Lesson from the Death of Betty White

In 2015, Marty McFly told us we could expect flying cars, energy from garbage, and hoverboards. Well, here we are on the eve of 2022, and all we have is an unrelenting pandemic, another Matrix movie, and one less Betty White.

Year in Review and Hopes for Conversations with a Calvinist

Stay tuned as we give this year in review on today's Conversations with a Calvinist. Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist. Well, we are ending 2020, excuse me, we're ending 2021.

We are moving into 2022. In fact, many of you will probably be seeing this or listening to this in 2022 because I'm doing this on New Year's Eve. It'll be published tonight. Some of you may get a chance to listen to it, but you'll probably be celebrating with your family.

So you'll be listening to this as you go into 2022. And there's a lot that has happened even today that I want to mention. But before I do that, I just want to talk about some things that have been on my mind as I look forward to the new year and I think about all that we have to look forward to, all that we have to consider.

So many things are continuing to change. So many things, it seems like every day there's something new that we have to consider that as believers are having to face, whether it's another moral issue that we're having to deal with, talk to our children about, have conversations with our co-workers and friends about, or maybe it's just another theological issue that people just can't seem to get their heads around.

And it seems like every day there's something new. And of course, with this past year, we've seen a lot in regard to financial changes, the increase in inflation and all of these things. And it's been a really difficult time for many people.

And I was hoping to give you some encouraging words today, hoping to talk a little bit about the reality of life and death, because we are faced today with the death of a very famous, very influential star, a lady by the name of Betty White.

Many of you know who she is. I'm going to talk about her a little later in the program. But it's just a reminder. She lived to 99 years old, almost to 100. She would have celebrated 100 years next month, but she didn't quite make it.

And it's a reminder to us that even in a life that spans a century, it's still like a vapor. It's here today and it's gone tomorrow. So I want to talk about that in just a few moments. But before I do that, just a few things to just sort of end the year on some positives.

We had a wonderful year here at Conversations with a Calvinist, had wonderful interviews. Looking back over this year, we went from a daily program, which was Coffee with a Calvinist, which began during the beginning of the COVID crisis, COVID pandemic, whatever.

And then we moved to a weekly program. Moving to the weekly program has been pretty successful, I think. Our numbers have stayed pretty good. We're reaching people every week with this program. And I'm very thankful for you, our consistent listeners.

I'm always thankful when I get a message. If I wait late in the week and I don't get to record maybe until late on Friday like this week, sometimes I get messages from you all, hey, are we getting a CWAC this week?

And I'm like, hey, that's great. You know, that makes me happy to know that people are listening. People are looking forward to the program. Had some wonderful interviews. Very thankful for the people who have been on the program, especially those who've been on multiple times.

Richard Roden, Matthew Henson, Austin Tucker, just to name a few. And looking forward to 2022 having some even better interviews, more intense conversations. I'm looking forward to this. This is one of the things that I'm hoping to do in this coming year.

And if you're excited about this, if you're interested about this, please drop me a line and share with me. But I really want to dive into some more of the arguments both for and against Calvinism. Because again, the title of the program is Conversations with a Calvinist.

So if we're going to be Calvinists and we're going to talk about Calvinism, you know, I don't always address the issue, but I am going to try at least every couple of weeks to really dive into either a passage that people use to deny Calvinism or one of the more important passages that we use to defend the doctrines of grace.

So this is really some of the areas that we're going to be focusing on. So if you have a question, maybe you're a Calvinist and you have a question about a passage that someone hits you with and you don't know how to answer.

Or maybe you're not yet a Calvinist, and I always say not yet, because it's my hope that people will become Calvinist because I believe that's right theology. And if you're not yet a Calvinist and you've got some passages that are holding you back, or maybe you've not really come to a place where you feel comfortable with the theology and you have some questions, please send those questions to me.

Calvinistpodcasts at gmail .com would love to talk to you, would love to interact with those things, would love to be able to engage. I want to talk about, particularly about some passages that I would say are ones that are difficult, and we're going to address some of those and really dive into some of the deep waters and try to be a blessing to those of you.

