December 9, 2004

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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well, good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line.
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It is December 9th. Hey, did you see that picture on the blog? I love my new blog.
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That is so much fun. I get the feeling from what I'm being told that I'm not actually going to be using the particular client software that I'm currently using forever.
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We're looking for something else because I had that joy last night that only those of you who have ever coded
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HTML know what I'm talking about here. But if you look at the blog today, and those of you who are listening to archives, it's sort of irrelevant, but there is a, on December 8th, there is a table.
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And it is a table on Acts 13 .48 and the translations of Acts 13 .48 by 10, major translations that were done by committees, you know, by groups of scholars rather than by a single person.
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And it's sort of relevant to Dave Hunt's playing around with Acts 13 .48 and really, when you think about it, questioning the perspicuity and clarity of Scripture and sowing doubts in people's minds as to the clarity of Scripture, it's a sad thing that you would do in defense of your traditions.
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But anyway, I was trying to put that together, and it took forever because you can tell it put it in a table, but then you have to cut and paste every single little thing in there.
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And then I had to cut and paste attributes of the font for each little thing in there. And it was a long, it was a labor of love.
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So if you enjoyed the little table on Acts 13 .48, realize that took me a long time to put together because my client at the moment just went, okay, here's a table, put everything in.
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And so it just takes a while. Anyway, the picture above that, however, above the
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Islamic apologetics and New Testament transmission is, for those of you thinking about Alaska in 2005, there is a picture there right now that I took from the front of the
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Volendam, which is a Holland America ship that I was on last
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September, I think it was September of 2003, as we very slowly glided into Glacier Bay.
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There's only two lines that go into Glacier Bay, Princess and Holland America.
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That's my understanding anyway. And in fact, the only reason there's any ripples in the water at all in front of us is there was another ship that went another direction.
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And we sort of switched places at one point. But that gives you an idea because some of you have probably been looking at that Alaska picture on the advertisement in the ad column and going that no place like that exists.
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That was that's been painted and that's not real. Nope. The picture next to it proves, yep, that's real.
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And that was taken by my little teeny tiny digital camera. I have a better one now, but it was not a bad not a bad picture at all.
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And I got a number of others while I was out there. It was a little bit on the nippy side. There's no two ways about that.
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But it was just absolutely positively beautiful up there. And we will be seeing that and Hubbard Glacier and then the place in the picture to the right, which is
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College Fjord on that that trip. And it is just absolutely incredible. So if you've been thinking about it and you're thinking about that or some other goofy thing for Christmas or something, give yourself a real real enjoyable time and come with us up to Alaska next summer,
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August 29th, I believe, through September 5th. And so I just want to put that picture up there to prove that the place exists.
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And it is truly, truly a gorgeous thing. Anyway, I'm really enjoying doing the blog.
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Some of you may have noticed somewhat of a blog explosion, but that's because you will notice it is a real blog now and it became realer today.
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If you scroll down to the bottom, you see we now have the categories and you can search the blog articles now.
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Now, unfortunately, I know that's just since the beginning of December. Wow. Bang.
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I think I hope no one's busting into the office out there. It was a big bang. But you can still go to the other archives, the pre -2004 archives, and search those the old fashioned way.
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But as this blog grows, then you'll be able to use the search blog articles feature.
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And that'll be very, very, very useful. We just closed the door. That's all. Sounded like a
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M1 Abrams tank closed the door. Just it was just sort of rattled everything in here.
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So anyway, I'm really enjoying doing that. And right now we have two major threads
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I'm doing. Some of you know that we've been responding to Dave Hunt and his new version of what love is this.
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And then we also are doing a series on responding to a article by some
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Islamic apologists on the transmission of the text, the New Testament. That is very relevant, by the way, to the.
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Cruz and the topic next year and to the issue of the Da Vinci code and all the rest of that stuff, and sometimes this is the kind of stuff that people skip over because it's not flashy and you have to do some thinking and things like that.
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But to be honest with you, what I'm discussing here is the very same foundational issues that we would be discussing in dealing with scripture alone and responding to all sorts of attacks upon scripture from all sorts of different different directions.
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And so I would recommend it to you as as I seek to present that Islam, they believe in procrastination.
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Good grief. Where do you start with something like that? So anyways, that's what's going on.
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I hope you all will avail yourself of that. We began a review a few weeks ago.
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Was it a week ago, week and a half ago? You never can remember listening to the response by Mr.
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Powers on the subject of John chapter six.
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You may recall that I mentioned a I have frequently mentioned from my perspective that I have never heard a meaningful, contextually based, non -isagetical interpretation of John chapter six, especially the
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Capernaum section, which is the last half of the chapter, last two thirds of chapter.
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Actually, I think about the Capernaum section where Jesus is speaking with unbelieving
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Jews in the synagogue in Capernaum. And I continue to say that I have seen some people roll their eyes.
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I have had some people mock me for saying that it is a true statement. And I have yet to have anyone sit down with me and show me that I am wrong about that.
