September 27, 2005

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. Hi, good morning, welcome to The Dividing Line on the 27th of September.

Seems like it's been quite a while since we got together, and it was, it was the 15th,

I believe, or maybe, did we do one on Friday? I don't remember. Anyways, it's been a while, and just really briefly, a quick shout out to all the folks up there at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and especially the nice fellow who was there the second chapel service

I preached, who listens to The Dividing Line in Madrid, Spain. Yes, indeed. We have a massive growing audience in Madrid, Spain.

My goodness, from Italy to Spain to the deep woods of London, yes, they even have trees there in London, I saw them,

I really did. Anyway, it's great to know that those folks are out there. It's always encouraging when traveling to hear folks say, hey,

I listen to The Dividing Line all the time, and that's just absolutely amazing that we sit here and do our little thing and you all listen in, and that's great.

So wonderful time up there, got to teach a number of classes, I reported this on the blog.

I got to teach, preach in two chapel services, and nothing was thrown at me.

I hope I was as clear as I possibly could be, preaching out of 1 Corinthians chapter one again, and emphasizing especially that phrase, emptying the cross of its power, making it empty, vain.

How do we do that? By using worldly wisdom in our proclamation. I think that is a message that needs to be repeated over and over and over and over again, because it seems to be the great bane of evangelical existence in the

United States, pragmatism, utilitarianism. If it gets tushes in the seats, it works, doesn't matter if we've had to completely mute the gospel in the process, and that is a horrific blight upon the church.

It creates an evangelical church that has no interest in godliness, it has no spiritual depth, it has no love of the word of God, it has no concern about sound doctrine, and that's why it also does not have any kind of, shall we say, concern for developing a

Christian worldview. And that is why, as a result, you have such varied responses to, well, such things as natural disasters and the wrath of God.

There are just so many people today that cannot possibly conceive that the wrath of God is being poured out against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

That God is in control of the wind and the waves, and hence, when he brings destruction, there might just be a reason for it.

It might require us to consider our ways, but of course, the church no longer calls the culture to any type of standard, it no longer warns of God's wrath and judgment upon sin, so hey, let's just say it's mother nature.

We now have another God out there that seemingly is just as powerful as God himself.

It's a real mess. But anyways, we preached on that, taught in some classes, just had a great time with the students there, did a

Q &A for quite some time, answered all sorts of questions, anything was fair game. We talked about women elders, and we talked about predestination election, and we talked about just all sorts of stuff, and it was great, and of course, it was excellent to have my father with me.

Things have changed in 52 years out there in Chicago, and at Moody Bible Institute, but he really enjoyed his time up there.

Well, today on The Dividing Line, Radio Free Geneva airs once again.

I had to get around to this eventually. I had heard about this sermon a while back. I had seen some discussions about it, but I finally took the time to track it down.

And once again, we have clear evidence of what happens when someone, because of their traditions, because of their upbringing, their background, latches on to Dave Hunt's book and decides to preach it.

Now, I'm not sure. I may have missed it, but Dr. Jack Graham should have the

Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, 24 ,000 -member

Prestonwood Baptist Church. I'm not sure how many actually show up on a Sunday morning. I was a member of a church that had 20 ,000 members once, and we were lucky to track down 7 ,000 people at any one given time, but 24 ,000 -member

Prestonwood Baptist Church. I've seen pictures of it. It's pretty humongous. It's a big one.

He's been there since 1989, and Southern Baptist, past president of the

Southern Baptist Convention 2002 -2004, and he preached a sermon recently.

He never used, at least, take that back, from what I've heard, and we're going to be listening to it together.

I've listened to the first number of sections of it so that I could follow the outline out of Hunt's book.

He should have just said, I'm just borrowing this from Dave Hunt. He didn't do that, but as far as I know, he didn't give that information.

He tries to assiduously avoid the term Calvinism. He tries to avoid using the terminology, but we all know what he's talking about.

We all know whose outline he's using, and once again, someone who can speak much better than Dave Hunt takes his material, and the result is, well, what it always is.

When your information's bad, when you don't check out your sources, when you don't do enough research to discover that the person you're relying on has been refuted over and over again, it's been demonstrated that he doesn't know what he's talking about, his research is bad, his conclusions are worse, and his arguments are the worst of all, you're going to end up standing in front of a huge group of people and poisoning their minds against God's truth, and that's exactly what happens here.

You are responsible for that and will answer for it someday, even though you may be completely ignorant.

You may just, this may be all you've ever heard, you're completely ignorant, but when you stand behind the sacred desk, when you stand before the people of God, as the minister in that place, you have responsibility for what you say, and when you rely upon lousy information, when you take the easy way out and follow somebody else's material, well, that's not going to be an excuse.

