The Rebellion of Transgenderism, then, A Challenge Fulfilled

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First half hour or so was on the ascension of transgenderism and the use of the sexual revolution by the left to attack religious freedom in the United States, illustrated in today’s court ruling against the florist in Washington state. Then we transitioned into a discussion of a challenge sent to me from Dr. Leighton Flowers regarding man’s inabilities due to sin, and we spent a full hour working through the key texts that teach the truth on this matter.

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Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. I guess I should start off by thanking whoever it was.
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We just had another package arrive here at the ministry.
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And we don't know who sent it. There wasn't anything in there.
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But it's another Borg cube. So I now have two.
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And given that one Borg cube almost destroyed the entire fleet in First Contact, two, that's only species...
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Oh, I can't remember the name. It's a number. 54721 or whatever it was. Only that species could handle two
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Borg cubes. Actually, it could handle many Borg cubes if you've seen that particular story.
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Anyway, so I don't have any place for a second
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Borg cube. Well, I suppose I could put one behind me. Actually, what
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I've done is I've put the second Borg cube in my office. Because in my office I have the lumen glass.
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The green lumen glass that they used as the Borg regeneration light. I used to have one back there and everybody complained and we had to move it because there are some people who have attention deficit disorder and things like that and they just stare at it.
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And so they complained and so we had to move it. But anyway, it's in my office.
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Actually, there are 1, 2, 3, 4 of them in my office. And so it'll go perfectly right next to the
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Borg regeneration light. So that's what we did with the second
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Borg cube. And I will actually plug that one in. Because even if I have it running as a little fridge,
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I can put my lemon juice in there and that'll be great. And it's so quiet even when
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I'm recording stuff in my office. It won't make any difference. I normally have a fan going in here right now, in fact.
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So it's no big deal. So thank you, whoever that was. We don't need any more.
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We have a sufficient number now. I can just see 3 or 4 more arriving this week. I'm sure you could use one at home, right?
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You couldn't get the wife to go for that, huh? That's a shame. Seriously?
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Seriously? Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah, okay. Anyway, I'm trying to get this thing queued up here, and it just doesn't want to.
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There it goes. It is a very strange program. Anyway, we will get to some video stuff a little bit later on.
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I'm not sure if you saw. I saw it through. It's now
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Alliance Defending Freedom. It used to be Alliance Defense Fund. But Alliance Defending Freedom today, after much anticipation, the
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Washington Supreme Court has punished Baronelle Stutzman for peacefully operating her business consistently with her faith.
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The court's decision affirms a lower court ruling that requires Baronelle to pay the attorney's fees that the
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ACLU racked up in suing her. Often in cases like this, the attorney's fees for each side are hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more.
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Baronelle is a 72 -year -old floral artist who owns and operates Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington.
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Well, there's the problem. Washington, Oregon, California, Massachusetts, New York, and sometimes
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New Mexico. These are the hotbeds of communism in the
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United States, and the black -robed oligarchy that inhabits those states has no concern whatsoever about originalism, the meaning of the
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Constitution, what the Constitution was supposed to mean, the worldview attached to the Constitution, none of that stuff. That's all.
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You can just throw that out. It's no big deal. So what do you expect?
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She serves everyone in her community regardless of their race, sex, religion, or sexual orientation, but even though she serves all people, she cannot use her artistic skills to celebrate all events.
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Well, there's the problem, because what we need to understand is the cultural—
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I guess you can't use the terms jihad or crusade. So the cultural warfare being waged by the left demands that everyone celebrate what the left celebrates.
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So did you see the warning shot fired by someone at the
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NFL to the state of Texas? The state of Texas is considering the common sense legislation that North Carolina passed.
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We know how often North Carolina has been punished by the cultural leftists, and now the
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NFL wants to do the same thing to Texas. Let me tell you something. NFL, NBA, I don't care about you anymore.
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I will never buy any of your stuff anymore, and if you weren't on the TV in the places where I go to eat, like Streets of New York pizza,
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I honestly wouldn't care anything about you anymore. If you want to keep shoving your leftism down my throat, hey, there's a reason
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I don't turn ESPN on anymore either. So hasta la vista, bye -bye. Not interested in what you have to sell anymore, because you're not a sports place any longer.
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You're not into sports. You're into cramming your cultural crusade down my throat.
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But that's the big thing. Have to celebrate all events. In particular, because of her beliefs about marriage, she cannot design custom floral arrangements for a same -sex wedding, although she would be happy to sell pre -made arrangements or raw flowers to couples planning such an event.
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So while she has been glad to serve Rob Ingersoll, a gay man, and one of her all -time favorite customers for nearly a decade, and would be happy to continue doing so today, she could not use her artistic talents for one request to create custom arrangements designed to celebrate his nuptials.
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Now, of course, from a Christian perspective, he can't have any with another man. That is a fundamental denial of the very definition of the word.
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But words don't mean anything anymore. Not in the crazy, insane world of the
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United States today. I don't know who this person is, but I'm getting spammed on. I don't know what in the world.
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I don't know what it is either, but it's now gone. It done been blocked. So there we go.
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But the state of Washington, which first filed a lawsuit against Barronelle, and now the state's highest court, have declared illegal her practice of running her business consistently with her faith.
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Regardless of the fact that she has created dozens of floral arrangements for Rob, she must also produce artwork under circumstances that would violate her convictions.
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Well, I don't know what the next step is. I'm sure that Alliance Defending Freedom will let us know. But did you notice how very, very quickly, very, very quickly, the focus shifted right after Obergefell shifted to from once, once Obergefell redefined marriage and destroyed the fundamental aspects of marriage that were based upon gender.
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That it's a man and a woman. The focus immediately left homosexuality and moved to transgenderism, because that's the next logical step.
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The next logical step in what? In man's rebellion against God's rule over himself.
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If you can overthrow the family and the first institution that God ordained amongst mankind, then the next thing to do is to grant to mankind the capacity and ability to completely redefine who he himself or she herself is, or they themselves.
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I guess you have to use plural pronouns for some people now. I don't know. I was going to try to pull up that ad that I've seen on Facebook regarding this very issue.
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Let me see here. I think Michael Brown actually posted it, so I might be able to pull it out of his feed here.