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And the vast majority of people who disagree with me about that clearly have not looked at nearly as many interpretations on the past as I have.
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So I have made that statement. I have gone through John six many times, wrote a book a number of years ago on the subject called
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Drawn by the Father, addressed John six and the potter's freedom, God's sovereign grace, debating
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Calvinism. And so obviously people want to try to find some way to get around John chapter six.
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And so we've been listening to a fellow by the name of Mr. Powers, who provided a response on his program.
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I guess it sort of sounds like he's I don't know how he does it. Actually, it sounds a little bit the quality is such it sounds like it was recorded off of Pal Talk or something.
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And I immediately have to like, you know, feel like cleaning myself after saying
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Pal Talk. It's just a but anyway, that's what we began listening to a few weeks ago or two weeks ago, a week and a half ago.
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Don't remember what it is now, but we had gotten about 12 minutes and 23 seconds into the program.
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And of course, I have been starting and stopping. And responding to these assertions as they are made, and so we will continue with that, hopefully he of the great power on the other side of the wall has the computer ready to rock and roll because I'm about to about to hit it.
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Here we go. We see that time. After time, after time in the gospel,
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John, whosoever. Shall believe now, of course, we mentioned,
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I believe, at the very end of the last time we were reviewing this, that one of the major problems that you deal with when you talk with people who are monolingual, they have they only know one language is that they assume that what they read in the
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Bible was written in their language, or at least that the translation brings into it all of the meaning of that terminology as it would be used today.
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What that then allows you to do is to smuggle your tradition into the text.
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When you talk about whosoever over and over and over again, you talk with people who assume a certain meaning of that word.
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We've seen this with Dave Hunt. Dave Hunt even went so far as counting the uses of whosoever in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, and we have pointed out how that is is completely misleading that you cannot study whosoever in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance because whosoever in the
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English language very frequently represents a number of different constructions in the original languages, and especially in Greek, there is no word whosoever, for example, in John 316.
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And there is there's no term there that is simply translated. It comes from how you have to smooth out the relationship of all the ones believing.
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The idea is that there is no such thing as a believing one who does not receive eternal life.
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So whosoever, that is, anyone who does the action believing, it says nothing about whether or not a person has the capacity or ability to believe outside of regeneration or anything else the same at all.
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That's that's just completely and totally missing what the whole point is. There is no
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Greek word whosoever in John 316 or these other passages. It comes from all and then a verb and you have different forms.
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You simply can't throw these things out. I'm getting distracted by a rather talkative person in the channel that's asking what translation
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I use. I use Greek and Hebrew. OK, I mean, you know, you know, if normally
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I preach the numeric standard, but that matter. So we'll just end that one right there. OK, so we continue with the discussion here.
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And when we're reading these scriptures, we have to understand Jesus, of course, is
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God. He speaks eternal truth. Both now and future.
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Right. So when we read scriptures like verse 37, all that the
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Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I was certainly not cast out.
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If I'm not getting the real sense, I'm not getting the real sense that there's a lot of excitement here about John 637, it's just sort of like, well,
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Jesus said it. Yeah. Let's talk about what it means. I mean, the meaning of the text is actually very, very clear.
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We mentioned when we started this that it's not difficult to translate this and it's not much in the way of textual variation and so on and so forth.
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And it's like, just tell us what it means. We're going to take Calvinism, the belief that God has predestined certain people before the world ever was.
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To eternal life. Or eternal damnation, if we're going to take that in its entirety and make it true.
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But no, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Most of you caught, again, the mistake of making the two equal to one another.
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Predestination is a positive thing. It involves the exercise of God's grace and salvation of unworthy sinners. If you want to talk about the issue of those who are going to be under God's punishment for eternity, at least use the right term.
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And that is reprobation. If you want to even go there, but they are not equal things because it does not take an exercise of God's power or grace to put that person in that position.
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But, you know, you don't get that kind of fair representation most of the time anyways. But why can't we just follow
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John 637? Isn't it interesting? I can just simply allow John 637 following to mean what it means.
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I don't need to make reference to Calvin. But when Arminians respond to it, they have to spend their entire time trying to get emotions up in people's thinking.
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It can't mean this because that might mean that your favorite Aunt Bessie is condemned. Isn't that exactly what
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George Bryson did in the debate over in California? His whole closing statement was, this man's telling you the person sitting next to you might be going to hell and there's nothing that anyone can do about it.
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And it's just all this emotional, get the heart going, get the mind going. Let's not get into the text of scripture type of a situation.
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Then, in essence, it really doesn't matter what man believes in the first place because he's already been programmed to believe.
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Well, that's all very nice. We understand that Mr. Powers does not understand Reformed Theology and he doesn't like Reformed Theology.
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And he has his traditions and he wants to use terms that have nothing to do with what we believe programmed.
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And it doesn't matter. We believe he doesn't understand the issue that God is busy creating a people in Christ Jesus who know
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Christ is what they believe is very important. That he uses secondary means, hence the proclamation of the gospel and the necessity of proclaiming the true gospel and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
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But what does this have to do with John 6, 37? I can't find out. Therefore, there is no responsibility.