And that reminds me, one other thing I want to thank, I want to thank those of you who have been sending questions. I have some folks who are listeners to the program, who listen weekly, who engage, who leave comments on our YouTube page, who interact with me on Facebook, and I'm so grateful.

Christy Smokes, that's one of them. You've sent in several questions this year, and I've tried to answer those questions. I've been very grateful for you, very grateful for your willingness to listen to the program.

And there have been others, and I'm very thankful for that. And I just want to say again how grateful I am. This year, just thinking back over the year, there have been there have been a lot of opportunities where we have really reached out and touched on some very important topics.

And one of the things that's really been a joy to me is so many people that visit our church come in and say, hey, you're Keith Foskey, and you're Calvinist. I listened to the podcast. And that is a joy to me, because that shows that the time and the effort that's going into this program is not a waste.

Because I do want to be able to speak into people's lives, and to reach out, and teach the word, and give commentary on issues. And one of the great things about the podcast is it allows me to address issues that I might not be able to from the pulpit.

Not that it would be necessarily wrong, but I'm an expositor. So my goal every Sunday is to exposit the text that's in front of me. And I've been in Genesis now for a few years. Many of you know that, who listened to our sermon audio.

You've seen that I've been in Genesis now for a long time. And I plan to try to finish Genesis in 2022. That's one of my goals. And so I look at that, and I say, you know what? This is what I'm preaching on.

This is what I'm going to ask the Lord to bless and guide me through. And oftentimes it does go right along with something that's going on in the world. But sometimes there are things that happen that I just want to address.

And so the podcast allows for that opportunity. So I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful again for those of you who've been visiting Sovereign Grace Family Church, who are listening to the program, who are sending me questions, who are giving me encouragement.

All of you. Stephen, hopefully you're listening. Stephen, you've been an encouragement to me. You've been visiting our church. And so these are just shout outs to folks who have been a blessing. And again, it's available in many formats.

I know obviously you're listening right now, or you're watching right now, so you know it's available on the format that you're on. But if you want to share this with your friends, you can share it through Spotify.

You can share it through Apple Podcasts. You can share it on YouTube. You can share it on Facebook. You can share it through our sermon audio page. And that's just some of the ways that you can help this program to reach new listeners.

And especially since we're going to be dealing with some more in-depth Calvinistic questions and answers, and we're going to be dealing with some of the more specifics of how to defend things like total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, especially the limited atonement.

How to deal with those and how to address those, and what about those passages that are really difficult, and you have some friends that you want to share this with, please do. It would be a blessing to me.

It'd be a blessing to the program to be able to have you do that. All right, so having said that and kind of giving a quick year in review, I want to now move on to what I was talking about earlier, and that is the passing of Betty White.

Betty White’s Death and the Reality of Human Mortality

I went out today and was doing a few things to prepare our family for our New Year's Eve celebration, which we're going to be doing here in a little while. And while I was out, I happened to open up my phone and flip through my news feed, and I saw on my news feed that it was the day that Betty White passed away.

Now, I want to say, first of all, immediately I thought it might be a scam because there have been a lot of fake deaths in the past. In fact, I remember hearing Pauly Shore one time, and for those of you young ones who don't know who Pauly Shore is, he was famous for about five minutes in the 90s, but there was an entire run where people thought he had died, but he didn't.

But it was like on the news and it was all over the media that Pauly Shore, I think there was even a movie called Pauly Shore is Dead, but he's not, he's still alive. And so anytime I see that a celebrity has passed away, I'm oftentimes very quick to say, okay, let me just very, very quickly make sure that I'm right about this.

But based upon everything that I have seen, I can say with a certain degree of certainty that Betty White did pass away today, and it is December the 31st, 2021, just shy of her 100th birthday, which she would have been celebrating, I believe, on January the 17th, if I have my notes pulled up correctly.