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Anyway, it immediately moved to the subject of transgenderism, and that now is the big thing, is absolutely demanding the complete and total capitulation of all
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Christians to the leftist idea. Look, this is going to be my point.
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The point is that transgenderism— Now look, there are an incredibly small number of people who, left to themselves, will experience what is called gender dysphoria.
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Very small number. The percentage would be utterly negligible.
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The number of people who would naturally experience a confusion as to whether they are a male or a female.
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Tiny, small number. Those people need help. You don't change your entire society to try to make people who have that problem somehow feel better about themselves without assistance.
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It is very similar to those who have the problem where they don't believe that certain parts of their bodies actually belong on their body.
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That is another mental disorder. It is a mental disorder. If I look at this arm and I go, that's not my arm.
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Yes, I can control it, and I can move it, and I can move the fingers, but that's not my arm.
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I want it cut off. I want to destroy that part of this body because it doesn't belong to me.
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Okay, we recognize there's something wrong in the mental faculties of an individual who cannot recognize their own arm as their arm.
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And we would not, I hope, think that it's a good thing to go, you know, we should not only allow the person to cut off their arm, because happiness is the most important thing in the world.
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Your feelings, your emotions are the most important thing in the world. No, they're not. No, they're not.
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They are not the most important thing in the world. And happiness is not the most important thing in the world either.
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But hopefully we would not then go so far as to say, and we need to ask everyone to start living in such a way to where they don't recognize their arms either, so this person will fit in.
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No, this is foolishness. No society can survive such insanity. And so there are mental problems that people have, but we do not change all of society.
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We do not change what is good for the rest of society just simply to make those people feel better about themselves.
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That's an impossible thing to do. That's destructive to society, and that's why this is being done. There's another group of people, still very small, but they engage in transgenderism or think that they're transgender because their parents have taught them to think this way.
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We've seen this a number of times. It's almost always wildly leftist liberal parents that all of a sudden discover their four -year -old is transgender.
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Now, if you think that a three or a four or a five -year -old can actually even understand what these issues are, you are insane.
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You have the IQ of a wet shoelace. You really do. I'm sorry. But you just aren't living on this planet.
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What color is the sky in your world? And yet we're supposed to all bow down and say,
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Oh, this is wonderful. We're finally understanding this. And, of course, every study that I've ever seen has demonstrated that people who have any kind of gender dysphoria or anything, or even very many people who have homosexual desires outgrow these things when the hormones get in balance, once you actually enter into adulthood.
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So you have— It seems like it just got dark in here. Oh, okay. That was odd.
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So you have a certain number of people who will experience these things.
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But that makes up— I would say that makes up less than 2 % of the people you see parading down the street and claiming to be transgender.
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I would say 98%. 98 % of those who claim to be transgender, etc.,
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etc. It is nothing more than one word. One word.
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Rebellion. It's rebellion. It's rebellion against God. It's rebellion against His law.
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It's against His sovereignty in having made them the way they are, in having defined that they're male or female, and rebellion against the fact that God has a law that says this is how men are to behave, and this is how women are to behave.
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And this is the roles that will lead to human flourishing and happiness. And because they are in rebellion against God and are haters of God, therefore they hate
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His order, they hate His creation, and they want to bring disorder and rebellion and confusion into God's creation and even into their own lives.
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98 % of it. That's what it is. It's pure rebellion. And we see it around us, and now people are trying to use the very force of law to demand that we celebrate rebellion against what actually makes us human and allows us to thrive and to experience happiness as God would define happiness.
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Joy. Abiding peace. We are supposed to celebrate the rejection of these things.
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We can't do so. And as a result, we are now facing these individuals.
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And I might just say, I'm seeing people who seem to think that because of a single election, that this is all going to be taken care of.
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And yet, I've read articles. I've read pieces online from reputable sources.
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There's a lot of less than reputable sources. I've seen articles online that are very troubling.
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For example, LifeSiteNews .com, which sometimes can get a little bit radical on its own site, but yesterday carried an article about Randy Berry, an open homosexual, who has been reinstated by the
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Trump administration as special envoy for the human rights of LGBTI person.
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What's I? Who can keep track of these things? Has been reinstated.
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So, in other words, the State Department is continuing to do what the
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State Department has been doing under the Obama administration, and that is pushing this radically anti -Christian, radically anti -human, rebellious worldview and agenda overseas.
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Using American money to do it. Our tax money. Your tax money. Being used to, you've seen,
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I showed the picture online, that was shown online, of the American flag with the gay pride flag flying right beneath it at our embassies overseas.
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And you wonder why the Muslim world looks at us the way they do. I'm not seeing any change here.
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And Dr. Gagnon has posted an article raising serious questions about Justice Gorsuch's view on homosexuality as well.
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That it is known that he has celebrated the same -sex marriages of people around him and offered places that he owns for these newly married couples, quote -unquote, to go on their honeymoons or things like that.
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See, worldview does not get changed by elections. And what did
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I say last year? What did I say in 2015?
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One of my greatest concerns was I saw a lot of Christians ignoring worldview.
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Ignoring, can you truly say that such and such a person, such and such a candidate, has a worldview?
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Instead of examining their worldview, for some candidates you couldn't figure out what their worldview was because they would not give sufficiently in -depth answers or, frighteningly, were incapable of giving sufficiently in -depth answers to be able to express their worldview.
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Well, we seem to be seeing what happens when you do not have a consistent worldview driving your actions.
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When you throw a little something over there and you throw a little something over there and you throw a little something over there, there's no guiding principle.
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There's no worldview. So, a lot of folks have thought, well, hey, this kind of stuff's not going to happen anymore because of what?
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What evidence is there that there's been some massive repentance? A new enlightenment, where people are recognizing the necessity of a
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Christian worldview. I don't see it. I don't see it anywhere. And the statists, the communists, are still in the judiciary and they're still going to keep doing this very kind of, sort of, gone to sleep, thinking all is well.
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Well, not all is well. And I would assume that, you know,
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I don't know what the next step is for Baronelle Stutzman.
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Maybe if any of my friends at the ADF are listening, maybe they can text me or tweet me as to what the plans are.
