Finding the Balance, and A Little on Traditionalist Molinism

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. Got to start today with a word of thanks.

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It's taken a long time, but you'll notice to my left here.

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Now, the next thing we need is a small Enterprise E.

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I think the Enterprise E would be good. But we have our Tribbles, and the

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Tribbles are sitting on top of the Borg Cube. Yes, finally, the Borg Cube has arrived.

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See the green glowing there? Some of you have no idea, none whatsoever, what that is.

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But that is the Borg Cube. We saw it, I don't know, a year and a half ago or so.

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I think Geek came out with it. It's actually a refrigerator. I can actually reach on the back. Well, actually, you can either heat or cool with it, which is really neat.

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You can heat it up in there, or you can cool it off in there, whichever one. But it makes noise if you do that.

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Not a lot. It's pretty quiet. If it wasn't for, you know, I could put my lemonade in there, and I'd be great.

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Do you want to know how you get your blog on the dividing line?

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That's how you do it. There you go. I had to do it. That will be screenshot, and Joe will be very happy.

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Oh, you just made somebody's day big time. There you go. If a light -up

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Enterprise E shows up, who knows? I do have to check your theology first, though. But very, very happy to have the

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BorgCube. If you don't know what a BorgCube is, just Google it. If you watch a clip from Star Trek The Next Generation or one of the movies, didn't they do it?

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Yeah, First Contact. No, not First Contact. Yeah, was it First Contact? Yeah.

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That was a good one. So, yes, as Matthew Eklund just said on Twitter, is the

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BorgCube representative irresistible grace? Resistance is futile? Not quite, because there is no ability to offer resistance when you're dead.

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So you certainly can resist the Spirit of God and all sorts of other things, but when it comes to the granting of spiritual life, see the sermon

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I just preached a week before last at Apologia Church. And there you go.

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Yeah, Google tells me the BorgCube was built in 2365, so now I'm really confused. Well, this is just a mock -up, shall we say, of the

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BorgCube. So I was very, very happy with that. Anyway, what?

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Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yes. Also in the background, right there, is

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Brother Martin Luther. And I felt it was appropriate, since he was sent in, to have

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Brother Martin join us on the program today. I've been reading a lot about Brother Martin, listening to Carl Truman's lectures from Master's Seminary.

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Well, it allegedly is the Reformation period in church history, but as he himself admits, his students at Westminster have renamed the class

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Martin Luther and a few other guys. So obviously, Truman is very much focused on Luther, which is okay.

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Truman doesn't like Calvin. He's a Calvinist. But he says, I just have to admit,

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I've just never found him to be an attractive individual. See, I'm just the opposite. Well, I'm not just the opposite. When I look at a

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Luther, I see him as a theologian of emotion and heart.

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But I see Calvin as a theologian of the mind and the heart.

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And so I see a deep and abiding passion in Calvin.

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Look, just because someone does not have the major mood swings, the

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Anfektungen that Luther had, does not mean that they're not a passionate person.

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Look, you've got to remember, Calvin had a 27 -year -long headache. How many of you would have lots of paintings of you, or pictures these days, selfies, of you smiling or being happy or whatever, if you had a headache for 27 years?

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What Calvin wouldn't have given for Advil? What impact would it have made if he had

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Advil? No, I personally find the person of Calvin to be tremendously attractive and insightful and encouraging.

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And you just have to know where to look. I mean, look at how he treated his people amongst the

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French citizens in Strasbourg during the plague. And you'll get a good idea of just how passionate the guy was.

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So anyway, how did we get on that? Oh, so Brother Luther, I spend a lot of time listening to Carl Truman right now and going back through Bainton's book and just doing a lot of stuff like that in my studies as part of preparation for the

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September Reformation tour, which we talked about last time. Let me remind you of it again.

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We are going to Europe and we're going to tour the primary

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Reformation sites in September of this year. Go to AOMIN .org. And I'm nervous about it because people expect you to know everything and nobody knows everything.

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But I want to not only refresh my memory on certain things, but also you always want to learn more.

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I've been learning more going back through Bainton's book, which

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I read, I don't know, 25 years ago. It's good to read books again after 25 years. It's amazing how much has disappeared in that time period.

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But poor

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Jason, we have been putting the poor man off. But find a range of dialogue or debate and then that's how you grab hold of folks.

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And some people are already confused as to why in the world I was talking about Star Trek. Well, because of the Borg cube right there, which you can't see in this shot anyways, but that's okay.

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Yeah, there's the Borg cube. The Borg have arrived. We have been assimilated. But you notice the

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Borg did not want the Tribbles. They didn't bother to try to assimilate the Tribbles.

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Like, nah, that's okay. We'll leave those for the Klingons. That's a whole other story.

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Anyway, back to Brother Luther. I think he'll stay around for Reformation year because he truly is a fascinating read.

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And a study in contradiction. Just a study in contradiction. But you know what?

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For some of Luther's contradictions, is there such a thing as a good contradiction?

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Not in the sense of ever wanting to violate God's truth, but in the sense of trying to hold truths together and maybe not knowing exactly how to do it.

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He's a study in contradiction in many ways. Really is. So there he is watching over us from the background there.

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Was it Reformation gear that sent that in? Yeah, Reformationgear .com.

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There you go. Just want to make sure. That's two websites on one program.

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There you go. I also was trying to bring up something here. Because I have to have multiple things up here.

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I wanted to go through a few things. Some of which I saw this morning, which struck me as very, very odd.

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Very, very strange. Some of you may know that right now, the

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Internet seems to be suffering from a rash of utter insanity. On many fronts.

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On many, many, many fronts. There's just such nastiness out there.

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This morning I was having some conversation or trying to have a conversation with someone over on a friend's page.

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There were two people I was talking with. It sort of illustrated how strange this was.

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The first person responded to the open letter I posted yesterday.

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Here's what it says. James White calls Catholics idolaters and then has the gall to talk about love?

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I guess I've seen everything now. I wrote back and said, let's reason that one out.

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Scripture defines true worship. Rome denies the Scripture's ability to define worship.

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But adds categories of veneration and super veneration to Latria, the highest role.

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The highest form of worship. And then encourages people to engage in these activities.

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Specifically, veneration of saints and angels. Hyper veneration or hyperdulia of Mary.

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Rome teaches her followers to pray to saints and angels and seek their intercession. Biblically, this is a violation of God's law regarding worship.

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And the violation of God's truth in this central matter is called idolatry. And because I believe all these definitions to be true,

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I am not able to love? Could you explain that logically or rationally? The response, of course, was to provide the standard

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Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox defenses of prayers to saints, angels, so on and so forth.