When shepherds feed the sheep with lousy food that they should have known was spoiled, and the sheep get sick as a result, and they're not as healthy, it's still the shepherd's fault, even if he says,

I didn't know! And so here we have it again. Thousands and thousands of people, who now, if they take the time to dig into the

Word of God, if they study the Word of God, are going to keep running across all these teachings that are directly contradictory to what they're hearing from the pulpit.

It just amazes me. I just, I just don't understand.

So anyway, this sermon was preached recently, starts off talking about grace, and by the way, it's interesting,

I took the time, I'm not sure we're going to be taking calls today, unless there's that one call, but we're talking about Calvinism today, so we're going to stick to that particular subject, and if that one call comes in on that subject, we'll go there, but other than that, we'll just be sticking with this subject today, don't want to break it up into a million different topics today.

Anyway, I went to the Prestonwood Baptist Church website, and their statement of faith was extremely, extremely simplistic, but at the bottom, it is a

Southern Baptist Church, so at the bottom there was the link to the Baptist faith and message on sbc .net,

and it's interesting to me, I love pointing out to Southern Baptists who take this

Dave Huntian approach, aside from the fact that, you know, if they would go back and just read the early

Southern Baptists, they would know that this was not a part of their faith. In fact, I mentioned in passing that when

I was up at Moody Bible Institute, I quoted from P .B. Fitzwater, who was the professor of systematic theology there in my father's study there, there's now

Fitzwater Hall right there, just right on the corner of the property, and it's one of the main classroom buildings, and I quoted from Fitzwater an extensive section on predestination, election, and particular redemption.

Not necessarily using those terms, but asserting those beliefs, I quoted that in the second sermon on Thursday of last week, and I hope folks will take time to get to the library and look that up and go, wow, look at that, it's right there.

But I like doing the same thing with Southern Baptists, going to the Baptist faith and message, section four under salvation, section four under salvation, sub part

A, regeneration or the new birth is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus.

It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. And I love that last line, repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.

Very, very true. But did you catch what it said? It is a change of heart wrought by the

Holy Spirit through conviction of sin. So it's an external action of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit isn't allowed to do this by our action, but it's an external action of the

Holy Spirit through conviction of sin to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Now if language means anything, the sinner responds to what?

To this work of the Holy Spirit, this change of heart wrought by the

Holy Spirit, which is regeneration. And so the sinner responds to regeneration in repentance and faith, which are both inseparable experiences of grace.

That sounds like what I believe. That sounds like regeneration bringing about saving faith.

Now of course the Baptist faith and message has been cobbled together over the generations and over the decades and is not fully consistent with itself on such issues, but it still reflects its history.

And if you'll go back and read people like Boyce, if you go back and read some of the original founders of the

Southern Baptist Convention, you will see that that is indeed exactly what they believed.

And so many Southern Baptists have been bequeathed in their traditions a somewhat inconsistent position.

And yet when push comes to shove, when you want to start talking about grace in the first section of the sermon, he was talking all about grace and all those things, but it's easy to talk about grace.

It's a lot harder to apply grace and to allow grace to actually be sovereign, to be perfect. It's easy to say salvation is by grace as long as that grace can fail.

That's the real issue. And so let's turn to Dr. Graham. There's only about a 25 minute segment of the sermon that is specifically on this subject.

Let's turn to Dr. Graham. And once again, as we have done many times in the past, we interact, we stop and start, we comment, we demonstrate where the inconsistencies are.

We invite participation. I would love, believe me, we over and over and over again have sought to have interaction with folks.

I would love, but wouldn't it be wonderful to go down to Prestonwood Baptist Church and have a debate in front of the entire congregation on the subject of God's sovereign grace?

Wouldn't that be wonderful? That would be just awesome. Think how good it would be to have all those people looking through their

Bibles and studying these things and reading John chapter 6 and reading John chapter 10 and seeing why the

Arminian Southern Baptists and Paul Owen both are completely wrong. So let's start in with the sermon.

God's side of salvation. That is the divine side of grace.

That's not sounding too good there. But there is not only the divine side of grace, but there's the human responsibility to respond to that grace.

And you know, God's gift must be received. There's man's part as well as God's part.

The gift must be taken and received and welcomed. And God's grace, the fact that God has given

His grace and gifted us does not diminish the fact that He loves everyone and His grace is for all.

Paul in Ephesians chapter 3 prays that we might know the love of Christ and all of its depth and all of its length and all of its height and all of its width.

So just how long is the love of God? Just how deep is the grace of God?

