Travel, Worldview, Flowers and Open Theism

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:36

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. Good to be with you. Don't forget on Thursday...

00:42

Well, assuming that Rich doesn't run into any issues between now and Thursday.

00:49

He's doing something. He's got... Well, it's short -sleeve weather here. So I was gonna say something up his sleeve, but he's doing something.

00:58

Yeah, and but on Thursday we are supposed to be doing a discussion with Jake, the

01:08

Muslim metaphysician. I saw someone tweet something.

01:15

It may have been a tweet on Facebook. I forget where it was, but mentioned something about, I think, the last program

01:20

I did where I talked about some Muslim stuff and went in -depth on a few things. And there's this one guy and he was like,

01:27

I don't like... James White is way too nice to Muslims and he's way too soft.

01:35

I bet you've never even talked to a Muslim dude. So anyway, we're gonna have a discussion on Thursday on the program.

01:43

I hope you will tune in live for that. We will be in the AOMAX studios, whatever they're gonna look like.

01:50

I have no earthly idea. I have not been allowed in for over a week now and I haven't gone in.

01:56

So don't know. Don't know. It could be really cool or I might go, what are you thinking?

02:08

That could happen. That really could happen. I might be going, what?

02:14

What is this? But we'll find out. I'm looking forward to finding out on Thursday myself. So we can all find out together.

02:21

We should actually go on the air. The cameras should be rolling and then Rich lets me in the studio.

02:26

You can see for yourself, but that probably won't happen because you know, you got to have the microphone on and stuff like that.

02:33

That's fine. But anyway, don't forget on Thursday live the discussion with Jake the

02:38

Muslim metaphysician and I think you'll find that to be most useful and helpful.

02:45

Next. I'm excited. I shared with you last time and we've now made some progress and pretty much know where we're going and have made some decisions.

02:57

So I mentioned on the blog and on the program that we had reactivated the travel fund which hadn't been used for a long time.

03:10

We used all those funds to put the thing together for debates and things like that, which is what we'll still be using it for obviously.

03:19

But and the chances, honestly, as I'm looking at things, developing the chances of my getting to go overseas again, at least for a number of years, very, very small.

03:38

So, I mentioned that I went to Pryor, Oklahoma, visited with Derek Melton and the folks at Grace Life Church in Pryor and had a wonderful time and people drove from states away just to be there even just for one night and met with wonderful folks.

03:56

It was extremely encouraging and Rich will tell you he's had the opportunity a couple times, mainly at G3, but just to get to hear what the

04:06

Lord has done over the past coming up on 40 years through Alpha Omega Ministries.

04:13

It's great. It's wonderful and there's obviously all sorts of presentations, seminars, one -night things, two -night things that I can do for churches.

04:24

And of course, I try to talk with the pastors and find out, you know, is there specifically something going on in your community?

04:33

You know, sometimes the Mormons are putting on a push or the Jehovah's Witnesses are putting on a push or you know, there's certain things being discussed and we can sort of work things to where it's a little bit more directly relevant to where that particular church is than the dividing line ever could be because we have a global audience.

04:54

We're talking to folks all over the world. And with that in mind, that's why

04:59

I'll try to keep this somewhat brief if you're outside the United States, but travel is an issue right now and there are a lot of places that I'm not comfortable going.

05:14

Due to the fact that it's, you know, a state can quote -unquote open up, but businesses don't necessarily have to do that.

05:23

Now, a couple states like Florida have said, oh, yes you will. I'm not sure how I feel about all that, but the fact is that travel is unpleasant in many ways.

05:37

And we found out on that trip that I can actually survive traveling in the old -fashioned way, sort of the covered wagon way of traveling, except your wagon runs on gas and pulls into a

05:51

KOA. Hooks up and I even set up my bike and rode, my trainer, a bike on the trainer and rode and stayed healthy and had a good old time and listened to all sorts of stuff in the process because you have to spend hours driving to do things like that.

06:07

Anyways, that's what we're gonna be doing. And so, for example, to give you an example of what this is gonna look like, that's how

06:13

I'm getting to G3 at the end of September. So you can do the really beat -yourself -up, long -haul, you know, well, driving back when

06:28

I was driving my Subaru last December, one day, I think I did, I think it was like 11, almost 1 ,100 miles in one day.

06:37

And that was a really, really long day. That's not good for you, and that's not safe in the long run.

06:46

But you can, what we're gonna be doing is looking at that route to get to G3.

06:53

I want to be there, you know, probably a day early, gotta build in some space there in case things happen.

07:00

Things do happen. And work out a means of how many hours a day do

07:12

I want to be driving, and then look at what zone that puts me in, where I can stop and put out the word, hey, if you're in this area, we'll be happy to come on by and do conferences and talks and Q &A's and whatever.

07:34

And we're not talking about the super big churches. We're talking about the more regular churches that are in communities and things like that.

07:44

People that would normally not get to do things like that. That's what we're gonna be looking at doing.

07:51

And so there's gonna be some bumps in the road, and I'm not talking about I -40 in New Mexico, though there are a lot of bumps on I -40 in New Mexico.

08:00

Oh my goodness. Weren't we supposed to have hovercraft by now? That's what

08:07

I was told when I was a kid. By 2020, we'd have those hovercraft, wouldn't have to worry about those roads anymore.

08:13

But oh goodness, I -40 in New Mexico? Every single bridge, it's just like, wee -boosh, wee -boosh, it's like that.

08:24

Oh, man. Somebody in the New Mexico Highway Department has stock in companies that make rims and struts and shock absorbers, because it's just horrible.

