April 1, 2016 Show with Eric Holmberg on “Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism

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And that's interesting, isn't it? He took the pictures. They're wonderful. He's a gifted photographer, and he's in this business because he cares.

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I'm talking about lots of other things. Okay. We'll take a break, and we'll be back.

That's ready. Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this first day of April 2016, and as many know, this is known as April Fool's Day.

April Fool's Day, and I may be getting an April Fool prank played on me right now because my guest is nowhere to be found, but hopefully he'll be calling in any second.

Eric Holmberg is our guest today. He is founder of the Apologetics Group, and he is the host of a documentary that has proven to be one of the most valuable tools used by theologically reformed

Christians, otherwise known as Calvinists, to spread or evangelize the truths of the doctrines of sovereign grace to others, and also for those who are either unequipped to defend these truths that they believe, or are completely new to them.

It's an invaluable, phenomenal training tool, and the documentary that I am speaking about is

Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism. And Eric Holmberg is our guest today, hopefully.

I did communicate with him today, so I believe that he should be calling in any moment.

And in the meantime, I'm going to introduce my listeners to my co -host today,

Reverend Buzz Taylor. Hello once again. And Buzz, you may have to really brush up on this topic, but during our station break, because I don't know if Eric is going to be joining us.

Well, I did just watch the video again last night. And hopefully Eric will be joining us very soon, and I'm sure he will.

I'm not sure, I'm not omniscient, but I'm fairly confident he will be, as typically happens on this program when our guests don't call in on time.

But if you, the listener, would like to send in a question about the doctrines of sovereign grace, otherwise nicknamed as Calvinism, Reformed theology, and other names, give us a call as soon as you can.

In fact, this is probably Eric right now. Hello, Eric.

Hey. Yeah, you're supposed to be calling my studio right now. We are live on the air.

Let me give you that number again. I guess you misplaced the email I sent you with the number on it. Yes. That's all right.

If you could call in, that would be great. And yes, that's live radio for you, ladies and gentlemen.

Well, my job has got a lot easier. And so Eric should be calling in any moment now that we have communicated.

Well, one thing that's very obvious now, Chris, we don't have this big plate glass between us and all these technicians.

And this is another humorous circumstance here. And here we go.

And welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time,

Eric Holmberg. Hey, Chris. Good to be with you. Yeah. And sorry for the lack of communication on making sure that you called in on time and so forth.

But Eric, for our listeners who are unfamiliar with Eric, who have never heard him on this program or otherwise before, he is founder and director of Real to Real Ministries, Incorporated, and the

Apologetics Group. And as an ordained minister, author, speaker, and video documentarian, his creative use of multimedia and a vibrant Christian worldview in analyzing some of the key issues of our time has brought him before audiences in homes, churches, schools, college campuses, conferences, and on television and radio around the world.

And it is my pleasure to have you on the broadcast today about a subject that is near and dear to my heart and also

I know near and dear to the heart of my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor. And I'd like you to introduce yourself,

Buzz, to Eric Holmberg. Eric, Buzz Taylor here, and it's good to meet you on the phone. Well, Buzz, same here.

Thanks for having me. And the thing that Buzz and I were, in fact, speaking about before the show started was that this documentary that you are involved in, that you helped to produce and, in fact, you hosted,

Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism, I am not exaggerating when

I say it is the most valuable tool that I have ever seen or heard that teaches in a very thorough and very deep way the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, Reformed Theology, Calvinism, however you want to phrase it.

And I have been giving copies of this DVD to people who either outright oppose these teachings or are just new to them, having trouble with them.

And I'm not being paid by anybody to say this, as you know. I just can't say enough accolades to rave about this documentary.

Well, as soon as you stop, I'm going to start adding mine then. All right, go ahead. Because really, I wanted to say the same thing, that I have never encountered something so well organized.

I really like the way that you went through the history of the doctrines of grace and then ended up in very practical ways on the second disc.

It's just the best I have seen anywhere, and I dare anybody to watch this and not come out a

Calvinist. Well, that also involves the very things that we believe,

Buzz. This is true. They have to be revealed to people by God's grace and mercy. I should have started with this instead of ended with it.

But, Eric, a job well done, and a number of the speakers that you have in this documentary have been guests on Iron Sharpens Iron.

In fact, one of the speakers, Walt Chantry, is the former pastor of the church where I am currently a member here in Pennsylvania, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle.

There you go, small world. Yes, small world. So I am totally thrilled with this product that you have come out with, this ministry tool.

Before we even go into how you personally became a fervent believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace or Reformed theology or Calvinism, tell us something about Real to Real Ministries.

Many of our listeners, when you start describing Real to Real Ministries, it may jog their memories about your involvement with that ministry even before you became a

Calvinist. I can remember my first introduction to you was probably in the late 80s, early 90s, but I'm pretty sure it was the late 80s.

I was invited to a church on Long Island, New York, Sheepskate Assembly, where my friend

Pastor Joe Sedzik is the pastor, and he had a special presentation that had something to do with the dangers of heavy metal music and so on.

But if you could let our listeners know about Real to Real. For sure. Real to Real began kind of informally back around 1982.

I had a Damascus Road experience in 1980 at the age of 26. At that time

I was kind of a product of the 60s, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I tell people that my first pastors were

Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Those guys were. But I just like a lot of kids.

I'm not a Christian. I went to church, a liberal Lutheran church growing up, and then when

I hit puberty and got involved with just everything associated with it, my heart became progressively hard.

By the time I went to college at William & Mary, I was an agnostic, boring, non -atheist, loved to debate

Christians, had all kinds of reasons why the God of the Bible was mean, very much

Richard Dawkins type stuff. But then boom, 1980,

October, Jesus had mercy on me, and I had this incredible moment where I knew he was God, and I was a wretched sinner, and he radically changed my life.

And one of the first things that happened to me at the time, I was a hippie, believe it or not, living in a utility closet, didn't believe in owning stuff, just kind of roamed around the country doing what

I wanted to do. And I spent about a week just kind of on a retreat just with the

Lord, reading my Bible, praying, just feeling this incredible baptism of love and grace and mercy.

It was just an extraordinary experience. And then when I went back to my utility closet, I walked in and I didn't have much in the way of possessions other than this big

Brandt quadraphonic 100 -watt per channel amplifier with four speakers and this huge record collection that was in these apple crates that were stacked up near the ceiling.

And I walked in and I looked at this thing, and I just realized by the Spirit of God, this was an altar. This was literally where I had been worshiping during my young adult life.

So I tore it down and got rid of everything. And then a number of months later,

I was trying to get involved with a campus ministry that was reaching out to college students, and I was trying to figure out ways to minister to college students,

Bible studies, nobody was coming, that type of stuff, open -air preaching. And stirring a lot of things up and not many people really responding to Christ.

And I heard that somebody gave me a tape on contemporary music, rock and roll music, from a Christian perspective.

And I thought, you know, this is an interesting angle here. This could really connect with people, because I understood just what a tremendously detrimental impact it had on my life.

So I listened to the tape, and I just found myself getting mad. It was the guy had some of his facts wrong, it was like hyper -spiritual demons and everything,

John Lennon having witches cast spells in a rock and roll LP, and I'm going, come on. John Lennon was just a knucklehead like I was,

I doubt he was. So anyway, still a small voice, gave me an impression to do something on the subject.