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OK, well, this is very common. There's no responsibility unless you have libertarian freedom.
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You know, the whole issue of compatibilism, no one's going to get any idea here that Mr.
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Powers has ever dealt with Isaiah chapter 10 of Genesis 20, Acts 4.
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You know, I would like to ask Mr. Powers, so was Pilate responsible for what he did in the crucifixion of Christ?
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And when you then go to Acts 4, this is what God's hand predetermined, predestined to take place.
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Well, then he can't be responsible. He was just a robot, right? Well, obviously not.
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Therefore, this whole thing doesn't really make any sense, does it? Yes.
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Well, anyway. Therefore, man of himself is not truly accountable to God because this is the way that he was made.
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So I guess what I'm saying is this, this is an interesting passage of scripture.
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Yep. Yeah, it's an interesting passage of scripture. But so far, we haven't had any attempt made at actually exegeting this.
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Now, I can't imagine that Kelly Powers would do this with Colossians 2 .9,
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John 1 .1, Philippians 2 .5 -11. If he was talking about Jehovah's Witnesses, would he do any of this?
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Of course not. But here we come to clear, obvious language.
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And why can't a clear interpretation be offered?
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And whenever you run into someone who does this, it's really simple. This is where their traditions are clearly put on display, clearly put on display.
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But it's not isolated by itself. What do I mean by that? Because if you look at verse 40, where this is the will of my father, everyone who beholds a son and believes in him.
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So number one, people are going to be looking and they must also believe. There is responsibility that is required.
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And, you know, I can't completely blame Mr. Powers for this when people on the level of Norman Geisler do this.
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But again, let's transport this out of the area and put in another area.
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If a Jehovah's Witness came to Mr. Powers and he wanted to interpret
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Colossians 2 .9, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, by skipping four verses down the way, reading something there and then reading it back into Colossians 2 .9,
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would Mr. Powers allow him to do so? Answer? I hope not. I hope he would say, no, wait a minute.
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This is a narrative. This is a text. And if you have to jump down, come up with something and then read it back into this, that's called eisegesis.
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That is putting the text on its head. Remember, especially in John 6, these are the words of Jesus to people who are standing in front of him.
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And how many of us say something and then ramble on for a little while longer, and then we finally get to the thing that would make the previous thing understandable.
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That's what is being assumed here, is that no one could really understand John 637. Everybody stood there with their mouths hanging open, catching flies, because they had to wait to John 640.
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Oh, now it makes sense. This is exactly what
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Norm Geisler did too. Jump down to verse 40, ignore the flow of the thought, and then insert your tradition in verse 40.
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Oh, see, people are looking and people are believing, and therefore it means everybody can do it and there's no election.
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And so I'll read that back into verse 37, though that doesn't really do anything for you, but I'll read that back in verse 37.
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No, that's not what you do with a biblical text. You don't do that with anything other than a passage that is dealing with the subject of predestination election.
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But if you allow the text to speak for itself, all that the father gives me will come to me.
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The father has a sovereign authority to give a people to the son, and when the father does so infallibly, all those so giving come to the son.
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And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out. The one coming, it's present tense, the one coming to me.
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Who is the one coming to me? It's explained in the preceding phrase, the one who has been given by the father.
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So the father gives a certain people the son, they come to the son, and Jesus says he will certainly not cast out the one who is coming to him.
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Why will he not cast out the one who is coming to him? For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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He has come to do the will of the father. And what is the will of the father? Verse 39. This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, there's the you have to make the direct connection back to verse 37, that of all that he has given me,
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I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. So the father's will for the son is of all that he's given me.
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He lose nothing but raises up in the last day. That's why they all come to him. That's why they are never cast out.
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It is because the son will infallibly do the will of the father. And it is only then, having established that truth that he says, for this is the will of my father.
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So we had the will of him who sent me is that the son lose nothing that he's been given, but raise it up on the last day.
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Now that's Christ's part, but did not it say, all the father gives me will come to me, the one coming to me,
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I will certainly not cast out. Here's here's how you demonstrate we're not robots, that we are not mere puppets on a string.
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We are coming to Christ. The true believer is a person who is always coming to Christ. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who beholds the son, that's beholding, present tense, the one gazing upon the son and believing in him will have eternal life.
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Now, who's going to do that? There's nothing in this text that says, oh, that everybody can do that.
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Everybody can do that. There's nothing in the text whatsoever that says that.
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So instead, if you allow the text to define this, who is it who beholds and believes the son?
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Who is it that has eternal life? Well, the one who's been given by the father to the son, and as a result of that is coming to the son.
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We've already had this defined. You don't go to 40, read into it, whosoever, whosoever, whosoever, and then just use that to explain why you're really not dealing with verses 37 and following.
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For this is the will of my father, everyone who beholds the son. There is no one, there is no one who has this kind of faith that will not be saved.
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There is no one who believes in him who will not have eternal life. Nobody. Very often, reformed theology is misrepresented as if there are people who want to believe,
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I want to believe, but I'm not elect, and so I can't,
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I want to believe, but God's keeping me from doing that. That's not true. That is not true.