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Things we've addressed in the debate with Patrick Madrid on that subject. In the lengthy series we did on that debate, numbers of years later.

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In the various books, Roman Catholic controversy, answers to Catholic claims, things like that.

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But then after that, it was, and I had written, and because I believe all these definitions to be true,

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I am not able to love? Could you explain that logically or rationally? Response, calling me and my Catholic brethren idolaters would not be construed by us as an act of love,

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I assure you. I know many Protestants who don't believe as we do, yet have the grace not to anathematize us.

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Now, you do realize that Rome anathematized all Protestants at the Council of Trent.

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They may today go, well, things change. But if you're listening, so many people try to engage individuals in these forums, and you encounter nothing but complete frustration.

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Because if you're listening to that, that wasn't a response to what I said. Calling me and my

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Catholic brethren idolaters would not be construed by us as an act of love. How you construe something is irrelevant. In other words, what you're saying is,

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I don't feel like that's an act of love. And as I pointed out in my response, you are confusing your emotions and what you feel with what you should be thinking and how you should be responding to the provision of facts.

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And this is absolutely what you're going to be encountering all the time when you try to talk to anybody in today's world.

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Finding someone who will actually respond to you and respond to your arguments and lay aside emotions and prejudices and everything else.

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Shockingly rare. Shockingly rare. Then, another fellow was really, really nasty.

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Really, really nasty to me. And when I tried to reason with him, it became very, very quick.

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We started talking about my self -righteous pomposity. So, obviously, there wasn't going to be any discussion here.

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So, I said, thank you for your comments. I am thankful I do not stand before you for judgment. And here's the response.

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Oh, and then you play the righteous card again. Poor thing. Just for the record, your Calvinist monster for a god is much worse.

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So, as soon as I saw that, then I knew what was going on. This person doesn't know me from Adam, doesn't care about me.

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But they hate Reformed theology. They know I represent at least a spectrum of that. And therefore, oh yeah, well, this is why the personal offense and insults and stuff like that has nothing to do with me.

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It got me thinking a lot about the fact that, for example,

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I am seeing on a number of different fronts.

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For example, we have a former sort of a regular.

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Someone would come in fairly frequently. Not a daily type person. We have someone who used to come into our chat channel a lot who is involved with the radical wing of AHA.

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I'll call it the radical wing because there are... My suggestion to anyone who is involved at all with abolish human abortion.

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If you haven't become radicalized, if you still believe the

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Bible in regards to the nature of the church, eldership, your responsibility there.

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If you've remained balanced, in other words. If you haven't fallen off the edge and become one of these radical zealots, you need to change your name.

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You can still use the term of abolition. Call yourself an abolition if you want.

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But maybe call yourself balanced. Maybe call yourself biblical. Maybe call yourself church loving.

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Something. You have to somehow distinguish yourself from these people who clearly...

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If you spend more of your time chasing me and Rich around the internet than you do doing anything about abortion, you've lost your mind.

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You've lost the narrative, man. You have lost it. And there are people like this running around.

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They're trying to contact everybody that used to be in the channel to try to attack

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Rich. And through Rich, me, we know what the game plan is there.

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Yesterday I saw that these guys were going after Emilio Ramos.

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Of course, we know that they did that last year. They showed up outside his church. Here's an active church doing street preaching involved in pro -life causes and all the rest of that stuff.

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The insanity of it is just really hard for most of us to understand. Just the rebellious nastiness of these guys.

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And you all saw the imprecatory prayers being prayed against me and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

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I didn't even know who these people were at the time. Now it's like, well, no now. But anyway, going after...

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He has a business on the side that helps him to...

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In case you didn't know, a lot of pastors do have businesses on the side that help them to get through life.

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They're part -time tent makers. And look,

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I've seen him do this. Emilio knows how to train dogs.

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If you've got one of those dogs that is constantly pulling your arm off and dragging...

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You don't take the dog for a walk. The dog takes you for the walk. Not even a walk, more of a stumble type of thing.

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He knows how to fix that, man. And he can do it fast. He's really, really good at it.

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And you know what somebody did? They went after him on the reviews on his business page.

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About attacking the church and sowing discord and all this other, again, radical

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AHA stuff. And it's like, what person even thinks of doing that?

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By the way, if you're in the DFW area, you might want to... This is the third advertisement on today's Dividing Line. You might want to contact

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DFWDogWhispers .com. That's a freebie for Emilio, but I've seen him do it.

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And he's good. He knows what he's doing. So what are you people thinking?

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What are you spending your life doing? I don't have time to even think about this kind of stuff. It gets me really angry.

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Another friend of mine just let me know that he got attacked, again, by radicals that just seem to live in the

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Internet. And this is all they do. A lot of people, that's why they just simply disconnect and say, forget about it.

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Well, believe me, I think we should disconnect a whole lot more than we do. I'm thinking maybe this is something you check once a day and just not worry about it.

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And the problem is there'd be so much you'd have to spend all day just checking. But who cares?

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Then skip it. Don't need to know. Don't need to know. When was the last time you closed the browser window and said, praise the

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Lord, I'm edified? Well, you might go, well, how can that be?

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You're seeing what's going on in the world. Yeah, but a lot of it has to do with what you bring to it.

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What attitude you bring to the encounters themselves. I mean, I've never seen the kind of personal nastiness being expressed toward me.

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But you know what? People go, how do you take that? You know, those things

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I just read to you about the two different, the guy, the Calvinist God and all the rest of that type of stuff. I just realized this is a person that, if the person's a

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Christian, they may or may not be, I don't know. If the person's a Christian, they may just have tremendous ignorance of what

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Reformed theology is. But when they attack me personally, I've said many times, you give to someone, you give to someone's opinions, the weight that their work and the consistency of their life grants to their opinions.

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And hence, online, the really, really, really hard thing to do is to maintain a mature balance as a

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Christian, whether it's online or wherever else it is. In fact, this sort of brings up another subject.

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Oh, there is a question here. Are these dually, hyper -dually, or lottery terms even known by the average

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Catholic? You know, like in South America. Yeah, yeah. If anyone's ever gone to their priest with a question, then that's how it would be explained to them.

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Those are the official things. Depends on whether you're talking about an average involved

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Catholic or a nominal Catholic. The nominal person doesn't care about these things and probably not to them.

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But I realized, I just realized now, I forgot to bring these up. And it'll take me just half a second here.

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But someone on Twitter, I suppose I could have just, I suppose it wasn't that long ago, I can scroll down. Yeah, they're still here.

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Okay. Someone on Twitter asked me some questions this morning.