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I don't know if this is an appealable thing, given how the courts are set up, if it can go to the
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Supreme Court, if they would want to hope that with a full
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Supreme Court, with Gorsuch on it, that they would have a shot. But I don't know where Gorsuch is going to come out.
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Look, Kennedy was a
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Republican nominee. You just can't tell. Oh, he's just like Antonin Scalia.
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You can't tell what people are going to be like until they're sitting on the court. You can hope, you can ask questions, but you can't tell.
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And when you look at what's going on in the judiciary, the communists recognize that the way of destroying this cultural system is through the judiciary, and that's what they're doing.
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That's exactly what they're doing. And we're seeing that happening, and you must understand, their goal is the destruction of the family and the destruction of any type of Christian worldview regarding mankind.
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Because once you destroy our view of ourselves as creatures of God, there's no basis for our legal system, there's no basis for law, ethic, and morality, there's no basis for liberty, and therefore, the only thing left for us is the state, and the state becomes all.
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And that's what they want. They want the state to be all things. It's Brave New World and 1984 mish -mashed together.
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I guess mash -up is the new term, where you mix stuff together, mash them up.
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And mash -up 84 with Brave New World, and that's what we're looking at. That's what we're looking at.
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It's all around us. So, a lot of stuff's been going on, and it's incredible.
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We have to continue praying, and teaching, preaching. We produced a nice new tool, not we,
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Red Grace Media, for helping to reach out to this society. If you haven't seen
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Unpopular the movie yet, you need to, and get those cards. I haven't gotten mine yet.
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I tried to order them. Hey, 1MillionTracks guys, where are my cards? I'm pretty much out.
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So, I need my cards, but you can get them at 1MillionTracks .com,
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and get the little cards with the material on it, the
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URL, etc., etc. Get folks to listen to Unpopular the movie, and that might help us to get to this next generation, and start to speak to them.
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Now, with that said, I have a video, and I should be sending it to you.
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Do you have it? Alright. I was going to take the time beforehand, but I didn't.
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I did yesterday. But, a couple times on Twitter yesterday,
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I was sent a particular quotation, and I said, you know, that might be something worth taking the time to review.
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Here's the quotation. I challenge... I think it's in the actual text, it's an actual spoken word.
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It's James White. To biblically establish spiritual deadness as equaling moral incapacitation to respond to God.
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This is from Dr. Leighton Flowers. My initial response was,
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I wrote a book about that. He well knows it, because he stole its title and cover for his own evolving response over time.
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If you go look at Leighton Flowers' website, if you go look at, for example, his YouTube channel,
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I have been criticized for just being terrible and horrible and nasty to Leighton Flowers. I've used terms like stalker and one -string banjo.
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Well, the fact of the matter is, if you look at his
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YouTube page and take everything out that has to do with me, or Calvinism, I'm not sure there will be anything left.
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There is a, shall we say, extreme focus on Dr.
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Flowers' part upon Calvinism as a whole, and me in particular.
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Now, I suppose the reason for this is that this webcast and The Potter's Freedom and Drawn by the
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Father and God's Sovereign Grace, these resources have had an impact in Southern Baptist circles and a large impact in Southern Baptist circles and continue to have a large impact in Southern Baptist circles.
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And so certain Southern Baptist leaders down in the heart of Texas have sought to counteract that influence for many years.
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I have spoken in churches that have been founded by graduates of certain seminaries in the
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Dallas -Fort Worth area, where the elders read
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The Potter's Freedom while students in those seminaries, but had to do so in brown paper covers because they knew that, basically, that type of book would be greatly frowned upon.
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And so, evidently, Dr. Flowers is the anointed or contracted individual to invest his time in responding to whatever
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I say in the midst of whoever Go Green is, I really want to find a way to block you.
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To find a way to respond to everything that I say in regards to Calvinism and to issues related thereto.
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And, evidently, our debate on Romans 9 did not exactly exhaust the subject.
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And so I started getting these comments. I challenge
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James White to biblically establish spiritual deadness as equaling moral incapacitation to respond to God that was followed with good luck, it doesn't exist, as far as I'm concerned.
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Well, of course, as far as Leighton Flowers is concerned, means that you can utterly disregard the obvious context of John 6,
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John 10, whatever it might be, to come up with special pleading excuses for how to get rid of John 6, how to get rid of John 10.
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And always, the ultimate priority is the fundamental issue of the autonomous will of man, that there is no divine decree and it just has to be that way.
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So what I did is I took the time to... Well, I didn't. Matt Estes, I told him
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I'd blame him for this, so I guess I have to be a man of my word. Matt Estes was the one who told me about it, and then he sent me the
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YouTube link, and I was like, I don't have time to listen to all this. He said he actually timed... I should have even seen it, because I see that even on TweetBot, I can see the question mark
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T equals. I should have noticed that. If you're going to send me, do what Matt Estes did.
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Thank you, Matt. If you're going to send me something to watch, time index it for me. I don't have time. How long is this thing?
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I don't even know how long it is. Probably over an hour. It's not only not having the time, but interest as well.
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But he time indexed it for me, and so that helped a lot to be able to look at it.
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But I want to play the immediately preceding context up to this.
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And then I've decided this is what's called a teachable moment.
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It's an opportunity to address an important issue. Like I said, we have those students at various seminaries, including
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Southwestern. They've packed the pillows around the doors.
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The window shades are drawn. They are piping some type of sound cover toward the door and the hallway, and they're listening via Bluetooth headphones to the dividing line today.
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So for folks like that, who appreciate the encouragement despite the constant discouragement coming their direction in regards to their
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Reformed faith, good opportunity to address an important subject because let's be honest.
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I almost brought it in. I forgot to do so. I'm sorry. But that gentleman right there.
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Right there. There we go. I'm tickling him in the stomach there. Martin Luther, the first written debate of the
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Reformation with Erasmus. Erasmus was very pro -Luther initially, but what did he end up debating on?
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The issue of the nature of man's will. And I did see, it was interesting,
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I did see a video on Leighton Flowers' page. Is Reformation Day for Southern Baptist traditionalists or something like that?
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Because I've pointed out, look, on this fundamental issue, this primary issue, they are on Rome's side.
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They're with Erasmus. They're with the Pope. They're against Luther on this subject.