Now, having mentioned all this about Betty White, I want to say a few things. Most of us, especially my age and older, remember Betty White as the hilarious yet naive Rose Nyland from the television show, The Golden Girls.

Now, some people may remember her prior to that. She certainly has had a career that spans back decades before that. I believe she was on Mary Tyler Moore. She was on several other programs. But I want to talk about the fact that here is a lady who had a a career which was, which spanned decades.

She remained immensely popular, even to her elderly years, and even to almost being 100 years old. She was in television programs, even as an older person. She was a continuously very energetic, able to live her life and do the work of an actress for all of those years, and obviously was very talented as an actress.

And this is what, I was looking at a quote of hers, and I just wanted to share this with you. Actually, my wife pulled this up. We were preparing for the program earlier, and this is what it says. It says, White was gearing up to celebrate her 100th birthday on January 17th, ahead of her centennial year in January.

White opened up to People magazine about how she was feeling about turning 100 years old. This is a quote from her. I'm so lucky to be in such good health and feel so good at this age, said the veteran actress.

It's amazing. Okay, so she said, I'm lucky. I feel so great to be looking forward to turning 100. But she didn't turn 100. She didn't make it. As good as she felt, her life ended today. And people would say, well, everybody's got to die.

She just didn't quite make it. She thought she was going to make it, thought she was in good health. And that's true. But the point that I want to make is that we all have this day coming. And whether we live to be almost 100, whether we live to be past 100, or whether we die today, we all have an appointment to keep.

And today was Betty White's appointment. Today was the day that had been set aside in eternity past for her to meet the Lord. And I don't know anything about Betty White's spiritual life, except what was communicated through the medium of television and film.

And I bring that up because I have to think that based upon some of what I know about her, that she probably was not a believer in Jesus Christ. And I'll give you a few thoughts on that. And I'm certainly not saying that I know this for certain.

I'm not saying that I knew her personally. I did not, obviously. I only knew her through the medium of television and film. But there was something about Betty White in television and film that really became very popular, especially in the last 20 years.

And that was her willingness to be somewhat over the top in regard to her willingness to use foul language and make jokes that were very off color. And I'll give you a story. I have a personal Betty White story for you.

I am going into my 21st year of marriage. I'm in my 21st year of marriage. So this year is 21 years for Jennifer and I to be married. And we were married on August 1st, 1999. The night before we were married, me and some guys went out to celebrate.

And we went and saw a movie. Now, the movie that we went to see was called Lake Placid. Now, I want to remind you, it wasn't saved at the time. This was prior to my salvation. I didn't get saved until after I got married.

But I remember specifically that one of the things that the movie advertised in its trailers and television spots was that Betty White cursed. Because everybody knew Betty White, again, as Rose Nylund, the naive woman, the Rose Nylund, the naive lady from the show The Golden Girls.

And on that show, she was not a foul-mouthed person, even though that show was very risque. That show was like sex in the city for geriatrics, by the way. And I don't mean that to be offensive. It really was.

If you go back and watch that show now, it was all about sex. And the jokes were very, very adult, very, very much in the idea of of people were a lot of sleeping around, a lot of sex that was never shown, of course, but disgust and innuendos were made.

And so anyway, getting back to this, the big thing was Betty White was going to be in the show. And according to the movie, if you haven't seen it, this is a spoiler. So if you're 21 years out, spoiling Lake Placid, I'm sorry.

But in the movie, she's feeding this giant crocodile. And these people come because they want to catch the crocodile because the crocodile is a man eater. And she starts cussing them out and just just lays into them with this tirade of nasty talk.

And I remember hearing that and thinking, this is different. This is not the road. This is not the Betty White that I'm familiar with. And so later, you know, a few years later, Betty White starts like becoming popular for a lot of things, saying foul language, making crass jokes and being in television shows where she's expected to to to be very, very crass.

And so, again, that that that doesn't prove that that, you know, her spiritual condition, but it does say something that that was that was what she was known for later was it was this sort of crass willingness to say what she say, what was on her mind.