08:40

Anyway, there'll be bumps in the road, proverbially, in figuring out how exactly to do these types of things.

08:48

But that's what we're gonna be doing. So, you know, I'm gonna try to get into Texas, and certainly

08:56

I've already given word to Tom Buck and the folks at Lyndale that we'll definitely route ourselves through there at some point to or from G3.

09:08

But what that means is that a lot of those nights are

09:15

Tuesdays and Thursdays and Wednesdays and Mondays and not your normal meeting nights.

09:24

I mean, that's - You can't travel if you're only doing things on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday type things.

09:31

And so if you're willing to do a Tuesday evening thing, hey, pay for my hookups at the at the

09:39

KOA and some gas and we're good. Find me a good

09:45

Mexican restaurant with good chips and salsa, too, where I don't have to wear a mask. And we're all good there.

09:52

So I'm excited about the opportunity of starting to build somewhat of a grassroots network, getting to know some of these churches and pastors that maybe in a number of years we won't be talking about it publicly because we won't be on the air anyways, but that might lay the foundation for some other travel where you're not really talking about it, but you're still doing the important stuff because for example,

10:27

I'm gonna be on with Brian Knapp and Chris Bolt right after the program.

10:33

We're gonna be recording. I'm not sure if they're live or if they're recording, but we're gonna be - They started a webcast.

10:39

This is gonna be their sixth Apologetics webcast episode, which means they're only about 2 ,294 behind us, but keep going guys.

10:48

They said it would never last and so we're gonna be talking about why apologetics and I mentioned to our own board that a number of years ago

11:01

I recorded half -hour programs that were translated into Farsi and were satellite beamed into Iran and they were on Islam.

11:14

They were Christian responses to Islam, dealing with particular issues, the deity of Christ.

11:20

I remember very clearly doing a entire section on Surah 114, 112 and Surah Talaqlas and going through that and the reason we did this and did it quietly -

11:38

This was I think 2007. The reason we did this and did it quietly was when the

11:46

Christians in Iran were asked, what do you want from Christians in the West?

11:52

One of the main, one of the constant repetitive answers was we need apologetics information.

11:58

We need to be able to defend our faith. We need to be able to give our children a reason for the hope that's within them given that we're in the small minority.

12:06

We're constantly being attacked. There's, you're not gonna be getting any type of reaffirmation from the culture.

12:13

You need apologetic information and it's not just, you know, when

12:19

I first when I first ran into apologetics was a Wednesday night class in high school that was being offered.

12:28

Remember, North Phoenix had those classes. Were they Wednesdays or Sunday nights? Were they Wednesdays? Some, I remember a guy was offering a class on Mormonism and he was just reading from a book on Mormonism and stuff, you know.

12:40

It wasn't in -depth or anything like that, but it's sort of like, well, eeny, meeny, miny, moe. It sounds interesting. I'll do that. When you're a

12:47

Christian in in Iran, it's not an eeny, meeny, miny, moe thing and the day has come for us where it's no longer gonna be an eeny, meeny, miny, moe thing.

12:59

When, well, it's June 1st, if you haven't noticed, I already unsubbed from one business that was the first business to hit me up with gay pride month stuff this morning and you're gone.

13:16

And you're gonna have it literally shoved in your face for the next 30 days.

13:24

That's how it is now. Once all the corporations and the government gets together and says this is the new morality in the secular world that we are now establishing, the secular utopia, you're gonna have to know exactly why you will not sign those statements.

13:41

You will not submit to these demands and lose a lot of stuff as a result.

13:49

Freedoms and abilities to travel and do things, you're gonna have to know why that is.

13:55

And it's one thing to say, well, you need to do that because you honor

14:01

Jesus more than you honor his enemies. But unfortunately, there are a lot of people who claim to honor

14:08

Jesus who will say you've been misinformed and we'll try to... and that's when it really becomes a real challenge.

14:16

When you have a reason to not any longer believe in conservative biblical theology and these folks come along and say, well, you know, actually, if you interpret

14:32

Arsene Coyte's this way and if you put this context on Genesis 18 and 19 and this context on Leviticus 18 and 20 and there's...

14:45

all of a sudden, there's a monetary benefit for how you interpret the Bible. Hmm, that's interesting.

14:54

And so you have to have a solid foundation. That's... and that's... that's not something you can build very easily by yourself under persecution.

15:06

So that's the kind of thing that we are gonna have to be doing in churches. We need to be doing it right now.

15:15

You know, so one, you know, if a church... let's say there's a church 250 miles from Atlanta, okay?

15:23

And so that's the route I'm gonna be taking. This is the general vicinity. I can come in and in one night,

15:31

I can lay a foundation of why a believer must stand firm on the issue of transgenderism.

15:42

What does the Bible say about transgenderism? Absolutely, positively, nothing. Not in the sense of a movement of transgenderism because no one had ever dreamed this level of insanity before.

15:53

But the Bible certainly speaks to transgenderism in what it teaches about God's creative purposes.

16:01

And so this is the kind of thing that you can do a presentation on, but then you can have

16:08

Q &A, you can meet with people, you can answer more in -depth questions, and this is the kind of thing that we want to be able to do.

16:19

It's sort of like taking the dividing line on the road and making it really more personal.

16:24

And we will continue doing the dividing line as well. I'll somehow work that into, you know, the distance stuff.

16:34

And we are working on the technology to... it may not always be super pretty.

16:41

It may not... it's certainly not gonna be that level of resolution that I can see on the screen right now at all times.

16:48

Once in a while, it might be, but it might be lower res once in a while. Hey, you know what? The world...