And so I did, people came, people started getting saved. I was invited on a couple of television shows, a

Christian television show, somebody helped me make my first video. And that was the beginning of Real to Real Ministries, and I did that.

And it kind of connected with the Amazing Grace series. For the first four or five years of my

Christian walk, like most people that were caught up in the whole Jesus movement thing, I had a lot of goofy theology, about end times, about all kinds of things.

And I was raised up in leadership, became an associate pastor in a church, and I can remember, you'll find this funny, guys,

I can remember cautioning that there was a guy that got saved. I actually did open air preaching at George Washington University campus.

He just walked up and said, I want to get saved, I need to get saved. And I went, wow, so we prayed with him. Turns out his dad was a Presbyterian minister, and he was just backslidden, or maybe not even saved.

But he definitely had a conversion experience or a recommitment experience. But next thing you know, he's talking to his dad, his dad's all excited about his new walk with the

Lord. And he comes up to me and says, hey, we're going to see R .C. Sproul. And I knew enough about Sproul to know that he was one of those reformed guys, you know?

One of those guys that believed in once saved, always saved, and you can't lose your salvation, you know, just all that stuff.

So I cautioned him, I said, guys, this is error. You don't need to be going to this type of stuff.

But anyway, I was at that point reading C .S. Lewis and then Francis Schaeffer and then began reading early church fathers.

And just over a period of several years, God opened my eyes up to the doctrines of grace. And so I did a number of other videos in the intervening years on abortion, a subject that's very dear to my heart because I'm the father of an aborted child back when

I was in the world, and a bunch of other things. But then I met a very good friend of mine,

Jerry Johnson. He approached me, he had also come to understand the doctrines of grace and said, man, we need to do a video on this subject.

And I said, man, I don't know if there's a market for it, honestly. So Jerry raised a little bit of money, and the next thing you know, he was able to swaddle

R .C. Sproul Sr. into doing an interview, which to this day, people down there looking there say, how'd you do this?

I mean, he does the interviews for even us. And then we got

D. James Kennedy and George Grant and Steven Mansfield and your former pastor and a whole bunch of other people,

R .C. Sproul Jr. And so we did this video, and Jerry Johnson was right.

The thing took off like a rocket. I'm guessing there's probably close to 100 ,000 copies now that have been purchased.

And then of those, I mean, there's no telling how many people have seen one DVD. I know there's churches who've gone, the entire church has gone through the series, and we have a great study guide that goes with it.

Anybody that wants to call in and give me their email address, I'll be happy to send them the study guide for free, and then they can see if they want to read that and maybe get the

DVD. But anyway, that's the general. And at that point, we changed it to started doing a lot of ministry under the name of the

Apologetics Group. It's basically a DBA for real to real, but I felt that it more aptly spoke to the nature of what some of our stuff was, more theologically and apologetics -oriented versus just strictly evangelism.

So anyway, that's it, guys. By the way, I'm not patting myself on the back because I do count it as a modern -day miracle, but I too interviewed

R .C. Sproul after about three years of attempts that failed out of the blue.

Not only did he agree to do an interview probably back in 2007 or so, 2008 maybe, but he also agreed to do a live call -in interview, which that was like absolutely anathema for Ligonier.

They would not allow that at all even if they agreed to an interview, and he agreed to both. And he wrote me an endorsement, which is proudly displayed on my website at the top, that I'm sure that most people think that I made it up, that it's not real.

But R .C. Sproul actually wrote me this glowing endorsement for Iron Sharpens Iron that I cherish beyond description.

But one of the things that I'd like to begin with is a summary of what

Calvin is. When I describe Calvinism to those of my friends or acquaintances or even strangers that I meet that might bring up the subject in some providential way, the way that I summarize it in a sentence is that God alone saves sinners because sinners cannot even help save themselves.

How would you summarize these doctrines that have been nicknamed Calvinism, Reformed Theology, and the doctrines of Sovereign Grace?

Well, that's a very good definition. I'm not sure I've ever just sat and thought about how to distill it down to one sentence or so.

I'm not saying you had to do it. I'm just saying that's the way I did it in a sentence. That sounds great.

I mean, essentially, God is sovereign in everything, including salvation.

And the more that you get man out of the way and put, in fact, that really is what kind of triggered me to embrace

Reformed Theology or Calvinism or Augustinianism or really biblical

Christianity. It was just the revelation that the more you get your eyes off yourself and on God, the more you're getting to the meat of the matter.

And we have this default mechanism as human beings. I mean, the one thing that we have that's like God after the fall or in the process of the fall was moral knowledge.

They become like us, knowing good and evil. And everybody has a dim memory of Paradise Lost. Everybody knows that there's a garden they're supposed to get back to.

There's a world that is a stranger to us, but we know we belong there.

And so people cook up all kinds of mechanisms and ideologies and metaphysical systems to get back.

Karl Marx, you know, classless society, avoid reconciling all your sexual frustrations or whatever.

But essentially, the one thing that the default mechanism that every human has to try to get back into the garden is moral knowledge, is doing something in and of themselves that makes them worthy to get in there.

And even when you become a Christian, the tendency is to think, well, I had something to do with that.

I'm part of this thing. That is the default mechanism. And Calvinism is essentially a reformed theology, really just biblical

Christianity that simply says, you have no steam, none, that will power you back through those, the cherubim, the flaming swords back in the garden.

You don't. Somebody did it for you. Nobody comes to me unless the Father draws you.

And that is the essence of the reformed Calvinistic faith, is that God gets all the glory.

Well, you know, you just said a number of things in there that I'm trying to put myself in the place of our listeners.

Because I recall a time back when I was an independent Baptist pastor and I was preaching against the doctrines of grace.

You just mentioned true religion, and I can hear all over, as Chris would say at the beginning of the program, humanity all over the world right now is going, oh,

I don't believe he just said that. I find it very interesting that unless you really understand these and embrace them, these doctrines are hated in evangelicalism.

Could you just kind of back up a little bit and remind us, you started an antagonism to these doctrines yourself, as did

I and a whole bunch of us. Correct. In fact, one thing that you could demonstrate that is by telling our listeners, which you explain even in the

Amazing Grace documentary, why you had to change a previously made documentary of your own, or not a documentary but an evangelism tool that you did on video, where it involved at first a hospital bed and you changed it to a casket in a funeral home.

That's a great, great example, Chris. Yeah, out of the whole study of rock music,

I did a number of videos. The first one was called Rock and Roll Church for God, but the second one, which is really the one that caught on, was called

Hell's Bells, the dangers of rock and roll. And toward the end of that, and it was a documentary, it was an evangelistic tool that was very much a documentary, but as we started moving people toward the cross, we had helped demonstrate to people that there really is, there are evil forces, there is a real

Satan, there is a real Satanic ideology out there. We've all bought into it to some degree. It's being perpetrated through contemporary music, whether it's manifesting a rebellion, sex, occultism, the embrace of nihilism, just whatever.

That as we, toward the end, we started presenting the cross, started presenting the solution. And the example we used was a man in an intensive care ward who was just a moment away from death, and then he needs to basically make a decision.