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I said, you know what, I think I'll talk about that on the program today. So I'm going to go ahead and do that now. And I have some traditionalist stuff to look at as well on the program today.

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So we'll just see where we go. This sort of ties into things, though. Beginning of Sorrows tweeted me about four hours ago.

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Well, this says four hours ago. You know how Twitter is. Well, this is TweetBot. Having difficulty getting anyone to address

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Piper's open embrace of heretics Warren, Giglio, and then it sort of breaks off.

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But there's a, here we go. Passion 2015. Giglio, Piper, Chan, Lentz.

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Oh, Lentz, L -E -N -T -Z. Okay. And then the next one, same goes for Al Mohler.

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Can you please give me your thoughts, especially in light of 2 John 11? And I guess, oh, there's a picture of Al Mohler with Rick Warren.

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Well, you just need to understand. There is an absolutely inviolable rule amongst

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Southern Baptists. Thou shalt not speak ill of your fellow Southern Baptists. And then the last one was also

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R .C. Sproul is partnering with ecumenist Nick Hall. I have no earthly idea who Nick Hall is. In two weeks, what are your thoughts?

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Well, evidently, it was saying partnering with. When I brought this up, it's

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Proclaim 17, NRB International Christian Media Convention. Okay, look, it's

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NRB. R .C. probably doesn't have any idea who this guy is.

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Probably got booked for NRB last year. There are 47 million people at NRB to try to say that he's partnering with someone because he's appearing the same thing.

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Way, way, way, way, way over the line. That's almost like, well, you have to.

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So much of this is the idea of separationism, where you hold other people accountable as long as they show up at the same conference you're at.

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You may not even know they're there. You may have never read a single book they've ever written, but you're accountable to it.

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Well, no, you're not. Now, if you feel some kind of extremely strong compunction that you have to ask, if you're asked to preach at a church, what are all the other people who've ever preached this church?

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And then go and read all their books, and if you've got that kind of compunction, okay. Most of us don't have that compunction and can't even imagine being able to live that way.

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But I wanted to look at the use of 2

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John in that text, in that reference.

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Now, specifically, here's the context. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house and do not give him a greeting, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

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And some of the pictures that were sent to me were of people,

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I guess probably this Nick Hall guy, and Rick Warren, and is that Lou Giglio?

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Yeah, Lou Giglio. And what are they all doing? They're all greeting the Pope. They're all greeting the

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Pope. So, there you get the connection, for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

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So, if you ever greeted the Pope, now, would I go to some papal audience? No. Couldn't do so.

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Would I debate the Pope? Yeah, if the Pope wanted to debate. But that would have to be very clearly stated that it was a debate.

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Though, for some reason, for some people, that wouldn't even matter. Trust me. But does 2

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John 10 -11 teach that we are to have as our first thought separation from anyone that we consider to be tainted?

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Now, here's where, no matter what I say here, I'm going to offend a bunch of folks. No matter how

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I handle this, there are going to be people that are going to be angry about it. That's one of the reasons it's almost never talked about.

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And yet, all of us have a view on this. And the problem is, our views are not necessarily consistent because we haven't thought it through.

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And we haven't talked about it. So, it's one of the things we do here. So, here we go again.

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Fundamentalists hold to a doctrine of separation. And the idea is, you need to remain untainted by the world.

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And that means you must stay away from, well, in a lot of fundamentalist circles, anyone who doesn't look like you, preach like you, dress like you.

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I mean, people have joked about how in fundamentalist circles, this concept of separation can be taken to an incredibly, incredibly absurd level.

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I mean, literally to the point of dividing over what color ties people wear or the color of the cover of their

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Bible. And certainly all sorts of things like, well, if you don't have my exact view, my exact view of eschatology, then you're clearly not going to heaven.

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And there are a lot of people that are raised in the idea that, you know, only the people in my denomination are going to heaven and not even all of them.

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This idea of separation then ends up functioning in the idea that, well, if this person over here has errors in their theology, and you and I agree that they have errors in their theology, then you can't have anything to do with them.

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You cannot greet them. You cannot fellowship with them. It's not even a matter of having them in your church or having them teach in your church or preach in your church or anything like that.

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No, you have to shun them. It's a form of shunning. Well, exactly how is that supposed to work?

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Because when you press people, you say, okay, let's talk about a charismatic.

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You know, John Piper is mildly charismatic. He holds to a form of continuationism.

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Okay. So you disagree with that. But if you press and say, so is that a part of the gospel?

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Well, no, it's not a part of the gospel. So you think there's probably a good chance that John Piper is going to be in heaven, right?

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I mean, you're not going to the point of saying that the man holds to what would be called damnable heresy, a heresy that damns the soul.

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Well, it can open the door if that's the point. The point is, does he purposefully deny the fundamental definitional truths of the

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Christian faith? Well, no. So are you saying that you expect someday to experience fellowship in heaven with John Piper?

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Well, I can't look into anybody's hearts. You know what? I can't either. I can't either.

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And that's something that's really important. I can't look into people's hearts.

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And so if someone confesses, and I forgot to, oh, drat.

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Let's see if it's charged up yet. Took forever to find a

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USB cord to power my little tablet here, because this is what I wanted to draw.

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And I don't know if this is going to work. Doesn't look like it's going to.

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Let's try to turn it on and see if it will. Oh, it did.

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It did. Let me see if I can pull up.

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There it is. Hey, all right.

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Now, of course, what's going to happen is I'm going to get this up and then the batteries. Because it took so long.

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We are both running around trying to find this thing this morning so I could do this.

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Whiteboard. Do you got whiteboard? It should just be a white.

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Well, why is it? What's it doing over there? I'm trying to send you the whole window.

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So, ah, good. All right.

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Oh, sorry. Put desktop presenter over here.

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This is a live program, folks. This is how it works. Okay. So, let's say we have color black.

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Okay. Tip size. Okay. So, here we go. This should. Oh, here we are.

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There we are. Okay. So, over here on this side, over here, these are the things that define the gospel.

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These are the central. Can we can like minimize that? I think people still be able to.

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He's working on it. Okay. He's, you know, I didn't tell him I was going to do this.

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So, he's, you know, just doing his thing in there. These are the things that define the gospel. So, what are they?

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Well, most of us have a pretty good idea of what defines the gospel.

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Doctrine of God. Well, what parts of the doctrine of God? Well, monotheism, the doctrine of the

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Trinity, the deity of Christ, the person of the Holy Spirit. These are things that we have used to absolutely say this is non -negotiable.

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Have to have that. These are definitional. Okay. In the mere

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Christianity movement, that's it. Well, you can add to that the cross and the resurrection.