16:54

you don't need to see this ugly face. You really... if it was... you know, we used to do this just plain old audio until that mean person through the window got the crazy idea of putting this thing...

17:08

I mean, we used to have a bookshelf over in that corner that was... that was a...

17:14

it was a dry run. How are we gonna... how are we gonna make this work? And the thing was at an angle...

17:19

I don't know how it held anything up, but it stood there for years and no one cared.

17:26

So, you know, yeah, okay. That was over in that corner. It's a pretty corner now. But yeah, anyway.

17:35

This... this program could almost always be audio only. Almost always.

17:42

Until we get into the AOMAX studio and what we're gonna be doing on Thursday, for example. That doesn't work real well.

17:47

I mean, it can still be done, sort of. But, you know,

17:53

I'm glad we can do the things that we do, but you can do the dividing line on the road and we will be...

17:59

we will be doing that as well. So, none of this is...

18:04

none of this happens for free, obviously. It is actually less expensive to fly places, if you're willing to go through all of that right now, and get picked up and get put up in a hotel and da -da -da -da -da.

18:19

But when that's not an option, you know, what do you do? And so this is where we're going. The travel fund link is...

18:26

has been activated again. If you go to the support us section of AOMIN .org,

18:33

you'll be taken to a thing. We can... there's a pull -down menu. You can choose what you want to donate to there and you can help us to defray these...

18:44

especially, there's an initial cost here to get started that then is much less the next year and so on and so forth.

18:53

But this year, it's... it's a chunk of change. And so if you want to see this happen, you can support us.

19:00

Yes, sir. You brought up the microphone. I sort of figured you probably would. Real quick, the...

19:06

There are folks who send us checks for donations and it's... it describes and talks about that on...

19:11

on the donation page and how to do that. If you do that, and I don't have your email address,

19:19

I need that email address. You need to contact me, call me at the office or whatever, but I send out...

19:27

every donation we get, I send out as quickly as possible a receipt through email. And so if you're not getting receipts in email from me, and yeah, we use

19:36

QuickBooks, so it's coming through an Intuit server, but that's how you get your receipts.

19:42

So I just thought you were talking about that. It's like when you make those donations, if you make them by check, you need to get me your email address.

19:48

And so I appreciate that. That's... that's all I got. That's the guy who takes care of all that stuff.

19:54

So if you want the... you want the receipt, then that's... you need... you need to have an email address so you can get that that sent to you.

20:02

So I'm really excited about... I've... there's all sorts of places I haven't been able to go for a very, very long time.

20:10

And honestly, for quite a... quite a period of time, I was traveling pretty much overseas. Wasn't doing a whole lot in the

20:16

United States, but we're back! Haha! And so, in fact, I...

20:22

something popped up on Facebook last night from 2017, I think.

20:27

I wrote up yesterday. You know how it comes up, you know, three years ago, this, three... which is sometimes rather interesting to look at.

20:34

And I had written up what was coming up. I was 2018.

20:40

2018. And wow! It was pure insanity. I was overseas, and I had stuff on as soon as I got back, and just went on and on and on and on.

20:50

I must have thought... I must have been home for like, you know, a grand total of three weeks over two months during that time period.

20:57

It was just... it was just craziness. But... so I'm certainly willing to do it.

21:02

I'm looking forward to... to doing it. And so what I'll... what we'll do once we have absolute confirmation that we've got everything that we need to do this is

21:13

I'll just put out some dates and sort of... I'll try to like find a central city that the general area, you know, this is how far

21:27

I want to go in this time period, and see what we can work out from there. See what we can work out from there.

21:34

That would be the only way I can think to start off figuring out how this actually works going to and from.

21:43

And then there just has to be built into that a... had a flat tire on the trailer, took forever to get it fixed, ain't going to make it, type understanding that this is a possibility.

21:59

But generally, I think it's going to... it's going to work out really neat and really well. And it's going to be great to see folks

22:05

I haven't seen for a very, very long time. And... and we've got a lot that we can talk about.

22:11

A lot that is really, really important these days. Speaking of which, some of you saw,

22:24

I think it was yesterday, we keep... we keep running into Thomas Horrocks, who is a pastor of a

22:36

Church of God, Anderson, Indiana. Now what's interesting, and I was not aware of this, the

22:43

Anderson, Indiana folks have always been egalitarians. So they've always had a female ministry.

22:52

And so you look at their statement of faith, and it's just... it's extremely vague.

22:58

It's very... Even when it talks about the Trinity, it's like, well, you know, it's really hard to understand.

23:04

But, you know, instead of a firm, this is what God has revealed about how he exists.

23:11

It's sort of like, well, you know, this is sort of tough. But, you know, this seems to be the best way to put it, I think. And so it makes sense when you read through Thomas Horrocks' timeline.

23:23

You just... It's just so wonderfully woke and squishy, basically.

23:31

But on the 28th, actually, 28th of May, he posted, good morning!

23:40

There is no such thing as a biblical worldview. That was the tweet.

23:46

And in fact, you almost expected after that, the sentence is, that's it.

23:51

That's the tweet. There's no such thing as a biblical worldview. Now, of course, all sorts of folks are responding to that and going, what on earth are you talking about?

24:04

But you have to step back and ask the question, why would someone who pastors a church actually say there's no such thing as a biblical worldview?

24:15

Well, okay, let's be honest, people of my generation had almost never heard of the phrase biblical worldview to begin with.

24:26

There was insufficient attention being paid to the ever -widening gap between the worldview of the culture and the worldview of the church.

24:37

This country, there was a real close relationship between the two for so long that it took us a while, the church is normally a little slow on the curve, to start recognizing the impact of secularization upon our culture.

