eyes and we go, again.

But I take you back. Spent a year, graduate level, seminary grad, master's degree in theology, 50 volumes, spent a year and doesn't know the answer to the most basic, simple questions about the subject that he is allegedly addressing.

How can that be? How can that, how could he not have read the answer to the objection over and over again?

If he knows what the answer is, then answer the objection. Why preach?

Paige Patterson did the same thing. I was listening to his responses to John Piper. We'll listen to it another time.

If you believe that God has determined who's going to be saved, you're not going to go preach. Why?

Well, it's not enough to believe that God commands you to do so. It's not enough to have the motivation of love.

It's not enough to have the motivation of that great privilege of being an ambassador for Christ. The only real reason that anyone would ever evangelize is guilt.

That's what we've got to have. It's got to be under man's control so we can guilt people into distributing as many copies of the four spiritual laws as we possibly can.

Never mind that that results, almost uniformly in our churches, in a massive turnover rate to where we get people, we dunk them, and then we lose them.

And they end up someplace else. We don't know. We don't care. Never mind that part.

We guilt them into proclaiming the gospel. Wow. Wow. That's what's really behind this kind of assertion.

God can't be free. God can't have a decree. Let's not worry about what the

Bible says about all that stuff. We've got to have our evangelistic program and our revivals.

Why have this church? Why pray? Why have missionaries? An individual came to me after the first service.

I shared this in the first service this morning and said, you know, God showed me many, many years ago as I was preparing for the ministry that if Calvinism were true, there'd be no reason for missions, there'd be no reason for missionaries, there'd be no reason for evangelism, there'd be no reason to witness, there'd be no reason to preach the gospel, because it's already settled anyway.

We may as well just sell this building, go down here on the river, preach to the fish, let the frog sing the doxology.

Wow. Isn't that deep? Isn't that deep? That's the result of a year's worth of study.

A year's worth of in -depth study is that if God has a decree, he cannot use means, he cannot conform people to the image of Christ.

Wait a minute. Didn't he say we're the ones that put God in a box? Sounds to me like Pastor Gwynne just put

God in a box. God can't do any of this stuff. God's got to have us free creatures.

He can't have a divine will. So much for the freedom of God.

Amen? That's right. Now write these down. The first point and the five points of the false doctrine of Calvinism is total depravity.

Five points of the false doctrine of Calvinism. Now there's some truth in Calvinism, and I want to be as kind and nice where I can, okay?

There's some truth. Total depravity. All men are totally depraved. You're totally depraved,

I'm totally depraved. But the Calvinists, when you study that, they go on to make total depravity mean total inability.

And they'll say because man is dead, and they'll use the dead body, which you cannot use to make a spiritual proof, because when you got saved, your body didn't get saved.

It will one day, but it's not saved now. If it is, pull those glasses off and throw them away. Here's some more incredibly compelling argumentation.

You cannot use a physical body to illustrate a spiritual truth, because your physical body is not yet saved, or you wouldn't need glasses.

Think about that one for just a second. Let's see how many times

Jesus used physical things to illustrate spiritual truths.

How many times did the prophets use physical things to illustrate spiritual truths?

Hmm, that argument doesn't hold up very well, does it? Yeah, we got the valley of the dry bones.

Oh, that doesn't work. I can't do that, because you're wearing glasses. You know,

I'd like to think that this particular illustration just sort of popped into Pastor Gwynn's head, and it might be a good reason to not necessarily go with what pops into your head, when it is so completely and utterly, ridiculously false and illogical.

Pull those false teeth out and throw them away, all right? Those store -bought ones, okay? But your body didn't get your soul dead, but your body didn't.

And they say that because a man is dead, that he cannot respond to God.

I take issue with that. God said to Adam in the Garden of Eden, said, the day you eat of the fruit of this tree, you're going to die.

Adam ate. You know what he did? He died. He didn't die physically, but he died spiritually, okay?

Which means you're simply separated from God. But he still had a will, and when God came walking in the garden and said,

Adam, Adam, where art thou? He was able to respond to God. Now, he still had a will.

Is there anyone who denies that? Oh, that's that constant straw man again. Calvinists believe man does not have a will.

An enslaved will is a non -existent will. That means slaves did not exist as human beings. Is that the argument?

No, that doesn't really follow, does it? See, that's why you need to have debates. Ninety -nine percent of what

Pastor Gwynne says in this sermon would evaporate under cross -examination.

Well, no, I didn't mean that. Well, no, I didn't really mean that. Well, no, that doesn't really follow now, does it? Right? Of course.

It would evaporate under cross -examination, and that's part of the fear.

They fear that that would actually take place. The rich man died, was buried, but we read there that a communal father,

Abraham, although he's dead, just separates soul and the body, but listen to me, folks. Now, hold on a second. Now, if he's going to establish this point, having done such an exhaustive study, and read all those books, what would be absolutely positively incumbent upon him, in just simple honesty at this point, what would he have to do?