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And you're going to hear, interestingly enough, you're going to hear Leighton Flowers here talking about Pelagian issues and Roman Catholic issues and saying, well, we need to take the best of these systems and filter out the bad.
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It's almost like, well, hey, you know, we recognize that, yeah, we do have some things in common here.
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But, you know, we're trying to filter out the bad stuff. Okay. All right. Well, let's take a listen.
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And then I hope you got your Bibles ready because we're going to be looking at some texts of Scripture. So here we go.
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He was holding to the baptismal regeneration of infants. We don't believe that. Yet you appeal to a council by appealing to the label
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Pelagianism to dismiss your opponents. Listen, I say you strain out the good and the bad of both sides.
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You look at both Pelagius and you look at Augustine and you take the good. You can call me a semi -Augustine if you want.
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I want to take the good of Augustine and the good of Pelagius if he had good teachings.
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I want to take the good of both of those sides and say, what's the biblical middle? Same with Rome. You can say, oh, he believes something that's similar to Rome.
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I want to take the good parts of what Rome did hold to and I want to keep those biblical good truths and strain out the bad.
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Just so you understand, the biblical good truths that Rome held to was the idea of synergism and the autonomy of man's will.
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Let's just make sure we're all catching exactly where the dividing line here is.
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This whole thing that's caused so much division within the church is based upon, in my estimation, a false view of how
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God works and how God has decreed his plan, has brought about his plan for the redemption of man by making mankind ultimately incapable of responding to his own word.
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It just seems to me that that would have been something that he would have mentioned, if it were true, when
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Adam and Eve fell. Not only do you have to toil the soil, Adam, and not only,
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Eve, are you going to have labor pains, but by the way, all of your children are going to be born God -haters with a moral incapacity to respond to my own voice calling them to be reconciled from that fault.
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Just so you know. I know that's a little bit worse than the fact that you've got to go trim your bushes later today, but I failed to mention the fact that all of you guys would be born with a moral incapacity to respond to me from now on.
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Again, I think it's a huge stretch. And again, I know Calvinists appeal to the deadness of man. I've got an article on my blog, on Sociology 101, that goes through all the references to being dead, and not a single one of them reference moral incapacity to respond to God himself.
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Not a single one of them. Every single time there's a reference to being dead, there's still the assumption of the human responsibility to respond to the warning.
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Now, by the way, just really quick, I'll address this later on. You do realize, hopefully, if you reform, you see the continuous straw man that is a part of traditionalism.
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No matter how many times you correct them, it doesn't matter, they will not change their straw man misrepresentation of the other side.
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Because it's part of the very definition of who they are. They can't. It was in the statement that we're going to hear here in a moment.
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I'm going to get back down to it here in my Twitter feed. I challenge
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James White to biblically establish spiritual deadness as equaling moral incapacitation to respond to God.
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Now, how long has this been out?
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Well, coming up on 17 years. This is a second edition, of course.
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But did I in any way anywhere in this book say that man cannot respond to God?
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No, in fact, what I said was man always responds to God and always in the same way.
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That is, as a rebel. Man responds to God all the time. By suppressing the truth.
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I had an entire section where I talk about the mechanism by which man suppresses the truth of God.
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Mechanisms. Religion, whether it's Roman Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secularism, apathy, hedonism.
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Man has come up with a large number of ways to respond to God and to his word and to his law.
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But what's the issue? We do talk about incapacity. But it's not incapacity to respond to God.
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It's incapacity to do what is right in the sight of God.
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Specifically, to do what only a heart of flesh would be capable of doing.
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Submission to God's law. Acting in righteousness. This is not something that rebel sinners do or are even capable of doing.
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And yes, as we will see, the Bible teaches this. Clearly. But you have to straw man it.
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And that's what Norman Geisler did. That's one of the things I pointed out in the book. I said in the book, if you've read
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Chosen but Free, then you think that man has no will at all. That we're just automatons.
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That's what you've been told Calvinists believe. But not only did Norman Geisler misrepresent
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Reformed Theology, but Leighton Flowers misrepresents Reformed Theology. And until they stop doing it, they'll keep making more
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Calvinists. But they can't. Because it's definitional of their system. It's definitional of their position.
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So I just wanted to point that out as we are going along here. You're relating of how you can become dead.
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That death gives birth to—that sin gives birth to death, as James chapter 1 talks about. That, as Paul talks about in chapter 7 of Romans, that once I became a law,
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I became dead. I died once I became aware of the law. It wasn't talking about a natural condition from birth, and it definitely wasn't talking about a moral incapacitation to respond to God.
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The church in Sardis was called dead. And then he said, wake up, church. Dead doesn't mean the moral act of going against what you should do, and that you need to come home as the prodigal son was lost, and now he's found.
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He was dead, and now he's alive. What does that mean? That he was morally incapable of coming home all along?
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No. It means that he was in rebellion, and he needed to repent. That's what spiritual deadness is all about.
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And this just reading onto the text that spiritual deadness must mean the moral incapacity to respond to God himself is simply assumed by the
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Calvinists. It's never biblically established. I challenge James White and any other Calvinist to biblically establish spiritual deadness as equaling moral incapacitation to respond to God himself.
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Good luck. It doesn't exist as far as I'm— Okay, there it is. Good luck. Doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.
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All right. Okay. Well, we've been challenged. Let's go to the
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Word, shall we? Romans 8, beginning at verse 1.
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Therefore, there is—what? Oh, you want me to send that over to you as well.
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All right. Oh, that's not easy to do. Accordance.
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There. That should have it. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the
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Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed or set you free from the law of sin and of death.
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For what the law could not do—and notice the use of adunaton, that idea of dunamis, ability, capacity, dunati, is going to appear in a number of these texts we're going to be looking at.
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For what the law could not do, weak as it was, diates sarcas, because of the flesh,
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God did himself in sending his own
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Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.
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In order that the requirement, the dikaioma, the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, and who is us, the ones who are not walking according to flesh, but according to spirit.
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For, verse 5, those who are according to the flesh are minding the fleshly things, the things that are fleshly, but those according to spirit are minding, borrowing the verb from the previous phrase, are minding the things of the spirit.