24:58

But if you understand almost anything about theological liberalism, then you understand what's being said.

25:11

I've said it many, many times before, that whether you believe this is a coherent revelation from God, not a simplistic manual, it's not.

25:31

It was given over the course of 1 ,500 years, 40 different authors, three different languages.

25:37

Just think of the political, technological changes that took place over those 1 ,500 years.

25:47

The development of philosophy, Greek philosophy, developed during the period in which this is written and compiled.

25:59

It is far more challenging than the human mind would ever be able to conquer in one lifetime, and yet simple enough for all the saints to understand.

26:18

There are so many things supernatural about it, but what is truly under attack in our day, what for example is central to any kind of woke ideology, critical theory, promotion, is that there is no objective body of divine truth that is discernible by any means available to us from this collection of ancient works.

27:04

And the dividing line, this is a program called The Dividing Line, the dividing line that you will see over and over and over again.

27:12

And I've said this, I would say it was 1984 -85, somewhere around there,

27:26

I started saying that the dividing line is between those who believe in the sufficiency of scripture and those who do not, those who add to it and those who reject the fact that it is sufficient in and of itself.

27:39

But at that point in my life, I couldn't possibly see how central that would be, and all the application that would be made of that reality.

27:53

But you're seeing that right now, and if you'll sit back and if you'll watch what's going on, if you see what's going to happen at the

27:59

SBC, if you listened carefully to what's being said on the real issues, not on all the side stuff and people throwing dust in the air and everything else, but dig down to the real, real issues.

28:11

What it comes down to is not just the doctrine of inerrancy, though that is vital and central.

28:20

It comes down to whether you believe that, whether you basically have the same view of scripture that Jesus did.

28:29

Because Jesus' view of scripture, as derived from scripture itself, is very, very clear.

28:36

And if you go to get an education at seminaries and colleges that do not have the highest view of scripture, then you will have it instilled within you that there are cracks in the foundation and a cracked foundation will never be able to sustain the full body of Christian theology that is built upon it.

29:04

It will collapse at some point. And we are seeing that now that serious pressure is being brought to bear against the

29:14

Christian worldview by secularism, which is a religious worldview that is as opposed to the claims of Christ as anything can be.

29:30

Now, when we said that in the 1990s, most people just sort of sat back and it's like, well,

29:39

I'm not really seeing that. But now when you see athletes who are pretending to be women, winning all the records in feats of strength, weightlifting, cycling, running, track and field, etc.,

30:05

etc., and the culture demanding that you celebrate this, now all of a sudden you're starting to see, oh, there really is an impact as to what worldview you're going to hold.

30:22

So here, Thomas Harkes, here is a man who calls himself a Christian, and yet he says to the world,

30:31

I have no worldview to offer you. I'll take yours, thank you, because I don't have one.

30:38

I don't have a clear word from God. Oh, I think this Bible thing has some great things to say, but you know, there really isn't any consistency to be found through all of it.

30:51

It's very contradictory, and it's really up to us to sort of muddle our way through and figure out how it works for us, and that kind of thing.

31:01

And so we don't really have anything to say to you that would provide any kind of substance to the claims of Christ on your life.

31:15

I mean, I'm sure he'll say Jesus is Lord, but what does that mean? If you read his timeline, you know, all sorts of stuff about, you know, we've approached abortion all wrong, and it's just your standard leftist drivel along those lines, and it has to be, because there's, if you don't have a worldview here, then you got to cobble something together from whatever you cobble stuff together, and that's what the secularists are doing too.

31:46

That's all they've really got as well. And so you need to understand what is going on at the

31:54

SBC. Is it next week, I think? I think what's going on at the SBC next week.

32:02

The woke, CRT, progressive, future split of the

32:11

SBC is heading straight for Thomas Horrocks. Heading straight for there's no such thing as a biblical worldview.

32:20

That's where it goes. That's where the candidates go. That's where the professors go.

32:26

That's where the schools go. That's, that's where they're, that's where they're headed.

32:32

That's where, this stuff really matters. This stuff really matters because if scripture is not sufficient to communicate to us how we are to see the world that God created for his own purpose and glory, what do we have?

32:52

What do we have? Is that, do you, when you read the New Testament, is that what you get? Hey, we're just sort of making stuff up as we go along here.

32:59

No, that's, that's not what's there. So a lot of people saw that and it's like, what are you talking about?

33:05

But there's a reason for it. And the reason goes back to your fundamental view of what scripture is.

33:12

And once you embrace the idea that scripture is a contradictory, inconsistent, like this part, don't like that part, collection of ancient works rather than a divine body of revelation that has a fundamentally consistent meaning, not a surface level meaning.

33:36

I've talked about this many, many times. The, the deep themes of scripture that you see coming up in books and between books and things like that.

33:44

We've talked about it many times. Once you buy into that view of scripture that you have to find other ways of holding it all together and you end up with no real worldview at all.

33:58

So I don't know how many of you saw it. I caught it a few days late, but I think it was last

34:10

Thursday. As normal, Apologia Radio was in competition with us.

34:18

Actually, I think it was a couple hours. Actually, I think it was done, come to think of it, I think it was done before we did the DL last week, but it was close.

34:26

We always end up running into each other. It's not meant to be competition, obviously, but it's just only so many hours in the day and that's how things work.

34:37

And Jeff and Luke are busy meeting with folks. They've got incredible schedules and things like that, as is

34:44

Zach. But anyway, I had not seen the, there had been an

34:51

EAN, an End Abortion Now segment where there, you know,

35:03

Facebook comments and a young lady named Lizzie. And if you went to Lizzie's Facebook thing or account, you know, it's pro -BLM, pro -LGBTQ, pro -choice, et cetera, et cetera.