He's come to the awareness that he's a sinner. He's come to the awareness that he needs help. Now he needs to make a decision for Christ.

And people do need to make decisions for Christ. And before I complete the story, Chris and Buzz, let me make sure people don't misunderstand this.

Lots and lots of people are genuine born -again Christians who love God tremendously and are

Arminian. I would say, as an Arminian, very likely were as well.

So we're not saying that people are not real converts. This is just an aspect of maturing in God, and I know that sounds patronizing, but the fact is we all have to mature in God.

I'm still maturing. I'm still evaluating, tweaking certain doctrines that I hold to, and I'm open to modifying them as God leads.

But that was the example we gave, which people loved. It was very relevant. It seemed to appeal to people.

But as I was working on Amazing Grace, suddenly the Lord reminded me of it, and I thought, you know, this is a perfect example of what most people believe.

You know, there's two different kinds of Arminianism, meaning this idea that we have to participate with God in our salvation.

There is something we can call rank Pelagianism, which is Pelagians was a heretic, declared a heretic by the church, who basically taught that original sin is not true, that people have the ability to not sin.

People have the ability to be morally pure enough to be acceptable to God, and that's rank heresy.

And unfortunately, there are some people that profess Christ and some who might very well be Christians. In fact,

I think Charles Finney, Jerry Johnson disagrees. He thinks Charles Finney is a false convert. I think God saved him to spite himself.

Only God knows. But Finney, the great American revivalist, quote -unquote, was a rank

Pelagian. But then most Christians fall into the area of Provenient Grace.

That's what Wesley called it, and others, which is the idea that you're really in serious shape.

There is such a thing as original sin. We're all contaminated with it. We need mercy. We need grace to come to Christ.

So the analogy would be you're floating at a river, a torrential river going towards a waterfall of death and off into the precipice, off into hell, short of God helping you.

And then Jesus stands on the side of the river, throws you a lifeline, and hits you in the head with the lifeline.

But you've got to grab onto it. It's all of grace up to that point, but there's a little bit that you have to contribute by grabbing onto the line and then being hauled in.

And that's what I believed in Hells Bells 1. That's the analogy of a guy in critical air condition.

But, again, by God's grace, I came to the realization, though I was dead in my transgression,

I was dead. You have to be born again before you can even see the kingdom of God, as Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3.

You have to be born again before you can even come to an understanding that there's this kingdom, that you're a sinner, that you need

God's grace and mercy. And so the better analogy is not a guy in a sick bed.

I don't care how sick he is, critical care bed, but it's a guy in a casket. He's just dead in a doornail.

God comes over, lifts up the casket lid, breathes on them like Jesus did in John 20, and you become a living soul again.

You come back to life. And then with that realization comes the awareness that you're a sinner, that you pray, you repent, all that takes place as a result of the quickening that takes place by the

Holy Spirit. So that would be, in Hells Bells 2, the power and spirit of popular music, which is a much better video on all kinds of levels, that's the analogy we have of the guy in his casket.

Yeah, and basically, wouldn't you agree that those who reject the doctrines of sovereign grace, even if they aren't consciously doing it because they've never even really heard

Reformed theology or Calvinism explained to them, well, those who have a contrary understanding of the gospel than those who are

Calvinist do, they're really, unconsciously, exalting man higher than he biblically has been described, and they are lowering

God to a lower status of power than he truly has.

Am I right in saying that? You are. That's kind of a painful way to put it for people that don't believe the way you and I do about these things, but there's really no getting around it.

You're giving a little bit too much credit to man because he gets no credit.

And then in doing that, you're taking away some of the glory of God.

And again, that was really what kind of convinced me, wait a second, any doctrine that takes away God's glory has got to be wrong.

And before I go on to some major questions that you wanted me to pose for the interview, also, just as you wanted to give a caveat to what we're talking about, there is a theology that can be truly labeled hyper -Calvinism that unfortunately many of the enemies of the doctrines of grace, they will use that label for anyone who is just a historic

Calvinist or who understands the scriptures the way the reformers did and the way historically reformed or Calvinistic Christians have always understood it, and that's an incorrect use of that label.

But there is truly an aberrant understanding of these teachings where it so declares

God's sovereignty in an imbalanced way that they negate the scriptures that do insist that man is accountable before God for his sin, and they wind up really clouding that issue and really make the whole task ahead of us to try to explain what we believe a more difficult test because we are being broad -brushed with these hyper -Calvinists.

But if you could explain a little bit more about that. Yeah, that's probably the single biggest accusation that's labeled against Calvinists.

I get it all the time that people just take it and they run with it and trying to apply human logic and they end up with this.

It's kind of like the example that Paul gave in Romans that the doctrine of grace, the doctrine of the cross basically says

God, Jesus has come in and done everything that needs to be done to wipe away your sins. So Paul says some will say, well, why don't we just send all the more so grace can abound all the more.

That's a logical and a very human and earthly sensuous and demonic way using simply human reasoning.

That's what you end up with and that's the danger of human reasoning. You know, all kinds of people struggle with another great doctrine of Christianity, which is the

Trinity. You know, it's not something that you can fully get your mind around, even kind of halfway get your mind around.

It's a mystery. Most of the real, most of the truths that are just the bedrock of Christianity have an element of mystery to them.

I love the doctrine of the Trinity because I can't understand it. Any God that's worshiping is a God that's going to short -circuit our fallen, fallible, finite reasoning.

And that's what people do. Their reasoning gets short -circuited so they say, oh, okay, well then if God just chooses like one of William Carey's pastors or leaders of his church there in England, he wanted to go to India, or was it

China? I can't remember where Carey went now. Some of this stuff is not as fresh in my mind. Wherever William Carey wanted to go, they said, you know, you don't need to go there.

God wants to save people over there. He'll save them. You know, he doesn't need your help, Mr. Carey. That's hyper -Calvinist.

Right, yeah. And that is absolutely demonic.

It is not what Calvinists are saying. But when people apply fallen, fallible, finite, earthly, sensuous, demonic reasoning to it, they end up in that cul -de -sac.

And it's like other kinds of error. It's just that error. And it is, wouldn't you be quick to say that it is a minority within those under the umbrella of Reformed and Calvinistic believers today?

I mean, the most prominent Reformed or Calvinistic ministries that we have in existence and the most prominent publishers and authors and pastors are not teaching this hyper -Calvinism.

Well, I don't know anybody who is. I'm sure there's some knuckleheads out there. I hate to admit, but I did finally meet one.

Well, they do exist on the Internet. I've run into a number of them. Oh, yeah. There's all kinds of them out there.

But as far as prominent leaders, they're all walking in balance.

And there have been some abuses of Calvinism in certain denominations. I know one of my friends,

Dr. Joel Beeke, you may be familiar with him, he had to leave the denomination that he was formerly associated with, the

Netherlands Reformed Church, because it had some of the trappings of hyper -Calvinism inherent to it.

But one of the things that, and we will get to your questions that you want me to pose in a minute, but one of the things that I like to bring up to those when having a discussion about these things who are in opposition to them, that I tell them there has to be something wrong with your understanding of the

Scriptures in regard to God's sovereignty. If what you teach does not have a built -in rebuttal that Paul foresees in his own commentary in his letter to the

Romans, when he says, You will say to me then, why does he, meaning

God, still find fault for who resists his will? On the contrary, who are you,

O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, Why did you make me like this, will it?

Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel of honorable use and another of common use?

What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

And he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Even us, whom he also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

Now, if your theology doesn't have a built -in system of theology that would make a natural man respond the way that Paul foresaw man would respond, your theology must be incorrect.

Am I making sense, or did I ramble on too much? Oh yeah, that's a fantastic point. I was going to make it myself.

If we're not preaching the gospel that makes people go, Well, why don't I just sin all the more so grace can abound?

We don't have the heart of the gospel. It should provoke that response to the carnal mind. In the same way, the way we present the doctrines of predestination, election,

God's sovereignty, grace, etc., should provoke to the carnal mind precisely that response.

Well, then why should we do anything when God's in control? But in both instances, those represent error.

And so, yeah, you hit it right nail on the head. We have to go to a break right now, but before we go to the break,

I'm going to pose one of the questions that we'd like to discuss at greater depth.

So you have time to prepare your answer when we return from the break. The question is,

If Calvinism is true, that means there are people God could save but doesn't.

If He is all love, and would that none should perish, where is the justice in that?

Well, we're going to leave that with you, and we'll get your answer to that when we return from the break.

And if you'd like to join us on the air as well, if you're listening, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com

if you have a question of your own. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

Please give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. You may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable, but please try to at least give us your first name and your location.

And we're going to be right back after these messages, so don't go away. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am

I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,

I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a

Reformed Baptist church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is Eric Holmberg, and he is one of the producers and the host of an amazing documentary called

Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism. We are discussing the contents of this documentary today, and if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

chrisarnzen at gmail .com, and some of the contributors to this DVD set are

Dr. R .C. Sproul, who's been on this program, Dr. Tom Nettles, who's been on this program a number of times,

Reverend Walt Chantry, who's also been on this broadcast, Thomas Askell, who's been on this broadcast and will be again in about two weeks,

Dr. R .C. Sproul, Jr., who's also been on this broadcast, Dr. Joe Moorcraft, who's also been on this broadcast, and a number of other speakers, and it is really a thorough job that they have all done.

I mean, it really leaves no stone unturned that I could even think of in regard to defending these doctrines known as Calvinism, Reformed Theology, or the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

And if you could go to that question that I just asked before the break, if Calvinism is true, that means there are people

God could save but doesn't. If he is all love, and would that none should perish, where is the justice in that?

Yeah, that probably is the number one objection that a good Christian, a thoughtful Christian, would have to simple facts that we're presenting here, which is that God is sovereign election, which means, just logically, that there are some people, obviously they're not saved, we're not universalists, that's not an option in scripture to think that God's eventually going to save everybody.

There are people that are lost. Does God have the power to save them? Yes, he does. But he doesn't.

Why? And it's first important to say that we have no idea why

God chooses some and not others. It's certainly not on the basis of any merit that we have in and of ourselves.

That's one of the aspects of God's divine counsel that we're not privy to have any real understanding of.

God saves who he wants to save. So I read an article, which is actually in the study guide, for Amazing Grace, called

Expendable Crumen, Why Doesn't a Loving God Save Everybody? And I'm not saying that I've got the whole ball of wax here.

I think there's, again, mystery that bleeds around the edges of this. But for me, the one aspect of it, one key aspect of it, is you get by focusing on what

God's purpose is for creation. Why did he start this whole thing up? Why did he commit his son to die on a cross?

Which is, we have to remember, Jesus was the Lamb's crucial sacrifice for the foundations of the world.

So before this whole thing was kicked off, there was an understanding within the

Godhead that Jesus was going to ultimately lay down his life for his people.

So why would God do that? And I think the answer to that is found, at least in part, in understanding that the raison d 'etre, the key singularity towards which all of creation is moving, and has been moving since man was created, since the universe was created, is to produce a bride for the

Son. That is a primary, I'm not saying it's the only reason, but it is a primary purpose for creation, is to ultimately produce this many -member bride, the

Church, both Old and New Testament, for the Son of God. That the eschaton, this singularity that we're moving towards, is when

Jesus says, it's over, and in his evaluation, the Father's evaluation, all his enemies have been piled up, the last of the elect has been brought in, and at some point,

God is going to decide, okay, this thing is over, Jesus is going to return, close the curtain on this present reality, and a new heaven and a new earth are going to come forth, in which the bride, the

Church, is going to rule and reign with Christ, as his consort, for forever.

Now what that looks like, we have no idea, the eye has not seen it, it has not heard it, nor has it entered the heart of man, what God has for us, but we've been given some hints of it in Scripture.

Now, if I'm going to take a child, and let's reduce it down from the bride to a single individual, which is just a good way to get our mind around, because what's true for the individual is true for the bride.

You see, we're in training. One day we're going to judge angels, Scripture says. So how do you create a true leader?

How do you create somebody, in a fallen world, how do you create somebody that's really poised and ready to do the task for which that person was called, created, and trained for?

Well, you don't do it in a vacuum. You don't do it in a cushy situation where everything's just pleasant.

Here's an example of Philip of Macedonia, who raised his son by the name of Alexander, who conquered a bit of a known world.

How did Philip of Macedonia train Alexander to be this great king? Well, he didn't put him in a padded room with a 6th century

B .C. equivalent to a game boy and feed him grapes all day long. That didn't take it easy.

No, he kicked his butt. He gave him a horse that said this horse is either going to break you or you're going to break it.

He gave him Aristotle as a tutor. He put him out in dangerous animal hunting, boar hunting and stuff, and he was just a young adolescent.

Put him on the battlefield when he was just a young teenager. He took tremendous risk with his son to toughen him up and to teach him how to be a king, and he did a heck of a job, humanistically speaking.

Well, God's no different. We all know anybody that's been through some trials and tests and stuff, and I've been through a number in my 62 years.

Everybody that's been called up, God does. He disciplines every son he receives. That's just part of life, and I can say firsthand that it's the unpleasant stuff, the trials that have taught me more than the good times have.

That's just kind of the nature of the beast. In a fallen world, that's the way things go. So God needs us to have adversaries.

He's ordained for us to have adversaries. In fact, I would argue this is a mystery of iniquity. I mean, where's the origin of Satan?

You know, that's a... People speculate about it, but I don't think there's anything in Scripture. The whole

Lucifer thing, I think, is questionable. That might be right, but I'm not sure that that's referring to Satan or whether it's referring to Adam.

Lots of theological debate about that. We don't really know. Yeah, in fact, the Reverend Buzz sitting next to me brought that up not long ago to me.

Well, Buzz works with heresy all the time. That's well known in these parts. That's my full...

I was going to start this thing off with saying, Guys, this is really embarrassing for me. I'll tell you this.

The last night I had a... Joseph came to me. St. Joseph came to me in a vision and said the

Catholic Church is right. So basically, I've got to run that. If I could keep you guys going for a few minutes, let's say

April Fool's. Well, actually, I told the audience that you may be pulling an April Fool's joke on me by not calling into the studio.

Oh, yeah, there you go. Yeah, okay. But we do know in the book of Job that Satan appears before God.

Give him permission to. And God gives him permission to do certain things to Job. Don't do this to me.