And no matter whether it was curse words or anything like that. And again, I'm not here to delay judgment and say I know for sure what her spiritual condition was. But this this certainly says something when when that's what becomes the sort of the thing, the thing that is you're known for having this sort of crass having this sort of crass use of language, having this crass use of language.

So keeping that making that point, I decided before the show I did want to look at what was what was Betty White's religion. So if you look up what is Betty White's religion, just Google that, which, of course, was all I'm able to do because I didn't know her personally.

It says immediately she was a Christian. Betty White was a Christian. And I say, OK, well, I know this. Many people claim to be Christians, and it's not always genuine biblical Christianity. And just this past week, something happened on social media, which which really made me sort of sort of sort of had me had me.

I wanted to respond. I didn't respond any. But but I had I made a post about the that NASA was was looking to hire some theologians to discuss the subject of encountering alien life. And I said, boy, I would love to see this list of theologians that they're going to pull out because I'm certain that they're not going to be pulling out solid theologians.

And a person I know just happened to opine and say, well, is there is there a standard for theologian? Is there a is there you know, is there some do you have to have a special ring or or do you have to be, you know, have this be on a special list of approved theologians?

And my response would be, well, yeah, there there are a few. There are heretics. There are people who are bad theologians. And as R .C. Sproul said, everyone's a theologian, but not everyone's a good one.

Everyone's a theologian, but not everybody's theology is right and true. So keep that in mind. Yes, there is anybody is everybody has thoughts about God. Everybody has some knowledge of God. So everyone's a theologian, but not everyone is a good one.

And so that was my concern about who NASA is going to be picking as their as their theologian. So getting back to Betty White, it says she was a Christian. White was a Christian. OK, so so I did a little bit more research.

And according to Wikipedia, which I know is not the the standard, but but obviously Wikipedia has a lot of good information and and and often is a is a is a decent place to at least start a search. She was a part of the Unity Church.

Now, what is the Unity Church? Well, let's let's read. Unity Church is an organization founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889. It grew out of transcendentalism. And became part of the New Thought movement.

Well, right there is is this is not biblical Christianity right away. Unity is known for its daily word devotional publication, while it was originally considered as a, quote, positive, practical Christianity, end quote, which, quote, teaches the effective daily application of the principles of truth taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ, end quote.

Unity now describes itself as, quote, for people who might call themselves spiritual, but not religious. There it is. This group would call itself those who are part of it would call itself Christian, but not exactly not exactly a a Christian Christianity that's biblical.

In fact, their five principles are number one, God is all there is and present everywhere. This is the force of love and wisdom that underlies all of existence. So it's pantheistic. That's it's not monotheistic, and it's certainly not biblical Trinitarian monotheism.

Number two, human beings are divine at their core and therefore inherently good. Okay. Number three, thoughts have creative power to determine events and attract experiences. You know what's funny is a lot of Christians believe that.

A lot of Christians have bought into the lie, this New Thought movement has has infiltrated so many otherwise solid churches and given way to things like positive confession and all kinds of other nonsense, and it's just not true.

Number four, prayer and meditation keep us aligned with the, quote, one great power, end quote, in the universe. So prayer meditation keeps us aligned with the one great power, apparently the light side of the force.

And number five, it's not enough to understand spiritual teachings. We must live the truth we know. Not just the truth, but we must live the truth we know. So this is not biblical Christianity. This is not a biblical theology.

This is not a biblical anthropology. Probably has a lot of other false teachings as well, but just those five is enough to make us say, okay, if this is what Betty White espoused, if, and again it's a big if because I don't know, but if this is what she espoused, if this is what she was buying into, if this is what her faith was in, then her faith was misplaced.

Let me just put it that way and safely said, if this is where her faith was placed, her faith was misplaced. So as I said, looking now, taking a step back and looking at what I talked about earlier with the way that she presented herself in film, the way that she presented herself in movies, and the way that she sort of celebrated raunchy humor and things like that, along with what it is she said she believed, I don't think that we can safely say that Betty White was a biblical Christian.