How wide is the mercy of God? Does this grace, this sovereign, saving, powerful grace of God, does it include everyone?

Well, that's a question today in the minds of some, because some people believe that God's love is selective.

And by their descriptions and definitions, His love is seen as almost capricious. Stop it there.

I thought I had a good recording here and it just sounds horrible. I don't know why. I apologize.

We'll try to do what we can do to make it as understandable as possible. But it certainly sounded better when I first got it.

I don't know why it has just disappeared there. Whenever he stops talking, it just disappears.

But anyway, maybe that's what happens when you convert to MP3 or something. I have no possible idea.

But anyhow, as you listen, if you are familiar with Debating Calvinism, if you are familiar not with the subject of Debating Calvinism, but if you are familiar with the book

Debating Calvinism, if you have listened to the discussions we've had before of Dave Hunt's work

What Love Is This?, you will recognize that no matter what anybody says, the source of this particular outline and the points that are going to be made is in fact

Dave Hunt's work. And that is a shame, because we begin in many of these presentations in the same way.

If you notice this, the consistency here, start with the assertion that the Calvinist view of the love of God is such that you will make the

Calvinist look like he is an arrogant person that thinks only he has the love of God and he wants to keep other people from having the love of God, etc.,

etc. Never let it be said that what you're saying is God cannot have redemptive love.

God cannot and never would have a kind of love that would save some and not save all.

Either God has to try to save everybody equally or God's going to save no one at all. That is the underlying assertion that is being made.

And so start with that and try to poison the well. Get as much of the emotion going as you can possibly get going, so that when you get to other sections where you're going to be skipping around verses and you're not going to be looking at context and you're going to be using things eisegetically, you've already got the audience on your side.

You've already got people thinking, whoever he's talking about here, and he's going to be very secretive there, whoever he's talking about here, it's much easier to not name names.

Let's not name anybody. Let's not talk about R .C. Sproul or John MacArthur. Let's not talk about anyone that passed the

Southern Baptist Convention who believed these things and founded institutions based upon these truths, etc., etc.

Let's just be very vague, and there's these people out there, and see, the effectiveness of that is then when you encounter sound teaching, all of a sudden that vague group of people that you've been warned about by Pastor Graham, all of a sudden it takes on a face and you're automatically, this is how you, in essence, immunize people against Reformed theology.

This is how you immunize people against Calvinism, quote -unquote, and it also has the result of what

I experienced when I was teaching at that large Southern Baptist church. I remember going through Romans 9 one night, and after the class, this fella came up to me, and we were standing outside, actually, and he said, you know,

I had read that passage over and over, you know, you can't help but read that passage, you know, you read through Romans, and I thought it really sounded like it was talking about predestination and election, but I knew we didn't believe that, so that couldn't be what it was about, see.

That's what you're trying to do. You're not actually arguing against Calvinism. I really doubt any of these people would say, well, you know, these arguments will refute the best

Calvinists, and I'll bring the best Calvinists in the world in here, and they will be refuted by these arguments. No, they won't.

They would never do that. They know better. They know that these are surface -level, easily refuted arguments, and yet they will basically feed them to the people of God, and I do not understand that.

I cannot comprehend that. One of the greatest pressures upon me when I'm teaching the people of God is, am

I doing a good enough job that this is going to stand up, because I can't walk with these people every place they go.

I can't go with them into the community colleges and universities where they're going to be hammered by these people, so I've got to do my work in being a good teacher, and if I'm just giving them fluff that's going to fall apart at the first serious challenge,

I am not doing them or anyone else any good. I'm not doing them any benefit.

I'm doing them harm. So I don't understand. I've said many times, I do not understand the mindset whatsoever.

No, I've maxed out the volume. Volumes maxed out, wave and play control.

It's all she's got. So here we go. We continue. That Jesus did not die to give his grace to everyone, only the elect.

Now let's stop right there. What kind of grace? Are we talking about the grace that leads to salvation?

Are we talking about common grace? Are we talking about the love of God that gives common grace to the lost and doesn't just zap them out of existence the first moment that they sin?

Or are we talking about salvific grace? Are we talking about grace that saves? The grace of Titus chapter 2?

Is that given to everyone? Then it's not really grace that saves, it's grace that tries to save, right? Is that what we're saying?

The grace that you're talking about is grace that only can try to save.

It actually can't save in and of itself. That's where the questions have to be focused and that's where they almost never, ever are focused because the dialogue doesn't take place.

It's only a monologue on their side. From our side, we try to do the dialogue, but this is the best way we can do it because we can't get folks to do much more than that.

That God has chosen only to choose whom he chooses and that doesn't include everyone.

And there is a brand of elitist theology that is being taught aggressively today.