You can do that. You know, it's crazy. I mean, but there it is in the Bible. And then we also know that when

Jesus returns, he's going to deal with Satan with just the breath of his mouth. You know, I'm done with you. Gone. Off to the trash can.

Off to Giena. You're out of the picture. Why does he allow Satan to operate? He took his teeth in, gave him a tremendous head wound at Calvary, but still permits, even though Jesus now has all power and authority, even though he's taken the keys of death and hell,

Jesus holds him. He's large and in charge. But he still allows Satan. And he allows wicked people to rise up.

Why? Because he does it to test us, to give us an adversary to wrestle with, to teach us things.

You go into the gym, how do you get stronger? You lift weights. You put strain on your muscles. I love the passage in Numbers 14.

Okay, they've been delivered out of Egypt by through Moses. Now they come into the wilderness on their way to the promised land.

The same way we've been delivered out of Egypt by Christ, the cross, the Passover. We've been brought into the wilderness.

Now we follow a man named Joshua into the promised land. We follow a man named Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus into the promised land.

And there's all these enemies in the land. And they sent in ten spies. And eight of them came back with this terrible report, which is what most of the church is today, by the way.

Terrible report. Oh my goodness. Satan is alive and well. We're losing. Come, Lord Jesus, rapture us out of here.

You know, that's the report of today's church. But Joshua said, in Numbers 14, verse 9, he said, wait a second.

Prior to that, he said, man, this land is full of milk and honey. Oh, there's some good stuff in here. And as far as the enemies, he said, do not rebel against the

Lord, only do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Or the translation is food for us, sustenance for us.

King James says meat for us. In other words, we're going to wrestle with these people.

We're going to figure out how to unlock this thing, how to break their power. We're going to learn from their compromises.

And as we begin to compromise, unfortunately, later churches, 2 Corinthians 10, these things were examples for us.

We're going to learn from the mistakes and stuff. And gradually, slowly but surely, over the centuries and over the millennium, the church is going to be made ready.

And so God has to have people that do rebel of their own free will.

He doesn't force them to do it. God only hardened Pharaoh's heart after Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

How did God harden Pharaoh's heart, by the way? Did he just simply go, okay, this guy really wants both the people. I'm going to make them.

Hold on. No way. No, Pharaoh didn't want to let them go. And all God had to do to harden his heart was just to remove the common grace, pull his hand back from Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh's life.

And instantly, his own orientation, his own fallible, finite, simple disposition will be to become hard and say, no,

I'm going to rebel against God. I'm going to rebel against his purposes. I'm going to keep these people here.

So God allows these things because he's trying to teach us. He's trying to change us.

Yeah, in fact, you brought up something very important. There is a misunderstanding by those who are not

Reformed, who are not Calvinist, that when we say we do not believe in the doctrine of free will, they think that means we believe

God is forcing people against their will to either obey him or reject him, as if man in his natural state of sin would ever want to follow

Christ on his own. And the issue really is that man has a free will to act according to his nature and the desires that his nature would give him.

Am I correct in describing it that way? No. I can't say it any better. That's perfect.

Yeah, because there is obviously always the accusation of robots that we believe that God has created just merely robots.

And one time, I just have to share with you something, and I know I may be boring some of my listeners who heard this story, but I have a friend, a dear friend,

Bob, who is a Roman Catholic, and he used to, when he lived nearby me, he used to have barbecues at his home, and his sole purpose of having the barbecues and parties was to invite

Roman Catholics and evangelicals over his house so that they could eat, drink, and argue. And one time, he said to me, you

Calvinists, you believe that God makes men into robots.

And I said, well, what are you talking about? He says, if you don't have the free will to either believe in Christ or reject

Him, you are a robot. And I said to him, do you believe that Heaven is your ultimate goal in life?

Is that your number one goal is to eventually be in Heaven for eternity? He goes, of course. So I said to him, so your ultimate goal in life, your primary goal, your reason for living, is to become a robot?

He said, what are you talking about? And I said, can you reject Christ in Heaven? He said, no.

And I said, well, if you don't have the freedom of will to reject Christ in Heaven, doesn't that mean you're a robot?

And then after a pause of silence, he said, maybe you can sin in Heaven. Oh my.

What a great story. But men do freely choose every action they are involved in.

They are just merely acting according to their nature. And when they don't act according to their nature, as you said, it's really the common grace restraining their evil, right?

Exactly. I mean, probably, a lot of scholars believe the most important thing that Luther wrote was the bondage of the will, which is what that book's about.

We're free, but we're not free to choose what we wouldn't want to choose. You know, we are in bondage to a fallen nature.

And that nature basically is self -referential. It wants to do something to deserve

Heaven. It wants to parse reality based on our own terms. And we're in bondage to that thing until God has mercy.

Yeah, and of course, if you use that definition that my Roman Catholic friend gave of a robot as somebody who doesn't have the freedom of will to choose or reject

Christ, then God would be the ultimate robot. Well, I'll tell you, the terms get a whole lot worse than robot.

Yeah. And so, why would

God create someone knowing that their lot will be in the lake of fire?

That is something that those who reject the doctrines of grace have said time and time again, but in reality,

I don't think that they could logically have an argument against us when their own understanding of things falls apart in that realm as well.

They can't consistently argue that they have a different teaching in the scriptures regarding God knowing that those who

He created will go to Hell, if you follow what I'm saying. Yeah. Well, again, that's the whole point of what

I shared, that there has to be an adversary. We need adversaries, not just Satan, but people.

And, of course, we don't know who the elect are. If somebody did a survey of William and Mary in 1977 and said, who's the person on this campus that's most likely to be reprobate, meaning the one that's beyond grace and is on his way to Hell, my name would have been on the short list.

So, you never know why we continue to compel men, preach to men, share the gospel, pray for people, let our light shine, because you never know who

God is going to have mercy on. But the fact of the matter is that He has mercy on who

He wants to have mercy. It's just that simple. Yeah. That's actually say that. End quote,

God. Yeah. Apart from God giving mercy to somebody, they're going to just do what they want to do.

And, ultimately, you know, as Lewis said it, and I think there's truth in this, that the doors of Hell are locked from the inside, that people are there because that's where they ultimately want to be.

They want to be in a place where they're their own God. The horrors of Hell, which, again, we know almost nothing about except the metaphor and scripture.

I believe all the passages that deal with it are mysterious. But, basically, it's where the worm does not die, the fire is not quenched.

I would argue the worm is very likely a person's fallen, sinful nature. Job said, what is man that worm, the son of man, that maggot?

You know, in our natures, we are, to God, filthy, detestable creatures. And, so, our self -will and what we've spent our entire lives serving, diabetes, the ritual that was in Hades and saw

Lazarus, he spent his life feasting. And now he finds himself just trying to get a drink of water just to be able to interact with the world around him just to satisfy his thirst.

And he can't even do that because there's no grace. Everything, every drop of water you get, every pleasant meal, every bit of happiness and joy that we experience in life, all of it is by grace.

None of it we deserve. And, so, hell is just simply a place where the grace, the mercy, the love, the light, the joy, it all ceases and all you're left with is yourself.

And that's, there's a justice that resonates with that. This is what you chose, this is what you wanted, you got it.