Having said that though, we do not know. We cannot make an absolute certain statement regarding the condition of her soul because again, we don't know what's happened even in the last year, six months, or even the last few days of her life.

And so we can hope, we can pray for her, for her family, and we should. We should certainly pray for her family. We should pray for them as they grieve. No matter what, they're going to be grieving a loss, and that is something that we should pray about and pray that this might point them to Jesus Christ and to his saving power and his grace.

Call to Repentance, Faith, and Church Membership

So these are things to consider. But as we consider them, going back, taking a step back, I want to remind you though that this is a good time to consider also the reality that as many of us get ready for a new year, we don't know if this year is going to be our last.

And as difficult as that is to talk about, as difficult as that is to think about, the Bible tells us that we ought not say that we're going to go here and go there and do this or do that, but we ought to say if the Lord wills, we'll go here and go there because none of us, none of us has the power to determine our destiny.

None of us has the power to determine the day and the time of our own death. God is sovereign over those things, and therefore we need to be prepared at any time for when that time comes. And so the thing I want to leave you with as we go into the new year is if you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have never submitted to him through repentance of sin and faith in his finished work on the cross, may I right now in the last moments of this program call you to repentance and faith.

May I tell you that you are a sinner. You have broken the law of God. That's what sin is. The Bible says sin is breaking God's law, and you have broken God's law, and you stand guilty in the courtroom of the eternal.

And yet the Bible says God loved the world so much that he sent his only begotten son that every person who believes in him would not perish but will have everlasting life. Therefore, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in his finished work, that when he was on the cross dying, he was dying to take the punishment that you deserve, and his righteousness which was his is now given to you because of the gift of God which comes through grace, the imputation of your sins to him and his righteousness to you, you can now stand before God as the Apostle Paul says, having a righteousness that does not come from the law, but comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

And if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you can have that righteousness. Yes, I'm a Calvinist. Yes, I believe that God is the one who elects us to salvation, and God is the one who sees it through.

But I also believe that God uses the means of the gospel to bring his elect in. And so I proclaim the gospel to you here, December 31st, 2021. And I encourage you, do not wait another day. The Bible says today is the day of salvation.

Don't put it off till tomorrow. Don't put it off till next week. Don't wait until you think you need it because you never know when your day is coming. Betty White thought she was going to celebrate 100 years on January 17th, but she didn't make it.

And we don't know if we're going to make it either. We don't know when our time will come and we need to be prepared. And let me say this as well. If you come to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith, that is not something that needs to be private.

That is something that needs to be proclaimed through baptism, and you need to join a local church. And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ and you're not in a local church, let me tell you something.

You are outside of the will of God. You need to find a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church, and you need to go, and you need to join, and you need to become part of that church so that the gifts of that church can minister to you and your gifts can minister within that church.

And if you're in the Jacksville area and you don't have a church, come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church. We would love to meet you, to minister to you, if you've never been baptized, to take you through the waters of baptism, to teach you what it means to be a member of a church and welcome you into membership at Sovereign Grace Family Church so that we can love you through the gospel and that you can become part of our family at Sovereign Grace.

And my goal this year for all of you is that you make 52 out of 52. Now, what do I mean by that? I'm going to end with this. 52 out of 52. That means there's 52 Sundays in 2022. Are you going to make all 52 in the Lord's house?

Are you going to be worshiping every Sunday? Not through the medium of online, but are you going to be in the Lord's house? You say, what if I'm out of town? When my family goes out of town, we go to a church.

We make 52 out of 52. Let me encourage you. Make 52 out of 52. Make that. I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but I do believe this. I believe that every time we come to a new year, it's a time to look back and look forward.

Look at some of the areas that we need to do better and look forward and say, what can we do better? And let me say this. We all need to be striving for 52 out of 52 in 2022. Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist today.

May God bless you and have a wonderful New Year's day.

The Gospel Invitation and the Call to Worship

Savior. He is the way, the truth and the life. And no one comes to the father except through him. May God be with you.