Elitist theology. Folks, where do you think that one came from? If you want to see where that came from, go back to Dave Hunt, go back to the open letter that I wrote in response to What Love Is This?

And then his response. When I challenged him on Greek, what did he say? You're an elitist, James.

You think you have to know Greek to be able to preach and teach? You're an elitist, James. Interestingly enough, he pulled that.

He pulled that eventually. He didn't want to try to rely on that because he wanted to try to pretend like he could use

Greek and things like that and Hebrew and Hebrew originals to Acts 13 and stuff like that.

And every time he's done so, he's collapsed. We just documented recently, of course, the misunderstanding of Greek and Ephesians 2 that he promulgated.

Because again, he's just getting this from somebody else. He has no way of checking it out himself. But that's where the elitist comes from.

That's where the terminology of elitist theology and the idea of it being strongly promoted.

But this is all straight out of Dave Hunt. Straight from the tapes and the newsletters and the books.

In some seminaries and Christian universities and some churches, well -known

Christian ministries, a brand of arrogant theology that claims that God only loves the elect and the rest of the world is without a prayer, without a hope, without a chance to know this grace of God.

Now, of course, again, straw man caricatures, poisoning the well, ad hominem, asserting arrogance on the part of people that you're then lying about, misrepresenting out of your own ignorance.

These are all the tactics that are being used here to attempt to poison the well.

You know, when I say that someone is ignorant, when I say that Dr.

Graham is ignorant of what he's talking about, I then document it. I then point out, OK, here's the mischaracterization. What Reformed people say is that all men are under the wrath of God and that no man deserves a quote unquote chance to begin with.

And yet God, in his mercy and his grace, elects people unconditionally. Those individuals do not deserve it.

Those individuals are enemies of God until God in his sovereign power takes out that heart of stone and gives the heart of flesh and changes those individuals.

And he changes them from being God haters into being God lovers. And they don't deserve it.

And God does it to his own glory and for his own purposes. And it's totally based upon the freedom of his grace.

Ephesians chapter one, the praise of his glorious, glorious grace. But they won't they can't represent that because that rings too true that that's too biblical.

And so you have to throw these straw men out there. And so I say he's ignorant and he's misrepresenting. I demonstrate it. That's not what

Reformed people believe. I don't have to misrepresent what he's saying. I can quote him. I can just let him play. I can play his whole sermon and sit back and respond to each point.

They can't do that in response because when you don't when you have only tradition and you don't have scripture, this is what you have to do.

You have to misrepresent the position so that it doesn't ring true with scripture. And then when you go to scripture, you're going to need to hop skipping around.

You're not going to be able to walk through a passage exegetically, do it properly. You're going to have to hop skip around and you're going to have to string it together on your on your traditional clothesline.

That's the clothesline. That's the only way you can do it. And that's what we have going on here. And so you poison people's minds and you're poisoning them against God's truth.

You're poisoning them against the very things that would give them the foundation. For being able to live the

Christian life in the proper fashion. I believe that anyone, in fact, will indeed be accountable for this kind of action.

And I would not want to be in that position. And this perverted form and theology, this hyper view of the grace of God is an abuse of scripture.

OK, now it's perverted and it's an abuse of scripture. Well, OK, let's anyone want to, you know, put a little wager here on whether what we're going to hear is an in -depth discussion of John 6,

Ephesians 1, Romans 8 and 9. Is there going to be an exegetical discussion of the golden chain of redemption?

Is there going to be a real exegetical discussion of what of the nature of man, all the inability passages, the incapacity passages,

John 6, John 8? They cannot hear. Is there going to be discussion of those passages in the Old Testament, quoted in the

New Frequently about God blinding and causing not to hear and all this? Is that what we're going to hear?

Or what we're going to hear is another exegetical, Paul 2, Peter 3, 9, Matthew 23, 37, 1

Timothy 2, 4. String them together with a few choosy this day things that have complete context, have nothing to do with what we're talking about and put together and call it theology.

Well, you can sort of guess what's coming. It is a perversion of the promises of God, and it is slanderous to the very nature and character of God.

Now, where did you get slander of the character of God? Straight from Dave Hunt, straight from Dave Hunt.

There's where it's coming from. And I think at this point, this is so close to quoting

Hunt that he should at least have the temerity of saying quote, unquote,

Dave Hunt, Paige, blah, blah, blah. Of the book that I'm copying from. God's sovereignty, sovereignty,

God's grace does not diminish his love for all people.

For the grace of God has appeared to all. That's what the scripture says.

Well, the grace of God has appeared to all. What is that? Titus chapter two. What does it say?