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Cross and resurrection. You can't put the gospel in there. We having problems? I'm going to start seeing

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John Denver in here pretty quickly if we, you know, if we don't get it back up here. So, we can put in the cross, resurrection, and the doctrine of God.

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But when we go over here and we come to this side, how about just putting all of it back up?

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We can't get it minimized. Just put it all back up then. Got to have something. So, out here, you're going to have other areas of doctrine.

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Okay. And the farther you get out here, the less definitional and the more you get into what's called adiaphora.

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The things that there's room for difference in.

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The problem is, many of our fundamentalist brethren want to take the absolutely definitional part and move it way over here.

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So that I've been in churches where, believe me,

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I mentioned this Sunday morning at PRBC. I've been in churches where if you were a mid -trib rapturist, they'd think you're going to hell.

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You're a heretic. And not just in a really simplistic way. They will actually say, well, see, if you believe this, then that means you'd have to believe this, believe this, believe this, and that denies the gospel.

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So, one of the biggest problems we face in what

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I would call the serious Christian community, the Christian community where people actually want to believe the truth, is what is definitional, what is not, and even once you have put some serious thought into it, how can you graciously interact with someone on the adiaphora?

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And here's the question. When we look at John Piper, as this individual on Twitter is, are you saying he's not going to heaven?

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What about Rick Warren? Are you saying that he's lost? And a lot of people will say, well, I'm not going to say they're not

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Christians. I just think that they're very dangerous. Okay, how about being a little bit more careful there and saying their teaching is very dangerous?

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Because you don't know their heart. I've simply come to the conclusion, unless I'm willing to say this person is not a

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Christian, this person openly and purposefully holds to a gospel that is not the gospel of Christ, that is specifically in opposition to that.

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If I'm going to go, yeah, I'm probably going to be in heaven with that person, then I better treat them in that way.

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And here's where the balance gets lost. Because if you say, well, if you're going to treat someone like a Christian, then that means you're agreeing with everything they say.

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No, that's not what it means. And this is where I think the internet has absolutely debilitated our ability to act with charity, kindness, and love towards one another.

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Because you have to respond to things immediately, because you have to, you know, it's so easy to draw tribal lines and all the rest of that stuff.

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The idea that, you know what, I disagree with this individual.

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And you know what, they're teaching in this particular area. And, you know, it might be out in, let's say, you know, the doctrines right around here, you know, someplace in this area right here.

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All right. Now, it's not definitional from my perspective, but that doesn't make it unimportant.

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And when I interact with this doctrine, I may strongly criticize it.

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But I still believe that a person could hold this doctrine, and they're still my brother, sister, and Christ.

41:11

Let me give you some examples. I think baptism is an important topic.

41:22

It's so important. I would actually put it farther over. You know, baptism is, you know, over here someplace, okay?

41:32

I think it's really important. In fact, it's so important that you cannot believe in baptizing infants and be a member of my church.

41:41

And if I don't believe in baptizing infants,

41:47

I don't expect to be a member of your church or put in leadership there. I do not minimize the importance of the topic.

41:56

But, and you can go ahead and take that down for the moment. But, yeah, it took you so long to get there.

42:02

Well, yes, it did. But I was not going to mention that. But it's not definitional of the gospel.

42:11

In fact, the Westminster Confession of Faith says I'm sinning to not baptize my children.

42:18

That's what it says. The tendency amongst people is to go, well, if I'm saying someone's sinning, then that means

42:29

I need to separate from that person in all aspects. And I need to condemn that person.

42:35

And I cannot be kind to that person. And I can't have any type of fellowship with that person.

42:44

And that would mean I couldn't have fellowship with my Presbyterian brothers and sisters. Now, a person who believes in baptismal regeneration, that the mechanism is not the sovereign grace of God.

42:59

It's not faith. It's not the Spirit of God raising someone to spiritual life.

43:05

Instead, it's a sacramental concept that this is the means by which someone is brought into relationship with God.

43:12

Well, that starts getting right over into the definitional stuff. No question about it.

43:23

And that's where you start getting into issues with federal visionism and all the rest of that stuff, even amongst

43:29

Presbyterians. So there's all sorts of areas there. The tendency amongst people is to go, well, if I view the teaching in this way, then as an absolute result,

43:44

I have to engage the individual in the exact same way that I engage the teaching.

43:54

What that assumes is that the person with that teaching is fully aware of all of the ramifications of their teaching.

44:03

Let me just ask you, are you fully aware of all the ramifications of every teaching and doctrine you hold? Have you thought everything through perfectly?

44:12

I haven't. Maybe you have. If you have, well, more power to you.

44:18

You're smarter than me. You've done a lot more thinking than I have, and there are lots of people that have. So, okay.

44:26

But since I haven't done that, I have to act in the realm of grace toward those who make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

44:39

Because I believe that in the eternal state, we will be closer and have a more intimate relationship with one another than any relationship we have here on earth right now.

44:52

Because all sin will be removed. So, if you're going to be my dear, deep, close brother and sister in eternity, then

45:06

I probably need to keep that in mind here on earth.

45:13

So, when I think about it along those lines, then I want to be gracious toward the person, even if I have to be very firm about a teaching and warn about a teaching.

45:28

I've tried to model that in dialoguing with individuals who are willing to go both directions on that.

45:38

That drives some people nuts. Me and Dr. Brown, all the time. There's all sorts of people on Twitter who want to hold me accountable for everything

45:46

Mike Brown says. I just saw an article that he wrote about hyper -grace, and I have to disagree with stuff that he said, at least.

45:54

But you know what? If I called Michael Brown up right now, and I've got his number right here, if I called

46:03

Michael Brown up and said, Hey, I'd like to have you on the dividing line. I want to talk about that article. You know what he'd do? What do you want to do?

46:12

And I could say, Mike, I disagree with you on this. Let me push back on this.

46:18

And he would graciously receive that, and he might push back right back to me. But you know what it would not end up in?

46:26

A screaming match. A screaming match. It wouldn't. It wouldn't. And everybody listening knows that it wouldn't.

46:35

Now, going back here to 2

46:43

John. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, whenever you encounter this teaching, tautain, that means there's an antecedent.

46:55

What's the teaching? What's the teaching? Is it eternal security?

47:06

Now, be careful how you answer that. Because I've met far too many people in our camp that like this program.

47:14

They would go, well, eternal security means this series of beliefs beforehand.

47:22

Going all the way back to the gospel itself. So if you disagree with me down here, that must mean you disagree with me back here.

47:28

And that's where they lose it. Because the person may not follow that chain all the way.