35:21

And she made some type of a comment on the

35:27

EAN thing that basically said, would you be willing to debate this?

35:34

And Jeff's like, sure. Yeah. You know, we haven't been able to get as much of the on the street stuff as we used to be getting, especially because you can't understand anybody in a mask anyways.

35:49

I had some poor young lady at the drive -thru this morning, it was wearing a mask and I'm just like, I can't understand a word that's being said.

35:57

Anyway, and so she came on and I think honestly, she was just sort of had her phone propped up against a book or something because you had to keep adjusting it.

36:11

But she came on and they went for a right about an hour.

36:18

I think it was a little bit less, about 50, 54, 53, 54 minutes. And so I listened to the whole thing.

36:27

And after it was done, I texted Jeff and I said,

36:33

Jeff, you are so much more nice than I am.

36:39

You are so much nicer than I am. Jeff walked through a number of issues and she talked about abuse in her life.

36:54

And she was basically saying, she kept talking about being forced to carry a fetus, that this is degrading for the woman.

37:03

And so Jeff had to deal with a lot of issues very, very carefully.

37:09

And he did. And over and over again, he reasoned with her to the point where she was left with no answer.

37:24

He showed her, believing as he does that she is made in the image of God, he showed her the inconsistency and incoherence of the arguments that she was making.

37:40

And yet did so, so kindly that when they got toward the end,

37:48

I think, I couldn't hear some of it right toward the end, but I think she said she was out of time.

37:55

And Jeff was like, well, no, we still have stuff to talk about. Would you be willing to do this again?

38:01

And she's like, yeah, I would. So here was someone who multiple times was left just staring at the camera going, well,

38:12

I don't know. Or, well, that's a good argument. And that is so necessary these days, especially for young people who, in my day, you could assume that someone has heard the truth.

38:33

In some context, in the culture around them, on the radio, on TV from neighbors or something like that, you cannot assume that any longer.

38:42

You actually can just assume a full -on secular worldview that has never been challenged.

38:52

And so what Jeff did is he opened up those opportunities. He did speak about Christ, but the discussion was supposed to be on abortion.

39:04

That was the specific area of discussion. And so while he brought

39:09

Christ in and he brought his claims in, he stayed focused on what they were supposed to be talking about.

39:16

Well, I'm on some Facebook groups, and there's a

39:24

Facebook group, I'm not going to mention it, and I'm not going to read the comment, but I'm going to make reference to what the comment said.

39:32

A Christian man just ripped into Jeff, just tore into him, and just basically said that he was distraught over this discussion.

39:49

And it said it horrified him. This conversation horrified him.

39:55

And basically what he accused Jeff of was all Jeff wanted to do was use Tagg to destroy somebody, the transcendental argument for God, to destroy someone.

40:04

And he should have been crying with her, and he should have been saying that Jesus identifies with her in her pain, and all the rest of this stuff.

40:18

I was horrified at the comment, absolutely horrified. First of all, I really, really, really wonder if this man has ever engaged with any of these young ladies, as Jeff has for years, not only on camera, but outside abortion mills all over the place.

40:38

I really wonder, because I really wonder if he had had a conversation with Lizzie, whether Lizzie would have been willing to come back on with him.

40:49

If he had decided to completely scrap what he had agreed to talk about, had not challenged her, had not repeatedly closed her mouth and made her go, but had instead gone some other direction of some

41:05

Jesus empathizes with your pain idea, which seems to be what he was saying.

41:16

Obviously, it was Jeff's desire that Lizzie come to know Christ. He said that more than once. But obviously,

41:24

Jeff seems to understand something this gentleman does not understand, and that is there are some barriers in the way that need to be dealt with.

41:30

You don't hand this woman in her worldview, the four spiritual laws. It wasn't designed to even communicate to someone like that.

41:41

You have to, well, do what Paul did. Paul, you look at Romans, he spent two and a half chapters on the bad news before he ever got to the good news.

41:52

And this guy is saying, no, you need to get that should have been there right away. If you don't break down the strongholds of perversity and thought, which were clearly present in Lizzie's mind, then all she's going to do is take all your warm, gushing empathy and twist it into something else, and twist it into something else.

42:16

And so the person I felt for was this guy who wrote this comment. That's who

42:22

I felt for. If you are horrified and distraught at that conversation, you don't trust

42:29

God. You don't trust God. You had one shot.

42:35

No, actually, he's hopefully going to have more than one shot. And if she didn't follow through and didn't do anything more, you think she's beyond God bringing people into her life to continue that process that was begun there?

42:50

That process had to start. It had to have a beginning.

42:58

So you know who you are, and there are enough people watching this program to tell you, you blew it, brother.

43:04

You blew it big time. You've missed something really important, really foundational.

43:11

You need to back up and think a few things through. You really knew. That was bad.

43:21

All right. Looking at the clock, I knew,

43:26

I knew, I knew, I knew. Everybody sent this to me, and I appreciate that when

43:34

I say everybody. That was a little bit of an exaggeration. A little bit more there. A lot of people mentioned this to me, that there was a discussion between Leighton Flowers and Mike Winger about open theism.

43:54

You know what I've said more than once about Leighton Flowers and open theism and all sorts of stuff out there.

44:08

I think if open theism had not been specifically added, and I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty certain that it was the last revision of the

44:20

Baptist Faith and Message in 2000 that included the specific assertion that precludes a faithful Southern Baptist from holding to the

44:31

Baptist Faith and Message and believing in open theism. I think if it hadn't been for that, that Leighton Flowers would be an open theist today.