And it teaches us to deny ungodliness are all men taught to teach to deny ungodliness by this grace of God, which, by the way, it says saves.

Let's be consistent here. It doesn't say which makes salvation possible. It says which saves saving grace does teach us to deny ungodliness.

That's why it's saving grace. It's given to the elect to say that's given to every

Muslim is to make a mockery of Titus chapter two. So who's perverting the scriptures here?

Who's manhandling the scriptures here on the basis of tradition? That is the question. All means all.

Oh, there we go. We're going to see in numerous all means all the next few moments. Yes, here we go. But there are three primary reasons that I reject this kind of prideful, elitist theology that teaches the grace of God is only for a few and not given as a possibility to all.

And notice there is there the grace of God is only for a few. Of course, we talk about the sand of the sea, but, hey, let's not worry about what we actually say.

And then what was that last one? A possibility. This is this is what the promises of God are a possibility.

Notice the odd conjugation here of somebody else who's been reviewing on the blog, Paul Owen. Possibility, the promises of God, we we reduce down to, well, it's possible that Jesus will save all those given to him, but not really.

It's just that he wants to. He's not going to because there's these apostates, because we're only talking about those who are baptized.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Paul Owen. Or now you have Dr. Graham and Dr.

Graham, the promises of God become a possibility. It's possible you might be saved. It's possible.

Christ might be a perfect Savior, but only if, what? Only if you allow

Him to be, you enable Him to be. Good fourth generation management terminology there.

That's what you've got going on, folks. And if you're sitting there going, but this is so clear, why can't more people see it?

Because sadly, most of the people listening to this, this is the only theological discussion or anything that they're going to encounter in their, in the entirety of their lives.

Remember most Southern Baptist Sunday schools. I was there, believe me,

I've told the story before. Large Southern Baptist church. I'm trying to teach in the adult

Sunday school class, trying to teach in Romans. We're only given, we're given one session to cover

Romans 9, 10, 11. And so I saw that coming. And so I rearranged some things.

So I had a little more time, could actually try to do something. And then after, you know,

I'm, I'm told by the leadership of the church, after I've done this, the mindset you have to have every time you teach every

Bible study is that this is the first time every single person in front of you has ever been in Bible study every week, baby steps every week, never build, never grow, never challenge infant milk every single week.

There's no place for mature Christians here. And that's not what they said, but they said every week, first time that everyone's ever been there.

Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. But that's what most of these people are facing. So they're never going to, they're never getting a situation where they're going to be in a

Bible study class. And someone's going to say, well, you know, contextually, that's not what this text is saying. Titus chapter two, isn't saying that.

I mean, read it. Let's let the words actually speak for themselves. Doesn't happen.

And so that's why they don't see it. That's why they don't know. It's that that's pastor Graham. I can't question pastor

Graham, pastor Graham. He's look at this church.

God's built here. He must be right. Oh, what a tremendous responsibility to stand before the people of God and do that.

Oh my. And reason number one is the character of God. Isn't that the first of Hunt's reasons?

Yep. Think he's fallen pretty much straight down the line here. Some teachers I mentioned that Jesus didn't die for everyone, only the redeemed.

And this is called in this system of theology, limited atonement. Now, isn't it amazing if you were actually going to try to present a serious critique of reformed theology, would you start with particular redemption?

Would you start with limited atonement? Why does limited atonement exist? Well, because of preexisting biblical beliefs regarding the absolute sovereignty of God.

And that means his his perfect right of kingship to do with his creation as he sees fit.

Which includes his divine decree over the actions that take place in time. Now, I get the feeling that Dr.

Graham might pay some lip service to that. But when you really boil it down to is God sovereign over the affairs of men, including sin, that he would say no, that he would be a freewheeler, that he would go for the autonomous libertarian freewill position.

And therefore, he would disagree there. So if you're going to disagree with the system, don't you disagree at the foundation point.

And then also, you have the concept of the depravity of man.

And the deadness of man in sin, which is clearly central to what we're talking about here, man's ability to respond, etc, etc.

You'd have to start there, right? And then you have unconditional election and you have, you've got all this stuff that comes beforehand.

So why in the world jump to this? For only one reason, emotional impact, not for theological truth, not to communicate anything that's actually to help these people, but to get their emotions going.

But what does it mean, may I ask, when you're willing to treat the doctrine of the atonement in such a fashion as to use it just simply to inflame people's emotions?

Should there be anything else that we discuss in scripture that should be handled with more care than that? Good question.

Good question. Limited atonement. That is the effect of what

Christ did upon the cross. His grace in dying for us and pouring out his life for us on the cross is limited to only the chosen.