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Don't you dare cast that aspersion on God. The will of the father is that everyone who beholds the son, who is beholding him and believing him will have eternal life.
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Every single one of them. Why? Because the only ones who do so are those that are given by the father, the son, and he will lose none of them.
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That's why they have eternal life. And if you don't believe that you've just swung the door wide open to every form of works salvation.
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There is every form. It's right there. As soon as we lose track of the fact that it is the son who saves, it is the father who draws the son.
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It's the son who raised up on the last day. The gospel is Trinitarian. The gospel is sovereign.
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As soon as you lose track of that, it's all over with. You've opened the door and it'll, it'll come in in different forms.
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It'll look differently, but you've opened the door to work salvation. Everyone who beholds the son and believes in him will have eternal life.
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And I myself will raise him up on the last day. Is that not direct parallel to 39?
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I will raise him up on the last day. Who is this him? He is one of those who has been given to the son that the son will not lose.
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You see that's interpreting the text as the text was spoken. And as the text is written, that's allowing the text to define its terms in the order in which the text itself presents them.
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If you're going to jump down to 40 and then jump back to 37, you need to give a reason why, and nobody can because there's no reason to.
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Other than your tradition, other than eisegesis, other than refusing to listen to what
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Jesus said, in other words, doing exactly what the Jews did back then, who ended up walking away upon them.
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It says in verse 44, now let's go down to it here. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.
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And I will raise him up on the last day. I want to focus in on this verse right now. I want to focus in on this.
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Because this is a foundation verse for Calvinism. This is used time after time. James White uses it all the time.
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In fact, actually I've heard him say it many times that he says that he's never heard a meaningful response of John 6.
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And he believed that this is clearly in reference to the elect. If only the elect, the chosen of God, are the ones who are going to respond.
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And I really have to say I don't understand how James White can come to that conclusion in myself or other
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Calvinists. Now, for the record, I find that there are things that James White at Alpha and Omega Ministries that are very solid.
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He has shared some really good things in the past, things on Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, and other things out there, the
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King James only debate. He has given solid information out there. So in one aspect,
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I tip my hat to James White. Thank you. Because he's shared some really good things when it comes to apologetics.
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But now we get ready for the other shoe to drop. And, you know,
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Kelly Fowler is, you know, brother, I hope you're listening. It ain't the first time.
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Believe you me, this is not the first time that I hear this.
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I will never, never forget. I was speaking in somewhere near Chicago in Chicago proper, one of the suburbs, you know how it is.
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And I was trying to get something to eat. I just love how this works.
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I really love how this works. I had a very brief period of time before I was going to speak again and I hadn't had a chance to eat.
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And so somebody brought me back some Arby's. Well, unfortunately, by the time I got back, it was cold Arby's, which is bad enough.
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OK, I mean, especially curly fries. Let me tell you something. You need warm curly fries.
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OK, so I wasn't even trying to get them down. I was trying to eat the sandwich anyways, try to get something so that you don't hear your stomach rumbling over the
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PA system. It's terrible. And so I'm sitting here and here somebody comes and plops themselves down right in front of me.
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Now, may I mention something to folks? You know, when you see somebody speaking.
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You know, you see a speaker. It's just absolutely amazing how many folks just don't get the idea that you know what?
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Sometimes that person would like to like eat or if, you know, they're they're bent over their text and they're reading and they're speaking next.
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Maybe they're preparing. So many people just jump on top of you and they they want you to answer every theological question they have ever had with your mouth full.
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And you know what? It's just rude. It's just, you know, it really is rude. And yet it's amazing how many of our brothers and sisters and Lord don't even give it a second thought.
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Just, hey, he's alone. Let's get him, you know. And so this fella plops down across from me while I'm sitting here trying to eat and I don't like trying to eat and talk to folks.
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I went to a college once. And after I spoke in chapel, they said that they were going to have lunch with me and I walk in and they have all the tables in a row and then there's one table facing all the others.
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And I'm supposed to sit there during lunch and answer their questions while trying to eat. I might have had two, three bites.
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And that that's even more torture because you're sitting over a plate of hot food, but you can't eat it because everybody's asking you questions.
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And so you're not going to go, well, you know, Calvin said just sometimes
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I just go, wow, what are people thinking anyways? And so anyway,
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I'm sitting there trying to get my beef and cheddar down and the guy starts off, you know, really enjoy your work, really appreciate what you've done and more.
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Basically, it was just like we just heard. And I knew the other foot was going.
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The other the other boot was going to fall, the shoe was going to fall. I was there was going to be a buck coming here and I knew what it was going to be.
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But don't know how I did. But I knew it was going to be the guy says, really, really appreciate a lot of what you did.
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I just you know, I just wish you weren't reformed. Just wish you weren't a Calvinist.
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And, you know, I try to be a nice guy, even though I'm eating my beef and cheddar and and I just sort of smile and, you know, what
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I want to say is I don't understand that. How can you appreciate letters to a
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Mormon elder? It's reformed for crying out loud. It I don't understand that.