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For the minding of the flesh is death, but the minding of the spirit is life and peace.
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So there is a fundamental difference between the minding of the flesh and the minding of the spirit.
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Verse 7, because the minding, and New American Standards says mindset on, but you see phranema, it is a mindset, it is the way that the mind functions, the minding of the flesh is what?
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Hostile, enmity, hostile toward God, aisteon. Why? Why would the minding of the flesh be hostile toward God?
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Well, there's a thing called the law of God, and I honestly believe that one of the reasons that you have the rise of, the popularity of such sub -biblical soteriology amongst evangelicals is because of the fundamental antinomianism of so much of evangelicalism, such a low view of God's law.
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Having a high view of God's law is not being a legalist, by the way. In fact, being a legalist is a low view of God's law, when you think about it.
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God's law is vitally important. It's something we should think about regularly. It's something we should know about.
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But for many evangelicals today, we're not under law, we're under grace, right?
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So, why should I worry about any of that stuff? Well, the mind set upon the flesh, the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God, for it is not subject to, hupotasso, to be subject to, to be in subjection to, it is not subject to the law of God, ude gar dunatai, for it is not even able to be subject to the law of God.
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Now, just stop for a moment. The mind set upon the flesh, the mind set upon the flesh, is enmity toward God, the enemy of God.
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But, I ask you, in your view of man, do you believe that the unregenerate mind of man is capable, in the state of unregeneracy, spiritual death, separation from God, enmity of God, to subject itself to the law of God?
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Now, what is the law of God? Does the law of God include repentance and faith?
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Does God's law demand that we believe He exists and that we repent of our sins and turn to Him?
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Well, of course. Of course. So, the fundamental explanation that the apostle is given of this vast chasm that exists between those who are according to the flesh and those who are according to the
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Spirit, which he's going to explain as being between being a
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Christian and a non -Christian. If you're indwelt by the Spirit of God, you belong to Christ. That's what he's going to say.
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Look at verse 9. I'll come back to verse 7, but look at verse 9 following. However, you are not in the flesh, but in the
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Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
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If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. This is talking about whether you are in Christ or whether you're not.
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These are soteriological issues. You can't try to say, well, he was just talking about something else and carnal
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Christian stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the context.
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So, what is the teaching of verse 7? It does not subject itself to the law of God.
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It is not even able to do so. It is not... Ude gar dunatai does not have the capacity to subject itself to the law of God.
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Now, you either believe that or you don't. You either believe it or you don't. And what we see in any synergistic system is that on the one hand, the synergistic cooperation of that will with the
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Spirit of God to bring about ultimate salvation has to find some way of dismissing these texts.
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They're not deriving their theology from these texts. They're going to find some way of saying, well, no.
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Because this is, again, notice the difference between the texts that we cite, which are direct texts addressing the subject, and so often the texts that are used by the synergists, which are, well, look at this over here, and this must mean this.
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Look at this parable here. And this person in this parable could not have done this unless this is true. See? And so they're inferences, and inferences can be a valid category as long as they are consistent, hermeneutically speaking, with the conclusions that come in the same subject from those texts that directly address the subject.
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What we have here is you ignore the direct didactic texts and you draw inferences from other texts by which you then overthrow the direct teaching of the didactic texts, the teaching texts.
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So you have to be able to do so. You have to explain to us, what does this mean? What is this saying?
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It is not even able to do so, and those, verse 8,
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Hoy de ensarchyontes, the ones who are in the flesh, to please
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God not capable, not able. Now, it is not a, it's not a joke for me to then ask the simple question, is
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God pleased by saving faith and repentance?
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Is God pleased by someone humbling themselves before God? But, but, but, but, the
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Bible commands us to do these things. I know. But those who are in the flesh cannot do what is pleasing to God.
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They cannot subject themselves to the law of God. So you have to recognize God's law commands these things, but the commandment does not, does not, does not mean that in the fallen state, man has the capacity to fulfill the commands.
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This was what Augustine was arguing with Pelagius. And you are on Pelagius' side if you say, as long as the law commands it, we are capable of doing it.
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Because you're ignoring sin. You're ignoring the federal headship of Adam, which you may even reject, as a number of traditionalists do in Romans 5.
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But, as long as you're willing to say, yep, we're with Pelagius on this one, as long as the law commands us to do it, then that must mean we have the capacity to do it.
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Okay. Then what do you do with verse 8? Those who are in the flesh cannot please
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God. Yes or no? Well, are we going to introduce some kind of concept of, some kind of idea of prevenient grace to where you're sort of not in the flesh any longer?
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Is there a third category in Romans 8? No, you're either in the flesh or you're in the spirit.
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There's only two categories that are there. Trying to find some third option, not going to work.
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Not going to work. Those who are in the flesh cannot please
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God. Now, am
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I not using the exact same hermeneutical principles and methodologies that I would use in defending the deity of Christ with a
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Muslim or a Jehovah's Witness? Of course. Defending the
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Trinity, resurrection? Of course. So, if you have to use a different hermeneutical methodology to get around these things, than you would use to defend the deity of Christ, something like that, that is an indication of your tradition.
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That's an indication of your tradition. But that seems to be a very negative view of man until you go back through.
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And it's funny. My first response, my first response to the question was, you know,
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I sort of addressed this whole issue in my book.
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And I gave a number of texts. Let's just remind ourselves of just a few that provide the background of what
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Paul is saying in Romans 8. In Genesis 6 -5, then Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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Now, I've had people say, no, it wasn't that bad.
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That's hyperbole. This is just an explanation of why
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God's judgment was so strong. But there are still good people around.
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Well, is that why after the judgment happens in Genesis 8 -21,
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Yahweh smelled the soothing aroma and Yahweh said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man.
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For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.
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So, even after the destruction of mankind, Yahweh says within himself, the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.
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Who do you think is a better person to believe on this matter? Yahweh, who sees all hearts, or mankind, who has an incredible capacity of self -deception.
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In fact, the older I get, the more examples I have presented to me of our capacity for self -deception, which only convinces me more and more of the importance of a constant exposure to the
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Word of God and the absolute necessity of grace. Absolute necessity of grace.
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You know, one of the prophets who had such a deep insight into the heart of man, the weeping prophet,
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Jeremiah. He made some pretty strong statements about this as well.