Now, really? Shall we talk about substitution,

Dr. Graham? What does substitution mean? What does substitutionary atonement mean?

For whom does Jesus substitute? What does it mean that he takes the wrath of God?

For whom does he take the wrath of God, Dr. Graham? Does he take the wrath of God for those who are going to be under the wrath of God for eternity?

Does he do so, Dr. Graham? You see, those are the questions that would be asked in debate.

And those are the questions, those are the questions that people don't want to be asked in a public forum.

That's why you don't see dialogues. That's why you don't see people extending the opportunity to come and discuss these things openly.

Because the fact of the matter is, when you can get into a conversation and you can allow for cross -examination, the

Bible and its teachings are very compelling. Very compelling indeed.

And I think they must know this. They just must know this, or there'd be no reason. If they're really convinced what they're saying is true, they would not in any way, shape, or form fear debate and dialogue.

If they're really convinced that this perversion, this arrogance is wrong, then isn't the responsibility of the elder in the church to refute those who contradict and refute what they're actually saying, not what you would like them to be saying?

And everyone else is predestined to hell and to judgment. Everyone else, all were predestined to hell and judgment because all are sinners.

The question is, how do you get out of being the fallen son of Adam under his condemnation,

Dr. Graham? And from your perspective, evidently, God joined everybody to Christ and yet Christ's death is going to fail to bring about the salvation of those individuals.

Isn't that the case, Dr. Graham? Isn't that what you're saying? If that's really what you're saying, why not say it openly?

Only those, they say, who are predestined for eternal life are recipients of the grace of God and the power of the cross.

The good news is only the worst news to those who are unchosen.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Once again, more straw man argumentation.

More straw man argumentation. We do not. not know the identity of the elect,

Dr. Graham. That's why we proclaim the gospel to every creature, and we don't have to play with the gospel.

We don't have to edit the gospel. We don't have to worry about offending Christ's sheep with his voice.

So we proclaim the good news, and it becomes good news to whom? Are you saying that the gospel is good news to everybody?

Does everyone find that to be good news? Do Muslims today who reject it, knowingly reject it and hate it and lash out against it, is that good news to them?

Will it be good news to all the people in hell? Of course not. It's good news to those who have been released from the chains of slavery.

That's who it's good news to, just like the cross. The message of the cross is foolishness.

It's a scandalon. It's a stench. In the nostrils of those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, which according to Paul, Dr.

Graham, and Colossians, 1 Corinthians 124, is to those who are the called, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God.

Isn't that what the Bible says? Isn't that where we can go to find these things? Because God's grace is now limited.

His love is now limited. Which grace? Common grace? Salvific grace?

Are you a universalist, sir? Unless you're a universalist, then you have to believe God's grace, his redemptive grace, his salvific grace, is limited because the only other option is to say that it's not limited but it can't save anyone.

It is incapable, in and of itself, of saving anyone, and sir, that's what the

Reformation was all about. That's what the Reformation was all about. Either you have grace that saves or you have grace that tries but fails when it is not added to and has added to it that great power of the autonomous will of the sinner man, the enemy of God.

That's what we've got. And yet, when you read the Bible, rather than simply studying someone's system of theology...

Well, I will give him this much. I wouldn't call Dave Hunt's theology a system of theology.

Because to be a system, it has to be consistent with itself. There has to have been some effort put into it to make it consistent with itself.

And Dave Hunt's position is not consistent with itself. At that point, I'll go that far.

But once again, if you just study the Bible, oh my goodness. Well, let's see if we can demonstrate that.

There must be a major turn going on here in just a moment to where all of a sudden all these straw men are going to disappear and meaningful, sound theology and meaningful sound exegesis is all of a sudden going to appear.

When you read the message of Jesus, you see that it is far different than the message of some men.

I wonder why he just doesn't come out and say, different than Calvinists. Why doesn't he just be straightforward and say,

I'm talking about Calvinists and I'm saying that they're not preaching Jesus' message. Just be straightforward about it.

I mean, Dr. Graham, when you're talking about this, you're not in line with Jesus. You're not teaching

John 6. You're not teaching exegetically here. So why not just be straightforward about it?

I think that would be a whole lot easier. You discover that God loves all people, that the grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ, that his love, his cross, his power is available to all.

Is available to all. What does that mean?

It's available to all. It's not under God's control. It's available to all.

It's it's it's what it actually doesn't save anyone, but it's available to all.

It's all up to man. God couldn't have a purpose in this. I couldn't have a choice.

That's what's being said. No exceptions, because every soul matters to God.

Every soul matters to God. OK, is that you're saying? That God is under obligation to save every soul, to try to save every soul equally.