But God does have mercy on some and then he uses the ones he doesn't have mercy on to make us strong.

And one of the conflicts that we as Reformed Christians, Calvinists, sovereign grace believers, is that it is claimed by our opponents, our theological opponents, that we really diminish the love of God and we rob

God of the love that he is described as having in the scriptures. In fact, he is love.

But if you, and I have to only consider in this part of the conversation those who actually believe in the inerrant scriptures who oppose us because obviously liberals and universalists would have a completely different dialogue with us.

In fact, they would be having the same kind of dialogue with our Arminian friends opposing them.

But if you believe in the inerrancy of scripture and you believe that there is a hell, if God really loved every single person identically and he had the same kind of not only parental love upon the church as he does with the reprobate or those who reject him and he had the same kind of spousal love that Christ has with the church if he had that kind of love for all humanity then would not hell be empty forever?

It would and also it would be highly unjust. I mean, Joseph Mengele which

I think is a better example better example than Hitler because Hitler died in a bunker of suicide whereas Mengele who just, you know, the guy, the angel of Auschwitz just got tortured people and did his twin experiments just the most evil psychopathic person

I think humanity has ever vomited up the guy made it to Argentina and lived a nice long life died of a stroke, you know and well,

God loves him too and he got away with it. A God that loved everybody equally and forgave all sins and there was no hope no hope of a judgment no hope of the evil that's done against people

I mean, how do you counsel somebody whose child is kidnapped raped and murdered how do you counsel an ethnic people who've seen their their family victims of genocide how do you stop them from just picking up guns and going after and just having an interminable war?

You have to appeal to the sense that no, there is a God there is a judgment seat all things will be made right and that's one aspect of God's love is that the wicked will be punished punished commensurate with the sins that they've committed that is love.

Yeah, and if as I once said to a fundamentalist Baptist friend of mine who hates

Calvinism one of his reasons was that he said you believe

God loves certain people more than others and I said to him so you believe God loves you with the same measure of intensity that he loves people who are going to be tortured for eternity in hell and he said yes and I said well with friends like that who needs enemies?

I mean that doesn't make any sense at all to say that there is the same love for the two people that have this totally polar opposite eternal destiny.

But just to say that Chris I mean I also want to add that this is very well covered in the

Amazing Grace video. Yes, and Buzz is not being paid to say this even though he said it in a sculpted like way that you'd see in an infomercial.

I can just hear the listeners saying but wait a minute but God so loved the world come on now guys where are you coming off with this?

You were just saying something Eric? I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean God does so love the world now what does the world mean?

Does it mean every single person in the world? And you know let me also say this guys and you might even disagree feel free to disagree

I you know God doesn't just love people God is love. Right. And that's not something we can get our minds around and how all this stuff works again once you start getting close to the glory once you start getting close to seeing

God's face which we can't do all you're going to be able to get is just kind of a you know just some glory trails a little flash of some light here and there and likely the brighter the light the more it's going to short circuit your brain so try to systematize all this stuff and get it all nailed down in nice little categories is a fool's errand.

Right. In fact this might shock you but I tell people look

I think Calvinism or Augustinianism which is what I would tell my Catholic friends look this is nothing new you know one of your primary saints this is what he taught but you know it's an attempt to get your mind around and systematize and come to which

I think God wants us to do one of my life passages Proverbs 25 verse 2 it's the glory of God to conceal a matter but it's the glory of kings to search them out

I think this is part of the maturing process as God's constantly kind of throwing out mystery to us living parables day by day where see who's going to who's going to seek out for the mystery who's going to go for it who's going to be like Chuck Yeager and when his plane feels like it's about to break apart he's going to hit that afterburner and chase that demon that lives out past Mach 1 and past Mach 2 and past Mach just go higher deeper further further that is the joy it's one of the greatest joys of life is seeking the face of God is pursuing the mystery and we're never going to get our mind around it we're never going to systematize fully these are our best shots

I have an eschatology I'm sure you guys have one as well it's changed over the years I could be wrong and listen better people than me

I think there are some great Arminians John Wesley I'm not I'm not did the tie the laces on the guy's shoes when it comes to so this is not something that we want to beat people over the head with or get into arguments if all this stuff isn't birthed and sustained by love and Christian charity then we're just clanging cymbals but God does want us to try to get our minds around it this is our best shot at it but when we get to things where we just have to go you know there's an element of mystery here

I can't tell you I got all this now the problem of evil I got some thoughts on that but at the end of the day it's just your mind is kind of short circuits so if we could claim otherwise if we could claim that we have fully figured this all out we would be actually contradicting what we believe about the nature of man and the nature of God we would almost be claiming to be

God to have the knowledge of God so so obviously we'll never have this thoroughly figured out we can only do what

God gives humans the ability to using his word that we do believe in the perpiscuity of the scriptures that it's clear on all the things that we need to know but we will never delve deep enough into these unsearchable riches of scriptures to know exactly what everything means in them and we're going to go to a break right now if you'd like to join us on the air there are several people waiting to have their questions asked and answered patiently so we'll get to you as soon as we can when we come back from the break but our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com don't go away we're going to be right back with eric holmberg i'm james white of alphanumeric ministries the new american standard bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study used by pastors scholars and everyday readers the

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that's that's that's wrbc .us wrbc .us an absolutely superb documentary that everybody needs to get their hands on no matter what side of the issue of God's sovereignty you are on whether you are a thoroughgoing

Calvinist Reformed Christian, sovereign grace believer however you want to phrase it, or if you're

Arminian or perhaps you're Roman Catholic or just none of the above if you want to intelligently discuss this issue this is the tool that you will definitely want to get your hands on and that is the

Amazing Grace documentary the history and theology of Calvinism by far the best tool that I have ever witnessed either by viewing or hearing and I just cannot highly recommend it more than anything else that I've actually got my hands on or should

I say I can't recommend anything else more that's a better way of phrasing it we do have a listener and if Jeff if you could also email us again with your city and state or country of residence so we know where you're emailing from but Jeff says here you have said on your program today that sinners will act according to their nature given freedom of choice sinners will just choose to sin could you address whether Adam acted according to his nature or against his nature when he committed the original sin if against his nature would you say that God preordained him to sin thanks for the great show well if you could

Eric respond well that's a great question that is one smart well thinking man that picked up on that good job

Jeff and the answer to that question is I don't know he clearly was not born with a sin nature that came in after the fall so this was high -handed rebellion you know some scripture that he was tempted and then

Adam followed her temptation but you know that the Bible talks about the mystery of iniquity and I would say that's one aspect of the mystery the other is the origins of Satan so you know that's one of those things that we don't we just don't know and we would gather from the scriptures that Adam was created perfect but not impeccable that obviously he had the ability to be tempted into sin because he was but he prior to that was without sin just obviously had the ability to sin prior to the fall and by the way

Jeff I've got a surprise for you unless you've heard it publicized beforehand you're getting a free copy of this

DVD Amazing Grace the History and Theology of Calvinism but you're gonna have to email us back with your mailing address because I don't know where you're from so email us as soon as you can

Jeff and we would love to have this shipped out to you as soon as possible compliments of our guest

Eric Holmberg and the Apologetics Group. Let me also say Chris to Jeff's question

I suspect that in saying that God sovereignly ordained he sounds like a guy that's probably thinks the way we do so I want to make sure somebody listening doesn't think that means that God forced

Adam to do what he did. Did God know that I was going to fall? Yes, again Jesus was the Lamb crucified slain before the foundations of the world so none of this surprised

God God did not make it happen but the question does arise why did

God put a loaded gun in the bassinet? Why did God allow the possibility even for this to happen and that is something that we will never know on this side of the veil and it might even remain somewhat of a mystery even after so great question.