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Jeremiah chapter 13, verse 23. Can the
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Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
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Now, of course, I know what the explanation is. But not everybody is accustomed to doing evil. Well, actually, yeah, we are.
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If you admit that we sin every day, then you're accustomed to doing evil. And so, what's the point of the prophet?
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Well, you can do good if the leopard can change his spots and the Ethiopian his skin.
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Well, the leopard's spots are definitional of what the leopard is. The Ethiopian's skin is definitional of who the
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Ethiopian is. Can't change it by an act of their will. But, of course, according to modern -day
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Southern Baptist traditionalists, you can. You're able to humble yourself. You're able to do these things.
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You are able to do good, even though you're accustomed to do evil. I mean, they literally have to contradict the prophet.
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180. Yes, you can. Don't listen to that. You can do that. Same prophet said,
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The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? Isn't the heart where the very seat of our actions and decisions come from?
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You think so. You know, the psalmist said in Psalm 51, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin.
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My mother conceived me. What are you going to do with that? What does that mean? I mean, in our modern humanistic day, that's not going to be very popular.
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But that is the teaching of Scripture. The wicked are estranged from the womb. These who speak lies go astray from birth.
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Psalm 58 .3. And, of course, again, what does the normal synergist do with these texts?
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It's just only talking about certain people. You can't universalize these things. That's what Pelagius was saying as well.
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Because Pelagius had to come up with a way for man to be able to have these capacities and these abilities.
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The reality is that when you walk through Romans chapter 3 and you get to that final catena of passages that the apostle draws from the
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Old Testament, if you can listen to this and say, ah, but that doesn't have anything to do with the will.
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That doesn't have anything to do with the capacity of man. Well, let's see.
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As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands.
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Let me ask you something. Do you need to understand the truth to be able to act on the truth? You think this sin issue does impact behavior and capacity?
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There is none who seeks for God. Is that just a hyperbole? Is that just, certainly there are those who seek.
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There have to be God -seekers. According to Paul, all have turned aside.
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Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one.
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None who does good. But Job was upright. Again, I heard
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Dave Hunt do this. Dave Hunt went full bore Pelagian a number of times at various Calvary chapels back in the early 2000s.
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Sure there are people who does good. That thing in Romans 3, that's just hyperbole. Remember, the conclusion, the interpretation provided by the apostle of his own words at the end of Romans chapter 3 is, we have concluded that all are under sin so that all can stand before God justified by faith in Jesus Christ.
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So it's not, well, it's just some people, or this is just all hyperbole. That's not Paul's understanding. Their throats is an open grave, but their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, but these mouths are able to just stop being full of cursing and bitterness and become full of blessing by themselves.
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They have that capacity. They have that power is what we're being told. Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.
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There is no fear of God before their eyes. Don't you think, if the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, if there is no fear of God before their eyes, are you seriously telling me that does not impact the abilities and capacities of man?
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Again, remember, the challenge was to do something we don't believe. We do believe that man responds to God, but this is how man responds, with bloodshed and suppression and rebellion.
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The issue is, can the rebel sinner, in and of himself, effectuate his own spiritual resurrection, submit himself to the law of God, exercise saving faith and repentance, so as to enable
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God to save him? Or does God save? It's not a false dichotomy.
01:01:25
Those are two different statements. Those are two different statements. So you see, there was an
01:01:30
Old Testament background there. Paul expanded upon his statements that he gave there.
01:01:49
I wish, someday, the guys at Accordance, you need to put in a filter that allows you to misspell, just slightly, a book thing.
01:02:02
It'll still pop one up. Even if it's the wrong one, it's better than that sound. Ephesians chapter 2.
01:02:10
I love what's happening on Twitter right now. This is one of the things I hate about Twitter. I'm not discussing anything, but they keep tagging me.
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I haven't said a word about this, and they're arguing about stuff from, who knows, that I've said not a word about.
01:02:25
That's the one thing about Twitter that makes it almost something you just want to get rid of. I keep saying to people, don't tag me in conversations that I'm not involved with.
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Doggone it. But they don't care. They sit, reply, reply, reply, and don't even bother to see who's in the tagline.
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It's extremely rude. In fact, boink, Twitter's gone.
01:02:46
I just put it down. Which means there are some people whose comments
01:02:52
I'd like to comment on, but hey, my screen's filled with stuff who are arguing about bakers. It's like, oh, shit.
01:02:59
Anyway, Ephesians chapter 2. There's total privacy in Twitter as well. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the coarsest world, according to the prince, the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
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Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
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Now, here is one of those texts that speaks of deadness. And it doesn't seem that it's just merely separation.
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Instead, it's the entire spiritual nature of the children of wrath.
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They walk according to the coarsest world. No, no, no. Come on, Paul, you're being too extreme.
01:03:51
Not all of them do. Being dead doesn't mean that all of them walk according to the coarsest world, because that would mean that spiritual deadness impacts capacity, because it would mean that everybody who is spiritually dead behaves in the same way.
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We can't have that. Oh, yeah, it's exactly what we have to have, if you believe the Bible, anyways.
01:04:11
According to the coarsest world, according to the prince, the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
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Among them, we all too formerly lived in the lusts of the flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
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Wait a minute. This sounds like, this is talking about the entirety of man's existence and experience.
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Yeah, it is. We were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Now, that's a pretty bad description, but thankfully, verse four begins, but God, not, not but us.
01:04:55
Verse four has to start with, but we took advantage of what God offered, which is what makes us different.
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No, but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.
01:05:18
You say that deadness and sin has nothing to do with capacity. Tell that to the apostle
01:05:24
Paul. Tell that to the apostle Paul.
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You don't see that there? And we, being dead in our transgressions, cooperated with the grace of God so that God might save us.
01:05:45
That's the traditionalist position. That's what Light and Flowers believes. We cooperated with God.
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We had that capacity. We humbled ourselves. It's not what Ephesians 2, 5 says.
01:05:59
And we being dead in our transgressions. And please notice this nice long word here, sunezoapoyason, has as its subject, he, not we.