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It being reformed, being a Calvinist, to use that terminology, is part and parcel of everything
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I do. So how can you say? I like a lot of what you do, just wish you weren't reformed, you know,
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I'm sorry, but it's all part and parcel of the same thing. It's foundational to all of it.
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I've anyway, I've just never understood it. And I, you know, I'm thankful Mr.
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Powers has benefited from some of the things we've done here. But the problem is, Mr. Powers is isagiting this text of scripture and Mr.
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Powers is promoting a tradition rather than the exegesis of the text. And if Mr. Powers was promoting something similar in regards to an improper view of the
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Trinity, the deity of Christ, I would hope he would want me to correct him on that. Well, that's what we're doing here on this, too.
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And I, I really hope that Mr. Powers does not use this kind of circular jump here, jump there type of interpretation of scripture when he's dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses or with Mormons or with the
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Roman Catholics or Muslims or whatever the things he listed there. I hope he doesn't.
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And in fact, I bet he doesn't, which is what proves that we're really dealing with a tradition here.
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When it comes to this issue of Calvinism, I'm quite surprised, to be honest with you, because there are a lot of shocked circular reasoning and very personal comments that he uses to defend
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Calvinism against other people like what specifically the book that I've read through when he has a debate with Dave Hunt called
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Five Points, Two Views, debating Calvinism. Wow. Where was the personal stuff in that one?
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And I encourage people to read it. You can see both sides of the coin. You can read exactly the side of Calvinism and you can see the exact opposite of Calvinism in reference to what people believe about free will.
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Unless you're Chuck Grissmeyer and you'll be disappointed that Dave Hunt is too
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Calvinistic for you. Those of you who didn't hear that, those who did know exactly what
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I'm talking about. That God's will is that anyone can be saved, not just certain people who are the elect that God has willed to believe, therefore forcing them to believe.
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We already commented on the misuse of that term, but it is fascinating, again, every time
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I hear this. Thankfully, I haven't gotten so tired of this that I just give up on it because I understand how that could happen to somebody.
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You know, when I hear Kelly Powers, I hear a young guy. I'd like to try to encourage his desire to do apologetics.
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I just feel that if you're going to do apologetics, you have to be consistent. And I've been, you know what? I can say that with a very open recognition that I've said that to many people.
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I've paid the price to be able to say that. I've paid the price, but I have told many people that, and it's cost me a lot, that if you're going to do apologetics, you need to be consistent.
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And I don't believe Arminianism is consistent with scripture. Arminianism is the blending of man's philosophies with proof texts, and you can't be responding to Joseph Smith doing the same thing when you're doing that yourself, at least consistently.
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And so that's why you respond to this kind of stuff, and you'll notice that there's no self -consciousness on Mr.
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Powers' part, that he has a tradition and the role that that plays as if he has to defend his viewpoint.
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I believe everybody can be saved. Well, certainly God has the power to do that. But in reality, what you're saying is
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God does not have the power to save anyone outside of their assistance.
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That God is trying to save everyone and failing to save how many?
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I don't know. I don't know. But he's failing for a lot of folks.
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He's trying and he's failing. Is that really, Mr. Powers, is that what you want to believe? Do you really want to believe that God is trying to save and failing to save?
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And if you believe that, why do you pray for anyone? Because isn't God already doing his best? Hasn't God already put out an absolute, total effort to save every single person?
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And if that's true, then why are you praying for them? I mean, you may be going, well, why would
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Calvinists pray? Because when I pray for somebody else, I'm not trying to convince God to be better than he is.
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But I'm changed in the process, and I may end up very well getting the blessing of being used by God to bring about his will in the salvation of his elect people.
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How is he failing? We have an Arminian in channel. Let me explain it, because if that's not clear, then
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I need to explain it. If Mr. Powers position is true, then
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God the Father has decreed to try to save every single individual in the world, has he not?
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If there's no election, if there's no choice of specific people, then God's trying to save everybody. He didn't really put out much effort outside of Israel for a long time, did he?
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Isn't that odd? But anyway, leaving that aside, God the Father is trying. Jesus has died and he's trying and he's interceding for every single person.
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The Spirit is convicting and trying to bring people to believe
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God's put out a hundred percent effort. He wants to save, but he fails. It's his intention to.
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It's his intention to. He doesn't decree. He offers. Wow. That's not what I see in John 6.
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All the Father gives me will come to me. That sounds like something that's certain. It does not say all that the
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Father gives me, I will offer for them to come to me. It's just amazing when you take the answers from Arminians and put them into Scripture.
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It makes no sense. It just makes the text mean nothing. Let me just do one more little quick section here, and then we've got a caller we need to talk to.
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As the Bible also says in Matthew 7, if what Jesus said is true, Jesus said, wide is the road that leads to destruction.
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Right? Many enter it. Narrow is the way that leads to eternal life. If God is the author of all of our salvation, then
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God is responsible for creating the vast majority of the human race, sending them to hell.