47:35

They may take a left -hand turn up here. Oh, but they can't. Well, wait. But if they do, then they may still believe like you do up here.

47:44

It's salvation by grace through faith. They just don't come down to the conclusion here. And you can argue all you want.

47:50

And you need to do it in love and in grace and firmly and without compromise.

47:56

But that doesn't mean that just because they don't trace the same line that you do, that they don't really believe this up here.

48:03

And that's where hyper -Calvinism comes in or hyper -Arminianism comes in. Either one. They're both rationalistic systems.

48:10

And they don't recognize that there can be a difference of belief somewhere along the line.

48:18

So if the teaching here—what's the teaching in 2

48:25

John 9? Well, you've got to go back to verse 7. I'm sorry. 2 John 7. For many deceivers, planoi, have gone out into the world.

48:38

And who are the deceivers? The ones not confessing Jesus Christ having come in the flesh.

48:46

This is the deceiver and the antichrist. So there is a context. What's the context?

48:52

They are the ones who denied the heart of the Christian faith.

48:57

They are the ones that John warns us about in 1 John. 2 John, these are the

49:02

Gnostic heretics. The proto -Gnostic heretics, we would call them, just given how Gnosticism developed in the

49:08

West. But the proto -Gnostic heretics that deny the Incarnation. And so these are people who wouldn't be

49:15

Trinitarians. This would be people who deny that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. And watch yourselves.

49:23

You do not lose what we have accomplished, but you may receive a full award. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ.

49:30

That's the same people. Does not have God, the one who abides in the teaching. He has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house.

49:38

So this is, remember the lines? This is the definitional line.

49:44

This is the definitional line. They do not believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. They do not believe in the Incarnation.

49:50

They are the Gnostic heretics that John is fighting against in that day. Okay? So, you're not even to give that person a greeting.

49:59

In other words, these are people who claim to be Christians, but they deny the fundamentals of the faith.

50:07

Now, what about Rick Warren? Rick Warren plainly is compromised on the issue of Roman Catholicism.

50:17

Plainly. And we have criticized him for that. And we have warned people.

50:27

Rick Warren clearly does not understand the danger of the

50:36

Roman Catholic Gospel. The Roman Catholic view of authority must be dealt with in that way.

50:46

I wish there were people in his life that could speak to him on these issues.

50:53

But, now let's do some reasoning. We've warned about Rick Warren. Does that mean

50:59

Rick Warren is going to hell? Well, I know a lot of people out there on the internet that go,

51:07

Well, of course he is! He shook the Pope's hand! His hair is already on fire!

51:16

Well, Rick Warren tells me that he believes that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, and he believes in salvation by grace through faith.

51:23

Is he inconsistent to shake the Pope's hand? Might that mean?

51:30

Might it mean that he actually is a deceiver? Might it mean that he doesn't really understand the

51:37

Gospel? Yes, it might mean that, but I can't see into his heart to know that. So, can

51:43

I condemn him to hellfire? I can't. Can I warn against his teaching?

51:49

Can I put videos up that have gotten tens of thousands of views saying, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

51:54

What do you mean, my Pope? He ain't my Pope. But if he was consistent, well, let's pray that he's not.

52:04

Let's pray that he's not. Because if he was consistent, the guy would be swimming the

52:10

Tiber River. He'd be on the other side by now if he was consistent with what he said. Well, he's not there yet.

52:17

Well, maybe he's just over here to deceive people. It's possible. It's possible.

52:24

I'll give that. But in this life, what's the attitude we should bring when we can't see into someone's heart, when we have a clear contradiction?

52:38

For some people, it's attack, vilify, separate.

52:46

Okay. I think it needs to be grace. I'd like to be able to sit down and talk with him and go,

52:52

What do you mean, my Pope? What do you mean by that? Do you understand what this means?

53:01

Do you understand what the papacy stands for? Where are you getting that? But now, let's, okay, there's the

53:10

Rick Warren issue. Now let's go to the next level. Someone who would have a picture taken with Rick Warren.

53:23

See, now you're going, Okay, so if you have your picture taken with someone, that means you're accountable for their teachings.

53:35

Eventually, you start going, Well, wait a minute. Okay, here we go.

53:44

This is easy. There are no pictures. This is probably purposeful on his part, too, now that I think about it.

53:52

There are no pictures of Al Mohler and I together. They don't exist.

53:59

They don't exist. Is it possible that might change someday?

54:07

I'm not sure that Al Mohler would want that to happen. I've talked with Al Mohler, but I have talked with Al Mohler on the phone.

54:18

But there are pictures of Al Mohler with Bruce Ware, because Bruce Ware teaches at Southern.

54:31

And I bet you anything, you can find pictures online of Al Mohler and Bruce Ware together.

54:38

And you can find pictures of Bruce Ware and I together, too. So there you go.

54:44

There's a direct line, Pope, Warren, Mohler, Ware, me.

54:51

There you go. And I know of at least one person that will be putting this on his

54:56

Facebook page. He's typing right now. Pure proof. There it is.

55:02

I've got it. Now you go,

55:07

Oh, you're being silly. I think I'm making a point. I mean, if there's a picture of two people together, how does that indicate agreement on theology in all things?

55:28

Well, but you shouldn't allow yourself to... Look, there are people that come up to you and take pictures of me all the time.

55:34

I do not give them a doctrinal test. Oh, but Al Mohler knows what Warren teaches.

55:39

Well, okay. Does he have him in to teach classes at Southern? Then that would be an issue if he was teaching on those subjects.

55:52

But this whole association idea, just because there's a picture of two people together does not mean the two people agree on everything.

56:00

And I'm sure that Rick Warren would say, Well, I disagree on the Pope on this, that, and the other thing. I disagree with him on that, but I just think he's a great brother.

56:06

No, that's where the issue lies. And as far as I can tell, listening to Al Mohler on the briefing,

56:17

Al Mohler believes that Rome preaches a false gospel and has a false understanding of authority, a false view of sacraments, the whole nine yards.

56:27

So you cannot take a picture and go, See, that means he agrees with him. No, it doesn't mean he agrees with him.

56:34

There are lots of pictures of me and Mike Brown together. And yet, how many debates have we done? On how many different topics?

56:41

Doesn't mean we agree on everything, does it? Oh, but you think he's a Christian. Yes, I do. Yes, I do.

56:48

I do. Do I think Al Mohler is a Christian? Yep. Bruce Ware, we disagree on this eternal functional subordination to something.

56:55

Do I think he's a Christian? Of course, I think he's a Christian. So how then should there be a willingness for someone to say to John Piper, the teachings of these individuals,

57:19

What are your reservations? Where do you differ? Can you be open about that?