He'd have to deal with John 644. Wouldn't you? I mean, at least half those books, at least 25 of those books are going to raise the issue of John 644, and besides that, it's in red letters, isn't it?

So, there's got to be explanation for it, right? This is where it's going to be, right? Aware that the soul of man never dies, it'll live on forever.

He said, Father Abraham, and we find that he had all the five senses, so on and so forth, and then the prodigal son, when he came back, the father said, this, my son was dead, but now he's found, he's alive.

But even in his separated condition, his separated state, he could make a decision and respond to God.

Therefore, I disagree with part of that first point, total depravity, although there is a speck, just a speck, but there is a speck of truth in total depravity there, okay?

Man is totally depraved, but it doesn't mean what they say it means, okay? So, they're wrong. Secondly, write down unconditional election.

Well, there you go. There's the depth of this kind of refutation.

Doesn't go any farther than that. That's because there's nothing more to find. There's nothing more in the sermon.

There's nothing more in this position to offer. There's not going to be any exegesis. You're not going to go to the Word of God here. You're going to talk about the

Word of God all the time, but you're not going to exegete, okay? Which means that God unconditionally, before the foundation of the world, elected certain people to go to heaven.

If you're a single predestinationist, you're a double predestinationist, means that God elected certain people to go to heaven and certain people to go to hell.

Listen to this now. Listen carefully. And they call it unconditional election.

Now, I was just telling Rich in our super secret means of communication, we're going to go to 12 .15,

which is only four minutes from now, but this next section is the section I play in the preview. So, I want you to hear,

I want you to listen to the compelling logic of the argument that's about to be presented.

It is absolutely, I just, when I first heard this, I was ready to absolutely throw my

Calvinist card out the window of the car, because I had just never heard such incredible reasoning in my life.

I asked a Calvinist here a while back about that. I said, now that's unconditional election, amen? He said, yes.

I said, well, do those people who are elect have to hear the word of God in order to be saved?

They said, yes, they have to hear it. I said, there's a condition, it can't be unconditional. Right? I asked him another question.

I mean, I just, I have fun with Calvinists. I mean, it's a pet peeve, all right? I could dance up here for a little bit, all right?

I have a ball with it. I asked him, I said, now, these elect that you say they're not, but that you say are elect, do they have to repent?

I said, you know, Jesus said, except you repent, you shall likewise repent. But this unconditional election, those who are elect, do they have to repent?

Oh, yes, they have to repent. I said, there's another condition. Now, I haven't even gotten to the best part yet, but just in case you are just listening to this and wondering what all the stuff's about.

Unconditional election means that God chooses someone not based upon any foreseen fulfillment of a condition on their part, whether it be foreseen faith, foreseen sacramental obedience, foreseen repentance, foreseen penance, whatever it might be, that the choice of one individual is based solely in the good pleasure of God and not in the actions of the individual.

That's why we can say that when we surround the throne of God, we will have been freely chosen, that we are not better, we are not more spiritual, we are not smarter, that there is not the only thing that makes me to differ from someone else is the five -letter word grace, not anything that I did.

That's what unconditional election is all about. Something tells me that at least 49 out of 50 of those books would have explained that had they been read.

So once again, we are stuck with one of two choices, one of three choices. They weren't read, and that was a lie to say they were.

They were read and now we're lying about what they say. Or thirdly, they were read and the person reading them couldn't understand them clear enough to say what

I just said. And what I just said, I didn't have to use big words. I didn't have to use complicated stuff, right?

So those are my three choices. Those are my three choices. Now let me get to the big compelling argument here and then we'll start wrapping stuff up.

It's not unconditional, and they can't do anything with that.

Oh believe me, Pastor Gwynn, we can. Pastor Gwynn, we would love to do something with that if you'd be willing to do so.

Okay, that's the way it is with all man -made doctrines. You say,

Brother Danny, would you let a Calvinist come in here and explain that? No. I expose

Mormonism. I'm not going to call a Mormon in here. Let him explain that. I expose Jehovah's Witnesses.

I'm not going to let a Jehovah's Witness come in here. I'm going to preach the truth from the Bible, the Word, keeping the

Word of God, okay? I'm not going to let, I don't want a Calvinist preaching behind this bullpen. All right?

It's false. Unconditional election makes God more than a monster and man less than a robot.

That's right. The third point, listen to this, is limited atonement. Now, you know...

Tell you what I'm going to do. I think since we are going to, we're going to be continuing this, and we're going to be continuing the examination, the compelling argumentation about all men being sinners actually comes in the limited atonement section, and since there's still, we're at 27 minutes, 20 minutes in, there's still another 15 or more minutes in the sermon to undergo or endure,

I guess you could say, and I do intend on continuing this after I get back from England. I'm going to go ahead and stop it right there as he starts the discussion of limited atonement so that we can have a good starting place next time around.

Radio Free Geneva, giving an answer to those who will not allow a discussion based upon the word of God.

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