01:06:24
We did not make ourselves alive. He made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
01:06:38
This is all the work of the Father through the Son, the Spirit. It's triune work, but this is all
01:06:45
God's work. He made us alive. He wasn't standing there going, oh,
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I hope this person, you know, I hope they'll accept me. He had the power to do that.
01:06:58
We're dead in our transgressions. We're sitting there in the filth of our sin. He made us alive.
01:07:07
That's the Christian confession. That's the confession of the heart that recognizes outside of God's powerful grace,
01:07:15
I would never have been saved. That's the power of the gospel.
01:07:21
And that's the power of the gospel that is fundamentally compromised by synergism. Oh, so he must not be saved.
01:07:28
I didn't say that. I'm trying to help them to see that. And you know what? Over the past, well, let's see, this book's been out coming up on 17 years now.
01:07:42
Bunches of people have come to see that, not because that book said they weren't
01:07:48
Christians, but because it said they were and called them to a higher standard of consistently believing God's word.
01:07:54
That's why I detest hyper -Calvinism. That's not how you approach folks.
01:08:04
So, God made us alive. Nothing about our capacity, nothing about our cooperation.
01:08:12
We're dead in sin, God makes us alive. I sort of think that's pretty relevant as well.
01:08:21
Let's look at a couple others while we're in the Bible. Parallel passage in Colossians, Colossians 2 .13,
01:08:35
when you were dead in your transgressions and circumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
01:08:53
Now, this is just a deep, deep passage. And I was honestly concerned by some comments that my dear brother
01:09:07
Michael Brown made in response to the hyper -grace position, because I do believe that what is nailed to the tree is not merely our past sins.
01:09:26
The very basis of justification is the imputation of Christ righteous to us and the imputation of our sins to him.
01:09:35
There doesn't have to be a continuing re -imputation of sins to Christ. So, we experience forgiveness of sin in time, just as I died with Christ at Calvary, but I did not experience that until time.
01:09:57
That's the only way that God can deal with future believers, is that he joins them with Christ.
01:10:02
That doesn't mean that I was justified at the cross, but the certainty of my justification was established that time, as long as you have a
01:10:12
Christian theology of God. As long as you have a Christian theology of God, where God has a decree that he's working out and can say what the future is going to be, not mere foreknowledge.
01:10:24
Oh, you mean that doctrine of God thing even has something to do with soteriology? Yeah, it really does, doesn't it?
01:10:30
Even justification. Hmm. Important stuff. But notice, you are dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh.
01:10:42
But once again, the exact same word used here that was used in Ephesians, because they were written at the same time and sent along together, he made you alive together with him, your resurrection is his resurrection, having forgiven us all our transgressions.
01:11:02
That's what God does. And there's nothing there, nothing there that you enabled him to make you alive by your exercise of faith, your humbling yourself, etc.,
01:11:13
etc., etc., etc. It's a difference between God -centered preaching and man -centered.
01:11:20
A God -centered gospel and a man -centered gospel. And you can hold on to your man -centered gospel all you want, but you will not be able to consistently defend it against those that attack the
01:11:32
Christian faith. You will always end up having to use a different standard.
01:11:39
Different standard. That's why I can't believe it. Well, that was just all
01:11:45
Paul. Right? You know, I've told this story before, within, oh,
01:11:55
I don't know, two, three years when we got married, coming up in 35 years now, my wife and I, within two to three years,
01:12:05
I think, what was that guy's name? Wow. You can tell when three and a half decades have passed.
01:12:13
What was that carpet cleaner's name? You remember what I'm talking about, that big controversy amongst
01:12:19
Southern Baptists? And Kelly and I went to Dallas and attended his seminar, and then
01:12:26
I reported on it at the church. Milton Greene. Milton Greene.
01:12:32
Man, no one's heard of Milton Greene in forever. But Milton Greene. Was it?
01:12:40
Okay. Milton Greene was a popular guy for a while. And a man, a deacon at the church we were at,
01:12:54
I remember back then I wasn't going to Reformed Church, and so the deacons were basically the elders.
01:13:00
There was confusion amongst many Southern Baptist churches about the difference between a deacon and an elder.
01:13:08
Anyway, my wife worked for a deacon at the church, and part of what this
01:13:18
Milton Greene was teaching was a denial of the eternal security of the believer. And so he asked me out to a
01:13:25
Mexican restaurant with Kelly for me to explain to him why
01:13:31
I believe in eternal security. And so when we got to it, the
01:13:36
Bible said, well, let's look at what Paul says in Ephesians 1 .14. I was going to talk about the spirit as the
01:13:43
Arabon, the down payment that God makes, which indebts God to the completion of the transaction.
01:13:51
That's what an Arabon was. And so I was going to start there. He says, no, no, no, no. If it's not in red letters,
01:13:57
I don't want to see it. And this was one of my first experiences with what
01:14:03
I call hyper red letterism, which is one of the reasons why even in my computer programs today,
01:14:09
I make sure I always check that little tick box, turn off red letters, because it's all
01:14:16
Theanostas. It's all Theanostas. Even 1 Chronicles 2618 is
01:14:21
Theanostas. Look it up. You'll see what I mean. You say it really fast.
01:14:32
It sounds like you're speaking in tongues, but I don't want to freak everybody out. But you do have some hyper red letterists out there.
01:14:41
So did Jesus teach this? Well, he most assuredly did. He most assuredly did.
01:14:47
And we're not going to have time to go through everything. And we all know that the traditionalists have started to come up with some pretty amazing ways to get around Jesus's statements, especially in the
01:15:04
Gospel of John. Specifically, well, this was just for that time. This was just about the apostles.
01:15:11
This was just about the Jews in that day. The problem is there are tremendous promises that the church down through the ages has always recognized are universal in their scope.
01:15:27
I mean, if you're going to say, well, you can't go to John 6 and Jesus's specific statement, specific statement, you are not able to come to me.
01:15:38
You're not able to come to me. You're unbelievers. You're not able to come to me. Leighton Flowers is well aware of that text.
01:15:44
And so what he says, this was a specific hardening. It was specific people. It doesn't have anything to do with us today. Well, here's
01:15:50
John chapter 3, because that had to do with Nicodemus. And John chapter 10 is just the
01:15:57
Jews in the temple. And John chapter 8 were just the false witness. You can get rid of everything in any book by using that kind.