44:40

So that way he could still be a Southern Baptist and go that direction. Yes. Yes.

44:50

Rich said he would be an open, open theist. I keep trying to tell you folks that one of the toughest things

45:00

I do in life is keep this program going with the guy on the other side of the window. Okay.

45:06

Just throwing stuff because you don't hear it. It's the Charlie Brown thing. You turn up loud enough, you can sort of hear it in the background, but I just,

45:15

I keep trying to tell you folks, but I go out there, I meet you folks, and you keep telling me you need to be nicer to Rich.

45:21

You don't know the whole story. You really don't. Anyway, so there was a conversation, and I just want to play some of it here and ask you what you think about it.

45:38

I mean, I like Mike Winger. We've sat down when I was over there before the world went insane, and we've obviously,

45:48

I've always responded to just all sorts of stuff that he's said, and I think on certain topics demonstrated some fundamental exegetical issues that I don't believe the responses were adequate to correct, but anyway, we've had our back and forth, and he's going to say in this,

46:14

I don't believe anything in determinism and stuff like that. So we have a very different theodicy.

46:20

Do I think that he can come up with a consistent theodicy? No, of course not. I don't. It's one of the reasons

46:26

I'm Reformed. The biblical theodicy is a biblical theodicy, and it's based upon God's absolute sovereignty. There's no question about that.

46:33

So we answer the problem of evil very, very differently, and so we would debate atheists differently and all sorts of things like that.

46:39

So that's a problem. That's why we debate these things. But it even seems to me that in this discussion of open theism, when

46:53

Pastor Winger asks Leighton Flowers, well, what if determinism was true?

47:01

What if the Bible actually does teach it? What would you do then? And what you hear is

47:08

Leighton does his, well, I do whatever I was determined to do. Honestly, I think some people think that every time that Leighton Flowers does the, well,

47:21

I've been determined to not understand these things, that he's just trying to be funny. No, that is how he thinks.

47:28

That is his fundamental response. I think most people sit back and go, stop clowning around.

47:35

No, he's not clowning around. That's as far as he can go. He has nothing more than that.

47:44

And that's frightening because, I mean, I find it a childish response, but for him, it is the best response you can come up with as well.

47:54

I was predetermined not to be a Calvinist. That's why I'm not a Calvinist. And so the whole idea being his fundamental presuppositions are two, man must be sovereign,

48:08

God cannot be sovereign. Man must possess what God does not have. I mean, just think, just sit back and listen to the man speak.

48:20

And this is where he's coming from. This is his fundamental assertion is that you have to have libertarian freedom on man's part, but God cannot have libertarian freedom.

48:31

He's given it up voluntarily, but he cannot have libertarian freedom in creating a world that glorifies him in the way that he chooses to be glorified.

48:42

He cannot work all things out of the counsel of his will. That has to be limited. That has to be a very narrow spectrum of things.

48:51

And so it's presuppositional to everything else. And so that whole, well, I was predetermined not to believe in Calvinism, that's just simply a really bad, non -reflective, non -communicative way of saying,

49:08

I reject the idea that God can be sovereign and yet anything man does have meaning.

49:19

So my assertion is that man's meaningfulness can only be found in the denial of God's freedom to act as he chooses.

49:28

So we've talked about many, many times before the conflation of the eternal and temporal, the flattening out of all things, ignoring that.

49:35

That's why when you listen to that debate that he did on Unbelievable to Genesis 50, he just face plants.

49:42

He has to. All of the texts in the Bible that present this full -orbed idea, he can't deal with them.

49:56

That's been shown over and over and over again. So I did not get my little ear thingy going here.

50:06

Let's listen to a little bit of this conversation here as we wrap up the program today.

50:15

And I have to, this is actually, this may be the first time that we have actually done this since you changed everything.

50:25

And so we've never actually, wow, there are two

50:31

HDMI things here. I'm going to choose this one. Does that look right?

50:39

You say yes. All right, let's see what comes out now. Us in the middle,

50:45

I don't know that we should be very hard, more hard on one of them than the other.

50:50

I think both of them we need to stand firmly against and say, this is why we don't agree with what your conclusions are.

50:56

So here's the other side of it, right? Open theism, if I understand the way people often come to open theism is it's an attempt at theodicy, at a defense of why

51:12

God allows evil. And basically, the part that's open theism says, hey, well, he didn't even know that was going to happen.

51:19

You can't blame him because he didn't know. And I would say that doesn't mean anything to me, because in the middle of the evil thing

51:26

God didn't know about, now he knows. Why doesn't he stop it right then? You still have to deal with God allowing these things to happen.

51:33

And so it doesn't really solve anything. All it does is strip, potentially strip God of an attribute the

51:40

Bible declares that he has. And I know open theists are going to be like, Mike, you don't understand our position. You're misrepresenting us.

51:46

And I will say, I think, and I could be wrong here, but I mean that sincerely, my studies so far show me you don't understand your position if you're an open theist and you say that.

51:56

It's not me. But look at like Greg Boyd and his stuff. He says on open theism, I'm embarrassed to listen to what he says about it.

52:04

I'd much rather hear a Calvinist talk about determinism as far as what offends me really. I'm embarrassed.

52:09

He demonizes the Old Testament and demonizes a lot of the stuff that's in. And I'm going like, my goodness, are you an atheist?

52:15

This is what I hear from the atheists I deal with online. Now it's coming out of a Christian pastor. But now remember, and I'm not sure if the hearing will ever recover in that ear, but I can hear it clearly.