By the way Jeff has a follow -up statement he is from Mesa, Arizona and he says

I became a follower of Christ through Eric's Hell's Bells video. Wow!

So praise God for that we are rejoicing with you Jeff on that note and we'll get that out to you

ASAP. We do have an anonymous listener from Long Island, New York who says my pastor says that the language that is used in the scriptures to paint a picture of total depravity are really hyperbolic or exaggerated language in poetic form just to drive home a point that men that men are sinners but is this true?

That's an interesting question Eric because it's amazing to me that I will get that response from fundamentalists who champion in their own minds the inerrancy of scripture and almost a hyper wooden literal interpretation of scripture except when it comes to anything that seems to bolster the doctrines of sovereign grace but if you could comment on that.

Well hyperbole is definitely used in the Bible there's no question. Part of the Hebraic mindset and very much allowed

Jesus used it so that is one argument by the way that's very typical among Catholics I've got a lot of I'm up here in Cleveland Ohio now for a season of my life and I've got a lot of good

Roman Catholic who are born again people that for whatever set of reasons they feel compelled or whatever to stay within the

Catholic Church working towards reformation and they think like Protestants. You really are Protestants why the heck are you in the

Catholic Church? And they say well we believe in God for change and I think there is some change of foot in the right direction

I'm not totally sure but that would be what the Catholics would say this is hyperbolic language and they do believe that man that all people are children of God.

That's probably one of the biggest difference I see between Catholics and Protestants, true

Protestants, reformed Protestants is that we believe that we have to be born again to be a child of God.

Yes we're all born with the imago Dei, the image of God in us. Yes we have a moral conscience there's aspects of God's nature in every human being but as far as our nature we are by nature children of wrath.

That is our nature and I don't see very much hyperbole in Paul's writing there in Ephesians 2 verse 1 there and so you know that's how

I think good Christians will deal with those passages because they are trying to treat the

Bible as inerrant and they see those verses and they say well this is hyperbole. I don't think it is, you guys don't think it is but that's where good

Christians can disagree. Well here's an example of texts where I hear this often, that response and it is the

I think a classic a classic go -to text used by reformed people when they are describing in biblical terms total depravity and that's

Romans 3 10 through 17 as it is written there is no one righteous not even one there is no one who understands there is no one who seeks

God all have turned away they have together become worthless there is no one who does good not even one their throats are open graves their tongues practice deceit the poison of vipers is on their lips their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know there is no fear of God before their eyes and I have heard people respond to that say well obviously

Paul is using hyperbolic poetry to give you a just an idea of the wickedness of man but when

I hear that I say well why is he saying not even one because it's almost as if he is he is foreseeing that people would say he's using hyperbole and also when they point to people that do do good things and seem to be seeking

God and don't don't curse out of their every breath even if they are on regenerate well isn't that going back to what we were saying earlier but God restraining evil that if he had lifted his hand restraint from natural man that we couldn't even safely leave our homes and probably wouldn't be safe in our inside our homes either yeah exactly we also don't see our sin the way

God sees it we tend to judge ourselves based upon people around us while I'm not you know you guys have done the question test that D.

James Kennedy came up with I've done it quite a bit we all know the universal responses to people who have screwed a dime before God what would you say well

I'm a good person I love my mom I helped an old lady cross the street so we judge ourselves on the basis of other people's actions

I'm not as bad as Hitler I've never killed anybody but the reality is God judges things on the basis of perfection and it is so beyond the pale so beyond our ability to get our minds what perfection really is that truly even the most righteous deed done by somebody that is not operating under the anointing and grace of God is going to be is going to be shot through with the loving of self and you know you take

Buddha as a great example I mean here's a guy that understood because of the grace of God and the knowledge of God that's in him that the problem with human beings is ego that we have this self -referential

I want my I want what I want type orientation that's our default mechanism so what was his approach to fix it to go to the cross to go to Jesus no no he's got something

I've got it I'm my own way there you have that self -directed type of I'm going to save myself reality and he came up with well let's just do away with ego let's just absolutely get beyond ego and obliterate obliterate all desire so you know you have people like the

Dalai Lama that I'm sure is a probably nicer guy than most Christians we know I don't know the guy at all just what you read in the paper and that could all be papered over who knows but he's got a nice twinkle in his eye seems to be a real nice peaceful peace loving guy but guess what people that guy's efforts just like mine or anybody else's if they're done under his own steam under his own gas are just shot through with a stench of self and they are filthy rags in the sight of God and there's no hyperbole in that that's just how

God measures things over to get the way we measure them CJ in Lindenhurst Long Island New York asks oh by the way anonymous listener if you give me your full name and mailing address

I promise that your identity will not be publicized but you will receive also a free copy of this documentary

Amazing Grace compliments of our guest Eric Holmberg and the apologetics group but CJ in Lindenhurst Long Island New York says that some have said to me that it stands to reason

Paul is using hyperbole in the Romans passage that you just used because we have other places in the scripture where God calls specific men righteous like Noah was called a righteous man in Genesis 6 9 how do you explain that?

Well God has steps into our world probably the best example of that is when the angel of the

Lord wrestled with Jacob people go well my goodness I guess God's not that powerful because Jacob realized he'd been wrestling with the

Lord but literally Jacob gave him a run for his money God does step into our world throughout scripture and drop things down from a human perspective and reasons with us or wrestles with us and I think that's precisely what's going on when he calls

Noah righteous in comparison to other people in comparison to what God called Noah to do you know

I wrote another article called the story of Sodom Revisited one of the great mysteries

I think in scripture is how God could call the

Holy Spirit could call Lot righteous or specifically

Peter called him righteous, righteous Lot whose soul was vexed and you look at the story of Lot and I mean you talk about a world class knucklehead he was in and so if anybody again wants to email me by the way there's not been a plug if I can make a shameless plug

I'm not paying you guys anything but I can tell you both of you are working for a tip here just the way you're talking about the video so I do appreciate it but all our materials we have lots of other videos available on our website which is just theapologetishgroup .com

if you want to email me at theapologetishgroup at gmail .com I'd be happy to send you a copy of the story of Lot Revisited where I spent a lot of time researching it and wrote what

I think is a really excellent, I've been out there, say hello, this is Eric, this is excellent where I deal with the whole story of Lot, why

God could call him or Peter by the Holy Spirit could call him righteous in a very limited context, he was not a righteous man overall there's none righteous, not even one other than Jesus but given a certain context and a certain point the guy was trying to make he could call him righteous.