57:26

And as long as there has been openness to say, I disagree on this, this and this, here's why.

57:34

And you know what? I think some of these things could be dangerous if taken so far. Oh, but I just don't understand how you can have fellowship with someone when you disagree on these topics.

57:49

Well, people say you focus upon this blessed inconsistencies.

57:57

Yes, I believe that there are blessed inconsistencies. I believe that I have brothers and sisters in the

58:07

Lord that I understand.

58:13

Let's take the doctrine of atonement, okay? I hold a minority view.

58:20

As a result, many people slam the door in my face. They could be in a situation where the

58:27

Mormons are breaking down the door and they know I'd be the best person to talk to those people. They will not let me in because,

58:35

Nope, nope. Your doctrine of atonement, totally wrong. I can easily understand.

58:45

I argue that the only... What was my presentation at G3? I think these are up on YouTube now, fully available now.

58:54

I think I saw something about that. What was my argument at G3? I think that my synergistic brethren are severely crippled in responding to the

59:08

Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass as it is best presented by today's modern Roman Catholic apologists because they have a sub -biblical doctrine of atonement.

59:17

I really do. So is that important? You bet it's important. Does that mean that I limit the sphere of Christians to those that believe in particular redemption?

59:33

No. Do I believe Leighton Flowers is a Christian? Yes. William Lane Craig.

59:41

How many times have you heard me criticize William Lane Craig? I think Molinism...

59:47

I'm sorry, I think it's a joke. All you philosophically minded people, Oh, I can't believe you said that.

59:54

Look, from a biblical perspective, I find it to be offensive.

01:00:02

And William Lane Craig is one of the primary promoters of it. Has anyone ever heard me say

01:00:09

William Lane Craig is not a believer in Jesus Christ? No, you've never heard me say that. Do I think he's on the side of the angels?

01:00:17

I have said that. I have affirmed that. You can't find a scintilla of evidence against it.

01:00:24

I just don't know how you could do that. That's because you have, on that spectrum, on the little whiteboard here, you have taken the stuff on the left side and extended it almost all the way over to the right.

01:00:41

Because in your mind, you've made the connection, definitional and important are identical.

01:00:49

Definitional and important are identical. They're not. They're not.

01:00:57

They can't be. It can be very important. I'll preach it.

01:01:02

I'll teach it. I will direct people. I'll make my arguments. But you know what? I can't see in the hearts and minds of men.

01:01:12

I know I have my blind spots. And though grace is rarely offered to me by the other side and by my critics, that doesn't mean that that gives me a reason to not extend that grace to others.

01:01:31

Each one of you has to make your decisions in this area. Don't follow me.

01:01:37

Don't follow me. I've thought these things through, and I will have to answer for where I draw those lines before my

01:01:48

Lord. And you're not going to be able to say, well, James White did. Yeah, so? You're going to have to think these things through.

01:01:56

You have to draw those lines. There's this old forgotten doctrine called the individual priesthood of the believer.

01:02:04

And that means you're accountable before God. Don't think that at the judgment day someday you're going to be able to go, well, you know, hey, so -and -so misled me.

01:02:21

Well, if so -and -so did mislead you, they'll be held accountable for that. But that doesn't mean that you don't have accountability for having been misled.

01:02:31

These are things we have to think through. And evidently a lot of people have come to the very wrong conclusion that because I will criticize someone, that means they're not a

01:02:47

Christian. I think in reality, when you think about it, you have to hold

01:02:57

Christians to a higher standard than unbelievers. So if some unbeliever was promoting some kind of Molinistic idea, one of the reasons

01:03:09

I find it so grievous for William Lane Craig is because he has such a big platform.

01:03:20

Well, you could be wrong. He might not be a believer. Yeah. I've been disappointed by many in my lifetime.

01:03:29

I've talked about the fact that if any believer lives their life, as they get older and older, the list of apostates that they have known gets longer.

01:03:44

And it's a sad thing to think about. The list of people who once professed the faith and don't any longer, it's in your mind.

01:03:52

If you don't have that list because you haven't been paying attention. But I simply refuse to put myself in the position of God in making decisions that only

01:04:07

God can make. Teachings, we have the Word of God to deal with. Figuring out the inconsistencies in the hearts of men,

01:04:16

I can't figure them out in my own heart, let alone somebody else's. So I'll warn against teachings.

01:04:23

I'll warn against wolves that are plainly wolves. I mean, when they fit all the categories that Scripture gives us, they love their belly.

01:04:31

They're filling their belly. Look, when people are fleecing the sheep, when you've got the Copelands and all these people flying around their jet planes, they're easy to see.

01:04:41

But when you've got people who are clearly seeking to live in appropriate fashion, they confess the truth about who

01:04:53

God is, what Christ did on the cross, and they say, I believe in salvation by grace through faith.

01:05:00

And see, a lot of people go, see, you just went too far there. A lot of people today will say, no, you can't add that one.

01:05:07

Well, if you can get rid of the Book of Galatians, then I can join you in that one. But just can't go there.

01:05:13

Just can't go there. I see that my Twitter feed has exploded, but I had it scrolled down to read those things, and so I haven't been able to find, haven't been able to follow all of these things.

01:05:29

And won't be able to if I want to get to this last thing I want to do in the last 25 minutes anyway.

01:05:35

So we'll be doing a jumbo edition. Well, it may not go that long. We'll see.

01:05:48

Great topic today. I graduated from a seminary that expelled Calvinists and put MacArthur's books in a locked room.

01:05:57

Why would people do that? If you put books in a locked room, what's that going to do to people? They're going to want to get into the locked room and read those books.

01:06:04

You know, it's like, hello? Well, that's where my mind keeps going.

01:06:10

If I think non -reformed views through to their logical conclusion, it denies the gospel. See, I'm glad I'm looking at this.

01:06:19

But I've heard you refer to non -reformed people as brothers and sisters, so I must be making a mistake somewhere. Yes, yes, yes.

01:06:28

Perfection of theology is not the standard. Perfection of theology.

01:06:34

We want to be consistent with the entirety of Scripture.

01:06:41

We want to believe everything God's Word says. But to make perfection of theology the standard is to draw a circle around yourself.

01:06:55

I mean, that's going to be the only people left. Because you become the standard.

01:07:01

Do you have perfect theology? Do you understand everything? I mean,

01:07:07

I bet you I could ask some Trinitarian questions of 90 % of modern day

01:07:19

Christians that they would not be able to answer with clarity. Does that mean they're not saved? I mean,

01:07:28

Trinity, we accept that as definitional. How many people would we have in the faith if perfection of knowledge of the doctrine of the

01:07:40

Trinity were the standard? I'm not sure we'd have any because I'm not really sure. What about the

01:07:46

EFS thing? What about areas like that? This is nothing new, folks.