01:16:06
And again, Leighton Flowers would never defend the deity of Christ utilizing that kind of thing. Well, this is just Jesus just revealing himself that way, that type, that group at that time.
01:16:15
Wouldn't do it. When you use different standards, use different means of exegesis, it's a big flag that says,
01:16:22
I'm defending a tradition here. I'm defending a tradition here. But one of the texts that is very directly relevant to capacity to do what is good, but demonstrating that man does have the capacity to respond to God, but he does so in rebellion.
01:16:41
It's John chapter 8. And let me see here.
01:16:50
You know, you know the story. There are men who believe, you know,
01:16:55
Jesus is in dialogue with the Jews. There are certain people hear what he says. They believe in him, but then Jesus presses upon them.
01:17:02
Said they believe in him, but it wasn't a present tense. It wasn't that ongoing action. It was a point action type thing.
01:17:09
So Jesus knows when you have that kind of faith, it's not real faith. So he presses upon them. If you continue my word, then every disciples indeed, you shall know the truth, truth shall make you free.
01:17:18
And as soon as he mentions there being the need to be set free, rebellion kicks in because man, man always rebels against the idea of my needing to be set free.
01:17:30
And so they now join the opposition to Jesus. And Jesus says to them in verse 43, why do you not understand what
01:17:47
I am saying? Literally it's my speech,
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Lalion, my speech. Why do you not know or understand my speech? Because you are not able, there's
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Dunetai again, Dunetai, Akoin ton logon ton emon. You are not able to hear my word.
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You're not able to hear my word. Now the synergist must say, everyone is able to hear his word.
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They may default to some kind of, again, a prevenient grace type idea.
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But if it's prevenient grace, then that grace enables everyone to hear his word. And in that clip
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I played, this, you know, these Calvinists, they just assume this, they just read it. No, it's right there in the text.
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It's in the direct words of Jesus. Why can you not hear that? It is because you can not hear my word.
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Oh, that was just the Jews of that day. And, and, you know, so the crucifixion would take place.
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It doesn't have anything to do with anybody else. Anybody else in the same situation who hears the words of Jesus, the cross would appear.
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That, that's the argument. Nowhere does John ever make that argument. But that's the desperation of the traditionalist movement.
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But then notice, you are of your father, the devil. You wanted the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning. Does not stand the truth because there's no truth in him.
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Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature. For he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me.
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He's talking to unbelievers. And unbelievers, when they're faced with the truth of God and the spirit of God does not work in bringing them to spiritual life.
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And when I say not work, that means by his sovereign choice, not by an incapacity or something. This remains true today.
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I mean, I've had, I've had conversations. I've seen conversations with Jewish people react the exact same way.
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Has nothing to do with bringing about the crucifixion now, does it? No. Notice what he says.
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Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? And the answer from the traditionalist is because we've chosen not to.
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But we could choose to. Now they either say, well, none of this has anything to do with it.
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We can't, we can't draw anything from this today. This text, we can actually stop studying it. Because once we've realized that this was just about back then, then we can forget it.
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It's not relevant anymore. It doesn't have any application. But to those of us who are not willing to take that type of radical stance, which one of you convicts me of sin?
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If I speak truth, why are you not believing me?
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Now what's the answer of the synergist? Well, there can be lots of answers. Well, you know, message hasn't been properly presented to him.
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Oh, Jesus wasn't presenting it to him clearly enough? Didn't use the right number of praise choruses beforehand to soften up the mind.
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Don't have the right color coordination in the church pews. Or more seriously, well, it's a cultural thing.
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You know, it's all about the culture they were in or language or education or economic issues.
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I mean, the answers are many. Why are you not believing me?
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Jesus' own answer is, I'm not the most... The one who is from God.
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He who is of God is hearing the words of God.
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For this reason, you are not hearing because you are not of God.
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Some translations say you do not belong to God. That's Jesus' answer.
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Why are you not believing me? Because you can't hear my words. You don't belong to God.
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You follow this theme through the gospel of John, to John chapter 10. Who hears the voice of the shepherd?
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The sheep. What does Jesus say later in the chapter? You don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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And I lay down my life for my sheep. It's not that these texts are not clear and compelling.
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It's not that we're using some different form of exegesis here than we would use if we were talking about the deity of Christ or something.
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No. The texts are clear. The question is, do you have an overwhelming theological tradition that will keep you from hearing these texts?
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That's the question. That's the issue. Does the
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Bible teach that our fallenness in sin results in an incapacity to do what is pleasing to God, which would include needing to have our heart of stone removed, given a heart of flesh, a new nature, so that saving faith and repentance would be something that would be commensurate with the action of this new creation?
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Yes, the Bible teaches exactly that. And that means salvation is of God. That means that salvation is not of the free will of man.
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It is of the free will of God. And a person who in any way, shape, or form believes that they controlled this process and brought about their own salvation is simply not going to accept that, and they're going to adopt a methodology.
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It will be inconsistent. It will not be able to do it. They will still adopt it and will go to their death defending it, unless God changes that to His own honor and glory.
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But again, the challenge that was given to me was an inappropriate challenge.
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We believe that man responds to God. What we don't believe is that man has the capacity to respond appropriately to God in saving faith, in saving repentance, in submission to God's law, in humbling oneself, and accepting gospel truth.
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Unless the Spirit of God works within the heart of man, the response to gospel truth will either be rank rebellion, suppression, perversion as well to where false religion comes from.
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The gospel will always be responded to. But to respond to it in acceptance and faith, that requires the work of the
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Spirit of God, which is why Paul can say, if you're in Christ Jesus, the only one you can boast is by Him that you are in Christ Jesus, 1
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Corinthians chapter 1. It's His work, not our work. It's not the result of our enabling
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Him, anything along those lines. So, in regards to the challenge to demonstrate the
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Reformed perspective as being biblical, that has, I believe, been met. That has been met.
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And hopefully, the demonstration of that has been useful to you today here on The Dividing Line.
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Lord willing, next week, I think, is fairly standard. So, hopefully, we'll be here and you'll be there.
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And we'll have more things to discuss on the basis of God's Word. Thank you for listening today. We'll see you next time.