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Boy, have we heard that one before? I dealt with that very statement on the
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Chuck Grissomire show. Did I not? Did I not point out that there are a vast number surrounding the throne that no man can number?
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They forget that part. But did you catch that statement?
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I hope you heard that. If God is in charge of all of salvation, see, there's the difference.
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There's the difference. The Arminian has a man -centered gospel.
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That's all there is to it. It's man -centered. Man's in charge of it. Man controls it.
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Why doesn't man get the glory for it? Why should anyone glorify
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God for failing all the time? It just doesn't seem to me that Mr.
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Powers has thought through the other side. He's only heard one side of the story. I don't like the idea that God would select certain people unconditionally.
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You mean like Israel? Well, that's different. Why? Well, you know, and there it goes from there.
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Now, there's the story for you. And I got to turn off that little sound thing because it sounds like I'm rubbing up against the microphone, which
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I wasn't. Just whenever I open my little note thing in a Bobby here, sticky note to tell me where I am the next time
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I play this, it does that. And when it slides off, it's a cool little program. I'm not complaining. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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And we will continue listening to Mr. Powers as time allows and maybe do some more.
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I guess I should just leave it right there and not bring the thing now. So we can go ahead and talk to Bobby down in Jackson, Mississippi.
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Hi, Bobby. Yes, sir. Hi, James. How you doing? Doing good. My question actually involves total depravity.
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He doesn't have anything to do with John six. I hope that's all right. Well, actually, John six has a lot to do with total depravity.
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John six, 44. So, uh, but that, that fits just fine. All right. Well, I had two questions posed at me from an
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Armenian, uh, last week and they both had to do with our, uh, uh, total depravity.
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But, uh, the first one is found in, uh, Mark chapter four. Uh, Jesus is explaining why he, uh, spoke in parable and it says seeing they, and he's quoting,
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I guess, from Isaiah, seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand. And then it goes on to say less, they should turn.
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And what the Armenian pointed out is that if, uh, uh, normal human beings that, uh, have not be regenerated, can't believe anyway, why would
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Jesus have to say he's hiding it less they believe? Yeah, actually that's a direct quotation from, uh, from the old
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Testament passage. Uh, say Mark chapter four, you're talking about the, cause that, that, that, oh, here it is the
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Mark four 12, right? Yeah. Uh, which appears in a number of other passages that's it's actually interesting enough, it's one of the few passages that is cited in all four gospels, not necessarily in the same context, both
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Matthew and Matthew 13, Luke eight in regards to parables does so. But, uh, interestingly enough,
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John does. So at the end of Jesus ministry in John 1240, right before identifies Jesus Yahweh, which is rather, which is rather interesting.
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Uh, I think again, the, the issue here is what is, what is being cited here?
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Uh, what passage is being cited here? Most, most folks don't go back and take a look at it. This is Isaiah chapter six, and this is a part of the, uh, commissioning of Isaiah as prophet, but as a prophet with what kind of message, uh, if we go back to it, we will, we will see.
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And verse eight, it says, then I heard the voice, the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then I said, here am
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I send me. He said, go and tell this people, keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand.
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Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears, dull and their eyes dim. Otherwise they might see with their eyes here with their ears and to stand with their hearts and return and be healed.
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Then I said, Lord, how long? And he answered until cities are devastated and without inhabitant houses are without people in the land is utterly desolate.
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The Lord has removed men far away in the forsaken places. There are many in the midst of the land. Uh, yet there will be a 10th portion in it and it will again be subject, subject to burning like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains where it is felled.
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The Holy seed is it stump. And so in the original context in which this is discussed, this is a part of the judgment message.
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Isaiah is, is in fact, that's why he says how long, Oh Lord. I, I think if you actually heard that it would have been how long,
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Oh Lord. It's not, uh, we, we tend not to think about that, but this was a message of judgment.
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And so basically what, uh, the, our, the Armenian, uh, I guess if you're, you know, and maybe this person just isn't reformed because honestly, there aren't that many
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Armenians out there, uh, that even bothered to dialogue about these things anymore that are seriously convinced of their
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Armenian is maybe this guy was, I don't know, but, uh, the assumption seems to be, well, uh, this means that, that unless there was a extension of judgment by God through this message, that they would have this capacity, the assertion being, well, this, this assumes, or this presumes that there is a capacity on their part that God has to somehow, uh, cover over.
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Um, now where they would get that other than just assuming it, you would think there would be a nice positive presentation of it someplace.
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Um, I don't know, but the idea is, well, there's this, this assumed, uh, capability and capacity that is related to free will.
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Now the problem there's two, a couple of problems with that. First of all, um, if that assumption of free will is true, then what in the world is
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God doing here? Is he not violating their free will? Uh, is there not numerous repeated examples of this type of violation of these folks' free will, uh, not only in Isaiah, but in all the prophets when, when
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God brings judgment upon the people in this way, when he sends lying spirits and all the rest of this stuff as part of his judgment upon these people.