01:07:58

Remember last December? I did this one before. I've sort of done this topic before. Balance in the

01:08:09

Christian life. Balance in the Christian life. This is what it's all about. And it is something that we have to strive for every single day.

01:08:19

You don't just arrive at it. The world and your experiences and your conflicts are constantly pushing you off balance.

01:08:27

You always have to be trying to get back on balance. And what I'm trying to say to you is

01:08:34

I'm talking to a tough audience because, look, most of you are interested in apologetics or you wouldn't be watching this program.

01:08:39

You wouldn't be listening to this program, right? And people that are interested in apologetics have a very high view of truth.

01:08:47

We believe that there is such a thing as objective truth. There's a revelation of that truth. Men are going to be held accountable to that truth.

01:08:52

So it's really easy for us to become extremely stiff -spined and you need to believe what

01:09:00

I believe is the truth. And then what we do is we extend that all the way across the whiteboard

01:09:10

I was showing you earlier rather than recognizing there are adiaphora.

01:09:20

And there are things that I can believe are absolutely important. I can see how they're important to the

01:09:28

Christian life. I can see how they've led to problems in the church in the past. But you know what? Not everyone has necessarily had the opportunities you've had to study that doctrine to that point to be able to know that.

01:09:40

So you can't make your understanding of that. And you may be absolutely right. But if it was

01:09:47

God's grace that showed it to you, who are you to demand that God's grace is shown to everybody? That's what you've got to be so careful about.

01:09:56

The cliffs on both sides. One is you fall into a form of wishy -washy.

01:10:06

There's no truth to hold anybody accountable to at all. That's what you get in liberalism.

01:10:12

The other side, well, the other side, folks, might even be scarier.

01:10:20

Because the other side is the legalistic Phariseeism of the

01:10:27

New Testament that's condemned in the New Testament. And, man, I'm going to tell you something.

01:10:35

Jesus had really harsh words. I don't know of harsher words anywhere in Scripture, but for people who thought they had it all figured out, but it missed the heart of God.

01:10:47

Matthew 23, Galatians 5, as far as I can tell, those are the two nastiest chapters in the

01:10:53

New Testament. And they're both focused on the same thing.

01:10:58

Isn't that interesting? I don't want to go that way. So I need to be, if I'm going to err,

01:11:04

I need to err on the side of grace, not on the side of the Pharisees.

01:11:11

That's where I come down. And that separates me from a lot of folks these days, unfortunately.

01:11:21

From a lot of folks. So, yes, I'm just looking at things here.

01:11:33

I have a family member who is openly bisexual and still professes to be a Christian. What level is that on for you?

01:11:41

I'm going to sit here for a second and let you all, what do you think that is for me? Biblical teaching?

01:11:50

Now, is this person saying that this is acceptable and teaching it?

01:11:58

That person is now a false teacher. Very clearly, this is an issue of biblical revelation and rebellion against biblical teaching.

01:12:12

This isn't, you know, if this person was saying, well, I've always been taught this.

01:12:19

No, this is a person who's actually practicing it. So this is, if this person were in a church that had a clear confession of faith, this person would be excommunicated.

01:12:35

There's really no question about that. Very, very clearly. No, actually,

01:12:46

I don't watch that program, Andrew. The only thing I know about it is through Emilio. Presbyterians reform

01:12:53

Baptist brethren together in Christian love, just not in the same local congregation. Yeah, that's true.

01:13:00

And it needs to be that way. And I think we're both, I think both sides of that issue would be dishonoring

01:13:07

God's truth if we tried to sweep that under the rug. And I can say as a person who has twice in public, and I'm not even talking about the dividing line, twice in public defended my view of baptism against Christian brothers on the other side.

01:13:27

Bill Shishko is my Christian brother. Bill Shishko had me preach in his church on justification before we did the debate on baptism, so we could demonstrate that we're

01:13:36

Christian brothers. But I can't be in his congregation. And I would not ask to be. Would I like to see that changed?

01:13:43

It will be someday. It's called the eternal state. It's called the eternal state. Someday, we're going to know.

01:13:51

Isn't Rick Warren also a word -faith teacher? I have no idea. I've never heard him do that.

01:13:57

I don't know. So you mentioned Al Mohler and the

01:14:02

Pope, but what is the connection to Kevin Bacon? Is there one?

01:14:09

I'm almost afraid to ask. I have no earthly idea either. Okay.

01:14:17

Kofi is liking this one. Dropping the likes there. Other people.

01:14:25

Other people. Level 3? Okay. Micah has determined it's level 3.

01:14:31

I don't know what level 3 is either. My mansion in heaven next to Joel Osteen? I don't know.

01:14:40

James White just called Scripture nasty. Okay. That's interesting. I have no idea. That'll end up on a webpage someplace.

01:14:48

I'm not talking about details. I mean things like someone who has studied in depth but still denies total depravity.

01:14:59

How can the gospel remain intact with that view? You're probably on something else now.

01:15:06

My phone keeps killing the feed. Sorry about that. How many people do you know that have a consistent belief in total depravity?

01:15:21

It's pretty obvious to me. Any synergist. Any synergist at all does not have a consistent view of total depravity.

01:15:27

But how many of us do? We may profess it, but how many of us do? Again, when you ask the question do you have to have a full understanding of what total depravity means?

01:15:46

I don't think any of us fully understand that. There is, again, blessed inconsistencies.

01:15:55

When people will say, yes, salvation must be by grace, they're professing total depravity.

01:16:01

They may turn around and deny it, but they're professing it. And I'm simply saying, if a person says to me,

01:16:09

I didn't save myself, I depend upon God's grace, I'm justified by faith alone,

01:16:16

I have to accept that. Unless they absolutely prove to me otherwise. And I'll make them prove it to me otherwise.

01:16:25

Rome specifically says, you're not saved by those means. They're very open and upfront about it.

01:16:32

The old time Church of Christ folks, ain't justified by faith, ain't justified by grace alone.

01:16:38

Okay, there's where we have a problem. But I am thankful for the blessed inconsistencies.

01:16:44

Speaking of blessed inconsistencies, let me see, found it, good.

01:16:52

I've made enough people angry at me today. Remember the article on SBC Today, I guess

01:17:05

I said SBC Voices, we had to fix that, SBC Today, that I mentioned,

01:17:10

I think, on the last program. In one of the comments that came out, and again, the troublemaker from Dallas, Rick Patrick commented on February 11th, in response to a lengthy comment that had been made, and here's a paragraph.