Excellent, well I'd like to definitely see that and get that to me as soon as he can and it's interesting that you bring up Sodom and Gomorrah because isn't that another perfect example of election because God sent angels to rescue

Lot and his family but he didn't send angels to evangelize everybody door to door in Sodom and Gomorrah, there were certain people there that he was rescuing out from the whole community

I mean isn't that a good example of election right there? Yeah, although let me say this, God had not even, in fact even the whole land of Canaan and all the various pagan tribes that were there finally it came time where the wickedness was full,

I mean God told Abraham when he cut covenant and the torch passed between the halves of the animals,

God promised Abraham, said look I'm going to give you this land but it's not going to be for a while, 400 years until the wickedness of the

Amorites was complete and God was waiting, mercifully waiting for these people to repent and I'm sure some did and some did after the invasion when

Joshua went in there were people that were converted, Rahab most notably but others and God did send messengers to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah not only

Lot, and Lot did have some kind of a witness and the story of Sodom gets into that, but also

Abraham, I mean if you recall Lot was saved by Abraham when these four pagan kings went out and grabbed everybody including all the inhabitants of Sodom and when

Abraham went out, guess what, he saved their bacon too, you know, he delivered them and he would hope that some of those people would wait a second, this guy's

God, must be God and maybe became part of his household at some point we don't know, the

Bible's very silent about these things but God labored with these people in ways we don't even know about for generations until finally their cup was full, their cup was full and God said, okay it's time for me to put out this stench so that the land is not totally contaminated, it can be taken over by a new generation of people to purify it and bring it into a higher place, so we have to remember, none of them you know,

God sent Jonah and then within a few generations the Ninevites were back to being pagans and were the ones that invaded

Israel and destroyed the temple, so you know, it's interesting, these cycles but there comes a point where God says,

I'm done and that's a scary point. And we have

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, by the way CJ you're getting a free copy of this documentary too, compliments of Eric Holmberg and the apologetics group.

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania asks, would Eric please inform us what denomination or fellowship he is a part of because I know

Calvinists are found in many different groups Presbyterian, Baptist, Dutch Reformed and more, where would he lie?

Well I'm a recent transplant to the Cleveland area, we've actually been visiting churches including

Alistair Begg's church which was loved, but it was a bit of a jaunt for us so we've stopped going there.

I'm actually going to an independent church now that I feel like the New York City church, mostly African -American and I'm going there not because they're

Calvinists, because I'm not sure they fully are, I had passed in the direction but just because I feel impressed to go in and serve

I think it's great for birds of a feather to flock together,

I've been a member of George Grant's church, Presbyterian church in Franklin, Tennessee I've been

Anglican, attended an Anglican church for a conservative Anglican church for a number of years but I personally people feel differently about this, but I am very ecumenical

I don't break or make relationships simply based upon points of doctrine, now some people would disagree with that, but how can two walk together unless they're agreed in something as fundamental as this how can you fellowship with people who don't believe it?

Well, maybe I'm an error I'm not saying I'm right, but presently

I am attending an independent church that we haven't joined yet, but I think we likely are just because there's some needs down there and I feel like God wants me to help serve them

And Arnie, you're also getting a free copy of this documentary compliments of Eric Holmberg and the apologetics group it's interesting that one of the things that comes out in your documentary that the representatives of those who believe in the doctrines of grace or Calvinism come from a diverse background, and even historically you even had

Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones and George Whitfield being

Methodists or Calvinists and of course you have Presbyterians and Congregationalists and Baptists and Anglicans 39 articles of religion from the

Anglican church is thoroughly Calvinistic although it's a brief document, nothing in there contradicts the doctrines of grace and there are things in there that I think irrefutably teach that but this is something that really where people view it as divisive teaching it really is a unifier that extends denominational boundaries, isn't it?

It really is. I met, believe it or not, Roman Catholics who are Reformed and you'll appreciate this a number of the people on our video, you mentioned there were

Baptists, and probably there's no single denomination that has a bigger problem with Calvinism than Southern Baptists but people don't realize that the

Baptists historically were Reformed moving towards the

Arminian end of things is really a late 19th, 20th century phenomenon and so guys like you, you guys are both

Baptists? No, I am and Buzz is a Sweden Borgianist no,

Buzz is a member of a PCA congregation Presbyterian. See, and Chris still hangs around with me, so it is a unifying thing the doctrines of grace.

In fact, what you just said about the Southern Baptist convention it's so amazing to me when I see the militant vehement anti -Calvinism that comes from some factors or factions within the

Southern Baptist convention when all of the founders were unilaterally

Reformed and that is why the brothers who are involved in this documentary,

Tom Askell and Tom Nettles they're in an organization called the Founders Ministry because they are

Southern Baptists who know and are fully aware that the Southern Baptist founders were Calvinists and they distribute reprint and distribute their writings.

One of the things that's kind of a hobby horse I regularly ride we all have hobby horses of course you can't, we all look through a glass darkly we all have a set of glasses on, we look at the

Bible, we look at the world and the job of Christians growing in Christ is to just get your prescription fine -tuned by the scripture, by the renewing of your mind and one of the key aspects of doing that is becoming really self -aware of the presuppositions that you just have naturally been placed in your life because of the culture and the generation which you've been raised

God has called us to become this many -membered body God has called us to build a mountain that reaches up into the sky what happened at Babel was a bunch of lost people doing instinctively what they know people are supposed to do which is to form this this beehive of unity and come together and accomplish great things it's just that they did it in the power of the flesh but God wants to do that,

He wants to create this bride for the son, He wants us to fit together He wants us to complement one another, He wants iron to sharpen iron and love to be the ligaments that tie us all together and so because that's the way human beings are, we were meant to live in community we are impacted by everything around us even the food we eat, everything around us is tweaking aspects of our worldview and the way we perceive reality and one of the things about America is what

I think happened to the Baptist denomination is that we have there's an interesting video

I saw called The Century of Self, it was done by a pagan, kind of a leftist, but free -thinking guy,

I really like him he's British, he does these things for the BBC but basically he analyzes the way

I can't remember the guy's name now, he's the nephew of Sigmund Freud the founder of modern advertising boy, come on Eric, anyway but just his impact, he was

German, brought over to America, he wrote a book called Propaganda, and then later they changed the name of it because he meant it positively, he was basically saying that we have an obligation that's kind of the ruling elite to help the unwashed masses kind of move them in the right direction, herd them in the right direction and they used mass marketing to accomplish that, and the title of the video series is

Century of Self, we have been conditioned all of us, Americans uniquely are some of the most self -directed

I'm an island, I do my own thing type people that the world's ever seen, it's unique in world history when you mix

Christianity into it, the self is just naturally going to kind of emerge and that's what at heart

Arminianism is driven by, is this obsession with well this is what I've chosen, this is what

I want, this is what I do this is what I'm contributing, and once people see that, understand that, they can go wait a second, let me turn the nitrogen off in that decompression chamber, let me get that,

Lord help me to get this self out of my life and get you back into it, in these areas, and next thing you know you're going to wake up a

Calvinist, you know? We're going to go to our final break, and I'm thanking those who are waiting patiently still to have their questions asked and answered in fact,

Reverend Buzz jokingly said to me during a break, how do you know they're waiting patiently? But we thank those who are, and we'll get to you as soon as we can after the break, but if you'd like to join them with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com, don't go away we'll be right back with Eric Holmberg, and our discussion of the documentary

Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism, don't go away, we're going to be right back after these messages.

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