52:31

I could, at least at first. How'd you lose your hearing? Layton Flowers. Layton Flowers blew up my eardrum.

52:40

Anyway, so we've got it working now. But notice what's being said there. Mike is saying,

52:46

I reject this system. But what you're going to be hearing as part of this discussion is, which is more offensive,

52:58

Calvinistic determinism or open theism? And I would just I would just direct people to the debates we've done with open theists, with Dr.

53:11

Sanders, the debate up in Denver, where you had other odd theological issues being thrown in.

53:18

Well, you always have odd theological things. I've not met an open theist that did not have other issues.

53:28

Because remember when I debated Dr. Sanders the night before, we debated inclusivism. And so there you go.

53:38

There's another added idea into it. And of course, a few months ago, we were dealing with the killer guy, whatever his name was.

53:53

Remember? God killer guy or whatever. I don't know. Young guy that is sort of making it up as he's going along.

54:01

His dynamic omniscient stuff. And then he had Sanders on found out he actually is not open theist.

54:07

But anyway, again, you see the development of all these issues along the way.

54:15

And then I just saw something recently, this guy who did some apologetics webcast, something like that, that was sort of going toward Roman Catholicism.

54:25

Now he says he's torn between Molinism and open theism. It's like all over the place.

54:32

So it's fascinating that the theology that gave the form to the

54:39

Protestant Reformation is now considered to be as offensive as literally denying that God knows the future.

54:52

Despite his direct assertions on these issues, and being able to walk through like we did a few months ago,

55:03

Isaiah chapter 40, and we could have gone all the way from 40 to 48. And Ephesians chapter one, doesn't matter.

55:11

That is as offensive as open theism, determinism, open theism.

55:18

It's just like, wow. You make a good point. He seems to be trying to justify

55:25

God by using his open theism to justify why these things happen, theodicy wise, but it really doesn't help his case any, for the reasons you already mentioned.

55:36

And I agree with you. I think that there are mistakes that that systematic is making.

55:45

And the thing is, I guess I don't find them any more grievous than the mistakes that our deterministic brothers are making.

55:53

I find them both equally as grievous. Okay, catch that? So for Leighton Flowers, the

56:01

Westminster Confession of Faith, the Princeton scholars, Hodge, Warfield, Charles Spurgeon, Calvin, Luther, Luther had a strong doctrine in this area.

56:15

They're all just as offensive as open theism, which denies to God the capacity of knowing what free creatures will do in the future.

56:25

Remember Dr. Sanders, and this was something that, Idlekiller, that was the guy's name,

56:30

Idlekiller. This is something that Idlekiller never asked John Sanders, which I found really strange.

56:36

But I asked Dr. Sanders in our first debate at Reformed Theological Seminary, did

56:42

God know that you would exist when he created the universe? And his answer was, no, of course not.

56:48

No, of course not. So for Leighton Flowers, someone can literally state that God didn't know that Leighton Flowers was going to exist when

57:00

God created, which means he didn't know any of the evil that Leighton Flowers would do in his life, or anyone in the generation before, or anyone in the generation before, etc.,

57:12

etc., etc., etc. And yet, he made all the conditions for all that to happen without it having any meaning, without fulfilling anything.

57:24

That is what open theism is. But to say that God is working all things after the counsel of his will, that he has predestined all things, summing up all things in Christ, that's equally offensive to the assertion that God didn't know that Leighton Flowers would exist when he created them, gives you an idea of the utter imbalance.

57:55

Arminius did not hold those views. Arminius did not hold those views.

58:00

In other words, I think they're both misinterpreting the text. I think they're both misinterpreting philosophy.

58:06

I think they both come at it with a bad philosophy to begin with, in order to come to conclusions. But just because one of them's newer, or just now being more popularized, doesn't make it more likely to damn you to hell, you know what

58:24

I'm saying? If that makes sense. You know, they're both of them are making mistakes. And I get what you're getting at, because you're like, you see

58:31

Calvinism as, at its core, really compromising God's very character. And here's my question for you, right?

58:38

If Calvinism's wrong, then it may very well, at its core, compromise

58:44

God's very character because of the deterministic system. But let's just hypothetically say, if Calvinism was true, if total determinism was true, would you conclude that there was something wrong in the character of God?

58:58

If God determined me to, yeah. No, no, I mean, not like that. You know what I mean? See what

59:03

I mean? That's not an answer. And Mike Winger knows that's not an answer. But I think that's about the only answer that Layton has, because he doesn't give anything better as he goes along.

59:14

Well, that's true, though. I mean, if you think, if determinism is true, then I'm only going to do what God's determined me to do.

59:21

I mean, would you be logically consistent if you concluded that God is, therefore, somehow morally compromised because of determinism?

59:32

Um, okay. So if determinism is true, let's just pretend determinism is true.

59:39

Yeah, which I am 100 % on board with you. It's not true. It's not accurate. Again, my brain is trying to work around this, because obviously, if determinism is true,

59:46

I'm only going to determine what God's determined for me to determine. But— See? That's all he's got. That is honestly—a lot of people think it's just a joke, because it is a joke.

59:57

But no, that is where he is. But the question's not, what would you determine—what would you think if determinism was happening to you right now?

01:00:05

You said it's a thought experiment, right? Right. You're asking, instead, would it, therefore, make

01:00:11

God's character—would it impugn God's character if determinism is true?

01:00:18

Are you okay with the conclusion that God is morally wrong? That's where I go.