Is that what you're saying? So God's grace can be demanded. God's grace can be demanded.

It can you can demand that it be given equally to every single person. Is that the idea?

Evidently, every person on the face of this earth, past, present and future is loved by God.

And God wants every person to be saved. It is his nature to love.

It is his goodness and his grace that reaches out to us. Well, there you go.

God's salvific will has no specificity. There is no elect.

Even though that's all about, you know, very, very clearly, you find the term election, the call, the elect all through scripture.

It's right there, but there is none. God has no elect. His salvific purpose is intent for everyone.

That's that's what's being asserted. That's why in second Peter, chapter three and verse nine, we're told that God is not slow concerning his promises.

But his long suffering, patient towards us and watch this, not willing that any should perish, but that all there's our word again, the grace of God has appeared to all not willing that any but that should perish, but all should come to repentance.

How many times we address that passage and how many times do we find these individuals responding to that?

Do they even know that there is a much better contextual reading of second Peter three nine?

Do they even know the self -contradictions they're creating in both Titus two and second Peter three nine with their usage? I don't know.

Do they do they care what anyone else is saying? I was told a story. I won't go into details, but a church not too far away.

A man got up and preached just a rip roaring Armenian sermon, just ripping on Calvinism and a fairly well -known reformed theologian goes that church.

And so after the service, he he came up to the pastor and and he didn't attack him with fangs extended and claws extended.

He just wanted to begin a dialogue about some of the misrepresentations that were just made. And the pastor just just said,

I've heard all that before and just went on. Well, they haven't heard it before. Or they're unwilling to hear it before.

Why is it? What is it about this particular subject that allows people to just act in this behavior? It's absolutely amazing.

Second Peter three nine uses the word us. Who's us? The only way you can read second

Peter three nine the way that Dr. Graham just read it is if you think the us of second

Peter is every human being on the planet. Read second Peter three nine is if everything it's saying is for every

Muslim on the planet, for every imam on the planet. Give me a break.

That's not who the us is. Who is the us? I mean, this is simple language.

Why? Why is this simple issues? What causes someone on almost any other subject, these people are going, no, no, no, wait a minute, we can't use it that way.

You can't you can't treat language like that. There's a context here. Just I but when tradition.

One man enslaved to tradition, Dave Hunt. And so people who are enslaved to the same tradition hear him.

And can repeat the same simplistic errors over and over and over and over again with a straight face.

And then when challenged, go out to that, just don't want to talk about that, just want to talk about that, don't want to go there, not just just just divisive.

That's what they do. You're in the book of Titus. Let's just go back a few chapters to Timothy chapter two and look at verses three through six.

Pardon me, first Timothy. Chapter two. Verses three through six, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our

Savior, who desires all men. There's our word again, all to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.

But there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man

Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for who? All to be testified in due time.

So what follows? The Christ, the mediator for every person in hell.

Praised be he for his wonderful work, right? Is that we're supposed to do? Why can't people think this through?

Why can't people see that to make substitutionary atonement universal means you eventually have to divide the intention of Christ?

I mean, even the better arguments, you know, the people who try, who at least have listened to this.

I mean, these folks aren't even listening. OK, they're they're just repeating their traditions and they just don't care if there's any serious theology involved here or not.

But even the ones who try, what they eventually have to end up asserting is that there is a difference between the intention of Christ in his death.

And those who are united to him in his death, and so Christ's intention, his death can be multiform.

There can be many intentions and only one of those intentions is salvific.

Now, I don't know where you get all these different intentions in the death of Christ.

I mean, the death of Christ is pretty consistently described in salvific, substitutionary, forensic terms in scripture.

That that seems to be the case. But be that as it may, that's that's that's beyond.

Long beyond the level at which Dr. Graham is attempting to to preach.

And then 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 15. Black ink on white paper.

Now, where have we heard that before? Let's see. Let's have a little little test here for the dividing line audience.

Where have you heard that before? Which person that we have had on Radio Free Geneva is one of the worst of the worst?

Where have we heard black ink on white paper? About this very subject, remember?

Specifically, I think the last time we heard it was in the college Bible study with Adrian Rogers.

I'm sorry, I'd never heard anybody else using that. Something tells me that that's where that particular phrase came from.

Jesus died for all. Now, you no doubt have heard words like predestination.

Now, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's I chose my passage and very quickly departed there from.

Uh, excuse me, what? Uh, not even read the passage.

Just simply just simply. Uh, what died for all?

How about we look at a context? How about we look at the text in its context? Anything like that is.

I don't know. You can sense you can sense the frustration as there as there would have to be.

There has to be frustration in this kind of of assertion. First Corinthians 515.