01:17:36

There's a lot of all caps in here. I don't think he was yelling, but there's all caps.

01:17:43

No, we are not open theists. We affirm God's knowledge of all things, but disaffirm

01:17:52

God's causation of all things. While the former makes events certain, only the latter makes them necessary.

01:18:05

Some of us disaffirm open theism by means of simple foreknowledge, while others disaffirm it by means of Molinism.

01:18:18

We believe God either decrees or allows all things, and that among the things that God allows is the free will decision of man to say either yes or no to Jesus.

01:18:33

Now, Rick Patrick is a nice guy, and again,

01:18:41

Rick Patrick professes faith in Jesus Christ, and so I deal with Rick Patrick as a believer.

01:18:50

Despite the cavils and lies that are being promulgated regularly on Facebook about me, when

01:19:02

I critique someone's perspective, I critique what they say, not the individual.

01:19:13

That would be nice if those attacking me could try the same thing, but that would be a major change.

01:19:20

Did you catch what was rather humorous in what was said here? Oh, you shouldn't say anything's humorous, but it is.

01:19:28

When you think about it, some of us disaffirm open theism by means of simple foreknowledge, while others disaffirm it by means of Molinism.

01:19:35

What is Rick Patrick defending? What's it called again?

01:19:41

Southern Baptist, um... Oh! Traditionalism. Wait a minute.

01:19:49

When did Molinism become an element of Southern Baptist Traditionalism? Are you seriously going to suggest that Molinism has a long and lengthy history amongst

01:20:02

Southern Baptists as an explanation of God's knowledge? But, what's even more hopefully helpful to observe here, as you listen to the traditionalists, as they are asked to interact with criticisms of their position, something comes out that's very, very clear.

01:20:32

There isn't a consistent, single, traditionalist doctrine of God.

01:20:45

Do you see that? Let me read it again. Some of us disaffirm open theism by means of simple foreknowledge, while others disaffirm it by means of Molinism.

01:20:53

Folks, Molinism and simple foreknowledge are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. They are radically different viewpoints of God's interaction with His creation.

01:21:04

I mean, Molinism has been criticized for being incredibly deterministic.

01:21:13

I think anyone, and let's be honest with you, again, people are going to get offended by this, but I don't think the vast majority of Southern Baptists who have latched on to Molinism have a clue what it really means.

01:21:26

I don't think they've ever thought through who the divine card dealer is.

01:21:33

They don't even realize there needs to be one. This idea of God thinking through all of these possible universes, and where middle knowledge comes from, and the grounding objection, and all this stuff, is probably not really something that they're thinking about.

01:21:56

So, it's not what you've got here. It's not a part of traditional

01:22:03

Southern Baptist belief in the first place. So, this idea of traditionalism, eh.

01:22:10

But, do you see the direction of the flow? The flow of thought is we have a gospel and an understanding of how that gospel is to be proclaimed.

01:22:24

And so, we have to defend that.

01:22:30

And so, you can take differing and contradictory views of the very nature of God, as long as you come back to this main point, which is to disaffirm

01:22:44

Calvinism. Or, in this case, disaffirm open theism, but it doesn't matter what it is.

01:22:50

The point is, they don't have they're not starting with a doctrine of God, and then moving to what

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God does in salvation. They're starting with their understanding of what salvation must be, and what the nature of man must be, and to protect that.

01:23:07

Then, if you want to go with this view of God, or that view of God, hey, as long as you get to the same point.

01:23:15

And how many times have I been criticized for talking about the difference between synergism and monergism as the difference between God -centered theology and man -centered theology?

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And yet, there it is. There's the illustration of it.

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Ah, some of us open to divine, simple foreknowledge, and others, Mullenism, and whatever.

01:23:42

What does that tell you? It tells you that the flow is from the conclusion backwards to God.

01:23:51

And you'll never come to Reformed theology from that perspective. No, you won't. Fully understandable.

01:23:57

Why, Dr. Patrick, and all of his fellows, and I know, right now, as I found out when

01:24:05

I was down in Dallas, and I've known this for a while, there are students hiding in dormitory rooms with the doors closed, the shades drawn, the volume barely up far enough to be able to hear, listening at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

01:24:25

At New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The what?

01:24:33

Baptist. Yeah. Yeah. And you're going, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:24:43

You're talking about us. Yes, I met you. Press on. Be faithful.

01:24:49

But yeah, I hope that what you see, once again, another illustration starting from the wrong place.

01:24:56

When you start from the wrong place, look, you can't get to where I am if you're starting at the wrong place. And if you start with man, you're not going to be able to really get to a full biblical understanding.

01:25:11

And see, don't then jump from that to the conclusion that you falsely draw about me.

01:25:17

That means I don't think these people are Christians. That's where we part company.

01:25:24

You know, it would probably be easier for some people. It would certainly be easier for some of those folks if I was one of those folks that was a radical, hyper -Calvinist.

01:25:35

Well, they want to call me that. David Allen still does, I think. But it would be probably easier for them to dismiss me if I just simply, well, they're not even

01:25:44

Christians. I don't do that. That makes it problematic, I guess, for them on that level.

01:25:52

But it probably would make it easier for folks. So, there you go. Thanks to the troublemaker in Texas for pointing that out to me.

01:26:00

Others disaffirm it by means of Molinism. Well, there you go. I'm not really sure how that ends up working.

01:26:07

I don't even know how to describe today's program. I read

01:26:13

Moeller is not a Molinist. Well, of course not. Did someone actually hear me saying that he was?

01:26:23

Yeah, Moeller, I guess. Hopefully that is just a play of words or something.

01:26:31

You make these students who are listening secretly to the show sound like the French Resistance in Nazi -occupied

01:26:37

France. That's exactly how they feel. That's exactly how they feel. So, yeah, they are gathered around the little transistor radio.

01:26:47

I'm giving them their instructions, secretly, to go out and resist.

01:26:53

Yeah, resist. That's a big thing today. Resist, right? Yeah, chairs against the door. Oh, look at my phone.

01:27:03

It's ringing. Let me tell you something. Unknown name means no answer no more because obviously the no -call list no longer works.

01:27:12

Anyhow, thanks for listening to the Dividing Line today. It was wild and crazy. I don't even know how to describe this one.

01:27:17

I have to do the write -up right now. I'm just going to say we covered a bunch of stuff. That's the best I'm going to be able to do.

01:27:24

We'll blame it on the Borg. Borg cube right there. Glad to have that there. We'll see you next time on the