01:00:23

I cannot go there. Well, yeah, well, I wouldn't—I mean, if I said the same thing about open theism,

01:00:30

I would say the same thing. I mean, if open theism is true, I'd have to come to the conclusion that, hey, if it's true, it's true, and God's not morally evil.

01:00:40

I mean, if you come to the Scripture with any presupposition, you come with a presupposition that God's good, that He's always just, and He's always right.

01:00:47

And therefore, if determinism is correct, and God is always just— By the way, can I just point something out to you?

01:00:54

God determines what is just and right. God's revelation determines that. If you, as a human being, create a standard of goodness and rightness and then demand

01:01:05

God to live up to it, who are you making yourself to be? So the presupposition that Leighton has is that we can come up with these things on our own.

01:01:19

So why did Abraham tie Isaac to the altar? I mean, there's so many places where that, again, man -centeredness—and

01:01:30

I will not apologize for continuing to point out, when he announces it over and over and over again, the man -centeredness of this provisionism.

01:01:44

But that's a presupposition, whether he wants to see it or not. Then somehow, what

01:01:50

J. I. Packard and others say, it's an antinomy. You just don't get it, Leighton, but somehow God's completely deterministic, and He's not culpable.

01:01:58

And you're just too dumb to get it, because God apparently determined for you to be too dumb to get it.

01:02:04

So that's just the way that it is. And on the other side, if open theism is true, and we, again, come to the presupposition that God's good, and He's just, and He's right, then

01:02:14

I would still conclude that, okay, God doesn't know near as much as we thought He did know, but He's still good and just as right.

01:02:23

And so, you see what I'm saying? I think either way. Yeah, and I agree with you there. I think that that's—to me,

01:02:28

I go, I cannot entertain the idea, and I don't mean like emotionally, but I mean intellectually.

01:02:34

I can't sustain the concept that Almighty God has some sort of moral flaw. And even if the world looked 100 % like God somehow must be doing something wrong here,

01:02:45

I would have to conclude, I'm obviously wrong. Like, God is God.

01:02:50

And here, the fear of the Lord's the beginning of wisdom. And I go, Lord, I trust you. I don't understand it.

01:02:55

And I wouldn't even have a defense. If someone asked me, my defense would be, God's good because He's God. And I will not let the circumstances of this time convince me that He's not good.

01:03:05

So I tend not to use that concept of like, some people say the

01:03:11

Calvinistic God, and He is therefore like a bad God. And I go, you are treading on—in my mind, you're treading on dangerous ground when you make statements like that.

01:03:20

So I would say I can— Which Leighton has made 144 ,000 times.

01:03:26

Understand how a deterministic God would make it very difficult to have a theodicy or to deal with the problem of evil.

01:03:34

I don't know how I would—I have a video on the problem of evil. I don't know exactly how I would make that video if I believed in determinism.

01:03:42

So I'm thankful that that's not the case. So there you go.

01:03:47

Obviously, we have dealt many, many times with Pastor Winger on theodicy, and I think have provided some strong arguments.

01:03:58

But the point is, when you can take open theism with its incredibly damaging, unbiblical, philosophical underpinnings, and even begin to compare it to the theology that broke the

01:04:25

Roman stranglehold on Europe—I mean, maybe you disagree with Luther, but Luther said this is the issue.

01:04:35

Will of man, sovereignty of God. That's what—he was right. He was right. But a lot of—most open theism does not have any meaningful connection to the history of the

01:04:47

Church, as far as there being any kind of consistency in belief.

01:04:53

Did you— When you've—when Mike posed that question to Leighton, and Leighton kind of laughed it off, and then

01:05:01

Mike pressed him on it, and like, no, we need to talk about this. Do you think that he was sincere?

01:05:08

Who? Leighton. And suddenly, it was like he'd never, ever actually considered that as a possibility.

01:05:17

Well, I really, honestly think that there's a loop in the man's mind where, if you promote—if you say

01:05:28

God is sovereign over all things, he simply will not allow for there to be the distinction that Christian theology makes between the decree of God and the prescriptive will of God.

01:05:43

And so, he can't do Genesis 50, he can't do Isaiah 10, he can't do

01:05:49

Acts 4, he can't see the full Lord, he's always smashed it down into that one layer.

01:05:56

And so, that response that he gives each and every time really is what his brain is doing.

01:06:04

And he literally is saying, yeah, well, you know, I can only do what I'm determined to do. So, I don't think it was a matter of, no,

01:06:13

I've never, ever thought about this before. I think he was saying, well, I normally get to say what

01:06:18

I just said and don't get pushed farther, so now I've got to come up with some way of expressing it in light of what this guy's asking.

01:06:25

And it really didn't make much sense of what he was saying. No, it didn't. The look on his face, though, when he was being pressed on it, spoke volumes to me, because it's like he got the record—the needle stuck.

01:06:38

And it just kept going back and back and back and back over and over, and he couldn't get past that scratch on the record.

01:06:48

Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. I actually had one other thing queued up, but we'll have to get back to that as time allows.

01:06:56

I had a feeling. I even had a question mark after it going, you're not going to get to this. And I was right.

01:07:01

But anyway, thanks for watching Program Day. Again, remember, travelfund .aomin .org

01:07:07

if you want to help us to defray the costs of getting back out there and getting into churches and doing the stuff we've done in the past, but now in a slightly different way, a little more personal way,

01:07:19

I guess. And then Thursday, we're going to have Jake, the Muslim metaphysician, on.

01:07:26

We're going to be—it's not going to be a formal debate this time. We might do a formal debate in the future. Depends on how this all works out.

01:07:31

But we will, Lord willing, be in the AOMAX studio and look forward to having you join us then. Thanks for watching.