Starts back at 14. The love of Christ controls us. Having concluded this that one died for all, therefore all died.

And he died for all so they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf.

OK, if we're not just proof texting, if we're not just running around looking for the word all, we're not if our theology is something more than.

Drived from a quick cruise by Strong's exhaustive concordance and the word all.

If we're actually trying to honor the word by handling it, all right. Then we would want to be able to answer certain questions about our interpretation.

At his text so. For the love of Christ controls us.

We can't have a limitation to us, even though it's about the the disciples and the apostles, especially having concluded this that one died for all, therefore all died.

So all died with Christ. Is that is that Dr. Graham? Is that really what you think?

The apostle Paul's teaching. Is that every human being died with Christ?

So every human being can say what Paul said in Galatians 220. I have been crucified with Christ.

Nevertheless, I live, yet not I. But Christ lives in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the face of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

That's what every person in hell will be able to say.

Is that what you're saying, Dr. Graham? The pauses are, you know,

I guess just for effect, but. I'd like to sure would like to be having this conversation.

I really would. So. That also would mean that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who, for their sake, died and was raised.

So Christ died for their sake in their stead. And was raised.

All have been made alive in Christ. Right. That sounds like universalism to me.

So unless you don't allow Paul to define his own context. And who is referring to?

I don't know how you could avoid universalism here. And there is a bit of resurgence of universalism recently, by the way.

I'm not sure if it's due to I, I would like to point out that, you know, this system certainly has no defense against it.

And I would imagine if universalism became a little bit more prevalent. This kind of of gross manhandling of the text, this just throw things out, just willy nilly.

Just throw things out. Let's not worry about context. You know, let's not worry about wouldn't be quite as popular.

Because it simply wouldn't work. It simply wouldn't work. An election.

And for knowledge and for ordination. And sovereignty.

And these words are words we find in the Bible and they teach great truths.

And they are they are words and truths that I believe no question about that.

That God is soft. No question about that. Really? I really wish people honestly, if you're going to reject the sovereignty of God, if you're going to reject predestination election, please, please, please, please.

Do not manhandle these truths by redefining them and saying, oh, I believe it. And then coming up with a definition that is that is absolutely beyond absurd in its in its complete disconnection from the text.

Please don't do that. We've already said that salvation is of the Lord. His grace is initiated, originated, orchestrated.

It's all of him. It's all of grace all for him. We know that election is taught in the

Bible. We know that God knows all things and that he does all things according to the good pleasure of his will.

But you can't take part of the truth and make it all of the truth.

Which, of course, is exactly what Arminianism and what Dr. Graham is doing because he takes an untruth literally.

And that is concepts of libertarianism and things along those lines and overrides the clear didactic teachings of scripture as a result.

That's exactly what's going on. Both sides say that. But I think we can be very fair in saying that over the years, going all the way back to, for example, the lengthy series in response to Chosen but Free back in 2000, we have been very, very consistent in then documenting our assertion rather than just simply making it.

And what we are looking for when we study our Bibles is balance. And the balance that we see when we read the scriptures here is the balance between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

Let's be a little bit more honest. I love when people talk about God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. The problem is normally what they mean is not man's responsibility at all.

A sovereign God can hold man responsible and accountable on the grounds that he chooses to do so.

What they mean by responsibility is libertarian free will. Something they deny to God but demand for man.

I think that needs to be brought out. Do you? When someone says that, do you mean responsibility or do you mean libertarian freedom?

Because there's a difference between the two. Only God has libertarian freedom. We have creaturely freedom. That's a completely different thing. But you need to define your terms because you may be smuggling something in here that actually isn't here at all.

And when you read the clear teaching of scripture, when you read the Bible, all of it, its truth comes together in a powerful convergence.

And it tells us that God's grace has appeared to all. And it does not teach that God elects some to salvation and he elects others to damnation.

Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but you have a continuous gross misuse of Titus chapter 2.

Never even quoted the whole thing. Did you notice that? Never even bothered to quote it. Just quoted a portion of it.

It actually says, for the grace of God has appeared, bring salvation to all men.

See, that wouldn't fit his point because the only way he could put it is for the grace of God has appeared, bring the possibility of salvation to all men.

That's not what it says. If the text is true, then the all men must be all kinds of men or you're a universalist.

There's only two choices here. The Arminian position has no grounding at all in the text, but it doesn't even quote all of it.

And so to stand there and say, well, if you just let the Bible speak, oh, my goodness, we haven't heard the Bible speak yet.

Not in anything but gross eisegesis. That's not letting the

Bible speak. Quoting a few uses of all isn't letting the

Bible speak. Well, we will continue with this in the future on The Dividing Line, maybe even