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Uh, if you're going to take it in that way and read that assumption into it, then these passages become clear places where God has violated the very central aspect of their theology.
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And that is to take away man's free will is to dehumanize him. And evidently that's what
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God's doing to all these people here. If that's what you read into the passage, but if you don't read that into the passage, uh, what you, what you have is very clearly the fact that God is bringing judgment upon the people.
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And he has a purpose of bringing that judgment upon the people. Now, when a unregenerate man, uh, when you, there are, there are many people who just because of the way that they are, when you bring judgment in their area, they, they start crying out to God.
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Uh, now their, their heart may not be right in it. They may be doing it solely and completely for their own selfish reasons.
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Uh, but they will, they will cry out to God. They will ask for a deliverance. I mean, uh, how many times have you found someone whose mouth is like a sewer?
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And as soon as they get into a car accident, shall we say, and they're in great pain, what are they doing?
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Oh God, God help me. I'll be good. I'll, you know, what was that? Am I killing the compressor over there or something?
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Every time I get really loud and start preaching and it's, it spits at me. But anyway, uh, all of a sudden they, they're, they're crying out.
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Now, is that a sign of regeneration? No, it's a sign of self -preservation. And so you've got judgment, you've got an announcement of judgment.
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Judgment's going to come upon them. And God has a purpose for how long that judgment is going to come.
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And so he confirms them in their sin. Uh, he wants them to remain in that until destruction comes.
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I mean, you see the same thing in Isaiah chapter 10, that's going to be even more fully expanded upon there. Uh, is you have this, this judgment that comes upon them and hardens them.
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And if you really want to see the final element of this, look at what happens in the book of Revelation.
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Look what happens when the boils, uh, come upon men. When, uh, you have the, the, uh, the plague of darkness and men are gnawing on the inside of their mouth and their lips and their tongues and what happens in that situation in each situation, because this is the final pouring out of God's wrath upon the entire earth, what happens?
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They cry out for the rocks to fall upon them rather than repent before God.
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And the same thing happens with the boils and things like that. So there you see the final, when God's judgment comes confirming men in their sin and bring judgment upon them and people go,
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Oh, I don't like the idea that God would do that, that he would, he would confirm men in their sin and he would actually harden them.
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Well, look at what happened with Pharaoh. Isn't that exactly what is described there in regards to the hardening of Pharaoh's heart?
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God had a purpose in hardening Pharaoh's heart. Why? Most people never asked that question.
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They never, never take the time to think about it. He had the purpose in hardening Pharaoh's heart and bring judgment upon the gods of Egypt.
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Each of the plagues was aimed at one of the gods of Egypt and demonstrating they weren't truly gods and as the
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Bible says, God did that to make his name known throughout the earth. And the fact of the matter is we don't think that's an overly important thing, but it is important in judgment.
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God demonstrates the fact that he is just. He demonstrates the fact that justice and righteousness is still extremely important in this world.
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And when you don't do it, God's judgment will come upon you and he will confirm people in the hardness of their hearts so he can bring that judgment so that those with eyes to see, will see that God does and has throughout history.
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Every nation that has walked down that road of turning its back upon God's truth and of indulging the sins of the flesh that we see around us all the time, what has
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God done with those nations? He has destroyed them. Well, those who have eyes to see, see this.
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Those that do not, don't care. They can care less. They remain, as Isaiah says, insensitive.
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And that I believe is exactly what's being discussed there. It's not saying, oh, they have this capacity to do this unless God kept them from doing so.
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No, the point is, this is God's judgment. And while in some situations you see God's judgment coming and people immediately are crying out,
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God has a purpose in bringing judgment against Israel, Israel had heard over and over and over.
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And now God is going to bring about, what's the end of Isaiah 6? That stump after the tremendous judgment and all the false professors and all those who are not truly
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Jews inwardly are burned away. What's left at the end of Isaiah chapter 6?
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That's a little messianic statement. Whose stump remains when it is felled, the holy seed is its stump.
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There's that remnant. There's those last ones that are the true people of God that are
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Jews inwardly and that you have there. So that's what's going on in Isaiah 6.
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And you see the same application going on with the parables when you go into the New Testament is clearly, and that again is so odd,
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I think, for most people to encounter that passage, because it's so clear that God has a purpose.
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He reveals the truth of this only to those he chooses to reveal it to. There's none of this like the fellow on the channel was talking about, you know, whosoever's and so on and so forth.
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God kept those truths from certain people for certain reasons, and they're his reasons, and they're holy reasons, and they're just reasons, and they cannot be questioned.
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You can't bring God into the dock and say, why have you done this? Really, our pride and arrogance is crushed when we consider
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God's sovereignty in those matters. And if you understand those parables and if God has been merciful to you, it's not because of you.
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It's not because you were smarter. It's not because you were better. That's because God chose to reveal that to you. That helpful,
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Bobby? That's helpful. Hey, thanks a lot, man. All right. Thanks for listening. God bless. Bye bye. 877 -753 -3341.
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I have not been able to follow the argument going on in channel right now, but we have a defender of that wonderful human tradition of free will, just going over the same stuff all over again.
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And of course, you got to give the guy credit. He's in the midst of about, what, there are 47 users in channel right now.
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You figure at least 10 of them are probably not active or are bots or something like that.
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So you've probably got about 37, 40 people, the vast majority of which are reformed.
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And so he's getting, you know, he's getting about 10 lines, every one of his.
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But hey, you know, that's what happens. And you wander into our chat channel and he's getting a good response from the folks.
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And I'm outnumbered. Yes, you are. And hopefully you're outnumbered because the Holy Spirit's going to smack you upside the head with the truth of the
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Bible and get your traditions in line as well.
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Anyway, let's now talk to Chris in Indiana. Hi, Chris.
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Hi, James. How you doing? I'm fine. How are you? Doing good. First of all, I wanted to thank you.
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I got an autographed copy of your scripture alone book and, you know, you really helped me a lot.
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Oh, great. With your webcasts and know what you write. And there's been something
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I've been curious about ever since a while back. I heard you mentioned Job Martin, the creationist.
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Oh, yeah, that was a while back. Yeah. Anyhow, I've seen a couple of his videos about the incredible creatures that defy evolution and really, really good, really enlightening.
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And, you know, I haven't heard anything from him since, you know, you know what our connection was. No, I met him on our trip to Alaska two years ago on the
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Mercury. Wow. And we had a really nice theater that we that we did presentations in and he did a couple of presentations on our cruise.
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And so that's how I got to know him and his wonderful daughters, just extremely talented daughters that were with him.
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Really, really neat guy. Yeah, well, you know, that whole battle, I just saw a copy of USA Today a couple of days ago, that whole battle of the creation evolution thing still rages.
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Oh, it'll always rage. I mean, a lot of politics involved. Oh, yeah. And, you know,
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I tell you, I really still I think the large majority of people, when you look at the book of Genesis and look at it, it's literal history, even a large majority of Christian people.
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And maybe you feel this way, too. I don't know. This is what I wanted to ask you. Find it very hard to believe the whole creation account.
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And especially since that most scientists and universities hold to millions of years.
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And, you know, I can't help but say that I read some of the stuff like on the answers and Genesis website and find a lot of the stuff that these guys come up with in defense of their position.
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I mean, really good. But yet they're ridiculed so often, even by well -known men of God in the positions that they hold on, like the year of the word
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Yama Hebrew for day and the arguments that they give for a recent creation.
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And I just wondered, you know, especially since in your book, Scripture alone, you talk about the rules of exegesis.
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If if you find the way they interpret Genesis consistent with those rules that you lay down in your book,
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I'm not sure who you mean by they like the people from a I .G. Answers in Genesis, the
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Ken Ham. And I don't know if you're even familiar. Well, yeah, you know, I I've mentioned a number of times before.
55:48
I actually had a youth book out for a couple of years anyways, didn't last very long, unfortunately, called What's with the
55:54
Mutant in the Microscope, which dealt with the issues regarding intelligent design and irreducible complexity.
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And I I was public school trained and I fought the battle for years and years.
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I remember writing a 52 page term paper as a sophomore in high school on the subject of evolution as a as the class valedictorian.
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I had to take all the accelerated classes. And so I would spend lunch hours sitting with one of the biology teachers arguing evolution.
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He gave me all all these graduate level journals to read.
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And so I learned evolutionary theory, the best way you could learn evolutionary theory by fighting it.
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And then I went to a Christian college and thought that that fight would be over with. And I was the only creationist at the
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Christian college. Everybody was a theistic evolutionist. And so as a biology major and I completed my work in biology,
56:53
I had a completed major in biology, department fellow in anatomy and physiology. I my senior year, while doing two majors,
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I raised thirty five thousand Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies and presented my senior seminar on the genetics of the fruit fly and the gene locus for the white eye and all the rest of the stuff.
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And so I do know something about the area of biology. And so I haven't kept up with other than the developing area of intelligent design, which see, when
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I was in college, I went and I picked up on the red room here and probably have to pick this up the next time around.
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But I I had developed that argument of irreducible complexity before I ever heard anyone using it.
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And that was because I picked up Dawkins book, The Lion Watchmaker. And while I was studying genetics,
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I saw that was the flaw. That was that was the area where where that where neo Darwinian micro mutational evolutionary theory was suspect to reputation.
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And so it's neat to see that coming up over time. But it is an area that I do believe the criticism of people of a young earth viewpoint has led to a lot of people ignoring the evidence that goes the other direction.
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And so maybe we can talk about that another time because we are out of time today. But thanks, Chris, for calling and thanks for listening to all of you as well.
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We will be back again Tuesday morning, 11 a .m. Mountain Standard Time to continue drawing the dividing line in the sand, talking about God's truth.
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Thanks for being there. God bless. Been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
59:26
If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
59:31
Box 3 7 1 0 6 Phoenix, Arizona, 8 5 0 6 9. You can also find us on the
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World Wide Web at AOMIN .org. That's AOMIN .org, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.